The Gryphon's Skull

by H. N. Turteltaub

  “You couldn't pay me enough to wear a corselet aboard ship,” Menedemos said. “One slip and splash!—right down to the bottom of the sea.”

  “A swimmer sometimes has a chance,” Sostratos agreed.

  Before his cousin could answer, an officer aboard the war galley cupped his hands in front of his mouth and bellowed, “You, there! Heave to!”

  Diokles looked a question to Menedemos, who dipped his head. “Oöp!” the keleustes called, and the rowers rested at their oars. The Aphrodite slid to a halt, bobbing in the light chop. Sostratos' stomach tried to complain. He ignored it.

  Up came the five, a wooden cliff rising from the sea. She had twice the freeboard of the Aphrodite; her deck stood six or seven cubits above the sea. The officer peered down from the deck at the merchant galley. So did her marines, some armed with bows, some with javelins, some with thrusting-spears. “Who are you and where are you from?” the officer demanded.

  “We're the Aphrodite, out of Rhodes,” Sostratos answered.

  That impressed Ptolemaios' officer less than he'd hoped it would. “All the stinking spies and pirates say they're Rhodians,” the fellow said. “Whose ship is this?”

  “My cousin's father's and my father's,” Sostratos said. “Philodemos and Lysistratos.”

  By his accent, the officer wasn't a Rhodian. He turned and spoke in a low voice to some of the marines. One of them dipped his head. Asking if they've ever heard of our fathers, Sostratos thought. The answer the officer got must have satisfied him, for his next question was less hostile: “What are you carrying?”

  “Crimson dye. Papyrus. Ink. Fine Rhodian perfume,” Sostratos replied.

  “Balsam from Engedi. A couple of lion skins. A tiger skin from far-off India,” Menedemos added. He said not a word about the thirteen emeralds in the pouch on his belt. Sostratos would have been astonished if he had. Since they'd been smuggled out of Egypt, these servants of the master of Egypt were all too likely to confiscate them.

  Sostratos hadn't said anything about the gryphon's skull, either. His reasons were different from the ones Menedemos likely had. He simply couldn't imagine a naval officer caring about old bones or being able to see that the skull might be valuable.

  “A tiger skin?” the officer said. “You show me a tiger skin and I'll send you right on in to the harbor.”

  “Just as you say, O marvelous one,” Menedemos replied. Sostratos wouldn't have used that sarcastic formula to a fellow aboard a war galley that could have crushed the Aphrodite like a man stamping on a mouse, but his cousin always liked to push things. Menedemos waved to him. “Show the gentleman the skin, Sostratos,”

  “Certainly,” Sostratos said. Menedemos assumed he knew exactly where it was stowed, and Menedemos was right. He got out the large oiled-leather sack that protected the tiger skin from seawater and undid the rawhide lashing holding the sack closed. The rank odor of a not quite perfectly cured hide and, he supposed, of tiger itself wafted out.

  A couple of sailors helped him spread out the great striped skin. The officer leaned forward, staring so hard he almost fell into the sea. The marines aboard the galley gaped, too. Finally, the officer blinked a couple of times and seemed to come back to himself. “I'm a man of my word,” he said, and waved toward the harbor of Kos city a few stadia away. “Pass on.”

  “Rhyppapai! Rhyppapai!” Diokles called, beating out the stroke with his mallet and bronze square. As the rowers began to work, the oarmaster aboard the war galley also began his endless chant. Those three banks of sweeps bit into the Aegean. Ptolemaios' galley resumed its patrol, and the Aphrodite glided into the harbor.

  Finding a place to tie up took a deal of time and a deal of shouting. The harbor was much smaller than that of Rhodes. It didn't have nearly enough shipsheds to accommodate all the triremes and bigger galleys from Ptolemaios' fleet; close to half of them had to moor at the quays like so many merchantmen. Because of that, space for real merchantmen was at a premium.

  Menedemos almost rammed a round ship in his haste to seize a spot near the end of a pier. The round ship's sailors, who stood on deck ready to fend off the Aphrodite with poles, screamed curses at him. The akatos' rowers screamed back, louder and more foully. Since the Aphrodite had five or six times as many crewmen aboard, they shouted down the sailors on the other ship.

