The Gryphon's Skull

by H. N. Turteltaub

  “That's true,” Sostratos agreed. “It's certainly not a dried-up husk like Lebinthos here.”

  With a shrug, Menedemos said, “If this place had a couple of springs, it would just be another pirates' roost. It's out in the sea by itself, but close enough to the other islands to hunt from. The way things are, though, the bastards can't linger here.”

  Sostratos sighed. “I suppose you're right, my dear. Too bad we have to worry about things like that.”

  “I didn't say it wasn't,” Menedemos replied. “Now I'm going to finish eating and then go to sleep.”

  He wondered if he would have to be blunter than that; Sostratos didn't always take a hint. But his cousin said, “All right,” and found his own place on the sand to lie down. Menedemos wrapped himself in his himation: the day's warmth was seeping out of the air faster than he'd expected. Next thing he knew, morning twilight brightened the eastern sky.

  A brisk breeze from out of the northeast sent the Aphrodite bounding across the waves. Even before noon, Sostratos said, “I think we will make Naxos by nightfall.”

  “If this wind holds, we will,” Menedemos agreed. The wind tousled his hair—and Sostratos’, too. It thrummed in the rigging and filled the sail. The rowers rested at their oars. A breeze like this pushed the merchant galley along as well as they could have.

  Sostratos finally had his sea legs. The Aphrodite's pitching and rolling had left him queasy at the start of the sailing season. Now he didn't even notice them till he realized he would have noticed them before. He wondered if that realization would bring back the queasiness, but it didn't. He was over it for another year.

  Naxos crawled up over the western horizon, central mountain first and then the rest of the island. Its polis lay in the northwest, beyond the northernmost headland. The Aphrodite rounded the headland and dropped down toward the port with the sun at least an hour away from setting. Menedemos took his hands off the steering oars long enough to clap them together. “That's one of the nicest day's runs I've ever made,” he said.

  “Euge, O best one,” Sostratos said agreeably. “And now here we are, in a place where all sorts of interesting things used to happen.”

  His cousin raised a quizzical eyebrow. “ 'Used to happen?” he echoed.

  “I suppose everyone knows this is where Theseus abandoned Ariadne,” Sostratos said, and Menedemos dipped his head. Sostratos went on, “This is also one of the places where the Hellenes first rebelled against the Persians. A generation later, the Naxians sent four ships to fight for Xerxes the Great King at Salamis—but they went over to the Hellenes instead. And a few years after that, the Athenians laid siege to Naxos and took it because it tried to secede from the Delian League. Nobody knew it then, but that was one of the first steps on the road that led to the Peloponnesian War.”

  Menedemos only grunted. He was intent on getting the Aphrodite a berth in Naxos' little harbor. Diokles gave Sostratos a curious look. “You don't mind my asking, young sir,” he said, “but how do you know all that?”

  With a shrug, Sostratos answered, “Well, you know about Theseus and Ariadne yourself, don't you?”

  “I suppose I'd heard it,” the keleustes said, “but I can't say I remembered it. And as for the rest. . .”

  “That's in the writings of Herodotos and Thoukydides,” Sostratos said. “I just put it all together, like a man making a table from the top and the legs.”

  Diokles scratched his head. “With a carpenter, you can see the pieces beforehand. The way you go on, it's like you're grabbing them out of the air.”

  “Sostratos collects funny facts the way a carpenter collects fancy pieces of wood,” Menedemos said. “And a carpenter can only use a piece of wood in one table or chair, but Sostratos gets to use his facts over and over again.” He grinned at Sostratos. It was a half mocking grin, or more than half, but the figure was so apt, Sostratos just grinned back.

  If that disappointed Menedemos, he didn't show it. He went back to steering the merchant galley. A fishing boat that spotted the Aphrodite later than it should have lowered—all but dropped—its sail from the yard and did its best to get away from what it thought to be a pirate ship. Had the akatos really been a pentekonter, it would have run down the tubby little fishing boat inside a couple of stadia. Some of the rowers jeered at the fleeing fishermen.

  “They're running now,” Teleutas said, “but when they tell about it in a tavern tonight, they'll all be heroes.” That made the Aphrodite's crewmen laugh and send more jokes after the fishing boat. Sostratos laughed, too, but he eyed Teleutas thoughtfully. He sounds like a man who knows what he's talking about, went through his mind.

