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Convincing his father to let him take six dozen men to sea had been easier than Odysseus anticipated. The young man had bemoaned the hopelessness of marrying Penelope, and had carefully baited his father into reassuring him that, “There’s more to the world than one woman.” From there it had been relatively easy to convince his father that he needed to get away from Aegean waters for a while. He’d argued it would not only take his mind off of Penelope, it’d test his skill as a sailor and a leader, and when he returned he’d be in the right frame of mind to fulfill his duties as future king of Ithaca.
Having grown up on a small island, Odysseus was no stranger to the deck of a ship. One day, when he succeeded his father, he'd have over a dozen ships at his command, and his father had made sure that Ithaca's prince would appreciate the trials and rewards of working on the waves. Odysseus had worked on his father's fishing ships as a child, and when he was older, he'd secured a merchant galley to take an active role in Ithaca's trade with the rest of Greece - and to make occasional trips to Sparta to see Penelope.
Like many mariners of his time, Odysseus had also participated in a few raids. What would later be seen as piracy or as outright acts of war were at that time a legitimate practice - a few successful raids could make up for a poor harvest or pressure a neighboring state into reconsidering their tariffs. Penelope's cousin, Agamemnon, liked to harp on about a united Greece, where such brigandry would be soundly punished, but such a harmonious alliance seemed unlikely - even the slightest offense would surely topple it like a tower of round blocks.
When Odysseus checked on his humble merchant ship in the harbor, he found it had been replaced, or somehow changed, into a very different vessel. His new ship was a much sleeker galley made of strong wood fastened with bronze fittings and decorated with blue livery. She had slots for 25 oars on each side, arranged on a single level, and her bronze capped prow jutted out beneath the waterline to form a ram - a design Achaens had not seen since Knossos collapsed and took the Minoan navy with it. She had two masts; one was positioned roughly in the middle of the ship, with a level yardarm to support a bright blue, square-rigged sail, and the other was positioned between the main mast and the prow, topped with an angled yardarm rigged for a triangular sail. Athena's shape-shifting bird, Adresteia, waited on the railing that separated the elevated aft castle from the main deck.
Within the week, Odysseus left port with over seventy men.
Despite the dramatic and unexplainable replacement, everyone who laid eyes upon the ship knew it was Odysseus's, as if it were enchanted in some way, and many seasoned sailors sought him out, asking for the privilege to crew such a fine vessel. Odysseus was well liked in Ithaca, and many of his unwed friends were also happy to go on an adventure before they settled down. A number of the family’s slaves also asked to go, young men and boys who saw an opportunity for upward mobility, or at least a break from a life of drudgery.
The ship skimmed across the water like no vessel Odysseus had seen before; it seemed that no matter what their bearing was, the wind was always at their backs. Needless to say, the fifty men who would otherwise have been working the oars were very happy with the ship.
Odysseus’s friends had tried to convince him to rename the ship the Argo, after Jason’s famous vessel. He reminded them that Jason had been killed when his dry-docked ship fell over and crushed him, and they agreed the name was a poor choice. Ultimately, he decided to name it the Aegis of Wisdom, a quiet nod to their invisible benefactor.
Odysseus spent his first full day under sail on the aft deck of the ship with his navigator poring over the maps that had been waiting aboard the ship. They were unlike any the mortal men had ever seen. The lines and lettering were impossibly precise for human hands to have written, and the maps were overlaid with a numbered grid. Bundled with them were diagrams depicting the night sky and an intricate metal device with movable, concentric circles covered in numbers. Eventually, Odysseus figured out that the numbers on the device corresponded to notations on the maps and the star charts. This had flummoxed the navigator, but Odysseus had finally remembered a story about the Minoan sailors of Crete having used the stars to guide their vessels. Odysseus realized that with some fairly challenging mathematics, he could use the stars in the sky the same way his navigator would use conventional landmarks along the coasts. It took him only slightly longer to realize that the device could be used to abbreviate the math, allowing him to perform the calculations quickly once he had some practice with the contraption. All in all, it would be far more complicated than simply following the coastline, but it would allow them to sail out of sight of land, greatly shortening their trip across the length of the Mediterranean. Once Odysseus felt he had the math about right, he experimented with his self-taught astrogation, using it for short distances at first, and then growing more ambitious as his crew became more comfortable with the sight of unbroken blue water in all directions.
On the fifth day of their voyage they sailed from sunrise to sunrise without sight of land - a feat which surely would have left any other ship lost at sea. When they came upon a small island the next morning, Odysseus decided the crew had earned some shore leave, and ordered the ship moored just off the shore of a white sandy beach that broke up the dark grey cliffs of volcanic rock ringing the island.
“How are we doing, captain?” Odysseus’s long-time friend Acrysius beamed, thrilled to be on another adventure.
“With a favorable wind, our old merchant galley would do well to manage four knots – about 100 miles in a day.”
“The Aegis has to be going faster,” Acrysius said, “I’ve never been on a ship that sailed so smoothly, and with the wind forever at its stern no less.”
“By my estimate, we managed 150 miles since yesterday morning.”
Acrysus whistled, “Damn. That’s…” Acrysius went into a long pause. The man was smart enough to be friends with Odysseus, but not gifted in the realm of arithmetic.
“About six knots,” Odysseus said, “I’ve heard of ships making over seven knots, but not for as long as we’ve been at it. If we maintain this speed, we should reach our destination in less than a week. We’ll have made the whole trip in half the time other ships have.”
“The gods have smiled on you,” Acrysius smacked him on the shoulder.
“Well, we know at least one of them has,” Odysseus winked at Adresteia as he rolled the maps up into an oilskin.
“So, I figure we’re far enough from home I can ask…” Acrysius began to ask a question. Odysseus was immediately concerned that Acrysus was going to press for information about the ship or the maps, and Adresteia's feather's ruffled, suggesting she expected the same. However, his friend – while doubtlessly curious about such things – had other matters on his mind, “You haven’t actually given up on marrying Penelope, right?”
“That’s what I told my father,” Odysseus smiled slyly.
“Ody, I’ve known you for 10 years. You’re an honorable man but not an honest one. You take after Anticlea too much. Hey, has she mentioned me recently?” Acrysius grinned.
“Same answer I’ve been giving you for 10 years, Acrysius – no.” Odysseus smiled, “If this trip goes well, it will help me win Penelope’s hand, but I can’t say more than that.”
Acrysius held up his hands, “Hey, I know the drill. Those pranks you used to pull on magister Pharys only worked out because you knew not to tell any of us too much.”
“Good; now, let’s get off this ship and enjoy some solid ground for a while.”
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