The Gryphon's Skull

by H. N. Turteltaub

  Menedemos grinned at him. “I told you, it was Sostratos' idea.”

  “It's good wine,” Sostratos said. “I'd like to get some—if we can afford it.”

  Nikomakhos' eyes glinted. “You're not poor men to begin with, or you wouldn't be in the trade you're in. And if you tell me Ptolemaios didn't pay you well to bring Antignnos' nephew 'ere, I'll be the one calling you a couple of liars.”

  “What you say may be true, my friend, but that doesn't mean we can throw our money away, either,” Menedemos said. “We couldn't stay in business if we did. And even if I wanted to, my cousin would beat me.” He pointed to Sostratos. “He doesn't look it, but he's terribly fierce.”

  Sostratos didn't look fierce. He did look annoyed. He didn't like being twitted. Menedemos didn't let that worry him, not when he was getting a dicker going. Pleistarkhos took Menedemos literally, and eyed Sostratos with a wary respect he hadn't shown before. Nikomakhos seemed more amused than anything else.

  “Can't 'ave any beatings,” he said. “Well, what do you suppose a fair price would be?” Then he raised a hand. “No, don't answer that. Why don't you taste some first?” He called for a slave—not the bad-tempered Ibanollis—and told him to bring back samples, and some bread and oil to go with them.

  The wine was as sweet and strong as it had been in Ptolemaios' andron. It wasn't the magnificent golden Anousian, but what was? After a few sips, Menedemos said, “I can see how you might get four or five drakhmai for an amphora.”

  “Four or five?” Pleistarkhos turned red. “That's an insult!”

  His father tossed his head. “No it isn't, son. It's just an opening offer. 'E knows it's worth three times that much, but 'e can't come out and say so.”

  “It's a good wine,” Sostratos said. “It's not worth three times what my cousin offered. If you think it is—good luck finding buyers at that price.”

  “We can do it,” Pleistarkhos said.

  “Maybe so, but we won't be among them,” Menedemos said. “That's the kind of money we paid for the Ariousian last year. This is good, but it isn't that good.”

  They haggled for most of the morning. Nikomakhos came down to ten drakhmai the amphora; Menedemos and Sostratos went up as high as eight. And there they stuck. “I'm sorry, my friends, but I don't see 'ow I can sell for any less,” Nikomakhos said.

  Menedemos glanced at Sostratos. Unobtrusively, his cousin tossed his head. That fit in with Menedemos' view of things. “I'm sorry, too,” he told the Koan. “I don't think we could show a profit if I went higher. If we were heading off to Italy again, I might take the chance, but not for the towns round the Aegean. If ten's really as low as you'll go . . .”

  Very often, a threat like that would make the other side see things your way. This time, Nikomakhos sighed and said, “I'm afraid it is.” He turned to his son. “Sometimes the best bargain is the one you don't make.”

  “That's true.” Menedemos got to his feet. So did Sostratos. Menedemos dipped his head to Nikomakhos. “A pleasure to have met you, best one. We often come by Kos. Maybe we'll try again another time.”

  Ibanollis the Karian slave was still standing in the courtyard when Menedemos and Sostratos headed for the door. With his dour expression and forward-thrusting posture, he reminded Menedemos oi a frowzy old stork perched on a rooftop. “Waste of time,” he croaked to the Rhodians as they left. Had he stood on one leg, the resemblance would have been perfect.

  “Lovely fellow,” Menedemos remarked once they were out on the street.

  “Isn't he just?” But Sostratos sounded embittered, not amused. He explained why a moment later: “However charming he is, he was right. We did waste our time, and we could have been—”

  “Twiddling our thumbs aboard the Aphrodite,” Menedemos broke in. “You were going to say 'heading for Athens,' weren't you? But you're wrong. We couldn't have sailed this morning anyhow, not unless we wanted to break our promise to the crew, remember? And that was your idea, too.”

  “Oh,” Sostratos said in a small voice. “That's right.” He breathed a sigh of relief. “Good. I don't feel so bad now about getting Nikomakhos' name from Ptolemaios' steward.”

  They walked along toward the harbor. After a while, Menedemos said, “I've been thinking.”

