“No,” Sostratos agreed, “but how much good will he do with the rain coming down like this? I can hardly see him up there, and he's only—what?—thirty or thirty-five cubits away.” “He's the best set of eyes we've got,” Menedemos said. “I can't do any more than that.” Sostratos dipped his head. “I wasn't arguing.” Pie pulled off his chiton and threw it down onto the deck. In the warm rain, going naked was more comfortable than wet wool squelching against his skin. He looked back toward the Aphrodite 's boat, which she towed by a line tied to the sternpost. “I wonder if you'll need to put a man with a pot in there to bail.” “It is coming down, isn't it?” Menedemos said. An unspoken thought flashed between them: I wonder if we'll need to start bailing out the ship. Sostratos knew he hadn't expected weather this nasty, and his cousin couldn't have, either, or he wouldn't have set out from Kos. Menedemos quickly changed the subject; “Take the steering oars for a moment, would you? I want to get out of my tunic, too.” “Of course, my dear.” Sostratos seized the steering-oar tillers with alacrity. Menedemos usually had charge of them all the way through the voyage. Sostratos didn't have to do any steering past holding the merchant galley on her course. Even so, the strength of the sea shot up his arms, informing his whole body. It's like holding a conversation with Poseidon himself, he thought. Menedemos' soggy chiton splatted onto the planks of the deck beside his own. “That's better,” his cousin said. “Thanks. I'll get back where I belong now.” “All right,” Sostratos said, though his tone suggested it was anything but. Laughing, Menedemos said, “You want to hang on for a while, do you? Well, I can't say that I blame you. It's like making love to the sea, isn't it?” That wasn't the comparison Sostratos had thought of, but it wasn't a bad one. And it suits my cousin, too, he thought. “May I stay for a bit?” he asked. “Why not?” Menedemos said, laughing still. But then he grew more serious: “Probably not the worst thing in the world for you to know what to do.” “I do know,” Sostratos answered. “But there's a difference between knowing how to do something and having experience at it.” Before Menedemos could reply, Aristeidas let out a horrified cry for the foredeck: “Ship! By the gods, a ship off the port bow, and she's heading straight for us!” Sostratos' head jerked to the left. Sure enough, wallowing through the curtain of rain and into sight came a great round ship, her sail down from the yard and full of wind as she ran before the breeze— straight for the Aphrodite . Sostratos knew what he had to do. He pulled one steering oar in as far as it would go, and pushed the other as far out, desperately swinging the akatos to starboard. That wasn't making love to the sea but wrestling with it, forcing it and the ship to obey his strength. And the sea fought back, pushing against the blades of the steering oars with a supple power that appalled him. Had Menedemos snatched the steering-oar tillers from his hands, he would have yielded them on the instant. But his cousin, seeing that he'd done the right thing, said only, “Hold us on that turn no matter what.” And Sostratos did, though he began to think he was wrestling a foe beyond his strength. “Pull hard, you bastards! Pull!” Menedemos screamed to the rowers, and then, to the men who weren't rowing, “Grab poles! Grab oars! Fend that fat sow off!” He cupped his hands and screamed louder still at the round ship: “Sheer off! Sheer off, you wide-arsed, tawny-turded chamber pot!”
Вы читаете The Gryphon's Skull
