The Gryphon's Skull

“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!”

A couple of naked sailors on the round ship were yelling, too. Sostratos could see their open mouths. They were so dose, he could see that one of them had a couple of missing teeth. He couldn't hear a word they said, though. One of them ran hack and snatched up a pole, too, to try to push the Aphrodite away. But the big, beamy ship lumbered on, right toward the merchant galley.

Right toward? At first, Sostratos had been sure she would simply trample the Aphrodite

under her keel, as a war galley might have done. But his hard turn gave him hope. He had to turn his head farther to the left every moment to keep an eye on the round ship. Maybe she would slip past the akatos' stern. But she was close now, so close. . .

“Port oars—in!” Diokles yelled, not wanting them broken and crushed by the round ship's hull. With only the starboard rowers working, the Aphrodite tried to slew back to port. Sostratos held her on course against the new pressure.

Poles probed out from each ship, trying to hold the other off. Sostratos felt two or three thud against the merchant galley's flank. With a far larger crew, the Aphrodite had more men straining to push away the round ship. Sailors on both ships cursed and called on the gods, sometimes both in the same breath.

They almost got their miracle. Had the rain been even a little lighter, had lynx-eyed Aristeidas spied the round ship even a handful of heartbeats sooner, the two vessels would have missed each other. But, with a grind of timbers, the round ship's side scraped against the Aphrodite's

stern. Sostratos jerked his arm off the port steering oar an instant before the other ship carried the oar away. Had he been late, he would have had the arm torn from its socket.

The round ship sailed on, as if without a care in the world. Sostratos shook himself, as if waking from a bad dream. But a dream wouldn't have left him naked on a pitching, rolling deck, both hands now on the tiller of the surviving steering oar.

“You did well there,” Menedemos said quietly. “You did as well as anyone could. I'll take it now. Duck under the poop deck and see if we're taking on water. To the crows with me if that fat pig”—a word with a lewd double meaning—”didn't stave in some of our planking.”

“All right,” Sostratos said. “Why didn't you take the steering oars away from me? Maybe the round ship would have missed.”

Menedemos tossed his head. “You had us going hard to starboard. That was the right thing to do, and I couldn't have done anything different. I didn't want the tillers without hands on 'em for even half a heartbeat there, so I just left you alone. Now go see how we're doing under here.”

As Sostratos went past Diokles, the oarmaster clapped him on the back. That made him so proud, he all but flew down the steps from the poop deck to the waist of the ship: Diokles was not a man to show approval when it hadn't been earned.

Ducking under the poop deck, Sostratos found the one drawback to sending a tall man down there—he banged his head twice in quick succession on the underside of the deck timbers, the second time hard enough to see stars. He wished he had some of Menedemos' Aristophanic curses handy.