The Sacred Land sam-3

by Harry Turtledove

  “I can do that, I suppose,” Sostratos said. “What do you want me to say?”

  Maybe that hadn’t been the light of intelligence after all. Menedemos drummed his fingers on the steering-oar tiller. “Do you know where we are, my dear?” he asked sweetly. “Do you have any idea which Phoenician city we’re closest to?”

  “Of course not.” Sostratos sounded affronted. “How could I know that?”

  “Well, one good way might be to ask the people on the boat there, don’t you think?”

  “Oh,” Sostratos said. This time, it really was the light of intelligence, or something like it, anyhow. Still sounding slightly peevish, Sostratos asked, “Why didn’t you tell me to do that before?”

  Menedemos drummed his fingers on the tiller again. “Never mind,” he said; he didn’t feel like arguing with his cousin. “Just take care of it when we catch up with them, all right?”

  “Certainly, O best one,” Sostratos replied with such dignity as he could muster. “And it goes to show some people in these parts do catch fish, doesn’t it?” Menedemos supposed it did. He hadn’t thought of that.

  The fishermen in that boat were good sailors. They got the sail down with commendable haste and wrung every digit of speed they could from their little craft. That made the Aphrodite take longer to catch up to them but never gave them the slightest chance of escaping her. They were much too far out to sea to get to shore before she came up alongside them. Even then, they were ready to fight. A couple of them brandished what were either gutting knives or shortswords. A third shot an arrow that splashed into the sea fifteen or twenty cubits short of the merchant galley.

  “Tell them we’re friendly. Tell them we don’t want to murder them or sell them into slavery,” Menedemos said. The fisherman with the bow let fly again. This arrow came closer. Menedemos scowled. “I get more tempted every minute, though.”

  His cousin shouted something in Aramaic. The fishermen shouted back. Menedemos raised a questioning eyebrow. Sostratos coughed. Then he said, “They’re telling me to do things to my mother Sophokles never thought of in Oidipous Tyrannos .”

  “Barbarians curse that way, don’t they?” Menedemos said.

  “They’re not paying me compliments, my dear,” Sostratos answered.

  “Heh,” Menedemos said. “All right. Find out what we need to know. And tell them that if they don’t learn manners we cursed well will ram them and sink them, just to teach them to respect their betters.”

  “I don’t think I can say all that in Aramaic,” Sostratos warned.

  “Try.”

  Sostratos dipped his head. He made what to Menedemos sounded like horrible choking noises. The Phoenicians in the fishing boat shouted back. This time, they seemed less impassioned. So did Sostratos when he replied to them. After a bit, he turned to Menedemos and said, “Euge, my dear. Sidon is a couple of hours’ sail to the south. A very nice bit of navigating.”

  “Euge is right, skipper,” Diokles agreed. “All that water to cross, and then to make it to the coast almost right where we wanted to be…” He raised his voice, calling out to the sailors, “Give the captain a cheer, boys! He put us right where he wanted to.”

  “Euge!” the men called. Menedemos grinned and waved. Somebody added, “The skipper always puts it right where he wants to.” Menedemos laughed at that. After a moment, though, he felt like scowling again. Thanks to his bargain with his cousin, he might not have the chance to put it where he wanted to.

  “Shall I send them on their way?” Sostratos asked.

  “Yes, go ahead,” Menedemos answered. “We’ve found out what we needed to know. If they’re telling the truth, that is.”

  “Not much point to lying about something like that,” Sostratos said. “We’d find the truth soon enough, and their lie wouldn’t do us any harm, no matter how much they might wish it would.” He shouted once more, in incomprehensible Aramaic. The fishermen understood it well enough, though, whether Menedemos did or not. They steered away from the Aphrodite , and were no doubt delighted when the akatos, which dwarfed their little boat, did not match their course.

  Sidon, once the merchant galley reached it, proved to lie on a small promontory behind a line of islets running parallel to the coast. “It’s not a very big place, is it?” Menedemos said, none too happily-he wanted a good market for the Aphrodite ’s wares.

  “But look at the buildings,” Sostratos said. “I’ve heard the Phoenicians build tall, and now I see it’s true. They go up and up and up.”

