A mild breeze blew downfrom the north. Tasting it, Menedemos dipped his head in anticipation."Good sailing weather coming soon," he said. He was little and litheand very handsome, his face clean-shaven in the style Alexander the Great hadmade popular twenty years before. "Sure enough,"Sostratos agreed. He'd spent enough years studying in Athens to have a sharperaccent than the Doric drawl usual in Rhodes. Careless of fashion, he'd let hisbeard grow out. He towered more than half a head above his cousin. "Sometraders have already put to sea, I hear." "I've heard thesame, but Father says it's too early," Menedemos answered. "He's probablyright." Sostratos, as far as Menedemos was concerned, showed altogethertoo much self-restraint for someone only a few months older than he was. "I want to be outthere," Menedemos said. "I want to be doing things. Whenever we sitidle over the winter, I feel like a hare caught in a net." "Plenty to doduring the winter," Sostratos said. "It's what you do then that letsyou succeed when you can sail." "Yes,Grandfather," Menedemos said. "No wonder I command the Aphrodite andyou keep track of what goes aboard her." Sostratos shrugged."The gods give one man one thing, another man another. You're always readyto seize the moment. You always have been, as long as I can remember. As for me. . ." He shrugged again. Even though slightly the older and much thelarger of the two of them, he'd had to get used to living in Menedemos' shadow."As you said, I keep track of things. I'm good at it."