The Gryphon's Skull Page 8

  His father snorted. “Enough to get you into trouble from Halikarnassos to Taras.” Enough to get me into worse trouble right here at home, if I let it, Menedemos thought. His father went on, “Here, pick a nice one for me,” and held out his hand. “My eyes aren't up to such things these days.”

  “This one has a fine color,” Menedemos said, holding up an emerald.

  “So it does,” Philodemos agreed. “I can see it better when you hold it than when it's in my own hand. Isn't that a sorry business? Old age is bitter, no doubt about it.”

  “Baukis will be happy, I think,” Menedemos said. Will she find out this was my idea and not my father's? I can't very well tell her, and half of me—the sensible half I'm sure—doesn't want her to.

  Philodemos' thoughts were going down a different track. “What's a fourteenth part of five hundred and fifty drakhmai? I can't do that in my head.”

  “Neither can I,” Menedemos said. “Sostratos probably could.”

  “Never mind; there's a counting board in the andron. I'll figure it out there.” His father walked over to the men's chamber, where, sure enough, an abacus lay on a table. Philodemos flicked beads back and forth in their grooves. “Thirty-nine drakhmai—a couple of oboloi over, in fact. I'll have to move the silver from my own money to the business.”

  “Why bother?” Menedemos said.

  “Because I'm buying it from the business, that's why,” Philodemos said. “Because Lysistratos would bellow like a bull and roar like a lion if I didn't—and because he'd be right when he did. Never cheat the business, son, not if you want to stay in business.”

  “All right.” Menedemos dipped his head. Father is as stern with himself as he is with everybody else, he thought. That made Philodemos more admirable, but hardly easier or more comfortable to live with.

  His father pointed to the leather sack that held the rest of the emeralds, “Where do you think you can get the best price for those?”

  “Well, Sostratos is wild to go to Athens on account of his gryphon's skull.”

  “That thing.” Philodemos snorted once more, on a different note. “He ought to pay for it from his personal funds instead of sticking the business with the cost.”

  “He thinks he can get these two different schools of philosophy bidding against each other,” Menedemos said.

  His father snorted again, “Moonshine, nothing else but.” “I don't know,” Menedemos said. “You never can tell with philosophers. Who can guess what they might want, and how much they'd pay for it?” He quoted from Aristophanes'Clouds:

  “ 'I walk the air and contemplate the sun. . ..

  For never

  Might I rightly discover the astronomical phenomena

  If I didn't hang up my mind and mix up my

  Subtle thought with the air it resembles.

  But if I examined what's up above while I was down on the ground

  I'd never find anything. For the earth by force

  Drags toward itself the juice of thought.

  This same thing happens also with cresses.' '

  He couldn't held smiling. He loved Aristophanes' absurdities.

  “Cresses?” his father said. “What's he talking about, philosophy or salad?”

  “Some of each, I think,” Menedemos answered. “But Athens has some of the best jewelers in the world. I don't know what philosophers will pay for a stone skull, but I think jewelers will pay plenty for emeralds.”

  Philodemos pursed his lips. “You may be right,” he said at last. “If you can get to Athens, that is.”

  Menedemos thumped his forehead with the heel of his hand. “Oi-moi! That reminds me, Father.” He passed on the news he'd got from Moiragenes at the harbor.

  “Ptolemaios has Xanthos, you say?” Philodemos whistled. “There's all of Lykia, near enough, stolen away from Antigonos just like that.” He snapped his fingers.

  “And Kaunos is next on the list,” Menedemos said. “The fight between the marshals is so close now, we can see it from here.”

  “This is not good for Rhodes, not good at all,” his father said. “The last thing we want is for the war to come to our door. The longer it stays close to us, the likelier someone will try to kick the door down.”

  That thought had occurred to Menedemos, too. He didn't like agreeing with his father. It didn't happen very often, so he seldom needed to worry about it. Here, though, he found himself saying, “I know. It's not easy staying a free and autonomous—a really free and really autonomous—polls these days. It puts me in mind of being a sprat in the middle of a school of hungry tunny, if you want to know the truth.”

