Over the Wine-Dark Sea

by Harry Turtledove

  The thought of having to explain things to his father made Menedemos spit into the bosom of his tunic. He said, "I'm sure you want me to tell you for my own good, not for yours." Sostratos looked innocent. He looked so innocent, Menedemos burst out laughing. "The other reason I don't want to stop at Korkyra is, it's about the most dismal place in the world."

  "Not surprising, after all the wars it's lost," Sostratos said. "And it was the place where the Peloponnesian War began, and that ruined all of Hellas. But Korkyra's free and independent nowadays." He raised that eyebrow again - more irony.

  "Yes, Korkyra is free and independent, all right." Menedemos raised an eyebrow, too, and quoted a proverbial verse: " 'Korkyra is free - shit wherever you want.' "

  His cousin snorted. "Well, all right. Maybe it's just as well you didn't go up the coast. You would have recited that in a tavern after you'd had some wine, and got yourself knifed."

  Since he was probably right, Menedemos didn't argue with him. Instead, he said, "I just wish the wind weren't right in our teeth. We'll have to row all the way. But it always comes out of the northwest hereabouts during sailing season."

  With the passengers aboard, and with the peafowl cages taking up much of the foredeck, the poop deck was more crowded than usual. Philippos said, "You'll put right into the harbor at Taras, won't you?"

  Menedemos didn't laugh out loud. Neither did Sostratos. But Diokles did, and so did Alexidamos and Rhoikos. They knew what an inexact art navigation was. Turning to his fellow mercenary, Rhoikos spoke in his broad Doric drawl: "Don't sail a whole lot, you tell me?"

  "What's that got to do with anything?" Philippos asked.

  At that, Menedemos did laugh. He couldn't help himself. He wasn't the only one, either. He said, "Best one, I'm sailing northwest. I'm keeping my course as true as I know how. And if the weather holds, we'll make the Italian coast within a couple of hundred stadia of Taras either way, and then sail along it to the city. If the weather doesn't hold . . ." He shrugged. He didn't want to talk about that, or even to think about it.

  Philippos looked as astonished as a young boy might on first learning where babies come from. In tones that said he had trouble believing what he'd just heard, he asked, "But why can't you get right where you're going?"

  Patiently, biting down on new laughter, Menedemos answered, "We'll be out of sight of land pretty soon. Once we are, what have we got to go on? The sun - the stars at night - the wind and the waves. That's all. I haven't got a magic pointer to tell me which way north is. I wish I did, but Hephaistos has never shown anybody how to make such a thing."

  "If I'd known that, I'd've stayed at Tainaron till I found a general who'd march me off to his army," the unhappy mercenary said.

  "You're welcome to go back," Menedemos said. Philippos brightened, but only till he added, "Provided you can swim that far."

  "Perhaps the dolphins would carry him, as they did Arion," Sostratos said helpfully.

  "You're making fun of me," Philippos said, which was true. He pushed by Menedemos to the Aphrodite's stern. There he stood, staring out past the sternpost toward Zakynthos, which steadily dwindled in the southeast and finally vanished below the horizon. Philippos kept staring anyhow.

  Menedemos fancied himself Prometheus rather than Epimetheus: he looked ahead, not behind. Fluffy white clouds drifted across the sky from north to south. The sea was low; the Aphrodite pitched a little because she headed straight into the swells, but the motion wasn't enough to make even a lubber like Philippos lean out over the rail.

  In a low voice, Menedemos asked Diokles, "Do you think the weather will hold for the crossing?"

  The oarmaster shrugged. "You'd do better asking the gods than me. We've got a pretty fair chance, I think - couldn't hardly ask for anything better than we've got right now. But it's still early in the sailing season, too."

  "Would you head up to Korkyra?" Menedemos asked. "We could still swing back in that direction."

  Diokles shrugged again. "If a blow comes, odds are we'd be at sea either which way. And we're a lot less likely to run into pirates cutting across - you're dead right about that, skipper. Six oboloi one way, a drakhma the other. You don't go to sea unless you're ready to take a chance now and then."

  "That's true enough." Menedemos was about to say more when a yelp from the foredeck distracted him. Alexidamos stood there with a finger in his mouth. Menedemos raised his voice so it would carry. "Leave the peafowl alone, or you'll be sorry."

