Harry Turtledove - The Gryphon's Skull

“Are you telling me Fm wrong, though?” Menedemos asked. His cousin tossed his head. Menedemos' smile held slightly grudging approval. One thing Sostratos was, without a doubt: an honest man.

As the sun sank toward the rough horizon to the west, Sostratos pointed toward the channel between Andros and Cape Geraistos, the southernmost part of Euboia. “There it is. We can get through before nightfall.”

“We can get through, yes,” Menedemos said. “But we can't get very far past the channel if we go through now. When morning comes, we'd be sitting out in the open for anyone to spot. If we stay out here on the open Aegean till morning, though, we can dash between the islands and round Cape Sounion before nightfall tomorrow. How does that sound?”

Sostratos didn't look happy, but he didn't say no. He just sighed, made a pushing motion, and turned away. After a moment, Menedemos realized he was miming Sisyphos' eternal torment. Every time the wicked man got his boulder up near the top of the hill, it would slip away and roll to the bottom again.

“It's not so bad as that,” Menedemos said.

“No, it isn't,” Sostratos said. “It's worse.”

Diokles spoke up: “Whether we go through now or in the morning, I'd serve out weapons first. You never can tell.”

“That's a good idea,” Menedemos said. “I wish it weren't, but it is.” He rubbed his chin as he thought. “I do believe I'm going to bring us up a little farther north before we anchor for the night. That way, I can run straight before the wind in the morning, and we'll slide through as fast as may be.”

“Very nice,” the keleustes said. “You're right as can be—the sooner we're through there, the better.”

The sun was just on the point of setting when Menedemos ordered the anchors into the sea. Sostratos still looked glum. “Cheer up,” Menedemos told him. “See? We're even aimed the right way now.” Sure enough, he'd swung the Aphrodite around so her bow pointed southwest, straight toward the gap between the islands—and toward the mainland of Attica beyond.

His cousin sighed. “I know it, my dear. But it hasn't happened yet, and I'm not going to be content till it does.”

Or even after that, Menedemos thought. The ideal world Sostratos built up in his mind sometimes made him have trouble accepting reality and its imperfections. Menedemos didn't twit him about it, though; the akatos was too crowded a place to make arguments worse.

Bread and olive oil, cheese and olives, rough red wine: a sailor's supper at sea. Not even a taste of mullet to savor tonight; the men hadn't caught anything much above sprat size. Menedemos shrugged. I'll eat better when we get to Athens, he thought.

“Another night on the planks,” Sostratos said as they stretched out side by side on the poop deck. “I won't be sorry to sleep in a bed again.”

There, Menedemos thought he could jab without making his cousin angry, and he did: “Back in Miletos, you weren't doing much in the way of sleeping when you ended up in that hetaira's bed.”

Sostratos snorted. “You're a fine one to talk.”

“Who, me?” Menedemos did his best to sound innocent. “I didn't do anything much in Miletos.”

“No, not in Miletos,” Sostratos said darkly.

Menedemos made some other protest, but only deep, heavy, even breathing answered him. Before very long, he fell asleep, too. He woke somewhere in the middle of the night, wondering why he had. Then he realized the Aphrodite's, motion had changed. The swells from out of the north remained, but the wind-driven chop had eased. He muttered something or other under his breath, wrapped his himation tighter around himself, and went back to sleep.

But when he woke the next morning, he wasn't surprised to find that the wind had died even though he hardly remembered rousing before. Catching his eye, Diokles mimed rowing motions. Menedemos dipped his head to the oarmaster.

“All I have to say is, it's a good thing we're not a round ship,” Sostratos declared after Menedemos woke him and he realized they were becalmed. “If we were a round ship that had to lie here on the sea so close to Athens with no way to get any closer, I do believe I'd scream.”

“I believe you'd scream, too,” Menedemos said. His cousin gave him a dirty look. He went on, “But, since we go about as fast with oars as we do with the sail, you can save your screams till you need to throw them at your fellow philosophers.”

“I'm not much of a philosopher,” Sostratos said sadly. “I haven't got enough leisure.”

“You're doing something useful, which is more than a lot of those windbags can say for themselves,” Menedemos replied. His cousin looked shocked. Before Sostratos could rush to philosophy's defense, Menedemos added, “Eat your breakfast and then do one more useful thing: help me hand out weapons to the crew,”

Like most merchant galleys—and, for that matter, like most pirate ships—the Aphrodite carried a motley assortment of arms: perhaps a dozen swords (Sostratos belted his on), a handful of peltasts 'light shields, some javelins and pikes, hatchets, a couple of ripping hooks, iron crowbars, knives. Menedemos set his bow and a quiver of arrows where he could grab them in a hurry. Or, more likely, where Sostratos or somebody else can get his hands on them, he thought. I'll he busy steering the ship.

He shrugged. Odds were, this was nothing but a waste of time. Even if a pirate chieftain did make a run at the Aphrodite , a show of strength would probably make him choose a different victim. But if you didn't treat what might lie ahead as if it were real, you wouldn't be ready on the off chance it turned out so.

“Rhyppa pai! Rhyppa pai! ” Diokles called, and beat out the stroke with his mallet and bronze square. As the channel between Arados and Euboia drew near, he looked back over his shoulder at Menedemos and asked, “Will you want to put a man at every oar for the dash through the strait?”

The oarmaster acted as if the Aphrodite might be sailing straight into danger. Menedemos didn't see how he could do anything less. He dipped his head. “Yes, let's,” he said, “We haven't had to do much of that kind of thing this sailing season. Let's see how well they handle it.”

“Good enough.” Diokles ordered the rowers to the rowing benches. Menedemos sent Aristeidas up to the foredeck to keep an eye out for pirates as the akatos passed each promontory. If we're going to do this, we'll do it the best way we know how, he thought.

His own gaze kept swinging from north to south, from one island to the other, as the merchant galley sped down the channel. Diokles had hardly set a hotter pace when they were trying to escape the Roman trireme the summer before. The men will be glad to ease off once we're through, Menedemos thought. But then, just when he'd started to think they'd safely made the passage, Aristeidas pointed to port and shouted, “A ship! A ship!”

“A pestilence!” Mencdernos exclaimed as the vessel emerged fromthe concealment of a headland on the northern coast of Andros and raced toward the Aphrodite .

“What do we do now?” Sostratos said. “Maybe we should have tried coming through yesterday afternoon.”

“Bastard was probably lurking here then, too,” Menedemos said. “There aren't many honest uses for a hemiolia, anyhow.” The two-banked galley was short and lean and one of the swiftest things afloat. Her crew had already taken down the mast and stowed it abaft of the permanent rowing benches of the upper bank.

“Turn towards 'em and try and scare 'em off?” Diokles asked.

“That's what I'm going to do,” Menedemos answered. “They can't have a crew much bigger than ours, so why would they want to mix it up?” He swung the Aphrodite into a tight turn toward the hemiolia. “Up the stroke, if you please.”