  “Euge,” Sostratos replied, his tone suggesting he was offering the praise because Menedemos didn't do it very often.

  Refusing to rise to the bait, Menedemos went on, “I was thinking about the best way to get to Athens from here,”

  “Same route we used to pick up Polemaios, of course,” Sostratos said, “though they'll probably be sick of seeing us in the Kyklades.”

  “That's what I was thinking about,” Menedemos said. “Those are dangerous waters—we saw it for ourselves. And they're going to be more dangerous than usual. Polemaios' men, or some of them, will be heading this way. I don't want to run into them. The only real difference between mercenaries and pirates is that pirates have ships. When mercenaries take ship, they're liable to turn pirate, too.”

  “You have been thinking,” Sostratos said. “That's well put.”

  “And, of course, on our way back, the cities of the Island League may have learned we smuggled Antigonos' nephew past them,” Menedemos continued. “Since the league is Antigonos' creature . . .”

  “They may not be any too happy with us,” Sostratos finished for him. Menedemos dipped his head. His cousin scowled. “How do we get to Athens, then?”

  “That's what I've been thinking about,” Menedemos replied. “Suppose we go on up to Miletos and do some trading there.”

  “Suppose we don't,” Sostratos said. “That's one of old One-Eye's chief strongholds, and ...” He broke off, looking foolish. “Oh, I see. Word of what we've done won't have got there yet.”

  Now Menedemos indulged himself with a sarcastic, “Ettge.”

  His cousin's scowl returned. “I still don't like it.”

  Laughing, Menedemos said, “Of course you don't, my dear. It means one more pause before your precious gryphon's skull can be formally introduced to Athenian society. But consider: from Miletos, we can sail northwest to Ikaria, either stopping at Samos on the way or spending a night at sea, and then strike straight across the Aegean for the channel between Andros and Euboia instead of hopping from island to island. Traders hardly ever use that route, which means pirates don't, either. We could get almost to Attica without having anybody notice.”

  He watched Sostratos contemplate that. It wasn't what his cousin wanted; Menedemos knew as much. Most men, when thwarted in their desires, lashed out at whoever held them back. Menedemos had seen that, too. Sostratos' mouth twisted. But he didn't let loose whatever curses he was thinking. Instead, he said, “Well, I don't like to admit it, but that's likely best for the ship and best for business. Let it be as you say.”

  “I did think you would fuss more,” Menedemos said.

  Sostratos smiled a crooked smile. “I will if you like.”

  “Don't bother.” Menedemos smiled, too. “I'm glad you're being so reasonable. I was just thinking that not many men would.”

  “Oh, I'll fight like a wild boar when I think I'm right, and I'll rip the guts out of the hunting dogs of illogic that nip my heels,” Sostratos said. “But what's the point in getting hot and bothered when that would be wrong?”

  “You might win anyhow. Some would say you had a better chance, in fact,” Menedemos answered. “Look at what Bad Logic did to Good Logic in the Clouds.”

  “You keep coming back to that polluted play,” Sostratos said. “You know it's not my favorite.”

  “But there's a lot of good stuff in it,” Menedemos said. “By the time Bad Logic is done, Good Logic sees that practically all the Athenians are a pack of wide-arsed catamites.”

  “That's not true, though,” Sostratos protested.

  “It's what people think.” Menedemos applied the clincher: “And it's funny.”

  “What people think to be true often influences what they d
o or say, and so becomes a truth of its own,” Sostratos said thoughtfully. “I’ll chase truth where it leads me, and it leads me there.” He wagged a finger at Menedemos. “But I would never throw truth over the rail for the sake of getting a laugh.”

  “You're the soul of virtue.” Menedemos could have spoken mockingly; his cousin did get tiresome at times. But Sostratos really did have a great many virtues, and Menedemos was more willing than usual to acknowledge them because his cousin wasn't fussing about heading up to Miletos.

  Sostratos pointed. “There's the Aphrodite.”

  A couple of sailors aboard the merchant galley spotted their captain and toikharkhos and waved. Menedemos waved back. He also wiped his forehead with the back of his hand. “Hot and muggy,” he grumbled.