  He was right. Few buildings in a polis full of Hellenes rose more than two stories above the street, so that the temples and other public structures stood out. Sidon was different. Every other building seemed to tower four or five stories high. Menedemos said, “The Sidonians must have strong legs, from going up and down all those stairs so often.”

  “I wouldn’t be surprised if you’re right,” his cousin answered. “They have to get their exercise somewhere, I suppose. There certainly doesn’t look to be room in the town for a gymnasion.” He paused, then laughed. “In fact, the very idea of a gymnasion in a place like Sidon is absurd.”

  “Why? “ Menedemos asked. “They could squeeze one in if they wanted to badly enough.”

  Sostratos gave him the sort of look he hated, the look that said he’d been so blatantly stupid, he should have been ashamed of himself. Menedemos scratched his head. He couldn’t see why, which only made things worse. Holding on to patience with both hands-and making a point of doing so-Sostratos said, “What is a gymnasion? Literally, that is-what does the word mean?”

  “A place to go nak-” Menedemos stopped. “Oh. Phoenicians don’t go naked, do they?”

  He could see they didn’t for himself. The day was warm, warmer than it was likely to have been in Rhodes at this season of the year. It was more than warm enough for a lot of male Hellenes to have stripped off their chitons and gone through the streets bare without a second thought. They took nudity in stride and took it for granted.

  But almost all the people he could see in Sidon covered themselves in cloth all the way down to their feet. The only exceptions were men- probably slaves-bearing heavy burdens, and even they wore loincloths. Those were the only exceptions Menedemos spotted, at any rate. Sostratos pointed to a knot of men on a quay and said, “Look. They’re Hellenes, or maybe Macedonians.”

  He was right. He usually was. Some of the men he’d spotted wore short tunics like the ones he and Menedemos had on. A couple of others were in linen corselets and bronze helms with tall horsehair crests. Menedemos couldn’t imagine why they wanted to show they were soldiers in a town unlikely to be attacked. All it would do was make them sweat more than they had to. But that was their worry, not his.

  Sostratos did some more pointing, this time at some of the ships and, more important, at the large ship sheds by the water’s edge. “Look at all the war galleys Antigonos has here,” he said. “Do you suppose Menelaos knows about that, over in Salamis?”

  Menedemos laughed. No matter how much Sostratos knew, he could be naive as a child. “My dear, think about how many ships go back and forth between here and Salamis,” Menedemos said. “If I were Menelaos, I wouldn’t just know how many ships old One-Eye has here. I’d know the name of every rower on every one of them, and I’d know the name of every rower’s father, too. And you can bet your last obolos that Menelaos does.”

  Now it was his cousin’s turn to say, “Oh,” in a gratifyingly small voice. “Yes, that is reasonable, isn’t it?”

  Menedemos guided the Aphrodite to a mooring place at the end of a quay. The longshoremen who caught the lines to make the ship fast stared at the scantily clad Hellenes aboard her. They shouted questions in their harsh language. Sostratos gave halting answers. Menedemos caught the merchant galley’s name, those of his father and uncle, and that of Rhodes. But for the handful of names, he understood not a word his cousin was saying.

  A big round ship was tied up next to the akatos. More longshore
men carried sacks of grain off her, down the quay, and into the city. As they worked, they chanted: “Hilni hiya holla-ouahillok holya.”

  “What does that mean?” Menedemos asked Sostratos.

  “What does what mean?” his cousin answered. Menedemos pointed to the men unloading the round ship. Sostratos cocked his head to one side. Menedemos got the idea he hadn’t even noticed the chant till it was pointed out to him. After a bit, Sostratos shrugged. “I don’t know. I don’t think it means anything at all, though I wouldn’t swear to that. If I had to guess, I’d say it was something rhythmic they sing to help the time pass while they work.”

  “Could be,” Menedemos said. “We have chants like that. I just wondered if this one made any sense.”

  “Not to me.” Sostratos pointed toward the far end of the wharf. “And here comes an officer to ask us questions.”

  “Oh, hurrah,” Menedemos said, meaning anything but, “Gods-detested arrogant snoops, the lot of them. I don’t care if they work for Antigonos or Ptolemaios or one of the other Macedonian marshals. To the crows with ‘em all.”

