The Gryphon's Skull

by H. N. Turteltaub

  He did that on purpose, Sostratos thought with no small annoyance. He didn't mind Menedemos' always taking the lead, though he himself was older than his cousin. He didn't enjoy standing in front of men and shouting and gesturing to urge them on to pay higher prices, while Menedemos relished nothing more—except, perhaps, seducing their wives. But when he gives orders deliberately intended to drive me mad. . .

  Kaunos wasn't a big city. Menedemos didn't need long to return to the agora, coins clinking in a leather sack he carried in his left hand. His right hand rested on the hilt of a sword he'd belted on. Aristeidas was similarly armed; Teleutas carried a belaying pin with the air of a man who knew what to do with it. It would have taken a large band of determined robbers to separate Menedemos from his money.

  Along with the sailors, he strode over to the stall of the merchant with the hides—and the gryphon's skull. Sostratos watched anxiously and tried to listen, but got distracted again when a local came up and wanted to talk about the best way to make crimson dye fast to Koan silk. Normally, Sostratos would have been delighted to talk shop with the fellow. As things were, he'd never had a customer he wanted less. Even when the man bought a jar of dye, he had to make himself remember to take the money.

  Here came Menedemos, carrying the striped tiger skin rolled up and tied with rope. At another time, thai hide by itself would have been plenty to rouse Sostratos' always lively curiosity. Here came Aristeidas, with a rolled-up lion skin under each arm. And . .. here came Teleutas, lugging the gryphon's skull and looking put upon, as anyone who got stuck with the heaviest piece of the work would have.

  Sostratos hurried over to Menedemos and kissed him on the cheek.

  “Thank you, O best one!” he exclaimed. Then, pragmatism returning, he asked, “What did you pay for it?”

  “Thirty drakhmai,” Menedemos answered. “Polluted whoreson wouldn't go any lower, not even when I asked him if he felt like waiting twelve years or so till another mad philosopher wandered into the agora here.”

  “He probably gave twenty-five to the Hellene he bought it from, and didn't want to part with it at a loss,” Sostratos said.

  “Exactly what I was thinking.” His cousin grinned at him. “I notice you don't deny being a mad philosopher.”

  “I do love wisdom, or the chance to gain some,” Sostratos said seriously. “As for mad . . .” He shrugged. “I'd rather call myself, mm, inquisitive,”

  Thoukydides had had some sharp things to say about men who called a thing by one name when it manifestly deserved another. But Sostratos honestly didn't think he was mad for knowledge the way, say, Sokrates had been. Of course, what madman ever believes be is one?

  Teleutas said, “I've sailed up past Byzantion onto the Pontos Euxeinos, and I've seen gryphons painted on plates along that coast, and done up in jewelry. Up there, they make 'em out to be pretty. But any beast with a skull like this'd have to be the ugliest thing that ever hatched out of an egg.”

  “Now there's a question, my wisdom-loving cousin,” Menedemos said. “Do gryphons hatch from eggs, or are they born alive?”

  “It's a question with a simple answer, as far as I'm concerned,” Sostratos replied. “I don't know.”

  “An honest answer, anyway,” Menedemos said. “Come on, boys, back to the akatos again. We'll stow these prizes—and the skull— and then see what else we can get.”

  “Prizes—and the skull?” Sostratos echoed unhappily, “Why did you buy it if you didn't think we'd make anything from it?”

  “Because, my dear, you'd have fussed and fumed this whole sailing season if I'd left it sitting there on the ground. Thirty drakhmai isn't too high a price to pay for a summer's worth of peace and quiet,” Menedemos answered, Sostratos' ears got hot. There were times when his cousin knew him much too well.

  “Oh, that thing,” Kissidas said when Menedemos and Sostratos went back to the Rhodian proxenos' house for supper that evening. “I've seen it in the agora. Everybody in Kaunos has seen it in the market square by now, I daresay. Why in the name of the gods did you want it?”

  “Well . . .” Menedemos, usually so glib, found himself at a loss for words. “You see . . . That is .. .” I bought it to keep Sostratos happy didn't seem reason enough, not when he sat in the olive merchant's andron instead of bargaining in the market square.

