“Sail ho!” Aristeidas shouted as Menedemos was casting about for something different to say. “Sail ho off the starboard bow!”
A sail was more important than any argument. Menedemos peered out to sea. After a moment, he spotted the sail, too. “Looks like a round ship. And… isn’t that another sail behind it?”
“Yes, skipper, it is-more than one, in fact,” the lookout answered.
“By the gods, you’re right,” Menedemos said after another look. “Three, four, five, six… I make k eight sail altogether. Is that right?”
Aristeidas shaded his eyes with his hand. “I see… ten, skipper, I think. A couple of them are well out to sea there. And look! To the crows with me if the lead ship hasn’t got Ptolemaios’ eagle on its sail.”
“They must be grain ships, keeping his garrisons in Lykia supplied,” Sostratos said.
“He’s got nerve, sending round ships along this coast without any war galleys escorting them,” Menedemos said. “Two or three pirates could put paid to that whole fleet.”
“Ptolemaios has garrisons in all the good-sized towns around here,” Sostratos reminded him. “That has to make a difference.”
“Some difference,” Menedemos allowed. “How much, I don’t know. Most pirate ships don’t operate out of those towns. They skulk behind headlands or at the mouths of little streams, and then leap out at whatever passes by.”
“You make them sound like ferrets, or other little vicious animals,” Sostratos said.
“That’s how I feel about them,” Menedemos replied. “Don’t you?”
“I feel that way about pirates, not about pirate ships,” Sostratos said. “Ships are just-ships. It’s the whoresons inside ‘em who make the trouble.”
“You’re too subtle for me. If I see a pentekonter or a hemiolia, I want to sink it right there on the spot,” Menedemos said. “I don’t care who’s in it. Whoever’s in a ship like that is bound to be up to no good, because you can’t do good in a ship like that. If it weren’t for pirates, there wouldn’t be ships like that.”
“That’s why they’re going to build that trihemiolia you were talking about last fall,” Sostratos said. “She’ll be a pirate-hunter’s dream ship, if she sails the way everybody thinks she will.”
“And that’s why you build a new ship: to see if she sails the way everybody thinks she will, I mean,” Menedemos answered. “I wouldn’t mind being her skipper, though-I’ll tell you that.”
“If anyone’s earned the right, you have,” his cousin said. “If not for you, there wouldn’t be a trihemiolia.”
Menedemos shrugged. “That’s true. But I’ll tell you something else every bit as true, my dear: I’m out here on the Inner Sea, bound for Phoenicia to make a living for my family, and there are plenty of captains back in Rhodes who want to command a trihemiolia every bit as much as Ida”
“That’s not fair,” Sostratos said.
“The world’s not fair,” Menedemos replied with another shrug. “Anybody who goes out in it a little bit will tell you the same. Sooner or later, I expect I’ll get a chance. And when I do, I’ll show people what kind of officer I am.” That seemed enough of that. He pointed toward Ptolemaios’ approaching merchantmen. “Those are big ships, aren’t they?”
“I think they’re bigger than the ones that brought grain into Syracuse for Agathokles sailing season before last.” Sostratos plucked at his beard. “It makes sense they should be, I suppose, Agathokles had to take what he could get. Ptolemaios can pick and choose.”
“And Ptolemaios has more money than Agathokles ever dreamt of,” Menedemos added.
“I said something about Kroisos a little while ago. Ptolemaios has more money than Kroisos ever dreamt of,” Sostratos said. “Ptolemaios has more money than anybody ever dreamt of, except maybe the Great Kings of Persia-and they held Egypt, too.”
“Egypt’s the richest country in the world. It’s so rich, it hardly seems fair,” Menedemos said. Not only was the land rich in gold (and emeralds, as he had reason to know), but the Nile floods renewed the soil every year. They let the peasants raise enormous crops (some small part of which lay in the holds of those approaching round ships), and let whoever ruled Egypt collect even more enormous amounts of taxes.
“Ahoy!” The shout came thin across the sea from a sailor at the bow of the leading merchantman. “Ahoy, the galley! What ship are you?”
Are you a pirate? If you are a pirate, will you admit it? That was what the fellow meant. Menedemos shouted back: “We’re the Aphrodite, out of Rhodes.”
“Out of Rhodes, eh?” The sailor on the round ship sounded suspicious. He had reason to; with Rhodes a leading trading partner for Egypt, a pirate would do well to disguise himself as coming from that island. “What trading house are you from?”
“Philodemos and Lysistratos’,” Menedemos replied. “Philodemos is my father; Lysistratos is my toikharkhos’ father.” Maybe Ptolemaios’ man knew a bit about Rhodes, or maybe he was just seeing if pirates would stumble trying to invent something plausible. Either way, Menedemos was not the sort of man to let him get by with cheek unchallenged. He shouted a question of his own: “What ship are you?”
And he got an answer. “This is the Isidora, out of Alexandria,” answered the sailor on the round ship. Then the fellow realized he didn’t have to tell Menedemos anything. He shook his fist at the Aphrodite. “It’s none of your business who we are and what we’re doing.”
“No, eh? But it’s your business who we are and what we’re up to?” Menedemos returned. “Well, you can go howl, pal! We’re free Hellenes just the same as you are, and we’ve got as much right to ask you questions as you do with us.”
“Euge!” Sostratos and Diokles said together, A couple of sailors clapped their hands. Menedemos grinned at the praise. The arrogance of the soldiers and sailors who served under Macedonian marshals could surpass belief.
The man on the Isidora had it in full measure, too. He threw back his head and laughed as the two ships passed closest to each other. “Go ahead and bark, little dog,” he said. “When a big dog decides he wants your house, you’ll run away yelping with your tail between your legs.”
Rage ripped through Menedemos. “I ought to sink that son of a whore. Who does he think he is, to talk to me that way?”
Again, Sostratos and Diokles spoke together. This time, they both said, “No!” Menedemos knew they were right, but he still steamed like a sealed pot forgotten in a fire. He felt as if he could burst and scatter shards everywhere.
One after another, the grain ships glided past the Aphrodite, The men aboard them no doubt thought them majestic. To Menedemos, wallowing seemed a better word. They sailed well enough with the wind right behind them, as it was now. Trying to tack against it, though, they were so slow as to be nearly helpless.
A sailor on the Aphrodite shouted, “I hope real pirates get you, you fig-suckers!”
That went too far. “By the dog, Teleutas, keep quiet!” Menedemos hissed. “They aren’t our enemies.”
“No, but they’re acting like a bunch of wide-arsed little pricks,” Teleutas answered. Menedemos snorted out an exasperated breath. He’d had Teleutas aboard for three sailing seasons in a row now, and he kept wondering why. The man did as little as he could to get by. He wasn’t particularly brave. He wasn’t even an entertaining sort, to make up for his other lacks. If he keeps on like this, I’d do better to leave him behind next year, Menedemos thought. Let him drive some other captain crazy-
He’d certainly hit a nerve aboard Ptolemaios’ transports. Mention of pirates did, with honest sailors. The sailors who heard him screamed abuse at the Aphrodite. They made obscene gestures. They shook their fists. One of them even threw something at the merchant galley. Whatever it was, it splashed into the Inner Sea far short of its goal. Teleutas laughed a mocking laugh, which only inflamed the men from Alexandria more.