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You clear your throat and gesture placatingly to Palamedes – or at least, as placatingly as you can, looming over him as you are in the dimly lit, cramped hold.
“Prince Palamedes, all you have said is fair and orderly. I have reconsidered my query - let us put this issue behind us.” Palamedes’ delicate eyebrows raise, his forehead wrinkled finely. And yet, there is something else that has captured your interest. You feel a faint hint of embarrassment within your guts, but quash the feeling - some might consider this next query unbecoming of a nobleman.
“However, I do seek your counsel in another matter. What do you know of the sculpture trade along the Aegean?”
Palamedes stares at you blankly for several long moments.
“The – sculpture trade?” He is uncharacteristically tentative in his reply, perhaps believing that he has misheard you. His gold-flecked eyes narrow over his pointed nose.
“Yes, Prince Palamedes,” you clarify, “The busts within the foreign galley were of impressive manufacture. Even unpainted, they were lifelike – the talent of the man who brought the likenesses of his patrons from the very stone is remarkable. Where are these men trained? What stone is quarried for this purpose and from where?” The questions tumble forth naturally.
Palamedes, perhaps for the first time in your recollection, smiles faintly.
“You surprise me, Nikandros. From your frame, I find myself anticipating brutality and crudeness – but your resemblance to the Tirynian* alone should not dictate my expectation.”
“You are fortunate, Nikandros – I am skilled in the means of manufacture and technical arts. My fathers and brothers were not interested in such things – “Why dirty your hands with the labor of the common people?” my father once asked of me. I have sculpted here and there myself, although I do not count myself as truly skilled in this area. Let us take your last question first – most sculptors of our time now utilize limestone of a dense quality. You see, the stone itself can be porous and sometimes fragile, so one must locate a quarry where the limestone itself has been compressed tightly together in Gaia’s embrace. There are surprisingly few of these quarries that are both easy to access and close enough to a port for transport – many of them also supply materials for construction of fortifications and temples, as you might expect. Now in Hellas, I know of six quarries…”
As you listen to Palamedes speak, you wonder - would it be possible to obtain some limestone of your own? You have the strength and endurance to wield a chisel, you're certain. But then again, you suspect that dexterity and knowledge of the stone would be the critical element...
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He is suggesting that you are akin to Heracles in size and appearance, who ruled in Tiryns at one point before his ascension.
>Give me a dice+1d2 to see if Odysseus comes to bother you. 1 = he does, 2 = he does not.
