The Gryphon's Skull

by Harry Turtledove

  ''Nothing new here,” Diokles said when they came aboard the . But then the oarmaster tossed his head. “No, I take that back. One of Ptolemaios' fives limped back into the harbor a good cubit and a half lower in the water than she should have been.”

  Menedemos cursed. “One more thing to keep the stinking carpenters busy.” He turned to Sostratos. “I wish we'd gone straight up to the proxenos' house. That's the kind of news I didn't want to hear.”

  “Can't be helped, my dear,” his cousin answered, “It would have happened whether we heard about it or not.”

  That was true, but did little to console Menedemos. He took a couple of steps toward the gangplank to head back into the city with the last of the light when Diokles said, “Somebody's coming this way—coming in a hurry, too.”

  “By the dog of Egypt!” Sostratos exclaimed. “That's Polemaios!”

  The big man trotted up the quay toward the akatos. He paused halfway there to look back over his shoulder, as if fearing pursuit. Seeing none, he hurried on. “Hail, Menedemos,” he said, panting. “You must take me away from here, and quickly.”

  “What?” Menedemos said, startled. “Why?”

  Antigonos' nephew scowled. “I'll tell you why. That whoremaster of a Ptolemaios thinks I've been spreading silver around to some of his officers, to turn 'em against him and towards me, that's why. . . . All lies, of course,” he added after a couple of damning heartbeats.

  “Of course,” Menedemos said, not believing him for a moment.

  “Will you get me out of this place?” Polemaios demanded, “By the gods, I'll pay my fare and more. Name your price. I'll meet it. I'll drown you in drakhmai, so long as you get me out of that old bastard's reach.”

  Ever so slightly, Sostratos tossed his head. Here, Menedemos didn't need his cousin's advice. He said, “I'm sorry, best one, but we're laid up ourselves. A polluted round ship rammed us, and we're still waiting for repairs. If we leave the harbor, we're liable to sink before we've gone even a stadion,” That exaggerated things, but Polemaios wouldn't know it. With a wave, Menedemos went on, “Besides, you can see for yourself that most of my crew's not aboard. How could I hope to sail?”

  Polemaios growled, deep in his chest, the sound a desperate hunted animal might make. He looked back toward the center of town again, then howled out a curse, for a squad of hoplites approached at a quick march. “Hide me!” he said, and then, “Too late. They've seen me.” He yanked his sword from its scabbard.

  The soldiers wore helmets and corselets, some of bronze, others of linen. They carried shields and long spears. They could have made quick work of the unarmored Macedonian. But their leader, an officer with a crimson-dyed crest nodding above his helm, politely dipped his head to Polemaios. “What point to fighting, most noble one?” he said. “Why don't you come along with us till this misunderstanding is sorted out?”

  Menedemos thought Polemaios would make them kill him, but the big man grabbed hope like a drowning man seizing a spar. “Let it be as you say,” he said, and sheathed the sword again. At a word from the officer, the ruler of Egypt's soldiers surrounded him.

  Then the captain eyed Menedemos and Sostratos. “Why don't you Rhodians come along with us, too, so we can find out just what exactly was going on here?”

  He phrased it as a request, but it was an order, and Menedemos knew it. He walked up the gangplank, Sostratos behind him. The truth lay on their side. But would Ptolemaios believe it?

  8

  Ptolemaios looked searchingly from Sostratos to Menedemos and back again. Sostratos did his best to look back without flinching. He'd thought some flunky of Ptolemaios' would question them; he hadn't expected to be brought before the ruler of Egypt himself. “So,” Ptolemaios rasped, “you say you weren't dickering over the price you wanted for getting him out of my reach?”

  “That's right, sir,” Sostratos answered. “Besides, even if we'd wanted to—which we didn't, as my cousin and I have told you over and over—we couldn't have gone anywhere with Polemaios.”

  A torch behind Ptolemaios' head crackled. The sun had set, but torches and lamps made the andron of the ruler of Egypt's residence almost as bright as day. Ptolemaios leaned forward, thrusting his blunt-featured, strong-chinned face toward the two Rhodians. “Why not?” he said.

  “Because we've got sprung planking, that's why not,” Menedemos exclaimed, his temper slipping. “If you don't believe us, ask any of your carpenters. We've been screaming a: them for most of a month now, but they won't give us the time of day—they're too busy with your polluted ships to care a fig about ours.”