  “It is, isn't it?” Sostratos looked north. “Breeze is picking up a little bit, too, I think,”

  He spoke as if hoping Menedemos would tell him he was wrong. Menedemos, unfortunately, thought he was right. “I hope we don't get a blow,” he said. “It would be late in the year for one, but I don't like the feel of the air.”

  “No. Neither do I,” Sostratos said, and then, “We might have done better not to let the crew do its celebrating here.”

  Menedemos shrugged. “If it is a storm, we'd get it in Miletos, too. Just as well not to get it out in the middle of the Aegean, though,” His feet went from the gravelly dirt of the street to the planks of the quay, hot under the sun but worn smooth by the passage of countless barefoot sailors.

  When he and Sostratos came up to the Aphrodite, Aristeidas asked, “Will they bring some of this famous Koan wine aboard tomorrow?”

  “Afraid not.” Menedemos tossed his head. “Nikomakhos wouldn't come down far enough to make it worth our while to buy.”

  “Ah, too bad,” the lookout said. A fair number of sailors had a lively interest in the business end of what the Aphrodite did; Aristeidas was one of them. Maybe he dreamt of owning a merchantman himself, or maybe of serving as captain aboard one and going on trading runs for the owner. The first was unlikely. The second was by no means impossible. Had things gone better for Diokles, he would have been doing that this sailing season. His time might— probably would—still come.

  In his turn, Menedemos asked, “See anything interesting across the water at Halikarnassos?”

  “No, skipper,” Aristeidas answered. “Everything's quiet over there. Ptolemaios' war galleys go back and forth outside the harbor here, and you can see Antigonos', little as bugs, doing the same thing over there. They don't even move against each other.”

  “Just as well,” Menedemos said. “I wouldn't want to sail out of here and end up in the middle of a sea fight.”

  “I should hope not,” Aristeidas exclaimed.

  In a low voice, Sostratos said, “Oh, you had warships in mind when you asked about Halikarnassos? I thought you were still worrying about the husband you outraged a couple of years ago.”

  “Funny,” Menedemos said through clenched teeth. “Very funny.” If he hadn't got out of Halikarnassos in a hurry, he might not have been able to get out at all; that husband had wanted his blood. But he made himself look northeast, toward the city on the mainland. “I'll get back there one of these days.”

  “Not under your right name, you won't,” Sostratos said. “Not unless you come at the head of a fleet yourself.”

  He was probably right. No: he was almost certainly right. Menedemos knew as much. He didn't intend to admit it, though: “I could do it this year if I had to, I think. In a couple of years, that fellow won't even remember my name.”

  His cousin snorted. “He won't forget you till the day he dies. And even then, his ghost will want to haunt you.”

  “I doubt it.” Now Menedemos spoke with more confidence. “He'll have another man, or more than one, to be angry at by then. If his wife bent over forward for me, she'll bend over forward for somebody else, too. Women are like that. And she'll probably get caught again. She's pretty, but she's not very smart.”

  As was Sostratos' way, he met that thoughtfully. “Character doesn't change much, true enough,” he admitted. But then he pointed at Menedemos. “That holds for men as well as women. You in Taras last summer ...”

  “I didn't know Phyllis was that fellow's wife,” Menedemos protested. “I thought she was just a serving girl.”

  “The first time you did, yes,” Sostratos said. “But you went back for a second helping after you knew who she was. That's when you had to jump out the window.”

  “I got away with it,” Menedemos said.

  “And he set bully boys on you afterwards,” his cousin said. “It'll be a long time before you can go back to Taras, too. In how many more cities around the Inner Sea will you make yourself unwelcome?”

  He wanted to make Menedemos feel guilty. Menedemos refused to give him the satisfaction of showing guilt. “Unwelcome? What are you talking bout? The women in both towns made me about as welcome as a man can be.”

  “You can do business with women, sure enough,” Sostratos said, “but you can't make a profit from them.”

  “You sound like my father,” Menedemos said, an edge to his voice. Sostratos, for a wonder, took the hint. That proved he wasn't Philodemos: the older man never would have.

  7

  Sostratos looked up at the early morning sky and clicked his tongue between his teeth. It was after sunrise, but only twilight leaked through the thick gray clouds, “Do we really want to set out in this?” he asked Menedemos. The air felt even wetter than it had a couple of days before.