  As had happened at Knidos, an officer came hurrying up to the end of the quay to question the men of the Aphrodite on where she was from, where she'd been, whither she was bound, and what she was carrying. Sostratos' patience frayed. “No one hounded us like this when we came here a year ago,” he complained.

  Ptolemaios' officer shrugged. “The war hadn't come to these parts a year ago, either.”

  That held some truth, but only some. As he had at Knidos, Sostratos said, “It's not our war. We Rhodians are free and autonomous and neutral.”

  “Kos is free and autonomous, too,” the officer said. Sostratos almost laughed in his face. Free to obey Ptolemdios, he thought. Autonomous as long as it does what he wants. The fellow said nothing whatever about Koan neutrality,

  Menedemos had been drumming his fingers on the mismatched steering-oar tillers for a while, too. Now he inquired, “Do we pass muster?”

  “I suppose so,” Ptolemaios' officer said grudgingly. Then, as the fellow aboard the war galley had done, he asked, “Have you really got a tiger skin aboard?”

  “By the dog of Egypt, we do,” Menedemos answered. “Do you want to show him, Sostratos?”

  “Why not?” Sostratos said, thinking he shouldn't have bothered rolling up the skin and stuffing it back into its sack after displaying it to the naval officer. As he had out on the Aegean, he called on a couple of sailors to give him a hand. They soon had the skin stretched out.

  Not only the officer but his retinue and the usual gaggle of portside loungers crowded up to the edge of the quay for a good look. We ought to charge a khalkos or two for a peek, the way we did with the peafowl last year. Sostratos thought. The officer stared and stared. “It's a ... very big beast, isn't it?” he said at last.

  Seeing the hide shown that way made it seem even bigger than it was. Sostratos gravely dipped his head even so. “Bigger and fiercer than a lion,” he said. He had no idea whether a tiger really was fiercer than a lion. He did know this hide was bigger than either lion skin aboard the Aphrodite.

  When he started to stow the skin in its sack once more, the officer sighed as if sorry to have to come back to the mundane world, “All right, Rhodians,” he said. “Good trading here in Kos.” He turned and walked back down the quay, his hangers-on following. Some of the loungers drifted away, too. Others crowded forward, hoping for something else new that might make interesting gossip.

  They were disappointed. Perfume and balsam and papyrus and dye were much less interesting than tiger skins. Again, no one had said a word about emeralds—Sostratos hoped nobody would, not here—and the gryphon's skull remained in its wrappings. This wasn't the place to take it out.

  “At least they're still willing to let us trade,” Sostratos said.

  “Once we talk them into it, yes,” Menedemos said. “I wonder how much longer they will be, though. I don't know which is worse for people like us; pirates prowling as they please or war among the marshals.”

  Sostratos eyed his cousin in some surprise. Menedemos didn't usually think in such terms. Sostratos said, “They go together. If the marshals weren't warring, someone would put down the pirates. As things are, the marshals use them, and so they flourish.”

  “You're probably right.” Menedemos waved around the crowded harbor. “Ptolemaios could put them down if he had a mind to. He's got the fleet for it right here. So could Antigonos, though his ships are more scattered. But who does the pirate-hunting around these parts? Our little Rhodes, that's who.”

  “If one of the marshals won, he might care more about proper rule for the lands he held.” Sostratos sighed. “But they've been fighting among themselves ever since Alexander di
ed, and even the truces they've made haven't been much more than breathing spells.”

  “No end in sight, either,” Menedemos said. Sostratos wished he could have argued with his cousin, but he clipped his head in agreement instead.

  WHITEWASH and MARBLE and bright tile roofs against the lush green of springtime made Kos one of the prettier cities around the Aegean—indeed, around the whole of the Inner Sea. Menedemos hurried down the quay from the Aphrodite, Sostratos close behind. “I even remember how to find old Xenophanes' place,” Menedemos said. “Two streets in, turn right, three streets over, and it's right across from the boy brothel.”

  Like Rhodes, Kos city was built on a sensible grid. It was an even newer town than Rhodes. The earlier polis on the island, Meropis, had lain in the far southwest, but an earthquake and a Spartan sack during the Peloponnesian War had put paid to it. The new polis looked forward to Anatolia, not back toward Hellas.

