Harry Turtledove - The Gryphon's Skull

“Yes, sir,” Sostratos said stoutly.

“All right, then,” Ptolemaios said. “If you did a service for Antigonos and made a profit, will you do one for me as well?”

“If we profit from it,” Menedemos answered.

“You will,” Ptolemaios said in a voice that brooked no contradiction. “Ill pay you a talent of silver—twenty minai in advance, to give you whatever money you'll need on the way, with the other forty waiting for you when you come back here to Kos.”

“A talent?” Sostratos and Menedemos both whispered the words. Sixty minai, six thousand drakhmai—that was a lot of money. Slowly, Sostratos said, “You wouldn't offer us so much silver for just anything, sir. What have you got in mind?”

“You're a clever fellow, aren't you? I thought so before, by the way you haggled,” Ptolemaios said. “Yes, you're right: I wouldn't pay so much for anything easy. You'll know that Antigonos' nephew Polemaios broke with his uncle last year and went over to Kassandros.”

Menedemos dipped his head at the same time as Sostratos said, “Yes, we did know chat.”

“All right, then,” Ptolemaios said briskly. “He's holed up in Khalkis these days, on the island of Euboia, and he's decided he doesn't like Kassandros any better than he liked his uncle. He was jealous of Antigonos' sons. I don't know what his quarrel with Kassandros is—I just know he has one. He'd make me a useful ally, I think.”

We'd make you a useful tool, is what you mean, Sostratos thought. He wondered how wise the ruler of Egypt was. If Polemaios had fallen out with both Antigonos and Kassandros in a year's time, he was liable to turn in the hand of anyone who tried to wield him. But that was Ptolemaios' worry, not his. He said, “And you want us to go up to Khalkis?”

“And get him, and bring him back down here to me. That's right,” Ptolemaios said. “He needs to slide out of the place without anyone's being the wiser—he hasn't got the fleet to just up and sail away.”

“No, he wouldn't have the ships for that,” Sostratos agreed. “He'd have to come past the coast of Attica on the way south. Athens isn't what it was in the days of Perikles, but it still has a decent navy, and Demetrios of Phaleron is Kassandros' creature.”

“Exactly. I have officers who wouldn't see it that fast,” Ptolemaios said. “Polemaios' soldiers can get out a few at a time in small craft once he's escaped. He'll lose some, but a lot of them will join him here. Polemaios himself is the man I really want. What do you say, Rhodians?”

Sostratos knew what he wanted to say. He wanted to say no to another delay in reaching Athens with the gryphon's skull. And this one would be all the more frustrating because the Aphrodite would go past the eastern coast of Attica on the way to and from Khalkis. But Ptolemaios had given him and Menedemos one big reason to say yes—or, looked at another way, six thousand little reasons.

That thought had hardly crossed his mind before Menedemos, who as captain of the akatos had the final word, gave it: “Sir, we say yes.

“Good. I thought you would, once I made sure you weren't really on Antigonos' side,” Ptolemaios said. He snapped his fingers and called for a house slave. The man hurried away, returning with bread and oil and wine for Sostratos and Menedemos. Aside from trying to put us in fear, as long as he was feeling us out about Euxenides, he didn't want to eat with us, Sostratos realized.

“Sir, can we get a steering oar made before we sail?” Menedemos asked. “We're carrying one that's a makeshift, of green timber. It got us here, but...”

“I'll send a carpenter to your ship right away,” Ptolemaios said. He ordered another slave off with the message. “Anything else I can do for you? I want Polemaios back here as soon as may be.”

“The money,” Sostratos said.

Ptolemaios smiled. “Ah, yes—the money. Don't you worry about that. It will reach your ship before the day is out,”

Sostratos believed him. A lot of men, even those who had a great deal, would have lied about such a sum. Others would have haggled endlessly. Ptolemaios himself had haggled endlessly over the tiger skin. The skin, though, had been something he wanted, but not something he felt he had to have. Getting Antigonos' nephew here to Kos was different.

Something else occurred to Sostratos: “How will Polemaios know we're working for you, sir? How do we convince him we're not in his uncle's pay, or Kassandros'?”

“I said you were a clever fellow, didn't I?” Ptolemaios beamed at him. “I'll give you a letter and seal it with my eagle.” He held out his right fist. On one thick finger he wore a gold signet ring whose design was an eagle like the ones on the reverse of his coins. “It'll come to your ship with the first installment of the money. Anything else?”

After glancing at Menedemos, Sostratos tossed his head. “No, sir. I think that's everything.”

“Good enough, then.” Ptolemaios was all business. “Would you care for anything else to eat or drink? No? Do you need Alypetos to take you back down to the harbor? No? Very good, very good. A pleasure talking to you.”

The two Rhodians found themselves on the street in front of Ptolemaios' residence in a matter of moments. “A talent of silver!” Menedemos said softly.

“We'll earn it,” Sostratos answered. “We're running the gauntlet for him.”

“We can do it.” Menedemos sounded confident—but then, he usually did. He went on, “What we need to do, though, is stop at Pixodaros' home on the way to the ship. We want to make sure we get the silk aboard before Ptolemaios' men finish their deliveries.”

“Right,” Sostratos said. “And we'd better hurry, too, because I don't think they'll waste much time.”

“I don't, either,” Menedemos said. As they headed toward the harbor, he went on, “Now, was it two streets up and three over from the seaside, or the other way round?”

“Three up and two over,” Sostratos answered. “Why can't you remember something like that?”

“I don't know, my dear,” Menedemos answered. “But I don't need to bother, not when I've got you around.” It was praise, of a sort— about as much as Sostratos ever got from his cousin. They went down toward the sea together.

As the Aphrodite made her way north and west, the rowers taking turns at the oars when the wind faltered, Menedemos waited for the trouble he was sure he would have. He'd guessed it would come before the end of their first day out of Kos, and his guess proved a good one. Not long after noon, Sostratos ascended to the poop deck. He peered off to starboard at the island of Kalymnos, then ahead toward the smaller, more distant island of Lebinthos, where they'd probably pass the night. He coughed a couple of times.

“I know what you're going to say,” Menedemos told him. “The answer is no.”

His cousin jerked in surprise. “How do you know what I'm going to ask you?”

“Because, O best one, you're transparent as air,” Menedemos answered. “You're going to say something like, 'We could stop in Athens on the way up to Khalkis. It wouldn't take long, and we could get rid of the gryphon's skull.' Aren't you?”

Sostratos turned red as a roof tile. “Well, what if I am?” he muttered. His voice gained strength: “It's true.”

“So it is,” Menedemos said. “But we've got forty minai waiting for us in Kos. How much do you suppose that precious skull will bring?”

“If we're lucky, something on the order of six minai,” Sostratos answered.

“Lucky? That'd take a miracle from the gods,” Menedemos said. “Who'd be mad enough to pay such money for an old bone?”

What he meant was, No one would pay such money for an old bone. Sostratos understood him perfectly well, too. But he said, “You're not always as smart as you think you are. Damonax son of Polydoros offered me that much back on Rhodes.”