“Under you, maybe,” Sostratos said. His cousin laughed at him. As Sostratos walked along the narrow, muddy, winding streets, he realized the Karians who shared Kaunos with the Hellenes also made their presence felt. Though they were hellenized as far as dress went, more of their men wore beards than was true at Rhodes—the fad for shaving hadn't caught on among them. Some of them wore short, curved swords on their belts, too: outlandish weapons to a Hellene's eye. And, even if they didn't write their own language, they did speak it—a gurgling tongue that meant nothing to Sostratos. “Tell me,” he said to Kissidas, suddenly curious, “do men and women and even children here in Kaunos sometimes get large drinking parties together for friends of about the same age?” The Rhodian proxenos stopped in his tracks and gave him an odd look. “Why, yes,” he answered. “But how could you know that? You've never been here before, I don't believe, and that's not the custom anywhere else in Karia.” “I've heard it said, and I wondered if it was true,” Sostratos answered. Explaining he'd stumbled across it in the history of Herodotos was likely to spawn as many questions as it answered, so he didn't bother. When they got to the olive merchant's home, a slave greeted Kissidas in bad Greek before barring the door after him and his guests. Kissidas led the two Rhodians across the rather bare courtyard to the andron. The slave brought a jar of wine, another of water, a mixing bowl, and three cups to the men's room. “Supper soon,” he said, mixing wine and water in the bowl and filling the cups from it. “To what shall we drink?” Sostratos asked. “To peace among the marshals?” “That would be wonderful. It would also be too much to hope for,” Kissidas said bleakly. He lifted his own cup. “Here is a prayer the gods may hear: to staying out from underfoot when the marshals clash!” He drank. So did Menedemos. And so did Sostratos. The proxenos' toast summed up his own hope for Rhodes.