The Gryphon's Skull

by H. N. Turteltaub

  Menedemos frowned. She was supposed to be there for his pleasure, not the other way round. But he humored her, sitting at the edge of the bed with his legs splayed wide. Eunoa scowled; she liked that less than giving him her backside. She finally squatted between his legs, though, and bent her head over his manhood. His fingers tangled in her hair, guiding her and urging her on.

  Before long, she pulled back, coughing and choking a little. She found the chamber pot under the bed and spat into it. Sated and lazy, Menedemos gave her half a drakhma. He would have had to pay a good deal more for the same pleasure in a brothel. They stretched out on the bed side by side. Menedemos ran a hand along the sweet bare curve of her flank, then blew out the lamp. The room plunged into blackness. He fell asleep almost at once.

  When the sharp knock woke Sostratos, he thought for a moment he was dreaming of what had happened the morning before. As he had then, he lay tangled with Kleiteles' slave, Thestylis. He and the woman both looked around in bleary surprise. Dawn was trickling in through the shutters.

  Another knock sounded, this one next door. “Alypetos is here again,” KleiteJes said, which convinced Sostratos he really was awake. “Ptolemaios wants to see both of you gentlemen, at once.”

  “But do I want to see Ptolemaios?” Sostratos muttered. He tossed his head in annoyance. That didn't matter. Even a free Hellene found limits to his freedom when he dealt with a Macedonian marshal. Sostratos patted Thestylis, saying, “Go back to sleep if you can. This has nothing to do with you.” He threw on his tunic and went out into Kleiteles' courtyard.

  Menedemos came out of the adjacent room at the same time. He too looked unhappy. “What is it now?” he demanded of Alypetos.

  Ptolemaios' henchman only shrugged. “Come with me,” he said.

  Grumbling and yawning, Sostratos and Menedemos went. As they had the day before, they found Ptolemaios at breakfast. This morning, though, he offered them none, but fixed them with the sort of glare calculated to make them remember all their sins and fear punishment for everyone. Sostratos did his best to show no expression at all. Does he know about the emeralds? he wondered nervously. His eyes flicked to Menedemos. His cousin, fortunately, was not a man to show guilt even if he felt it.

  Ptolemaios thrust out his boulder of a chin and growled, “Why didn't you two tell me you had one of that one-eyed bastard's officers aboard your ship when you sailed into Knidos?”

  He doubtless meant to intimidate them. But, since it had nothing to do with the gems, his blunt question came more as a relief than anything else. “Why should we have?” Sostratos answered. “Rhodes is free and autonomous and neutral. We can carry whoever pays our fare.”

  “He paid ten drakhmai, too,” Menedemos added.

  “Ten drakhmai, for passage from Rhodes to Knidos? You cheated him right and proper,” Ptolemaios said. His anger seemed to evaporate; he might have donned it as a man dons a himation on a chilly morning and sheds it when the sun climbs higher. He eyed the two traders. “Free and neutral Rhodians, eh?”

  “Yes, sir,” Sostratos said stoutly.

  “All right, then,” Ptolemaios said. “If you did a service for Antigonos and made a profit, will you do one for me as well?”

  “If we profit from it,” Menedemos answered.

  “You will,” Ptolemaios said in a voice that brooked no contradiction. “Ill pay you a talent of silver—twenty minai in advance, to give you whatever money you'll need on the way, with the other forty waiting for you when you come back here to Kos.”

  “A talent?” Sostratos and Menedemos both whispered the words. Sixty minai, six thousand drakhmai—that was a lot of money. Slowly, Sostratos said, “You wouldn't offer us so much silver for just anything, sir. What have you got in mind?”

  “You're a clever fellow, aren't you? I thought so before, by the way you haggled,” Ptolemaios said. “Yes, you're right: I wouldn't pay so much for anything easy. You'll know that Antigonos' nephew Polemaios broke with his uncle last year and went over to Kassandros.”

  Menedemos dipped his head at the same time as Sostratos said, “Yes, we did know chat.”

  “All right, then,” Ptolemaios said briskly. “He's holed up in Khalkis these days, on the island of Euboia, and he's decided he doesn't like Kassandros any better than he liked his uncle. He was jealous of Antigonos' sons. I don't know what his quarrel with Kassandros is—I just know he has one. He'd make me a useful ally, I think.”