  Going two streets up and three streets over produced no sign of the silk merchant's establishment—or of the boy brothel, either. Menedemos dug his toes into the dirt of the narrow street. “I'm sure that's how we got here,” he muttered. “Remember? Last year we had to pay somebody an obolos to tell us the way.”

  “I remember,” Sostratos said. “In fact, I remember the fellow saying three streets up and two streets over. If we go up one more street and back to our left...”

  “I'm sure it was two up and three over.” Menedemos looked around, then shrugged. “But it couldn't have been, could it?” He gave his cousin a glance half respectful, half rueful. “AH right, my dear, we'll try it your way. I know you've got the same nose for details as a fox does for chickens.”

  One block farther up, one block back to the left, and there was the boy brothel, with the slaves lounging about in an anteroom open to the street, waiting for whoever might want them. Sostratos didn't say, I told you so. Menedemos wished he would have; he would have preferred it to the smug expression Sostratos wore.

  The house across from the brothel was also familiar. Menedemos knocked on the door there. Before long, a plump Karian opened it. He smiled at them. “Well, if it isn't the gentlemen from Rhodes! Hail, both of you. Welcome. Come in.” He spoke almost perfect Greek.

  “Hail,” Menedemos said, stepping forward as the Karian slave stood aside to let him and Sostratos into the house.

  “How are you, Pixodaros?” Sostratos asked, Menedemos smiled. His cousin did have the nose for details. He'd come up with the slave's name the year before, too. Menedemos had heard it and promptly forgotten it again. Sostratos went on, “And how's Xenophanes these days?”

  Pixodaros' expressive black eyebrows leaped toward his hairline. “Haven't you heard—?” he began. But then he shook his head, proving he remained a barbarian no matter how long he'd lived among Hellenes. “No, of course you wouldn't have, for it happened a couple of months after the end of the sailing season. Xenophanes took sick with an inflammation of the lungs and died. He had no living children of his own, you know. In his will, he was kind enough to manumit me and leave me his business.”

  “I... see,” Menedemos said slowly. Such things happened all the time. If his father, or Sostratos', had been childless ... He didn't want to think about that. What he did think was, / won't forget Pixodaros' name now.

  “Here we are.” The slave—-no, the freedman—led them to the parlor where they'd dickered with Xenophanes the year before. He waved them to stools. “Sit down, best ones.” He called for a slave to bring wine. The year before, he'd done it himself. When the wine came, he splashed out a small libation. “My master had more than seventy years when he died. We'll be lucky if we match him.”

  “That's so.” Menedemos poured a little wine onto the floor in Xenophanes' memory. So did Sostratos. Menedemos glanced over to his cousin. Both our fathers are past fifty. How long will they live? How long will we live? He shivered, as if he'd heard an owl hoot in daylight, and took a long pull at the wine. Again, Sostratos did the same thing. Maybe he was thinking along similar lines. Menedemos wouldn't have been surprised. Such thoughts fit his cousin better than him. I'm not made for looking deep, he thought, and drank again.

  Presently, Pixodaros said, “And what is the news from the wider world?”

  Menedemos laughed. “Living here on Kos, you'll know more of it than we will, for Ptolemaios has been making most of it.”

  “So he has.” Pixodaros didn't look delighted. A moment later, he explained why: “Even more drunken sailors than usual making a racket in the street at all hours of the day and night.” He shrugged. “What can a peaceable man do?” Pointing to Menedemos, he went on, “You were heading far into the west last year. How did your journey fare? What is the news from those places?”

  It was still early in the sailing season. No ship from Great Hellas was likely to have come into these waters yet. Menedemos told of the Romans' war against the Samnites, and the larger and more important war Syracuse was waging against Carthage. He spoke of the Aphrodite's journey into besieged Syracuse with the grain fleet, and of Agathokles' escape from Syracuse and invasion of Africa.

  “And there was the eclipse of the sun after we got into Syracuse,” Sostratos added.

  Pixodaros' eyes widened. “I have heard of them, but I have never seen one. They really do happen, then?”

  “They really do,” Sostratos said solemnly, “and they're even more awesome to see than you would think from the tales about them.” Menedemos thought about that, then dipped his head in agreement.

