The Sacred Land sam-3

by Harry Turtledove

  “Well, thank you,” Menedemos answered. Politely, he added, “And you?”

  “Good.” She smiled at him and, turning her face away from her husband, ran her tongue over her lips. Then she batted her eyelashes again.

  Oh, by the gods! Menedemos thought in alarm. Sostratos doesn’t want me seducing anybody, and I don’t want this harridan seducing me. He wondered if he ought to find another inn. But he didn’t feel like wasting his time in another dicker over another unappealing little chamber. The less I’m here, the less I’ll have to deal with her, he told himself.

  She said something in Aramaic to her husband. Whatever it was, it started the argument once more. Menedemos didn’t want to get stuck in the middle. He was about to retreat to his room when a man came in carrying a chunk of pork. Menedemos remembered Sostratos saying Ioudaioi didn’t eat swine’s flesh. That plainly didn’t hold for Phoenicians. The newcomer gave the innkeeper a bronze coin. The innkeeper took the meat and threw it into hot oil. The oil bubbled and sizzled. A savory aroma filled the chamber.

  But it wasn’t so savory as it might have been. The meat couldn’t have smelled better. The oil could have. It wasn’t very fresh, and hadn’t been very good to start with. Menedemos wrinkled his nose. So did the fellow who’d brought in the pork. He said something in Aramaic. Menedemos didn’t know how the innkeeper replied, but he sounded defensive. The way he spread his hands also made that likely.

  Menedemos had an inspiration. As the innkeeper turned the meat with a pair of wooden tongs, the Rhodian asked him, “Do you want to buy some better olive oil?”

  “What you say?” The fellow’s Greek was horrible.

  “Olive oil. Good olive oil. You buy?” Menedemos spoke as if to an idiot child-not that an idiot child would have been interested in buying olive oil, of course.

  He wasn’t sure the innkeeper understood the Greek for olive oil, and wished Sostratos were here to translate for him. But he had to do the best he could. He pointed into the pan and held his nose. The man whose pork was frying did the same thing.

  “Olive oil? You? How much?” the innkeeper asked.

  “Yes. Olive oil. Me.” Menedemos started to dip his head, then remembered to nod instead. He named his price.

  The Sidonian stared at him. He said something in Aramaic- Menedemos guessed it was the price, translated into his own language. The innkeeper’s wife and the customer both exclaimed in what certainly sounded like horror. The innkeeper then doled out one word of Greek: “No.”

  That wasn’t an invitation to haggle. It was rejection, plain and simple. As the innkeeper took the fried pork out of the pan, wiped oil off it with a bit of rag, and handed it to the man who’d brought it in, Menedemos asked him, “Well, what do you usually pay for olive oil?”

  He had to simplify that before the innkeeper understood him. When the fellow told him, he let out a wistful sigh. The innkeeper bought oil as cheap as he could get. He wouldn’t have been interested in Damonax’s fine oil at any price that let Menedemos break even, let alone turn a profit. So much for inspiration, he thought.

  The man with the fried pork walked out gnawing on it. The innkeeper and his wife didn’t start quarreling again, but the woman did send Menedemos a wink and a leer. He retreated faster than the Persian king had after each battle against Alexander. The Phoenician woman let out a sigh doubtless intended to be alluring. It only made Menedemos retreat faster still.

  When he told Sostratos about it on the Aphrodite , his cousin said, “Yes, now give me another story. You’re trying to back out of your oath, is what you’re doing.”

  “By the gods, I am not!” Menedemos said with a shudder. “Come to the inn with me and you’ll see for yourself. I tell you, I wouldn’t have this woman on a bet, and to the crows with me if I can understand why the barbarian married her.”

  “Maybe she brought a large dowry,” Sostratos suggested.

  “Maybe,” Menedemos said. “That makes more sense than anything else I can think of, but even so…” He shuddered again, then went halfway toward changing the subject: “I tried to sell the innkeeper some of your brother-in-law’s olive oil.”

  “Did you? Well, thanks,” Sostratos said. “Let me guess-no luck?”

  “I’m afraid not, my dear. He was using some dreadful, nasty stuff to fry meat, and I hoped he might want something better, but no. He used the nasty oil because it was cheap, and he turned green when I told him what I wanted for ours-as green as if he were seasick, or as if he’d been tasting his own oil. I did try, though.”