  "I'm sorry already." Alexidamos inspected his wounded digit. "I didn't realize the polluted things could peck like that. I'm bleeding."

  "Bandage yourself up, or get a sailor to do it for you." Menedemos showed no sympathy. No matter how much Alexidamos had paid, each peafowl was worth more. "You're lucky you won't have to face your foes nine-fingered from here on out."

  "I'd have gone to law with you in that case," Alexidamos said.

  "Go right ahead," Menedemos said cheerfully. "You're meddling with my cargo, and I've got the whole crew as witnesses." Alexidamos sent him a sour stare. Menedemos stared back. If the mercenary thought he could intimidate him on his own ship, he was daft. Maybe I should have let that Diotimos have him, in spite of getting three fares out of him, Menedemos thought. He's nothing but trouble.

  But then Menedemos shrugged. Any passenger who made too much trouble aboard ship might unfortunately fail to reach his destination.

  Diokles was thinking along with him. "Be a real pity if that fellow fell overboard, wouldn't it?" he murmured. "My heart would just break."

  "Can't do that unless he really earns it," Menedemos answered. "Otherwise, the rowers start blabbing in taverns, and after a while nobody wants to go to sea with you."

  "I suppose so," the oarmaster said. "If I had to guess, though, I'd say nobody would miss that chap much."

  "Don't tempt me, Diokles, because I wouldn't miss him at all," Menedemos said. The keleustes laughed and dipped his head.

  Menedemos kept twenty men on the oars, changing shifts every couple of hours to keep all the rowers fairly fresh. By the time the sun set ahead of them, they might have been alone on the sea. The bow anchors went into the water with twin splashes. The rowers ate bread and olives and cheese and drank wine. So did the mercenaries. "Are we really going to be several days at sea?" Alexidamos asked. "I fear I didn't bring enough in the way of victuals. Shall I hang a fishing line over the side?"

  Yes, or else starve, Menedemos thought. But Sostratos said, "We'll sell you rations from the crew's supplies, at four oboloi a day."

  "Still charging me triple, are you?" Alexidamos said with a nasty smile.

  "Passengers are supposed to bring their own victuals - everyone knows that. If you don't . . ." Sostratos shrugged. "Whose fault is it?"

  "I had to leave Tainaron in rather a hurry," Alexidamos pointed out.

  Sostratos shrugged again. "And whose fault is that?" he answered, perfectly polite, perfectly deadpan. Alexidamos took a moment to realize he'd been skewered. When he did, he snarled a curse and let a hand fall to the hilt of his sword.

  "Remember where you are, friend," Menedemos said. He wondered if he would have to say something more than that, if the mercenary from Rhodes was too dense to take a hint. But Alexidamos looked around and saw not a single friendly face anywhere. He also saw not a speck of land anywhere on the horizon. His hand jerked away from the sword as if the hilt were hot.

  Menedemos sent Kallikrates and Philippos up to sleep on the foredeck; they'd shown no signs of causing trouble. With the other two mercenaries sharing the poop with him and Sostratos and Diokles, it was crowded. Even so, they all had room to stretch out. The rowers at their benches had to lean up against the ship's planking to steady themselves as they slept.

  When Menedemos woke the next morning, the swells were bigger than they had been. The breeze had freshened, and brought more clouds out of the north with it. The sunrise was redder than he would have liked to see, too.

  "We may be headin
g into a blow," he said to Diokles, hoping the oarmaster would tell him he was wrong.

  But Diokles dipped his head. "Looks that way to me, too, skipper. One thing: no lee shore to be washed up on. We've got a good many stadia between us and the nearest land. If we ride it out, we're fine."

  "Let's batten things down," Menedemos said. "We'd better do it, and then hope we don't need to." Rather to his dismay, Diokles dipped his head again.

  When he gave the order, the sailors who weren't rowing hurried to obey. He drew the obvious conclusion from that: they thought a storm was coming, too. "Make sure the peafowl cages are well lashed down," Sostratos called. "We can't afford to lose any of the birds over the side." By the time the men were done with them, a spider-web of lines secured them to the ship.

