Harry Turtledove - The Gryphon's Skull

“And you turned him down}” Arlissos sounded disbelieving. He sounded more than disbelieving; he sounded as if he'd just witnessed a prodigy. “By Zeus Labraundeus, master, I don't think you'd turn down six hundred drakhmai for me?

He might well have been right. Karian slaves were cheap and easy to come by in Rhodes, while the gryphon's skull was—and, Sostratos was convinced, would remain—unique. Instead of saying so straight out, Sostratos tried a joke: “Well, Arlissos, you have to understand: it eats a lot less than you do.”

“Six hundred drakhmai,” Arlissos said; Sostratos wondered if the slave had even heard him. “Six hundred drakhmai, and he said no.” He looked down at the shrouded skull and spoke to it as if they were equals in more than price: “Hellenes are crazy, old bone, you know that?”

Sostratos indignantly started to deny it. Then he thought about what Menedemos would say if his cousin found out he'd turned down six minai for the gryphon's skull. Menedemos would be certain at least one Hellene was raving mad.

“No,” Menedemos said impatiently when Sostratos began to pester him again. “We can't sail for Athens as soon as you want,”

“But—” his cousin began.

“No,” he repeated. “I want to get out of Rhodes, too, but we can't, not right now. Have you seen these new gemstones coming in from Egypt, the ones called emeralds?”

“I've heard of them. I haven't seen any yet,” Sostratos replied.

“Well, my dear, you'd better, if you think you can pry me out of Rhodes before I pry some emeralds out of this round-ship captain who has some,” Menedemos declared.

“But the gryphon's skull—” Sostratos protested.

“No!” Menedemos tossed his head. His shadow tossed, too, and frightened a butterfly from a flower in the courtyard garden of Lysistratos' house. He watched it flitter away, then resumed: “The skull's been buried since before the Trojan War. We talked about that. Whether it gets to Athens now or next month or month after that doesn't matter so much. Whether I can get my hands on these emeralds does.”

“That is logical,” Sostratos admitted. Then, when Menedemos hoped that meant he would be reasonable, he added, “But I still don't like it.”

“Too bad,” Menedemos said heartlessly.

Too heartlessly: he put his cousin's back up. “What makes these emeralds so special?” Sostratos demanded.

“They're fine gems, that's what,” Menedemos answered. “They're as fine as rubies, except they're green, not red. They're greener than green garnets; they're as green as ... as ...” He was stuck for a comparison till he plucked a leaf from one of the plants in the garden. “As this.”

“That's my sister's mint, and she'd give you a piece of her mind if she saw you picking sprigs,” Sostratos said.

“How immodest,” Menedemos said. Except for her wedding, he hadn't seen Erinna unveiled since she was a little girl.

“She does speak her mind,” Sostratos said, not without a certain pride. And she was probably up there in the women's quarters listening to every word said here in the courtyard. Women of good family might not get out much, but that didn't mean they had no way to find out—and to influence—what went on around them.

“Let's give her a chance to talk behind our backs, then,” Menedemos said. “Till you've seen these stones, you have no idea why I'm in such an uproar about them. Thrasyllos has no idea I'm in such an uproar, you understand, and I'll thank you kindly not to give the game away.”

“You know me better than that, I hope.” Sostratos sounded affronted. “Thrasyllos is the man who has these emeralds?”

“That's right. He's just in to Rhodes from Alexandria with a round ship full of Egyptian wheat.”

“Why has he got them, then?” Sostratos asked.

“He gets cagey about that,” Menedemos answered. “I think one of his kinsmen works in the mine, somewhere out in the desert east of the Nile.”

“So these may be ... unofficial emeralds, then?”

“That thought did cross my mind, yes.”

Sostratos' eyes narrowed craftily, “Lots of Hellenes from Egypt who can get Ptolemaios' ear come through Rhodes. If you have to, you might want to point that out to the marvelous Thrasyllos.”

“You're a demon, aren't you?” Menedemos' voice rose in admiration. “I should have thought of that myself.”

They left the house and headed down toward the harbor, a route Menedemos had taken ever since he was old enough to toddle along after his father. He didn't care to think about that now; he didn't like to think about anything having to do with Philodemos. But the journey was as familiar to him as any in the polis could be.

There stood Mnesipolis the smith, banging away at something while his fire sent smoke up into the sky. There was the usual crowd of gabbers and loungers outside the shop of Pythion the cobbler. Sostratos made the remark he usually made, too; “Sokrates taught outside a cobbler's shop just like this one. In Athens, they still show you the place that used to be Simon's.”

“Pythion can teach you everything you want to know about shoes,” Menedemos said.

“Can he teach me what's true and what's good and what's beautiful and why?”

“Certainly—about shoes.”

“You're no help, and neither is Pythion.”

“Yes he is, if the sole of my sandal is ripped—not that I wear sandals very often.”

“What about your own soul?”

Instead of playing word games with his cousin, Menedemos picked a stone up out of the street and chucked it at a couple of scrawny dogs that were squabbling over some garbage by a wall. The stone hit the wall with a sharp crack. One of the dogs ran off. The other gulped down whatever they'd been fighting about. Then it, too, trotted away.

Agathippos' bakery was as smoky as Mnesipolis' smithy, but the sweet smell of baking bread made Menedemos forgive the smoke. A goggle-eyed gecko clung to the wall at Agathippos'. A crow tried to grab it, but it scurried into a crack in the mud brick and the bird flew away unhappy.

Down by the great harbor, every other building seemed to house a tavern. A man stood pissing against a wall by one of them; a drunk lay asleep in the street outside another. Sostratos clucked disapprovingly and said, “There is a man with no self-control.”

“Can't argue with you,” Menedemos said, “Getting a bellyful of wine is one thing. Getting blind-drunk in the morning?” He tossed his head. “No thanks.”

Gulls and terns wheeled overhead, mewling and skrawking. A pelican, its wingspan as wide as a man was tall, flapped majestically by. Shorebirds skittered here and there with nervous little steps, now and then pausing to peck at bugs or small crabs.

Menedemos pointed ahead. “There's Thrasyllos' ship: the Aura,”

“ 'Fair Wind,' eh?” Sostratos' lip curled. “He ought to call her the 'Breaks Wind.'“ Menedemos let out a yip of startled laughter. Sostratos went on, “How can the skipper of a ship that looks like that have any real jewels? He's probably trying to sell you green glass.”

The ship wasn't much to look at. The eyes at the bow needed repainting, which gave her a sad, half blind appearance. The goose-head ornament on the round ship's sternpost hadn't been touched up any time lately, either. Her unpainted timber was gray with age. Even so, Menedemos said, “You'll see.” He raised his voice: “Oë, Thrasyllos! You there?”

“Where else would I be?” The Auras captain came up on deck. He was a lean little man with a sailor's sun-darkened skin and a narrow, worried face. “Hail, Menedemos. Who's your friend?”

“My cousin,” Menedemos answered, and introduced Sostratos. “He wanted to see your stones, too,” That seemed better than saying, He thinks you're a fraud.