Harry Turtledove - The Gryphon's Skull

“It has, hasn't it?” Menedemos said. “I wish we'd bought more from those Phoenicians. Physicians and priests both snap it up. I hadn't expected quite so much demand.”

“Neither had I,” Sostratos said. “It's the perfect sort of thing for us to carry, though: it isn't bulky, and it's worth a lot. We ought to see if we can get more next year. We'd make money on it.”

“Himilkon would probably be able to find some for us,” Menedemos said. “All sorts of strange things come out of the east and end up in his warehouse. Peafowl, for instance.”

“Don't remind me,” Sostratos shuddered. He'd cared for the peafowl on the journey to Great Hellas the year before, and would likely spend the rest of his days trying to forget the experience. After a deep breath, he went on, “It might be worth our while to go east next spring and see if we can buy direct. Engedi, where the stuff comes from, is somewhere in Phoenicia, isn't it?”

“In it or near it,” Menedemos said. “I'm pretty sure of that.” He stroked his chin. “If we took a cargo along, so we could sell as well as buy—”

“Well, of course,” Sostratos said.

“Yes, yes.” Slowly, Menedemos dipped his head. “We've talked about this once or twice before, in an idle sort of way, but now I'm starting to catch fire, I truly am. We could save a fortune in the middlemen's fees the Phoenicians charge.”

“We'll have to talk to Himilkon when we get back to Rhodes— see what he can tell us about the country and its customs,” Sostratos said. “We'll have to hope it's not at war, too. If Ptolemaios decides to try to take it away from Antigonos, it's a good place to stay away from. We almost got stuck in their fight a couple of times this sailing season.”

“We did get stuck at Kos,” Menedemos said.

“So we did,” Sostratos said. “But it is a good idea, I think. Not that many Hellenes go there. We could make quite a profit. And we can stop in the cities of Cyprus on the way there and back. I think we should have an easy time persuading our fathers,”

Menedemos made a sour face, his enthusiasm suddenly half quenched. “You can say that. Uncle Lysistratos is a pretty easygoing fellow. But trying to talk my father into anything ...” He tossed his head. “It's like trying to pound sense into a rock.”

“I'm sure he says the same thing about you,” his cousin remarked.

“What if he does?” Menedemos said. “I'm the one who's right.” Sostratos didn't argue with him. Menedemos assumed that meant his cousin thought he was right. That it might mean Sostratos merely thought there was no point to arguing never crossed his mind.

The evening before they sailed, Diokles went through the brothels and taverns of Miletos, rounding up the Aphrodite 's, crew. He made sure everybody was back aboard the merchant galley before she left the harbor. Menedemos clapped him on the back. “You go after them the way a hound goes after hares, and you dig them out wherever they hide.”

“I know the spots,” the oarmaster answered. “I'd better, by the gods. When I pulled an oar myself, I spent enough time drinking and screwing in them, and hoping my officers wouldn't grab me and haul me away.”

Not long after sunrise the next morning, the Aphrodite left Miletos. Some of the sailors looked wan and unhappy, but some of them were bound to look wan and unhappy going out of any port. Sostratos stared west across the water at a destination he could see only in his mind's eye. “Athens,” he murmured. “At last.”

Menedemos gave him a quizzical look. “I've never seen anyone run so hard from a pretty girl, especially when nobody's running after you.

His cousin shrugged. “Metrikhe was pleasant, but she was only a hetaira.”

“Only, eh?” Menedemos gave a skeptical snort. “I suppose that's why you made such a point of not introducing me to her.”

Sostratos turned red. Menedemos hid a smile. Coughing a couple of times, Sostratos said, “I did find her first, you know.” His voice got a little stronger, a little sharper: “And I don't see you introducing me to the women you meet at our stops.”

“Well, my dear, you do get so tedious about meeting other men's wives,” Menedemos said, Sostratos coughed again, this time as if he were choking. He soon found an excuse to go forward. Menedemos grinned and gave his attention to the steering oars.

Waves slapped the Aphrodite 's starboard side as she made her way west across the Ikarian Sea. The sail now bellied full, now lay limp in a fitful breeze from out of the north. Menedemos kept six, sometimes eight, men a side on the oars to push the akatos along even when the breeze fell. To the north and northwest, Samos and Ikaria and several smaller islands reared out of the water as if their central hills were the notched backs of mythical beasts.

Though the two were much of a size, Samos was an important place, Ikaria a backwater where nothing much ever happened. Here, Menedemos didn't need to ask his history-minded cousin why the neighboring islands differed so much, Samos had a good harbor. Ikaria didn't. As a result, it had no poleis, only a handful of villages and some herdsmen and their flocks. The world had passed it by, and the Aphrodite would do the same.

The akatos put in at Patmos, a small island south of Ikaria, for the night. Patmos had a decent harbor—it boasted several bays a ship might enter, in fact—but very little else. It was dry and rocky, baked brown as a bread crust by the sun. As the Aphrodites anchors splashed into the sea, Sostratos looked over the desolate terrain and said, “Now I understand.”

“Understand what?” Menedemos asked.

“In the early days of the Peloponnesian War, a Spartan admiral named Alkidas was operating north of here, up near Ephesos,” his cousin answered. “In those days, the Athenian fleet was much stronger than Sparta's. The Athenian commander—his name was Pakhes—found out the Spartans were around. He chased them as far as Patmos here, but then he turned back,”

Menedemos scratched his head. “I'm still not following you, my dear.”

“He took one look at this place and then went away,” Sostratos said. “Wouldn't you?”

“Oh.” Menedemos took another look at the island: at the rocks and the sand and the miserable little fishing village in front of which they were anchored. “A point. I wouldn't want to live out my days here, that's sure.”

A few minutes later, just before the sun sank into the Aegean, a small boat put out from the village and made for the Aphrodite . As it drew near, one of the men inside called, “ 'Oo are you? Where are you comin' from? Where are you 'eaded for?” His dialect was odd: half Ionic, half Doric, and thoroughly rustic.

After naming the merchant galley, Menedemos said, “We're out of Miletos, bound for Athens.”

“Ah.” The local dipped his head. “All them big places. Don't 'ave much truck with 'em 'ere.” I believe that, Menedemos thought. If you weren't a day's nail out of Miletos, no one would ever have anything to do with you. The fellow in the boat asked, “What are you car-ryin'?”

Sostratos spoke up: “Koan silk. Crimson dye. Rhodian perfume. Papyrus and ink. Fine balsam from Engedi. A lion's skin.” He didn't, Menedemos noted with amusement, mention the gryphon's skull. Was he afraid the people here might want to steal it? If he was, that had to be one of the more foolish fears Menedemos had ever heard of.

“Fancy stuff,” the Patmian said. “I might've known. Thought you was a pirate when I first seen you.”

Folk often made that mistake about the Aphrodite . Hearing of pirates got Menedemos' attention. “Have you seen any lately? Are they sailing in these waters?” he asked.