The catapult let fly once more. This bolt definitely fell farther behind the fleeing Aphrodite than the first two had. Demetrios’ ship looked a hair smaller, too, the eyes at its bow less fierce and menacing.
“We gain!” Sostratos told his cousin.
“Good! Those turds are worn down, then,” Menedemos said, and raised his voice for the rowers again: “Come on! Come on, my dears! We can’t outfight that big, ugly tub, but by the gods we can outrun her!”
If only Olympia had lain by the sea so rowing could be a competition there, the Aphrodite’s oarsmen would have been crowned with laurel. They put more and more distance between the akatos and the pursuing war galley. Demetrios’ catapult men quit shooting, not wanting to waste any more bolts.
If we can stay ahead till the sun sets, we’ve won, Sostratos thought. They’ll never find us in the dark. They won’t try very hard, either. No sooner had that gone through his mind than one of the portside rowers passed out, overwhelmed by the hard work he’d put in.
Without wasting a heartbeat, Diokles set his hammer and triangle on the stern platform and dashed forward. Over his shoulder, he said, “You’re keleustes now, O son of Lysistratos! Reckon I can still pull for a bit.” He dragged the unconscious rower from his bench and took the man’s place. The rowers ahead of and behind that bench hadn’t lost more than a couple of strokes before the oar was served once more.
Menedemos took his hand off the port steering oar and stood aside to let Sostratos get to the tools of the keleustes’ trade. “Next one who goes down, you grab an oar,” Menedemos said.
“I will,” Sostratos answered. He knew how to row, as most Rhodian men did. Unlike Diokles’, though, his hands were soft, as befit a gentleman. He’d tear his palms to pieces if he had to ply an oar for long. Well, that was as nothing next to the things that would happen to him if he were sold into slavery. He’d pull his lungs out, and worry about bloody blisters later.
For a little while, he set himself so he could see both the rowers and Demetrios’ galley. Then Menedemos said, “Pay attention to the stroke. I’ll tell you when you need to speed up or slow down.”
“As you say.” When his cousin spoke as captain, Sostratos gave him full of obedience. And he found he was steadier with the rhythm when he didn’t look up to see how the war galley was doing.
When the sun lay only a couple of its own diameters above the western horizon, Menedemos said, “I think they’re giving up. We’ve gained a lot of ground—well, of water—on them, and they have to realize they can’t overhaul us before the light goes.”
“Gods be praised!” Sostratos said. “If we make it home safe to Rhodes, I’ll give Poseidon a sheep.” He might not be sure Zeus’ brother ruled the seas, but he also wasn’t altogether sure the god didn’t. Better to take no chances, then.
“As long as that wide-arsed bugger is still in sight of us, I’m going to keep going south as well as west, even if we could round Cape Pedalion now,” Menedemos said.
“Why?” Sostratos asked, as he was no doubt meant to do.
“Because, my dear, I want Demetrios’ captain there to think the Aphrodite is a natural part of Ptolemaios’ fleet, and that we’re trying to get home safe to Alexandria,” Menedemos replied. “The less that ties us to Rhodes, the happier I’ll be.”
“Oh.” Sostratos chewed on that for a moment, then dipped his head. “Well, when you’re right, you’re right. The fewer reasons Demetrios and Antigonos have to hold a grudge against us, the better off the polis will be.”
“May be,” his cousin amended bleakly. “The Demetrios will take all of Cyprus now. Once he’s done that, he’ll look around and see only one polis in the neighborhood that doesn’t bend the knee to his father and him.”
“Rhodes,” Sostratos said.
“Rhodes,” Menedemos agreed. “He and Antigonos may decide to swallow us just to tidy things up, you might say.”
“I wish I could tell you you were wrong,” Sostratos said, “but I’m afraid you’re right again.” Menedemos had made much more sense than usual on this voyage. Maybe he truly was growing up at last.
“One good thing,” he said now. “The moon’s as near new as makes no difference, so it won’t be rising till just before sunrise. That gives us plenty of time to get away from the war galley with her skipper none the wiser.”
After the sun sank in the sea, twilight lingered longer than Sostratos wished it would. Or maybe that was only his imagination, stretching time finer than it really went. As night’s onset cooled the air, the rower Diokles had replaced came to his senses.
“Get out of there, old man!” he told the keleustes. “I’ll take back my oar.”
“Drink some wine. East some bread and oil,” Diokles said. “Get your strength back. You won’t be working tonight. I’m fine here.”
“He’s right, Rhinias,” Sostratos said. “We should be safe now, but you don’t want to push hard and pass out again.”
“Or drop dead,” Diokles said.
“I wouldn’t do that!” Rhinias said.
“You won’t get the chance,” Sostratos said firmly. “If you’re all right tomorrow, maybe we’ll put you back to work. Till then, you’re a passenger, only we pay you instead of your paying us.” Since he doubled as the Aphrodite’s physician, his words carried weight.
They also made Rhinias smile. “Since you put it that way, why can’t the rest of you abandoned troglodytes row faster?” he said. Everyone laughed then. Laughing let Sostratos forget for a little while what a disaster Rhodes’ most important friend had just suffered. Was Ptolemaios still alive? If he was, was he still free or Demetrios’ prisoner? Not knowing, all Sostratos could do was worry.
Menedemos looked over his shoulder as the sun rose behind him. Since it rose north of due east at this summery season, the akatos was still heading southwest. The ship had left Cape Pedalion behind early in the night. She was out of sight of land. That bothered him less than it would have before he crossed the Inner Sea to go to Alexandria. Even if he couldn’t see Cyprus, he had a good notion of where it lay.
More to the point at the moment, he couldn’t see Demetrios’ war galley, either. The Aphrodite had made a clean getaway during the hours of darkness. If no piratical pentekonter came shooting out from behind a little headland, the Aphrodite had a clear track to Rhodes … and to bringing Rhodes what news she had of Ptolemaios’ defeat.
Menedemos swung the ship to starboard, pulling the tiller in his right hand toward him and pushing the one in his left away by about the same distance. When he’d turned her through about a quarter of a circle, he asked Sostratos, “How are you holding?”
“I’m tired,” answered his cousin, who’d beaten out the stroke for the rowers all through the night. “I can keep going a while longer if I have to, though.”
“Can you conn the ship till you spy land? It shouldn’t be more than a couple of hours, but I’m so worn I feel as though daimons have been beating on me with mallets. You can give Diokles back his toys. We don’t need every single oar manned now.”
“Toys?” Diokles called from the rowing bench he’d taken, his voice full of gruff—and false—indignation.
“What else would you call them?” Sostratos returned. Diokles’ answer made Menedemos snicker—it came straight out of Lysistrata, whether the keleustes knew it or not. Diokles came back to reclaim the hammer and triangle. Sostratos took the steering oars from Menedemos. Menedemos curled up on the stern platform like an Alexandrian cat in the sun.