The Gryphon's Skull

by Harry Turtledove

  His cousin still had his eye on the ruler of Egypt's fee, “O best one, will you sail with us?” he asked,

  “Oh, yes,” Polemaios replied. “Oh, yes, indeed. I'm squeezed here. I won't be squeezed . . . over there.”

  He'd paused there, quite noticeably. What was he going to say till he changed it? Sostratos wondered. “I won't be squeezed, once I hold Egypt?” Something like that, or I miss my guess. And Ptolemaios asked him to come to Kos? The man must be raving mad.

  Menedemos' mind was elsewhere: on the practical details of getting Polemaios out of Khalkis and across the Aegean. “Come to our akatos a little before dawn,” he told Antigonos' nephew. “We'll have you out past Attica before Demetrios of Phaleron is any the wiser, and you can make whatever arrangements suit you best to have your men follow you to Kos.”

  “Good enough,” Polemaios rumbled. “You're a little chap, but you get things done.”

  Even with his passage worth a talent of silver, Polemaios was asking for trouble by calling Menedemos a little chap. Before Menedemos could lose his temper—or, at least, before he could show he'd lost it—Sostratos said, “We'll have you out past Attica provided the Euripos cooperates, that is. If the current is flowing north, we'll just have to wait till it turns around.”

  “A pestilence!” His cousin snapped his fingers in annoyance. “I'd forgotten that.” He eyed Polemaios. “I don't suppose you'd like to go north around Euboia?”

  Antigonos' nephew tossed his head. “Not likely! I'd be heading straight up toward Kassandros if I did, and I want to get away from him. I'd sooner wait till the Euripos turns around.”

  “All right,” Menedemos said mildly—so mildly, Sostratos shot him a sharp look. Had he been thinking something like, If Polemaios is worth a talent to Ptolemaios, how much is he worth to Kassandros? No way to prove it.

  Something else occurred to Sostratos. He spoke with as much diplomacy as he had in him: “You do know, sir, we'll be sailing through the Kyklades on our way back to Kos?”

  “And through my gods-detested uncle's polluted Island League.” Polemaios might have been harsh and crude, but he wasn't stupid. He went on, “Don't you worry about that. I won't travel under my right name.” He looked from Sostratos to Menedemos and back again. “And I will bring some bodyguards with me.”

  “Of course, best one.” The two Rhodians spoke together. If they hadn't promptly agreed to that, Sostratos doubted they would have got back to the alive.

  As things were, Polemaios said, “I'll see you in the morning, early,” and called for the slave. At his brusque gesture, the fellow led Sostratos and Menedemos out of the house and all but slammed the door in their faces.

  Outside, the big bodyguard barked, “You find out what you needed to know?” Sostratos dipped his head. The guard said, “Why don't you get lost, then?” He set a hand on his swordhilt to let them know it wasn't a suggestion. They left in a hurry.

  “What a charming fellow,” Menedemos said once they were around a corner and out of earshot.

  “Who?” Sostratos asked. “The man himself, or his comrade?” In a polis full of Polemaios' soldiers, he didn't name Antigonos' nephew,

  “I had the man himself in mind,” Menedemos answered. “But his comrade's just as delightful, isn't he?”

  “Every bit.” Sostratos walked on for a few paces, then turned to his cousin. “I wonder just how many friends the man himself will bring to the symposion.”

  He didn't mention bodyguards or the merchant galley, either, but Menedemos had no trouble following him. “What an interesting question,” he said brightly. “Not so many that they get in the way of the slaves, I hope.”

  “So do I,” Sostratos said. “This gets more and more complicated, doesn't it?”

  His cousin flashed him a smile. “Well, my dear, have you ever heard of anything that didn't?”

  Menedemos had a knack for waking up whenever he told himself to do so, as if somewhere in the back of his mind there were a klepsydra like the one used to time speeches in the Athenian law courts. It was still dark when his eyes came open the next morning. A glance at the stars and the moon told him dawn wasn't far away, though. He peered into Khalkis. No sign of Polemaios yet.

  Sostratos lay on his back on the poop deck, snoring like a stonecutter's saw working its way through a block of marble. Menedemos shook him. The snores rose in pitch but didn't stop. Menedemos gave another shake. His cousin's eyes opened. “What in the name of the—?” Sostratos spluttered.

