Over the Wine-Dark Sea

by Harry Turtledove

  Because he was miffed, he took longer than he should have to realize he could see stars, there in the north. The rain died to spatters, and then stopped. The clouds blew past the Aphrodite. By the time rosy-fingered dawn began streaking the eastern sky, the storm might never have happened.

  Diokles opened his eyes, saw Menedemos at the steering oars, and said, "Well, I might have known you'd be there. When did you take 'em back from Hagesippos?"

  "Middle of the night sometime," Menedemos answered with a shrug. "That's what he told me, and how can I guess any closer?"

  "You can't," the keleustes agreed. He got up, stretched as Menedemos had, and looked around. "Good weather after the storm."

  "I'd sooner it were instead of, not after," Menedemos said. Diokles laughed. Easy to laugh under blue skies on a calm sea. Menedemos laughed, too.

  A few at a time, the sailors woke up. So did Sostratos, who'd slept between the rows of peafowl cages. "They all seem sound," he called to Menedemos. Then he stripped off his chiton to let it dry and went around as naked as most of the sailors. That struck Menedemos as a good idea, so he did the same. Bare skin proved a lot more comfortable than soaked wool.

  When the whole crew had awakened, Menedemos ordered the men not rowing to break out the several wooden buckets the Aphrodite carried and start bailing the water she'd taken on during the storm. Getting the water out a bucketful at a time was slow, hard work, but he knew no better way to do it, nor did anyone else.

  Philippos the mercenary said, "Where are we at, captain? I'm all topsy-turvy on account of that horrible storm."

  "We're somewhere in the Ionian Sea," Menedemos answered. Philippos looked as if he wanted a more precise answer. Menedemos wanted one, too; again, he didn't know where to get one. "I couldn't have told you any more than that if the weather'd stayed perfect. If we sail northwest, we'll raise the Italian mainland. Once we do that, I promise we'll find Taras. Fair enough?"

  "I suppose so." The mercenary didn't seem convinced. With a shudder, he went on, "Wasn't that the worst blow you ever went through in all your born days?"

  "Not even close." Menedemos tossed his head. "We didn't have to lower the yard" - he pointed up to the long spar at the head of the sail - "let alone start throwing cargo overboard to make sure we stayed afloat. This wasn't a little storm, but there are plenty worse."

  "Zeus strike me dead if I ever set foot on another boat as long as I live," Philippos said, and descended from the poop deck into the akatos' waist before Menedemos could dress him down for calling the ship a boat.

  Sostratos hadn't spent quite so much time asea as Menedemos. He was also a more thoughtful man, more in the habit of imagining things that could go wrong than was his cousin. Both those factors had made the storm seem worse to him than it had to Menedemos.

  For once, he almost welcomed the attention he had to give the peafowl. As long as he was busy, he didn't have to think so much. He couldn't let the birds exercise while the sailors were bailing. They wouldn't have had much room to run around, and they would have made nuisances of themselves. He didn't need to give them water, not for a while; they'd had plenty during the storm. But he could pour barley into bowls for their breakfasts, and he did. His spirits lifted when the birds ate well. That was the surest sign the storm had done them no harm.

  And he could check on the eggs in the peahens' cages. Being the meticulous man he was, he knew exactly how many each peahen had laid. One, to his annoyance, had broken the day it was laid, falling from the nest to the planks of the foredeck. He imagined drakhmai broken with it. How much would a rich man who couldn't get his hands on one of the peafowl pay for an egg? He didn't know, not to the last obolos, but he'd looked forward to finding out.

  Checking the nests was easiest when the peahens came off them to feed. Helen had five eggs in her clutch. That made sense to Sostratos. The peacock had mated with her more than with any of the others, which was how she'd got her name.

  "One, two, three, four . . ." Sostratos frowned. He leaned closer to the cage, risking a peck from Helen. He saw only four eggs. He didn't see any bits of shell that would have shown one had fallen out of the nest during the storm. The slats were too close together to have let an egg escape the cage altogether. His frown deepened as he went on to the next cage.

  After finishing with the peafowl, he hurried back to the poop deck; pushing past anyone who got in his way. His face must have spoken before he did, for Menedemos asked, "What's wrong?"

  "We're missing three eggs," Sostratos answered. "One from Helen's cage, one from the peahen with the scar on her leg, and one from the smallest bird."

