Tasos knew it. As soon as we skimmed between that big rock and the mainland, Stagiros let his wind die. The Gamemeno glided to a stop. Tasos shouted orders. The anchor splashed into the sea.

Rowboats approached from the shore. Tasos turned to Max and me. “Why don’t the two of you go below?” he said pleasantly. “What you don’t see, you can’t testify to, and no wizard can pull it out of you, either.”

It sounded like a polite request. It was a polite order. Tasos had several burly sailors behind him. None of them was as large as I am, let alone Max, but they made up in numbers what they lacked in beef. “I think we’ll go below,” I said, sounding cheerier than I felt. “Don’t you, Max?”

“Just what I always wanted to do,” Max agreed, as excited as if he’d got an invitation to his own funeral.

Down to our cabin we went. Belowdecks on the Gamemeno left all sorts of things to be desired. The ceilings weren’t tall enough for me, let alone poor Max. Several nasty odors filled the air. Some had to do with cooking, others with foul heads and unbathed men. Still others…I don’t know what all the Gamemeno was smuggling, but some of it smelled bad.

Poor Captain Tasos was a busy man. I didn’t want to upset him by reminding him that our cabin, while it didn’t have much, did boast a porthole. And, since we were on the right side of the ship (oh, fine, the starboard side, which happened to be the correct side, too), we could watch what was going on as well as if we’d stayed on deck. We could, and we did. Poor Captain Tasos.

It was a lot less exciting than one of Ilona’s tumbling routines, believe me. Lokrians rowed out from Skilitsi with crates and jugs and barrels. They rowed back with barrels and crates and jugs. I presume they sent the ship this and took away that, but I couldn’t prove it.

As it got darker, we had a harder time seeing what was going on. We would have quit if Tasos hadn’t wanted to keep us from watching. And how many times have you done something because somebody told you not to?

Oh, more than that. You must have.

For whatever it was worth, we finally got our reward. We saw something more interesting, or at least more unusual, than jugs and barrels and crates. I stared as a bigger boat than most came up to the Gamemeno. “Is that what I think it is?” I whispered.

“I don’t know. What do you think it is?”

“A coffin.”

“Well, it could be,” he said cryptically.

And it was. The obscenity and blasphemy from the deck came in eight or ten tongues, and would have fried the beards off both Prophets if they’d been alive to hear it. The oarsmen in that big rowboat added their fair share, too. I wouldn’t have been surprised if the corpse sat up and tossed in his hemilepta’s worth.

At last, once the shouting died down to aftershock levels, they rigged a block and tackle on deck and hauled the coffin up from the boat. Thud! It made a dreadfully final sound when it came down on the planking-right over our heads, by the sound of things.

Max cocked a wary eye at our ceiling, which went on creaking. “If that comes through-” he began.

I shrugged. “If it does, we’ll be too flat to worry about it.”

“You always did know how to relieve my mind,” he said.

We looked out the porthole again, but the coffin proved to be the grand finale. The boat that had brought it took back a load of illegal, immoral, untaxed…stuff. It grounded on the beach. The rowers unloaded it and dragged it ashore. No more boats came out.

Max closed the porthole. There were mosquitoes outside. As soon as he closed it, we discovered there were mosquitoes inside, too, but there were more of them outside. “So much for the exciting life of a smuggler,” he said. “It’s like watching grass dry.”

“Or paint grow,” I agreed. “What have we got for supper?”

He rummaged through his kit and pulled out what looked like a flexible billy club. “Mutton sausage.”

“Better than nothing,” I said, giving it the benefit of the doubt.

And it turned out to be quite a bit better than nothing. Say what you will about the Lokrians-and I’m one of their most sincere unadmirers-they do make good sausage: another tradition going back to the golden age of Lakedaimon, if you remember your comic poets.

Full darkness fell, fast as a drunk tumbling down a flight of stairs. Twilight lingers romantically in Schlepsig. The sky goes through every deepening shade of blue and purple toward black. Stars come out one by one. You can count them if you like, and you don’t have any trouble keeping up.

Nightfall in Lokris isn’t like that. The sun goes down. It gets dark, and wastes no time doing it. You look at the sky and you don’t see any stars. Ten minutes later, billions and billions of them are up there. Where were they hiding? How did they all come out at once? You can see more of them in Lokris than you can in Schlepsig, too. The air isn’t so misty-and, except when they’re having a riot, it isn’t so smoky, either. But I think our stars are more intriguing. You have to earn them. They aren’t just there, the way they are in Lokris.

You’d think the moon, seen through a porthole, would fill that round window with its round self. You’d think so, but you’d be wrong. The moon looks so big hanging there in the sky, especially when it’s just rising or about to set. But if you hold a kram or a livre out at arm’s length between your thumb and forefinger, you can make the moon disappear behind it. I was surprised when I found that out. You will be, too. Well, actually, you won’t be, because now I’ve told you, but you would be if I hadn’t. Of course, if I hadn’t, you wouldn’t have tried such a silly thing in the first place, would you?

Up on deck, one of the sailors was-praying? I wished I understood Lokrian. But it might not have mattered here. With the porthole closed, the rhythm of his speech came through better than the actual words. I did think I heard Zibeon’s name a few times. That was…interesting. “A pious smuggler?” I murmured.

“Probably asking for blind customs inspectors,” Max said.

If I were a smuggler-and I have been, on a small scale, a time or three-I would ask for something like that, too. (And if customs inspectors aren’t blind, silver has been known to weight down their eyelids.) But a prayer like that is a businessman’s prayer, not one that comes from the heart or the belly. Somehow, the Lokrian sounded more as if he meant it. I don’t know the language, but the tone came through.

When I said so, Max only shrugged. “Maybe he’s slept with someone’s wife here. Or, since it’s Lokris, maybe he’s slept with someone’s husband. Do that and you’ll pray like you mean it.” He yawned. “Whatever he’s praying for, it’s got nothing to do with me. I’m nobody’s husband-and nobody’s wife, either. What I am is somebody who’s about to go to sleep.” He yawned again, wider than before.

We got out of our fancy duds, put on our nightshirts, and made ourselves as comfortable as we could in the short, narrow berths. Mine wasn’t big enough for me. Max’s was much too small for him. Most beds are. He has two choices. He can fold himself up like an inchworm or he can let big chunks of himself part company with the mattress. He twisted and wiggled. After a while, I heard a foot thump on the deck, so I knew he wasn’t imitating an inchworm tonight.

Along with being short and narrow, my mattress was lumpy. That was of a piece with everything else I’d seen on the Gamemeno-everything except Stagiros, who was in a class by himself. But I didn’t want to sleep on the weatherworker, or even with him. My tastes along those lines are boringly normal.

After some little while, I was able to keep my eyes closed without having their lids jump and twitch, the way a child’s will when he’s pretending to be asleep. Max still wiggled not far away, but I’d heard him do that before. I’ve fallen asleep in the middle of a barracks hall full of Hassocki soldiers who’d had a supper of beans. After that, one oversized sword-swallower with a cough wasn’t so much of a much. Before long, I stopped hearing him or anything else.