Harry Turtledove - The Gryphon's Skull

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 things, 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.

But when the poisoner came back, he said, “No, it's too late now. He may take a little longer, but he's still a dead man. With hemlock, you need to heave it up right away to have any chance of coming through.”

Polemaios vomited again half an hour later. He cursed Ptolemaios, and also all the men who were watching him die. Sostratos spat into the bosom of his chiton to turn aside the omen. He wasn't the only one, either.

“Cold,” Antigonos' nephew moaned. “So cold. And it's getting dark.” He paused, then tossed his head. “It can't be so late in the day already. The cursed drug must be stealing my sight.” Despite the ravages the hemlock worked on his body, his mind stayed clear. Sostratos would have preferred delirium.

After a while, Polemaios fouled himself, adding one more stench to the air in the andron. The man who'd given him the hemlock came up to him and said, “I'm going to feel of you, to find out how far the drug has gone.”

“Go ahead,” Polemaios answered. “I can't feel any of myself down past my middle anymore.”

The poisoner probed at his groin and belly. “Your body's cold up to your navel. When it gets to your chest, that will be the end, because your heart will stop and you won't be able to breathe.”

“I wish it would hurry up,” the big Macedonian said. “I don't want to go on lying here smelling like Ptolemaios.” Even as death advanced on him, he had the spirit to revile the man who was its author. But the ruler of Egypt had had the right of it, too: in the Phaidon, Platon had surely cleaned up the way Sokrates perished, not wanting to present his beloved teacher in an unflattering light.

Polemaios began fighting for air, each breath coming harder than the one before. “Furies take—all of you—and especially—Ptolemaios,” he said, forcing the words out in little bursts. With ever increasing effort, he took a few more breaths, and then, after one last soft sigh, breathed no more.

The man who'd given him the drug took hold of his wrist, feeling for a pulse like a physician. When the fellow let go, Polemaios' arm flopped down limply. The poisoner dipped his head to his audience. “It's over, best ones.”

“About time, too,” grumbled the officer next to Sostratos. He got to his feet and stretched. “I really have to piss.”

Another officer said, “Remember, we've got to mix his men in amongst our own so there aren't enough of 'em in any one place to give us trouble.”

That struck Sostratos as a good idea, and very much the sort of thing Ptolemaios would think of. Yet another officer said, “As long as we pay 'em on time, they shouldn't cause too many problems. Mercenaries worry about what they get first and everything else afterwards.” He added, “Let's get out of here. This place stinks.”

Sostratos was glad to breathe fresh air out in the courtyard, too. His shadow puddled at his feet. It was close to noon. He hadn't realized he'd been in the andron so long. Several slaves went into the room. They came out carrying Polemaios' corpse. Sostratos wondered whether whoever owned this place knew it had just been used for an execution. Were the house his own, it wouldn't have been just a matter of making it ritually clean once more. Even after that, he wouldn't have cared to hold a symposion, say, in the chamber where a man had been put to death.