But then he tossed his head. He couldn't afford doubt now, not if he was to have even a small chance against that much larger ship. If Sostratos were at the steering oars now, would doubt paralyze him? Menedemos tossed his head again. He didn't have time to wonder, either.
He watched the Roman trireme. It was cataphract - fully decked - as a bigger ship, a four or a five, would have been. Marines in bronze helms and corselets and nearly naked sailors ran about on the deck. Some of them pointed toward the Aphrodite. Faint across the water, he heard their shouts.
They wonder what in Tartaros I'm up to. Maybe they think I've lost my mind. I wonder, too. Maybe I have.
On came the trireme, looking bigger and fiercer with every heartbeat. Its ram, aimed straight at Menedemos' ship, sliced through the sea as smoothly as a shark's snout. Its oars rose and fell, rose and fell, with almost hypnotic unity. Almost - sure enough, that crew either hadn't been together long or wasn't well trained. Menedemos' rowers were much more professional - but, again, he measured forty men against the Roman captain's one hundred seventy. That gave the barbarian a lot of room for error . . . and Menedemos none whatever.
More Roman marines came up on deck. The two ships were close enough now for Menedemos to see they carried bows. They were as jumpy as anyone else on either galley - they started shooting well before the ships were in range. One after another, their arrows splashed into the sea in front of the Aphrodite.
But that wouldn't last, and Menedemos knew it. "Anyone who's wounded," he called, "get up from your oar if you're too badly hurt to keep rowing. You men who aren't at the oars, jump in as fast as you can. And everyone, by the gods! Listen for my commands and obey them the instant you hear them. If you do, we can beat that big, ugly, clumsy trireme. We can!"
The rowers raised a cheer. Before Sostratos said anything, he came up close to Menedemos, which showed better sense than he sometimes used. In a low voice, he asked, "How can we beat that big, ugly, clumsy trireme?"
"You'll see." Menedemos did his best to show the confidence he was also doing his best to feel. He patted his cousin on the arm. "Now do get out of the way, best one, if you'd be so kind. I have to be able to see straight ahead." For another wonder, Sostratos moved aside without argument.
Arrows started thudding into the Aphrodite's planking. The two ships were only about three plethra apart now, and closing fast. Menedemos wished he had a catapult up on the foredeck, not cages full of peafowl chicks. A few of those darts would give the Romans something to think about! Of course, the catapult would also make the akatos bow-heavy as could be; not even a trireme could afford the weight of such an engine. A rower howled with pain. He sprang up from his bench, an arrow transfixing his right arm. Another sailor took his place. The Aphrodite scarcely faltered. Menedemos let out a silent sigh of relief.
Each heartbeat felt as if it came about an hour after the one just past. Menedemos' gaze fixed on the Roman trireme's ram. He could read the other captain's mind. If these mad merchants want a head-on collision. I'll give them one, the barbarian had to be thinking. My bigger ship will roll right over theirs and capsize it, sure as sure.
Menedemos didn't want a head-on collision: that was, in fact, the last thing he wanted. But he had to make the Roman captain think he did up till the last possible instant, which was just about . . . now.
Another wounded rower screamed, and another. Menedemos ignored them. He ignored everything, in fact, but the onrushing bulk of the enemy trireme and the feel of the steering-oar tillers in his hands.
He tugged on the tillers ever so slightly, swinging the Aphrodite to port just before she and the trireme would have smashed together. At the same time, he cried out in a great voice: "Starboard oars - in!"
As smoothly as they had in practice farther south, the rowers brought their oars inboard. Instead of ramming the Roman trireme, the Aphrodite glided along beside her, close enough to spit from one ship to the other. And the merchant galley's hull rode over the trireme's starboard oars and broke them as a man's descending foot would break the twigs of a child's toy house.
Rowers aboard the Roman ship screamed as the butt ends of the oars, suddenly propelled by forces much greater than they could generate, belabored them. Menedemos heard two splashes in quick succession as Roman marines fell into the sea. Their armor would drag them down to a watery grave. His smile was fierce as a wolf's. He wanted to wave good-bye to them, but couldn't take his hands off the tillers.
The Aphrodite slid past the crippled trireme. "Starboard oars - out!" Menedemos shouted, and his ship, undamaged, pulled away from the Roman vessel. He looked east. The rest of the Roman fleet had headed up the Sarnos. He was all alone with this ship that had tried to sink him. Now he did turn and wave to the man at the trireme's steering oars. The fellow was staring back over his shoulder at the merchant galley, his eyes as wide as any man's Menedemos had ever seen.
"You can ease back on the stroke now, Diokles," Menedemos told the oarmaster. "Let us get a little distance between our ship and that polluted barbarian, and then . . ."
"Aye aye, skipper!" Diokles said. Menedemos had never heard so much respect in his voice. And I earned it, too, by the gods, he thought proudly.
"What are you going to do?" Sostratos asked.
"I'm going to ram that wide-arsed catamite, that's what." Menedemos' voice was savage as a maenad's. "Romans don't sail any too bloody well. Let's see how good they are at swimming."
"I wish you wouldn't," Sostratos said.
"What?" Menedemos stared. He wondered if he'd heard correctly. "Are you out of your mind? Why not? You treat your friends well and your enemies badly, and if these bastards aren't enemies, what are they?" He tugged on the steering-oar tillers to bring the akatos' bow around to bear on the trireme. The Romans were starting to shift oars from their undamaged port side to starboard. That would eventually let them limp away, but it wouldn't let them escape a vengeful Aphrodite.
"They're enemies, all right," Sostratos said. "But think - wasn't it wildest luck that we hurt them in the first place?"
"Luck and a good crew," Menedemos growled. He still hungered for revenge.
"Agreed. Agreed ten times over," Sostratos said. "But now that we've been lucky once, wouldn't another run at that cursed big ship be hubris? Suppose the ram stuck fast. All those marines - except for the ones we knocked into the drink, I mean - and all those rowers would swarm aboard, and that would be the end of that."
Menedemos grunted. He wanted to tell his cousin there wasn't a chance in the world of that happening. He wanted to, but he couldn't. Such mishaps were all too common; ramming could be as hard on the attacking ship as on the victim. And if that did happen here, it would be as deadly to the Aphrodite as Sostratos said. He took a deep breath and let it out, then blinked a couple of times almost in surprise, like a man suddenly lucid again after a ferocious fever broke.
"You're right," he said. "I hate to admit it - you have no idea how much I hate to admit it - but you're right. Let's get out of here while the getting's good."
"Thank you," Sostratos said softly.
"I'm not doing it for you," Menedemos said. "Believe me, I'm not doing it for myself, either. I'm doing it for the ship."
"This far from home, that's the best reason," Sostratos said. Menedemos only shrugged, despite watching Diokles dip his head. He'd made his decision. That didn't mean he had to like it.
The Romans on their trireme's deck gawked at the Aphrodite as she passed safely out of arrow range. Menedemos thought some rowers were gaping out through the oar ports, too. "Got a little lesson today, didn't you?" he shouted at them; though they were a long way off and probably didn't speak Greek anyhow. His rowers were much less restrained. They blistered the Romans with curses they'd picked up all over the Inner Sea.