Harry Turtledove - The Gryphon's Skull

“They're shooting,” Diokles said. The rhythm of mallet on bronze never faltered.

“I see 'em,” Menedemos answered grimly. The arrows splashed into the sea, ahead of the Aphrodite 's ram. Archers always started too soon. Menedemos raised his voice to a shout: “Give 'em a couple, Sostratos! Show 'em we've got teeth, too.”

His cousin waved, drew the bow back to his ear, and let 0y. To Menedemos' astonished delight, one of the bowmen on the pirate ship clutched at his shoulder. His howl of pain came loud and clear across the water. Sostratos whooped joyfully and shot again. He had no luck that time, or none Menedemos could see.

And then, instead of going on to make a ramming attack against the Aphrodite , the hemiolia heeled sharply to starboard. The pirates' oarmaster screamed at his men, to get the last little bit of speed from them and make sure the merchant galley couldn't ram their ship. The black-bearded chieftain lifted a hand from the steering oars to shake a fist at Menedemos. Menedemos lifted his hand, too, to blow the pirates a kiss.

That hemiolia was faster than the Aphrodite . Even had Menedemos wanted to pursue the pirates, which he didn't, he couldn't have caught them. “Let the men ease off, Diokles,” he said, thinking, If I were the captain of a trireme, I would go after those bastards. But even a trireme, as swift a naval vessel as there was, couldn't always keep up with a hemiolia. Menedemos scowled, wishing there were a ship that could scour swift pirate galleys from the seas.

But his scowl didn't last. The rowers raised a panting cheer. And Diokles said, “That was nicely done, skipper. Most of those abandoned catamites haven't got the stomach for a real fight.”

“That's what I was counting on,” Menedemos answered. “The son of a whore with the whiskers made me nervous, though. I wondered if he really did want to mix it up.” He raised his voice so everyone on board could hear: “Let's have a cheer for Sostratos, who shot a pirate with his first arrow.”

The rowers hadn't seen that, of course; they'd been looking back toward the stern. The cheer they gave Menedemos' cousin was louder than the one he'd got himself; they had some of their wind back. Menedemos watched with amusement as Sostratos, still up on the foredeck, gave a wave the rowers also couldn't see and stammered out, “Thank you very much.” Even when he gets a chance to shine, he doesn't know what to do with it, Menedemos thought.

Carrying the bow and quiver, Sostratos made his way back toward the stern. Menedemos greeted him with a line from the Iliad: “Hail, 'best of the Akhaioi in archery.' “

“I'm not, you know,” Sostratos answered with his usual relentless honesty. “You're a better shot than I am, though not by a lot. And hitting anything when you're shooting at a moving target from a moving ship is as much a matter of luck as anything else.”

Both those things were true. Neither of them mattered even an obolos' worth, not right now. Menedemos tossed his head. “You won't get out of it that easily, my dear. Like it or not, you're a hero.”

He would have basked in the acclaim himself. What was a man worth, unless his fellows praised him? Not much, not as far as Menedemos was concerned. But Sostratos turned as red as a handsome youth importuned for the first time by an older man. Menedemos swallowed a sigh. There were times when his cousin took modesty much too far.

The channel between Andros and Euboia had an evil reputation, but its waters were calm enough when the Aphrodite crossed it. Once Euboia lay on the ship's right hand and the coastline of Attica on the left, Sostratos allowed himself the luxury of a sigh of relief. '“We don't have to worry about that anymore,” he remarked.

Menedemos tossed his head. “Of course we do—unless you hadn't planned on going back?” As Sostratos' cheeks heated, his cousin let him down easy: Tm not sorry to get to leeward of Euboia myself, I will say that.”

“Nor I,” Sostratos said. The long, narrow island lay like a shield to the northeast of Attica. “Khalkis tomorrow.”

“I expect so,” Menedemos answered, and began to quote from the Iliad's Catalogue of Ships;

“ 'The Abantes, breathing fury, held Euboia—

Khalkis and Eiretria and Hisitaia rich in grapes,

Coastal Kerinthos and the steep city of Dion;

They also held Karystos and dwelt in Styra.

Their leader was Elephenor, descendant of Ares,

The son of Khalkedon: lord of the great-hearted Abantes.

Him the swift Abantes followed, with their hair long in back:

Spearmen with ash spears ready

To rend the corselets on the chests of their foes.

Forty black ships followed him.' “

“Old cities,” Sostratos murmured. But he looked west, toward Attica: toward the land to which he wished the Aphrodite were going. He pointed. “There's a place that's not so old, but it bears a name that will live as long as Troy: Marathon,”

His cousin cared little for history, but even he knew what that meant. “Where the Athenians gave the Persians the first lesson on what it means to tangle with free Hellenes,” he said,

Sostratos dipped his head. “That's right.” And so it was, though things weren't quite so simple. Up till the battle at Marathon, the Persians had won their fights against the Hellenes with a monotonous regularity no one cared to remember these days. Sostratos asked, “Do you know the story of Pheidippides?”

“Oh, yes,” his cousin said. “He's the fellow who ran from Marathon to Athens with news of the fight, gasped out, 'Rejoice! We conquer!'—and fell over dead.”

“That's right,” Sostratos said, “When I was in Athens, I went out to Marathon once, to see with my own eyes what the battlefield looks like. It was most of a day on the back of a mule—a long day's march for a hoplite. I don't wonder that Pheidippides dropped dead if he ran it all at once.”

“What on earth made you want to go all that way?” Menedemos asked.

“I told you—to see it for myself,” Sostratos answered.

“It's just a place,” Menedemos said. “The battle happened a long time ago.” They eyed each other in perfect mutual incomprehension. With an amused shrug, Menedemos went on, “Well, to each his own. I think I'll put in at Rhamnous, up past Marathon on the Attic side of the strait here. That's a better anchorage than I could get on the Euboian side.”

“You're trying to drive me mad, aren't you, my dear?—either that or to tempt me to jump ship,” Sostratos said. Menedemos laughed, and Sostratos was joking. He wouldn't snatch up the gryphon's skull, tuck it under his arm, and run like Pheidippides down to the Lykeion. No, I won't, he thought, however much I want to. Not quitechanging the subject, he went on, “A little inland from the seaside village at Rhamnous, there's a temple to Nemesis, with the goddess' statue carved from a block of Parian marble the Persians had brought along for the victory monument they would set up in Athens. Some say Pheidias carved it, others his pupil Agorakritos.”

“You've seen it?” his cousin asked.

“Oh, yes; on the trip to Marathon I stopped there, too. It's very fine work. She's wearing a crown ornamented with tiny Victories and with deer. In one hand, she holds a bowl carved with figures of Ethiopians in relief, in the other an apple branch.”

“Ethiopians?” Menedemos said. “Why?”

“To the crows with me if I know,” Sostratos replied. “A priest said it was because Okeanos is Nemesis' father and the Ethiopians live alongside Okeanos, but that seems like a stretch to me. It's just as likely Pheidias felt like carving Ethiopians, and so he did.”