  No sooner had the merchant galley tied up at a Naxian quay than an officer came up and started asking questions. Naxos favored Antigonos; it belonged to the Island League he'd started in the Kyklades a few years before. “Out of Kos, eh?” the officer said suspiciously. “What were you doing there?”

  “Buying silk,” Sostratos answered, doing his best to sound impatient rather than nervous. “We're bound for Athens. Always a good market for silk in Athens.”

  Athens was as much a thing of Kassandros' as Naxos was of Antigonos'; still, the lie seemed far better than saying they were going to Euboia to get Antigonos' unloved and unloving nephew. And the officer didn't pursue it. He had other things on his mind: nervously licking his lips, he asked, “Is it true? Has Ptolemaios really come to Kos?”

  Sostratos dipped his head. “It's true.” He made his voice deep and solemn.

  “With a fleet? With a big fleet?”

  “That's true, too.” This time, Menedemos beat Sostratos to the punch. He, by contrast, sounded amused. With a big fleet, Ptolemaios could sweep the Island League off the face of the earth. Menedemos knew it. Sostratos knew it. The officer talking with them knew it, too. He looked very unhappy.

  “Do you know what his plans are?” he asked after a pause.

  “Oh, of course.” Now Sostratos sounded sardonic. “Ptolemaios invited us to breakfast so we could talk things over.” Sometimes—often—the truth served up with irony made the most effective lie.

  Antigonos' officer turned red. “All right. All right,” he said roughly. Sure enough, he didn't believe the truth, where doubtless he would have accepted any number of falsehoods. Sostratos wondered what Sokrates would have had to say had someone wondered about this while he was close by. Something worth hearing, the “Rhodian was sure. The officer went on, “Will you trade here tomorrow?”

  Now Sostratos hesitated. Ptolemaios would want Polemaios back on Kos as soon as possible. But Naxos was a big enough polis that passing up a chance to do business here would make people like this fellow wonder why. While Sostratos weighed advantages and risks, Menedemos cut through them as Alexander was supposed to have cut through the Gordian knot, saying, “We'll spend the morning here, anyhow, best one, while we fill our water jugs. After that. . . Well, we want to get to Athens as fast as we can.”

  As irony had, glibness satisfied the officer. He walked back down the pier, “Can we make Mykonos in half a day?” Sostratos asked.

  “From here? I expect so,” Menedemos answered. “And who knows? Maybe we really will sell some silk in the agora tomorrow.”

  “Maybe.” Sostratos didn't believe it, but he didn't argue. They'd already been surprised a couple of times this sailing season. He did point north and ask, “If we leave tomorrow a bit after noon, are you really sure we can get up to Mykonos by sunset?” Haze-purple in the distance, the other island heaved itself over the sea-smooth horizon, with tiny, holy Delos and the altogether mundane Rheneia off to its left.

  “I told you once that I think so,” his cousin answered. With a grin, Menedemos went on, “Remember what a hard time we had last year convincing the people there that we weren't a pack of pirates?”

  “I sure do,” Sostratos said. “We almost had trouble with pirates ourselves in those waters. I could do without that.”

  “A lot of bald men on Mykonos.�
� Menedemos ran a hand through his thick, dark hair. “I could do without that.”

  Laughing, Sostratos said, “Be careful, my dear, or your beauty will make me swoon. How can I possibly lie down on the poop deck beside you tonight and hope to go to sleep?”

  That made Menedemos laugh, too. It also made him preen a little. He was a handsome man, and had had more than his share of suitors as a youth. For a while, a good many walls in Rhodes had had BEAUTIFUL MENEDEMOS and other such endearments scrawled on them. He'd basked in his popularity, too. Tall and plain and gawky, Sostratos had hidden jealousy behind a mask of indifference. Eventually, the mask became the thing itself, but it took a while.

  With Aphrodite's wandering star already glowing in the west, it was too late to go looking for the Rhodian proxenos here. They did sleep on the poop deck, with the stars and mosquitoes for company. In the morning, Menedemos sent a party of sailors into the polis with water jars. With a chuckle, he said, “You boys can surprise the women who gossip around whatever fountain you find.”

  “Now you've done it,” Sostratos said, watching the rowers straighten up and start to primp. “We'll be lucky if they don't jump ship.”

