The Gryphon's Skull

long after I see it, I'll go to sleep.” “Amazing,” Sostratos said. “I was born half a year before you, but it means the very same thing for me.” They both laughed. The Aphrodite rocked gently on the sea. Menedemos took the motion altogether for granted. It wasn't enough to bother his cousin, who was more sensitive to such things. They lay down side by side on the poop deck. Diokles went forward to sleep on a rower's bench. When Menedemos woke, morning twilight had replaced that of the evening. He yawned and stretched and watches stars fade from the sky, as he'd watched them come out the night before. High up in the air, a gull screeched. He got to his feet and tasted the wind, then dipped his head in satisfaction. It hadn't swung during the night, nor had it died. Up toward the bow, one early-rising sailor spoke to another: “Doesn't look like we'll have to pull too hard today,” “Good,” the second sailor answered. Sostratos stayed asleep till the men started hauling in the anchors. Then he looked about in bleary confusion. “Hail, slugabed,” Menedemos said. “Oh. Hail.” Sostratos looked around some more, rubbed his eyes, and got to his feet. As he did, he wet a finger to test the wind. What he found brought a smile to his face and eagerness to his voice. “Do you think we'll be able to slide between Andros and Euboia this afternoon?” “Maybe.” Menedemos shook a stern finger at his cousin. “But even if we do, we've got another day's sail after that before we put in at Peiraieus.” “I know. I know.” Sostratos waved impatiently. “But we're so close now, I can all but taste Athens.” Menedemos pursed his lips as if he were tasting, too. “Rocks and dirt and a little bit of hemlock, left over from Sokrates. Splash it with oil and it's not so bad.” “Splash you with oil and you're still an idiot,” Sostratos said, doing his best not to splutter. After a bow and a wave for his cousin, Menedemos raised his voice to call out to the sailors: “Eat your breakfast, lads, and then we'll be away. As long as the gods are kind enough to give us the breeze we need, we'd be fools and worse than fools if we didn't make the most of it.” Down came the sail from the yard. A gust of wind filled it almost at once. The mast creaked as it took up the strain. At Menedemos' shouted instructions, the men swung the yard from the starboard bow back to take best advantage of the breeze. The Aphrodite slid through the light chop, graceful as a tunny. Flying fish sprang out of the water. So did dolphins, which leapt far higher and more gracefully. Menedemos tossed a barley roll into the Aegean. The merchant galley's boat had hardly passed it before a dolphin snapped it up. The sailors murmured in delighted approval. A couple of them clapped their hands. “Good for you, skipper,” Diokles said. “There's good luck.” No less superstitious than any other seafaring man, Menedemos dipped his head. “Good luck for the dolphin, too,” he said. “If it hadn't been in just the right spot, a sea bird would have got there first.”