Harry Turtledove - Over the Wine-Dark Sea

"True enough." Diokles pointed to the rocky peninsula leading down to the sea. "A handful of men could hold off an army coming south just about forever."

"That's why this place is where it is," Menedemos agreed. "And, since Kassandros and Polyperkhon haven't got much in the way of ships, the mercenaries can do what they want - and hire out to whomever they want." He started to say more, but Sostratos came running back toward him, excitement on his face. Menedemos wasn't sure what sort of excitement it was. He tried to forestall his cousin, asking, "All right, who spilled the perfume into the soup?"

"No, no." Sostratos tossed his head so emphatically, a couple of locks of his hair flew loose. As he brushed them back from his eyes, he explained, "I was going to let the peahen called Helen out for a run when I found she'd laid an egg!"

"Ahh." Visions of drakhmai danced in front of Menedemos' face. "That is good news. And if Helen has started laying eggs, the others won't be far behind her. We can sell eggs for a nice price once we get across the Ionian Sea." He scratched his chin. Bristles rasped under his fingernails. "Have we got any straw, so the birds can make nests?"

Sostratos tossed his head again. "No, but I can get some light twigs from the dunnage without having amphorai knock together or anything like that. Those would probably be better than nothing."

"Good. Do it," Menedemos said. Sostratos turned to go. Menedemos pointed at him. "Wait. I didn't mean you personally go and do it right this instant. It's important, but it's not that important. Tell off a couple of sailors and have them take care of it."

"Oh. All right." Plainly, that hadn't occurred to Sostratos. He pointed ahead. "They've got themselves a real polis here, haven't they? - and not the smallest one in Hellas, either."

"No. Nor the worst-governed city in Hellas, probably," Menedemos said. As he'd thought it would, that made his cousin squirm. In musing tones, Menedemos went on, "This really is a polis, or something close to one. It's not just the mercenaries, not even close. They've got their wives here, and their concubines, and their brats, and their slaves - "

"And the people who sell things to them, like us," Sostratos put in.

"And the people who sell things to them," Menedemos agreed. "But you won't find too many merchants' shops right there in the mercenaries' encampment. Most of the traders come here by sea, too, and anchor out of bowshot from the shore."

Diokles said, "I hope you're going to do the same thing, skipper."

"I hope I am, too," Menedemos said, which made the keleustes laugh and Sostratos smile. Dipping his head, Menedemos went on, "I want to get away from Tainaron nice and safe myself, you know."

"That would be good," Sostratos said. "The generals and the Italiote cities aren't the only ones recruiting here." He pointed toward a couple of low, lean craft painted blue-green. "If those aren't pirates, I'd sooner eat the peahen's egg than sell it."

"Even without that paint job, they'd be pirates," Menedemos said. "Not much else hemioliai are good for." The galley had two banks of oars, but the upper, or thranite, bank stopped short just after the mast, to give the crew plenty of space to stow mast and yard and sail when they took them down for a ramming attack. No other variety of galley was so fast and so perfectly suited to predation.

"I hope they aren't watching us the way we're watching them," Sostratos said.

"They aren't," Menedemos assured him. "The fox doesn't look at the hare the way the hare looks at the fox."

"You so relieve my mind," Sostratos murmured. Menedemos grinned.

"We're not your ordinary hare, though," Diokles said. "We showed that triakonter we're an armored hare." He chuckled. "Aphrodite's a good name, mind, but I wouldn't mind sailing in a ship called Hoplolagos, just for the sake of surprising people."

"No one gives ships names like that," Menedemos said. "You name them for gods, or after the sea or the waves or the foam or something like that, or you call them swift or fierce or bold - or lucky, like that five of Ptolemaios' we met. I've never heard of a ship with a silly name."

"Does that mean there should never be one?" Sostratos asked, a certain glint in his eye. "Is the new bad merely for being new?"

With most men, that glint would have been lust. With Sostratos, Menedemos judged it likelier to be philosophy. He tossed his head. "Save that one for the Lykeion, cousin. I'm not going to thrash my way through it now. We've got more important things to worry about, like coming away from Tainaron without getting our throats cut."

He wondered if Sostratos would argue about that. When his cousin was feeling abstract, the real world often had a hard time making an impression on him. But Sostratos said, "That's true enough. It's so true, maybe you should have thought about it sooner, thought about it more. I tried to get you to, if you'll recall."

"I did think about it. You know that," Menedemos said. "I decided the chance for profit picking up men to go to Italy outweighs the risk. That doesn't mean I think there's no risk."

Diokles pointed. "There's the temple to Poseidon. It looks like the one building hereabouts that's made to last, set alongside all these huts and shacks and tents and things."

"That's the temple with the bronze of the man on the dolphin, isn't it?" Sostratos said. "I'd like to see it if I get the chance: it's the one Arion the minstrel offered after the dolphin took him to shore when he jumped into the sea to save himself from the crew of the ship he was on."

The keleustes gave him a quizzical look. "How do you know about that bronze? You've never been here before, have you?"

"No, he hasn't." Menedemos spoke before his cousin could. He pointed a finger at Sostratos. "All right, own up. Whose writing talks about it?"

"Herodotos'," Sostratos said sheepishly.

"Ha!" Menedemos wagged that finger. "I thought as much." He turned back to Diokles. "Let them bring us a couple of plethra closer to land, but no more than that. Then we'll go ashore and see if we can hunt up some passengers. Pick some proper bruisers to man the boat, too - I don't want to come back to the beach and find it's been stolen from under our noses."

"Right you are," the oarmaster said. "Matter of fact, if you don't think you've got to have me here aboard, I wouldn't mind taking boat duty myself."

Menedemos looked Diokles up and down. He dipped his head. "As far as I can see, any mercenary who's stupid enough to get frisky with you deserves whatever happens to him."

"I'm a peaceable man, captain," Diokles said. A slow smile spread over his face. "But I might - I just might, mind you - remember what to do in case somebody else didn't happen to feel peaceable."

"Good," Menedemos said.

"OöP!" Diokles called. The other rowers in the Aphrodite's boat rested at their oars. The boat grated on the sand. Sostratos wore only a tunic and a knife belt. As he stepped onto the beach, he wished he had on a bronze corselet and crested helm, greaves and shield, and long spear and shortsword. Armor and weapons might have made him feel safe. On the other hand, they might not have been enough.

"This is a place with no law," he murmured to "If anyone takes it into his mind to try to kill us, what's to stop him?"

"We are," Menedemos replied. Sostratos found that unsatisfactory. But his cousin was grinning from ear to ear and strutting a jaunty strut. Just as some men were wild for women or wine or fancy opson, so Menedemos was wild for trouble. He sometimes seemed to get into it deliberately so he could have the fun of getting himself out.

A couple of mercenaries dressed like Sostratos and Menedemos except for wearing sandals and having swords on their belts instead of knives came up to them. "Ail," one of them said in Ionian dialect. "What are you selling, sailors?"