  Philippos came up to Menedemos. "Is it . . . going to blow?" the mercenary asked nervously.

  "Only cloud-gathering Zeus knows for certain," Menedemos answered, watching large, dark clouds gather in the north and spread across the sky. "We don't want to take any chances, though." Philippos dipped his head and went away. Menedemos didn't know how reassuring he'd been, but he didn't have a lot of reassurance to offer. The other mercenaries asked him no questions. They could see for themselves what was likely to happen.

  "This is what's wrong with sailing in the Ionian Sea," Diokles said. "A storm will start building at the top of the Adriatic and just blow all the way down."

  "How bad do you think it will be?" Menedemos asked: the oarmaster had been going to sea about as long as he'd been alive, and he valued Diokles' experience. Only after the question passed the barrier of his teeth did he wonder if he wasn't looking for some reassurance himself.

  Diokles shrugged. "We'll find out. I've seen skies I liked more, but you can't always tell ahead of time, either."

  The wind kept freshening, and shifted till it came straight out of the north. It was a chilly wind, as if, wherever it had started from, winter hadn't yet decided to give way to spring. The waves built, and struck with greater force now that they weren't quite head-on. The akatos yawed a little at each impact. Kallikrates clapped a hand to his mouth and dashed for the rail. Menedemos' smile wasn't pleasant. It would get worse before it got better. He could see that.

  Rain began falling about an hour later. By then, all the sky save a blue strip in the south was the dirty gray of a sheep's back. That last reminder of good weather vanished a moment later. The rain, blowing into Menedemos' face, was cold and nasty. He did his best to keep the Aphrodite headed northwest, but without the sun to steer by he had much less idea how good his best was.

  Thinking along with him once more, Diokles said, "Navigation's gone to Tartaros, hasn't it?"

  "You might say so." But Menedemos did his best to sound cheerful: "Italy's a big place. We probably won't miss it."

  The keleustes rewarded him with a chuckle. "That's good, captain. I'll tell you what I wouldn't miss right now: I wouldn't miss being in port."

  "If sailing were easy all the time, any fool could do it." Menedemos relished the tossing timbers under his feet, the resistance the sea gave the steering oars. He particularly relished those steering oars. Once again, he discovered what fine work Khremes and the other carpenters had done. He was able to keep the Aphrodite on the course he wanted - the course he thought he wanted, judged by shifting wind and wave - with far less effort than he would have needed before the repair.

  Off in the distance, a purple spear of lightning stabbed from sky to sea. Diokles rubbed the ring with the image of Herakles Alexikakos as thunder rumbled through the hiss and splash of the rain. Menedemos wished he had a ring, too. Lightning could so easily wreck a ship, and ships seemed to draw it.

  Another flash, this one brighter. Another peal of thunder, this one louder. Menedemos did his best to put them out of his mind. He couldn't do anything about them. The waves slapped the akatos' flank harder and harder. After a while, seawater started splashing over the gunwale.

  "I wish we had more freeboard," Menedemos said. "That five of Ptolemaios' can ride out seas that'd swamp us."

  "That five of Ptolemaios' is back in the Aegean," Diokles answered. "The sun's probably shining on him."

  "To the crows with him," Menedemos said. Diokles raised an eyebrow. Menedemos said it again, louder this time. Diokles dipped his head to show he understood. The wind was starting to howl, and to make the rigging thrum. Menedemos cocked his head to one side, gauging the notes from the forestay and backstay. They didn't sound as if they were in danger of giving way . . . yet.

  Sostratos made his way up onto the poop deck. Like everyone else aboard the Aphrodite - including me, no doubt, Menedemos realized - he looked like a drowned pup. Water dripped from his nose and the end of his beard. He said something, or at least his lips moved, but Menedemos couldn't make out a word of it. Seeing as much, Sostratos bawled in his ear: "How do we fare?"

  "We're floating," Menedemos shouted back. It wasn't any enormous consolation, but, as with Philippos, it was what he had to give. He shouted again: "How are the peafowl?"

  "Wet," his cousin answered. "Too much moisture can affect a man's humors and give him a flux of the lungs. We have to hope that doesn't happen to the birds."

