“Thanks,” Menedemos said. “Do you suppose we could get a priest to purify the ship now, or will we have to wait here till morning?” He answered his own question: “Morning, of course, so we can get Dorimakhos' body off the ship and set him in his grave.” He lowered his voice: “And you were right, worse luck—Rhodippos has a fever I don't like, enough to put him half out of his head.” “I know.” Sostratos sorrowfully clicked his tongue between his teeth. “I wish such things didn't happen with belly wounds, but they do.” He ground out, “I wish I'd shot the bastard who stole the gryphon's skull right in the belly. I want him dead.” He was usually among the most gentle of men. Menedemos regarded him with more than a little curiosity. “I don't think you'd sound so savage if someone stole half our silver.” “Maybe I wouldn't,” Sostratos said. “We can always get more silver, one way or another. Where will we come by another gryphon's skull?” “For all you know, there'll be another one in the marketplace at Kaunos next year,” Menedemos answered. “Who knows what will come out of the trackless east these days?” “Maybe.” But Sostratos didn't sound as if he believed it. On reflection, Menedemos couldn't blame his cousin. The gryphon's skull wasn't obviously valuable, and was large and heavy and bulky. How many merchants would carry such a thing across ten thousand stadia and more on the off chance someone in the west might want it? Not many—that one had still surprised Menedemos. He said, “Now that we haven't got it any more, do you still want to go on to Athens?” “I don't know,” Sostratos answered. “Right now, I'm so tired and so angry and so disgusted, I know I can't think straight. Ask me again in the morning, and maybe I'll be able to tell you something that makes sense.” “Fair enough,” Menedemos said. “Let's have some more wine now. It's been a long time since the fight.” They were on their second cup when someone on shore pushed a boat into the water and rowed out toward the merchant galley; no one had bothered to build quays here, and the Aphrodite lay at anchor a couple of plethra from the beach. “What ship are you?” a man called from the boat. “The Aphrodite , out of Rhodes,” Menedemos answered. “We were bound for Athens, but pirates came after us between Euboia and Andros. We fought them off, and here we are.” “Fought 'em off, you say?” The fellow in the boat sounded dubious. “What's your cargo?” He thinks we're pirates, Menedemos realized. When a galley came into an out-of-the-way harbor like this one, the locals often started jumping to conclusions. “We've got Koan silk aboard, and crimson dye from Byblos,” Menedemos said, “and perfume from Rhodes, and fine ink, and some papyrus from Egypt—though we're almost sold out of that—and a splendid lion skin from Kaunos on the Anatolian mainland, and the world's best balsam from Phoenicia.” “World's best, eh?” The man in the boat laughed. “You sound like a tradesman, all right.” “And we've got news,” Sostratos added.
Вы читаете The Gryphon's Skull
