Harry Turtledove - The Gryphon's Skull

“I know.” Sostratos gulped and looked faintly green. “I had my sea legs, but I may have lost them in the layover at Kos.”

He wasn't the only one. A couple of sailors leaned out over the rail and heaved up their guts, too. Maybe they wouldn't have done it if they hadn't drunk deep in Kos the night before. But maybe, like Sostratos, they'd just spent too much time ashore.

To Menedemos' relief, the Aphrodite did make Miletos by night­fall. He wouldn't have cared to spend a night at sea in such rough waters, and a wind might have blown up to make things worse still. Tying up at a quay as the sun went down made him much happier about the world.

The Milesians who made the ship fast to the quay chattered away amongst themselves in the town's Ionic dialect. When one of Antigonos' officers strutted up to ask his questions, the harbor workers fell silent and flinched away like beaten children. A generation before, Miletos had tried to hold out Alexander's soldiers and been sacked for its effort. These days, the locals gave their occupiers no trouble.

“From Kos, eh?” the officer said, Menedemos hadn't dared lie about that, not when the akatos carried so much silk. Bristles rasped under the officer's fingers as he rubbed his chin in thought. At last, he asked, “While you were there, did you . .. hear anything about Antigonos' nephew joining forces with that ugly toad of a Ptolemaios?”

Oh, good, Menedemos thought. He has no idea we're the ones who brought Polemaios to Kos. That makes things a lot easier. Aloud, he answered, “Yes, Polemaios was there while we were. But your master doesn't have to worry about him anymore.”

“What? Why not?” the man demanded.

“Because he's dead,” Menedemos replied. “He tried to bring some of Ptolemaios' officers over to his own cause. Ptolemaios caught him at it and made him drink hemlock. I'm sure the news is true—it was all over Kos when we left this morning.” That seemed preferable to telling the officer Sostratos had watched Polemaios die. If the fellow believed him, he might—probably would—wonder how Sostratos had gained that privilege.

As things were, the officer's jaw dropped. “That's wonderful news, if it's so. Are you certain of it?”

“I didn't see his body,” Menedemos answered truthfully, “but I don't see why Ptolemaios would lie about something like that. A lie would only make the soldiers who came along with Antigonos' nephew want to riot, don't you think?”

After a little thought, the officer dipped his head. When he grinned, a scar on one cheek that Menedemos hadn't noticed till then pulled the expression out of shape. “You're right, by the gods. This has to go straight to Antigonos. He's up by the Hellespont, setting things to rights there. You might want to stay in port here for a while; I wouldn't be surprised if he gave you a reward for the news.”

Sostratos looked like a man who'd just taken a knife in the back. Menedemos spoke to the officer: “Best one, if I were sure of that, I would stay. But look at the size of my crew. I don't know that I can afford to linger just on the hope of a reward—I have to pay them any which way.”

“That's a problem,” Antigonos' man admitted, “You'll have to do what you think best, then.”

Menedemos was tempted to linger. Old One-Eye might be very glad indeed to learn that his unpleasant nephew wouldn't bother him anymore, with or without the help of Ptolemaios. But he'd meant what he said; the Aphrodite 's crew was expensive. If he waited half a month, he'd go through half a talent of silver.

Sounding like someone who'd just had a reprieve, Sostratos asked the officer, “What's the news here?”

“Not much right here,” the fellow said, “though some from Hellas came in the other day.”

“Tell us!” Menedemos spoke as quickly as his cousin,

“Well,” the officer went on, with the smug smile of someone who knows something his listeners do not, “you may have heard tell of the youth called Herakles, Alexander's bastard son by Barsine.”

“Oh, yes.” Menedemos dipped his head. “The one who got out of Pergamon last year, and went across to Polyperkhon to help him drive Kassandros mad in Macedonia.”

“That's right,” Antigonos' officer said, at the same time as Sostra­tos spoke out of the side of his mouth: “This Herakles likely isn't Alexander's get at all, but a tool of Antigonos' against Kassandros.”

“I know. Shut up,” Menedemos hissed to him, before asking the officer, “What about this youth?”

“He's dead, that's what,” the officer answered. “Dead as Polemaios, if what you say about him is true. Kassandros persuaded Polyperkhon that Alexander's kin were too dangerous to leave running around loose, and so—” He drew a finger across his throat. “They say Polyperkhon got land in Macedonia for it, and soldiers to help him fight down in the Peloponnesos.”

“Kassandros doesn't want any folk of Alexander's blood left alive, because they weaken his hold on Macedonia,” Sostratos said. “He's just a general; they could call themselves kings.”

“That's true,” Menedemos said. “Look how he got rid of Alexander's legitimate son, Alexandras, winter before last—and Roxane, the boy's mother, too.”

“Sure enough, you can't trust Kassandros,” Antigonos' officer de­clared. He started hack up the quay. “I'm off to tell my superiors of your news. Like I say, you can be sure they'll be glad to hear it.” He hurried away.

“ 'You can't trust Kassandros,' “ Sostratos echoed, irony in his voice. “You can't trust any of the Macedonian marshals, and they all want to see Alexander's kin dead.”

“No doubt you're right,” Menedemos said, “but it's still news. It hadn't got to Kos yet.”

“I don't think there's even a bastard pretender from Alexander's line left alive now,” Sostratos said.

“His sister Kleopatra's still up in Sardis, isn't she?” Menedemos asked.

“By the gods, you're right. I'd forgotten about Kleopatra.” Sostra­tos looked annoyed at himself, as he often did when he forgot some­thing like that. The smile following his annoyed expression wasn't one Menedemos would have wanted aimed at him. “I wonder how long she'll last,” Sostratos added.

Like Kaunos, Miletos was an old city, one with streets wandering wherever they would. Sostratos had to pay out not one obolos but two to find his way to the market square in the middle of town. He feared he would need to pay for directions back to the harbor, too. He'd got so turned around, he had to keep looking at the sun to know which direction was which.

In the agora, hawkers cried the produce of the rich Anatolian countryside: onions and garlic and olives and raisins and wine. Pot­ters and tinkers and leatherworkers and wool dealers added to the din. So did the fellow who walked through the square with a brazier shouting, “Fresh squid!”

Sostratos bought a couple of them. He burned his fingers and his mouth on the hot oily flesh, but didn't care: they were delicious. After he'd gulped them down, he started doing some shouting of his own: “Fine silk from Kos!”

Miletos being only a day's sail from the island, he hadn't expected too much in the way of business. He'd assumed most Milesians who wanted silk would have gone down to Kos and bought it for them­selves. As soon as he opened his mouth, he saw he'd made a mistake, for he started selling the stuff as if it had never before appeared in this polis.

And that, it seemed, was not so far from the truth. “Thank you so much for fetching some at last,” said a tailor who bought several bolts. “No one from Kos has been here for a while, and no one from our town wanted to go down there. You know how it is.”