Regretfully, he decided that was a bad idea. He didn’t want to turn Ptolemaios into a deadly enemy by deserting. That could have consequences for years to come, if not for generations. It would hurt the family firm, and might hurt the polis, too.
Of course, if one of Demetrios’ sailors happened to recognize the Aphrodite …. Menedemos didn’t want to make deadly foes of the young warlord and his fearsome father, either.
“We’re cursed no matter what we do,” he muttered.
“What’s that?” Sostratos asked. Menedemos explained. His cousin dipped his head. “All we can do is all we can do, and hope everything comes out well for us.”
“I know. And I hate having to depend on hope. It’s what came out of Pandora’s box last, remember. There’s a reason for that, too.”
Menedemos waited for Sostratos to mock the myth as, well, nothing but a myth. Sostratos often enjoyed poking at old beliefs for the fun of poking. So it seemed to Menedemos, anyhow. But his cousin just came back to where he stood and set a hand on his shoulder for a moment. “Believe me, my dear, I know the feeling,” he said quietly.
As light drained from the sky, sailors in Ptolemaios’ ships set burning torches in iron sconces mounted on their sternposts. That let the vessels behind follow those ahead more easily than they might have, especially when the early hours of the night would be moonless.
Aphrodite’s wandering star blazed low in the west. That was always the brightest star in the sky. Like the love the goddess stands for, Menedemos thought. He wondered how Baukis fared and, again, whether she’d had her baby—his baby?—yet. She might be in labor right now, groaning and shrieking up in the women’s quarters, attended by the midwife and a house slave or two. Better, he supposed, to be far away than to have to listen to that for however long it went on.
The sky darkened with his mood. High in the south, Zeus’ wandering star appeared soon after Aphrodite’s. Ares’, about halfway between Zeus’ and Aphrodite’s, took longer to come out. It could rival Zeus’, but shone far fainter at the moment. So did Kronos’, which hung in the southeast.
Even though Ptolemaios’ ships had their stern lights and replaced the torches as needed, they also slowed to less than half speed as night took over. Ptolemaios sensibly rested his rowers as he could. Diokles also pulled more men off the Aphrodite’s oars.
“When will you want me to take over for you?” Sostratos asked.
“The moon should rise in an hour or so. That will do,” Menedemos said. “Keep the steering oars till it gets close to due south, then wake me. We’ll give one of the older, more sensible rowers the hammer and triangle then, too. Diokles is also flesh and blood, even if he tries to make out that he isn’t.”
“I’m doing fine, skipper—bugger me blind if I’m not,” the keleustes said.
“So am I … right now,” Menedemos said. “But we’ll all wear down to nubs if we don’t get some rest. It’ll be a lazy stroke through the night, and Sostratos can keep the rower at the right pace if he gets ahead of himself.”
“I suppose so.” Diokles didn’t sound as if he believed it. He truly trusted no man’s skill and knowledge but his own. Since he came closer with Sostratos than with most people, though, he subsided with no more than a low-voiced grumble in the back of his throat.
Up came the moon out of the sea, a fat gold daric up there in the heavens, its eastern edge gnawed away: it was a couple of days past full. “Go on, my dear. Find somewhere to curl up,” Sostratos said. “Nothing’s likely to happen while you sleep.”
“That doesn’t mean it won’t.” Menedemos felt at least as leery about letting someone else do his job for him as Diokles did. And anyone who made his living by going to sea put no faith in wind and wave.
Still, only Talos the bronze man could go on and on without sleep or food. Menedemos stepped back from the steering oars and let his cousin take his place. Diokles woke a rower named Nikagoras, who’d made several voyages in the Aphrodite and hadn’t shown himself to be conspicuously stupid. When the keleustes explained what he needed, Nikagoras dipped his head and said, “I’ll take care of it.”
Diokles sat at the bench Nikagoras had vacated to go aft. As an ex-rower, he was used to leaning against the rail and falling asleep when at sea. He did it again tonight. Menedemos lay down abaft of the steering oars, where the platform narrowed toward the sternpost. He’d slept soft in Ptolemaios’ palace, but he could sleep rough, too. Closing his eyes, he proved it.
Next thing he knew, someone’s hand was on his shoulder. His eyes snapped open. His right hand darted for the knife on his belt. He found he had no belt, nor any other clothing. He remembered where he was, and who had likely shaken him awake. Sure enough, there stood Sostratos in the bright moonlight. Diokles held the steering oars for the moment, so the Aphrodite ran steady.
“Hail,” Menedemos said, and yawned. Around the yawn, he continued, “How do we fare?”
“We’re still with the Ptolemaios’ fleet.” Sostratos didn’t sound altogether happy about that, either. He went on, “Nikagoras made a good keleustes, good enough so I gave him three oboloi for duty above his station.”
“Euge!” Menedemos said, and then raised his voice so Diokles could hear: “I guess that will let us put the old stallion here out to pasture. He’s pretty long in the tooth these days.”
“Old stallion? Long in the tooth? By the gods, this old stallion’ll graze on your grave, and shit on it, too,” Diokles retorted. Then he laughed, which relieved Menedemos. He wanted to be sure the keleustes knew he was joking.
He took the steering oars from Diokles, who in turn reclaimed the keleustes’ tools from Nikagoras. The rower went up to his bench. Menedemos looked back over his right shoulder. The moon showed Sostratos had given him a little more sleep than he’d asked for.
“Grab some rest, my dear,” he told his cousin. “I’ve got the ship for now.” His mouth twisted, though in the moonlight Sostratos might not be able to see that. “I don’t exactly know what I’ll do with her, but I’ve got her.”
Sostratos’ stomach troubled him all the way north from Alexandria. He didn’t heave after the first day at sea, but often felt queasy. Hard bread and salted sprats and olives weren’t the kind of fare he would have recommended to someone with sour guts were he playing physician, but they and rough red wine were what the Aphrodite carried. He grabbed a flying fish that landed in the akatos and grilled it over the little brazier on the bow platform. It tasted better than anything else he ate on the journey to Cyprus, but it was a morsel, not a meal.
Always having Ptolemaios’ fleet on the northern horizon made this voyage different from the one between Rhodes and Alexandria. Then the Aphrodite, solitary in the middle of the Inner Sea, might have been the only ship, the only man-made object, in all the world. Sostratos had rather liked that, though it made some of the rowers anxious. Now they could have no doubt that the rest of the world was very much with them.
But, while part of the world was there, news from outside the fleet wasn’t. Sostratos wondered what Ptolemaios would do if Demetrios held all of Cyprus when this expedition arrived. Up ahead in his gaudy galley, the lord of Egypt was bound to be wondering the same thing. One could say a great many things about Ptolemaios, but he was nothing if not forethoughtful. The way he’d seized and held Egypt showed that.