Harry Turtledove - Owls to Athens

“If I ever get the chance,” Menedemos repeated. He spat an olive pit into the bay. From the shore came the noise of raucous song. He grinned. “Sounds like the men are having a good time. I hope Syme’s still standing in the morning, what there is of it.”

“It should be,” Sostratos said. “They were in Rhodes yesterday, and they only just put to sea. They shouldn’t have that urge to tear places to pieces-it’s too early in the voyage.”

The crash that followed on the heels of his words could only have been an amphora shattering. Menedemos sighed and said, “Let’s hope nobody broke that over anybody’s head.” He got out his himation. Sailors prided themselves in going about in nothing but a chiton regardless of the weather, but a mantle also made a good blanket. He wrapped himself in the rectangle of thick woolen cloth and lay down on the poop deck.

Sostratos did the same. As he twisted and turned, trying to get comfortable, he said, “We’ve been sleeping in beds all winter long. Bare planks aren’t so comfortable any more.”

“It’s not too bad,” Menedemos said, cradling his head in his arms. “If it were raining, now…” He yawned. He wasn’t really that sleepy; he was trying to convince himself as well as Sostratos. It must have worked, for the next thing he knew the eastern horizon glowed pink and gold. He yawned and stretched. Something in his back crackled. He got to his feet.

Sostratos still lay there snoring. Given the chance, he usually slept later than Menedemos. He didn’t get the chance today-Menedemos stirred him with his foot. Sostratos’ eyes flew open. “What was that for?” he asked blurrily.

“Time to get up. Time to get going,” Menedemos answered. When he was awake, he was awake. “We’ve got a full day’s sailing ahead of us.” Sostratos groaned and pulled the himation up over his head. Menedemos stirred him again, less gently this time. He drew another groan from his cousin, who emerged from the mantle like a tortoise poking its nose out of its shell. “Come on, my dear,” Menedemos said cheerfully. “Like it or not, rosy-fingered dawn has found us.”

Like an old, old man, Sostratos stood up. “I don’t like it,” he said.

Watered wine and barley rolls dipped in olive oil helped reconcile Sostratos to being awake. At Diokles’ command, the rowers backed oars. They pulled hard, as if eager to get the Aphrodite away from Syme as soon as they could. None of them had a bandaged head, so Sostratos supposed that amphora the evening before hadn’t fractured a skull.

“Let’s get in a little practice,” Menedemos said. “At the oarmaster’s command-starboard oars hold the backstroke, port oars forward.”

“Port oars… forward!” Diokles bawled. The rowers obeyed quite smoothly. The Aphrodite spun, turning almost in her own length. When her bow pointed north, out to sea, the keleustes called, “Both sides… forward!” The akatos sped away.

Sostratos spent the first couple of hours of the day’s sailing arguing with Menedemos. “Why do you want to stop at Knidos?” he asked.

“Uh, to trade?” When Menedemos sounded most reasonable, he also sounded most annoying. So it seemed to Sostratos, anyhow.

“Very well, O best one: to trade. And what will they have in Knidos to trade?” Sostratos never stopped to wonder if, when he sounded most like Sokrates, he also sounded most annoying.

“Well, the usual run of things they have there,” Menedemos replied.

“Exactly-the usual run of things,” Sostratos agreed. “If we were going somewhere besides Athens, that might be good enough. But since we are bound for Athens, why waste the time at Knidos? Why not head straight for Kos? Koan silk is special enough to do well anywhere. The rich Athenians will like it, and so will the Macedonian officers in Kassandros’ garrison.”

“Koan silk isn’t so special as we thought it was,” Menedemos said.

“That stuff I got in Sidon last summer, that stuff from out of the east, puts it in the shade. I didn’t think even the gods could weave cloth like that.”

“Neither did I,” Sostratos admitted. “But the trader had only that little bit of it, and we got a good price for it from Ptolemaios’ brother, Menelaos. As far as the Athenians are concerned, Koan silk is the best there is. And so, we ought to stop at Kos.”

“Why not Knidos and Kos?” Menedemos asked.

“Because we probably won’t find anything in Knidos that’s worth taking to Athens. And because, if we stop at every ordinary polis between here and Athens, we’ll never get there in time for the Greater Dionysia.”

His cousin took his right hand off the steering-oar tiller and wagged a finger at him. “That’s the real reason you want to hurry. You hardly care about trade at all. What kind of merchant does that make you?”

“One who likes drama,” Sostratos said. “Don’t you?”

“Of course I do, but I like profit more,” Menedemos said.

“So do I,” Sostratos said. “And I’m telling you there’s not enough profit in Knidos to make stopping there worth our while.”

“I’m the captain, by the dog of Egypt,” Menedemos said. “If I want to stop at Knidos, I cursed well will.”

“I’m the toikharkhos,” Sostratos retorted. “If you won’t listen to me when it comes to cargo and money, why bring me along? “

They went round and round and back and forth. They did it in a low voice, neither showing too much excitement, for neither wanted the crew to know how seriously they disagreed. Every so often, Menedemos would break off to steer the ship or call an order to the men handling the sail. Then he would turn back to Sostratos and start up again. When he said, “I’m the captain,” for the fourth time, Sostratos really did lose his temper.

“Yes, you’re the captain. Euge! for you,” he said. “But what’s the rest of the crew supposed to do when the captain is an idiot?”

“Don’t tell me how to sail the ship,” Menedemos snapped.

“I’m not. I’m trying to tell you where to sail her, which is a different matter altogether. Where has to do with what we buy and sell, and that’s my business. Let me ask it another way: can we make Kos by sundown if this wind holds?”

Menedemos looked as if he wanted to say no. He wanted to, but he couldn’t. Sostratos would know he was lying. They could make Kos even if the wind died, but that would strain the rowers. Sostratos could see why Menedemos wouldn’t want to make them work too hard on the second day out from Rhodes.

“Perhaps you’d sooner go to Halikarnassos-the strait between Kos and mainland isn’t even close to a hundred stadia wide,” Sostratos said sweetly.

His cousin gave him a harried look, and muttered, “Oh, shut up.” Thanks to his affair with that prominent citizen’s wife, he couldn’t set foot in Halikarnassos without the risk-the likelihood-of getting killed. After a moment, though, he glared at Sostratos. “Maybe the fellow got killed in Ptolemaios’ siege summer before last.”

“Yes, O marvelous one, maybe he did,” Sostratos said. “On the other hand, maybe he didn’t. Do you care to take the chance?”

For a moment, he wondered if he’d made a mistake. Menedemos took an appalling number of chances, and enjoyed doing it. Here, though, he tossed his head, which only proved how serious the prominent Halikarnassian had been about sending him across the Styx. He glanced longingly in the direction of Knidos, which lay dead ahead, but then pulled the steering-oar tiller in his left hand a little toward him and pushed the steering-oar tiller in his right away from him. The Aphrodite swung slightly to port, so she would skirt the peninsula at whose tip Knidos sat.