“Of course I did,” Sostratos said. “He doesn’t understand how these things work, though-not really, anyhow. He’s no trading man. And…plague take it, he is my new brother-in-law, so I can’t just tell him, ‘To the crows with you,’ the way I would with somebody who isn’t part of the family. So we have to do our best, that’s all.”

“I’d like to do my best to boot him right into the harbor,” Menedemos growled, but then, reluctantly, he subsided. “Family ties.” He rolled his eyes. “My father’s disgusted, too, but he didn’t tell Damonax no, either. He has more trouble saying no to your brother-in-law than he ever did to me, I’ll tell you that.” The trouble his father had telling Damonax no rankled, like so many of the things his father did.

“Believe me, it could have been worse,” Sostratos said. “When Damonax first came up with this scheme, he wanted to load the Aphrodite with oil to her gunwales, not leave a digit’s worth of space for any other cargo. He had the oil, so why shouldn’t we carry it?”

“Why?” Menedemos exclaimed, “I’ll tell you-”

Now Sostratos cut him off: “My father and I have spent the past ten days arguing him down. We won’t be drowning in oil, anyhow. Even if we do have trouble unloading it, we’ll carry other things we know we can sell. Can’t go far wrong with good Rhodian perfume.”

“Well, no,” Menedemos said. “And we still have some of the silk from Kos we got this past summer. All sorts of strange things come out of the east, but I think the Phoenicians will have a hard time matching that.”

“I should say so.” Sostratos dipped his head. “And who knows what we’ll pick up along the way? We didn’t expect the gryphon’s skull last year, or the lion skins, or the tiger hide.”

“And we got real money for the hides,” Menedemos said. “The skull…” He’d twitted Sostratos about it ever since he spotted it in the market square in Kaunos. “I’ll bet the pirate who stole it from the Aphrodite hasn’t lived it down with his pals yet,”