"She wants me to," Sostratos said.
"Of course she does," Menedemos said. "If you were stuck in a brothel, wouldn't you want to get out?"
"It'd be a pretty desperate brothelkeeper who put me in amongst his pretty boys," Sostratos observed, and startled a laugh out of his cousin. He went on in more serious tones. "She's very pretty - "
"If you say so," Menedemos broke in.
"I think she is, which makes it true for me," Sostratos said. "She's pretty, and she has plenty of reason to treat me well, and - "
Menedemos interrupted again: "What more do you want?"
"Someone who treats me that way even though she doesn't have any special reason to," Sostratos answered. "But we weren't talking about me. We were talking about you, at least till you changed the subject. You and this Phyllis . . ."
"Yes?" Menedemos said when he paused.
"Never mind," Sostratos mumbled. Menedemos again raised an eyebrow, this time in astonishment. But Sostratos realized he'd just undercut his own argument. Gylippos' wife had no special, selfinterested reason to bestow her favors on Menedemos. She'd done it anyway. No wonder he was eager to get back to her. With another sigh, Sostratos said, "For the gods' sake, be careful. I'm not the seaman you are; I don't want to have to take the Aphrodite back to Rhodes by myself."
"I'm so glad you care." Menedemos chuckled. "When have I not been careful?"
"Halikarnassos springs to mind," Sostratos said dryly.
"I got away," his cousin answered.
"So you did, but you can't go back there," Sostratos pointed out. "And we're not ready to leave Taras in a hurry, the way we were in Halikarnassos. You could put the ship in trouble, not just yourself." He hoped that would get through to Menedemos if nothing else did.
But Menedemos just reached up to pat him on the back and said, "Everything will be fine. You'll see."
Sostratos threw his hands in the air. He wasn't going to change his cousin's mind. "Be careful," he repeated. He wished he hadn't thought about the difference between a woman who gave herself because she wanted to and one who did it for money. Now he didn't feel right about urging Menedemos to slake his lust in a brothel, no matter how expedient that advice would have been.
Menedemos grinned at him. "I'll tell you all about it in the morning."
"I don't think I'll want to hear," Sostratos said, which made Menedemos' grin wider. But then Sostratos thought, I hope you'll have the chance to tell me in the morning. He spat into the bosom of his tunic to avert that omen, even if he hadn't said the words aloud. Menedemos looked puzzled. Sostratos did not explain.
The sun seemed to be taking forever to set. Menedemos was sure it had gone down much earlier the day before. Once twilight had finally faded from the western sky, he walked to the door of the rented house and said, "I'm going out for a while."
Aristeidas was standing watch at the door. "See you later, then, skipper," he said. "You're not going to hire a torchbearer or two?"
"No. I know where I'm going," Menedemos answered. Aristeidas laughed, having a pretty good idea of what that was likely to mean. Menedemos, however, wasn't joking. He'd spent part of the day going along the streets and alleys that lay between this house and Gylippos'. If something went wrong - Aphrodite, prevent it, he thought - and he had to flee, he wouldn't flee blindly.
I hope I won't. That was the first thought through his mind when he stepped out into the street. Nothing looked the same as it had in daylight. He had to look around to find Zeus' wandering star - now considerably lower in the southwest than it had been in the early evening when the Aphrodite first set out from Rhodes - to get his bearings and remember which way to go.
He counted street corners as he made his way toward Gylippos'. Can I do this if I'm running for my life? he wondered, and then angrily tossed his head. I'm getting as jumpy as Sostratos. He tried to imagine his cousin going off to make love to another man's wife. After a moment, he tossed his head again. The picture refused to take shape in his mind.
Nevertheless, he kept counting corners. He wasn't running for his life now. He was going quietly, cautiously, trying to attract no one's notice. Few men with good intentions walked about after dark in a polis. Fewer still went without a torchbearer or, sometimes, a party of torchbearers to light their way. When Menedemos heard footsteps coming up a street he was about to cross, he ducked into the deepest shadow he could find and waited. Two men went by, talking in low voices. He didn't think they were speaking Greek. He had no desire to make their acquaintance and find out for certain.
