Harry Turtledove - Over the Wine-Dark Sea

"Good." Menedemos had made the same guess, but felt better to have someone else confirm it. He grinned at the keleustes. "If you're wrong, you know I'll blame you."

Diokles shrugged. "As long as the ship comes through all right, I won't worry about it." He shrugged again. "And if she doesn't come through, if I drown, I won't worry about it then, either, will I?"

Several sailors caressed amulets or muttered charms to avert the evil omen. Sostratos, thought, looked intrigued. "So you think a man's spirit dies with him, do you?" he asked Diokles.

Menedemos recognized a question like that as an invitation to philosophical discussion. Diokles responded as matter-of-factly as he had to the query about the weather: "Well, sir, folks say a lot of things: this one says this, and that one says that. All I know is, nobody who went down with his ship ever came back to tell me what it was like."

That touched off a lively argument among the sailors as they hauled in the anchors and slung them from the catheads at the bow: one more bit of ship's business that the peafowl cages on the foredeck made more awkward. By Sostratos' expression, though, it wasn't the sort of discussion he would have heard at his precious Lykeion. A lot of the men were loudly certain they'd seen, or sometimes talked with, ghosts.

After a while, Menedemos' cousin turned to him, frustration on his face. In a low voice, Sostratos said, "I don't want to offend anyone or make anyone angry, but I don't think I've ever heard so much nonsense all at once in my whole life."

"On land, I'm sure I would agree with you," Menedemos replied. "Out here . . ." As Diokles had done, he shrugged. "Out here, half the things I'd laugh at on land feel true." His chuckle held less mirth than he would have liked. "Out here, especially after we spend the night at sea, I don't even know exactly where I am. If I can't be sure of that, how can I be sure of anything else?"

If nothing else, he'd succeeded in distracting Sostratos. His cousin pointed toward the Asian mainland in the distance. "The shape of the coastline will tell you where you are."

"Well, so it will," Menedemos admitted, "though it wouldn't mean anything to a landlubber. But we'll spend some time out of sight of land when we sail west toward Hellas, and then again when we cross the Ionian Sea to Italy. No way to tell for certain where you are then. I wish there were."

Sostratos frowned. "There ought to be."

"There ought to be all sorts of things," Menedemos said. "That doesn't mean there are." Diokles struck his bronze square with the mallet. The rowers began to pull. The Aphrodite glided north, toward Khios. With the steering oars to tend to, Menedemos didn't have to worry about splitting hairs with his cousin.

Like Samos, Khios lay close to the mainland. The channel between the island and Asia was wider than that separating Samos from the shore, but also longer. Waves built in it, built and rolled toward the galley one after another. Even without a real storm, the going was heavier than it had been since the Aphrodite set out from Rhodes. Menedemos thought it wise to repeat his promise to Poseidon, this time so the whole crew could hear.

Coming up toward the city of Khios - which lay on the eastern coast of the island, looking at the mainland across about forty stadia of water - the Aphrodite fought her way past a temple to Apollo hard by a grove of palm trees, then past the small harbor of Phanai, and at last by a colonnaded building close to the shore. Pointing toward it, Diokles said, "There's the sea god's shrine, skipper."

"I knew where it was. I've been here before," Menedemos answered. The keleustes dipped his head, unashamed at having nagged him. Like any sailor, he wanted to make sure a vow to Poseidon got fulfilled.

Khios the city boasted a very respectable harbor. "How many war galleys do you suppose could shelter here?" Menedemos asked.

"If we're talking about triremes, I'd say eighty, easy," Diokles answered. "Fewer of the bigger ships they're turning out nowadays, though."

Sostratos came up onto the poop deck and pointed toward the sun, which still hung high in the west. "We made good time," he remarked. "We'll have the chance to do some business today."

"We'd have done better still without waves smacking us in the teeth all the way up from Samos," Menedemos answered, "but that's the kind of weather you're likely to run into this time of year. As for the business, you'll have to start without me. First thing I'm going to do is go down to Poseidon's temple and make that offering to thank him for getting us here safe."

"What did you have in mind?" his cousin asked warily.

"I was thinking of a lamb," Menedemos said, and Sostratos relaxed. Along with being the sea god and the earthshaker, Poseidon was also the god of horses, which were sometimes sacrificed to him. Horses, though, were beyond the means of any but the very rich. Menedemos might have thought about giving Poseidon one after coming through a true storm, but the god hadn't earned so great a reward for helping the merchant galley through seas that were rough but weren't really dangerous.

Sostratos said, "Go make your sacrifice, then, and meet me at Aristagoras the wine merchant's. I'll see him first. We can decide later whether to go to an inn or spend another night listening to each other snoring on deck."

"That seems good to me," Menedemos said.

No Macedonian officers came down the wharf to interrogate the men of the Aphrodite, as they had back at Samos. With the more southerly island shielding Khios from Ptolemaios' base on Kos, the local garrison didn't worry about raiders descending on them. Menedemos walked up the pier and into the city without drawing more than a couple of nods from longshoremen and fishermen.

He walked out through the southern gate just as casually. The countryside between the city of Khios and Poseidon's shrine was given over to olive groves and ripening grain; the grapes that yielded the famous Khian wine grew on the higher ground in the northwestern part of the island. Channels brought water from Khios' many springs to the fields and groves, for the island had no rivers worthy of the name.

Poseidon's temple was flanked by neatly trimmed laurel trees. A priest in a spotless white himation came up to Menedemos as he entered the sacred precinct. "Good day. 'Ow may I 'elp you?" he asked: like Samos, Khios was an island settled by Ionians.

"I just got into port. I want to give the god a lamb for letting me come in safe." Menedemos was much more conscious of his own Doric accent here than he would have been back on Rhodes, where everyone spoke as he did.

"I'd be 'appy to oblige you, sir," the priest replied. "Come with me, and you can pick out a beast for yourself."

"I thank you," Menedemos said. He chose a newborn lamb nursing at its mother's udder; the ewe let out a bleat of anger and dismay when the priest took the little white animal from her.

"Let me examine it to make sure it 'as no blemish." The priest looked at its eyes and ears and hooves. He dipped his head when he was through. "It is acceptable." His tone went from pious to businesslike in the blink of an eye. "That will be two drakhmai, sir."

Menedemos gave him two Rhodian coins. He accepted them without a murmur; Khios and Rhodes coined to the same standard, somewhat lighter than that of Athens and a good deal lighter than that of Aigina. Briskly, the priest tied a length of rope around the lamb's neck and led it to the altar.

An attendant brought up a bowl of water. Menedemos and the priest both washed their hands. Once the priest was ritually clean, he also sprinkled water on the lamb. Then the priest, Menedemos, and the attendant all lowered their heads and spent a moment in silent prayer. The lamb let out a bleat, not liking the fire that crackled on the altar or the odor of blood that clung to it.