  “I won't quarrel with you,” Philodemos said: again, no small concession, coming from him. When it comes to Rhodes, we can see eye to eye, Menedemos thought. When it comes to the two of us. . .

  He wished he hadn't suggested that his father mount the emerald and give it to Baukis. His father was liable to tell her he'd done so, as proof he wasn't worried about sharing an inheritance with any sons she might bear. And she might even take it that way, and be relieved.

  Or she might think, Menedemos gave me this lovely stone. And if she thought that, what would she do then? And what would he?

  3

  Sostratos had already checked everything aboard the Aphrodite three different times. That didn't keep him from checking things once more. There was the gryphon's skull, securely wrapped in canvas and stowed near the poop. All they were waiting for was a few more sailors and some fresh water. “Then,” Sostratos said, as if the old, old bone could understand, “people will try to figure out what to make of you.”

  From his station on the raised poop deck, Menedemos called, “Are you talking to that polluted thing? You need a hetaira to take your mind off what you're doing.”

  “Screwing isn't the answer to everything,” Sostratos said with dignity.

  “If it isn't, you tell me what is,” his cousin retorted.

  Before Sostratos could reply—and, very likely, before the argument could heat up-—a man standing on the pier said, “Hail.”

  “Hail,” Sostratos and Menedemos said together. Even as Menedemos asked, “What can we do for you?” Sostratos found himself disliking the newcomer on sight. The fellow was close to forty, medium-sized, handsome, well built, and carried himself like an athlete. Jealous? Me? Sostratos thought, and then, Well, maybe a little.

  “I hear you're sailing north and west,” the stranger said. “Will you be putting in at Miletos?” He had an odd accent, basically Doric but with a hissing, sneezy overlay. He's spent a lot of time in Lykia, Sostratos thought.

  “Hadn't planned to,” Sostratos said blandly, “but I might.”

  The man on the quay dipped his head. “It's like that, is it? What's your fare, then?”

  Menedemos flicked Sostratos a glance. As toikharkhos, Sostratos had the job of charging as much as the passenger could bear to pay. Instead of answering directly, he asked a question of his own: “What's your name, O best one?”

  “Me? I'm Euxenides of Phaselis,” the stranger replied.

  That made Menedemos blink. Sostratos smiled to himself. The fellow's accent and his bearing had made Sostratos think that was who he was. And Antigonos held Miletos. One of his officers might well want to go there. Sostratos enjoyed being right no less than any other man. He said, “Perhaps you should know: it's almost certain we will put in at Kos.”

  Kos was Ptolemaios' chief base in the Aegean. Euxenides asked, “Are you saying you'd betray me there? That's not how neutrals should behave.”

  “No, nothing of the sort,” Sostratos replied. “But you'd best remember, we'll have a big crew on board—all our rowers. They will go into the taverns, and they will gossip. I don't think anyone could stop them,”

  “And Ptolemaios' men will have ears around to hear such things,” Euxenides finished for him. Sostratos dipped his head. Euxenides shrugged. “Chance I take. I'm not of a rank to make it likely that anyone much would have heard of me. How much for my pa
ssage? You still haven't said.”

  “To Miletos?” Sostratos plucked at his beard, considering. “Twenty drakhmai should do it.”

  “That's outrageous!” Euxenides exclaimed.

  Most of the time, Sostratos would have asked half as much, and might have let himself be haggled down from there. Now he just shrugged and answered, “I have two questions for you, O marvelous one. First, when do you think another ship will sail from Rhodes to Miletos? And second, don't you think a trip to Miletos puts us in danger of ending up in the middle of a sea fight between Antigonos' ships and Ptolemaios'?”

  Euxenides looked around the great harbor, as if hoping to find another ship on the point of sailing. There weren't more than a handful of akatoi in port, though, and he would have a long, slow journey on a round ship that had to tack its way up to Miletos against the prevailing northerly winds.

  With a scowl, he said, “You're enjoying this, aren't you?”

  “No one goes into business intending to lose money,” Sostratos replied.

  “Twenty drakhmai? Pheu!” Euxenides sounded thoroughly disgusted. But he said, “All right, twenty it is. When do you sail?”