  Sostratos sighed. “I already said thank you. I’ll say it again. Gods only know how we’re going to unload that stuff. It is good oil, but even so…” He clicked his tongue between his teeth. “I wouldn’t mind breaking an amphora of it over Damonax’s head.”

  “Have you got your donkey yet?” Menedemos asked. “Besides your brother-in-law, I mean?”

  “Heh,” Sostratos said, and then tossed his head. “No, not yet. Prices for beasts of burden are higher than I want to pay, because Antigonos’ soldiers have bought up-or maybe stolen, for all I know-so many of them. But there’s one-a mule, actually, not a donkey-I have my eye on, if I can get the man who owns it down to something like a reasonable price.”

  “I wished I had you along today, so you could have told the innkeeper just how vile his olive oil was,” Menedemos said. “Maybe I should have learned some Aramaic after all.”

  “I could say, ‘I told you so,’ “ Sostratos remarked. But then he surprised Menedemos by continuing, “But I won’t. I’ve been speaking it all day, and my head feels pounded flat.”

  “I believe you.” Menedemos didn’t really want to speak Aramaic. He wanted all the barbarians he dealt with to speak Greek. Doing things the other way round was, in his mind, a poor second best.

  A big round ship made her slow, stately way into Sidon’s harbor. Her entrance had to be slow and stately. The wind had brought her south past the promontory on which the Phoenician town sat, but that same wind blew dead against her when she tried to come about and sail in. That failing, the crew worked their sweeps and rowed the round ship into port. Her performance under oars was to the Aphrodite ’s as a spavined ass’ was to that of a Persian stallion.

  When at last she tied up at a quay perhaps a plethron from the Aphrodite , she started disgorging soldiers. Some of them wore their corselets and crested bronze helms; more carried them. In this warm weather, Menedemos reckoned that sensible. He wouldn’t have wanted to wear any more than he had to, either.

  Sostratos’ lips were moving. After the last trooper came off the merchantman, he said, “I counted two hundred and eight men there. The next interesting question is whether they’ll stay here or go on to someplace else-someplace farther south, say.”

  “If they stay here, Antigonos or his general probably intends to use them against Cyprus,” Menedemos said, and his cousin dipped his head in agreement. Menedemos went on, “If they move south, where will they be going? Against Egypt, do you think?”

  “That seems likely,” Sostratos said. “The next question is, how long will Ptolemaios or his brother Menelaos need to hear those men are here and they’ve done whatever they end up doing?”

  “Only a few days’ sail from here to Cyprus,” Menedemos observed. “Not much more to Alexandria-maybe no more, because you’re likely to have the wind with you all the way down to the Nile. If someone doesn’t leave with the news before the sun sets tomorrow, I’d be astonished.”

  “So would I.” Sostratos dipped his head once more. He went on, “I can hardly wait to start down toward the land of the Ioudaioi. I wonder how many Hellenes have ever gone there. Not many, unless I miss my guess.”

  “You could write a book,” Menedemos said.

  He didn’t like the glow that lit his cousin’s eyes. “You’re right,” Sostratos murmured. “I could, couldn’t I? Every Hellene who ever set foot in India seems to have written down what he saw and heard there. Maybe I could do the same for this
place.”

  “That’s fine,” Menedemos told him. “Or it’s fine as long as you remember you’re there first to buy balsam and whatever else you find. If you take care of that, whatever else you do is your own affair. If you don’t, though, you’ll have to explain to me and to your father-and to mine-why you didn’t.”

  “Yes, my dear. I do understand that, I really do,” Sostratos said patiently.

  Menedemos wondered whether to believe him.

  Having bought his mule, Sostratos wished he could leave Sidon without an escort. The more he thought about having several sailors with him, the less he liked it. But he’d made the bargain with Menedemos, and he had a merchant’s horror of broken bargains. Then, after the first two men he asked to come with him to the land of the Ioudaioi turned him down flat, he began to wonder if he could keep this one.