  "Are you sure?" Menedemos asked. Again, Sostratos' expression must have spoken for him, for his cousin said, "Never mind. You're sure. I can see it. They didn't fall out and break during the storm?"

  "No. I thought of that." Sostratos explained why he didn't think it had happened. Menedemos dipped his head to show he agreed. Sostratos went on, "No, somebody's gone and stolen them. How much would a peacock egg be worth? Never mind - we don't know exactly, but more than a little. We can be sure of that. And it's money that belongs to us, not to some thief. We've earned it." As much as his sense of justice, his sense of order was outraged. That anyone else should try to take advantage of all the hard work Menedemos and he had done infuriated him.

  "We'll get them back," Menedemos said, and then, less happily, "I hope we'll get them back. When was the last time you counted them?"

  "Yesterday morning," Sostratos answered.

  "Before the storm." Menedemos still didn't sound happy. "A lot of people have been up on the foredeck since, either securing the cages or just looking at the peafowl. The passengers have all been interested in them." He rubbed his chin. "I wonder if one of them got too interested."

  In a low voice, Sostratos said, "I know which one I'd bet on."

  "So do I," Menedemos said, also quietly. "Anybody who needed to come aboard in such a tearing hurry isn't to be trusted, not even a little. And Alexidamos is a Rhodian. He's liable to have a better notion of what those eggs are worth than the other fellows. Well, we'll find out." He turned to Diokles, who'd been listening. "Tell off the ten men you trust most. If they're on the oars, set others in their places. Belaying pins and knives should be plenty for this job, but nobody's going to raise a fuss when we search his gear."

  "What do we do if we catch the thief?" Sostratos asked.

  "If it's one of the rowers, we'll give him a set of lumps and he'll forfeit his pay and we'll put him ashore at Taras - and good riddance to bad rubbish," Menedemos answered. "If it's one of the passengers . . . well, we'll come up with something." Seeing the look on his cousin's face, Sostratos would not have wanted to be the thief.

  Diokles gathered his sailors near the stern. He dipped his head to Sostratos and Menedemos to show they were ready. Sostratos raised his voice. He couldn't make it carry the way Menedemos did, but he managed: "Three peafowl eggs have been stolen. We are going to search for them. We will find them, and we will punish the thief. Each man will turn out his gear, starting with the passengers."

  He eyed the four mercenaries. Philippos and Kallikrates looked astonished. Alexidamos and Rhoikos showed no expression. Rhoikos was Sostratos' second suspect. He hadn't done anything illicit Sostratos knew about, but to Rhodians Cretans were thieves and pirates till proved otherwise.

  Rhoikos also stood closest to Diokles and his search party. "Let's see your duffel," the oarmaster told him.

  "I'll watch to make sure you don't take anything," Rhoikos said, and handed Diokles the leather sack. The keleustes and a couple of sailors started going through it.

  Sostratos, meanwhile, kept his eye on the other mercenaries. "Let that be," he called to Kallikrates when the latter made a move toward his sack. "Your turn will come." Alexidamos stood calmly, watching everything going on as if it had nothing to do with him. Isn't that interesting? Sostratos thought. Maybe I was wrong. Maybe Menedemos was, too. Seeing his cousin wrong might a
lmost be worth the blow to his own pride at making a mistake.

  Diokles looked up from Rhoikos' weapons and tunic and mantle and kilt and his little sack of coins. "No eggs here."

  "Kallikrates next," Sostratos said.

  Reluctantly, the mercenary handed the keleustes the sack with his worldly goods: cuirass, greaves, helmet, wool headcover to fit inside the helm, sword, a wooden game board with ivory pieces and a pair of bone dice, and a leather sack. Diokles blinked when he picked it up. "Got to be three, four minai in there," he said.

  "It's mine, every obolos of it," Kallikrates growled, warning in his voice.

  "Nobody said it wasn't," the oarmaster replied, and set it down. "No eggs here, either." Kallikrates visibly relaxed.

  "Now Alexidamos," Menedemos called from the steering oars.

  The mercenary who'd paid a triple fare to come aboard the Aphrodite pointed to his sack. One of the sailors brought it back to Diokles. He took out Alexidamos' sword and his greaves and his helmet, in which the protective headcloth was bundled. Sostratos stooped and pulled up a corner of the cloth. Under it lay three large, off-white eggs, one of them speckled. "Oh, you bastard," Alexidamos said mildly, as if Sostratos had thrown a double six with Kallikrates' dice. "I thought I'd get away with it."

