Harry Turtledove - The Gryphon's Skull

“I knew you were going to say that,” Sostratos told him. “You read the poet all the time, do you? Where does Homer use a line like that?”

“I didn't say Homer was the only thing I read,” Menedemos answered. “If Diogenes wanted to take it that way, though”—he shrugged—”I wouldn't argue with him.”

“He's not so careful as he thinks he is,” Sostratos said in a low voice. “Plenty of Athenian owls and turtles from Aigina and other coins a lot heavier than Ptolemaios' standard in among the ones his son gave us. By weight, we made more than we did by price alone.”

“Good,” Menedemos said. “I was hoping that would happen. To some people, especially people who don't travel, one drakhma's the same as another. You can do pretty well for yourself if you know better.” He strode into the tavern. Sostratos followed.

“How d'you do, friends?” the tavern-keeper said, his Doric drawl so strong that even Menedemos, who used a similar dialect himself, had to smile. The fellow pointed to the cloth in which Sostratos carried the meat. “If you boys ain't been sacrificin', I'm downright crazy. Want me to cook that there stuff up for you?”

“If you please,” Menedemos answered. He looked around. The barmaids were plain. He sighed to himself.

“I'd be right glad to,” the taverner said, and then, with hardly any drawl at all, he added, “Two oboloi.”

Sostratos set the meat on the counter. He spat a couple of small coins into the palm of his hand and put them beside the cloth-covered gobbets. “Here you are.”

“Thank you kindly.” The taverner dropped the money into a cash-box. He unwrapped the meat and dipped his head. “That'll roast just as nice as you please. You don't want to eat it all by its lonesome, now do you? You'll want to wash it down with some wine, eh? You boys look like you fancy the best. I've got some fine Khian—can't get better this side of the gods' ambrosia, and that's a fact.”

What that was, without a doubt, was a lie. In a tavern like this one, the proprietor would charge strangers and the naive three times as much for a local wine as he could hope to get if they knew what it really was. Menedemos tossed his head. “Just a cup of your ordinary, if you please,” he said.

“Same for me,” Sostratos said.

“Whatever you like, friends,” the taverner told them, and dipped out two cups of some of the nastiest wine Menedemos had ever drunk. It was, to begin with, shamelessly watered, but it would have tasted worse if it were stronger, as it was well on the way to becoming vinegar. He couldn't even throw it in the taverner's face and walk out, because the man had skewered the meat and set it over his fire. The savory smell helped make Menedemos forget the sour tang of the stuff in the cup.

“Don't leave it on the flames too long,” Sostratos told the taverner, “The gods may like their portion burned black, but I don't.”

“I reckon I know how to cook up a piece of meat, I do/ the fellow said.

“He's going to get it too done,” Sostratos grumbled. “I know he will.”

“Even if he does, you're still ahead of the game,” Menedemos answered. “It wasn't our sacrifice.”

The tavernkeeper took the meat off the fire and put the chunks on a couple of plates, which he set in front of the Rhodians. “There you go, friends. Enjoy it, now.”

Sostratos blew on his gobbet, then cut it with the knife he wore on his belt. “Gray clear through,” he complained. “I like it pink.”

Before Menedemos could answer, a skinny man tapped his elbow and said, “That's a big chunk of meat you've got there, O best one. Could you spare a bite for a hungry fellow?”

Meat from a sacrifice was supposed to be shared. Menedemos dipped his head. “Here you go, pal.” He cut off a strip and gave it to the man.

Another customer came over to Sostratos and said, “If you don't fancy the way your meat's cooked, sir, I'll help you get rid of it.”

That made Sostratos laugh. He said, “I'll bet you will,” But, as Menedemos had, he gave some to the man. They both ended up serving out about half the meat they'd brought into the tavern. At last, Menedemos got to eat some. He sighed at the luxurious taste and feel of hot fat in his mouth. If the warriors in front of Troy ate beef all the time, no wonder they were so strong, he thought.

“More wine?” the tavern-keeper asked.

“No, thanks,” Menedemos and Sostratos said together, in tones of such emphatic rejection that the tavern-keeper looked wounded. Menedemos only snorted. Either the fellow was playing for sympathy or he didn't know what slop he'd just served them. Neither possibility impressed the Rhodian, who turned to his cousin and pointed to the door. Sostratos dipped his head. They left.

As they headed toward the harbor, Sostratos said, “You weren't sharing out drakhmai the way we shared out the meat, were you?”

“No, by the gods.” Menedemos held up the leather sack Diome-don had given him. “Unopened, unslit, unplundered, still a maiden,”

“Very good,” Sostratos made as if to applaud, then gestured for Menedemos to get the money out of sight. As Menedemos lowered the sack to his side once more, Sostratos went on, “I do wonder why Polemaios was sacrificing there.”

“Of course you do, since he wouldn't say. It is an interesting question, isn't it?” Menedemos thought for a couple of paces, then suggested, “In thanks for getting here to Kos in one piece?”

“No. He would have said if it were something simple like that.” Sostratos' reply was quick and certain. “And you saw him on the ship. You saw him when he met Ptolemaios, too. He wouldn't waste a bullock on anything like running away. He had that done to him. He's a man who wants to do things himself.”

“Well. . . you're probably right,” Menedemos said. “Which leads to the next question: what does he want to do, and to whom?”

“Sure enough,” Sostratos agreed. “I'll tell you one thing, though.”

“Only one?” Menedemos said.

His cousin ignored that, continuing, “Ptolemaios is a lot more interested in the answer than we are.” Precise as usual, he checked himself: “Perhaps he's not more interested in it, but he's more concerned about it.”

“You're right,” Menedemos said. They went on down to the Aphrodite together.

Sostratos sucked the flesh from the tail of a roasted prawn, then tossed the piece of shell on the floor of Kleiteles' andron. “Another lovely opson, best one,” he told the Rhodian proxenos.

On the couch next to his, Menedemos dipped his head. “Your hospitality almost makes being stranded here worthwhile.”

“You're very kind, my friends,” the olive-oil merchant said. In the cage in the corner of the men's chamber, his trained jackdaw hopped up and down its ladder, carrying the toy shield in its beak.

Pointing to the gray-eyed bird, Sostratos said, “We feel caged ourselves. You're a Koan. You have connections here that we don't. Can you find us a ship's carpenter? He'd be well paid for his work, believe me.

“I do believe you,” the proxenos said. “But I don't think it can be done, not till Ptolemaios takes Halikarnassos.”

“You think the city will fall, then?” Sostratos said.

Kleiteles dipped his head. “Don't you? Antigonos hasn't even tried to relieve it. From what I hear, most of his army is away in the east, fighting what's-his-name—you know, the fellow who set himself up in Babylon last year.”

“Seleukos,” Sostratos said.

“That's the name,” Kleiteles agreed.

“You can count on Sostratos to remember such things,” Menedemos said. Sostratos couldn't tell whether his cousin meant that for a sneer or a compliment. He'd heard both from Menedemos' lips.