The Gryphon's Skull

She thought before answering, “Well enough.” She was no fool; the way she said even commonplace things showed that. And so? Menedemos jeered at himself. Are you Sostratos, to look for what a woman has between her ears before you look for what she has between her legs? Baukis went on, “I didn't expect to see you back in Rhodes so soon.”

“I didn't expect to be in one of Antigonos' cities so close to where Ptolemaios started his campaign,” Menedemos replied.

“This endless war is liable to be the death of trade,” she said. “That would be bad for Rhodes, and especially bad for this family,”

“True,” Menedemos agreed. No, she was no fool; plenty of men who stood up and blathered in the Assembly couldn't see so clearly.

Her expression sharpened. “You surprised Sikon when you came home, too. Do you know how much he paid for last night's shrimp and eels?”

Menedemos tossed his head. “No. All I know is, they were delicious.”

“Expensive, too,” Baukis said. “If we make less money because of the war, how long can we afford such fancy opson?”

“Quite a while,” Menedemos said in some alarm. However young she was, his father's second wife took her duties as household manager most seriously. She'd already had several rows with the cook. Menedemos went on, “We're still a long way from poor, you know.”

“Now we are,” Baukis answered. “But how long will we stay that way if we make less and spend more? I'd better have a word with Sikon. Sooner or later, he'll have to listen to me.”

She strode off toward the kitchen. Menedemos' gaze followed her. She didn't have a boy's hips and backside, not at all. And, here inside the house, she didn't veil herself against the prying eyes of men. It was practically like seeing her naked all the time. Menedemos’ manhood stirred.

Baukis came out of the kitchen with bread, wine, and an indignant expression on her face. “He's not in there yet,” she complained. “He spends too much money, and he's lazy, too.” She sat down on the bench, hardly more than a cubit away from Menedemos, and began to eat her breakfast.

Does she know what I feel? Menedemos wondered, as he had ever since realizing it himself the autumn before. He didn't think so, but. .. Is she sitting there to tease me? Is she sitting there because she has something in mind, too?

He had more than a little practice seducing other men's wives. Here, he didn't want to use what he knew. He wished he were aboard the Aphrodite, a steering-oar tiller in each hand, wave and wind and the chance of pirates all he had to worry about. None of them seemed so dangerous as the woman beside him.

Gulping down the last of his wine, he got to his feet and said, “I'm off. As long as I'm back in Rhodes, I have a couple of men I need to see.”

“All right.” Baukis went on eating. Menedemos' withdrawal felt uncomfortably like headlong retreat.

One of the advantages of being a free Hellene was having slaves to do the work one didn't care to do oneself. Sostratos took that for granted. His slave, a Karian named Arlissos, did not. “Is it much farther, boss?” he whined in almost unaccented Greek. “This polluted thing gets heavier every step I take.”

Such illogical arguments were the wrong sort to use against Sostratos, who answered, “That's impossible,” and for good measure added, “And, since no place inside the walls of Rhodes is more than about ten stadia from anywhere else inside the walls, you're not walking all that far.”

“I bet it seems farther to me than it does to you,” Arlissos said darkly.

Sostratos didn't deign to reply to that. He was just glad he'd had Arlissos drape the gryphon's skull in a square of sailcloth before taking it through the streets of Rhodes. Otherwise, people would have stopped him every plethron—more likely, every few cubits— and pestered him with questions.

Arlissos seemed more inclined to pester him with complaints: “And then, once we get where we're going, I'll have to lug it all the way back.”

Not if I break it over your head, Sostratos thought. But he couldn't do that, no matter how tempting it might be. So far as he knew, this was the only gryphon's skull ever seen by Hellenes. He couldn't afford to have anything happen to it.

“You'll have plenty of time to rest and loaf when we get where we're going,” he said. “In fact, if you slide back to the kitchen, you can probably wheedle the cook out of some wine, and maybe some figs or some nuts while you're at it.”

The slave brightened, though he didn't seem to want to show Sostratos he was any happier. “My arms are going to come out of their sockets,” he grumbled.

“Oh, be quiet,” Sostratos said, and then, “There's that little temple to Hephaistos, so it's only another couple of blocks.”