  We'd make you a useful tool, is what you mean, Sostratos thought. He wondered how wise the ruler of Egypt was. If Polemaios had fallen out with both Antigonos and Kassandros in a year's time, he was liable to turn in the hand of anyone who tried to wield him. But that was Ptolemaios' worry, not his. He said, “And you want us to go up to Khalkis?”

  “And get him, and bring him back down here to me. That's right,” Ptolemaios said. “He needs to slide out of the place without anyone's being the wiser—he hasn't got the fleet to just up and sail away.”

  “No, he wouldn't have the ships for that,” Sostratos agreed. “He'd have to come past the coast of Attica on the way south. Athens isn't what it was in the days of Perikles, but it still has a decent navy, and Demetrios of Phaleron is Kassandros' creature.”

  “Exactly. I have officers who wouldn't see it that fast,” Ptolemaios said. “Polemaios' soldiers can get out a few at a time in small craft once he's escaped. He'll lose some, but a lot of them will join him here. Polemaios himself is the man I really want. What do you say, Rhodians?”

  Sostratos knew what he wanted to say. He wanted to say no to another delay in reaching Athens with the gryphon's skull. And this one would be all the more frustrating because the Aphrodite would go past the eastern coast of Attica on the way to and from Khalkis. But Ptolemaios had given him and Menedemos one big reason to say yes—or, looked at another way, six thousand little reasons.

  That thought had hardly crossed his mind before Menedemos, who as captain of the akatos had the final word, gave it: “Sir, we say yes.

  “Good. I thought you would, once I made sure you weren't really on Antigonos' side,” Ptolemaios said. He snapped his fingers and called for a house slave. The man hurried away, returning with bread and oil and wine for Sostratos and Menedemos. Aside from trying to put us in fear, as long as he was feeling us out about Euxenides, he didn't want to eat with us, Sostratos realized.

  “Sir, can we get a steering oar made before we sail?” Menedemos asked. “We're carrying one that's a makeshift, of green timber. It got us here, but...”

  “I'll send a carpenter to your ship right away,” Ptolemaios said. He ordered another slave off with the message. “Anything else I can do for you? I want Polemaios back here as soon as may be.”

  “The money,” Sostratos said.

  Ptolemaios smiled. “Ah, yes—the money. Don't you worry about that. It will reach your ship before the day is out,”

  Sostratos believed him. A lot of men, even those who had a great deal, would have lied about such a sum. Others would have haggled endlessly. Ptolemaios himself had haggled endlessly over the tiger skin. The skin, though, had been something he wanted, but not something he felt he had to have. Getting Antigonos' nephew here to Kos was different.

  Something else occurred to Sostratos: “How will Polemaios know we're working for you, sir? How do we convince him we're not in his uncle's pay, or Kassandros'?”

  “I said you were a clever fellow, didn't I?” Ptolemaios beamed at him. “I'll give you a letter and seal it with my eagle.” He held out his right fist. On one thick finger he wore a gold signet ring whose design was an eagle like the ones on the reverse of his coins. “It'll come to your ship with the first installment of the money. Anything else?”

  After glancing at Menedemos, Sostratos tossed his head. “No, sir. I think that's everything.”

  “Good enough, then.” Ptolemaios was all business. “Would you care for anything else to eat or drink? No? Do you need Alypetos to take you back down to the harbor? No? Very g
ood, very good. A pleasure talking to you.”

  The two Rhodians found themselves on the street in front of Ptolemaios' residence in a matter of moments. “A talent of silver!” Menedemos said softly.

  “We'll earn it,” Sostratos answered. “We're running the gauntlet for him.”

  “We can do it.” Menedemos sounded confident—but then, he usually did. He went on, “What we need to do, though, is stop at Pixodaros' home on the way to the ship. We want to make sure we get the silk aboard before Ptolemaios' men finish their deliveries.”

  “Right,” Sostratos said. “And we'd better hurry, too, because I don't think they'll waste much time.”

  “I don't, either,” Menedemos said. As they headed toward the harbor, he went on, “Now, was it two streets up and three over from the seaside, or the other way round?”

  “Three up and two over,” Sostratos answered. “Why can't you remember something like that?”

