Harry Turtledove - Over the Wine-Dark Sea

And you're just as stubborn as your father, and you won't yield to him even by a barleycorn's breadth. One more thing Sostratos thought it better not to say. He did say, "Whether the two of you argue or not, he'll be glad to see you. We've come back safe, we only lost one man, and we made money. What more could he ask?"

"More money, of course," Menedemos replied.

"Oh, foof!" Sostratos said. "Once we get into port, the family will throw a celebration the polis will buzz about all through the winter. Your father wouldn't do that if he didn't care about you, and you know it. My mother and sister will be green with envy because they aren't men and won't be able to come."

"Maybe." Menedemos did his best not to sound convinced. "I wonder if my father's second wife will even care."

"Of course she will," Sostratos said. "Baukis is young - I remember that from the wedding, though I doubt I've seen her since, naturally. She'll want something she can gossip about with her friends."

"Maybe," Menedemos said again. He turned away from Sostratos, plainly not wanting to discuss it further. Sostratos wondered if he was angry at his father for remarrying after his mother died. If Uncle Philodemos had a son by his new wife, that would complicate the family inheritance.

As the Aphrodite neared Rhodes, the island stretched across more and more of the horizon. "The vines look good," Sostratos said, even though he was too far away to make any real guess about how they looked. It let him talk about something besides the family, which Menedemos plainly didn't want to do. Trying his best to come up with the light chat that his cousin managed as if by nature, he went on, "Not that we'd ever get sixty drakhmai the amphora if we shipped Rhodian to Great Hellas."

"No," Menedemos said, and made a production out of steering the akatos. So much for light chatter, Sostratos thought mournfully.

The fishing boats that bobbed in the blue, blue Aegean didn't flee when their skippers spotted the Aphrodite - most of them didn't, anyhow. The fishermen knew few pirates dared venture into the well-patrolled waters near their island. "We can certainly be proud of our fleet," Sostratos offered.

"Yes. Certainly." Again, Menedemos spoke as if he were being charged for every word he uttered. Sostratos gave up until the merchant galley rounded Rhodes' northernmost promontory, passed the fleet's harbor, and sailed into the sheltered waters of the Great Harbor, from which it had set out that spring.

"It is good to be back," he said then.

"Well, so it is," Menedemos admitted - something of a relief to Sostratos, who'd begun to wonder if his cousin ever intended to speak more than a couple of words to him. Menedemos wasn't shy about talking to the rowers, of whom he had ten on a side at the oars: "Come on, boys - make it pretty. The whole polis will be watching you, and there's not a Rhodian man breathing who doesn't know what to do with an oar in his hands."

Thus encouraged, the rowers showed what a well beaten-in crew could managed, following the stroke Diokles set with perfect precision as Menedemos guided the Aphrodite to an open berth. "Back oars!" the keleustes called, and the men did that as smoothly as everything else. As soon as they'd killed the merchant galley's momentum, he called, "Oöp!" and they rested at their oars.

Sailors heaved lines to men on the wharf, who made the akatos fast. Sostratos tossed an obolos to each roustabout, and another little silver coin to a fellow to whom he said, "Hail, Letodoros. Run to the houses of Lysistratos and Philodemos and let them know the Aphrodite's home and safe. They'll have something more for you there, I expect."

"Thanks, best one. I'll do that." Letodoros popped the obolos into his mouth and went off at a ground-eating trot.

"Won't be long now," Sostratos said to Menedemos.

"So it won't." His cousin still stood between the steering oars, as he had throughout the voyage. Menedemos drummed the fingers of his right hand on the starboard tiller. "It won't be so bad," he said, as if trying to make himself believe it. "We did make a profit, after all, and a good one. Nobody can deny that."

"Nobody will even try to deny it," Sostratos said. "You'll see. And you're the one who claims I worry too much."

Menedemos fidgeted while they waited for their fathers to come down to the harbor. Sostratos paid the sailors what he owed them since he'd last given each of them silver, and wrote down the payments so no one could say he hadn't got his due. Watching Menedemos, he thought, I wouldn't twitch like a man with fleas even if I didn't have anything to do. I might feel like it, but I wouldn't do it.

After he paid off Diokles, he clasped the keleustes' hand and told him, "I hope you'll sail with us again next spring."

"I hope so, too, young sir," the oarmaster answered. "Never a dull moment, was there?"

"Too few of them, anyway," Sostratos said, which made Diokles laugh.

"Oh, by the gods," Menedemos said softly. "Here comes Father." He'd attacked a Roman trireme with no visible trace of fear, but quivered to see a middle-aged man approach the Aphrodite.

Sostratos waved. "Hail, Uncle Philodemos," he called. "We've come back with every man we started out with but one, and with a tidy profit."

"What happened to the one man?" Philodemos rapped out. He aimed the question not at Sostratos but at his own son.

"Hail, Father," Menedemos said. "He died of an arrow wound he took in a sea fight."

"Pirates?" Philodemos asked. "The Italian waters are lousy with 'em. Polluted bastards all ought to go up on crosses." His right hand folded into an angry fist.

"Yes, sir," Menedemos agreed. "But this wasn't a fight with pirates. The Romans sent a fleet of triremes to raid a Samnite town called Pompaia just as we were sailing away from it, and one of the triremes took after us."

Philodemos raised an eyebrow. "And you got away from it? That must have taken some fine sailing. I wasn't sure you had it in you."

Menedemos grappled with that, trying to decide whether it came out a compliment. Sostratos spoke up before his cousin could: "We didn't get away from it, Uncle. We wrecked it - used our hull to break its starboard oars. After we crippled it, then we got away."

"Really?" Philodemos said. Not only Sostratos and Menedemos but also a good many sailors amplified the story. Menedemos' father stroked his chin. "That does sound like a smart piece of work," he allowed.

"There," Sostratos hissed. "You see?" But Menedemos ignored him.

He was miffed, but only for a moment, for he saw his own father coming down the wharf toward the Aphrodite. He waved again. Lysistratos waved back. "Hail, son," he said. "Good to see you again. How did everything go?"

Uncle Philodemos didn't say it was good to see Menedemos, went through Sostratos' mind. He may have thought it, but he didn't say it. "Hail," he answered. "We're here. We made money. And we got rid of all the peafowl and all of their chicks." Relentless honesty made him add, "Well, almost all the peafowl. One peahen jumped into the sea. That was my fault."

"Many good-byes to them," Menedemos said. "They're gods-detested birds, no matter how pretty the peacock was. The Italiotes and barbarians who bought them are welcome to them, believe you me they are."

"They did make nuisances of themselves in our courtyards, didn't they?" Lysistratos said. "But I'm sure the two of you will be glad to come home and sleep in your own beds again. That was always one of the things I liked best about getting back from a trading run, anyhow."

"I don't know, Father," Sostratos said. "I've spent so much time on the planks of the poop deck, the mattress will probably feel strange the first few days. And then there was the night on the sacks of wheat when we were going down to Syracuse."