Snores began to rise in the quiet darkness. Sostratos came back from the poop deck to wrap himself in his himation and stretch out beside Menedemos. He wasn’t quite ready for sleep, though. Pointing up toward Ares’ wandering star, he spoke in a low voice: “I wonder why it’s so much dimmer now than it was this spring. Then it would have easily outshone Antares. Now…” He tossed his head.
Menedemos was sleepy. “How can we know why?” he asked, his voice grumpy. “It does what it does, that’s all. Do you expect to go up into the heavens and look?”
“If I could, I’d like to,” Sostratos said.
“Yes. If. But since you can’t, won’t you settle for going to sleep instead?”
“Oh, all right. Good night.”
“Good night,” Menedemos said.
When he woke the next morning, twilight streaked the eastern sky behind the Aphrodite. “Rosy-fingered dawn,” he murmured, and smiled. He yawned, stretched, and got to his feet. Shivering a little, he picked up the crumpled chiton he’d used for a pillow and put it back on. The day would soon warm up, but the night had been on the chilly side. He walked to the rail and pissed into the Inner Sea.
Sostratos still snored. He hardly seemed to have moved from where he’d lain down the night before. Diokles was awake; he looked back from the rower’s bench where he’d curled up for the night and dipped his head at Menedemos. As the day brightened, more and more sailors woke. Finally, just before the sun came up over the horizon, Menedemos waved to the men who’d already roused, and they set about waking the rest.
He woke Sostratos himself, stirring him with his foot. His cousin muttered something, then jerked in alarm. His eyes flew open. For a moment, they held nothing but animal fear. Then reason returned, and anger with it. “Why didn’t you just stick a spear in me?” Sostratos demanded indignantly.
“Maybe next time, my dear.” Menedemos made his voice as sunny as he could, the better to annoy his cousin. By Sostratos’ scowl, it worked.
Barley cakes and oil and more watered wine served for breakfast. Grunting with effort, sailors hauled on the capstans to bring up the anchors. They hauled them out of the sea and stowed them near the bow. Menedemos gauged the wind. It was easy to gauge: there was none to speak of. He sighed. The rowers would earn their pay today.
At his orders, Diokles put eight men a side on the oars: plenty to keep the merchant galley going, yet few enough to keep the crew fresh in case they needed everyone rowing to escape pirates or fight them off. Menedemos spat into the bosom of his tunic to avert the unwelcome omen.
As often happened, fishing boats fled from the Aphrodite. They took one look at a galley centipede-striding across the waters of the Inner Sea and assumed they saw a pirate ship. That always saddened Menedemos. Still, had he skippered one of those little boats, he would have run from the Aphrodite, too. Anyone who took chances with his crew’s freedom and lives was a fool.
The wind did blow up, fitfully, as the morning wore along. Menedemos ordered the sail lowered from the yard. He wondered why he’d bothered. Now it would fill and shove the akatos forward, and then a moment later, when the breeze died again, it would hang as loose and empty as the skin on a formerly fat man’s belly after his polis was besieged and starved into surrender.
“A pestilence!” he muttered when the wind failed for the fourth time in half an hour. “Might as well be a girl who teases but doesn’t intend to put out.”
Sostratos stood close enough to hear him. “Trust you to come up with that figure of speech,” he said.
“I wouldn’t dream of disappointing you,” Menedemos said.
He would have gone on in that vein, but Moskhion, who was taking a turn as lookout, shouted from the foredeck: “Ship coming out from behind that headland! No, two ships, by the gods! Two ships off the starboard bow!” He pointed.
Menedemos’ eyes swung in the direction Moskhion gave. Even so, he needed several heartbeats to spy the ships. They were galleys, their masts down, their hulls and even their oars painted a greenish blue that made them hard to spot against sea and sky. No honest skipper painted his ship a color like that.
Sostratos saw the same thing at the same time. “Pirates,” he said, as if remarking on the weather.
“I’m afraid you’re right, my dear.” Menedemos dipped his head. He gauged the speed at which those long, lean galleys were approaching, gauged it and didn’t like it a bit. “I’m afraid we can’t very well run, either, not with the hull as soaked as it is. They’d catch us quick, and this polluted fitful breeze won’t let us sail away, either.”
“We have to fight, then,” Sostratos said.
“Yes.” Menedemos dipped his head again. “I’m afraid we do.” He shouted orders: “Raise the sail to the yard! Serve out weapons to everyone! Man all oars! Diokles, as soon as we have a rower on every bench, I’ll want you to up the stroke. We can’t outrun ‘em, but we’ll need as much speed as we can get.”
“Right you are, skipper.” The oarmaster pointed toward the approaching pirate ships, which stayed a couple of plethra apart. “They’re a little overeager, you ask me. If they’d waited a little longer before they came out of cover, we’d’ve had less time to get ready.”
“We’re a good ways out to sea; maybe they wanted to make sure we didn’t get away,” Menedemos said. “If they did make a mistake, it’s up to us to prove it.”
“They’re triakonters,” Sostratos said. “Only thirty rowers in each one, but look how many extra men they’ve packed in for boarding.”
“Bastards,” Menedemos said. “Grab my bowcase, O best one. Your archery will help us.”
“I hope so,” his cousin answered. “I can’t shoot all of them, though, however much I wish I could.”
“I know. I wish you could, too,” Menedemos said. “But the more you hit, the fewer we’ll have to worry about if they do manage to board us.” If they board us, we’re ruined, he thought. As Sostratos had, he saw how full of men the pirate ships were. The Aphrodite’s crew might well have been able to fight off one. Both together? Not a chance. He knew as much, but he wouldn’t say so out loud. By the expression on his cousin’s face, Sostratos knew as much, too.
Up went the sail. Rowers hurried to their places. Sailors who weren’t rowing served out swords and pikes and axes and cudgels. Men stowed them where they could grab them in a hurry. Everyone’s eyes were on the pair of triakonters speeding toward the merchant galley. The men also had to know they couldn’t beat back that many boarders. But they’d been through sea fights with Menedemos before. He’d always managed to do something to keep them free and safe.
What are you going to do this time? he asked himself. He found only one answer: The best I can. Aloud, he said, “Sostratos, loose the boat from the sternpost. Then go forward to shoot. If we win, maybe we’ll come back for the boat. If we don’t…” He shrugged and turned to Diokles as his cousin obeyed. “Up the stroke some more. Don’t show them quite everything we can do, though, not yet. Let them think we’re a little slower and deeper laden than we really are.”
“I understand, skipper.” The keleustes raised his voice so even the men at the forwardmost oars could hear: “Put your backs into it, you lugs! If you want to pay the whores on Rhodes again, you do what the captain and I tell you. Come on, now! Rhyppapai! Rhyppapai! Rhyppapai!” He beat out the rhythm with mallet and brass square, too.