  What will I do if they all say no? he wondered nervously. I’ll have to hire guards here in Sidon, I suppose. His mouth twisted. He didn’t like that. Trusting himself to the company of strangers seemed more dangerous than going alone. He wondered whether his cousin would agree. He doubted it.

  He walked up to Aristeidas. The sharp-eyed young sailor smiled and said, “Hail.”

  “Hail,” Sostratos answered. “How would you like to come to Engedi with me, to serve as a bodyguard along the way?”

  “That depends,” Aristeidas answered. “How much extra will you pay me if I do?”

  “A drakhma a day, on top of the drakhma and a half you already make,” Sostratos said. The other two sailors had asked the same question. The extra money hadn’t been enough to interest them. They were happier staying in Sidon and spending their silver on wine and women.

  But Aristeidas, after a momentary hesitation, dipped his head. “I’ll come,” he said, and smiled again. Like most though not all men of his generation, he shaved his face, which made him look even younger than he was. He’d probably made a striking youth, though that might have gone unnoticed in someone growing up without wealth.

  In any case, a youth’s beauty did less for Sostratos than did a woman’s. “Oh, very good!” he said. “I’ll be glad to have you along.” He meant it, and explained why. “It’s not just that you’ve got good eyes. You’ve got good sense, too.”

  “Thank you very much,” Aristeidas said. “I don’t exactly know that that’s true, but I like to hear you say it.”

  The next sailor Sostratos asked was Moskhion. He wasn’t particularly young or particularly smart, but he had been smart enough to see that while pulling an oar wasn’t an easy life, it beat the whey out of his former career of sponge diving. And he was big enough and strong enough to be worth more than a little in case of a brawl.

  “Sure, I’ll come,” he said when Sostratos put the question to him. “Why not? With a little luck, all we’ll have to do is go there and come back, right?”

  “Yes, with a little luck,” Sostratos answered. “But what will you do if our luck isn’t so good? What will you do if we have to fight?”

  “I expect I’ll fight. What else?” Moskhion didn’t sound worried.

  Sostratos supposed that if you’d got used to jumping out of a boat with a trident in one hand and with a rock held against your chest in the other to make you sink faster, nothing that might happen on dry land was likely to faze you. He said, “I’m glad to have you along. You’re a host all by yourself.”

  “Maybe. Maybe not, too,” Moskhion said. “But people think so when they look at me. Every once in a while, that gets me into fights. More often, though, it keeps me out of them.”

  “That’s what I want it to do here,” Sostratos said. “I’m not looking to get into fights with the barbarians.”

  “Good,” Moskhion said. “Some people fight for sport, but I’m not one of them.”

  “I wouldn’t want you along if you were,” Sostratos said. The next three men he asked all told him no. Annoyed at them, annoyed at the need to bring guards along, he went to Menedemos and asked if two would do.

  His cousin annoyed him all over again by tossing his head. “Get somebody else,” Menedemos said. “The idea is to have enough men along to keep from giving bandits nasty ideas.”

  “I might take the whole crew and not manage that,” Sostratos protested.

  “I’m not asking you to take the whole crew,” Menedemos said. “I am asking you to take one more man.”

  Since he was the captain, Sostratos had to pay attention to him. Sostratos liked getting orders no more than any other free Hellene. Indeed, he liked it less than a lot of other Hellenes might have. Here, though, he had to obey.

  As he came down from the Aphrodite ’s poop deck with a storm cloud on his face, one of the sailors said, “Excuse me, but if you’re looking for somebody to go with you when you head inland, I’ll do it.”

  “You, Teleutas?” Sostratos said in surprise-and not necessarily pleased surprise, either. “Why do you want to come?”

  “Well, I’d be lying if I said I couldn’t use the extra silver. A drakhma a day over and above the usual? That’s not bad. Not half bad, matter of fact. And it ought to be pretty easy money, so long as everything goes well.”

  “Yes, but what if it doesn’t?” Sostratos asked.

  Teleutas took his time thinking about that. He was perhaps ten years older than Sostratos-in his mid- to late thirties. Rowing under the fierce summer sun had made his lean face dark and leathery, with lines like gullies, so that at first glance he seemed older than he was. His eyes, though, retained what was either a childlike innocence or a chameleon-like gift for hiding his true nature. He always did enough to get by, but only just, and had a habit of grumbling even about that. More than two years after first bringing him aboard the Aphrodite , Sostratos kept wondering if he’d made a mistake.

