Harry Turtledove - Owls to Athens

“That’s not proof-it’s only assertion,” Sostratos said.

“You want proof, find a friendly girl on Mytilene,” Menedemos answered. “She’ll measure the hypotenuse on your triangle. See, I remember some geometry after all.”

He and Diokles both found the joke very funny. For some reason Sostratos couldn’t fathom, he did, too. He tried to think rationally about a pretty girl from a brothel drawing triangles in the sand and talking in learned tones about the theory the godlike Pythagoras had proved-and the harder he tried, the harder he laughed.

“You’re absurd,” he told his cousin.

“Thank you,” Menedemos answered, which for some reason made them both laugh more than ever. At last, Menedemos said, “On to Lesbos, then.”

“On to Lesbos,” Sostratos agreed. After a while, he asked, “What are truffles supposed to cost? Have you got any idea?”

Menedemos tossed his head. “Whatever we have to pay, we charge more in Athens, that’s all. So far as I know, they don’t grow truffles there, so they’ll pay.”

“Well, yes, certainly,” Sostratos said. “But I’ve never traded for them before. I’d like to have some idea of how to tell good ones from bad, and how much I ought to pay for each grade. The more I know beforehand, the better the bargains I can hope to make.”

“Ask at some of our stops on the way up to Mytilene,” Menedemos suggested. “The closer we get to Lesbos, the more likely the merchants in the market squares are to have dealt in ‘em.”

“That makes good sense,” Sostratos said. “Yes, that makes very good sense. How did you come up with it?”

“Talent,” Menedemos said airily. “Pure talent.”

Few things irked Sostratos more than having his cousin refuse to rise to one of his gibes. “There must be a rational explanation instead,” he said.

Menedemos blew him a kiss. “You’re so sweet,” he purred. “Sweet as vinegar.”

“Oh, lesbiaze,” Sostratos said. The verb, derived from the alleged proclivity of Lesbian women for such things, set him and Menedemos- and Diokles, and some of the rowers, too-laughing all over again.

Menedemos steered the Aphrodite toward the harbor at Mytilene. Part of the polis sat on a little island in the middle of the harbor. The rest lay on Lesbos proper, to the north of the islet. A modern wall of gray stone protected the portion of Mytilene on the Lesbian mainland. Like Rhodes, that part of the city was built on a grid; a glance told Menedemos the streets on the little island, the older part of Mytilene, ran every which way.

“I keep waiting for a war galley to come boiling out and ask what we’re doing here,” Sostratos said.

“That happened at Samos, but not at Khios,” Menedemos said. “My guess is, we’re far enough inside Antigonos’ dominions that people don’t worry so much about a lone galley.”

“People in Antigonos’ dominions don’t worry so much about whether we’re pirates, either,” Sostratos said. “They might want to hire us if we turn out to be raiders, but they don’t care about sinking us.”

“From everything I’ve seen and heard, old One-Eye cares about himself first, last, and always, and to the crows with everything else,” Menedemos said. “If he can get some use out of pirates, he’s all for them. If he can’t, he doesn’t worry one way or the other.”

Diokles pointed to a quay not far from the bridge joining the old part of Mytilene to the new. “There’s a good place to tie up, skipper,” he said.

“Yes, I see it,” Menedemos agreed, and swung the merchant galley slightly to port. He eased her up alongside the jutting pier, then dipped his head to the oarmaster.

“Back oars!” Diokles called. A couple of strokes killed the bit of forward momentum the Aphrodite had left. The keleustes grunted in satisfaction. “Oцp!” he said, and the rowers rested. “Ship oars!” he added. As they obeyed, sailors tossed lines to waiting longshoremen, who made the akatos fast to the pier.

“What vessel? What cargo?” asked one of the men on the quay. In Aiolic fashion, he put the accent on each word as far forward as it could possibly go.

“We’re the Aphrodite , out of Rhodes,” Menedemos answered. His Doric drawl seemed even more foreign here than it did in the Ionic-speaking towns the merchant galley had visited on her way north. “We’ve got Rhodian perfume, papyrus and ink, Koan silk, crimson dye and beeswax and balsam and embroidered linen from Phoenicia- things of that sort.”

“And what are you looking for here?” the local asked.

“Wine, of course,” Menedemos said, and the fellow dipped his head.

Sostratos added, “And truffles. Can you give us the names of a couple of dealers?”

The Mytilenean looked elaborately blank. “By the gods, Hellenes are a greedy folk,” Sostratos muttered. He took an obolos out of his mouth and tossed it to the longshoreman.

As soon as the fellow caught it, his manner changed. “I can give you one sip right now,” he said. A sip? Menedemos wondered, and then remembered that Aiolic used s instead of t in front of i. The longshoreman went on, “And that’s steer clear of Apollonides. He adulterates what he sells.”

“Thanks, friend,” Sostratos said. “Knowing whom to stay away from is as important as knowing whom to go to.”

“Try Onetor,” the local suggested, “and after him Neon. Onetor’s brother, Onesimos, sells wine. Neon and Onetor are both honest, more or less, but Onetor is more likely to have the best truffles than Neon is.”

Now Menedemos gave him an obolos. The longshoreman was effusive in his thanks. In a low voice, Sostratos said, “We’ll do some more checking before we deal. This fellow may not know what he’s talking about, or else he may be Onetor’s cousin, or Neon’s, and get a cut of whatever business he brings in.”

“I know that,” Menedemos answered, also quietly. “We’ll ask around in the agora. Still, we’ve got a place to start.”

Like sparrows scattering when a jay fluttered down to peck at seeds, the longshoremen drew back as a swaggering soldier in a swirling red cape strode up the quay toward the Aphrodite . He was wide through the shoulders, at least as tall as Sostratos, and looked taller because of the crested and brightly polished bronze helm he wore. His eyes were gray; his close-cut beard had big red streaks in it. When he spoke, the Macedonian that poured from his lips made Aiolic dialect seem straightforward by comparison.

Menedemos stood there dumbfounded, wondering how to tell him he was speaking gibberish. Sostratos undertook the job: “I’m very sorry, O best one, and I do not mean to offend you, but I cannot follow what you say.” He made his own speech as Attic as he could: that was the dialect people who learned Greek were most likely to follow, and to use.

After an incomprehensible Macedonian oath, the soldier tried again. This time, he managed intelligible Greek, asking, “What ship be ye here? Where be ye from? What might ye carry?” Menedemos told him. He followed Doric Greek about as well as Sostratos’ almost-Attic, and asked another question: “Whither be ye bound?”

“Athens.” Sostratos spoke before Menedemos could. By the way his tongue caressed the city’s name, he longed for it as Menedemos might have longed for one of the women who lived there.

“Athens, eh?” The Macedonian dipped his head, smiling a little, and said something more in his native speech. He turned and marched down the pier, his rawhide boots thudding on the sun-baked, bird-splashed planks.

“What was that last bit?” Menedemos asked Sostratos.

“It sounded like, ‘Maybe I’ll see you there,’ “ his cousin answered.