The Gryphon's Skull

by H. N. Turteltaub

  Once everyone had left the ship, Antigonos’ nephew took the lead behind the messenger and Ptolemaios' officer. Menedemos, a proud and touchy man in his own right, seemed inclined to dispute Polemaios' place. Catching his cousin's eye, Sostratos tossed his head. Polemaios was the tunny here; the captain and toikharkhos of the Aphrodite were just a couple of sprats. To Sostratos' relief, Menedemos didn't push it, but hung back with him.

  They all went up to Ptolemaios' residence, the ruler of Egypt's soldiers surrounding Polemaios' bodyguards, who in turn formed up around their master and his wife. After watching all those nodding horsehair plumes and all that gleaming bronze for a while, Sostratos glanced from his ordinary chiton to Menedemos' and back again. “We're underdressed,” he murmured,

  “I don't care,” Menedemos answered; even more than Sostratos, he had a seaman's indifference to fancy clothes and abhorrence of armor. “We're not baking like a couple of loaves in the oven, either.”

  With the sun high and hot in the sky, Sostratos was sweating by the time the procession got to the house Ptolemaios was using as his own. The soldiers surely were baked by then. At the doorway, Polemaios got into an argument with Ptolemaios' officer, who refused to let any of his bodyguards into the house. The officer said, “If you think you need bodyguards when dealing with Ptolemaios, O best one, you shouldn't have come to Kos.”

  Polemaios fumed, but had to yield. So much for that equal alliance, Sostratos thought. Antigonos' nephew shifted his ground: “Will Ptolemaios at least have a slave girl waiting to take my wife to the women's quarters? By the nature of things, she's been out among men and under their eyes more than she should have since I left Khalkis.”

  “Certainly, sir. Let me go take care of that.” By yielding at once on the smaller point, Ptolemaios' officer emphasized how unyielding he was on the larger. He disappeared into the house, returning a moment later to say, “A girl will be there waiting for your wife. Just come along with me.” He started to turn back, then snapped his fingers, annoyed at himself. “And you Rhodians, you come along, too.”

  Sostratos and Menedemos made their way through the soldiers to get to the door. Ptolemaios' men simply stood aside. Polemaios' bodyguards glared. They were trained and paid to keep their master safe, and here they couldn't do their job. Even if they had been allowed into the residence, Ptolemaios' men would have preceded them and outnumbered them, but they didn't think in those terms. They didn't want to be on one side of a wall when Antigonos' nephew was on the other, and resented anyone who could go in while they couldn't.

  When Sostratos walked along the entrance hall and into the courtyard, he got a glimpse of an unveiled slave woman taking Polemaios' wife to a stairway that would lead up to the women's chambers. Polemaios stood in the courtyard, looking after her.

  Ptolemaios courteously waited in the andron till his new ally's wife-was out of sight. Then he emerged, saying, “Hail, Polemaios. Welcome to Kos.” He held out his hand.

  Polemaios clasped it. Antigonos' nephew was more than a head taller than the lord of Egypt, and twenty years younger besides. Neither size nor youth mattered a khalkos' worth here. Ptolemaios, solid and blocky, was the stronger of the two.

  He took that for granted, too, going on without giving Polemaios a chance to speak: “We'll strike some heavy blows against your uncle.”

  “I'll fuck his asshole instead of a sausage skin,” Polemaios declared.

  The gross obscenity staggered Sostratos. He hadn't dreamt even a Macedonian could come out with anything so crude. But Ptolemaios just chuckled. And so did Menedemos. Sostratos' horror must have shown on his face, for Menedemos leaned toward him and whispered, “That's Aristophanes.”

  “Is it?” Sostratos whispered back. Menedemos dipped his head. Sostratos eyed Polemaios with new respect. Not only had he quoted the comic poet—though what a line to choose!—but he'd been shrewd enough to guess that Ptolemaios would know he was quoting and wouldn't be disgusted.

  “You'll have your chance,” the ruler of Egypt said. “I can use every talented officer I can get my hands on, and as your men drift in I expect I'll get good service from them, too.”

  Antigonos' nephew looked as if he'd bitten into an unbaked quince. What Ptolemaios was talking about didn't sound like anything close to an equal alliance. Evidently it didn't sound like one to Polemaios, either; he said, “I thought we'd be partners in this.”