  “Soon, I hope,” Sostratos said; as far as he was concerned, they'd already stayed in Rhodes much too long. He looked toward Menedemos. Being captain, his cousin had the last word in such things.

  “Tomorrow, I hope,” Menedemos said. “We'll share our water, but you do know you'll have to bring your own food and wine?”

  “Oh, yes. I've traveled by sea a good many times before,” Euxenides replied. “If we have to spend a night on the water, I expect I'll sleep on the foredeck.”

  I wonder if it stilt stinks of peafowl dung when you lie down on it, Sostratos thought. He didn't say that to Antigonos' officer. All he said, was, “That's right.”

  “I'll be here in the morning, then.” Euxenides went off down the pier.

  “Twenty drakhmai,” Menedemos said. “That's more than I thought you'd squeeze out of him. Euge!”

  “Thanks,” Sostratos said. “He wants to get back to Antigonos, and probably to tell him everything he saw of Ptolemaios' fleet and his army.”

  “No doubt,” Menedemos agreed. “He'll likely tell him everything he's seen of Rhodes, too.”

  “I hadn't thought of that.” Sostratos’ eyes went to the moles protecting the great harbor from the sea, and to the walls and towers fortifying them. “Maybe we shouldn't take him.”

  “I think it's all right,” his cousin said. “Our works aren't exactly secret. Antigonos is bound to know about them about as well as our generals do.”

  That made more sense than Sostratos wanted to admit, “I don't much care for the side trip, though.”

  Menedemos laughed at him. “Of course you don't, my dear. It means you take a day or two longer to get to Athens. Believe me, nobody in Miletos will steal the gryphon's skull.”

  And Sostratos couldn't very well argue with that, either. Back before the Persians came, the polis was a hotbed of philosophy; Herodotos said Thales of Miletos had been the first man to predict an eclipse of the sun, an eclipse that also awed the warring Lydians and Medes to make peace with each other. Having seen an eclipse himself the year before, Sostratos understood how one might awe men into almost anything. But these past couple of hundred years, Miletos had been just another city.

  Since he couldn't directly disagree, he shifted his ground: “Aren't you curious to see what the philosophers will make of the skull and what they'll be able to learn about gryphons from it?”

  “Oh, a little,” Menedemos answered. “What I'm really curious about, though, is how much they'll pay us, and if they'll pay us.”

  “The only way to find out is to get to Athens,” Sostratos said. “Not Kos. Not Miletos. Athens.”

  “We're sailing tomorrow. Can you be patient that long?”

  “I've been patient long enough. I want to know.”

  “You sound like me when I'm chasing a pretty girl.”

  “That's ridic—” Sostratos broke off. It wasn't ridiculous. It was, when you got down to it, a pretty fair comparison. He did chase knowledge as ardently as his cousin chased women. “Philosophy doesn't have a husband to shove a radish up my arse if he catches me in bed with her.”

  “Philosophy won't suck you off, either,” Menedemos retorted. Sostratos' cheeks got hot. He couldn't even complain, not when he'd been crude first. Menedemos laughed and clapped him on the shoulder. “Don't you worry about a thing, my dear. We really do sail tomorrow.”

  “Tomorrow,” Sostratos echoed dreamily.

  “And believe me,” his cousin added, “I'm as glad to be going as you are.” Sostratos heard the truth in his voice. For the life of him, though, he couldn't figure out why it was there.

  If it wouldn't have made people talk, Menedemos would have spent his last night in Rhodes wrapped in his himation on the Aphrodite's poop deck. He would, indeed, have spent most of his nights thus. But someone might have figured out why he was doing so, and gossip with truth behind it was the last thing he wanted.

  And so, when he went downstairs before dawn to head for Sostratos' house next door and then down to the harbor, he found Baukis already in the courtyard with some bread and a cup of wine from the kitchen. “Hail,” he said. He couldn't ignore her. She would complain to his father—and she'd have reason—which would only touch off more trouble.

  “Hail,” she answered gravely. “A safe trip to you. Come back as soon as you can, and with plenty of silver.”