  “Good day,” Menedemos said cheerfully. “We're waiting for a friend, remember?”

  “Oh. That's right.” Sostratos yawned till the hinges of his jaw creaked. “No sign of him yet?”

  “You don't see him, do you?” Menedemos said. He paused to gauge the feel of the water under the . “I wish he'd get here, too, because the Euripos is going our way right now. If it switches back to the north, we'll be stuck here for hours.”

  “That's true,” Sostratos said around another yawn, this one not quite so enormous. He got to his feet and, as Menedemos had done a moment before, stared into Khalkis. The town was dark and quiet. An owl hooted, A baby wailed. A dog barked—three individual, widely spaced sounds against the background of silence. “Where is he? I hope he hasn't changed his mind.”

  “He'd better not!” Menedemos exclaimed in horror; the elemental, entirely understandable horror of losing forty minai of silver.

  “Cheer up,” Sostratos said. “If he does, we can just drop down to Athens and go on about our business.”

  “You don't care about business. All you care about is that miserable old skull we got in Kaunos. I'm beginning to wish I'd never set eyes on the stinking thing. It won't make up for what Polemaios will cost us if he doesn't come—and nothing else will, either.”

  Instead of answering, Sostratos pointed into the sleeping polls. “What was that?”

  “What was what?” Menedemos had been eyeing the gray starting to seep up into the eastern sky.

  “Light, moving. Look—there it is again.”

  “You're right,” Excitement filled Menedemos' voice. “That's torchlight on walls, sure as sure—we just can't see the torches themselves yet.” And then, a moment later, as the men carrying them rounded a corner, he could: a dozen, at least. They flickered like bright stars on a cold night, and they were, without a doubt, heading for the .

  From one of the rowers' benches, Diokles spoke up: “Looks like we're in business, skipper. And the current's flowing our way, too.”

  Menedemos smiled. “I might have known you'd be awake, too,” he told the keleustes. “Let's get the men up and get ready to go.”

  They were waking sailors when feet thudded on the planks of the quay. “Ahoy, the Aphrodite!” Polemaios called. He towered over all the men with him except that one big bodyguard. He had ten soldiers in full hoplite's gear, plus a couple of torchbearers who were probably servants and, Menedemos saw with surprise, one woman, veiled against the prying eyes of men.

  After a moment, the surprise evaporated. He is of an age to have a wife, Menedemos said to himself. Aloud, he answered, “Hail, best one. You're in good time, and the Euripos is with us.”

  “Then let's be off,” Polemaios said. He spoke to his men in a low voice. They threw their torches into the sea. The torches hissed as they were quenched. Polemaios’ followers came down the gangplank and into the . Antigonos' nephew followed them. As he stepped down onto the poop deck, he murmured, “Better glory than length of days.”

  Akhilleus might have said the same thing, camped by the beached ship on the windy plain of Troy. And might have said the same thing, too, Menedemos realized. Polemaios is old enough to have gone east with him, if just barely. Even fourteen years dead, still cast an enormous shadow across the Hellenic world.

  “Cast off!” Menedemos called. A couple of his sailors scrambled up onto the pier, undid the lines securing the merchant galley, and came back down again. They stowed the gangplank as they did so. Menedemos glanc
ed up the length of the ship. Polemaios had done a good job of herding his men—and the one woman—well forward, I

  as much out of the rowers' way as possible. Menedemos caught Diokles' eye and dipped his head.

  “Back oars!” the oarmaster bellowed, beating out the stroke with mallet and bronze. “Back hard, you lazy bastards! It's like getting away from a pier on a river,”

  It put Menedemos in mind of escaping the quay at Pompaia, on the Sarnos, the summer before. This was even more nerve-wracking, though, for the Euripos flowed harder than the river had—and because the channel between Euboia and the mainland had a couple of rocky islets right in the middle of it. Menedemos kept looking back over his shoulder as he handled the steering oars.

  “Ready, boys?” Diokles called. The rowers' heads came up. To them, the world held nothing but their oars and the keleustes' voice. “Are you ready?” Diokles repeated. “Then . . . normal stroke!”