  “And so we will,” Ptolemaios said easily. He reached up and clapped Polemaios on the back. “Come on into the andron, and we'll drink to everything we're going to do to Antigonos.” He waved to Sostratos and Menedemos. “You boys come along, too. Don't you worry about a thing—I promise I haven't forgotten you.”

  In the andron, a slave poured wine for Ptolemaios and Polemaios, and then for the two Rhodians. Sostratos poured out a small libation. When he drank, his eyebrows rose. For one thing, the wine was strong: one to one, wine to water, or somewhere close to it. For another.. . “Very fine, sir,” Sostratos said. “If this is Koan, I'd like to know from whom you got it. I wouldn't mind carrying some on the Aphrodite. We'd get a good price for it.”

  “It's better than that pitch-flavored vinegar you and your sailors drink, that's for sure,” Polemaios said.

  “It is a local wine, I think, but you'll have to ask my steward for the details.” Ptolemaios waved a negligent hand. One corner of his mouth quirked upward in an engagingly wry smile. “Figuring out how to spend die silver you'll get from me, eh?”

  “Yes, sir. Why not?” Sostratos said. Not getting the silver from Ptolemaios was one obvious reason why not. He didn't want to think about that.

  “No reason at all, young fellow,” Ptolemaios answered. “You're doing your job the best way you know how. Can't ask for more than that from a man. And you and your captain got this big fellow”—he pointed with his chin at Polemaios—”here in fine time, for which I thank you kindly. What did you think of them, Polemaios?”

  “They both have tongues that flap too free. And this one”—Antigonos' nephew glowered at Menedemos—”will not keep his eyes to himself. But,” he added reluctantly, “they do handle their ship well.”

  “Rhodians have that knack. Must come of their being islanders,” Ptolemaios said. Two of his servitors came in, each carrying four good-sized leather sacks. When they set the sacks down in front of Sostratos, they clinked. Ptolemaios' eyes glinted. “Here is the balance of your fee. I suppose you'll want to count and weigh to make sure I haven't cheated you.”

  “No, sir,” Sostratos answered. “If you're ready for me to do it, that's the best sign I don't need to.”

  “You see what I mean,” Polemaios rumbled.

  “Tending to one's business isn't insolence,” Ptolemaios said. He pointed north and east, in the direction of Halikarnassos. “You and I have some business in common, some business with Antigonos.”

  “So we do,” Antigonos' renegade nephew agreed. “But we'd do better not to talk about it where these fellows can listen.” He pointed to Sostratos and Menedemos as if they were pieces of furniture, unable to understand anything.

  That made Sostratos want to bristle, but he didn't show his anger. His cousin did, snapping, “You trusted us far enough to let us bring you here. What makes you think we've suddenly turned into Antigonos' spies since we found a berth in the harbor?”

  Polemaios surged to his feet. “I've had everything I'm going to take from you, you pretty little catamite, and—”

  “Enough!” Ptolemaios' deep, angry rasp effortlessly dominated every other voice in the room. “The Rhodian asked a fair enough question,”

  “He brought me here for pay.” Polemaios pointed to the leather sacks full of coins. “If my uncle gives him silver, he'll sing for pay, too.”

  “What can he say? That you're here?” Ptolemaios shrugged. “Antigonos will know that by this time tomorrow. He'll have men here, the same as I do on the mainland. Some boat or other will sneak away from Kos and get over there with the news. Can't
be helped.”

  Antigonos' nephew scowled. He was, plainly, not a man who liked disagreement or back talk. Being who he was, being part of his family, he wouldn't have heard much of it, and he would have been able to ignore more of what he did hear. But he couldn't ignore Ptolemaios, not here in the middle of the ruler of Egypt's stronghold.

  “All right, then—fine,” he said, not bothering to hide his disgust. “Tell them everything, why don't you?”

  “I didn't say a word about telling them everything,” Ptolemaios replied. “I did say you were silly to insult them for no good reason. I said it, and I still say it.”

  Could looks have killed, Ptolemaios would have been a dead man, with Sostratos and Menedemos lying lifeless on the floor beside him. Sostratos would have liked nothing better than hanging about and listening to the two prominent men wrangle: if that wasn't the raw stuff from which history was made, what was? But he didn't want Polemaios any angrier at his cousin and him than he was already, and he didn't want to make Ptolemaios angry by overstaying his welcome. Reluctantly, he said, “Menedemos and I had better get back to the Aphrodite.”