  Sostratos feared his cousin had spoken too boldly. Ptolemaios, though, only dipped his head, remarking, “You say what's on your mind, don't you?”

  “Yes, sir,” Menedemos answered. “If we could have got our ship repaired, we would have been long gone from here, and then you wouldn't be wondering if we were plotting with Antigonos' nephew.”

  “Suppose I ask my shipwrights if you've been coming by?” Ptolemaios said.

  “By the dog of Egypt, go ahead,” Menedemos burst out. Again, Sostratos wondered whether he should have used that particular oath to the ruler of Egypt. Menedemos went on, “Your men will tell you we've been in their hair like lice,”

  “Heh.” Ptolemaios scratched reminiscently. “I've been lousy a time or two—more than a time or two. T hate those little bastards.” He called for one of his men—a soldier, not a servitor—and spoke to him in a low voice. The fellow dipped his head. He hurried away. Ptolemaios went on, “We'll see if you're telling the truth.”

  If the Rhodians hadn't been, that would have alarmed them. As things were, Menedemos said only, “Fine.”

  “What's going to happen to Polemaios now?” Sostratos asked, that being what was uppermost in his mind.

  Ptolemaios scowled. “That son of a whore was trying to win over my officers with sweet talk and bribes. I took him in, a stray dog, and he used me so? I'll give him no bites at all, only a sip: he drinks hemlock tomorrow.” He laid the full weight of his formidable stare on Sostratos. “And what do you think of that?”

  “May I watch, sir?” Sostratos blurted.

  “What?” Ptolemaios blinked. Whatever sort of answer he'd expected, that wasn't it. He stared more grimly than ever. “Why?”

  Sostratos wished he'd thought more before speaking. He answered as best he could: “Because I studied at the Lykeion in Athens; and I've talked with men from the Academy, the school Platon founded; and I've read Platon's tale of how Sokrates died. I'd like to see it for myself, if I could.”

  “I've read the Phaidon, too,” Ptolemaios said, which surprised Sostratos in turn; the ruler of Egypt looked like a warrior, not a man who'd studied philosophy. And Ptolemaios surprised him all over again by continuing, “That man wrote like a god.”

  “Y-yes,” Sostratos stammered; his amazement came not because he disagreed but because bluff Ptolemaios was voicing such art opinion.

  Going on in the same vein, the Macedonian marshal sighed and said, “I wish I would have met him. I was nineteen or twenty when he died, but I didn't get down to Athens till. . . later.”

  Till after the battle of Khaironeia, Sostratos realized he meant: after of Macedon crushed Athens as a power. He eyed the ruler of Egypt. Khaironeia had been fought three years before he himself was born. So much had happened since—Alexander's astonishing career and the wars of his successors—that seeing a man who'd fought there seemed a surprise, too. He's only a few years older than my father, Sostratos reminded himself. But Ptolemaios had been so many places, done so much . . .

  Ptolemaios' thoughts had traveled down a different road. He shook a forefinger at Sostratos and said, “I warn you, it's not as neat as Platon tells it.”

  “Sir?” Lost in his own musings, Sostratos had dropped the thread of the conversation.

  “Hemlock,” Ptolemaios said. “Are you sure you want to see it?”

  “Oh,” Sostratos said, and then, after some thought
, “Yes. Yes, I am. I'd ... like to know what Sokrates went through.”

  “Ah,” Ptolemaios said. “I can understand that. It may be foolishness, but I can understand it. All right, young fellow. I'm keeping Antigonos' nephew in the house next door to this one. You be here early tomorrow morning and you'll see what you want to see. But don't dawdle; my men won't wait. Bargain?”

  “Bargain,” Sostratos said at once. “Thank you, sir.”

  “Don't thank me, not till after you know what you talked yourself into.” Ptolemaios turned to Menedemos. “What about you? Do you want to watch Polemaios die, too?”

  Menedemos tossed his head. “Not me. What I want is a carpenter.”

  As if on cue, the man Ptolemaios had sent out came back into the andron. “Well?” the ruler of Egypt barked at him.

  “Your Excellency,” the man replied, “the shipwrights all say these Rhodians have been clinging to them like leeches in a swamp.”

