The Gryphon's Skull

“Because I'm buying it from the business, that's why,” Philodemos said. “Because Lysistratos would bellow like a bull and roar like a lion if I didn't—and because he'd be right when he did. Never cheat the business, son, not if you want to stay in business.”

“All right.” Menedemos dipped his head. Father is as stern with himself as he is with everybody else, he thought. That made Philodemos more admirable, but hardly easier or more comfortable to live with.

His father pointed to the leather sack that held the rest of the emeralds, “Where do you think you can get the best price for those?”

“Well, Sostratos is wild to go to Athens on account of his gryphon's skull.”

“That thing.” Philodemos snorted once more, on a different note. “He ought to pay for it from his personal funds instead of sticking the business with the cost.”

“He thinks he can get these two different schools of philosophy bidding against each other,” Menedemos said.

His father snorted again, “Moonshine, nothing else but.” “I don't know,” Menedemos said. “You never can tell with philosophers. Who can guess what they might want, and how much they'd pay for it?” He quoted from Aristophanes' Clouds:

“ 'I walk the air and contemplate the sun. . ..For neverMight I rightly discover the astronomical phenomenaIf I didn't hang up my mind and mix up mySubtle thought with the air it resembles.But if I examined what's up above while I was down on the ground

I'd never find anything. For the earth by forceDrags toward itself the juice of thought.This same thing happens also with cresses."

He couldn't held smiling. He loved Aristophanes' absurdities.

“Cresses?” his father said. “What's he talking about, philosophy or salad?”

“Some of each, I think,” Menedemos answered. “But Athens has some of the best jewelers in the world. I don't know what philosophers will pay for a stone skull, but I think jewelers will pay plenty for emeralds.”

Philodemos pursed his lips. “You may be right,” he said at last. “If you can get

to Athens, that is.”

Menedemos thumped his forehead with the heel of his hand. “Oi-moi! That reminds me, Father.” He passed on the news he'd got from Moiragenes at the harbor.

“Ptolemaios has Xanthos, you say?” Philodemos whistled. “There's all of Lykia, near enough, stolen away from Antigonos just like that.” He snapped his fingers.

“And Kaunos is next on the list,” Menedemos said. “The fight between the marshals is so close now, we can see it from here.”

“This is not good for Rhodes, not good at all,” his father said. “The last thing we want is for the war to come to our door. The longer it stays close to us, the likelier someone will try to kick the door down.”

That thought had occurred to Menedemos, too. He didn't like agreeing with his father. It didn't happen very often, so he seldom needed to worry about it. Here, though, he found himself saying, “I know. It's not easy staying a free and autonomous—a really free and really autonomous—polls these days. It puts me in mind of being a sprat in the middle of a school of hungry tunny, if you want to know the truth.”

“I won't quarrel with you,” Philodemos said: again, no small concession, coming from him. When it comes to Rhodes, we can see eye to eye, Menedemos thought. When it comes to the two of us. . .

He wished he hadn't suggested that his father mount the emerald and give it to Baukis. His father was liable to tell her he'd done so, as proof he wasn't worried about sharing an inheritance with any sons she might bear. And she might even take it that way, and be relieved.

Or she might think, Menedemos gave me this lovely stone. And if she thought that, what would she do then? And what would he?

3

Sostratos had already checked everything aboard the Aphrodite three different times. That didn't keep him from checking things once more. There was the gryphon's skull, securely wrapped in canvas and stowed near the poop. All they were waiting for was a few more sailors and some fresh water. “Then,” Sostratos said, as if the old, old bone could understand, “people will try to figure out what to make of you.”

From his station on the raised poop deck, Menedemos called, “Are you talking to that polluted thing? You need a hetaira to take your mind off what you're doing.”

“Screwing isn't the answer to everything,” Sostratos said with dignity.

“If it isn't, you tell me what is,” his cousin retorted.