The Gryphon's Skull

Of course, Polemaios' soldiers would be following him to Kos. How many men did he have? Sostratos didn't know. How many did Ptolemaios have on the island? Sostratos didn't know that, either, though he could make a guess from the size of Ptolemaios' fleet. Would all of them stay loyal, or could Polemaios seduce them away from his near-namesake? An interesting question, sure enough.

To keep from drawing undue attention to the return, Menedemos chose a route different from the one he'd used going up to Khalkis. No one would be able to note how many days lay between his westbound and eastbound visits to a port and, as a result, make guesses about where he'd been. From Karystos, on the southern coast of Euboia, he took the Aphrodite due south across the rough strait and, aided by a brisk northerly breeze, made the island of Kythnos by nightfall.

Fig orchards and vines straggled across the sandy hills of Kythnos. Looking north and west, Sostratos could see Cape Sounion, the great rocky headland that marked Attica. He sighed. I should be showing (he gryphon's skull to Theophrastos, he thought, but instead I'm sailing away again. Where is the justice?

Polemaios and his wife and bodyguards slept aboard the merchant galley. Antigonos' nephew took it in stride; he'd doubtless found worse places to lay his head on campaign. But, from Sostratos' place on the poop deck, he could hear the woman's shrill complaints at the other end of the ship. Polemaios sounded much less imperious with her than he did speaking to mere Rhodians.

With a soft chuckle—very soft, to make sure Polemaios didn't hear—Sostratos murmured to Menedemos: “Every hero has his weakness.”

His cousin's snort of laughter seemed much too loud to him. “Agamemnon lord of men had his vanity, Akhilleus his anger—and his heel,” Menedemos agreed. “Great Aias went mad.” He reached out and tapped Sostratos on the shoulder. “But what of resourceful Odysseus? He was always right, or as near as makes no difference, and he came home safe where most of the others died.”

“And he paid the price for always being right, too,” Sostratos said after a little thought of his own. “He's a hero in the Iliad

and the Odyssey, but the playwrights make him out to be a villain, too clever for his own good. Nobody likes a man who's right all the time.”

“You would know, wouldn't you?” Menedemos said.

Sostratos grunted. That arrow hit too close to the center of the target for comfort. He had learned most people didn't take kindly to being corrected, even when they were wrong—often especially when they were wrong. He didn't do such things nearly so often as he had when he was younger. And if I hadn't done them so often then, I might be happier now.

He shifted on the planks of the poop deck, trying not only to get comfortable but also to escape his own thoughts. Like the Furies, they pursued him whether he wanted them to or not. But he could escape them, unlike the Kindly Ones, by falling headlong into sleep, and he did.

When he woke, it was to the sound of Menedemos cursing as if those Kindly Ones were hot on his trail. Yawning, Sostratos asked, “What's wrong?”

“Call yourself a seaman?” Menedemos snarled, which was most unfair: Sostratos was suddenly roused from sleep, and still flat on the deck besides. Upright and irate, Menedemos went on, “There's no polluted wind, that's what. None.”

“Oh.” Sostratos uncocooned himself from his himation and got to his feet, too. He wasn't naked, as he would have been most mornings aboard ship; out of deference to Polemaios’ wife, he'd left his chiton on. Menedemos was right: not a breath of breeze stirred his hair. “Oimoi!

This isn't good. We'll have a hard time making Paros by sundown on oars alone.”

“Isn't that the sad and sorry truth?” his cousin agreed. “And even if we do, the men will be worn to nubs and in a dreadful temper. To the crows with me if I blame 'em, either. Rowing all day is a hard way to make a drakhma and a half.”

“I know.” Sostratos set a consoling hand on Menedemos' shoulder. “Well, my dear, we got this job because we can go against the wind, or even without it. We could give the rowers a couple of days to roister in Kos once we get there.”

“Not a bad notion.” Menedemos dipped his head, then smiled a wicked smile. “There you go, being right again.”

“I'm sorry. I'll try not to let it happen again,” Sostratos said, and thought he came out of the exchange fairly well.

Menedemos had the pleasure of waking Diokles, who wasn't up quite so fast as usual. The oarmaster noted the calm as fast as the captain had. “The men'll have their work cut out for 'em today if things don't pick up,” he said, and set about shaking sailors out of sleep. “We can't afford to waste time, then.”