Harry Turtledove - Owls to Athens

“We’ll go to Kos,” Menedemos said. “Are you happy now? Will you quit nagging me? If I had a wife and she pestered me like that, I’d make her sorry for it.”

“I think it’s a good business decision,” Sostratos said.

“I know you do,” Menedemos answered. “I’m not nearly sure I agree with you, but you win this time. You’re stubborn as a donkey, do you know that?” He looked Sostratos up and down. “The resemblance doesn’t end there, either.”

“Thank you so much, my dear,” Sostratos said. His cousin took no notice of him, but concentrated-most ostentatiously concentrated- on steering the ship. Stung, Sostratos made his way past the grunting, sweating rowers and the rest of the Aphrodite’s crew to the merchant galley’s tiny foredeck. Whenever he stood up there, he thought of the peafowl the Aphrodite had carried west to Great Hellas three years before. They’d made good money on the birds from rich Italiote Hellenes, and from a richer Samnite visiting Taras who’d bought the peacock. They’d made good money, yes, but Sostratos hoped he never saw another peafowl as long as he lived.

He also thought of Aristeidas, who’d spent so much time up here doing lookout duty. But the sharp-eyed sailor’s bones lay in Ioudaia. Sostratos pounded a fist down on the rail. The robbers there could easily have killed him, too.

Like most of the cities of southwestern Anatolia, Knidos was nominally free and autonomous. Also like most of them, it held a garrison of Antigonos’ soldiers. A couple of war galleys-big, beamy fives, full of rowers and marines-patrolled in front of the harbor. Sostratos wondered if one of them would come rushing out to investigate the Aphrodite . He wouldn’t have been surprised. Antigonos’ men were no less arrogant than those who followed Ptolemaios or Kassandros or Lysimakhos or, he supposed, Seleukos. The Macedonian marshals ruled the civilized world. Poleis like Rhodes, poleis that really were free and autonomous, were few and far between nowadays.

To Sostratos’ relief, the fives kept prowling back and forth, back and forth. He didn’t think one of their skippers would have been highhanded enough to plunder the Aphrodite . That would have offended Rhodes. He didn’t think so, but he was just as well pleased not to have to find out.

Also to his relief, the wind blew more from the east than from the north as the merchant galley made her way up through the channel between the mainland and the little island of Nisyros to the west. Menedemos kept eight men on each side at the oars to help the sail propel the ship through the water. Had the wind turned against the Aphrodite , he would have had to raise the sail to the yard and put more men on the oars to make any decent headway: either that or tack like a round ship, and almost as slowly as a round ship would have.

I wish there were a way to get closer to the wind than a square sail can, Sostratos thought. After a moment, though, he shrugged. He’d sailed from Sicily to Phoenicia, and he’d never seen any other kind of rig. That was all too likely to mean no other kind was practical. He tried to imagine a different way to mount a sail, tried and felt himself failing.

Kos climbed up out of the sea ahead. Menedemos pointed to some tumbledown ruins on the southwestern coast. “I wish Astypalaia were still the Koans’ main town,” he said. “We’d be almost there already.”

“I wouldn’t want to live in what was left of a polis after a Spartan sack and an earthquake,” Sostratos said. “The town they have now is better situated all the way around-it looks right across the channel to Halikarnassos. And it’s laid out in a sensible grid like Rhodes, so a stranger has some chance of finding his way around. The streets in the old city were probably tracks that wandered wherever they wanted.”

“Every word you say is true, my dear,” Menedemos replied. “But Astypalaia’s right here in front of our noses, and we’ve still got some traveling to do before we get to the polis of Kos.”

Ptolemaios’ galleys prowled in front of Kos. Antigonos’ warships patrolled in front of Halikarnassos. Sostratos supposed they clashed every so often. At the moment, they were leaving one another alone, for which he was duly grateful.

The sun was just setting as the Aphrodite came to the harbor. Before the akatos could enter, one of Ptolemaios’ fives hurried up to look her over. The war galley’s banners displayed the eagle of the lord of Egypt. “Heave to!” an officer at the bow shouted.

“Oop!” Diokles called to the rowers, and they rested at their oars.

“What ship are you?” the officer demanded. “Where are you from, what are you carrying, and where are you bound?”

“We’re the Aphrodite , out of Rhodes and bound for Athens,” Sostratos answered. The war galley’s flank loomed up out of the water like a wooden wall. She had twice the freeboard of the akatos; her deck stood six or seven cubits above the surface of the sea. A ripe stench wafted out of her oarports. She had two rowers on each thranite and zygite oar, a single man on each bottommost, or thalamite, oar. All the rowers were enclosed under the decking that held marines and kept missiles from striking home. It had to be like an oven in there. Sostratos wondered how often they swabbed out the bilges. Not often enough, by the stink.

“A Rhodian, eh?” the officer said. “What firm?”

“That of Philodemos and Lysistratos,” Sostratos said.

The officer turned his head and spoke to some of the men behind him. One of them must have vouched for the firm’s existence, for he grunted and asked, “What’s your cargo?”

“Crimson dye, ink and papyrus, beeswax, embroidered linen, Rhodian rose perfume…” Sostratos replied, thinking, And no olive oil, gods be praised.

“All right. Pass on, Rhodian,” the officer on the war galley said. “You know, you look like a pirate at first glance.”

“Really?” Sostratos raised an astonished eyebrow. “No one’s ever told me that before.” Behind him, half a dozen sailors snickered and snorted. Ptolemaios’ officer scratched his head, as if wondering whether the Rhodian was making sport of him. Too late, Sostratos realized he should have swallowed his sarcasm. Diokles smote the bronze square. The rowers bent their backs. The Aphrodite slid toward the harbor. After a long, worrying moment of sitting quiet in the water, the war galley resumed its patrol.

“Come back here a moment, O best one, if you’d be so kind,” Menedemos called from the poop deck. Sostratos came. He came with all the eagerness of a small boy summoned to a whipping by his father, and for the same reason. But all Menedemos said was, “You’d do better not to crack wise when that fellow’s ship could sink us without even noticing she’d done it.”

“Yes, my dear,” Sostratos said meekly. Still, he couldn’t help adding, “I’m not the only one who’s ever done such a thing, you know.”

“Are you talking about me}” Menedemos demanded in disbelieving tones.

That was too much. “Yes, by the dog, I am talking about you,” Sostratos said.

Menedemos reached out and poked him in the ribs. He jumped and squawked. Menedemos laughed. “Got you!” he said. “Got you twice, in fact. I know I’ve let my tongue run freer than it might have every now and again. That still doesn’t mean it’s a good idea, whether I do it or you do.”

“By the dog,” Sostratos said again, this time in an altogether different tone of voice. “Maybe you’re growing up.”

His cousin looked aggrieved. “Is that a nice thing to tell someone?”