  “Good idea,” Ptolemaios said. “You'll probably want an escort, too. I would, if I were walking through the streets with so much silver.”

  “Thank you, sir—yes,” Sostratos said. “And if I might speak to your steward for a moment about the wine ...”

  “Certainly.” Ptolemaios gave a couple of crisp orders. One slave went outside, presumably to talk to some of the soldiers there. Another led the Rhodians out into the courtyard, where the steward met them. He was a plump, fussy little man named Kleonymos, and had the details of Koan winesellers at his fingertips. Sostratos found out what he needed to know, thanked the man, and left Ptolemaios' residence.

  By the time he got back to the Aphrodite, he discovered that lugging twenty minai of silver through the streets of Kos had other drawbacks besides the risk of robbery. His arms felt a palm longer than they had been when he set out. Menedemos seemed no happier. The concentrated mass of the silver made it seem heavier than if he'd been carrying, say, a trussed piglet of like weight.

  After the soldiers headed back toward Ptolemaios' residence, Menedemos said, “Well, I can certainly see why Antigonos' nephew makes himself loved wherever he goes, can't you?”

  “Yes, he's a very charming fellow,” Sostratos agreed. They could say what they wanted about Polemaios now: they didn't have him aboard the Aphrodite any more. Sostratos would have been just as well pleased never to have made his acquaintance, too.

  But he'd made them a profit. Once aboard the akatos, they stowed the sacks of coins with the rest of their silver in the cramped space under the poop deck, where raiders—and any light-fingered sailors they happened to have in the crew—would have the hardest time stealing the money.

  When they emerged once more, Sostratos said, “And now we can do what we should have done the last time we left Kos.”

  “What's that, O best one?” Menedemos asked innocently. “Drill the crew harder on getting away from pirates and fighting them off if we can't? No doubt you're right.”

  Sostratos, fortunately, wasn't holding one of those five-mina sacks of silver any more. Had he been, he might have tried to brain his cousin with it. As things were, the smile he gave Menedemos was as wolfish as he could make it. “That too, of course,” he said, “as we go to Athens.”

  No matter what Menedemos' cousin wanted, the Aphrodite didn't immediately make for Athens, For one thing, Menedemos kept the promise he'd made to let the crew roister in the city of Kos for a couple of days to make up for the hard work they'd done rowing east from Kythnos in the calm. For another . . .

  Menedemos eyed Sostratos with amusement as they walked through the streets of Kos. “This is your own fault, my dear,” he said. “You've got no business twisting and moaning as if you were about to shit yourself, the way Dionysos does in the Frogs.”

  “Oh, to the crows with Aristophanes,” Sostratos snarled. “And to the crows with Di—”

  “You don't want to say that.” Menedemos broke in before his cousin could curse the god of wine.

  “You mean, you don't want me to say that.” Sostratos understood him well enough.

  “All right, I don't want you to say that. However you please. Just don't say it.” Menedemos was a conventionally pious young man. He believed in the gods as much because his father did as for any other reason. Sostratos, he knew, had other notions. Most of the time, his cousin was polite enough to keep from throwing those notions in his face. When Sostratos started to slip, Menedemos wasn't shy about letting him know he didn't care for such remarks.

  “Coming out!” a woman yelled from a second-story window, and emptied a chamber pot into the street below. The warning call let Menedemos and Sostratos skip to one side. A fellow leading a donkey wasn't so lucky; the stinking stuff splashed him. He shook his fist up at the window and shouted curses.

  “You see?” Menedemos said as he and Sostratos walked on. “Aristophanes was as true to life as Euripides any day.” His cousin didn't even rise to that, which showed what a truly evil mood he was in. “It's your own fault,” Menedemos repeated. “If you hadn't asked Ptolemaios' steward about the wine we were drinking . . .”

  “Oh, shut up,” Sostratos said. But then, relenting a little, he pointed to a door. “I think that's the right house.”

  “Let's find out.” Menedemos knocked.

  “Who is?” The question, in accented Greek, came from within. The door didn't open.

  “Is this the house of Nikomakhos son of Pleistarkhos, the wine merchant?” Menedemos asked.

