Harry Turtledove - The Gryphon's Skull

“Push!” he called again. His shoulder complained as he set it against the ship. His feet dug into the sand. His grunt was one of a chorus that rose from the straining men. Telos was a barren place, nowhere anybody could possibly want to be stranded.

Sand ground under the oak of the akatos' false keel. “She's stirring!” Sostratos gasped from his place a couple of men over from Menedemos.

“That she is,” Menedemos agreed, also gasping. He paused for a couple of breaths, then managed a shout: “Put your backs into it, you lazy whoresons!” Something creaked in his own back as he shoved, but he didn't let that keep him from giving the work all he had in him.

Little by little and then, it seemed, all at once, the Aphrodite went into the Aegean. The sailors raised a cheer and waded out after the ship, scrambling aboard wet and naked and dripping, Menedemos took his place on the poop deck. His face wore a curious frown as he reached for the steering-oar tillers, one pale and sweat-stained, the other bark-brown.

Sostratos understood him perfectly. “Let's find out how that new one does now that it's really in the sea.”

Menedemos dipped his head. “Just so.” He called out to the crew: “Ten men on a side to the oars. Diokles, give us the stroke.”

“Right you are, skipper,” the oarmaster replied. He took out his mallet and square of bronze. “Come on, you lugs—pay attention to me. “Rhyppa pai! Rhyppa pai!”

As the merchant galley slid forward over the blue, blue sea, Menedemos pulled and pushed on the steering oars, sending her now to the left, now to the right. He made sure to steer clear of the rock that had hurt the ship before. Sostratos asked, “How does she feel?”

“Fine,” Menedemos answered. “A little odd, because the two steering oars don't weigh the same, and I can tell, but the makeshift does its job.” He raised his voice: “Many, many thanks, Euxenides.”

Antigonos' officer stood on the foredeck. He gave Menedemos half a bow. “I told you, you're welcome. I didn't want to stay on Telos any longer than I had to, either.”

“I think a dead man would be bored on Telos,” Sostratos said.

“I think you're right,” Menedemos replied. He turned to Diokles. “Do you expect we'll make Knidos by nightfall?”

“If we don't, we'll be pretty close.” The keleustes gauged the breeze, which blew straight into his face. “It'll be rowing all the way, though. If you want to go north during the sailing season, that's mostly how it is.”

Menedemos dipped his head. “I know. If we were a round ship, we'd spend forever tacking back and forth, back and forth, sailing four or five stadia, maybe more, for every one we went forward.” He paused. “Of course, if we were a round ship, we wouldn't have tried beaching ourselves, and we wouldn't have lost that steering oar.” He eyed his cousin, who was peering ahead with a hand to his forehead to shield against sun glare. “What's chewing on you, Sostratos?”

“I was just wondering how big a fleet old One-Eye has in Knidos,” Sostratos answered. “If it's big enough, it might have come out against Ptolemaios'. We don't want to wander into the middle of a sea fight.”

“No, eh?” Menedemos said slyly. “Think what it would do for your history, if you ever get around to writing it.”

Sostratos raised an eyebrow. “Wandering into the middle of a sea fight is one of the best ways I can think of to make sure I don't live long enough to write a history.” Menedemos would have argued with him, but found no way to do it.

The Aphrodite came into Knidos with the sun low in the northwest and the sky streaked with red and gold. Sostratos let out a sigh of relief. He didn't mind the discomfort of a night at sea; reaching port so late, he would probably sleep on the poop deck tonight anyhow. But out on the Aegean the merchant galley was hideously vulnerable to any storm that might blow up. Better, far better, to spend the night tied up at a Knidian quay.

Knidos was sort of a double city, like Syracuse in Sicily, though the offshore island that formed a part of it lay a little farther out in the sea than did Syracuse's Ortygia. Moles improved the harbor and connected the island to the mainland. Sostratos counted about twenty ship sheds, the sort in which war galleys stayed to keep their timbers dry when they weren't on campaign. No wonder they didn't sally against Ptolemaios, he thought. He bad to have twice that many ships, maybe three times as many.

The passage of Ptolemaios' fleet hadn't gone unnoticed, and had, understandably, left Antigonos' garrison in Knidos nervous. No sooner had the Aphrodite found a berth than an officer in corselet and helmet came storming up the pier toward her, “What ship are you?” he barked. “Where are you from?”

“We're the Aphrodite , out of Rhodes,” Sostratos answered soothingly. “We spent last night on Telos.”

“Rhodes, eh?” the officer said. “Ptolemaios' catamites, are you?”

“We're a free and autonomous polis, and we're neutral,” Sostratos said, knowing he had to hold his temper.

Antigonos' officer snorted. “Probably a pack of stinking spies.”

“Hail, Aristarkhos,” Euxenides of Phaselis said. “Haven't seen you for two or three years—not since we took back Karia.”

“Euxenides?” the officer—Aristarkhos—-said uncertainly. When the Aphrodite 's passenger dipped his head, Aristarkhos went on, “Zeus, Euxenides, what are you doing here?”

Getting us out of a nasty spot, went through Sostratos' mind. Euxenides answered, “Getting away from Ptolemaios, what else? I was in Phaselis when he took it, and in Xanthos when he took it. By now, he'll have Kaunos, too. The Rhodians here were taking me up to Miletos, but when Ptolemaios' fleet came by this morning T thought they'd do better to drop me off here. That way, I don't have to run the gauntlet heading north.”

“Oh,” Aristarkhos said. After the single syllable came out, a long silence followed. He looked as if he'd bitten off a big mouthful of bad fish. A large-souled man, or even an honest man, would have apologized, Aristarkhos plainly knew it, and as plainly couldn't bring himself to do it.

Sostratos prodded him a little: “You see, O marvelous one, we really are neutrals.” Making sure Antigonos' officers understood that might be important for Rhodes.

“It. . . could be,” Aristarkhos said after another pause. Sostratos decided not to push any further; that was too likely to make an enemy. Aristarkhos turned back to Euxenides: “So you saw Ptolemaios' fleet go by, too, did you?”

“I certainly did,” Euxenides replied. “We were on the north coast of Telos. They couldn't have been more than fifteen or twenty stadia offshore as they went past. I counted fifty-five ships.”

How professional of you, Sostratos thought. No matter how useful Euxenides had been, he couldn't warm to the man, who struck him as almost too competent to tolerate. Aristarkhos dipped his head. “That sounds about right.” He frowned. “It must have been close to midday. Why were you still aground? Did you have trouble getting this ship back in the water?”

“It wasn't that,” Euxenides said. “We needed some repairs.”

“The steering oar and its housing,” Menedemos said. “Hurt 'em on a rock backing the akatos onto the beach, I'll tell you this, best one”—he was more polite to Aristarkhos than Sostratos had been— “if Antigonos doesn't need Euxenides, he can come to Rhodes and make a good living for himself as a ship's carpenter.”

“Euxenides the catapult man!” Aristarkhos exclaimed. Now his memory was fully jogged. “Not likely, Rhodian. Antigonos rewards men who are good at what they do, and Euxenides is one of the best.” Euxenides gave back half a bow, acknowledging the compliment.