Harry Turtledove - The Gryphon's Skull

A young priest greeted them as they came up the steps and walked into the shrine. “Good day,” he said. “Have you come to offer a sacrifice to the god?”

“No.” Menedemos tossed his head, then pointed toward the life-sized marble cult image of the king of the gods. “As a matter of fact, we've come to adorn your statue there. Show him, Sostratos.”

“I will.” His cousin undid the lashing that closed the leather sack he carried. He drew out the lion skin. Menedemos helped him spread it on the floor.

“Oh, very good!” The priest clapped his hands. “I'd loved to see that draped over the god's shoulders. But I fear I'm not the one with whom you'll have to haggle. You'll need to talk with my father, Diogenes. I'm Diomedon, by the way.”

“Pleased to meet you.” After giving his own name, Menedemos went on, “As I said, this is my cousin, Sostratos. Where is your father? Can you fetch him?”

“He's sacrificing at the altar behind the temple,” Diomedon replied. “As soon as he's finished, I'm sure he'd be pleased to talk with you. I hope you can make a bargain. Painting isn't enough to make the statue very impressive, I'm afraid.”

Smiling, Menedemos said, “I think I'd sooner dicker with you than with your father.”

“Of course.” Diomedon smiled, too. “You can tell I'm a soft touch. You won't have such an easy time with him as you would with me.”

“Why is your altar at the back of the sacred precinct, instead of in front or inside the temple?” Sostratos asked. “The other two arrangements are more common.”

Diomedon dipped his head. “I know they are. When this temple was going up—it's almost sixty years ago now, when this whole polis was being built—one of the priests went to Zeus' oracle at Dodona, and placing it there was part of the advice the god gave.”

“Can't argue with that,” Menedemos said. Sostratos looked as if he wouldn't have minded arguing about it, but a glance from Menedemos kept him quiet. They were here to sell the priests a lion skin, after all. Annoying or angering them wouldn't make that any easier.

“Here comes my father,” Diomedon said.

The man who walked into the temple through a doorway next to the cult image was a grizzled version of Diomedon himself. Not noticing his son or the two Rhodians inside, Diogenes turned back to the man who had offered the sacrifice and said, “The god was glad to receive your offering.”

“I was glad to give it,” the man replied. He was so tall, he had to duck his head to get through that doorway. Menedemos nudged his cousin. Sostratos hadn't needed any nudging: he'd recognized Polemaios, too.

“Father,” Diomedon called, “these men want to sell the temple a fine lion skin to drape over the god's shoulders.”

“Do they?” Diogenes said, and then, “What makes it such a fine skin?” Hearing that, Menedemos knew he'd have a harder dicker with the older priest than he would have with his son.

Polemaios came up through the naos in Diogenes' wake. “Ah, the Rhodians,” he rumbled. “I might have known.”

“Hail,” Menedemos said politely.

“You know these men, sir?” Diogenes asked Antigonos' nephew.

“Oh, yes—a pair of whipworthy rascals, if ever there were any,” Polemaios replied, a nasty grin on his face. But then, relenting slightly, he went on, “They're the captain and toikharkhos who brought me here from Khalkis. On the sea, they know their business.”

“Why were you sacrificing here, best one?” Sostratos asked.

Polemaios' grin turned into a scowl. “On the land, they want to know everybody else's business,” he growled, and strode out of the temple.

“A bad-tempered man,” Diogenes remarked, which would do for an understatement till a bigger one came along. The priest gathered himself. “I'm Diogenes, as my son will likely have told you.” He waited for Menedemos and Sostratos to give him their names, then said, “So you've got a lion skin, do you? Let's have a look.”

As they'd done for the younger priest, Menedemos and Sostratos displayed the hide. “Isn't it splendid, Father?” Diomedon said.

“Right now, I don't know whether it is or not,” Diogenes answered. “What I do know is, you probably just tacked an extra twenty drakhmai on to the asking price.” His gaze, half annoyed, half amused, swung to Menedemos. “Didn't he?”

“Sir, I don't know what you're talking about,” Menedemos said, as innocently as he could.

Diogenes snorted. “Oh, no, not much you don't.” He bent toward the hide, then tossed his head. “If I'm going to see how splendid it is, I want a proper light. Bring it out by the god's altar.”

Fat-wrapped thighbones smoked on that altar. The hot, metallic smell of blood still filled the air. Flies buzzed as a couple of temple attendants butchered Polemaios' sacrificial offering. It was a bullock: the Macedonian could afford the finest. Menedemos said, “Didn't he take any of the meat for himself?”

“No,” Diogenes said. “He gave the whole beast. Would you and your cousin care for a couple of gobbets? We wouldn't want it to go to waste.”

“Thanks. That's most generous of you.” Like most Hellenes, Menedemos seldom ate meat, though he liked it very much. Smiling, he said, “You'll make me feel like one of the beef-munching heroes in the Iliad.” He cast about for some appropriate lines, and found them: “This is Agamemnon talking, remember?—

'For you are first when hearing of my feast

When we Akhaioi prepare a feast for the elders.

Then you are happy to eat roast meat or drink

A cup of wine sweet as honey for as long as you like.

But now you would happily see ten lines of Akhaioi

Get ahead of you and fight with pitiless bronze.' “

Diogenes smiled. “You know the poet well.”

“I should hope so,” Menedemos said. “My cousin here can give you practically anything new and fancy”—Sostratos stirred at that, but kept quiet—”but Homer's good enough for me.” He didn't mention how fond he was of the bawdy Aristophanes; Diogenes didn't strike him as a man who would laugh at jokes about shitting oneself.

The priest asked, “What do you want for your lion skin?”

“Four minai,” Menedemos answered.

“I'll give you three,” Diogenes said briskly. They settled at three minai, fifty drakhmai almost at once. Diogenes wagged a finger at the bemused Menedemos. “You were expecting a long, noisy haggle, weren't you?”

“Well... yes, best one, since you ask,” Menedemos admitted.

“I don't like them,” Diogenes said. “Nothing but a waste of time. We would have come to the same place in half an hour, so why not use that half hour for something else?”

“I agree,” Sostratos said. “But only a few men do, and so we spend a lot of time dickering. Some people make a game of it, as if it were dice or knucklebones.”

“Foolishness,” die priest of Zeus declared. Menedemos dipped his head, but he didn't really think Diogenes was right. Had the priest made an opening offer of two minai and bargained hard, he might have got his hide for three minai instead of three and a half. He'd saved time and cost himself money. Which was more important? Menedemos knew his own opinion.

Diomedon went off to get the payment from the temple's treasury. When he came back with it, Sostratos quickly counted out the drakhmai. Diogenes said, “You're a careful man. This is a fine trait in one so young.”

“Thank you, sir,” Sostratos said. “Can I have that sack to carry the coins in?”

“Of course,” Diogenes replied. “I’ll wrap up the meat in some cloth, too, so you won't get blood on your chiton.”

“You're very kind,” Sostratos said.

Having done what they'd set out to do, Menedemos and Sostratos left the temple. A tavern stood only a few doors away. “Shall we get our meat roasted there?” Menedemos asked. He leered at his cousin. “If the barmaids are pretty, maybe they can roast our meat, too.”