Harry Turtledove - The Gryphon's Skull

“Every now and again,” the local answered, which might mean anything or nothing. He paused to spit into the sea, then asked a question of his own: “What d'you want for a jar o' your perfume? My woman'd take it right kindly if she got one.”

“By the gods!” Menedemos muttered. “I never expected to do business here.”

“Eight drakhmai,” Sostratos told the Patmian, as calmly as if he were dickering in the market square in Rhodes.

Menedemos admired that calm. He also expected to see the local recoil in horror: a drakhma a day would keep a man and his family housed and fed, if not in fancy style. He looked toward the village again. Nothing here was fancy.

But the man just shrugged and said, “Deal, pal. I got the silver. Don't hardly got nothin1 to spend it on, though. 'Ereabouts, we mostly just swap back and forth.” He nudged the other man in the boat, who started to row toward shore. Over his shoulder, he called, “Be right back.”

“Will he?” Menedemos wondered. “Or is he without an obolos to his name, and just trying to save face in front of us?”

Sostratos shrugged. “No way to tell. Either he'll come or he won't. If he does, I wonder what he'll use for money. They can't possibly mint coins here.”

The boat beached itself a plethron or so from the Aphrodite . One of the men in it got out and went into a house close by the sea. The other man, the rower, sat in the boat, waiting. That made Menedemos begin to believe the first Patmian did have the money. And sure enough, as twilight began to deepen, he emerged from his house and trotted back to the boat. A moment later, it headed out toward the merchant galley.

“Can I come aboard?” the local called as it drew near.

“Come ahead,” Menedemos answered. The boat pulled up alongside the akatos' waist. One of the sailors reached out and helped haul the Patmian into the ship. He walked back to the stern and up onto the poop deck.

“Hail,” Sostratos said.

“ ‘Ail,” the Patmian replied. “You got the perfume there? .. . That's not what you'd call a right big jar, is it?”

“It's the size we always sell,” Sostratos said, which was true. “There's not a whole lot left after they boil down the roses and mix the scent with oil. It will last you a while—your wife won't need much to make herself smell sweet.”

Menedemos wondered how true that was. The local hadn't bathed any time recently, which meant the odds were good his wife hadn't, either. True, this was a dry island, but even so. ... There was no room to get upwind of the fellow, either. Menedemos did his best not to breathe.

With sudden decision, the Patmian dipped his head. “All right. I'll take it.” He held out a couple of coins to Sostratos. Menedemos' cousin took them, hefted them, and handed the local the perfume. “Thank you kindly,” the fellow said. He scrambled back into the boat. When he and his friend beached it this time, they pulled it well up out of the water and they both went into the village.

“What did he give you?” Menedemos asked.

“See for yourself.” Sostratos set the coins on Menedemos' palm.

In the fading light, Menedemos held them up close to his face. “A tetradrakhm from Corinth,” he said. “That's a pretty Pegasos on it. And another tetradrakhm from Aigina. Very nice—I'm always glad to get turtles, because they're so heavy.”

“Notice anything unusual about this particular turtle?” Sostratos asked.

“I didn't.” Menedemos looked more closely. “It's got a smooth shell.”

“And flippers, not regular feet,” his cousin agreed. “It's a sea turtle, not a tortoise. Aigina hasn't made them like that since the days of the Persian Wars. I wonder how this one ended up here.”

“I wouldn't be surprised if this fellow's five-times-great-grandfather stole it from an Aiginetan, and it's been here ever since,” Menedemos answered. “I'm just glad he's off my ship. Did you smell him?”

“I could hardly help it.” Sostratos took back the coins. “However he got the silver, though, it doesn't stink.”

“True.” Now Menedemos was the one who looked west, towards Athens. “A couple of nights at sea coming up.”

“I think that's a better bet than going through the Kyklades again,” Sostratos said. “Too many pirates in those waters, and sooner or later we'd come across one who'd sooner fight than go the other way.”

“That's what I think, too.” Menedemos took off his chiton and threw it down on the poop deck. “Might as well go to sleep now.”

When he woke the next morning and untangled himself from the folds of his himation, he exclaimed in low-voiced delight as he stood by the rail and pissed into the harbor of Patmos. The breeze came out of the northeast, strong and with a certain feel to it that made him think it would hold all day. Every once in a while, such feelings let him down. More often than not, though, he gauged the wind rightly.

Diokles looked up from the rower's bench where he'd passed the night. “Kind of day that makes you want to get out to sea as fast as you can,” he said.

“I was thinking the same thing,” Menedemos said. The eastern sky was pink, but the sun wouldn't rise for some little while yet. He looked down at Sostratos, who still lay snoring on the poop deck, and stirred him with his foot.

His cousin gasped and sputtered and opened his eyes. “What was that for?” he asked indignantly, sitting up.

“What's the matter?” Menedemos was the picture of innocence. “Don't you want to go to Athens?”

“I want you to go to the crows.” Sostratos got to his feet so quickly and fiercely, Menedemos wondered if he would have to fight his cousin. But then the angry glow faded from Sostratos' eyes. “That's a splendid wind, isn't it?”

“Feels good to me,” Menedemos said. “The keleustes likes it, too. And I can't imagine anyone being sorry to get away from Patmos,”

“All right.” Sostratos walked naked to the rail, as Menedemos had moments before. When he turned back, he said, “Let's start getting the sailors up.”

Diokles had already started waking the ones who hadn't roused by themselves. They ate bread and oil, drank watered wine, and had the anchors hauled up and stowed by the time the sun crawled above the horizon. They didn't even have to row out of the harbor. It faced west, and the breeze carried the Aphrodite away from it as soon as the sail came down from the yard.

Looking back over his shoulder, Menedemos watched Patmos recede behind him. Had he taken the akatos due west, he would have sailed through the Kyklades for the third time that sailing season. Instead, he used the steering oars to swing her somewhat to the north, so that she went up between Ikaria on his right hand and Mykonos on his left. Tenos lay northwest of Mykonos, Andros northwest of Tenos, Euboia northwest of Andros. Menedemos steered the Aphrodite on a course parallel to them but well to the east, out in the middle of the Aegean. He didn't see another ship all day, which suited him fine.

“Late tomorrow or early the next day, we'll be able to slide through the channel between Andros and Euboia and make for Athens,” he said.

“Good enough. Better than good enough, in fact,” Sostratos said. “You had the right of it: not many ships out here in the middle of the sea.”

“We don't guarantee getting through without any trouble this way,” Menederaos said. “We do make our chances better, though. And we never get out of sight of land, the way you can sailing west to Great Hellas. So we always know where we are.”

“Not easy to get out of sight of land in the Aegean,” Sostratos said. “I'm not sure you could do it, not on a clear day.”