Harry Turtledove - Owls to Athens

“Sounds good to me.” Menedemos tilted his head back and emptied his cup. He wiped his mouth on the back of his hand. “Let’s go.”

They walked up the gangplank and down the quay. As they passed a longshoreman, Sostratos asked him where the market square was. The Mytilenean might have been stricken with an advanced case of idiocy. He scratched his head, pulled at his lower lip, frowned, and generally gave the impression of a man who had a hard time remembering his own name, let alone anything harder. Sostratos didn’t need to have read Hippokrates to know how to cure that malady. As he had with the other longshoreman, he gave the man an obolos. Sure enough, silver proved the proper drug. Intelligence blossomed on the Mytilenean’s face. He pointed north into the part of the polis on Lesbos and gave quick, confident directions, finishing, “You can’t miss it.”

“I hope not,” Sostratos muttered as they crossed the bridge.

“Up this street here, did he say?” Menedemos asked.

“That’s right,” Sostratos answered. He could see the grid of the city in his head, and see which way they should go. He’d needed years to realize most people couldn’t do that.

The wind blew strongly out of the north. Menedemos said, “A good thing we’re not coming up to Lesbos today. We wouldn’t get anywhere fast.”

“No, we wouldn’t.” Sostratos stopped and rubbed at his eyes: the breeze had blown a speck of dust into them. More dust swirled past. “Here’s a town where the Hippodamian grid isn’t everything you wish it were,” he said, rubbing again. “They shouldn’t have made the streets all run north-south and east-west. The north wind just races down these long, straight avenues.”

“If you’re going to have a grid-” Menedemos began.

Sostratos tossed his head. “No, no. If they’d rotated it through half a right angle, then it would be fine; the wind would be blocked. The way things are, though, it’s… unpleasant.”

“It sure is.” Now his cousin paused to rub at his face and get some grit out of his eye. “Miserable wind. I’m glad we don’t live here all year around.”

“I wouldn’t want to live anywhere but Rhodes,” Sostratos said, counting street corners so he’d know when to turn.

“Not even Athens?” Menedemos asked slyly.

Sostratos had to think about that. He had to think so hard, he almost lost track of the corners. At last, though, he tossed his head. “No, my dear, not even Athens. It’s a wonderful place to study, and the theater is the finest in the world, but it’s not what it was in the time of Perikles and Sokrates and Platon. The people have lost too many wars, and they know it. They still call themselves free and autonomous, the way so many poleis do these days, but it’s nothing a Rhodian would recognize as freedom. And what they call democracy…” He tossed his head again. “Demetrios of Phaleron runs things for Kassandros, and there’s a Macedonian garrison to make sure nothing unfortunate happens.”

“And if anyone says anything Demetrios doesn’t like, he disappears?” Menedemos asked.

“Sometimes-not always, I admit,” Sostratos replied. “Demetrios studied philosophy himself, and he makes a mild tyrant-a tolerable tyrant, if you don’t mind the contradiction. Things could be worse there. But they could be a lot better, too. And we turn… here, I think. This must be the temple to Hera that fellow in the harbor was talking about.” He swung to the left.

“I’d say so,” Menedemos agreed, and followed him. He pointed down the long, straight street. “And I’d say that’s the agora ahead.”

“Looks like it. Sounds like it, too.” Sostratos couldn’t help smiling. All over Hellas, market squares were the same, even if they looked different. The agora was the beating heart of a polis, not just the place where men bought and sold things but also where they gathered to gossip and trade news. “Sidon and Jerusalem weren’t like this.”

“I don’t know about Jerusalem-I wasn’t there-but Sidon certainly wasn’t, and not just because I didn’t speak the language,” Menedemos said. “The Phoenicians didn’t care about gathering and talking things over the way we do.”

“Neither did the Ioudaioi.” Sostratos ran his fingers through his hair and flicked at his beard to get rid of any crumbs that might have clung there. “But now we’re among Hellenes.”

“You bet we are.” Menedemos threw back his shoulders and strutted into the agora as if all the Mytileneans-none of whom had ever seen him before-should have known exactly who he was. Hurrying along behind him, Sostratos couldn’t help laughing softly. His cousin always made a procession, even if it was a procession of one. This will be a procession of two, Sostratos thought, and also put his best foot forward.

And people did look up from their buying and selling and arguing when the two Rhodians walked into the market square. “Hail, friends!” Menedemos said loudly, his Doric accent helping him stand out when most other men spoke sibilant, oddly stressed Aiolic. “We’re off the Aphrodite , the akatos from Rhodes that came in yesterday. We’re bound for Athens, and we’re looking for fine wine and truffles and whatever else we can find that the rich Athenians might like.”

Half a dozen hands shot up. “Here, come see what I’ve got,” merchants called. As Sostratos and Menedemos made their way through the crowd towards a wineseller’s stall, a fellow whose main stock in trade seemed to be linen goods thrust something at them and said, “What do you think of this?”

“A rock?” Sostratos said. At the same time, Menedemos said, “A chunk of wood?”

That made them both stop and take a closer look. Sostratos took the chunk-it was a little smaller than a man’s fist-from the linen-seller and hefted it. “It is stone,” he said. “But you’re right, Menedemos-it looks like wood.”

Chuckling, Menedemos said, “Well, that gryphon’s skull we found a couple of years ago was bone that seemed turned to stone. Maybe this is what it ate.”

Sostratos didn’t laugh now. He dipped his head. “Maybe it is.” He turned to the Mytilenean who’d shown it to them. “This came from the western part of your island, isn’t that so?”

“Why, yes, best one,” the local said in surprise. “But how did you know that?”

“Theophrastos, with whom I studied in Athens, comes from Lesbos. He talks about this wood turned to stone, though I’ve never seen it before. He’s even written a book called On Petrifaction. ”

“By the dog!” Menedemos said. “I’ve heard of books about some odd things, but that may be the strangest one yet.”

“Would you like to buy this chunk of, ah, petrified wood?” the linen-seller asked. “Five drakhmai doesn’t seem like much, does it?”

“For a rock?” Sostratos said. “You’re joking, O marvelous one.” Thinking of the gryphon’s skull pained him, as it always did. But it wasn’t the sort of pain a rock that looked like-or perhaps was-a chunk of wood could assuage.

Sensing as much, the Mytilenean looked disappointed. “The way you were throwing those big words around, I figured you’d think five drakhmai was cheap.”

“Well, friend, you’d better try some new figuring,” Sostratos said. “I might buy it if you name me a halfway reasonable price. On the other hand, I might not, too. A lump of woody rock isn’t something you have to have unless you’re planning on bashing in a rascally linen-seller’s brains.”

“Ha!” Menedemos said. “I like that.”

By the way the local chuckled, he thought it was funny, too. “You’re a clever fellow, Athenian. What do you say to three drakhmai, then?”