Harry Turtledove - Over the Wine-Dark Sea

Even though the round ship's sail was far bigger than the akatos',and even though the breeze filled it well, the Aphrodite easily pulled away. When Sostratos remarked on that, Menedemos said, "I should hope so, by the gods. If that pig outsailed us, I think I'd go home and drink hemlock."

"It still seems strange," Sostratos said.

"Nothing strange about it," Menedemos insisted. "War galleys are faster than we are, because we're beamier than they are. They cut the water like a sharp knife. We cut it like a dull one. And as for that polluted round ship - won't even a dull knife cut water better than a drinking cup?"

"Sokrates couldn't do better, O best one," Sostratos said. "I find no flaws in your logic."

"Thank you very much." Menedemos looked smug.

Sostratos wasn't about to let him get away with that. "Why do you only think so straight when you've got ships on your mind? Why do you start acting like a madman as soon as you smell perfume?"

"I don't know," Menedemos answered.

"Well, at least you don't deny it," Sostratos said.

"Ships aren't women, though," his cousin said. "Even if we give them feminine names, they aren't. Most of the time, a ship will do what you want. Oh, you can make a mistake, but you usually know what's what. But with women . . . My dear fellow! You can't know what a woman will do next, for she usually doesn't know herself. So what's the point to logic?"

Sostratos stared at him. "That's the most logical argument for illogic I've ever heard," he said at last.

"And I thank you again." Menedemos grinned. He'd won that round, and he knew it.

When they got down to the little town of Laos once more the following evening, a ship so like Leptines' was tied up at a quay, Sostratos wondered if the plump merchant skipper had somehow stolen a march on the Aphrodite. But the skipper of this round ship proved to be a scrawny fellow named Xenodokos. He said, "If you've got more greed than brains, you might want to think about getting down to Rhegion quick as you can."

Sostratos hoped he had more brains than greed. Because of that, a certain amount of horror went through him when he heard Menedemos ask, "Oh? Why?"

"Because Agathokles of Syracuse has men getting up a fleet of grain ships there," Xenodokos answered. "He's going to try and sneak 'em past the Carthaginian fleet so his polis doesn't starve. He'll pay gods only know how many times the going rate, even for a load from a skinny little ship like yours."

"And what will he pay if the Carthaginians catch us?" Sostratos asked.

"Syracuse," Xenodokos said.

Sostratos looked at his cousin. He didn't care for the gleam in Menedemos' eye. "The ship," he said pointedly.

"I know, the ship." Menedemos sounded impatient. "Remember, we have to go by Rhegion anyway." Sostratos remembered. His heart sank.

10

Menedemos was like a child with a new toy. "We'll make the family rich with this run!" he said. "We'll throw grain into the Aphrodite till we're down to about a digit's worth of freeboard, and we'll get paid for it as if we were that full of fine wine. What could be better?"

His cousin, predictably, was like a mother watching her son play with a sword he thought was a toy. "What could be better?" Sostratos said. "Not getting sunk could be better. So could not getting caught. Not getting killed. Not getting sold into slavery. Not getting gelded. If you give me a little while, I can probably think of some more things."

"Oh, nonsense." It wasn't altogether nonsense, as Menedemos knew. But he didn't want to dwell on that. Had he dwelt on it, he would have been just like Sostratos. He had trouble imagining a fate less appealing - or, for that matter, a fate less interesting.

As a brisk, hot breeze from out of the north pushed the Aphrodite ahead of it towards Rhegion, Sostratos scowled. Sostratos, in fact, did everything but stamp his foot on the timbers of the poop deck. "It isn't nonsense. What you want to do is senseless. We already have a profit. This is a needless risk."

"We'll be fine." Menedemos did his best to sound soothing. "From what Xenodokos said, there'll be a whole fleet down at Rhegion. The polluted Carthaginians can't nab everybody."

"Why not?" Sostratos retorted. "And you didn't see Xenodokos setting out for Syracuse, did you? Not likely! He went the other way. I wish we would, too."

"You worry too much," Menedemos said. "You were jumping up and down about putting in at Cape Tainaron, too, and that worked out fine. Why shouldn't this?"

"We weren't sailing into the middle of a war when we put in at Cape Tainaron," his cousin answered. "You're just asking for trouble."

"The wind should be with us and against the Carthaginians," Menedemos said. "We'll just slide right into the harbor at Syracuse along with all the round ships - and if the barbarians do get after this fleet, they'll have an easier time catching round ships than they will with us."

Sostratos exhaled angrily. "All right. All right, by the gods. You're going to act like an idiot - I can see that. You lust for this the same way you lusted for that Tarentine's wife. But promise me one thing, at least."

"What is it?" Menedemos asked.

"This: if Xenodokos is wrong, if there is no fleet of merchantmen gathering at Rhegion, you won't load the Aphrodite up with grain and try to sneak into Syracuse all by your lonesome."

"We might have a better chance that way," Menedemos said. Then he saw just how furious Sostratos looked. He threw his hands in the air. "Oh, very well. If there is no grain fleet, we'll head for home. There! Are you satisfied now?"

"Satisfied? No," Sostratos said. "I won't be satisfied till we do sail for home. But that is a little better - a very little better - than nothing."

Menedemos didn't think it was anything of the sort. The more he thought of tiptoeing into Syracuse past the Carthaginian fleet, the better he liked it. A man could dine out on such stories for the rest of his life. But he'd gone and given his word, and he felt obliged to keep it.

I hope there's a fleet at Rhegion, he thought. There'd better be a fleet at Rhegion, because I want to do this. Sostratos was right, and Menedemos was honest enough with himself to admit it: he did lust after going to Syracuse the same way he lusted after some frisky young wife he'd chanced to see.

"Remember," Sostratos said, "whatever else you do, you're not supposed to risk the ship."

"I don't intend to risk the ship," Menedemos snapped, wishing Sostratos hadn't put it quite that way, "and I'm the one who judges when the ship's being risked and when it isn't. You aren't. Have you got that, O cousin of mine?"

"Yes, I have it." Sostratos looked as if he liked it about as much as a big mouthful of bad fish. He stormed down off the poop deck and up toward the bow. Daft, Menedemos thought. Daft as Aias after he didn't get Akhilleus' armor. Anybody who'd rather deal with peafowl chicks than stand around and talk has to be daft.

The peafowl chicks! Menedemos brightened. "Oë! Sostratos!" he called.

Reluctantly, Sostratos turned back toward him. "What is it?"

"How much do you think young peafowl will bring in Syracuse?"

"I don't know," Sostratos answered. "How much do you think they would bring in Carthage?" Having got the last word, he went on up to the little foredeck.

When Menedemos steered the Aphrodite into the harbor at Rhegion, he anxiously scanned the quays. If things looked no busier than usual, he would have to sail on toward Rhodes. He let out a whoop on seeing a couple of dozen large round ships all tied up together. If that wasn't a fleet in the making, he didn't know what was.

His cousin saw the ships, too, and also knew them for what they were. The look he gave Menedemos was baleful. Menedemos grinned back, which, by Sostratos' expression, only annoyed him more.