The Gryphon's Skull

“All right. Go on,” Teleutas said, but he jerked and cursed every time Sostratos drove the needle through his flesh. And he complained more when Sostratos wrapped sailcloth around the wound and made it fast with a sloppy knot: “Call that a bandage? I've seen real physicians bind up wounds, by the gods. They make a bandage worth looking at, all nice and neat and fancy. This? Pheu!” He screwed up his face as he made the disgusted noise.

“I'm so sorry,” Sostratos said with icy irony. “If you like, I'll take it off, tear out the stitches, and start over.”

“You try and touch that leg again, and I'll make you sorry for it,” the sailor said. “I just want a proper job done.”

“It's the best I can do,” Sostratos told him. He knew Teleutas had a point. Real physicians made their bandages as neat and elaborate as they could, some to the point of showing off. He went on, “Just because it isn't neat doesn't mean it won't do the job.”

“That's what you say.” Teleutas pointed up to the yard. “If you were talking about the rigging, would you say the same thing? Not likely! You'd be screaming your head off to get all the lines shipshape.”

Sostratos' ears burned. So much for the men thinking I know more about doctoring than they do. Of course, Teleutas complained and malingered at any excuse or none. Even so, Sostratos would have wished for a little more gratitude.

Another sailor did thank him, very politely, when he bandaged a stab wound in the man's belly. He sniffed the wound as he applied the bandage. It wasn't very wide, and wasn't bleeding nearly so much as Teleutas', but he did get a faint whiff of dung. He said nothing to the sailor, and held his face steady till he'd finished the job. Then he went looking for Menedemos.

“Why so grim?” his cousin asked as he dealt with a wound much like Teleutas’. The sailor he was helping didn't snarl at him or criticize his inartistic bandages; the man just seemed glad to have the cut dealt with.

But Sostratos, though he noticed that, had too much on his mind really to envy Menedemos' luck. He said, “I'm afraid Rhodippos is going to die,”

“Oimoi!” Menedemos exclaimed in dismay. “Why do you say so? He didn't seem that badly hurt. I saw him.”

“His gut's pierced,” Sostratos answered. “Such men almost always die of fever. Remember that sailor last summer, after the Roman archer shot him from their trireme as we went past?”

Menedemos drummed his fingers on his right thigh. His hands were bloody. Looking down, Sostratos saw his own were, too. Voice troubled, his cousin said, “Yes, I do. Well, here's hoping you're wrong, that's all.”

“Here's hoping indeed,” Sostratos said. “I'm not a physician—if you don't believe me, ask Teleutas. But I do remember what I've seen and what I've heard.”

“I know,” Menedemos said. “You remember everything, as far as I can tell.”

“I wish I did,” Sostratos said.

“If you don't, you come closer than anyone else I know,” Menedemos said. “I know we're lucky to have come off even as well as we did, but all the same, ...” He clicked his tongue between his teeth. “We've got a lot of men hurt.”

“Most of them should get better,” Sostratos said.

“Gods grant it be so,” Menedemos said. “If it is so, I'll give As-klepios a sheep at his temple on Kos if we put in there on the way home, or back on Rhodes if we don't.” He glanced up toward the heavens, as if hoping to catch sight of the god of healing listening.

Sostratos wasn't sure a sacrifice would do any good, but he wasn't sure it wouldn't, either. Even Sokrales, when he was dying, remembered he owed Asklepios a cock, he thought.

“At least the whoresons didn't try to wreck our rigging, the way they would have if we were a round ship,” Menedemos said: maybe that glance heavenward had in fact been aimed at the yard.

“Not much point to it with a galley,” Sostratos said. “We can still row perfectly well, and we could even if the sail came down. Of course,” he added, “they might not have thought of that. One often doesn't think of everything in the middle of a fight.”

A sailor limped up to them with the broken shaft of an arrow sticking out of his calf. “Will you draw this polluted thing for me?” he said through clenched teeth. “I tried pulling it out, but it hurt too cursed much for me to do the job myself.”

“A good thing you stopped,” Sostratos said. “The point's barbed; you would have hurt yourself worse if you'd kept on.” He bent and felt the wound.

“Well, how will you get it out, then?” the man asked after a yelp of pain.

“We'll have to push it through,” Sostratos answered, “either that or cut down to the point. Where it is, I think pushing it through is a better bet—it's only a digit or two from coming out already.”