The Gryphon's Skull

Damonax pointed to the back-projecting horn. “Pity this bit seems broken off. I wonder what the beast would have looked like when it was alive.”

“Not so pretty as gryphons are supposed to be, I suspect,” Sostratos said. “And what do you make of its teeth?”

“I didn't pay any attention to them,” Damonax confessed. As Sostratos had in the market square at Kaunos, the other Rhodian picked up the skull and turned it over for a closer look. When he put it down on the bench again, his face was thoughtful. “Doesn't have much in the way of fangs, does it?”

“I thought the same thing,” Sostratos said. “How is it supposed to guard the gold at the edge of the world and fight off thieves?”

“With its claws, perhaps,” Damonax suggested, and Sostratos dipped his head—that was a good idea, and it hadn't occurred to him. The older man looked from him to the gryphon's skull and back again, “Tell me, best one, now that you've got this remarkable thing here, what did you have in mind doing with it? Are you going to keep it at your house and tell stories about it the rest of your life?”

“No, by Zeus!” Sostratos exclaimed.

“Ah.” Damonax looked wise. “Then you'll want to sell it, I expect.” Try as he would, he couldn't keep a slightly dismissive tone from his voice. No matter what he says, he really does look down on traders, Sostratos realized. Smoothly, Damonax went on, “I could give you a good price for it myself, as a matter of fact.”

So you can keep it here and tell your own stories about it, Sostratos thought. He tossed his head. “I was going to take it to Athens, to let the philosophers at the Lykeion and the Academy examine it.”

As if he hadn't spoken, Damonax said, “How does two minai sound?”

“Two hundred drakhmai?” Sostratos tried hard not to show how startled he was. Menedemos, he was certain, would have sold the gryphon's skull on the spot, and spent the next year bragging about the profit he'd squeezed from worthless, ugly bones.

Damonax must have taken astonishment for rejection, for he said, “Well, if you won't take two, what about three?”

Part of Sostratos, the part that made him a pretty good merchant, wondered how high Damonax would go to buy the skull. The other part, the part that valued knowledge for its own sake, quailed in horror. Gods be praised my family is well enough off that I don't have to sell it for the first decent offer that comes along.

“You're very kind,” he said, by which he meant, You're very greedy, “but I really do intend to take it to Athens. I'd be on my way there now if my ship hadn't had to bring the Rhodian proxenos and his kin here from Kaunos.”

“Four minai?” Damonax said hopefully. Sostratos tossed his head again. Damonax sighed. “You're serious about going to Athens, aren't you?”

“Yes, of course I am,” Sostratos replied.

“Isn't that interesting? And here I thought someone who traded things for money would trade anything for money.” Damonax didn't seem to think Sostratos might take that for an insult: the older man hadn't quite called him a whore, but he'd come close. Damonax continued, “You never did explain why you had to get the Rhodian proxenos out of Kaunos.”

“Didn't I?” Thinking back, Sostratos realized he hadn't. He told the other man about Ptolemaios' descent on Lykia.

“Ah—that was news to me,” Damonax said. “Are you sure you won't reconsider my offer? I wish you luck getting to Athens from here. As soon as the word spreads, the Aegean will be full of war galleys. How much will Ptolemaios and Antigonos' sailors care about a gryphon's skull?”

Sostratos grimaced. Ptolemaios' fleet was based on Kos, while Antigonos' navy sailed from ports on the Ionian islands farther north and on the mainland of Anatolia. Damonax was bound to be right: those ships would clash, Sostratos said, “We're free. We're autonomous. We're neutral. No one's ships have any business interfering with us.”

“Certainly, that's how we Rhodians feel.” Damonax was polite as the ideal landed gentleman, too. That didn't keep him from asking the next obvious question: “Do you think the marshals' captains, or the pirates they hire to do their scouting and raiding, will agree with us?”

“I can't answer that,” Sostratos answered, in lieu of saying, Not a chance they will. But he went on, “The Aphrodite will try to get to Athens, though.”

“You are a stiff-necked fellow, aren't you?” Damonax said. “Suppose I were to give you six minai for that skull?”

“I didn't bring it here to try to sell it to you.” Sostratos raised his voice: “Arlissos! Where have you gone and disappeared to?”

When the Karian slave emerged, his cheeks were full as a dormouse's. “Are we leaving already?” he asked in disappointed tones around a mouthful of something or other.