  “Oh, they do, do they?” Ptolemaios rumbled. His messenger dipped his head. The marshal pointed at Menedemos. “You'll have your woodworker tomorrow. You can keep an eye on him instead of on Polemaios.”

  “Thank you very much,” Menedemos said. “I think that's a better bargain.”

  “You and your cousin both want to see things for yourselves,” Ptolemaios said. “You just want to see different things, that's all.” He gestured toward the doorway of the andron. “Go on, get out of here. I've wasted too much time on you,”

  “May we beg a torch, to light our way back to the ship?” Sostratos asked.

  “Take one from the courtyard.” Ptolemaios gestured again, even more imperiously than before. Sostratos retreated, his cousin on his heels.

  Outside, a little twilight still lingered: enough, with the torch, to help the Rhodians find their way. As soon as they were well away from Ptolemaios' residence, Menedemos burst out, “Are you out of your mind?”

  “What?” As Sostratos tossed his head, he stepped in something damp and nasty. He scrapped his foot in the dirt to clean it. “No, just curious. Ptolemaios understood that. He understood it better than I thought he would.”

  “He understood it wouldn't cost him anything to humor a zany,” Menedemos said.

  Sostratos tossed his head again. “No, I don't believe that's what he was thinking. He's read Platon himself. I never would have guessed that of a Macedonian, even if Aristoteles did teach .”

  His cousin walked along for a couple of paces before saying, “Well, maybe it worked out for the best. You did convince him we weren't plotting with Polemaios. And”—Menedemos did a couple of dance steps, his shadow swooping wildly in the torchlight—”we'll get the fixed up.”

  “That's good,” Sostratos agreed. “That's very good. We'll finally be able to press on towards Athens.”

  “Toward Miletos first,” Menedemos said as they started up the quay. Sostratos swallowed a sigh.

  “Gods be praised!” Diokles said when they came aboard the merchant galley once more. “When the soldiers took you away, I didn't know what would happen next.”

  “As a matter of fact, neither did we,” Sostratos said. “It's all right, though.”

  “It's better than all right,” Menedemos added. “We get a carpenter tomorrow.”

  uEuge!” Diokles exclaimed. Then he asked, “What does Polemaios get?”

  “Something to drink,” Sostratos answered. “He won't be thirsty afterwards, either.”

  “Something to .. . ? Oh.” The oarmaster didn't need long to figure that out. “Well, can't say I'm surprised. You play those games and lose, you pay.”

  “Just so,” Sostratos said, and waited for Menedemos to tell Diokles and the handful of sailors aboard the merchant galley what he'd be doing in the morning.

  But Menedemos said only, “Kleiteles will be wondering what happened to us. I'll have to send someone over there tomorrow and let him know. I wouldn't have minded another round or two with his slave woman, either.” He shrugged. “Well, it'll be a hard deck tonight, not a soft bed and a wench. Can't be helped, I suppose.” He lay down on the planking as calmly as if there were no such things as beds or women within a thousand stadia.

  Diokles went forward to sleep sitting on a rower's bench and leaning against the planking, as he always did when aboard ship. Sostratos took off his chiton, folded it up for a pillow, and lay down beside Menedemos, wrapping a himation around himself for warmth. “Good night, my dear,” he murmured.

  “Good night,” his cousin answered. “You'd better not sleep late tomorrow, or you'll miss your big chance.”

  He meant it sarcastically, which didn't mean he was wrong. Sostratos said, “You usually wake before I do. Give me a shake if I'm still sleeping.”

  “All right, though why you'd want to watch such a thing . . .” Menedemos said no more, but rolled onto his side with his back to Sostratos. In a few minutes, he was snoring. Sostratos stayed awake a little longer, but not much.

  Next thing he knew, Menedemos' prodding hand was on his shoulder. The sun hadn't risen. Sostratos needed a moment to remember why his cousin was getting him up so early. When he did, he stopped the feeble complaints he'd been making and said, “Thank you. I know what needs doing now.”

  He gulped bread and cheese and wine, threw on his tunic, and hurried into the city of Kos. When he got to the street on which Ptolemaios was staying, he had no trouble figuring out which of the houses next door to the ruler of Egypt's residence held Antigonos' nephew. That one had more soldiers guarding it than did Ptolemaios' house itself. How many of Polemaios' men had come from Khalkis to Kos? Enough to leave Ptolemaios nervous, however calm things seemed at the moment.