  The men went from backing oars to pulling the forward as smoothly as if they'd been doing it for years. And, indeed, almost all of them had been doing it for years, aboard one ship or another. Menedemos pulled in on one steering oar and pushed out on the other, bringing the akatos' bow around so she aligned with the way the water was racing.

  “Very neat,” Sostratos said. “A little lucky, to have the Euripos flowing in the direction we needed, but very neat.”

  “The wind's with us, too,” Menedemos said. “In a little while, I'll have the men lower the sail from the yard. What with oars and wind and current, we'll be practically flying along.”

  “We still won't get clear of Euboia by nightfall,” Sostratos said,

  “Well, no,” Menedemos admitted, “but we might make it all the way down to Karystos, at the south end of the island. No one could hope to get from there to Khalkis and back by the time we're away the next morning—or from there to Athens and back, either.”

  “Karystos,” his cousin said musingly. “There's a marble quarry nearby, I know that. And there's something else about the place, too. Something ...” He snapped his fingers in annoyance, unable to come up with it.

  “They've got that strange stone there, the stuff that won't burn,” Menedemos said. “They weave from It, and when the towels get dirty, they just toss 'em in the fire.”

  “Asbestos! That's right,” Sostratos said. “Thank you. I was going to be worrying at that all day, like a dog with a bone. Now I don't have to. That stuff sells well, and it's not very bulky. We might do some business.”

  “We might,” Menedemos said dubiously. “Nothing to make us late back to Kos, though, especially not in country Kassandros holds.”

  Sostratos looked forward, to where Polemaios was pointing something on the Euboian coast out to one of his henchmen. In a low voice, Menedemos' cousin said, “If Ptolemaios decides he wants anything to do with that fellow once he gets a good look at him, I'm a trouser-wearing Persian.”

  Menedemos knew he wouldn't have wanted anything to do with Polemaios. Nevertheless, he said, “My dear, that's not your worry, or mine either. Our job is to get him there and get paid for it, and that's what I intend to do.”

  Menedemos kept a wary eye on the coast himself as the made her way south, especially when the merchant galley neared one of the many headlands or little offshore islands. Lots of those little islands speckled the channel between Euboia and the mainland. Sheep or cattle grazed on some of them; others seemed just as the gods had made them. A piratical pentekonter or hemiolia might have used any one of them for concealment before rushing out against a merchantman.

  You're getting as nervous as that Athenian Sostratos was talking about, Menedemos thought. He wouldn't have fretted so much without such a valuable passenger aboard. Polemaios' bodyguards made the better able to fight off marauders than she would have been otherwise, but Menedemos didn't want to have to put that to the test.

  As he had when Kissidas brought his kinsfolk aboard at Kaunos, he kept trying to get as many glimpses as he could of Polemaios' wife. He had little luck there; she stayed up on the foredeck, and the crowd of armored bodyguards did a good job of shielding her from his gaze. Even if he had got a clear look, it wouldn't have told him much, not when, like any respectable woman who had to leave her house, she kept on the veil that shielded her from the gaze of lustful men. He knew as much, but kept peering her way anyhow.

  Presently, Polemaios came aft and ascended to the poop deck. Antigonos' nephew towered over Menedemos; he was one of the biggest men the Rhodian had ever seen. He wasn't lean and gawky like Sostratos, either, but massively built, broad in the shoulders and thick through the chest. He made a host in himself.

  He was so massively made, in fact, that Menedemos lifted a hand from a steering-oar tiller, made a brushing motion with it, and said, “Excuse me, best one, but please step to one side or the other. I do need to be able to see straight ahead.”

  “Oh. Right.” Polemaios didn't apologize. Menedemos would have been surprised if he'd ever apologized to anyone. But he did move, and had the sense to move to starboard rather than to port. If trouble suddenly boiled up, it was much more likely to come from Euboia, on Menedemos' left hand, than from the Attic mainland to his right. After a couple of minutes of silence, Antigonos' nephew asked, “How big a fleet did Ptolemaios bring to Kos?”

  “Close to sixty ships,” Menedemos answered.

  For the first time in their brief acquaintance, Polemaios smiled. Even smiling, he remained formidable. “Plenty to give my dear uncle a kick in the balls,” he said. “Not half what he deserves, either.”