  Sostratos was glib enough here: “I want the philosophers in Athens to see it. It answers many questions about gryphons, starting with whether they're real or mythical beasts. I'd always thought they were the stuff of story myself, but I see I was wrong.”

  “Hard to have a real skull for a mythical beast,” Kissidas said with a dry chuckle.

  “Exactly so, best one,” Sostratos agreed. He would have made a better merchant if everyday affairs roused the same passion in him as this oddity did. Of course he needs oddities to interest him—he's odd himself, Menedemos thought. His cousin went on, “At the same time, though, having a veritable gryphon's skull raises as many questions as it answers.”

  Those questions were for the moment forgotten when Kissidas' cook brought in a dogfish smothered with melted cheese and leeks to accompany his fresh-baked bread. Menedemos made sure he ate enough bread so as not to seem a shameless opsophagos, but the portion of dogfish set before him vanished with marvelous haste. To his relief, his host and his cousin ate their fish just as fast.

  But, after Kissidas licked his fingers clean, he asked, “What sort of questions does the gryphon's skull raise? It just looks like ugly old bones to me.”

  To me, too, Menedemos thought. But Sostratos answered, “Well, for one thing, why would gryphons make good guards for the gold of the Skythians? They have—or this one has, at any rate—teeth that would be better for grazing than for ripping and tearing, as a lion might do.”

  Kissidas blinked. “I never would have thought to look at its teeth. Who would?”

  “Sostratos is like that,” Menedemos murmured.

  He didn't think the olive merchant heard him. To his relief, he didn't think his cousin did, either. Sostratos went on, “And you're right to say it looks like old bones, but it doesn't feel like old bones. It feels like stone, and it has bits of stone stuck to it here and there. Why should gryphons have skulls made of stone when all other beasts have theirs made of bone?”

  “All other beasts? I don't know about that,” Kissidas said.

  “Name another beast with a skull of stone,” Sostratos challenged.

  “Well, there's Hipparkhos, up in the fortress on the hill,” the Rhodian proxenos said, deadpan.

  Menedemos guffawed. “He's got you.”

  “So he has.” Sostratos had the grace to chuckle. But then he got back to the business at hand: “You see why I want the philosophers to be able to examine it?”

  “Old bones.” Kissidas tossed his head. “You'll never make any silver with old bones.”

  “We didn't pay that much,” Menedemos said, stretching a point. “And Sostratos hopes we can get a couple of the philosophical schools in Athens bidding against each other to see who gets to keep the gryphon's skull. So we may turn a profit yet.” He didn't really believe it, but he would back his cousin against a near-stranger.

  “For your sake, I hope your cousin is right.” The proxenos didn't sound convinced, but he didn't sound as if he wanted an argument, either: “And I hope the rest of your business went well.”

  “Pretty well,” Menedemos said. “We don't get the prices for perfume that we would if we were farther away from Rhodes, but we can't do anything about that. People here who want it badly can sail down to the polis and get it in the agora for the same price a Rhodian would pay.”

  “Pity we can't let the Lykeion and the Academy bid up the price of that tiger hide, too,” Sostratos said wistfully.

  “Well, we can't.” Menedemos wanted to make sure his cousin had no doubts about that, “I'm sure we can get more for it somewhere else.” Sostratos dipped his head, but didn't look happy. Menedemos went on, “Gods only know if
we'll ever see another gryphon's skull, my dear, but you can be sure more tiger skins will make their way towards Hellas. They're beautiful, and they're bound to make money for the fellow selling them. You can't say either of those things about the skull.”

  “That's true.” Sostratos sounded a little more cheerful.

  One of the lamps in the andron burned out, making shadows swell and swoop and filling the room with the scent of hot olive oil. Menedemos expected Kissidas to call for a slave to refill it and light it again. Instead, the Rhodian proxenos put a hand in front of his mouth to hide a yawn. Voice still blurry, he said, “Your pardon, best ones, but I'm going to bed. It's been a busy day, and I have another one in front of me tomorrow.” He picked up another clay lamp and handed it to Menedemos. “I'm sure you two can find your way to your own room tonight. Good night.” Out he went, thriftily dousing torches on the way.

  “Not the most subtle hint I've ever seen,” Sostratos remarked, anger and amusement warring in his tone.