  “I don't know, my dear,” Menedemos answered. “But I don't need to bother, not when I've got you around.” It was praise, of a sort— about as much as Sostratos ever got from his cousin. They went down toward the sea together.

  5

  As the Aphrodite made her way north and west, the rowers taking turns at the oars when the wind faltered, Menedemos waited for the trouble he was sure he would have. He'd guessed it would come before the end of their first day out of Kos, and his guess proved a good one. Not long after noon, Sostratos ascended to the poop deck. He peered off to starboard at the island of Kalymnos, then ahead toward the smaller, more distant island of Lebinthos, where they'd probably pass the night. He coughed a couple of times.

  “I know what you're going to say,” Menedemos told him. “The answer is no.”

  His cousin jerked in surprise. “How do you know what I'm going to ask you?”

  “Because, O best one, you're transparent as air,” Menedemos answered. “You're going to say something like, 'We could stop in Athens on the way up to Khalkis. It wouldn't take long, and we could get rid of the gryphon's skull.' Aren't you?”

  Sostratos turned red as a roof tile. “Well, what if I am?” he muttered. His voice gained strength: “It's true.”

  “So it is,” Menedemos said. “But we've got forty minai waiting for us in Kos. How much do you suppose that precious skull will bring?”

  “If we're lucky, something on the order of six minai,” Sostratos answered.

  “Lucky? That'd take a miracle from the gods,” Menedemos said. “Who'd be mad enough to pay such money for an old bone?”

  What he meant was, No one would pay such money for an old bone. Sostratos understood him perfectly well, too. But he said, “You're not always as smart as you think you are. Damonax son of Polydoros offered me that much back on Rhodes.”

  Menedemos stared. “And you told him no? You must have told him no.” Sostratos dipped his head. Still astonished, Menedemos asked, “But why? You can't think we'll get more than that in Athens.

  “I don't,” his cousin admitted. “But I took the skull to show it to him, not to sell. I don't want it gathering dust in a rich man's andron, or on display at drinking parties like Kleiteles' jackdaw with the little bronze shield. I want men who truly love wisdom to study it.”

  “You must,” Menedemos said, and then, “I'm glad no mosquito bite ever gave me the itch for philosophy.” He gathered himself. “But even if we got ten minai for the gryphon's skull, that'd only be a quarter part of forty. We can pick up Polemaios, bring him back to Kos, and then we can head for Athens. Am I right or am I wrong?”

  With a longing sigh, Sostratos said, “Oh, you're right, I suppose. But that doesn't mean I have to like it.” Scuffing his feet on the planking, he descended from the poop deck into the waist of the merchant galley.

  “Did I hear right, skipper?” Diokles asked in a low voice. “Six minai of silver for that silly skull, and he turned it down? Who's crazier, that other fellow for saying he'd pay it, or your cousin for telling him no?”

  “To the crows with me if I know,” Menedemos answered, also quietly, and the oarmaster laughed. But Menedemos went on, “He really does chase philosophy the way I chase girls, doesn't he?” In an odd sort of way, the way he would have admired a boy who declined an expensive gift from a suitor he didn't fancy, he found himself admiring Sostratos for rejecting Damonax's enormous offer.

  “You have more fun,” Diokles said.

  That made Menedemos chuckle. “Well, I think so, too,” he said. “But if Sostratos doesn't, who am I to tell him he's wrong?”

  Diokles grunted. ''I can think of a good many hetairai who'd be happy if a fellow gave 'em half a dozen minai. Fact is, I can't think of any so grand that they wouldn't be.” Menedemos only shrugged. Maybe Thai's, who'd talked Alexander the Great into burning Persepolis. But maybe not, too.

  The Aphrodite neared Lebinthos as the sun neared the Aegean Sea to the west. Menedemos steered the akatos toward a nice little harbor on the southern coast of the island. Both steering oars felt alike in his hands again; with seasoned timber at their disposal, Ptolemaios' carpenters hadn't needed long to replace the makeshift Euxenides of Phaselis had made. But even they'd praised it as they took it off the pivot.

  “Aristeidas, go forward,” Menedemos called. “If a pirate's lurking in that bay, you'd be the first to spot him.”

  “Not likely, skipper,” Diokles said as Aristeidas went. “No water to speak of on Lebintnos. If it's got more than a family of fisherman living on it, I'd be amazed.”

