The Gryphon's Skull

Having done that, though, he had little choice but to go home. His father waited for him in the courtyard. “I heard you were home,” Philodemos said when he came in, “but I haven't heard why yet.” “I'll tell you,” Menedemos said. He plunged into the tale, heading for the andron as he did. “—and so,” he finished a little later, “I didn't see what else I could do except bring Kissidas and his family back here to Rhodes.” His father studied him. He's looking through me, not at me, Menedemos thought nervously. Somewhere outside the men's room, a woodpecker drummed on a tree trunk. The sudden noise made Menedemos start. “No need to jump, son,” Philodemos said. “I don't see what else you could have done, either. If a man's made himself your guest-friend, you can't very well leave him behind to be harmed by his enemies.” Menedemos tried not to show how relieved he was. “My thought exactly. He took us in even though he knew it might anger Antigonos' captain. And then this news of Ptolemaios. . .” “Yes.” Philodemos dipped his head. “That's part of the picture, too. If Ptolemaios is coming west across Lykia, it puts the war right on our doorstep. I wish it were farther away. If he and Antigonos start hammering away at each other next door to us, one of them or the other is bound to notice what fine harbors we have and what useful subjects we'd make.” “I wish I thought you were wrong, sir.” Menedemos wished that for more reasons than one. Not only did he worry about his polis, he also worried about agreeing with his father. To keep from thinking about it, he changed the subject: “What sort of opson will Sikon have for us tonight?” “I don't know,” Philodemos replied, “He ran out to the market square as soon as that fellow from the harbor came here shouting that the Aphrodite had come in. He was muttering something as he went, something about why hadn't anyone told him.” He rolled his eyes. “You know what cooks are like.” “Everybody knows what cooks are like,” Menedemos said. Like any prosperous household's cook, Sikon was a slave. But, because he ruled the kitchen like a king, he often acted as if he were master of the whole house. Menedemos rose from his chair, “If you'll excuse me, Father, I think I'll go in there and find out what he's up to.” “Good luck.” Even iron-willed Philodemos often lost his skirmishes with Sikon. The cook was a middle-aged man, on the plump side—who would have wanted a man who didn't care for the meals he turned out? “Snooping, are you?” he said when Menedemos stuck his head in the door. “I live here, every now and again,” Menedemos said mildly. He didn't want to quarrel with the cook, either. A man who did that often regretted it in short order. “Oh. It's you, young master.” Sikon relaxed. “I thought it'd be your stepmother.” He snorted, sounding amazingly like a bad-tempered donkey. Philodemos' second wife was ten years younger than her stepson. The cook went on, “You won't pitch a fit if I spend a couple of oboloi so the house has something better than sprats or salt fish for opson.” “Baukis takes the business of being a wife seriously.” Menedemos didn't want to criticize the girl. What he wanted to do ... Had she been another man's, any other man's, wife, he would have gone after her without hesitation. He knew himself well enough to be sure of that. But even he fought shy of adultery with his own father's new spouse. “Seriously!” Sikon threw his hands in the air. “You'd think we'd all eat nothing but barley porridge for the next ten years if I buy something tasty. Can you talk some sense into her, young master? Your father doesn't want to do it; that's pretty plain. She just looks down her nose at me, the way free people do with slaves sometimes, but maybe she'd listen to you.”