The Gryphon's Skull

“Hail,” Theagenes answered over his shoulder. “Just a moment, and I'll be right with you.” A smooth-barked branch thudded to the ground. Theagenes grunted in satisfaction and lowered his saw. He turned toward Menedemos and Sostratos. He was a short man, shorter than Menedemos, but with wiry muscles shifting under his skin as he moved. “There. That's better. Now, what can I do for the two of you? You'll be from the ship that got in last night?”

“That's right.” Menedemos gave his name and Sostratos'. “If you heard that, you probably heard we fought off pirates, too. We had a man killed, and another who looks sure to die of his wounds.”

Theagenes dipped his head. “I did hear that, yes. You'll want me to purify the vessel?”

“If you please,” Menedemos said. “And we'd like to sacrifice here as a thanks offering for driving those whoresons away.” Sostratos stirred at that. Menedemos had been sure he would; he hated expense. But it needed doing.

“Good enough.” The priest hesitated, then went on, “This wounded man, if he dies after I finish the job ...”

“You'd have to do it over again,” Sostratos said.

“That's what I meant, yes,” Theagenes agreed. “A death is a death. As far as the ritual goes, how it happens doesn't matter.”

“We'll move him to the boat,” Menedemos said. He'd done that with the dying sailor after the clash with the Roman trireme the year before. “Purifying that will be less work for you—and if you can't come for some reason, well, we can buy another boat.”

“I understand,” Theagenes said. “Let me get my lustration bowl, and then I'll come to the harbor with you.” He went into the temple.

When he came out again, Sostratos stirred. “How long has this temple had that bowl?” he whispered to Menedemos.

“What do you—? Oh.” Menedemos saw what his cousin meant. The bowl had an image of Poseidon in it. The god was done in black against a red background. That style had been replaced by red figures on a black background about the time of the Persian Wars. How many black-figure bowls still survived? Menedemos said, “They're very careful of it.”

“I should think so,” his cousin answered.

The two Rhodians and the priest walked back toward the seashore. When Theagenes got a good look at the Aphrodite, he said, “Your ship is too beamy to make a proper pirate, but I can see how people might think at first glance she was one.”

“We've had it happen, yes,” Menedemos said. “As far as I'm concerned, Poseidon or someone ought to sweep all pirates off the sea.”

“I wish that might happen myself,” Theagenes said. “The world would be a better place.”

Menedemos waved to the rowers waiting for his return. The men waved back. They took him and Sostratos and Theagenes out to the Aphrodite. Dorimakhos' body lay, wrapped in bloodstained sailcloth, at the stern of the boat. As Theagenes neared the akatos, he filled that ancient bowl with seawater. He handed it to Menedemos before scrambling from the boat to the ship.

What would he do if I dropped it? Menedemos wondered. But he didn't: he just gave it back to Theagenes. The priest looked at the dark stains on the Aphrodite's planking. “You did have a hard fight here,” he remarked.

“It would have been harder still if we'd lost it,” Sostratos said.

“Of course,” Theagenes said. He went up and down the ship, sprinkling the water from the bowl over the planks and murmuring prayers in a low voice. As he came up onto the poop deck, he remarked, “The sea purifies anything it touches.”

“I suppose that's why, in the Iliad, Talthybios the herald threw the boar Agamemnon sacrificed when he finally apologized to Akhilleus into the sea,” Menedemos said.

“Just so.” Theagenes sounded pleased. “The carcass of the boar carried the burden of Agamemnon's oath. It should not have been eaten by men. The sea was the path of its travel to earth, sun, and the Furies.” The priest beamed at Menedemos. “I see you are a man who thinks on such things.”

“Well...” Menedemos was no more modest than he had to be, but he couldn't take that kind of praise with Sostratos standing beside him. He said, “My cousin leans more toward philosophy than I do.”

“I don't particularly lean toward philosophy myself,” Theagenes said. “I think we ought to do as the gods want us to do, not make up fine-sounding excuses to do as we please.”

Sostratos raised an eyebrow at that. Before he could start the sort of argument that had made Sokrates a candidate for hemlock, Menedemos said, “We do thank you for purifying the ship.” He gave Sostratos a look that said, Please don't.

To his relief, Sostratos didn't. Theagenes said, “I am pleased to hear such words from you, young man. A man who loves the gods will be loved by them.” He went down into the waist of the ship and splashed a little seawater on Rhodippos. The wounded man, lost in a fever dream, moaned and muttered to himself. Theagenes sighed. “I fear you're right about him. Death reaches toward him even as we watch.”