  “Thanks.” Menedemos turned toward the kitchen himself. “I'm going to get some breakfast, too, to eat on the way down to the ship.”

  She dipped her head. Everything she did, it seemed, was serious to the point of solemnity. What would she be like, kindled and wanton? Menedemos wondered. Would she burn all the hotter because she's so quiet the rest of the time? He all but fled into the kitchen, running from his own thoughts.

  He would have stayed in there, too, hoping she would go back upstairs, but the Aphrodite wouldn't wait. And if he didn't go get Sostratos, Sostratos would come get him. Out he went, a chunk of bread in his hand.

  Baukis remained, still busy with her own breakfast. “Be careful,” she told Menedemos. “All the things we talked about before—they all look like they're coming true. And they're all bad for Rhodes, and they're all bad for trade.”

  “I know.” Menedemos tore into the bread, eating as fast as he could. His mouth full, he went on, “But I'll come back. I have to. If I didn't, Father wouldn't have anyone to yell at.”

  Baukis drew in a sharp breath. Menedemos realized he hadn't criticized his father where she could hear before. When he'd complained about Philodemos, it had always been to Sostratos ... till now. And complaining about a man to the man's wife was not the ideal way to enlist her sympathy.

  She said, “He wants the most for you, from you. Anything less makes him angry.”

  And he picks the worst possible ways to try to get it, Menedemos thought. But he didn't say that to Baukis. He stuffed the last of the bread into his mouth, chewed quickly, and swallowed. It scraped down his throat like a boulder. “I'd better go,” he said.

  Baukis dipped her head. “Safe journey,” she repeated. “Swift journey, too.”

  She got to her feet. He might have hugged her. She was his stepmother. Oh, yes, he jeered at himself. And what would you do if Father came downstairs and saw that? You'd need to sail away and never come home. He'd never had such attacks of nerves pursuing other men's wives in other towns. He headed for the doorway at something close to a run. Whenever he went away from Baukis, he felt as if he'd just been routed.

  Getting out into the street was a relief. Getting out onto the open sea a thousand stadia from Rhodes would be a bigger one. He closed the door behind him, then turned to go next door and gather up Sostratos. He took a step—and almost ran into his cousin.

  “Hail,” Sostratos said. “You don't need to jump like that. I was just coming to get you.”

/>   “I was just going to get you,” Menedemos answered, “I didn't hear your footsteps.” That wasn't surprising; neither of them wore shoes. Menedemos went on, “Now that we've got each other, let's head down to the ship. What do you bet that Euxenides fellow will be waiting on the quay?”

  “I have better things to do than waste my money,” Sostratos said. “Have you got the emeralds?”

  Menedemos tapped a little leather sack dangling from the belt that confined his tunic at the waist. “They're here, all but the one Father bought for his new wife.” He kept his voice down, not wanting his words to travel back to Baukis; the stone was still at the jeweler's.

  “Pity he decided to do that. It's one fewer we can sell.” Sostratos spread his hands. “What can you do, though?”

  “Not much,” Menedemos answered. Sostratos didn't know he was the one who'd suggested giving the emerald to his father, and he wasn't about to tell him. “Come on. Let's go.”

  Mnesipolis was already banging away when they walked by the smithy. He waved, hammer in hand. They were as familiar to him as he was to them.

  “Give him a limp and he'd make a good Hephaistos,” Menedemos remarked.

  “Why, so he would,” Sostratos said. “There's a game: who of the people we know best matches the Olympians?” He eyed Menedemos. “Eh, wingfooted Hermes?”

  Menedemos strutted with pride for a few paces. He was a formidable sprinter, even if he hadn't been quite fast enough to go to the Olympic Games to run for Rhodes. He hadn't thought of his chance remark as the start for a game, but was quick to fall in with it: “We've got Poseidon as keleustes.”

  “So we do,” Sostratos said. “And Aristeidas will do for all-seeing Argos.”

  They went past Agathippos the banker's still playing the game. Menedemos said, “I know who gray-eyed Athene would be, too.”

  “Who?” Sostratos asked.