  “Who you?” The door still didn't open, but the voice on the other side seemed a little less hostile.

  ''Two Rhodian traders.” Menedemos gave his name, and Sostratos'. “We'd like to talk to Nikomakhos about buying some wine.”

  “You wait.” After that, Menedemos heard nothing. He started drumming his fingers on the outside of his thigh, Sostratos looked longingly back toward the harbor. If the door didn't open pretty soon, Menedemos saw he would have trouble persuading his cousin to hang around.

  Just when Sostratos' grumbles were starting to turn into words, the door did open. The fellow standing there was a Hellene with a beard streaked with gray. He had a good-natured smile that showed a broken front tooth. “ 'Ail, my friends. I'm Nikomakhos. 'Ow are you today?” Most people on Kos used a Doric dialect not far from that of Rhodes, but he spoke an Ionian Greek, dropping his rough breathings.

  “Hail,” Menedemos said, a little sourly. He introduced himself and Sostratos, then added, “Your surly slave there almost cost you some business.”

  “Ibanollis is a Karian as stubborn as Kerberos,” Nikomakhos said with a sigh. “ 'E's been in the 'ouse'old since my father's day. Sometimes you're stuck with a slave like that. But do come in, and we'll talk. I've 'eard of you, 'aven't I? You were running some kind of errand for Ptolemaios.”

  “That's right,” Menedemos answered. “We just fetched Antigonos' nephew here from Euboia.” Sostratos raised a finger to his lips as they followed Nikomakhos into the courtyard, but Menedemos shrugged and tossed his head. That Polemaios was here wouldn't stay secret, not when he'd tramped through the polis on his way to the ruler of Egypt's residence; Ptolemaios himself had known as much. Why not take credit for bringing him, then?

  Nikomakhos whistled. “Old One-Eye over on the mainland won't like that a bit. Of course, 'e won't like anything Ptolemaios 'as done to him this campaigning season. The andron's over this way.” He turned left.

  In the middle of the courtyard stood a bent, skinny old man with a bald head, a bushy white beard, and the angriest glare Menedemos had seen this side of an eagle—Ibanollis, without a doubt. The slave looked daggers at him and Sostratos. Menedemos wondered why he seemed so hateful. Did he think they would cheat his master? Or was he just angry because he'd had to answer the door? Probably-better not to know, Menedemos thought. Sostratos didn't ask any questions, eith
er.

  A clean-shaven young man—younger than the two Rhodians— joined Nikomakhos in the andron. “This is my son, Pleistarkhos,” the wine merchant said. “I'm teaching 'im the business, same as your fathers were doing with you not too long ago. Tell me what I can do for you, and I will if I can,”

  “We drank some of your wine at Ptolemaios',” Menedemos replied. “We liked it enough that Sostratos got your name from his steward. If we can make a deal, we'd like to buy some to take aboard our akatos.”

  “A merchant galley, eh? Then you'll want the best,” Nikomakhos said. Menedemos dipped his head. In an aside to his son, Nikomakhos went on, “Akatoi can't carry much. They make money selling top-of-the-line goods to the folk ‘oo can afford to buy them. There was one last year—remember?—came into the 'arbor with peacocks aboard, of all the crazy things. Bound for Italy, they were, to make the most they could.”

  “That was our ship, as a matter of fact,” Sostratos said.

  “Is that so?” Nikomakhos exclaimed. Both Rhodians dipped their heads. “And did you do well with 'em?” the wine merchant asked.

  “We did splendidly.” Menedemos would have boasted even if he were lying. That was how the game was played. He would have sounded sincere, too, every bit as sincere as he did while telling the truth.

  “Well, good for you,” the Koan said. “And now it's wine, is it?”

  “Fine wine.” Menedemos turned to Pleistarkhos. “Your father's right. We carry the best. Last year, we had Ariousian from Khios. It cost us a lot, but we made a profit from it. Everybody around the Inner Sea makes wine, but most of it's pretty nasty stuff. When you've got something that isn't, people will pay for it.”

  “Ariousian's first-rate,” Nikomakhos agreed. “I'd like to say that what I make is just as good, but you'd call me a liar to my face. Still and all, though, I'm not ashamed of it.” He eyed Menedemos. “You can't think it's too bad, either, or you wouldn't be 'ere.”