The Gryphon's Skull

about as fast with oars as we do with the sail, you can save your screams till you need to throw them at your fellow philosophers.” “I'm not much of a philosopher,” Sostratos said sadly. “I haven't got enough leisure.” “You're doing something useful, which is more than a lot of those windbags can say for themselves,” Menedemos replied. His cousin looked shocked. Before Sostratos could rush to philosophy's defense, Menedemos added, “Eat your breakfast and then do one more useful thing: help me hand out weapons to the crew,” Like most merchant galleys—and, for that matter, like most pirate ships—the Aphrodite carried a motley assortment of arms: perhaps a dozen swords (Sostratos belted his on), a handful of peltasts' light shields, some javelins and pikes, hatchets, a couple of ripping hooks, iron crowbars, knives. Menedemos set his bow and a quiver of arrows where he could grab them in a hurry. Or, more likely, where Sostratos or somebody else can get his hands on them, he thought. I'll he busy steering the ship. He shrugged. Odds were, this was nothing but a waste of time. Even if a pirate chieftain did make a run at the Aphrodite, a show of strength would probably make him choose a different victim. But if you didn't treat what might lie ahead as if it were real, you wouldn't be ready on the off chance it turned out so. “Rhyppapai! Rhyppapai!” Diokles called, and beat out the stroke with his mallet and bronze square. As the channel between Arados and Euboia drew near, he looked back over his shoulder at Menedemos and asked, “Will you want to put a man at every oar for the dash through the strait?” The oarmaster acted as if the Aphrodite might be sailing straight into danger. Menedemos didn't see how he could do anything less. He dipped his head. “Yes, let's,” he said, “We haven't had to do much of that kind of thing this sailing season. Let's see how well they handle it.” “Good enough.” Diokles ordered the rowers to the rowing benches. Menedemos sent Aristeidas up to the foredeck to keep an eye out for pirates as the akatos passed each promontory. If we're going to do this, we'll do it the best way we know how, he thought. His own gaze kept swinging from north to south, from one island to the other, as the merchant galley sped down the channel. Diokles had hardly set a hotter pace when they were trying to escape the Roman trireme the summer before. The men will be glad to ease off once we're through, Menedemos thought. But then, just when he'd started to think they'd safely made the passage, Aristeidas pointed to port and shouted, “A ship! A ship!” “A pestilence!” Mencdernos exclaimed as the vessel emerged fromthe concealment of a headland on the northern coast of Andros and raced toward the Aphrodite. “What do we do now?” Sostratos said. “Maybe we should have tried coming through yesterday afternoon.” “Bastard was probably lurking here then, too,” Menedemos said. “There aren't many honest uses for a hemiolia, anyhow.” The two-banked galley was short and lean and one of the swiftest things afloat. Her crew had already taken down the mast and stowed it abaft of the permanent rowing benches of the upper bank. “Turn towards 'em and try and scare 'em off?” Diokles asked. “That's what I'm going to do,” Menedemos answered. “They can't have a crew much bigger than ours, so why would they want to mix it up?” He swung the Aphrodite into a tight turn toward the hemiolia. “Up the stroke, if you please.” “Right you are, skipper.” The keleustes smote the bronze square more quickly still, shouting, “Come on, boys! Put your backs into it! Let's make that polluted vulture run for his nest!”