  Antigonos’ man was quite tall-several digits taller than Sostratos and close to twice as wide through the shoulders. He had blue eyes, blondish hair, and a once-fiery beard now streaked with gray. Menedemos wondered for a moment if he was a Keltic mercenary, but he proved to be a Macedonian. “Who are you, and where are you from?” he asked, not bothering to sharpen his slurred accent. “Don’t see many strange Hellenes here, and that’s a fact.”

  “This is the Aphrodite , out of Rhodes,” Menedemos told him.

  “ Rhodes, eh?” The Macedonian didn’t seem to know what to make of that. “Your little island built some ships for Antigonos, but you do a lot of business with Ptolemaios, too.”

  “Yes, we’re neutral,” Menedemos said, wondering if there were any such thing with the world as it was these days. “We have no quarrel with anybody.”

  “Ah, but what happens when somebody has a quarrel with you}” the Macedonian asked. Then he shrugged. “What are you carrying?”

  “We’ve got papyrus and ink, Koan silk, fine Rhodian perfume, some of the best olive oil you’ll ever see, Lykian ham, smoked eels from Phaselis, and a nice stock of books to help pass the time.”

  Antigonos’ officer didn’t laugh at the olive oil. The way things had gone, Menedemos took that as good news. The Macedonian said, “Books, eh? Why would you bring books?”

  “Didn’t Alexander himself travel with them?” Menedemos replied. “If they were good enough for him, why not for you?”

  “On account of he had his letters, and I don’t.” The Macedonian’s expression sharpened. “Coming from the west, you’d’ve stopped in Salamis, wouldn’t you?”

  “That’s right,” Menedemos said.

  “Well, what did you see there?” the officer demanded. “How many war galleys in the harbor? Are they building more? Is Menelaos in town, or is he somewhere else on Cyprus? What’s he up to?”

  Before answering, Menedemos sent Sostratos a significant look. If Antigonos’ men were so interested in learning what was happening on Cyprus, how could his cousin doubt that Ptolemaios’ forces on the island also closely questioned sailors coming from Phoenicia? “Didn’t pay much attention to the harbor,” Menedemos said.

  “Oh, yes-likely tell.” Antigonos’ officer curled his lip in what he no doubt thought to be an aristocratic sneer.

  “By the gods, it’s true,” Menedemos said. “I don’t care about war galleys; they’ve got nothing to do with me. If there’d been a couple of other akatoi in the harbor, you can bet I’d’ve noticed them. We did see Menelaos, though. He’s there.”

  “Ah, that’s something.” The Macedonian eagerly snatched the bone Menedemos tossed him. “Where’d you see him? What was he doing?”

  “He was at a tavern, not far from the harbor,” Menedemos answered.

  “What was he doing? Was he getting drunk?” Yes, the officer was eager, all right. “Do you know if he gets drunk a lot?” Given the Macedonian reputation for pouring down cup after cup of neat wine, the questions weren’t so surprising. If Cyprus’ commander were drunk all the time, the place would be easier for Antigonos’ men to attack.

  But Menedemos and Sostratos both tossed their heads. Sostratos said, “He didn’t seem drunk at all. He came to the place for the same reason we did: to hear Areios the kitharist play and sing.”

  That drew the Macedonian’s interest, too, but not in the way Menedemos would have expected. “Really?” he said. “How was he? I’ve heard of him, but I’ve never seen him perform. I saw Stratonikos a few times when I was back in Hellas. He’s the best I know-but the tongue on that man! If a viper had it, he wouldn’t need to bite you-he’d just stick out that tongue and you’d fall over dead.”

  “That’s the truth!” Sostratos said, and he and the Macedonian spent the next quarter hour chatting-sometimes arguing-about the virtues of various kitharists and swapping stories about Stratonikos. For all his uncouth accent, the officer plainly knew what he was talking about. Menedemos listened in growing bemusement. He would no more have expected the fellow to care about the kithara than he would have thought a Phoenician might set up as a philosopher. You never can tell, he thought.

  At last, with obvious reluctance, Antigonos’ officer tore himself away.