  “They'd better not,” his cousin said. “Anybody who's not aboard by noon gets left behind. That means they won't be able to get away from her husband or her father or her brothers.” He spoke like a man with considerable experience in such matters. Sostratos knew he was.

  More sailors carried silk and dye and balsam and perfume and papyrus and ink behind Sostratos and Menedemos as they made their way to the Naxian market square. Sostratos had to give a local an obolos for directions; Naxos was an old town, with streets running every which way. Men in the agora shouted about their garlic and cheeses, their barley and wool, their olives and olive oil, their raisins and the local wines. “Just another small-town market,” Sostratos said.

  Menedemos chuckled. “We'll take care of that, by the gods.” As soon as they'd found a place that would stay shady all morning long and the sailors had set up the goods they'd brought along, he sang out, “Koan silk! Rhodian perfume! Crimson dye from Byblos! Balsam from Engedi, finest in the world!”

  For a moment, everybody else in the market square stopped and gaped. Menedemos went right on crying his wares. He liked being the center of attention; he liked few things better, in fact. Having all the people within earshot crane their heads his way was sitos and opson and unwatered wine to him,

  “Papyrus from Egypt!” Sostratos added for good measure. “It's been going fast—get it while we've still got some left. Best quality ink!”

  “Silk! Perfume! Crimson! Balsam!”

  Before long, they had quite a crowd around their little display: people eager to feel and to sniff and to gawk. The Naxians were Ionians, and dropped their rough breathings: “ 'Ere, be careful! Get off my foot!” “ 'E meant you!” “No, 'e didn't. 'E meant you!” “Watch where you put your 'ands, pal!” “You've got nutting wort' watching, lady.”

  People did plenty of looking, yes. They were less eager to part with their silver, though a physician did buy a couple of drakhmai's worth of balsam. “Good to see it here,” he said gravely. “I find it very useful, but I seldom have a chance to buy any.”

  “You should get more, then,” Sostratos said.

  “So I should.” The fellow smiled a sweet, sad smile. “Trouble is, I can't afford to. Necessity is master of us all.” He took the little bit of balsam he had bought and went on his way.

  Sostratos also sold a pot of ink, and Menedemos sold a couple of jars of perfume. But business was slow. When Aristeidas made his way into the market square to report that the water jars were filled, Sostratos and his cousin breathed identical sighs of relief.

  Menedemos glanced at the sun. “Not quite noon yet, but close enough. Let's pack up and head back to the ship.” Sostratos said not a word in protest.

  Before long, the Aphrodite glided north over the waves. Diokles called out the stroke for the rowers. They were heading straight into the wind, so they went by oars alone, with the sail brailed up to the yard. Sostratos said, “We'll have an easier time bringing Polemaios back to Kos.”

  His cousin gave him an odd look. “As far as wind and weather go, yes,” Menedemos said after a brief pause. Sostratos' ears burned. A lot of other things besides wind and weather might be involved.

  At Panormos on the north coast of Mykonos, the Aphrodite got mistaken for a pirate ship again. That amused Menedemos and saddened him at the same time. He needed all his persuasive talent to keep the townsfolk there from either fleeing into the interior of the island or else attacking his ship. “Good thing we don't want anything more than an anchorage for the night,” he told Sostratos after the locals calmed down.

  “I know,” his cousin answered. “I hope we don't run into any of the real sea-raiders as we head up towards Euboia.”

  “May it not come to pass!” Menedemos exclaimed, and spat into the bosom of his tunic to turn aside the evil omen. So did Sostratos. Menedemos smiled. For all of Sostratos' philosophy, he could act as superstitious as any other seaman.

  Sostratos coughed and looked faintly embarrassed. Though he had a sailor's superstitions, he didn't wear them comfortably, as most sailors did. He seemed to be looking for a way to change the subject: “Another night aboard ship.”

  Panormos had no Rhodian proxenos. To Menedemos' way of thinking, the place barely counted as a polis. “We're probably better off here than we would be on dry land,” he said.

  “I should think so.” Sostratos sent Menedemos a sly look. “No girls aboard the Aphrodite, though.”

  “Any girls in a backwater place like Panormos would likely be ugly anyhow,” Menedemos replied. He spread out his himation on the poop deck, lay down on it and wrapped it around himself, and fell asleep.

