Menedemos' feet thudded on the planks of the pier that led out to the Aphrodite. He dashed down the gangplank and onto the poop deck. "By the gods, captain!" Diokles said. The oarmaster had been splicing a couple of lines. He and the double handful of sailors on the ship all gaped at Menedemos.
Gasping to get air back into his lungs, Menedemos pointed toward the ruffians advancing on the merchant galley. "Those whipworthy rogues set on me in the street," he panted, not mentioning the most likely reason why they'd set on him. "I broke through 'em and made it here."
"Oh, they did, did they?" Diokles got to his feet. He wore a knife on his belt. So did most of the other sailors aboard the Aphrodite. The ones who didn't were quick to grab belaying pins and other implements of mayhem. Diokles gave the local toughs a scowl that would have melted any of the akatos' rowers like beeswax in a fire. "Whatever you boys want, you'd better go find it somewhere else."
The ruffians stopped eight or ten cubits from the Aphrodite's bow. They started arguing among themselves. "Well, to the crows with him!" one of them said loudly. "I didn't take this job to get my head broken. I took it to give the other guy some lumps. If he don't like it, he can go to Tartaros for all of me." He strode off.
A couple of the others turned toward the akatos. One of the sailors smacked the length of wood he was holding into the palm of his other hand. The sound seemed to make the toughs thoughtful. They put their heads together again. Two more walked away. That left four. Four were not enough to go up against the men on the Aphrodite. They left, too, looking back over their shoulders as they went.
"Somebody in Taras doesn't like you," Diokles remarked. Menedemos dipped his head. The oarmaster asked, "Any idea who?"
"I've got some ideas, but nothing I could prove," Menedemos said. Diokles grunted. Did he know? Some of the sailors who'd been at the house might have gossiped. For all Menedemos knew, the gossip might have got back to Gylippos. Or Gylippos might have drawn his own conclusions from Menedemos' limp, as Sostratos feared. It didn't really matter.
Now that he wasn't running any more, he had time to notice his ankle again. He wished he didn't. When he looked down at it, he saw how swollen it was. It felt as bad as it looked, too. How did I run on it? he wondered. But the answer to that was simple. You could do anything, as long as the alternative was worse.
Diokles asked, "You want a few of the boys to come along back to the house with you?"
"Now that you mention it, yes," Menedemos answered, and the oarmaster chuckled. Menedemos tried to laugh, too. It wasn't easy, not with the fire in his ankle - and his back hurt, too, where the ruffian had hit him with the stick.
He wished he had a stick of his own. On board ship, the sailors quickly found a length of wood that would do for one, at least long enough to let him get back to the rented house. He put as much weight as he could on it and as little as he could on his bad leg.
As he made his slow way up the pier, he managed a grin and said, "Look at me. I'm the last part of the answer to the Sphinx's riddle."
"Heh!" one of the sailors said. "That riddle's not so much. We see any of those scoundrels who set on you, skipper, we'll leave 'em on all fours even if they aren't babies." The other men with Menedemos dipped their heads. They all wore knives. They all had their right hands on their hilts - no, all but Didymos, who was lefthanded. He had a righthanded twin who was also a sailor, though not on the Aphrodite.
Menedemos saw none of the ruffians on the way back to the house where he and Sostratos were staying. Someone he didn't recognize was standing not far from the door when he and his escort came round the corner, but that fellow turned and walked off before Menedemos could find out what, if anything, he had in mind.
He brought the sailors in for a cup of wine. Sostratos, who was still muttering over the counting board, looked up in surprise. "What's all this in aid of?" he asked.
Trying to keep his tone light, Menedemos answered, "I had a little trouble coming back from the ropemaker's."
"Did you?" Sostratos raised an eyebrow, a characteristic gesture. He pointed to the sailors. "Looks as though you had more than a little."
"Well, maybe," Menedemos allowed. He told the story in a few bald words, leaving out any mention of either Gylippos or Phyllis.
"I'm glad you're all right," his cousin said when he finished. What Sostratos' eyes said was, I told you so. So he had, and he'd been right, too. That didn't make Menedemos any happier to be on the receiving end of his glare.
Menedemos took a cup of wine for himself, too, and mixed very little water with it. It didn't make his ankle feel much better - only time would do that - but it made him feel better. He gave the sailors a drakhma apiece (which made Sostratos mutter afresh) and sent them back to the Aphrodite.