  "You must have, or you wouldn't have done it," Sostratos answered. "Of course, you must have thought you'd get away with it when you took up with that captain's boy, too."

  "Of course I did," the mercenary said. "And I would have, too, if the wide-arsed little fool had kept his mouth shut."

  Sostratos looked back toward Menedemos. "It's your ship, cousin. What do we do with him?"

  "If I threw him over the side, nobody would miss him," Menedemos said. That was true and more than true. No one but the Aphrodite's crew and the other three passengers would even know what had happened to Alexidamos, and none of them seemed likely to care. Menedemos scratched his head. "How much silver has he got there, Diokles?"

  "Let's have a look." The keleustes went through the canvas sack till he found Alexidamos' money bag. He hefted it. "Not as much as Kallikrates, but a couple minai, easy."

  "I wonder how much is his by right, and how much he's stolen," Sostratos said.

  "By the gods, it's mine," Alexidamos said.

  "You're not in the best position to be believed," Sostratos pointed out.

  "No, you're not," his cousin agreed. "Here's what I'll do. For stealing from the cargo, I fine you a mina of silver. Diokles, count out a hundred drakhmai. Take Athenian owls like he paid us before or turtles from Aigina: we'll make it a nice, heavy mina. And we'll keep him in bonds except when he eats or eases himself till we sight land. Then we'll put him ashore by himself wherever it happens to be, and many good-byes to him, too."

  "You might as well kill me now," Alexidamos muttered.

  "If that's what you want, you'll have it." Menedemos' voice held no hesitation. If anything, it held eagerness. Alexidamos quickly tossed his head. "No?" Menedemos said. "Too bad." He took a hand off one steering oar to gesture to the sailors. "Tie him up."

  They did, ignoring the mercenary's yelps of pain and protest. Diokles counted coins. They clinked musically as he stacked them in piles of ten. Sostratos took the eggs back to the peafowl cages on the foredeck. He got pecked twice replacing them. As far as he was concerned, Diokles was welcome to make a few drakhmai, or more than a few, disappear on his own behalf, too. Maybe the oarmaster would. Diokles was a practical man in every sense of the word.

  Alexidamos kept whining and complaining till Menedemos said, "If you don't shut up, we'll put a gag on you. You did this to yourself, and you've got no cause to moan." The mercenary did quiet down after that, but the look on his face was eloquent.

  Flying fish jumped from the water and glided through the air. One unlucky fish, instead of falling back into the sea, landed in a rower's lap. "Isn't that nice?" the fellow said, grabbing it. "First time I ever had my opson come to me."

  Dolphins leaped from the water, too. Sostratos recalled that Arion had set out from Taras on the journey where the dolphins carried him to shore at Cape Tainaron. When he said as much to Menedemos, his cousin answered, "Well, of course. That's why the Tarentines put a man riding a dolphin on their coins."

  Sostratos made an irritated noise. He'd forgotten that, and he shouldn't have. He said, "Now that we've bailed out the ship, may I start exercising the peafowl again? We'll want them at their best when we get in to Taras."

  "Yes, go ahead," Menedemos said. "It does look to do them good."

  Sure enough, the birds seemed eager to run up and down the length of the Aphrodite. After a while, Sostratos wasn't so eager to run after them. But he and the sailors he detailed to help him stayed with the peafowl. Each one got its exercise and went back into its cage. Sostratos hoped being away from the peahens hadn't hurt the eggs Alexidamos had purloined.

  As he hurried past Alexidamos after the peacock, the mercenary growled, "Who would've thought anybody'd keep track of how many eggs each miserable bird laid?"

  "I keep track of all sorts of things," Sostratos answered. Alexidamos suggested something rude he could keep track of. He contrived to step on the thief's foot. Alexidamos cursed. Sostratos said, "I told you I keep track of all sorts of things," and went on by to keep track of the peacock.

  So things went until, on the afternoon of the sixth day out from Zakynthos, the lookout at the bow - it wasn't Aristeidas, but Teleutas, one of the men Sostratos had taken on at the last moment when they set out from Rhodes - sang out: "Land ho! Land ho dead ahead!"

