Harry Turtledove - The Gryphon's Skull

“We're the Aphrodite , out of Rhodes, and we're heading home,” Sostratos replied.

“Told you so,” said the man at the oars in the small boat.

The dapper man ignored him. “Will you take a passenger to Kos?” he called.

“That depends,” Sostratos said.

“Ah, yes.” The dapper man dipped his head and grinned. “It always does, doesn't it? Well, what's your fare?”

Sostratos considered. This fellow plainly didn't belong here, which meant that, for one reason or another, he had some urgent need to go east. And so the only question was, how much to charge him? Sostratos thought of Euxenides of Phaselis, and how much they'd squeezed out of him for a much shorter trip. Bracing himself for either a scream of fury or a furious haggle, he named the most outrageous price he could think of: “Fifty drakhmai.”

But the dapper man in the boat didn't scream. He didn't even blink. He just dipped his head and said, “Done. You sail in the morning, don't you?”

Behind Sostratos, Menedemos muttered, “By the dog of Egypt!” Sostratos couldn't tell whether that was praise for him or astonishment that the dapper fellow—the new passenger, he was now— hadn't screamed blue murder. Some of both, maybe. As for Sostratos himself, he had the feeling he could have asked for a whole mina, not just a half, and he would have got the same instant agreement.

He had to make himself remember the man's question. “That's right,” he said. “You pay half then, half when we get there.”

“I know how it's done,” the dapper man said impatiently. “I'll have my own food and wine, too.”

“All right.” Sostratos knew he sounded a little dazed, but couldn't help it. He had to make himself come out with one more question: “And, ah, your name is. . . ?”

“You can call me Dionysios son of Herakleitos,” the man answered. “I'll be aboard early enough to suit you, I promise.” He spoke to the local at the oars, who took him back to Sounion.

Sostratos stared after him. “Well, well,” Menedemos said. “Isn't that interesting?”

“I wonder what he's running from,” Sostratos said. “Nothing right here in town, surely, or he'd have asked to spend the night on the foredeck. Something back in Athens, I suppose. He looks like an Athenian—sounds like one, too.”

“I wonder who he is,” Menedemos said.

“Dionysios son of Herakl—” Sostratos began.

His cousin tossed his head. “He said we could call him that. He didn't say it was his name.” Sostratos thumped his forehead with the heel of his hand. He prided himself on noticing such things, but he'd missed that one. Menedemos went on, “He strung a couple of the most ordinary names in the world together, is what he did. He might have been Odysseus telling Polyphemos the Cyclops to call him Nobody.”

“Trust you to haul Homer into it somehow,” Sostratos said, but he had to admit the comparison was apt. And then his own wits, stunned since Dionysios so casually agreed to that ridiculous fare, started to work again. “He wants to go to Kos.”

“He said so,” Menedemos agreed. After a moment, he snapped his fingers. “And staying on Kos—”

“Is Ptolemaios,” Sostratos finished for him, not wanting to hear his own thought hijacked. “I wonder if he's some sort of envoy from Demetrios of Phaleron here in Attica, or from Kassandros, or if he's one of Ptolemaios' spies.”

“I'd bet on the last,” Menedemos said. “Ptolemaios has all the money in the world, so why should his spies have to quarrel about fares?”

“That makes sense,” Sostratos said. “Of course, just because it makes sense doesn't have to mean it's true. I'll tell you something else.” He waited for Menedemos to raise a questioning eyebrow, then continued, “Whatever he is, we won't find out from him.”

“Well, my dear, if you think I'm going to argue about that, you're mad as a maenad,” Menedemos said.

Dionysios son of Herakleitos—or whatever his real name was— proved as good as his word. He hailed the Aphrodite so early the next morning, some of her sailors were still asleep. Carrying a leather sack big enough to hold food and wine and the few belongings a traveling man needed, he scrambled up from the local's rowboat into the low waist of the merchant galley.

“Hail,” he said as Sostratos came up to him.

“Good day,” Sostratos replied.

“I doubt it,” Dionysios replied. “It's going to be beastly hot. I hope you don't expect a man to bring his own water along with everything else.”

“No,” Sostratos said. “Water we share, especially on a hot day— and I think you're right: this will be one. My eyes feel drier than they should, and the sun's not even over the horizon.” He held out his hand. “Now, if you'd be so kind, the first part of the fare.”

“Certainly.” Dionysios reached into the sack for a smaller leather wallet. He took coins from it and gave them to Sostratos one by one. “Here you are, best one: twenty-five drakhmai.”

The coins had an eagle on one side and a blunt-featured man's profile on the other. “These are Ptolemaios' drakhmai!” Sostratos said in dismay—they were far lighter than the Attic owls he'd expected.

“You never said in whose currency you wanted to be paid,” Dionysios pointed out.

“Have we got a problem?” Menedemos called from the stern. After Sostratos explained, his cousin asked, “Well, what do we do about that? Shall we send him back to shore unless he comes up with the proper weight of silver?”

“Where's the justice in that?” Dionysios demanded. “I'm not cheating you out of anything I promised to give.”

“So what?” Menedemos said. “If you don't pay us what we want, you can wait for another ship.” That made the dapper man unhappy, try as he would to hide it.

But Sostratos reluctantly tossed his head—that gibe about justice struck home. “He's right, Menedemos. It's my own fault, for not saying we wanted it in Attic money.” He took advantage of exchange rates whenever he could; it wasn't often that anyone got the better of him, but it had happened here.

“You're too soft for your own good,” Menedemos grumbled.

Dionysios son of Herakleitos gave Sostratos a bow. “What you are, my dear fellow, is a kalos k'agathos.”

“A gentleman? Me? I don't know about that,” Sostratos said, more flattered than he was willing to show. “I do know I expect people who deal with me to be honest, so I'd better give what I hope to get.”

“And if that doesn't make you a kalos k'agathos, to the crows with me if I know what would,” Dionysios said.

The sun, a ball of molten bronze, rose over the little island of Helena, where Helen had paused on her way home to Sparta after the Trojan War. Almost at once, the air began to quiver and dance, as it would above hot metal in a smithy. Those first few harsh beams seemed to scorch the hillsides back of Sounion. They'd been sere and dry and brown before; Sostratos knew as much. But he could almost watch the last moisture baking out of them now. He marveled that he couldn't watch the sea steam and retreat, as water would in a pot left over the fire too long.

“Papai!” he exclaimed. “I hope we have some wind. Rowing in this will be worse than it was the last time we went through the Kyklades.”

Dionysios rummaged in his sack again. This time, he pulled out a broad-brimmed hat, which he set on his head. “I don't care to cook, thank you very much,” he said.

“Why don't you go up to the foredeck so the rowers can work freely?” Sostratos said.

“Oh, of course. I don't mean to be a bother.” Dionysios picked up his bag and headed for the bow.

Sostratos went back to the stern and climbed up onto the poop deck. He waited for Menedemos to rake him over the coals; his cousin had earned the right. But Menedemos just clicked his tongue between his teeth and said, “Well, well—the biter bit.”