  Menedemos grimaced, not because Sostratos was wrong but because he was right. When it came to the peafowl, hope was all he could do. He hated that. He wanted to be able to make things happen. As the captain of a ship at sea, he was usually able to do just that. But how could he do anything about derangement of the humors, or whatever caused sickness? He couldn't, and he knew it. The best physicians could do precious little. And so . . . he would hope.

  "Are the cages lashed down well enough?" he asked. He could do something about that if he had to.

  But Sostratos dipped his head. "The ship will sink before they come loose."

  "Don't say such things!" Menedemos exclaimed. He thanked the gods he was the only one who could have heard it. With any luck, the wind would blow it away so even the gods couldn't hear it.

  "Will we sink?" Sostratos didn't sound afraid. As he usually did, he sounded interested, curious. It might have been a philosophical discussion, not one whose answer would decide whether he lived or died.

  "I don't think so," Menedemos answered. "Not if the storm doesn't get any worse than this, anyhow." But it was getting worse, the wind blowing ever harder, the lines howling ever more shrilly. He had no idea how long the storm had been going on; he couldn't gauge time without the sun's motion across the sky, and the sun had long since vanished.

  He turned the Aphrodite straight into the wind. That made the pitching worse; he felt as if the ship were climbing hills and sliding down into valleys every few heartbeats. But the yawing eased, and the ram and the cutwater meant that the akatos didn't ship quite so much water.

  And so the merchant galley fought her way north. A couple of big waves did crash over the stempost, but only a couple. Sostratos made his way forward. His waving hand told Menedemos the peafowl still survived. Menedemos wanted to wave back, but didn't dare take a hand off the steering oar for even an instant.

  The sky grew blacker yet. At first, Menedemos feared the storm was growing worse. Then he realized it was only night coming. "Do you want me to spell you, skipper?" Diokles asked. "You've been at it a goodish while."

  Until the keleustes spoke, Menedemos didn't realize how worn he was. But he'd been standing on one spot for a long time. His legs ached. So did his arms and shoulders; the steering-oar tillers sent every shock from the sea straight through him. When he started to answer, he found himself yawning instead. "Will you be all right?" he asked.

  "I think so," Diokles answered. "If I feel myself wearing down, I'll get one of the rowers to handle her for a bit. We've got a double handful of men, likely more, who've spent enough time aboard ship to have put their hands to a set of steering oars now and again. All you'll want to do is keep her straight into the wind, right?"

  "I don't want those waves smacking us broadside-to," M
enedemos said. "We're liable to end up on our beam-ends."

  Diokles rubbed his ring again. "Right you are. Get some rest then, if you can."

  Menedemos doubted he'd be able to, not with the Aphrodite pitching as much as she was and the rain pouring down in sheets. He lay down on the poop deck even so. He didn't bother with a wrapping. What point, in such weather? He closed his eyes . . ..

  When he opened them, it was still dark. He didn't think he'd slept till he noticed how the galley's motion had eased. It was still raining, but not so hard. "What's the hour?" he asked the man at the steering oars.

  "Middle of the night sometime, captain - about the sixth hour, I'd say," the man replied - not Diokles, but a burly sailor named Hagesippos.

  "How long has the oarmaster been off?" Menedemos asked.

  "I've had the steering oars about an hour," Hagesippos answered. "He gave 'em to me not long after the weather started easing off a bit."

  "That sounds like him." Menedemos yawned and stretched. He still felt abused, but he could return to duty. The Aphrodite was his ship. "I'll take them now, Hagesippos. Get some sleep yourself. Stretch out where I was, if you care to."

  The sailor tossed his head. "All the same to you, I'll go back to my bench. That's how I'm used to sleeping when we're at sea."

  "Suit yourself." Menedemos slapped the sailor's bare shoulder as Hagesippos went down into the waist of the akatos. The slap rang louder than he'd expected: his hand was wet, and so was Hagesippos' flesh.

  As the rain diminished, men's snores came through it. The rowers who weren't at their oars grabbed rest as they could. Menedemos wondered how the peafowl had come through the storm. He peered up toward the bow, hoping to spot Sostratos' long, angular form silhouetted against the sky. When he didn't see his cousin, he felt miffed. He knew that was foolish - Sostratos had the right to rest, too - but he couldn't help it.