  Anger triumphed in Menedemos, as it had in Akhilleus in the Iliad. Menedemos reckoned he had better reason for it than the hero of old. “He didn't much want us here in the first place,” he growled. “Now he's treating us shabbily on purpose. Some proxenos he is.”

  “I don't know,” Sostratos said. “He would have given us salt fish for opson were that so, not that lovely little shark. You can't blame him for being nervous about Antigonos' garrison in the fortress above the town,”

  “Who says I can't?” Menedemos returned. “We might as well go to bed now, though, unless you'd sooner sit in a dark andron here when this lamp goes out.” He got to his feet. So did Sostratos.

  They'd just left the andron when someone knocked on Kissidas' front door. “Who's that?” Sostratos said softly. “Whoever it is, I'll bet Kissidas wishes he'd go away. Good news doesn't come by night.”

  “It isn't our worry, and I'm not sorry it isn't.” Menedemos headed back toward the cramped guest room they shared. They'd just undressed and lain down when a cry of anguish and alarm rent the nighttime stillness. Gladder than ever that it wasn't his worry, Menedemos blew out the lamp. Black night enfolded the room.

  It didn't last long. Someone came rushing back toward the little chamber.

  Torchlight sneaked under the bottom of the door. Kissidas knocked and called, “Open up, in the name of the gods!”

  Menedemos got out of bed without bothering to put his chiton back on. He spoke to Sostratos: “Maybe it's our worry after all.” Opening the door, he addressed the Rhodian proxenos in more normal tones: “Good heavens, what's happened?”

  “I'll tell you what.” Kissidas was practically hopping in agitation; the torch trembled in his hand. “Ptolemaios has brought an army and a fleet up to Phaselis, in eastern Lykia. The town fell to him a few days ago, and he's heading west—heading this way.”

  “Oimoi!” Menedemos whistled. Lykia, like most of Anatolia, was held by Antigonos. The summer before, Ptolemaios' general Leonides had struck at Alexander's one-eyed general in Kilikia, farther east along the southern Anatolian coast. Antigonos' son Demetrios promptly drove him away. But Ptolemaios, who ruled Cyprus as well as Egypt, didn't seem ready to give up the fight.

  Kissidas wasn't worrying about the larger shape of the war between the marshals. His concern was more immediate, more personal. “When Hipparkhos hears about this, he's going to nail me to a cross,” he moaned. “I give thanks to Zeus that the first man here with the news was a fellow who's bought my oil and olives for years.”

  From behind Menedemos, Sostratos said, “If Antigonos' captain here in Kaunos suspects the Rhodian proxenos of favoring Ptolemaios, he'll suspect a couple of real Rhodians even more.”

  “Just my thought.” Kissidas eagerly dipped his head. “You have to get away—this very moment, if you can. And take me and mine with you.” Awkwardly, he went to his knees and embraced Menedemos around the legs in supplication.

  “Get up,” Menedemos told him. His wits worked furiously. His cousin and the olive merchant were right—to a point. “We can't flee in the night, not with half my crew in the taverns and the brothels here, not unless I want to leave them behind. This customer of yours—he won't go to the garrison commander with this word, will he?”

  “No,” Kissidas said. “He does not love Antigonos.”

  “AH right, then. We'll sail at first light tomorrow. If you and yours are aboard when we leave, we'll take you down to Rhodes,” Menedemos said. The proxenos gabbled out thanks. Sostratos made approving noises. Menedemos hardly heard either one of them. Only he knew how little he wanted to return to his home town.

  2

  Sostratos stood on the Aphrodite's tiny foredeck, peering into Kaunos. “Where is he?” he grumbled. Twilight was coming on, paling the waning crescent moon, Kronos' wandering star not far from it, and Zeus' bright wandering star now low in the west.

  “I don't know where he is,” Menedemos answered from the poop; Sostratos' voice must have carried better than he'd thought. His cousin continued, “I don't much care, either. If he's not here by the time the sun climbs up out of the sea, we're sailing anyhow. Furies take me if I'm going to risk my ship in this stupid war.”

  You risked it last year, in the war between Syracuse and Carthage, Sostratos thought. He'd reckoned Menedemos utterly mad, but his cousin had got away with it, and made a fat profit beside. Maybe Menedemos had learned his lesson. Maybe—more likely—he just saw no money in staying in Kaunos.

