The Gryphon's Skull

She got to her feet. He might have hugged her. She was his stepmother. Oh, yes, he jeered at himself. And what would you do if Father came downstairs and saw that? You'd need to sail away and never come home. He'd never had such attacks of nerves pursuing other men's wives in other towns. He headed for the doorway at something close to a run. Whenever he went away from Baukis, he felt as if he'd just been routed.

Getting out into the street was a relief. Getting out onto the open sea a thousand stadia from Rhodes would be a bigger one. He closed the door behind him, then turned to go next door and gather up Sostratos. He took a step—and almost ran into his cousin.

“Hail,” Sostratos said. “You don't need to jump like that. I was just coming to get you.”

“I was just going to get you,” Menedemos answered, “I didn't hear your footsteps.” That wasn't surprising; neither of them wore shoes. Menedemos went on, “Now that we've got each other, let's head down to the ship. What do you bet that Euxenides fellow will be waiting on the quay?”

“I have better things to do than waste my money,” Sostratos said. “Have you got the emeralds?”

Menedemos tapped a little leather sack dangling from the belt that confined his tunic at the waist. “They're here, all but the one Father bought for his new wife.” He kept his voice down, not wanting his words to travel back to Baukis; the stone was still at the jeweler's.

“Pity he decided to do that. It's one fewer we can sell.” Sostratos spread his hands. “What can you do, though?”

“Not much,” Menedemos answered. Sostratos didn't know he was the one who'd suggested giving the emerald to his father, and he wasn't about to tell him. “Come on. Let's go.”

Mnesipolis was already banging away when they walked by the smithy. He waved, hammer in hand. They were as familiar to him as he was to them.

“Give him a limp and he'd make a good Hephaistos,” Menedemos remarked.

“Why, so he would,” Sostratos said. “There's a game: who of the people we know best matches the Olympians?” He eyed Menedemos. “Eh, wingfooted Hermes?”

Menedemos strutted with pride for a few paces. He was a formidable sprinter, even if he hadn't been quite fast enough to go to the Olympic Games to run for Rhodes. He hadn't thought of his chance remark as the start for a game, but was quick to fall in with it: “We've got Poseidon as keleustes.”

“So we do,” Sostratos said. “And Aristeidas will do for all-seeing Argos.”

They went past Agathippos the banker's still playing the game. Menedemos said, “I know who gray-eyed Athene would be, too.”

“Who?” Sostratos asked.

Menedemos pointed at him. “You.”

“Me? Athana?” His cousin was so surprised, the goddess' name came out in a broad Doric drawl he hardly ever used. “You're out of your mind. I've got a beard, in case you hadn't noticed.”

“It's the theater, my dear,” Menedemos said airily. “Actors play all the female roles. With your face behind a mask, no one would care, for you've got the quick-darting mind the part needs.”

“Thanks very much,” Sostratos said, and kissed him on the cheek. “I don't think anyone has ever said anything kinder about me.”

“I've never denied you have a clever mind, the cleverest I know,” Menedemos replied. But if he gave Sostratos two undiluted compliments in a row, his cousin might die from the shock, so he added, “Now if you only had the good sense the gods gave a gecko . ..”

“You're a fine one to talk,” Sostratos shot back. “You're the one who jumps out of second-story windows to get away from a husband home too soon.”

“And you're the one who's been mooning over an old skull as if it were a young hetaira,” Menedemos said. They chaffed each other all the way down to the harbor. Menedemos hurried down toward the Aphrodite. “Euxenides had better not keep us waiting. I want to get out on the open sea again.”

“So do I.I want to sail for Athens.” Sostratos pointed ahead. “Isn't that the man himself, already on the foredeck? You were right, up by our houses.”

“Dip me in dung if it's not, and so I was,” Menedemos said. “Good for him. I don't expect he got out of Phaselis and Xanthos by being late to his ship. And now he'll get out of Rhodes, too.” He started up the pitch-smeared planks of the pier that led out to the akatos, calling, “Ahoy, the Aphrodite!”

Diokles gave answer in his raspy bass: “Ahoy, skipper! Passenger's already aboard.”

“Yes, we saw him,” Menedemos said. “Do we have all the rowers?”

“All but one,” the oarmaster replied. “No sign of Teleutas yet.”

Menederaos eyed the sun, which had just climbed up out of the sea. “We'll give him a little while—half an hour, maybe. If he's not here by then, we'll hire one of the harbor loungers, and many goodbyes to him. Rhodes has plenty of men who know how to pull an oar.”