Harry Turtledove - The Gryphon's Skull

“Aristeidas, go forward,” he called. “I want the best lookout we've got up there.” The sharp-eyed sailor waved and hurried to the fore-deck. Menedemos dipped his head to Diokles. “All right. We can get going again.”

“Rhyppa pai! ” the keleustes sang out. “Rhyppa pai! ” The oars bit into the blue water of the Aegean. The merchant galley slid forward again.

Sostratos came back to the raised poop. He had a sword on his hip and contrived to look foolish with it, like an actor in a role he hadn't rehearsed. “In Athens,” he said, “they talk about nervous men who see every distant headland as a pirate ship.”

Menedemos declined to get ruffled, “In Athens, from what I hear, they don't do much of anything bat talk,” he said. “Tell me, best one, how many islands in the Kyklades?”

“Some say twelve, others fifteen,” his cousin answered.

“That's about what I've heard,” Menedemos agreed. “But when they make that count, do they reckon in rocks like the one ahead?” He pointed to an islet just big enough to support a handful of bushes.

“Certainly not,” Sostratos said, as if making a rejoinder in a philosophical discussion.

But this was property, not philosophy; freedom or slavery, not words. “Could pirates hide behind that nasty rock and come charging out when they see a merchantman go by?” Menedemos asked.

“Yes, without a doubt.” Sostratos laughed. “I sound like one of Sokrates' foils, don't I?”

“I was thinking the same thing, as a matter of fact,” Menedemos said. “You'd know better than I would, though—I'm sure of that. But it doesn't really matter. What matters is that you take my point.”

Sostratos set a hand on his swordhilt. He still didn't look very warlike, but he said, “Would I be wearing this if I didn't?”

No hemiolia or pentekonter emerged from behind the rock. But another rock lay ahead, only fifteen or twenty stadia away. Beyond that one was the bulk of Tenos, whose jagged west coast offered raiders countless lairs. The polis of Tenos, like Panormos, hardly rated the name. It had no fleet to speak of, and didn't even try to keep pirates down. Andros, the next island to the north and west, might have been Tenos' twin. And a pirate ship based on Syros, off to the west toward Attica, might spot the Aphrodite coming by and dash out to try to seize her.

“It's not just Aristeidas up by the stempost,” Menedemos said. “We all have to keep our eyes open, because we'll all pay for it if we don't.”

“Well, certainly,” Sostratos said.

Menedemos frowned. “You say 'certainly' now. A moment ago, you were talking about nervous Athenians and what they think they see.”

“What if I was?” his cousin said. “You're neither nervous nor an Athenian, so what's that got to do with you?” After a moment's thought, Menedemos decided he meant it. Maybe I was looking for an argument where there wasn't one to find, he thought. Maybe. He still had trouble believing it. More likely, Sostratos was just finding smoother ways to get under his skin.

The akatos slid past the city of Tenos, the great temple to Poseidon a few stadia to the west, and the hills rising up behind. She found no trouble. A few fishing boats fled from her; Menedemos had grown used to that. They might spread the word that a pirate galley was brazenly cruising in the neighborhood. He shrugged. The more ships that run from us, the fewer ships we have to run from.

Having passed Tenos town, Menedemos looked up into the bright blue bowl of the sky and drummed his fingers on the steering-oar tillers. They both felt the same again, and he was still getting used to that. He drummed some more. He didn't think the merchant galley would get all the way up to Andros' polis by nightfall. That meant finding an anchorage somewhere short of the city. Plenty of promontories, without a doubt. Making sure he found one no raiders were already using . . . His fingers went up and down, up and down.

Sostratos pointed west toward the headland of Attica, clearly visible though misty with sea haze. Sighing, Menedemos' cousin said, “We could be heading there. We should be heading there.”

“And we will be heading there, my dear,” Menedemos said. “We have to pick up Polemaios and bring him back to Kos. Then we come back to Athens.” He drummed on the steering-oar tillers yet again. “We get to come through the Kyklades twice. I could live without that.”

Before Sostratos could answer, Aristeidas and several other sailors shouted, “Ship ho!” and “Ship to starboard!” and “Pirate coming at us!” Others added curses that would have sunk the hemiolia sprinting out from behind a spit of land if only the gods were listening.

“All men to the oars!” Menedemos called, and the crew scrambled to obey. As soon as every oar was manned, he turned to Diokles and barked, “Give us the stroke, keleustes—the best we can do.”

“Right you are, skipper. . . . . Rhyppa pai! Rhyppa pai! ” The oarmaster struck urgent notes from die bronze square. The rowers, grunting with effort, pulled hard. And the Aphrodite , which had been ambling over the wine-dark Aegean, seemed to gather herself and then leap forward.

Since they'd been going against the wind, the sail was already brailed up to the yard. Menedemos glanced over toward the onrushing pirate ship. Her crew had taken down her mast and stowed it before sallying forth. And, however fast the akatos was going, the hemiolia, by the nature of things, had a better turn of speed. The Aphrodite needed to carry cargo as well as rowers, and was beamier than the lean predator knifing through the water propelled by its two banks of oars.

Menedemos' smile went wolfish. Relative speeds would have mattered more had he been trying to run away. But that wasn't what he intended. He yanked hard on the steering-oar tillers, swinging the Aphrodite straight toward the pirate ship.

“Going to ram, eh?” Sostratos said.

“If those bastards don't sheer off, I will,” Menedemos answered. He'd played this game before. Pirate galleys weren't warships—they wouldn't strike home without counting the cost. They wanted easy victims, not fights. Show them you were ready to give them all they could handle and they weren't so likely to want anything to do with you.

That was the theory on which Menedemos operated, anyhow. It had worked for him more than once. This time . . . This time, his ship and the piratical hemiolia closed with each other at a truly frightening clip. The wind of the Aphrodite 's passage blew against his face and ruffled his hair. The hemiolia showed no signs of backing away. She swelled with each stroke of the merchant galley's oars, with each stroke of her own. She had archers on the foredeck, and a black-bearded ruffian at the steering oars bawling orders to his crew.

Archers ... Menedemos said, “Sostratos, duck under me here, grab my bow and arrows, and go forward. You're a decent shot, and you're not rowing or steering.”

“Certainly,” his cousin answered, and did it. He fumbled a little as he strung the bow, but he was ready to shoot by the time he got to the Aphrodite 's foredeck. Menedemos knew he was a better archer than Sostratos, but he was also the akatos' best ship-handler, and that counted for more.

Only a couple of stadia separated the two galleys now: less every heartbeat. The rowers, gasping and drenched with sweat, couldn't see that, but Menedemos could. He bit his lip till he tasted blood. Had he outsmarted himself? The hemiolia carried more men than his akatos. If it came to that kind of fight, he would likely lose.

But if I ram, or if I can scrape my hull along her side and break half her oars . . . He'd done that to a Roman trireme the summer before— an astonishing victory for an akatos. But those Italians had been amateurs on the sea. By the way she was rowed, by the way she steered, the hemiolia had a solid crew. Now, who's got more nerve? Menedemos wondered. Me, or that son of a whore over there?