The Gryphon's Skull

Ptolemaios looked searchingly from Sostratos to Menedemos and back again. Sostratos did his best to look back without flinching. He'd thought some flunky of Ptolemaios' would question them; he hadn't expected to be brought before the ruler of Egypt himself. “So,” Ptolemaios rasped, “you say you weren't dickering over the price you wanted for getting him out of my reach?”

“That's right, sir,” Sostratos answered. “Besides, even if we'd wanted to—which we didn't, as my cousin and I have told you over and over—we couldn't have gone anywhere with Polemaios.”

A torch behind Ptolemaios' head crackled. The sun had set, but torches and lamps made the andron of the ruler of Egypt's residence almost as bright as day. Ptolemaios leaned forward, thrusting his blunt-featured, strong-chinned face toward the two Rhodians. “Why not?” he said.

“Because we've got sprung planking, that's why not,” Menedemos exclaimed, his temper slipping. “If you don't believe us, ask any of your carpenters. We've been screaming a: them for most of a month now, but they won't give us the time of day—they're too busy with your polluted ships to care a fig about ours.”

Sostratos feared his cousin had spoken too boldly. Ptolemaios, though, only dipped his head, remarking, “You say what's on your mind, don't you?”

“Yes, sir,” Menedemos answered. “If we could have got our ship repaired, we would have been long gone from here, and then you wouldn't be wondering if we were plotting with Antigonos' nephew.”

“Suppose I ask my shipwrights if you've been coming by?” Ptolemaios said.

“By the dog of Egypt, go ahead,” Menedemos burst out. Again, Sostratos wondered whether he should have used that particular oath to the ruler of Egypt. Menedemos went on, “Your men will tell you we've been in their hair like lice,”

“Heh.” Ptolemaios scratched reminiscently. “I've been lousy a time or two—more than a time or two. T hate those little bastards.” He called for one of his men—a soldier, not a servitor—and spoke to him in a low voice. The fellow dipped his head. He hurried away. Ptolemaios went on, “We'll see if you're telling the truth.”

If the Rhodians hadn't been, that would have alarmed them. As things were, Menedemos said only, “Fine.”

“What's going to happen to Polemaios now?” Sostratos asked, that being what was uppermost in his mind.

Ptolemaios scowled. “That son of a whore was trying to win over my officers with sweet talk and bribes. I took him in, a stray dog, and he used me so? I'll give him no bites at all, only a sip: he drinks hemlock tomorrow.” He laid the full weight of his formidable stare on Sostratos. “And what do you think of that?”

“May I watch, sir?” Sostratos blurted.

“What?” Ptolemaios blinked. Whatever sort of answer he'd expected, that wasn't it. He stared more grimly than ever. “Why?”

Sostratos wished he'd thought more before speaking. He answered as best he could: “Because I studied at the Lykeion in Athens; and I've talked with men from the Academy, the school Platon founded; and I've read Platon's tale of how Sokrates died. I'd like to see it for myself, if I could.”

“I've read the Phaidon, too,” Ptolemaios said, which surprised Sostratos in turn; the ruler of Egypt looked like a warrior, not a man who'd studied philosophy. And Ptolemaios surprised him all over again by continuing, “That man wrote like a god.”

“Y-yes,” Sostratos stammered; his amazement came not because he disagreed but because bluff Ptolemaios was voicing such art opinion.

Going on in the same vein, the Macedonian marshal sighed and said, “I wish I would have met him. I was nineteen or twenty when he died, but I didn't get down to Athens till. . . later.”

Till after the battle of Khaironeia, Sostratos realized he meant: after Philip of Macedon crushed Athens as a power.

He eyed the ruler of Egypt. Khaironeia had been fought three years before he himself was born. So much had happened since—Alexander's astonishing career and the wars of his successors—that seeing a man who'd fought there seemed a surprise, too. He's only a few years older than my father, Sostratos reminded himself. But Ptolemaios had been so many places, done so much . . .

Ptolemaios' thoughts had traveled down a different road. He shook a forefinger at Sostratos and said, “I warn you, it's not as neat as Platon tells it.”

“Sir?” Lost in his own musings, Sostratos had dropped the thread of the conversation.

“Hemlock,” Ptolemaios said. “Are you sure you want to see it?”

“Oh,” Sostratos said, and then, after some thought, “Yes. Yes, I am. I'd ... like to know what Sokrates went through.”

“Ah,” Ptolemaios said. “I can understand that. It may be foolishness, but I can understand it. All right, young fellow. I'm keeping Antigonos' nephew in the house next door to this one. You be here early tomorrow morning and you'll see what you want to see. But don't dawdle; my men won't wait. Bargain?”