"I never imagined sailing with a valuable cargo I hated," Sostratos said, releasing the peafowl by the socket that fixed the mast to the keel. He pointed a warning finger at the bird. "Stay down here where you belong, Furies take you!" To Menedemos, he added, "I don't much care for cargo that won't stay where I stow it, either."
"The birds would, if you left them in their cages," Menedemos said.
His cousin tossed his head. "We've been over that. I think they'll be better for getting out, though they may drive me mad by the time we make Italy."
Menedemos laughed. Sostratos rolled his eyes. That made Menedemos laugh more. But before he could twit his cousin any further, the watchman on the foredeck sang out: "Sail ho, off the starboard bow!" A moment later he amended that: "Sails ho! She's got a foresail, captain!"
"A big one," Menedemos muttered, peering in the direction the lookout's pointing finger gave. He had sharp eyes; he needed only a moment to spot the ship. When he did, he cursed. He'd hoped to see a big merchantman, bound perhaps for Rhodes and then Alexandria. No such luck: that low, lean shape could belong only to a war galley.
"He's seen us, too," the lookout called. "He's turning this way."
His voice held alarm. Menedemos didn't blame him. He was alarmed, too. "What do we do, skipper?" Diokles asked.
"Hold course," Menedemos answered. "Best thing we can do is put up a bold front. If we were in a pentekonter or a hemiolia, we might have hoped to turn and outrun him downwind, but we haven't got a prayer of that in this akatos - she's too beamy. We have every right to be here, and a proper warship won't give us any trouble, because nobody wants any trouble with Rhodes."
I hope. He'd spoken brashly to hearten his men - and to hearten himself, too. But brashness didn't come easy, not as the galley approached, now under sails and oars. "Eagles on the sails," the lookout called.
"He's one of Ptolemaios', then," Sostratos said.
Menedemos dipped his head in agreement. "Patrolling out of Kos, I suppose."
"Too big and broad to be a trireme," his cousin observed. "A four or a five."
"A five," Menedemos answered. "Three banks of rowers, see? One man on each thalamite oar down low, two on each zygite, and two on each thranite oar on top. If it were a four, it'd be two-banked, with two men on each oar."
"You're right of course." Sostratos thumped his forehead with the heel of his hand, as he often did when he thought he'd been foolish. "Whatever it is, it's big enough to eat us for opson and still be hungry for sitos afterwards."
"And isn't that the truth?" Menedemos said unhappily. "Got to be a hundred cubits long, if it's even a digit." For a merchant galley, the forty-cubit Aphrodite was of respectable size. Compared to the war galley, it was a sprat set beside a shark. The five was fully decked, too; armored marines with spears and bows strode this way and that, their red cloaks blowing in the breeze. The outrigger through which the thranite oarsmen rowed was enclosed with timber, making the ship all but invulnerable to archery.
"Catapult at the bow," Sostratos remarked. "From what Father says, they were just starting to mount them on ships when we were little."
"Yes, I've heard my father say the same thing," Menedemos agreed. He hadn't been paying the dart-thrower any mind; he'd been looking at the eyes painted on either side of the five's prow. The Aphrodite had them, too, as did almost every ship in the Middle Sea, but these seemed particularly fierce and menacing - not least because, at the moment, they were glaring straight at his ship.
One of the men on the war galley's deck cupped his hands in front of his mouth and shouted: "Heave to!"
"What do we do, skipper?" Diokles asked again.
"What he says," Menedemos answered, watching seawater foam white over the topmost fin of the five's ram. The green bronze fins had to be a cubit wide; they could smash a hole in the Aphrodite's side that would fill her with water faster than he cared to think about. Even if he were mad enough to try to use his much smaller ram against her timbers, she had extra planking at the waterline to ward against such attacks.
"Oöp!" the keleustes shouted, and the akatos' rowers rested at their oars.
Up came the five to lie alongside the Aphrodite. Men brailed up the sails to keep the great ship from gliding away to the south. The war galley's deck rose six or seven cubits out of the water; the archers there could shoot down into the akatos' waist, while Menedemos' men could do next to nothing to reply.
A fellow in a scarlet-dyed tunic looked the Aphrodite over. By the way he put his hands on his hips, what he saw didn't much impress him. "What ship is this?" he demanded.
