The Gryphon's Skull

He and Menedemos had almost reached the Aphrodite when someone called to them from behind. Alarm ran through Sostratos: had Ptolemaios decided to be difficult after all? But when he looked back over his shoulder, he recognized the fellow waving to them from up the street. “Hail, Pixodaros,” he said. “What can we do for you today? “

“Hail, both of you,” the silk dealer answered. “When I heard you'd come back to Kos, I thought it was a gift from the gods. Have you any more crimson dye?”

“Certainly,” Sostratos answered. “How much do you need?”

“How much do you have?” Pixodaros asked.

“Let me think.” Sostratos plucked at his beard. “I believe we have . . . fifty-three jars. That's based on what we sold. It might be fewer, though. We had to fight off pirates, and they might have stolen a few when they went back to their own ship.”

“By Zeus Labraundeus, I'm glad to see you well and safe,” Pixodaros said. “May they all go up on crosses!”

“May they indeed.” Normally, Sostratos was among the most mild-mannered of men. Now he sounded thoroughly grim. Whenever he thought of a pirate picking up the leather sack that held the gryphon's skull and leaping back into the hemiolia from the Aphrodite, his blood boiled.

“How do you keep such good track of what's sold and what isn't?” Menedemos asked him.

He shrugged. “I write up the accounts, and I remember them.” It didn't seem remarkable to him. He asked a question of his own: “How do you carry so much of the Iliad and Odyssey around in your head?”

“That's different. For one thing, the words don't change. For another, they're worth remembering.” Menedemos turned back to Pixodaros. “Please excuse us, best one. We do go back and forth at each other, I know.”

The Karian smiled. “Kinsmen will do that.”

“How much dye do you need?” Sostratos asked him.

“As much as you have. If you had more, I would buy it. I have a lot of silk to dye, and my, ah, client wants the cloth as soon as he can get it.”

“You can dye a lot of silk with fifty or so jars of crimson,” Sostratos said. Pixodaros nodded, then remembered himself and dipped his head. Sostratos plucked at his beard again. He lowered his voice to ask, “Does Antigonos want to give his officers silk tunics, or is this for the officers' women?”

Both Menedemos and Pixodaros started. “Not Antigonos—Demetrios, his son. But how can you know that?” the silk merchant demanded. “Are you a wizard?” The fingers of his left hand twisted in an apotropaic gesture Sostratos had seen other Karians use.

He tossed his head. “Not at all. Who but a Macedonian marshal could afford so much crimson-dyed silk? If it were Ptolemaios, you would have come out and said so. It might have been Lysimakhos or Kassandros, but they're on good terms with Ptolemaios now, and old One-Eye isn't. He's the one you have the best reason to be cagey about.”

“Ah. I see,” Pixodaros said. “True—it is all simple enough, once you explain it.”

Anything is simple, once someone else explains it, Sostratos thought sourly. But before he could say that out loud—and he might have— Menedemos contrived, almost by accident, to tread on his toe. After apologizing, his cousin asked Pixodaros, “And what will you give us for the dye?”

The merchant looked pained. “You have me where you want me, I know. I only ask you to remember this: if you hurt me badly now, we have years of dealing ahead where I can take my revenge.” He gave Sostratos half a bow. “I too have a long memory.”

“No doubt,” Sostratos said politely. “Well, what does fifteen drakhmai the jar sound like to you?”

“What does it sound like?” Pixodaros exclaimed. “Piracy. Robbery. Extortion. In your dreams, you sell it for half that much. Because you have me, because I need it, I will give you half that much.”

“You gave more than half that much in silk when we stopped here in the springtime,” Sostratos said.

“Silk is one thing. Silver is another,” Pixodaros replied. He haggled as fiercely as he could, but found himself at a disadvantage: the Rhodians knew how much he needed the dye. That meant they could bargain fiercely, while he couldn't. At the end, he threw his hands in the air. “All right, twelve drakhmai the jar it is. Bandits, both of you. How much silver is that altogether?”

“Let's see exactly how many jars we have.” Sostratos called orders to the sailors. They brought forty-nine jars of crimson dye up onto the quay. He muttered to himself. “That would be ... 588 drakhmai all told—not Ptolemaios' light drakhmai,” he added.

“I understand. I'll be back.” Pixodaros hurried off into Kos.

Menedemos snapped his fingers. “I promised to give a sheep at the Asklepeion here if the men healed well after the fight with the pirates. Now I won't be able to.”

Sostratos thought, then tossed his head. “No, you promised to give a sheep here if you could, or on Rhodes if you couldn't. As long as you offer the animal to the god, you're not forsworn.”

“Are you sure?” his cousin asked.

“Positive.”