  You say that now, Menedemos thought. A couple of years ago, you were your dear uncle's right-hand man. I think he's not your dear uncle anymore because he's got new right-hand men in his two sons. He said none of that. Polemaios was not the sort of man who invited such opinions.

  “Do you know who any of Ptolemaios' ship-captains are?” Antigonos' nephew asked.

  Menedemos tossed his head. “Sorry, sir. I'm just a trader.”

  “You're not just a trader, or Ptolemaios wouldn't have sent you after me.” Polemaios' gaze was as hard and bright and predatory as an eagle's. “Did you meet any of his commanders of marines?”

  “Only one, and then only in a manner of speaking,” Menedemos answered. “He was the fellow whose five stopped us on the way into the harbor at Kos. He asked the sort of questions you'd expect an officer to ask strangers.”

  “Ah.” Polemaios leaned forward with a now-we're-getting-somewhere expression on his face. “What was his name? Did you bribe him to let you go on? How much silver did it take to get him to look the other way?”

  “I never found out what his name was,” Menedemos said in some exasperation. “And he never came aboard, so I couldn't very well bribe him.”

  Antigonos' nephew looked as if he believed not a word of that. “How did you get him to let you pass, then? Ptolemaios' officers are paid to be suspicious, just like any others. They wouldn't be much use to him if they weren't.”

  “How, O marvelous one?” Menedemos' patience began to slip. He didn't like being grilled like this aboard his own ship, especially when he saw no point to Polemaios' questions. “I showed him a tiger hide, that's how. After that, he let me alone and didn't bother me anymore,”

  Polemaios didn't take the hint. He did shift the aim of his questions: “Where did you get a tiger hide? Have you ever been to India? You couldn't have gone with —you're not old enough,”

  Men who'd gone conquering with the great king of Macedonia were going to throw that in the younger generation's face as long as they lived. Menedemos had already heard it more often than he would have liked. He answered, “No, I haven't been to India. This hide came west. I bought it in the market square at Kaunos.”

  “Oh.” Polemaios didn't bother hiding his disappointment. He turned away and went forward again. With a silent sigh of relief, Menedemos gave all his attention back to guiding the down the channel between Euboia and the mainland. Fishing boats fled back to Ei
retria, the other prominent polls on the island, when they spotted the akatos and the armed and armored men aboard her. To Menedemos' relief, no war galleys came striding over the sea to investigate. They must figure we're just another pirate, and not worth bothering about. The thought saddened and angered him at the same time.

  Dystos, south of Eiretria, lay inland, on the shore of a small, marshy lake. Its walls, shaped like some sort of polygon—Sostratos would know its name: he's the one who cares for such things, Menedemos thought—-had ten or twelve towers to help hold foes at bay. They might not have done their job any too well; though the walls hadn't been breached, Dystos seemed half—more than half— abandoned.

  Presently, Sostratos came back to the poop deck. Menedemos greeted him with a smile. “By the dog of Egypt, I'm glad of your company,” he said.

  “Are you?” His cousin raised an eyebrow. He set a hand on Menedemos' forehead, as if checking to see if he had a fever. “Do you feel well?”

  Laughing, Menedemos said, “Better, anyhow.” He lowered his voice: “You and Polemaios both ask lots of questions, but you're friendly about it, and he's fierce.”

  “What sort of questions was he giving you?” Sostratos said, also softly. “I did mean to ask you about that, as a matter of fact.” Menedemos explained. When he finished, Sostratos let out an unmusical whistle. “Isn't that interesting? Do you know what he's doing?”

  “Being nosy to not much purpose,” Menedemos answered.

  “Being nosy, yes, but I think he has a purpose.” Sostratos glanced forward to make sure Antigonos' nephew wasn't paying undue attention, “It sounds as though he's trying to find out whether Ptolemaios has any officers who can be corrupted.”

  Menedemos' whistle was even more discordant than Sostratos'. “I think you've fit that together like a mortise joining a couple of ship's timbers. That's just what he was doing, Furies take me if it's not.”

  He whistled again. “He's a piece of work, that one.”

  “ 'Many are the marvels—' “ Sostratos began.