Harry Turtledove - The Gryphon's Skull

Menedemos looked smug. Praise from a seaman as accomplished as the oarmaster would have left anyone feeling smug. And I didn't even pay attention to what he was doing, Sostratos thought ruefully.

The next morning, the two cousins took their tawny hide up to the temple of Artemis, which stood close by those of Apollo and Aphrodite. Menedemos peered into the one dedicated to Apollo. “We might try here if we have bad luck with Artemis' priest,” he said. “The Apollo is naked—carved from wood, looks like, and old as the hills.”

That made Sostratos look, too. “I wonder just how old that statue is,” he said. “People have been making images of marble or bronze for a long time now.” Menedemos only shrugged, and with reason. They had no better way of learning the statue's age than they'd had of finding out how old the gryphon's skull was. Sostratos grimaced, wishing he hadn't thought of that comparison. He couldn't see Attica from here; the higher ground of the north of Aigina shielded the mainland from his eye, which was more than a small relief.

The marble statue of Artemis was draped, but only in a carved tunic that didn't even reach the goddess' knees. “Why, she'd catch her death of cold if she didn't don our skin for a cloak,” Menedemos said.

Sostratos looked around. “Where's the priest?” he asked, seeing no one in the sacred precinct. He got no answer, either.

Before long, an Aiginetan ambled in. “Are you the priest?” Menedemos asked him.

He tossed his head. “Not me. Nikodromos is probably still in town. He's a man who likes to sleep late, he is.”

“What shall we do till he gets here?” Sostratos asked in annoyance. “Grow moss?”

“You might as well, pal,” the local replied. “He isn't going to get here till he gets here, if you know what I mean.”

Sostratos grunted. The Aiginetan had a point. Another man came into the temple. He wasn't Nikodromos, either. He was somebody else looking for the priest. “Lazy, sour bastard's probably still home snoring,” he said. Nikodromos' habits were evidently well known. He would never have made a seaman—but then, he hadn't tried. As a priest, he could sleep late if he wanted to.

“Maybe we ought to find his house in town and throw rocks at the shutters,” Menedemos said a little later.

Just when Sostratos was starting to think that sounded like a pretty good idea, Nikodromos strolled into the temple with a self-satisfied expression on his face. Both Aiginetans promptly started dunning him for money they said he owed them. What followed wasn't quite a screaming row, but wasn't far from one, either.

In a low voice, Sostratos said, “If we do sell him the hide, let's make sure we see the silver before we hand it over.”

Menedemos dipped his head. “I've heard ideas I liked a lot less.”

After half an hour or so, Nikodromos' creditors threw their hands in the air and left. He hadn't promised them a thing. In an abstract way, Sostratos admired him. In the real world with which he had to deal, he wondered if this image of Artemis really needed to be draped with a lion skin after all.

“Hail,” the priest said, coming up to the two Rhodians. “And what do you want today? You've been patient as can be while those idiots spouted their lies.”

He didn't seem too sour to Sostratos, but then, Sostratos hadn't been trying to get money out of him. His foxy features did not inspire confidence, though. Neither did his squabbles with a pair of Aiginetans unconnected to each other. Nonetheless, after naming himself and Sostratos, Menedemos said, “We've got a splendid Karian lion skin here, with which you can adorn the statue of the Maiden.”

“Do you indeed?” Nikodromos' eyes widened slightly. Excitement or art? Sostratos wondered. He would have bet on art. Those eyes were a light brown that in certain lights seemed tinged with amber: as foxy as the rest of him, or maybe even more so. He went on, “Let me see it, best ones. By all means, let me see it.”

Menedemos and Sostratos spread out the skin on the temple floor. Then Sostratos, with a happy inspiration, picked it up and draped it over the marble Artemis' shoulders. “See how fine she'd look?” he said.

“Not bad,” Nikodromos said—small praise, but praise. “That skin might remind people of what a great huntress she is, true. But, of course, one question remains: how much do you want for it?”

“Five minai,” Menedemos said. Sostratos hid a smile behind his hand. If his cousin would get cheated, he aimed to get cheated out of a lot of money.

Nikodromos coughed. “My dear fellow, you can't be serious.”

Menedemos smiled his most charming smile. “I'll make it six if you like. Not so many lions left in Europe these days, you know.”

“And so you think you can charge whatever you please when you bring one here?” the priest said.

“Not quite,” Sostratos told him. “But no one ever said we had to sell our goods at a loss, either.”

“Five minai is out of the question,” Nikodromos said. “I might pay two.”

“You might indeed,” Menedemos said pleasantly. “But not to us. As my cousin said, we need to make money to stay in business.”

“Well, two minai and a half, then,” Nikodromos said.

“Come on, Menedemos,” Sostratos said. “Let's head back to the ship. Plenty of other temples, plenty of other poleis.”

They made as if to begin rolling up the lion skin and putting it back into its leather sack. Sostratos watched Nikodromos out of the corner of his eye. If the priest let them leave, then he did, that was all. But they hadn't got very far before Nikodromos said, “Wait. I might go to three.”

“We might talk a little more, in that case,” Menedemos said.

Nikodromos would have failed as a trader for more reasons than sleeping late. He kept coming up and up, and didn't draw the line till the price had gone to four minai, twenty drakhmai, though he grumbled and whined every step of the way. He did his best to make it seem as if he were doing the Rhodians a favor by dealing with them at all.

“Four minai, twenty.” Sostratos looked from him to Menedemos and back again. “Bargain?”

“Bargain.” His cousin and the priest spoke at the same time.

“Good enough.” As far as Sostratos was concerned, it was better than good enough. They hadn't got nearly such a fine price for the other hide back on Kos. Nice, solid profit, he thought.

And then Nikodromos said, “Let me take the hide back to town, and I'll bring you your money right away.”

A lot of people had made requests like that over the years. More often than not, Sostratos and Menedemos, like most traders, said yes. Most people were honest. Sostratos wasn't so sure about Nikodromos. He saw his cousin wasn't, either. Smiling, Menedemos tossed his head. “You can bring the money here and then we'll give you the hide, or else we'll come down to Aigina with you.”

Nikodromos sent him a sour stare. “You're afraid I'll cheat you. That is an insult.”

“Best one, we just stood here watching a couple of your own people trying to get money out of you,” Sostratos answered. “If they have trouble prying their silver loose, why wouldn't we? We're just a couple of foreigners to you. Better not to take chances.”

“I told you, the silver they want isn't theirs at all,” the priest said, making a fine show of indignation. “They're nothing but a couple of temple robbers.”

With a shrug, Sostratos said, “I don't know anything about your quarrels, any more than you know about the quarrels back on Rhodes. All I know is, you'll have the hide when we have the money.”

He wondered if that would queer the deal. If it does, too bad, he thought. That would mean this rogue never intended to pay us in the first place. The Aiginetans who'd tried to squeeze silver out of Nikodromos had certainly sounded as if they had a right to it.