  When he woke up, Sostratos was snoring beside him. He got to his feet and pissed into the sea. The sky was lightening toward dawn. Diokles was awake, too. He looked back over his shoulder from the bench on which he'd been resting and waved to Menedemos, who dipped his head in return.

  He let those sailors who could sleep till the sun followed rosy-fingered Aurora up over the horizon. Then the men who'd already wakened roused those who'd stayed asleep. They ate bread and oil and olives and onions. With Diokles beating out the stroke, they headed north and west toward Euboia.

  A year before, the Aphrodite had sailed past Delos on her way toward Cape Tainaron. Now she left the sacred island and its ordinary neighbor behind, pushing up toward Tenos and Andros. The ship hadn't even come close to Tenos, one of the larger of the Kyklades, before Menedemos told Diokles, “Stop us for a bit.”

  “All right, skipper,” the oarmaster said, and called out, “Oöp!” to the crew. The eight men on the oars on each side rested. They and the rest of the sailors looked back expectantly at Menedemos.

  “Time to serve out weapons,” he said. “I just don't like the way things feel. If we're ready for trouble, maybe we can hold it away from us.”

  “Probably not a bad idea,” Diokles said. Men put on sword belts and leaned pikes and javelins by their benches or in other spots where they could grab them in a hurry. Menedemos set his bow and a full quiver of arrows on the poop deck behind him. He could string the bow and start shooting in the space of a couple of heartbeats.

  “Aristeidas, go forward,” he called. “I want the best lookout we've got up there.” The sharp-eyed sailor waved and hurried to the fore-deck. Menedemos dipped his head to Diokles. “All right. We can get going again.”

  “Rhyppapai!” the keleustes sang out. “Rhyppapai!” The oars bit into the blue water of the Aegean. The merchant galley slid forward again.

  Sostratos came back to the raised poop. He had a sword on his hip and contrived to look foolish with it, like an actor in a role he hadn't rehearsed. “In Athens,” he said, “they talk about nervous men who see every distant headland as a pirate ship.”

  Menedemos declined to get ruffled, “In Athens, fro
m what I hear, they don't do much of anything bat talk,” he said. “Tell me, best one, how many islands in the Kyklades?”

  “Some say twelve, others fifteen,” his cousin answered.

  “That's about what I've heard,” Menedemos agreed. “But when they make that count, do they reckon in rocks like the one ahead?” He pointed to an islet just big enough to support a handful of bushes.

  “Certainly not,” Sostratos said, as if making a rejoinder in a philosophical discussion.

  But this was property, not philosophy; freedom or slavery, not words. “Could pirates hide behind that nasty rock and come charging out when they see a merchantman go by?” Menedemos asked.

  “Yes, without a doubt.” Sostratos laughed. “I sound like one of Sokrates' foils, don't I?”

  “I was thinking the same thing, as a matter of fact,” Menedemos said. “You'd know better than I would, though—I'm sure of that. But it doesn't really matter. What matters is that you take my point.”

  Sostratos set a hand on his swordhilt. He still didn't look very warlike, but he said, “Would I be wearing this if I didn't?”

  No hemiolia or pentekonter emerged from behind the rock. But another rock lay ahead, only fifteen or twenty stadia away. Beyond that one was the bulk of Tenos, whose jagged west coast offered raiders countless lairs. The polis of Tenos, like Panormos, hardly rated the name. It had no fleet to speak of, and didn't even try to keep pirates down. Andros, the next island to the north and west, might have been Tenos' twin. And a pirate ship based on Syros, off to the west toward Attica, might spot the Aphrodite coming by and dash out to try to seize her.

  “It's not just Aristeidas up by the stempost,” Menedemos said. “We all have to keep our eyes open, because we'll all pay for it if we don't.”

  “Well, certainly,” Sostratos said.

  Menedemos frowned. “You say 'certainly' now. A moment ago, you were talking about nervous Athenians and what they think they see.”

  “What if I was?” his cousin said. “You're neither nervous nor an Athenian, so what's that got to do with you?” After a moment's thought, Menedemos decided he meant it. Maybe I was looking for an argument where there wasn't one to find, he thought. Maybe. He still had trouble believing it. More likely, Sostratos was just finding smoother ways to get under his skin.