  Sostratos had succeeded in charming him; he said, “I enjoyed the talk, O best one. Gods give you profit here in Sidon.” He went back into the city whistling the tune to one of Areios’ Alexandrian love songs, which Sostratos had taught him.

  “He wasn’t a donkey after all,” Menedemos said.

  “No, but he brayed like one. Macedonians!” Sostratos answered. “When he got excited there, I was missing about one word in four.”

  “That doesn’t matter,” Menedemos said. “What matters is, he liked you, and so he’ll give us a good character. Well done, my dear.”

  “Thanks,” Sostratos said. “And tomorrow we’ll see what we can find here in Sidon.”

  “Yes.” Normally, one of the things Menedemos would have looked for in a new city was the bored wife of a merchant or an officer. Because of his oath, he wasn’t supposed to do that. Harlots all summer, he thought, and sighed. Then he shrugged. It wasn’t as if Sostratos had asked him to stay away from women altogether. His cousin knew him better than that.

  Walking through the narrow streets of Sidon, Sostratos kept craning his neck up and up. He didn’t particularly want to do it, but he couldn’t help himself. When he glanced over at Menedemos, he was relieved to find his cousin doing the same thing. Menedemos gave him a sheepish look. “I know the buildings won’t fall down on us, but I can’t stop thinking they might,” he said.

  “Yes, I know. I feel like that, too,” Sostratos said. “I wonder why they build so tall. And what happens when there’s an earthquake?”

  “Things fall down, I suppose.” Menedemos spat into the bosom of his tunic to turn aside the evil omen. After another couple of paces, Sostratos imitated him. Logically, he saw no connection between the act of spitting and an earthquake that might come in the next instant or might not come for the next hundred years or more. How the one could keep the other from happening was beyond him.

  He spat anyhow. The training in logic and analysis he’d had at the Lykeion in Athens warred with the superstitions he’d picked up at sea. At least as often as not, superstition won. For one thing, he spent his time these days around sailors, not around philosophers. For another, he didn’t see how spitting could hurt, and so…

  “Why not?” he muttered.

  “What’s that?” Menedemos asked.

  “Nothing,” Sostratos said, embarrassed Menedemos had heard him.

  The Sidonians took their towering buildings as much for granted as Sostratos took the shorter ones of Rhodes and other Hellenic poleis. They swarmed around the two Rhodians, sometimes grumbling at the slow-moving, gawking foreigners. All the men wore beards; though shaving was popular among Hellenes,
especially of the younger generation, it hadn’t caught on here. Some of their robes-often boldly striped in deep blue or rusty red-had fancy fringes on the hem; they used one hand to keep those fringes from trailing in the dust. They wore tall cylindrical caps or lengths of cloth-again, often brightly colored-wrapped around their hair.

  More women went out in public than would have in a polis full of Hellenes. Some of them were veiled against the gaze of strange men, but many weren’t. Quite a few stared in frank curiosity at the Rhodians. Sostratos needed a little while to figure out why. “We’re a novelty here,” he said. “Hellenes, I mean.”

  “Well, of course,” Menedemos answered. “I haven’t seen many Phoenician women till now. They’re not bad, are they?”

  “No,” Sostratos admitted; he’d noticed bright eyes and red lips and white teeth himself. “They put on more paint than our women do- except for hetairai, of course.”

  “They’re more used to being seen than our women are,” Menedemos said. “They aim to take advantage of it.”

  “I think you’re right.” Sostratos dipped his head. Then he paused and sniffed. “Sidon doesn’t smell the way I thought it would.”

  “It smells like a city-smoke and people and animals and shit,” Menedemos said. “Maybe it smells a little worse than a lot of places-all those rotting shellfish they use to get their crimson dye. But what did you expect?”

  “I don’t know.” But Sostratos did know, and at last, sheepishly, he owned up to it: “I thought it might smell like spices and incenses, because so many of them come through here on their way to Hellas: pepper and cinnamon and myrrh and frankincense and I don’t know what all else. But”-he sniffed-”you’d never know it by your nose.”

  “No, you wouldn’t,” Menedemos agreed. “Sidon smells like the garbage on a hot day after Sikon did up seafood the night before.”