  From his station at the steering oars, Menedemos said, "That's not bad. That's not bad at all. The storm hardly slowed us at all." He raised his voice to call to Teleutas: "Can you make out what land it is? It's got to be Italy, but whereabouts along the coast are we?"

  "I'm sorry, captain, but I'm not the one to tell you," the sailor answered. "This is my first time in these waters."

  Sostratos peered northwest, too, along with everyone else aboard the Aphrodite except the men at the oars, who naturally faced the other way. He couldn't see land yet. He stood in the waist of the ship, beside a peahen that had hopped up onto a rower's bench. The peahen looked toward the bow, too, but only for a couple of heartbeats. Then, taking advantage of Sostratos' momentary distraction, it leaped into the air and, wings whirring, struck out as if for that distant shore.

  The motion drew Sostratos' eye - just too late. "Oimoi!" he cried in horror, and grabbed for the bird. One tail feather - one drab, worthless tail feather - was all he had to show for the desperate lunge. "Oimoi!" he cried again, as the peafowl went into the sea perhaps ten cubits from the Aphrodite.

  "Back oars!" Diokles shouted. "Bring her to a stop!" Sostratos yanked his tunic off over his head and jumped onto the rower's bench himself, ready to dive in after the peahen - unlike most of the sailors, he knew how to swim. But, before he could go into the water, the peahen, which had been swimming with surprising strength, let out a squawk and vanished. He never knew what took it - tunny? a shark? one of the playful dolphins? - but it was gone. A few bubbles rose. That was all.

  "Go on," Menedemos told the rowers, his voice frozen with shock. "You might as well go on." As they resumed their usual stroke, Menedemos added one word more - "Sostratos" - and gestured for him to come back to the poop.

  Alexidamos laughed when Sostratos hurried past him. Not even pausing, Sostratos backhanded the mercenary across the face. He mounted the stairs to the poop deck as if about to be put to the sword. Diokles silently stepped out of his way. When he came up to Menedemos, he said, "Say what you want to say. Do what you want to do. Whatever it is, I deserve it."

  "It's over," Menedemos said. "It's done. I've thought all along that we'd be lucky to get to Italy with all the peafowl. We came close. Gods be praised, we didn't lose the peacock." He slapped Sostratos on the back. "We'll sell the birds we've still got for a little more, that's all. Forget it."

  "Thank you," Sostratos wh
ispered. Then, to his own astonished dismay, he burst into tears.

  6

  The Aphrodite's boat came through the light surf and beached itself a couple of hundred stadia southeast of Taras - that was Menedemos' best guess of the landfall. He dipped his head to a couple of the rowers. "Take this bastard" - he pointed at Alexidamos - "off and untie his hands. Let him tend to his feet himself. It should take him a while - we tied him tight."

  "What if the barbarians find me before I get loose?" Alexidamos said. He had a black eye where Sostratos had hit him.

  I expect I'd have cut his throat just then, Menedemos thought. He said, "Tough luck. You've got nobody to blame but yourself. I ought to keep your gear, too. If you say one more word, I will."

  Alexidamos shut up. The sailors hauled him out of the boat like a sack of barley. They dumped his canvas duffel beside him; his weapons and armor clattered together. A man freed his hands. Then the sailors and Menedemos shoved the boat out into the water again, scrambled into it, and rowed back to the Aphrodite, which lay two or three stadia offshore.

  "Who are the barbarians hereabouts?" a sailor asked.

  "I think the Salentinoi live in these parts," Menedemos answered. "They're a lot like the Illyrians, over on the other side of the Adriatic."

  "Nasty bastards, then," the sailor said. "I hope they do come for Alexidamos. What makes it even worse is, he's from Rhodes just like us."

  "I don't care where he comes from," Menedemos said. "I only hope I never see him again."

  When they came alongside the Aphrodite, Sostratos gave Menedemos his hand and helped him up into the akatos. "Thank you," Menedemos' cousin said again. "I thought you were going to - I don't know what I thought you'd do when the bird went overboard."

  Menedemos hadn't know what he would do when the peahen sprang into the Ionian Sea, either. His first impulse had been to do something a great deal more drastic than what he did. He explained why he hadn't: "You're flogging yourself harder right now than I could if I tried for a year."