Harry Turtledove - Over the Wine-Dark Sea

Having paid, Alexidamos said, "Now can we leave?" He looked anxiously over his shoulder.

"What about us?" the other three mercenaries chorused. Still in unison, they went on, "We haven't got our gear here."

Menedemos took charge. "Go fetch it," he said briskly. He turned to Diokles. "Take this fellow to the Aphrodite. Come to think of it, take Sostratos and me, too. Things are liable to get lively here."

"Thank you," Alexidamos said as he stowed his sack in the bottom of the boat.

"Don't thank me yet," Menedemos said. "If there's a commotion and those other fellows can't come aboard, you'll pay their fares, too. I'm telling you now, so you can't say it's a surprise."

"That's robbery," Alexidamos yelped.

"Call it what you want," Menedemos said coolly. "The way I see things, you might be hurting my business. If you don't see them that way, you can always talk them over with Diotimos, or whatever his name was. Now - have we got a bargain, or haven't we?"

"A bargain," the mercenary choked out.

"I thought you'd be sensible," Menedemos said. He climbed into the boat. So did Sostratos. The sailors pushed the boat into the sea, scrambled in themselves, and rowed back to the Aphrodite.

Once they'd come aboard, Diokles pointed back toward the beach. "I think maybe we got out of there right in the nick of time, skipper," he said.

Along with the oarmaster and Menedemos, Sostratos looked over to the shore. Several men stood there, looking across the water toward the Aphrodite. The sun glittered from swords and spearheads. One of the men shouted something, but the akatos stood too far out to sea for his words to carry. Even if Sostratos couldn't hear them, he didn't think the shouter was paying Alexidamos any compliments.

"Pity about those other chaps," Sostratos said to Menedemos. "How are we going to get them off the beach if these soldiers keep hanging around?"

Menedemos shrugged. "We end up with the same fare either way."

"I think you ought to try to get them, too," Alexidamos said, which surprised Sostratos not at all: he wouldn't have wanted to pay an extra thirty-six drakhmai, either. In its cage on the foredeck, the peacock screeched. Alexidamos jumped. "By the dog of Egypt, what's that?"

"A peacock," Sostratos answered. "Leave it alone."

"A peacock?" Alexidamos echoed. "Really?"

"Really." Sostratos looked in the direction of the beach again. He couldn't be sure, but he thought he saw Philippos, Kallikrates, and Rhoikos returning: three newcomers, at least, were staring out toward the merchant galley. Plucking at his beard, he beckoned to Menedemos. They put their heads together and talked in low voices for a little while.

Not much later, four rowers and Alexidamos got into the ship's boat. The boat made for one of the blue-green-painted pirate ships anchored a few plethra away. Diotimos and his bully boys hurried along the beach after the boat. It pulled up behind the pirate ship. When it came back to the Aphrodite, only the rowers were to be seen. They climbed back up into the akatos.

The angry mercenaries on the beach shouted at the pirate ship through cupped hands. A pirate shouted back. Neither side seemed to have much luck understanding the other.

Sostratos had counted on that. Quietly, he told the rowers, "I think you can try picking up the others now. Tell them to move fast. If they don't, or if Diotimos' men make trouble, turn around and come back."

"That's right," Menedemos said. "That's just right."

As Diokles had before, he headed this expedition to the beach. He didn't let the boat go aground. Instead, the three mercenaries who wanted to go to Italy waded out into the sea; the rowers helped them into the boat. They were on the way back to the Aphrodite before Diotimos and his pals came trotting back along the sand toward them.

Up came the rowers, into the merchant galley. Up came Rhoikos and Kallikrates and Philippos. And up came Alexidamos, who'd lain in the bottom of the boat since it used the pirate ship to screen it from Diotimos' men for a moment. He clasped Sostratos' hand. "Very neat. Very clever. You should be an admiral."

Sostratos tossed his head. "I leave that sort of thing to my cousin." He glanced toward Menedemos, about to suggest that sailing on the instant would be a good idea. But Menedemos had already gone to the bow. He was urging the men at the anchor lines to haul the anchors up to the catheads. He was plenty savvy enough to see what wanted doing here without any suggestions from Sostratos. And that suited Sostratos fine.

* * *

Three days after leaving Cape Tainaron, the Aphrodite sailed northwest out of Zakynthos. "I could be Odysseus, coming home at last," Menedemos said, pointing out over the akatos' bow. "There's Kephallenia ahead, with Ithake just to the northeast of it."

"But you're not going to stop either place, or go up to Korkyra, either," Sostratos said. "You're going to strike straight across the Ionian Sea for Italy." He sighed. "And you the man who loves Homer so well."

Menedemos laughed and pointed a finger at him. "You can't fool me. You don't care a fig for trade. You just want to see the islands. I had to drag you away from Zakynthos."

"It's an interesting place," his cousin answered. "It's still a woody island, as the poet says. And the people speak an interesting dialect of Greek."

"Interesting?" Menedemos tossed his head. "I couldn't understand what they were saying half the time. It's almost as bad as Macedonian."

"I didn't have too much trouble with it," Sostratos said. "It's just old-fashioned. But are you sure you don't want to go up the coast and cross the sea where it's narrowest? We'd only spend one night - two at the outside - on the water that way, and sailing straight across we'll be out of sight of land for five or six days."

"I know. I have my reasons." That should have been all Menedemos needed to say; he was captain of the Aphrodite, after all. And Sostratos didn't argue, at least not with words. But he did raise an eyebrow, and Menedemos found himself explaining: "For one thing, most merchantmen sail from Korkyra across to Italy just because it's the shortest way."

"Exactly," Sostratos said. "Why are you doing something different, then?"

"Because all the pirates around - Hellenes, Epeirotes, Illyrians, Tyrrhenians - know what the merchantmen do, and they hover around the passage where the Adriatic opens out into the Ionian Sea the way vultures hover over a dead ox. Even if this trip across the open sea is longer, it should be safer."

"Ah." Sostratos spread his hands. "That does make good sense. You said it was one reason. You have more?"

"You've got no business grilling me," Menedemos said.

"No doubt you're right, O best one." Sostratos could be most annoying when he was most ironically polite. And then he struck a shrewder blow yet: "If anything goes wrong, though, our fathers will grill you, and it will be their business. Wouldn't you sooner practice your answers on me?"

The thought of having to explain things to his father made Menedemos spit into the bosom of his tunic. He said, "I'm sure you want me to tell you for my own good, not for yours." Sostratos looked innocent. He looked so innocent, Menedemos burst out laughing. "The other reason I don't want to stop at Korkyra is, it's about the most dismal place in the world."

"Not surprising, after all the wars it's lost," Sostratos said. "And it was the place where the Peloponnesian War began, and that ruined all of Hellas. But Korkyra's free and independent nowadays." He raised that eyebrow again - more irony.

"Yes, Korkyra is free and independent, all right." Menedemos raised an eyebrow, too, and quoted a proverbial verse: " 'Korkyra is free - shit wherever you want.' "

His cousin snorted. "Well, all right. Maybe it's just as well you didn't go up the coast. You would have recited that in a tavern after you'd had some wine, and got yourself knifed."