The Gryphon's Skull

Menedemos dipped his head. “And tomorrow we'll put Dionysios ashore, and then we can head for home ourselves.”

“I wonder whether Halikarnassos has fallen,” Sostratos said.

“Me, I hope Ptolemaios' men sacked it,” Menedemos said.

His cousin laughed. “Of course you do. That would mean what's-his-name, the fellow with the friendly wife there, was likely dead. And then we could trade there again without worrying about your getting murdered.”

Ears hot, Menedemos said, “Well, that's not the only reason.” Sostratos laughed again, sure he was lying through his teeth. Since he was, he changed the subject in a hurry.

As the Aphrodite came into the harbor at Kos, Sostratos shaded his eyes from the sun with the palm of his hand and peered northeast across the narrow channel separating the island from Halikarnassos on the mainland. “No smoke,” he said. “No sea battles. Either the place fell a while ago or it hasn't fallen at all.” Menedemos didn't answer. “Did you hear me?” Sostratos asked. “I said—”

“I heard you,” Menedemos answered. “I'm just not listening to you.”

“Oh,” Sostratos said. “All right.” The anger lying under Menedemos' quiet words warned him he'd pushed things about as far as they would go, or perhaps a little further. Now if only Menedemos were as good at noticing when he goes too far with me, he thought, and then laughed. Wish for the moon, while you're at it.

“Harbor's crowded,” Diokles remarked. “Ships stuffed tight as olives in a jar.”

“There's the likely answer,” Sostratos said. “If Ptolemaios' fleet is back here, Halikarnassos probably still belongs to Antigonos.”

“Too bad,” Menedemos said. Then, suddenly, he took his right hand from the steering-oar tiller and pointed. His voice rose to a shout: “There's a spot we can squeeze into! Row, you bastards, before somebody steals it from us.”

“Rhyppapai! Rhyppapai!” the oarmaster called, giving the rowers the stroke. The merchant galley slid into the wharf space. “Back oars!” Diokles commanded, and then, as she came to a halt, “Oöp!” The men rested at the oars.

Dionysios son of Herakleitos, leather duffel on his shoulder, hurried back to the poop deck as longshoremen caught lines from the Aphrodite and made her fast to the quay. “Put up the gangplank,” he barked at Menedemos. “I have to be on my way.”

Menedemos tilted his head back and looked down his nose at the passenger. “You talk to a skipper like that aboard his ship and he'll throw you overboard. You won't need to worry about the gangplank then, by Zeus.”

“And you don't go anywhere till you pay us the twenty-five drakhmai you still owe us,” Sostratos added.

Fuming, the dapper man gave him the second half of his fare— again, in Ptolemaios' light drakhmai. Even after that, Menedemos took his own sweet time about running the gangplank over to the pier. When he finally did, Dionysios sprang onto it and went down the pier and into the polis of Kos at a dead run.

“What's chasing him?” one of the longshoremen asked.

Sostratos shrugged. “Who knows? Some people are just glad to get off a ship.” The longshoreman laughed. Sostratos asked a question of his own: “What went wrong with the siege of Halikarnassos?”

“Oh, you were here when that started?” the longshoreman asked. Sostratos dipped his head. The Koan, a disgusted look on his face, spat into the sea. “Ptolemaios' army was on the point of taking the place when who should show up but Demetrios son of Antigonos, with the army he'd brought back from fighting somebody or other way off in the east.”

“Seleukos?” Sostratos suggested.

“I think so,” the longshoreman answered. “Anyway, he relieved the place and put a big new garrison into it, so there's no point going after it anymore.”

Menedemos made a horrible face. “Too bad,” he said.

“I think so, too,” the Koan agreed; Halikarnassos was his polis' longtime trading rival.

“Demetrios came back to Anatolia from fighting Seleukos, you said?” Sostratos asked, and the longshoreman dipped his head. As was his way, Sostratos found another question: “How did he do out in the east?”

“Well, I don't know all the battles and such, but I don't think he won the war,” the Koan replied.

Demetrios beat Ptolemaios' army here, but he couldn't beat Seleukos' army there, Sostratos thought. Isn't that interesting? Ptolemaios had let Seleukos go off to the east to cause trouble for Antigonos in a new quarter. By all appearances, Seleukos was giving the lord of Egypt everything he wanted and then some.

“What other news besides Halikarnassos?” Menedemos asked.

“You should have got here half a month ago,” the longshoreman told him. “The festival Ptolemaios gave when his lady had a boy ...” He grinned reminiscently. “I drank so much wine, my head ached for two days afterwards.”