  Aristeidas' arm shot out. “Someone's coming this way.”

  “Stand by to cast off!” Diokles rasped. “Rowers, be ready.” If those were Hipparkhos' soldiers approaching the merchant galley rather than Kissidas and whatever companions he had with him, the Aphrodite could flee in a hurry.

  Along with Aristeidas and everyone else aboard the akatos, Sostratos tried to make out who those shapes were. His eyes weren't bad, but the lookout's were better. “Whoever they are, they've got women with them,” Aristeidas said. “See the long chitons?”

  After a moment, Sostratos did. “Unless Antigonos has Amazon mercenaries, that'll be the proxenos and his family,” he said. A couple of rowers chuckled. Once Sostratos had spoken, though, he wondered if that wasn't possible. With a gryphon's skull there among the Aphrodite's cargo, what had seemed obvious myth suddenly looked like something else altogether.

  Three men, three women, a little boy, a baby of indeterminate sex in one of the women's arms. One of the men, the biggest and squarest, was undoubtedly Kissidas. One of the women would be his wife. One might be a daughter. The other, almost without a doubt, would be a daughter-in-law; hardly any families reared two girls.

  As the day got brighter and the women got closer, Sostratos saw they were veiled against the prying eyes of men not of their household. Kissidas called, “Thank you for waiting for us, my guest-friends.”

  “Come aboard, and quickly,” Menedemos said from his station at the stern. “We've got no time to waste.”

  “You're probably right,” Kissidas agreed with a sigh. “Chances are good a slave in one, of our houses will have gone up the hill to Hipparkhos by now.” He and his companions hurried along the quay toward the ship. As they boarded, the olive merchant introduced the males: “My son Hypermenes, my grandson Kissidas, my son-in-law Lykomedes son of Lykophron.” He did his best to pretend the women weren't there.

  Menedemos followed custom, too, doing his best not to look as if he was trying to see through those veils. But be is, Sostratos said. He's bound to be. The more women cover up, the more he wants to know what they're hiding. A lot of men among the Hellenes felt that way, but his cousin did so to a greater degree than most.

  “Why don't you all go up to the foredeck?” Menedemos said; like Kissidas, he didn't acknowledge the women with any special words. The closest he came to it was a brief addition: “No one will bother you there.”

  “Thank you,” Kissidas said.

  Sostratos hastily descended from the foredeck and made his way
back toward the stern as the Rhodian proxenos and his kinsfolk came forward. At least one of the women wore perfume; the sweet scent of roses made him whip his head around. But he couldn't even be sure which one it was.

  “Cast off!” Diokles called, and the lines tying the Aphrodite to the pier thumped down into the akatos.

  At almost the same moment, Aristeidas said, “I see more people coming down toward the harbor.” Sostratos saw them, too. The horsehair plumes in their bronze helmets made them look taller and more fearsome than they really were.

  “They aren't coming to invite us to symposion,” Menedemos said with commendable calm. “Let's get out of here.”

  “Back oars!” Diokles said, and set the stroke with his mallet and bronze square. He also called it out: “Rhyppapai! Rhyppapai! Come on, you lugs! Put your backs into it!”

  As if sliding through glue, the Aphrodite began easing away from the pier. Each stroke seemed to push her a bit faster than the one before, but she needed a little while to build up momentum. Kissidas' son—or maybe it was his son-in-law—spoke in a nervous tenor; “They're starting to run.”

  “Rhyppapai! Rhyppapai!”Diokles called.

  “You, there!” someone shouted from the shore.

  “Who, us?” Sostratos called as the Aphrodite eased another few cubits away from the pier.

  “Yes, you!” That had to be a soldier; no one else could hope to put so much authority into a shout. “Are you the polluted Rhodians?” More soldiers trotted down to the end of the wharf. Most of them carried spears, which would do them no good, but a few had bows, and the merchant galley wasn't out of arrow range yet.

  “Rhodians?” Sostratos answered. “Are you daft? We're the Thetis, out of Kos. Want to buy some silk?”

  That made the fellow with the big voice pause for a moment to talk to one of his comrades. Then he started yelling again: “Liar! We know you've got that gods-detested Kissidas on board. Bring him back or you'll be sorry!”