Harry Turtledove - Over the Wine-Dark Sea

"Agreed," the other said. "Some of these round ships hold more than ten times as many sacks as that, you know."

"Every bit helps," Menedemos replied. Onasimos' man dipped his head and went back into Rhegion as his master had before him: to get money, Menedemos hoped.

Diokles said, "I hope the wind stays with us. The men'll break their backs and their hearts rowing with us laden like this, and she'll handle like a raft - if we're lucky, that is."

"If the wind fails, we're not going anywhere, not with all these round ships," Menedemos said. "They have to sail."

"Mm, that's so," the oarmaster agreed. He flashed Menedemos a sassy grin. "In that case, skipper, maybe we ought to hope for south winds for the next three months, so if Syracuse falls, we don't have to come close to all those Carthaginian war galleys, and we pick up a nice pile of silver anyway."

"You sounds like Sostratos," Menedemos said, and Diokles' grin got wider and even more provocative. Menedemos mimed throwing something at him and went on, "I wouldn't mind getting paid for doing nothing, either - who would? But if we don't get to deliver the grain, they'll just take it off and make us cough up the money again."

"If we were proper pirates, we'd sneak out of the harbor if that looked like happening," the keleustes said. "We're a galley, after all. We could do it."

"We could, sure enough." Menedemos wished Diokles hadn't put the idea in his mind. It was tempting. But he had no trouble finding reasons it wouldn't work. "You said it yourself - we'll be slow as a cart-ox with all this grain aboard. And my bet is, Rhegion would send her navy after us if we made off with the grain and the money. This Onasimos fellow looks to pull a lot of weight here."

"Well, so he does," Diokles said. "All right, then. I'd sooner pray for fair winds than foul, anyway."

"So would I," Menedemos said.

Sostratos thought of himself as a modern, rational man. He'd been embarrassed to spend the past couple of days praying for contrary winds. And he'd been embarrassed all over again to have his prayer fail so ignominiously, for a fine breeze blew from the north this morning. So much for the gods, he thought, and a solid point for rationalism.

Menedemos was up before dawn, too, smiling at the sky. He'd probably been praying for fair winds, so his belief in the gods was bound to be vindicated, too. That thought made Sostratos grumpier than ever. But, instead of gloating, Menedemos just pointed to the thin crescent moon rising a little ahead of the sun. "Another month almost done," he said.

"Sure enough." Sostratos peered into the brightening twilight between that little cheese-paring of a moon and the horizon. "And there's Aphrodite's wandering star."

"Why, so it is," Menedemos said. "Sure enough, your eyes aren't so bad if you can pick it out against the bright sky. The sun's almost up."

"I knew where to look," Sostratos answered with a shrug. "It's been sliding down the morning sky toward the sun for weeks now. Before too long, we'll see it in the evening instead. People used to think the evening appearance was a different star from the morning one - the same with Hermes' wandering star."

"What do you mean, used to?" Menedemos said. "Half our sailors probably still believe that."

"I meant educated people," Sostratos said. "The sailors are fine men but . . .." Most of them thought of little save women (or, with a few, boys), wine, and tavern brawls. How does one talk with such people? he wondered.

"I like 'em fine," Menedemos said.

"I know." Sostratos did his best not to make that sound like a judgment. Still and all, what did it say about his cousin's taste?

Menedemos didn't seem to notice Sostratos' tone, which was just as well. He said, "We'll sail today."

"I know." Sostratos knew how unhappy he sounded, too, but he couldn't help it. "Do you think we'll make Syracuse by nightfall?"

"We would, if we weren't so overloaded," his cousin answered. "These fat scows we'll be keeping company with? Not a chance. We'll put in at one of the Sicilian towns tonight, or spend the night at sea, then go on in the morning."

"All right." Sostratos sighed. "One more night to spend worrying."

"Nothing to worry about," Menedemos said. "What could possibly go wrong?"

Sostratos started to answer. Then he started to splutter. And then he started to laugh. "Oh, no, you don't. You're not going to get me to turn purple and pitch a fit. I'm wise to you, Menedemos."

"A likely story," Menedemos said. They grinned at each other. For a moment, Sostratos forgot how much he wished the Aphrodite weren't sailing for Syracuse.

But he couldn't forget for long. All around the harbor, captains were waking up, tasting the breeze, and realizing it would be a good day to sail. They called orders to their crews and to the longshoremen who came down the wharves to cast off their mooring lines and bring them aboard once more. The sailors grunted and heaved at the sweeps even round ships carried, and slowly, a digit at a time, eased the ships away from their berths so they could make sail and head for Sicily.

Seeing their struggles to get started, Sostratos laughed again. "Our rowers may have to work hard, but not that hard."

"You're right." Menedemos waved to a couple of longshoremen. "Over here, too!"

"You're going to take this little thing to Syracuse?" one of the men said as he tossed a line down onto the sacks of grain in the Aphrodite's waist. "Good idea - you can be a boat for all the real ships." He laughed at his own wit.

That sort of remark was as calculated to make Menedemos furious as Menedemos' crack had been to infuriate Sostratos. But Sostratos' cousin only shrugged, saying, "Onasimos likes us well enough to pay us to haul grain." The longshoreman turned away, disappointment on his face. Menedemos raised his voice: "Come on, boys, let's show these round-ship sailors how to row."

Diokles set the stroke. The men - all of them at the oars - pulled as hard as they had in the fight with the Roman trireme. And the Aphrodite . . . moved as if she were traveling through mud, not seawater. Diokles said, "I think this is about as much as we'll get from her, captain."

"Yes, I think you're right," Menedemos agreed. "I'd hoped for a little more, but . . .." He shrugged.

"She feels different in the water," Sostratos said. "More solid, more as if we were on dry land. She doesn't shift so much underfoot."

"I should hope she doesn't," Menedemos said. "She's carrying twice as much as usual, so the waves don't seem to hit her so hard."

"That's true. We've never really felt what she's like fully laden before, have we?" Sostratos said, and Menedemos tossed his head. The merchant galley didn't have to travel full up to hope for profit, as a round ship did. She carried luxury goods, valuable for their rarity, instead of being a bulk hauler. Now Sostratos got a glimpse of what the usual sailor did on a usual voyage, and found he didn't much care for it.

One by one, the round ships lowered their great sails from their yards. One by one, the sails bellied out and filled with wind. The tubby ships began their southward journey, but not at a pace above a walk. The Aphrodite's sail came down, too, and Menedemos called the rowers off the oars. Before very long, he had to order the men to brail up half the sail; otherwise, the akatos would have shot ahead of the other ships in the fleet despite her load.

When Sostratos let some peafowl chicks out of their cages to exercise, they ran around over the leather sacks of grain as happily as they had over the planking. They picked at spilled wheat as happily as they had at the cockroaches and other bugs that normally infested the Aphrodite - not that loading hundreds of sacks of grain onto the vermin had got rid of them.