“Little?” Menedemos said indignantly. But the indignation didn't last. Antigonos had all of Anatolia to draw upon, Ptolemaios the endless wealth of Egypt. Next to theirs, Rhodes' fleet would be small. Too small? Menedemos wondered. He hoped he'd never have to find out.
Sostratos stood on the Aphrodite's little raised foredeck, peering north and west as if he expected to see Cape Sounion, the headland that announced one was coming up on Athens, appear over the horizon at any moment. Part of him did. Most of him, the rational part, knew perfectly well that Athens lay some days' journey from Rhodes, and that trading on the way would further delay the akatos' arrival. But the childlike part that never quite dies in any man insisted Cape Sounion would be there because he so badly wanted it to be there. And so he kept on looking.
The wind blew hard and steady out of the northeast—if anything, a little more out of the east than usual. The sailors had swung the yard from the starboard bow back toward the portside rear to take best advantage of it. The big square sail, full of the brisk breeze, pulled the Aphrodite along. Sostratos eyed the creamy wake thrown back from the ram and the cutwater. She was going about as fast as she could by sail alone.
Euxenides of Phaselis came up to stand not far from Sostratos. The leather sack that held his food and whatever meager belongings he owned lay on the foredeck. Like any sensible passenger, he kept an eye on it.
“Hail,” he said.
“Hail,” Sostratos echoed, a bit embarrassed; he probably should have spoken first. But his mind had been elsewhere.
Euxenides pointed, “What's that island there, off to the right?” The way he said it proved to Sostratos that, even if he'd traveled by sea, he was not a naval officer,
“That's Syme,” Sostratos answered. “We stopped there our first night out of Rhodes last year. But with the breeze so steady, we'll go farther today. I don't know whether Menedemos will make for Knidos”—he pointed, too, toward the end of the long finger of mainland north of Syme—”or whether he'll put in somewhere on Telos.” He pointed again, this time toward the island dead ahead.
“I was in Knidos for a little while, three years ago I think it was, when Antigonos took Karia away from that traitor, Asandros,” Euxenides said. “Telos I don't know at all. What's there?”
“Nothing much,” Sostratos answered. “No polis. A few herders. A few farmers—not many, for it's not a well-watered island. But sometimes a quiet place where you can beach yourself and let your ship's timbers dry for a night is nothing to sneeze at.”
Euxenides drummed his fingers on the rail, “I want to get to Miletos. I need to get to Miletos.”
“I want to get to Athens,” Sostratos said with a smile. “I need to get to Athens. And I will—eventually.”
“Sometimes 'eventually' isn't fast enough,” Euxenides said.
“Well, best one, you won't get from Rhodes to Miletos any faster than you will in the Aphrodite,”“ Sostratos said.
“Yes, I found that out,” Euxenides told him. He drummed his fingers some more. He might not be able to help it, but that didn't make him happy about it. He looked due north as avidly as Sostratos looked northwest.
As usual, most of the fishing boats whose crewmen saw the Aphrodite fled from her, fearing she was a pirate. That made the rowers laugh. It made Sostratos sad. Here close to Rhodes, even, men feared sea raiders. He feared sea raiders himself, as a matter of fact; he just knew he wasn't one of their number.
Menedemos held the merchant galley steady on a westerly course, and didn't swing north toward Knidos. Sostratos walked back to the stern. “You're going to put in on Telos?” he asked.
His cousin dipped his head. “That's right. We're not heavily laden, so I'll beach her for the night. It'll be good for the planking, and Telos is about as safe a place to put in as any under the sun.”
“True enough,” Sostratos said. “It hasn't got enough people to make up a decent-sized band of robbers.”
“Just what I was thinking. And this splendid breeze is taking us straight there,” Menedemos said. “Only drawback I can see is that it'll be a longer pull to Kos tomorrow, and the men will have to do more rowing. But we're still early in the season and getting the crew beaten in, so even that won't be so bad.”
Diokles chuckled. “Easy for you to say, skipper. You're not one of the horn-handed bastards pulling an oar.”
“I know how,” Menedemos said. “Sostratos and I both know how, as a matter of fact. Our fathers made sure we do.” He took his hands off the steering-oar tillers to show their palms. “And I've got calluses of my own.”
Sostratos looked down at the palms of his own hands. They were fairly smooth and soft; he would blister if he ever had to do any rowing. The only real callus he had was one just above the first knuckle of the middle finger of his right hand: a callus showing where a pen or a stylus spent a lot of time. But Menedemos was right—he did know how.
The wind held. Telos drew near, the sun dropping down the sky towards it. The island was long and thin and curved, rather like a strigil lying in the water. Only a couple of fishing boats bobbed offshore; they were plenty to bring home opson for the inhabitants of the village near the north coast that was Telos' largest settlement.
A stretch of beach in front of the village was the most common spot for ships to put in, but Menedemos sailed past it. “Why did you do that?” Sostratos asked.
“Something one of the sailors told me while you were on the fore-deck,” his cousin answered. “Once we get past this rocky stretch here”—he waved at the forbidding coastline they were passing— “there's another good bit of beach, one where sea turtles come ashore to lay their eggs. They ought to make good eating. We can boil up a mess of them and have opson for the whole crew.”
“Turtle eggs, eh?” Sostratos felt the lure of the exotic. “I've never tried them. Lead on, O best one.” He patted his stomach. “It's been a long time since bread and wine back on Rhodes.”
“Hasn't it just?” Menedemos agreed.
From the bow, Aristeidas pointed ahead and to port. “There's the beach, skipper!” the sharp-eyed sailor sang out.
“Good,” Menedemos said, and then started calling out orders: “Brail the sail up to the yard! Rowers every other bench! Come on— move faster there. Do it as if you had pirates breathing down your neck.”
To Sostratos, the men seemed to be moving quite fast enough, but Menedemos drove them like the commander of a trireme. The sailors didn't grumble. They knew they would have to be able to work together without thinking if they ever did need to flee pirates or fight them.
This length of beach was considerably shorter than the one near the village. Peering toward it, Sostratos exclaimed in excitement: “That fellow was right! I just saw a turtle crawling back into the sea.”
Whistling, his cousin swung the ship so that her stern pointed toward the beach and her bow out to sea. A couple of men got into the boat she towed and rowed it ashore. “Back oars!” Diokles called. The rowers reversed their stroke. After the Aphrodite beached, pushing her into the sea again come morning would be easier bow-first.
Menedemos kept stealing glances back over his shoulder at the beach as the Aphrodite covered the last couple of plethra. Plovers scurrying along the sand took to the air when the merchant galley drew too close to suit them. “That's fine,” Menedemos said, “just fine. Keep it going and—”
A grinding, scraping noise interrupted him. “What's that?” Sostratos asked at the same time as his cousin exclaimed in surprise and dismay. “Have we struck a rock?” It didn't feel like that, and the akatos still moved backwards through the water.