  “Well, well,” Pixodaros said, and then again: “Well, well.” He chuckled. “And I think I go traveling when I leave the city to check the fields and orchards that are mine now. You make me feel like a child in his cradle.”

  With a shrug, Menedemos said, “Some people do one thing, some another. I'm glad Xenophanes left his business in such good hands.”

  “Thank you.” Xenophanes' freedman looked from Menedemos to Sostratos and back again, “The two of you didn't come to Kos just to chat.”

  “No,” Sostratos said. “We do have a certain interest in your silk. We did well with it last year. We'd like to do well with it again.”

  “What are you carrying?” Pixodaros asked.

  “We have more of the crimson dye of Byblos that Xenophanes always liked to use,” Menedemos answered.

  As Pixodaros dipped his head—he did it self-consciously, as if reminding himself to behave like a Hellene—Sostratos added, “And we also have fine Rhodian perfume. I remember you were interested in it last year, even though Xenophanes wasn't.”

  Menedemos hadn't remembered that. He'd kept Xenophanes' views in mind then, but not those of the man who'd been a slave then, Pixodaros dipped his head again. “Yes, I was. I still am—or I could be, if the price is right. We agree, more or less, on what silk is worth in terms of dye. But in terms of perfume?” He leaned forward on his stool, eager anticipation in his eyes. “We have a new dicker, my friends.”

  He called to his slave, who brought in more wine, and olives and onions to go with it. A new dicker indeed, Menedemos thought. And this must be his first big one as a freedman. He wants to start things off the right way. He filled his cup from the mixing bowl and bit into an onion. “When you buy our perfume, you know just what you're getting,” he said. “Silk, now . . . I'd like to see what you want to sell us.”

  “It shall be as you say.” Pixodaros clapped his hands. Looking a little harassed, the slave came back into the room. Pixodaros told him what he needed. The slave nodded and hurried away. He came back with a bolt of the rare fabric. Pixodaros held it up for his guests. “Top quality, O best ones, as you see. Xenophanes showed me everything he knew.”

  It did look very good. It was filmier than the gauziest linen; Menedemos could see Pixodaros through it. Yet it also shone and sparkled, as linen never did. Brothel keepers paid high prices to deck their girls in the stuff. Hetairai bought it for themselves. And men eager for display or simply to have something few others in their
polis did also set down their silver for silk—commonly in thicker grades.

  “What do you weave it from?” Sostratos murmured.

  He couldn't have expected an answer. It was only his curiosity talking. For a moment, though, Pixodaros' face went hard and hostile behind the transparent cloth. “That is the secret of Kos,” he said. “The most I will ever say is that I was so surprised when I learned it, you could guess from the fall of Troy till now and you would never once come close.”

  “As may be,” Sostratos said. “I don't need to know in order to want it.” He turned to Menedemos. “Shall we get a hundred bolts, as we did last year?”

  “That suits me well enough,” Menedemos said. “We won't be going into the west this trip, but there's always a strong market for silk in Athens.” He raised an eyebrow at Pixodaros. “You do have it?”

  “Certainly.” The Karian started to nod, then caught himself and dipped his head.

  “All right, then,” Sostratos said. “Shall we trade dye for half and perfume for the other half? Dye at the same rate we gave Xenophanes last year?”

  “I thought the old man could have done a little better,” Pixodaros replied, “but let it be as you say. Now, though, the perfume . . .”

  “Top grade, just like your silk,” Menedemos said. “An akatos can't afford to carry anything but the best. We make our money from quality. A round-ship captain with a load of olive oil in his hold can take along a little junk to peddle on the side, because it's not where most of his profit will come from. We don't dare sell junk. We always want the good and the beautiful.” Sostratos stirred at that—the words came right to the edge of philosophy—but didn't speak.

  “And how much do you want for one of your jars of perfume, as compared to the price for one of your jars of dye?” Pixodaros asked.

  Menedemos smiled. “That's where the dickering comes in, wouldn't you say?” Pixodaros smiled, too. Oil and wheat might have something close to a fixed price, except in times of dearth, but luxuries? Luxuries brought what the seller could get, what the buyer could afford.