  “So would I,” Menedemos answered. “But I don't want any nasty surprises.” The keleustes could hardly argue with that, and didn't.

  But the small, sheltered bay was empty save for shore birds, which flew up in white-winged clouds as the Aphrodite beached herself. The beach seemed so deserted, Menedemos wondered if sea turtles laid their eggs here, too. I'll send out some men to probe the sand with sticks, he thought.

  Sostratos came over to him. “Lebinthos,” he said, pronouncing the name of the island like a man prodding his teeth with his tongue, feeling for a bit of food that might have got stuck there. And then, being the sort of fellow he was, he found what he was looking for: “Didn't Ikaros fly past this place on his way north from Crete?”

  Menedemos looked up to the sky. Stars would be coming out very soon now. “I don't know,” he answered. “If he did fly by, he probably took one look at it and pissed on it from up high,”

  “Scoffer.” Sostratos laughed. He seemed to have forgotten he was supposed to be angry at Menedemos, and Menedemos didn't remind him.

  “It's true,” Menedemos said. “Well, it could be true, anyhow. Maybe that's why this is such a blighted little place.”

  His cousin laughed again, but then turned serious. “If a few people did live on Lebinthos, they'd probably turn that into a myth to explain why more people couldn't.”

  That made a certain amount of sense. But being sensible didn't make Menedemos comfortable with it. “You called me a scoffer,” he said. “I was just making a silly joke. You sound like you mean it.”

  “Don't you think that's how a lot of myths got started?” Sostratos asked. “As explanations for the way things are, I mean?”

  “Maybe. I never worried about it much, though,” Menedemos answered. The idea of asking why about a myth, as one might to a story of how a cart broke a wheel, made him nervous. “Myths are just myths, that's all.”

  “Do you really think so?” Sostratos said. Even at sunset and the beginning of twilight, his eyes gleamed. Ob, dear, Menedemos thought. I've found an argument that interests him. Will I get any sleep tonight? Sostratos went on, “How do you know that till you've examined them?”

  Trying to head him off, Menedemos chuckled and said, “You sound like you come straight out of Sokrates' thinking-shop in the Clouds.”

  That didn't work. He should have known it wouldn't. Sostratos said, “You know what I think of Aristophanes for that.”

  They'd argued over the play before. With a
small sigh, Menedemos dipped his head. “Yes, I do.” He tried again, this time by pointing into the eastern sky; “There's Zeus' wandering star,” He poked his cousin in the ribs with an elbow. “And what else could it possibly be but Zeus' wandering star?”

  “I don't know,” Sostratos admitted, “but we can't get close enough to examine it, so how can we be sure?” He sent Menedemos a sly look. “Maybe Ikaros could have given you a better answer.”

  “The same as he would have about the sun? Look what he got for flying too close to that.” Menedemos mimed falling from a great height, then toppled onto the sand in lieu of splashing into the sea.

  “You're impossible.” But Sostratos was laughing in spite of himself.

  A sailor with a pole in his hand came up to Menedemos and said, “Doesn't seem like there are any turtle eggs on this beach.”

  “Oh, well.” Menedemos shrugged. “We've got enough bread and oil and olives and cheese for sitos and a sort of opson, and enough water to mix with the wine. For one night ashore here, that'll do well enough.” Up the beach from the Aphrodite, the men fed bits of dry shrubs to a couple of fires they'd got going. Menedemos didn't think the night would be very cold, but fires always made a place more comfortable. And then someone with a bronze hook and a line hauled a fish out of the sea. Before long, it was cooking over one of those fires.

  Back home on Rhodes, Menedemos would have turned up his nose at such a meager supper. Out on a trading journey, he ate with good appetite. He was spitting an olive pit onto the sand when Sostratos came up to him and asked, “Where will we head for tomorrow?”

  “Naxos, I think,” Menedemos answered. “I don't know whether we'll get there—that's got to be something like five hundred stadia— but we can put in there the next morning if we don't.”

  “Have we got enough water aboard for another day at sea?” he asked.

  Menedemos dipped his head. “For one more day, yes. For two . . . I wouldn't want to push it. But we can fill up when we get into port there. Naxos is the best watered of the Kyklades.”