  “It hasn't rained yet,” his cousin answered. “Maybe it will hold off a while longer. Even if it doesn't, making Miletos is easy enough from here. And besides”—Menedemos lowered his voice—”paying the sailors for sitting idle eats into the money we make.”

  That struck a chord with the thrifty Sostratos. An akatos was expensive to operate, no doubt about it. The sailors earned about two minai of silver every three days—and, as Menedemos had said, earned their pay whether the Aphrodite sailed the Aegean or sat in port.

  “You think it's safe to go, then?” Sostratos asked once more.

  “We should be all right,” Menedemos said. He turned to Diokles. “If you think I'm wrong, don't be shy.”

  “I wouldn't be, skipper—it's my neck we're talking about, you know,” the oarmaster replied. “I expect we can make Miletos, too— and if the weather does turn really dirty, we can always swing around and run back here.”

  “I was thinking the same thing,” Menedemos said. He raised an eyebrow at Sostratos. “Satisfied?”

  “Certainly,” Sostratos answered; he didn't want Menedemos reckoning him a wet blanket. “If we can do it, we should do it. And it puts us one day closer to Athens.”

  Menedemos laughed and clapped him on the shoulder. “I thought that might be somewhere in the back of your mind.” He raised his voice to the sailors forward: “Cast off the mooring lines! Rowers to their places! No more swilling and screwing till the next port!”

  The sailors had moved quicker. A good many of them had spent everything they'd made so far this season in their spree in the polis of Kos. Nobody was missing, though. Dioldes had a better nose than a Kastorian hunting hound for sniffing men out of harborside taverns and brothels. “Come on, you lugs,” the keleustes rasped now. “Time to sweat out the wine you've guzzled.”

  A couple of groans answered him. He didn't laugh. He'd done his share of drinking, too. The thick ropes thudded down into the waist of the Aphrodite. Sailors who weren't rowing coiled them and got them out of the way.

  “Back oars!” Diokles called, and struck the bronze square with the mallet. “Rhyppapai! Rhyppapai!” Menedemos slid one steering-oar tiller in toward him, the other out, swinging the Aphrodite around till her bow pointed north. A round ship that had been lying at anchor a couple of plethra away from the pier sculled toward the spot the merchant galley had vacated. With Ptolemaios' fleet here, Kos' harbor remained badly overcrowded.
>
  Just for a moment, the sun peeked through the dark clouds, highlighting the Karian headland north of Kos on which Halikarnassos and, farther west, the smaller town of Myndos lay. The yellow stubble of harvested grainfields and the grayish green leaves of olive groves seemed particularly bright against the gloomy background of the sky. Sostratos hoped that shaft of sunlight meant the weather would clear, but the clouds rolled in again, and color drained out of the landscape.

  Menedemos took the Aphrodite up the channel between Myndos and the island of Kalymnos to the west. When the akatos came abreast of Myndos, Sostratos pointed toward the town and said, “Look! Antigonos has war galleys patrolling there, too.”

  “So would I, in his place,” Menedemos answered. He blinked a couple of times, a comical expression.

  “What's that about?” Sostratos asked.

  “Raindrop just hit me in the eye,” Menedemos said. He rubbed his nose. “There's another one.”

  A moment later, one hit Sostratos in the knee, another on the forearm, and a third gave him a wet kiss on the left ear. A couple of sailors exclaimed. “Here comes the storm, sure enough,” Sostratos said.

  The Aphrodite's sail was already up against the yard, for she was heading straight into the wind. After those first few scattered drops, the rain came down hard, far harder than it had in the Kyklades. “Very late in the year for one like this,” Menedemos said. Sostratos could hardly hear him; raindrops were drumming down on the planking of the poop deck and hissing into the sea.

  “It is, isn't it?” Sostratos said. “I hope all the leather sacks are sound. Otherwise, we're liable to have some water-damaged silk.”

  “You look water-damaged yourself,” Menedemos said. “It's dripping out of your beard.”

  “How can you tell, the way it's coming down out of the sky?” Sostratos replied.

  Instead of answering directly, Menedemos raised his voice to a shout: “Aristeidas, go forward!” The sailor waved and hurried up to the foredeck, “Polemaios can't complain about him this time,” Menedemos said.