The Gryphon's Skull

for money. He knew you'd gone to Athens, to the Lykeion, but when you put knowledge ahead of silver, that opened his eyes. 'Not many gentlemen would have done the same,' was how he put it.” “Did he?” Sostratos said, and Lysistratos dipped his head. “That's . . . surprising,” Sostratos went on in musing tones. “What I was afraid of at the time was that he would call for half a dozen burly slaves and keep the gryphon's skull. I thought he was admiring that, not my integrity. You never can tell.” “No, you never can,” Lysistratos agreed. “Would you want him in the family?” “I've been thinking about that. Before what you said just now, I would have told you no,” Sostratos answered. “Now...” He shrugged and let out a rueful chuckle. “Now I'm so flattered, my advice probably isn't worth a thing.” “Oh, I doubt that. If there's one thing I can rely on, son, it's that you keep your wits about you.” “Thank you,” Sostratos said, though he wasn't quite sure his father had paid him a compliment. He might almost have said, Coldblooded, aren't you? Sostratos chuckled again. Compared to, say, his cousin, he was coldblooded, and he knew it. After some thought, he went on, “Do I want Damonax in the family? Erinna wants the match; I know that. It would be a step up for us, if he's not after our money to repair his fortunes. Actually, it would be a step up for us even if he is, but I don't think I care to take that kind of step.” “I told you you keep your wits about you,” his father said. “I don't care to, either.” “I didn't think you did, sir.” Sostratos plucked at his beard. “Damonax isn't bad-looking, he isn't stupid, and he isn't a churl. If he's not hiding something from us, Erinna could do worse.” “Fair enough,” Lysistratos said. “I was thinking along the same lines. I'll keep talking with him, then. We have some haggling to do. He wants a big dowry—you already knew that, didn't you?” Sostratos dipped his head. “He has some reason to ask it, because Erinna's a widow, not a maiden. But if he won't come down, if he cares more about the dowry than he does about her, that's a sign his own affairs aren't prospering.” “Good point—very good,” Lysistratos said. “We'll take a few steps forward and we'll see, that's all.” Menedemos spent as much time as he could away from the house. That kept him from quarreling with his father, and it kept him from having much to do with his father's wife. He exercised in the gymnasion. He strolled through the agora, looking at what was for sale there and talking with other men who came there to look and to talk. All sorts of things came to the marketplace at Rhodes. He kept hoping he would see another gryphon's skull. If he did, he intended to buy it for his cousin. He had no luck there, though. And, when he wasn't at the gymnasion or the agora, he went down to the harbor. Not many ships came in much more than a month after the autumnal equinox, but the harbor stayed busy even so, with new vessels a- building and old ones—the Aphrodite among them— hauled up on the beach for repairs and refitting. The talk was good there, too, though different from that in the market square: centered on the sea, much less concerned over either the latest juicy gossip or the wider world. “You're lucky you're here, and not in shackles in a slave market in Carthage or Phoenicia or Crete,” a carpenter said, driving home a large-headed copper tack that helped secure lead sheathing to a round ship's side. “Believe me, Khremes, I know it,” Menedemos answered. “A pestilence take all pirates.” Everyone working on the merchantman dipped his head. In a savage mood, Menedemos went on, “And if the pestilence doesn't take 'em, the cross will do.”