  Sostratos gave his name to one of the guards in front of the door. “Tell me who your father is, too,” the fellow said. When Sostratos did, the soldier dipped his head. “All right, you are who you say you are.” He rapped on the door. “Open up in there. That Rhodian's here.”

  The man who did open the door was another soldier, not a house slave. “Come along with me,” he said briskly, and led Sostratos to the andron. The courtyard was also full of armed men. The soldiers in the andron were older, and looked to be of higher rank. Ptolemaios' witnesses, Sostratos thought. One chair among them remained empty. Sostratos' escort waved him into it. He tossed his head in bemusement as he sat down: the ruler of Egypt thought of everything.

  Polemaios strode into the andron a few minutes later. He wasn't bound or fettered, and the soldiers flanking him looked very alert. A supper couch with a small table beside it waited for him. As he reclined on the couch, he glared at the men who'd come to see him die. “To the crows with all of you,” he said harshly, and then, catching sight of Sostratos, “One more vulture waiting for my carrion, eh?”

  Before Sostratos could find any words, a man brought in a plain earthenware cup and set it on the table. He started to slip out of the room. “Wait,” Polemaios said. “Have I got enough here to pour out a libation before I drink?”

  With a start, Sostratos recalled that Sokrates had asked the same question. His gaoler had said no. This fellow dipped his head. “Go on, if you care to. There's enough In there to do in an elephant.”

  “Taking no chances, eh?” Antigonos' nephew said, not without pride. He lifted the cup and spilled out a few drops, as if he were offering a little wine to Dionysos. Then he drank the poison down. As he lowered the cup, he made a horrible face. “Oh, by the gods, that's vile stuff. You'd never catch me drinking it more than once.”

  “Euge! Bravely done,” murmured the officer sitting next to Sostratos. The Khodian was inclined to agree. Polemaios might have earned every bit of what he was getting, but that didn't mean he wasn't dying well.

  And he hadn't quite finished. He splashed some of the dregs from the cup onto the floor of the andron, saying, “This for Ptolemaios the beautiful.” He might have been playing kottabos and praising a pretty boy.

  A couple of Ptolemaios' officers laughed out loud. Their master was a great many thing
s, most of them praiseworthy, but hardly beautiful. In his own blocky way, Sostratos thought, he must have made as unlovely a youth as I did.

  Polemaios glared at the fellow who'd fetched in the hemlock. “I don't feel anything,” he said. “What do I do now?”

  “Walk around till your legs get heavy, if you like,” the man answered. “Then just lie down. It will work.”

  Antigonos' nephew muttered something nasty under his breath. He stumped around the andron. The soldiers watched him closely, their spears at the ready. He had nothing left to lose now. Who could guess what he might do? He caught them watching, and twisted his fingers into an obscene gesture.

  Back and forth, back and forth strode Polemaios. The whole business took longer than Sostratos had thought it would. He'd got the impression from the Phaidon that Sokrates had died fairly fast. But Sokrates had been old, and of no more than average size. Polemaios was a huge bear of a man, and in the prime of life. Maybe that was why the drug needed longer to work on him.

  Most of an hour had gone by before he grunted and said, “I can't feel my feet.” He looked pale. Sweat beaded his forehead.

  Sostratos looked around for the man who'd brought the deadly dose, but the fellow had left the andron. One of Ptolemaios' officers said, “You can probably lie down now.”

  “Right.” Moving with some difficulty, Polemaios made his way over to the couch. As he eased himself down onto it, he said, “Before I came in here, that son of a whore told me the drug wouldn't hurt. One more lie.”

  “What does it feel like?” Sostratos asked.

  “Drink some yourself and find out, you nosy bastard,” Polemaios said. But then he went on, “Feels like my legs are on fire, and my belly, too. And I'm going to—” He leaned over the side of the couch and was noisily sick.

  Besides the usual sharp stink of vomit, the air held an acrid tang Sostratos had never smelled before—the odor of hemlock, he realized. The officer sitting next to him waved to one of the soldiers and said, “Go fetch the man who brought the drug. Find out if puking it up will save Polemaios. If it does . . .” He slashed his thumb across his throat. The soldier hurried away.