The Gryphon's Skull

“Well, well,” Philodemos said, a phrase Menedemos had been known to use himself. Philodemos pointed to him. “You're closer to the krater than I am, son. Is there enough wine left for another cup?”

“Let me look.” Menedemos did, and then reached for the dipper. “As a matter of fact, there's enough left for two.” He filled one for his father, one for himself.

“That man is so difficult,” Baukis told him a couple of days later. “He simply will not see reason. Maybe we just ought to sell him and try someone else.”

Menedemos tossed his head. “We can't do that. People would talk—he's been in the family his whole life. And he's a very good cook, you know. I wouldn't want to lose him, and neither would my father.”

Baukis made a sour face. “Yes, I've seen as much. Otherwise, he would have laid down the law to Sikon.” She threw her hands in the air. “What am I supposed to do? I'm not going to give up, but how can I make a proper fight of it? Maybe you have the answer, Menedemos.” She looked toward him, her eyes wide and hopeful.

Why did she appeal to him against his father, her husband? Because she was looking for a weapon to use against Philodemos and Sikon? Or simply because the two of them weren't so far apart in years, and Philodemos' beard was gray? Whatever the reason, Menedemos knew she was giving him his chance. He'd made the most of far less with plenty of other women. Why not here, with Baukis?

It would be easy, he thought. He bit down on the inside of his lower lip till he tasted blood. “I don't know,” he said woodenly. “I just don't know.”

And then, to his horrified dismay, his father's wife hung her head and quietly began to cry. In a small, broken voice, she said, “Maybe he's angry with me because I haven't got pregnant yet. I've done everything I know how to do—I've prayed, I've sacrificed—but I haven't caught. Maybe that's it.”

My father is an old man. His seed is bound to be cold. If I sow my seed in the furrow he's plowed, it would almost be doing him a favor. Menedemos sprang to his feet from the bench in the courtyard, so abruptly that Baukis blinked in surprise. “I'm sorry,” he mumbled. “I've just remembered—I've got an appointment down by the harbor. I'm late. I'm very late.”

The lie was clumsy. Baukis had to know it was a lie. Menedemos fled the house anyway, fled as if the Kindly Ones dogged his heels. And so they might, he thought as he looked around on the street, wondering where he would really go. If I stayed on the road I was traveling there, so they might.

He squeezed his hands into fists till his nails bit into his callused palms. Did Baukis know, did she have any idea, of the turmoil she roused in him? She'd never given any sign of it—but then, if she was a good wife, she wouldn't. Not all the seductions Menedemos tried succeeded.

He laughed, a harsh, bitter noise having nothing to do with mirth. This is a seduction I haven't tried, curse it. This is a seduction I'm not going to try. Baukis trusted him. By all the signs, she liked him. But she was his father's wife. “I can't,” he said, as if he were choking. “I can't. And I won't.”

All at once, he knew where he would go to keep his “appointment.” The closest brothel was only a couple of blocks away. That wasn't what he wanted, but maybe it would keep him from thinking about what he did want and—he told himself yet again—what he couldn't have.

Sostratos gaped at Himilkon. “What?” he said. “The conjugation of a verb in Aramaic changes, depending on whether the subject is masculine or feminine? That's crazy!”

The Phoenician shook his head. “No, best one. It's only different.” “Everything's different,” Sostratos said. “None of the words is anything like Greek. You have all these choking noises in your language.”

“I have learned Greek,” Himilkon said. “That was as hard for me as this is for you.”

He was bound to be right. That made Sostratos feel no better. “And did you tell me your alpha-beta has no vowels, and you write it from right to left?” Himilkon nodded. Sostratos groaned. “That's . . . very strange, too,” he said.

“We like our aleph-bet as well as you like yours,” Himilkon told him. The Phoenician scratched his head. “Interesting how some of the letters have names that are almost the same.”

“It's no accident,” Sostratos answered. “We Hellenes learned the art of writing from the Phoenicians who came with King Kadmos. We changed the letters to suit our language better, but we learned them from your folk. That's what Herodotos says, anyhow.”

“If you changed them, you should not blame us for leaving them the way they were,” Himilkon said. “Shall we go on with the lesson now? You are doing pretty well, you really are.”