Harry Turtledove - Over the Wine-Dark Sea

Once the crew helped chivvy the chicks back into the cages, Sostratos could take a long look at the scenery. Indeed, he had little choice, unless he wanted to find a place to stand and brood. Considering where the Aphrodite was going and what she was liable to face when she got there, that didn't strike him as the worst idea in the world, but he refused to give in to it.

Because the merchant galley couldn't make anything close to her usual speed if she wanted to stay with the fleet of round ships, Sostratos had plenty of time to admire each bit of scenery as it passed. There was a great deal of Mount Aitne to admire. Now that Sostratos had seen both Aitne and Mount Ouesouion from fairly close range, he realized how much more massive the Sicilian volcano was than the one on the mainland of Italy. The soil on its slopes and around its base, though, had the same grayish, ashy look he'd seen near Pompaia. The Sicilian vineyards looked very rich, too, though the fields lay fallow under the hot summer sun.

Slowly, slowly, the fleet sailed past Taruomenion and Naxos and Akion. Sostratos looked longingly at each inviting little harbor, and sighed as the Aphrodite and the round ships crawled past each one. That summer sun seemed to speed across the sky. Before the fleet reached Katane - the largest polis on the east coast of Sicily except for Syracuse - it set behind the island. Anchors splashed into the water as the captains got ready to spend a night at sea.

"Unless I'm wrong, those merchant skippers wish they were tied up at a quay," Sostratos remarked to Menedemos.

"Well, when you get right down to it, so do I," his cousin answered. "If a storm were to blow up all of a sudden, we'd be in trouble, especially when we're heavy with grain."

"A storm, right now, is the least of our worries." To show what he meant, Sostratos pointed south.

Menedemos tossed his head. "A storm is never the least of your worries, not when you're at sea. If you want to worry about the Carthaginians more, I don't suppose I can stop you."

"I wonder how you say, 'Sail ho!' in the Phoenician language," Sostratos said. "Himilkon would know. I wish I were back in the harbor of Rhodes so I could ask him."

"After we deliver the grain and get paid, we'll be going home," Menedemos answered. "You can find out, if you still want to know by then."

He kept his tone light. If he didn't believe everything would go well when the fleet got to Syracuse, he didn't let on. Some of that, no doubt, was to keep the crew from fretting. The rest, Sostratos was convinced, sprang from his cousin's natural self-confidence - or was it arrogance? Menedemos had never yet found himself in a spot from which he couldn't wiggle out, and so seemed convinced he never would.

Sostratos hoped his cousin was right without believing it. That wasn't how things worked. Hoping Menedemos would prove right this particular time seemed a better bet . . . though not a very good one. We'll know tomorrow, Sostratos thought. He wrapped himself in his himation and lay down on the sacks of grain. They were a little more yielding than the planks of the poop deck, if lumpier.

He thought he would worry too much to find sleep, but exhaustion proved stronger. Next thing he knew, Menedemos announced the new day like a rooster. Several sailors let out groans and sleepy curses. Sostratos said, "If I were wearing shoes, I'd throw one at you."

"It's a day worth celebrating," Menedemos said, his voice full of the false heartiness some traders used to sell things that weren't worth buying. "Tonight we'll feast in Syracuse, a polis famed for its feasts wherever Hellenes live."

That made some of the sailors cheer up. It did nothing to raise Sostratos' spirits. For one thing, Syracuse was a city under siege. What kind of feast would the Syracusans be able to make? For another, weren't the Aphrodite's crew and those of the rest of the fleet likelier to make opson for the eels and crabs than to feast off seafood themselves?

But all around the fleet captains were shouting their crews awake, even if none of the others chose to crow. There was Aphrodite's wandering star glowing through the twilight in the east, with the very thinnest sliver of moon not far from it. Were it not for the blazing beacon of the wandering star, Sostratos doubted he would have noticed the moon at all.

Menedemos wasn't worrying about either the moon or Aphrodite's wandering star. Like any captain worthy of the name, he was tasting the wind. "Out of the north, sure enough," he said. "As long as it holds, we can slide right into the northern harbor - the Little Harbor, they call it - at Syracuse."

Well, we could if it weren't for the Carthaginian war galleys, Sostratos thought. They're between us and where we want to go, and with oars driving them they don't care which way the wind blows. Those are the things Menedemos conveniently forgets to mention.

His cousin went right on not mentioning them, too. The crew raised the dripping anchors. They lowered the sail from the yard. The round ships' big sails were coming down, too, and filling with the fine breeze that would waft them in exactly the direction they were mad enough to choose to go.

Again, the Aphrodite felt much more solid, much more stable, in the water than usual. And again, she moved through the water much more slowly than usual. Sostratos went up onto the poop deck. "If we had to," he asked Menedemos, "could we have the men who aren't rowing throw sacks of grain overboard?"

"You mean, to lighten ship if the Carthaginians were chasing us?" Menedemos asked, and Sostratos dipped his head. His cousin shrugged. "We could have them do it. I doubt it would help much."

The answer struck Sostratos as honest if uninspiring. He watched Katane come into view and then disappear behind him. It was a good-sized town, bigger than Messene. He clicked his tongue between his teeth. He still thought it would be a good place to pause for, say, twenty or thirty years. But Menedemos didn't care what he thought, and Menedemos was in command. Sostratos wondered why more soldiers led by a bad general didn't simply run away.

He couldn't run away, not in a ship. Katane was too off away to swim to, and a lot of sailors couldn't swim at all. And Sostratos didn't know Menedemos was a bad captain. He did, however, have a strong opinion about that.

His cousin was doing all the little things he needed to do to succeed. He had sharp-eyed Aristeidas in the bow as lookout. And, some time past noon, Aristeidas called, "Ship ho! Ship ho dead ahead!" He pointed south, toward Syracuse. There was the city on the mainland. There was the small island of Ortygia, a few plethra offshore and also heavily built up. And there, worse luck, was the Carthaginian fleet blockading the Little Harbor north of Ortygia and the Great Harbor south of the island.

Aristeidas had spoken with the precision a good lookout needed: he'd called, Ship ho! and not, Sail ho! The Carthaginian war galleys had their masts down; as warships on active duty did, they moved with oars alone, ready to fight at any moment. Only specks in the distance now, they would look bigger all too soon. Sostratos knew that better than he wanted to.

"What do we do now?" he called to Menedemos.

"Hold our course," his cousin answered. "What else can we do?" Run sprang to Sostratos' mind again. But Menedemos went on, "I still think we've got a pretty good chance of sneaking into the Little Harbor. The Carthaginians will go after the round ships before they bother us."

"And how do you know that, O sage of age?" Sostratos demanded.

"For one thing, all the round ships carry a lot more grain than we do," Menedemos answered with surprising patience. "That's what the Carthaginians want to keep from getting into Syracuse. And, for another, we can fight a little bit, and the round ships can't. Why should the Carthaginians make things harder on themselves than they have to?"