  At last the sailor said, “Whatever happens, I expect I can handle it.”

  “Can you?” Sostratos meant the question. Once, in Italy, Teleutas might have left him and Menedemos in the lurch. He’d quickly returned to the agora in that town in Great Hellas with other sailors from the merchant galley. Maybe he’d only gone to get help. Maybe.

  “I expect I can,” he said now. Was his grin as open and friendly as it seemed, or an actor’s mask to hide cowardice? Try as Sostratos would, he couldn’t tell. Teleutas went on in reasonable, rational tones, as if arguing a point at the Lykeion: “I’m not likely to light out, am I, not in a countryside full of barbarians? You may like making those funny noises in the back of your throat, but I don’t.”

  Isn’t that interesting? Sostratos thought. He knows I don’t trust him, and he’s giving me a reason why I should this time. It was a good reason, too. Sure enough, why would Teleutas want to do anything but what he was paid to do when he spoke no Aramaic? He couldn’t easily disappear among strangers here, as he could in a polis full of Hellenes. Sostratos plucked at his beard, considering.

  Teleutas added, “I know a thing or two that might come in handy, too, the sort of thing you probably wouldn’t.”

  “Oh? Such as?” Sostratos asked.

  “This and that,” the sailor answered. “You never can tell when it’d be useful, but it just might.” Plainly, he didn’t want to give details. Sostratos wondered what that meant. Had he been a bandit at one time or another? He spoke like a Rhodian, and few Rhodians needed to turn to brigandage to survive. But if, say, he’d been a mercenary and seen things go sour, who could guess what he’d had to do to keep eating? He didn’t have a soldier’s scars, but maybe he’d been lucky.

  With sudden decision, Sostratos dipped his head. “All right, Teleutas. I’ll take you on. We’ll see what comes of it.”

  Teleutas gave him that charming grin again. “I thank you kindly. You won’t be sorry.”

  “I’d better not be,” Sostratos said. “If you make me sorry, I’ll make you sorry, too. I promise you that. Do you believe me?”

  “Yes,” Teleutas said. But what would he say? More than a few people took Sostratos lightly because he used his
wits more readily than his fists. He’d made some of them regret it. He hoped he wouldn’t have to worry about that with Teleutas.

  When he told Menedemos he’d chosen his third escort, his cousin looked pained. “By the dog of Egypt, I wish you’d picked almost anybody else,” Menedemos said. “Can you trust Teleutas when your back is turned? I wouldn’t want to-I’ll tell you that.”

  “I wouldn’t want to in Hellas. I’d be lying if I said anything else,” Sostratos replied. “But here? Yes, I think I can. He’s not going to make friends with bandits when he can’t speak their language, and he doesn’t know any Aramaic. He should be safe enough.”

  “I hope so.” Menedemos didn’t sound convinced.

  Since Sostratos wasn’t altogether convinced, either, he couldn’t get angry at his cousin. He said, “I think everything will be all right.”

  “I hope so,” Menedemos said again, even more dubiously than before.

  “What harm can he do me?” Sostratos asked. “I asked myself again and again, and I couldn’t see any.”

  “I can’t see any, either,” Menedemos admitted. “But that doesn’t mean there isn’t any.”

  “We’re on dry land now, my dear,” Sostratos said with a smile. “We don’t have to pay any attention to all our seagoing superstitions.”

  Menedemos had the grace to laugh. He, at least, knew he was superstitious. Many sailors would have indignantly denied it, at the same time spitting into the bosom of their chitons to take away the bad luck in the accusation. “All right. All right,” Menedemos said. “I’ve got no real reason not to trust Teleutas. But I don’t. Remember, he was about the last one we took on a couple of years ago, and he’s still the first one I’d leave behind if I ever had to.”

  “Maybe you’ll have a different idea when we come back from the land of the Ioudaioi,” Sostratos said.

  “Maybe. I hope I will,” Menedemos answered. “But maybe I won’t, too. That’s what worries me.”

  Sostratos judged it a good time to change the subject, at least a little: “When I leave Sidon, may I borrow your bow and arrows?”