Harry Turtledove - The Gryphon's Skull

“Maybe.” Sostratos knew he sounded dubious. Going to law against anyone from another polis—and collecting a judgment if you won—was often a task to make Sisyphos' seem easy by comparison. Often, but perhaps not always. Sostratos brightened a little. “If she puts in at Kos, we could go straight to Ptolemaios.”

“So we could.” Menedemos smiled a predatory smile. “Hard to find a better connection than that, isn't it?”

Before Sostratos could answer, a sailor came out from under the poop deck and called to Menedemos: “Skipper, we've plugged up the sprung seams as best we can, but we're still taking on some water.”

“How much is 'some'?” Menedemos demanded. He waved a hand. “Never mind—I'll see for myself. Sostratos, take the steering oar again and keep us on our course.” As soon as Sostratos had hold of the tiller, his cousin disappeared under the deck once more. When he emerged, his expression was as gloomy as the weather. “Pestilence take it, I don't want to have to make for Myndos.”

Diokles said, “Skipper, why not fother a square of sailcloth smeared with pitch over the damage? War galleys will do that when they're rammed—if they have the time before they're rammed again, I mean.”

“Hold the sailcloth against the ship with ropes, you mean?” Menedemos said, and the oarmaster dipped his head. Menedemos looked thoughtful. “I've never tried that. You know how to go about it?”

“I sure do,” Diokles answered. Some men would say as much regardless of whether it was true. Sostratos didn't think the keleustes was one of them.

Evidently his cousin didn't, either. “All right. Take charge of it,” Menedemos said. “I'll learn from you along with the sailors.”

“Right,” Diokles said. “Getting pitch on the sailcloth will be a bastard in this rain, but what can you do?” As some of the sailors started that messy job, he ordered the sail brailed up again and took all but four rowers off the oars. “Hold her course steady,” he told Sostratos. “We don't want much speed on her right now, on account of we'll bring the boat alongside, and it'll have to keep up.”

“I understand,” Sostratos said.

The oarmaster called to the crew: “Now, who can swim? We have anybody who's ever dived for sponges?” One naked sailor raised a hand. Diokles waved to him. “Good for you, Moskhion.” He spoke quietly to Sostratos: “He'll be swimming under the hull. He ought to have something for it.”

“Of course.” Sostratos dipped his head and raised his voice: “Two days' pay bonus for you, Moskhion.”

With a grin, Moskhion went down into the boat, along with the sailcloth to be fothered over the sprung seams and the lines to make it fast to the hull. He had a line tied around his own middle, too, and carried one tied to a belaying pin on the Aphrodite. A couple of rowers kept the boat alongside the akatos. Another pair of sailors wrestled the sailcloth against the damaged planks. Sostratos got all this from Diokles and Menedemos' comments. He wished his cousin would take back the surviving steering oar so he could see for himself, but no such luck.

Splash! Moskhion went into the sea. A surprisingly short time later, he scrambled over the starboard gunwale. He undid the line from his own waist and wrapped the one he'd carried round another belaying pin. Then he hurried over to the port side, got down into the boat again, hauled in his safety line, and tied it round himself again.

After four trips under the hull, he said, “That ought to do it.”

“Let's see what we've got, then.” Menedemos hurried down off the poop deck to go below and see what the fothering had done. Over his shoulder, he added, “You earned your three drakhmai, Moskhion.”

“Wasn't as hard as sponge diving,” the sailor said. “There, you go down so deep, your ears hurt and your chest feels like somebody piled rocks on it—and you carry a rock yourself, to sink faster. You keep that up, you're an old man before you're forty. Tin glad to pull an oar instead.”

When Menedemos came out from under the decking, he looked pleased. “Down to just a trickle now. Thanks, Diokles—I wouldn't have thought of that trick. Two days' bonus for you, too. Remember it, Sostratos.”

As Sostratos dipped his head, Diokles said, “Thank you kindly, skipper.”

“I'll take the steering oar now,” Menedemos said, and he did. He raised his voice to call out to the crew: “Eight men a side on the oars. And we'll lower the sail from the yard again now. The sooner we get back to Kos, the sooner we can get patched up and be on our way again.”

Tin beginning to wonder if the Fates ever intend to let me get to Athens,” Sostratos said. “Here's one more delay, and not even one where we can turn a profit.”

“This one's not our fault, by the gods,” Menedemos said. He raised his voice again: “Two days' pay to whoever spots the ship that hit us. When we find out who she is, we will take it up with Ptolemaios.”

That had the sailors avidly peering out to sea all the way back to Kos, but no one spied the round ship. Maybe the weather was too dirty, or maybe she'd been making for Kalymnos, not Kos. “Maybe she sank,” Sostratos said as the Aphrodite neared the port from which she'd set out early in the morning.

“Too much to hope for,” Menedemos said. “I don't see any of Ptolemaios' war galleys on patrol outside the harbor. They ought to be. The weather isn't too nasty to keep Antigonos from giving him a nasty surprise if he's so inclined.”

When the akatos came into the harbor itself, Sostratos exclaimed in surprise: “Where did all the ships go? There's space at half the quays, where this morning everything was tight as a—”

“Pretty boy's backside,” Menedemos finished for him. That wasn't what he'd been about to say, nor anything close to it, but it did carry a similar meaning,

A fellow who wore a broad-brimmed hat to keep the rain off his face came up the pier to see who the newcomers were. Sostratos asked him the same question: “What happened to all the ships?”

The man pointed north and east. “They're all over there by the mainland. Ptolemaios used the cover of the storm to mount an attack on Halikarnassos.”

Menedemos scowled at the Koan carpenter. “What do you mean, you can't do anything for the Aphrodite ?” he demanded,

“What I said,” the Koan answered. “I usually mean what I say. We're all too busy repairing Ptolemaios' warships and transports to have any time left over to deal with a merchant galley.”

“Well, what am I supposed to do till you find the time?” Menedemos said. “Hang myself?”

“It's all the same to me,” the carpenter told him. The fellow picked up his mallet and drove home a treenail, joining a tenon and the plank into which it was inserted. Then he reached for another peg.

Muttering, Menedemos walked away. It was either that or snatch the mallet out of the Koan's hand and brain him with it. But that wouldn't do any good, either: it wouldn't get the man to work for him, which was what he needed.

In the harbor of Halikarnassos, carpenters were probably just as busy repairing Antigonos' war galleys. That also did Menedemos no good. He looked northeast, toward the city on the Karian mainland. A plume of smoke marked any city at any time; smoke was a distinctive city smell, along with baking bread and the less pleasant odors of dung and unwashed humanity. But a great cloud of black smoke rose from Halikarnassos now. Did it come from inside the place, or had the defenders managed to fire a palisade Ptolemaios' men had run up? From this distance, Menedemos couldn't tell.

He hoped Halikarnassos fell, and fell quickly. His reasons were entirely selfish. If Ptolemaios' ships weren't constantly limping back to the harbor of Kos with sprung timbers or smashed stemposts or out-and-out holes from stones thrown by engines, the carpenters here wouldn't be working on them at all hours of the day—and, sometimes, by torchlight at night. They would have a chance to fix the Aphrodite .