The Sacred Land sam-3

by Harry Turtledove

  “Oh, my dear, I should say so,” Hekataios replied. “And you, at least, speak some of this ghastly local language. For me, it might as well be the grunting of animals. I shall be so very glad to return to Alexandria, where Greek prevails-though there are Ioudaioi settling there, too, if you can believe it.” He rolled his eyes, but then resumed: “I shall also be glad to have the spare time to gather all my notes and memories together, and then to sit down and write.”

  Sostratos did not bend down, pry a cobblestone out of the ground, and brain Hekataios with it. Why he didn’t, he never knew, then or afterwards. The scholar walked on, still breathing, still talking intelligently, still unaware of how much he took for granted and Sostratos craved with a deep, hopeless, desperate yearning.

  One of these days. One of these years, Sostratos thought. I’ll do as Thales did, and get so rich I can afford to do as I please. I can gather all my notes and memories together, and then sit down and write. I can. And I will.

  Back at the inn, they found chaos. Teleutas, for once, hadn’t caused it: he was off at a brothel down the block. The innkeeper was shouting at Moskhion in bad Greek, and the former sponge diver was shouting right back.

  Moskhion turned to Sostratos in obvious relief. “Gods be praised you’re here, young sir. This fellow reckons I’ve done something really dreadful, and I never meant no harm, not to nobody.”

  “Outrage! Insult!” Ithran shouted. “He profanes the one god!”

  “Calm, O best one. Calm, please,” Sostratos said in Greek. He switched to Aramaic: “Peace be unto you. Peace be unto us all. Tell your slave. I will make it right, if I can.”

  “He profanes the one god,” the innkeeper repeated, this time in Aramaic. But he didn’t seem quite so ready to burst into flames as he had a moment before.

  “What happened?” Sostratos asked Moskhion, trying to take advantage of the relative peace and quiet.

  “I got hungry, young sir,” Moskhion answered. “I craved a bit of meat-haven’t had any for a long time. Wanted some pork, but I couldn’t make this silly barbarian here understand the word for it.”

  “Oh, dear.” Now Sostratos knew what sort of trouble he was in. “What did you do then?”

  “I asked the abandoned rogue for a potsherd, sir, so I could draw him a picture,” Moskhion said. “He understood ‘potsherd’ well enough, Furies take him. Why couldn’t he understand ‘pork’? He gave me the sherd, and I drew-this.”

  He showed Sostratos the piece of broken pot. On it he’d scraped with the tip of a sharp knife a commendable picture of a pig. Sostratos had had no idea he could draw so well. Maybe Moskhion himself hadn’t even known. But the gift, plainly, was there. Sostratos said, “What happened next?”

  “I gave it to him, and he pitched a fit,” the sailor replied. “That’s where we were when you walked in just now, young sir.”

  “They don’t eat pork, you know,” Sostratos said. “They think a pig’s a polluted animal. We haven’t seen any more pigs than statues in Ioudaia, remember? That’s why he got angry. He thought you were outraging him and his god both.”

  “Well, calm the silly fool down,” Moskhion said. “I didn’t want any trouble. All I wanted was some spare ribs, or something like that.”

  “I’ll try.” Sostratos turned toward the innkeeper and switched to Aramaic: “My master, your slave’s man meant no offense. He does not know your laws. He only wanted food. We eat pork. It is not against our laws.”

  “It’s against ours,” Ithran fumed. “Pigs make everything ritually unclean. That is why no pigs and no swine’s flesh are allowed in Jerusalem. Even that image of a pig is liable to be a pollution.”

  The Ioudaioi forbade graven images of men because men were made in the image of their god, whose image was forbidden them. By such reasoning, Sostratos could see how the picture of a beast reckoned unclean might itself be unclean. But he said, “It is only an image. And you fought for Antigonos. You know Ionians eat pork. Moskhion meant no offense. He will apologize.” In Greek, he hissed, “Tell him you’re sorry.”

  “I’m hungry, is what I am,” the sailor grumbled. But he dipped his head to Ithran. “Sorry, buddy. I didn’t mean to get you all upset. Zeus knows that’s so.”

  “All right.” Ithran took a deep breath. “All right. Let it go. No. Wait. Give me that image, one of you.” Sostratos handed him the potsherd. He set it on the floor, then stomped it with all his strength. Under his sandal, it shattered into tiny pieces. “There. Gone for good.”

  Sostratos hated to see such a fine sketch destroyed. For the sake of peace, though, he kept quiet. Hekataios of Abdera hadn’t wanted him to cause a riot, and he didn’t want Moskhion to cause one. “What was all that?” Hekataios asked now. “Parts of it were in Aramaic, so I couldn’t follow.” Sostratos explained. When he was done, Hekataios said, “Euge! You were lucky there-lucky and clever. The Ioudaioi can go mad when it comes to pigs.”

  “Yes, I figured as much,” Sostratos said. “But it was just a misunderstanding.”

  “Most of the time, misunderstandings here don’t get straightened out,” Hekataios said. “They end up in blood. A good thing Master Ithran knows at least something of Hellenic customs, or it would have been worse.”

  Zilpah had come in while Hekataios was talking. As Hekataios and Sostratos went back and forth in Greek, Ithran explained to his wife in Aramaic what had been going on. Sostratos listened to them with perhaps a quarter of an ear. The mere sound of Aramaic reminded him of the truth of what Hekataios had said. This was not his country. These were not his people. Disaster could so easily overwhelm him, disaster springing from something as trivial as a sailor getting a yen for meat after going a long time without. And if disaster did overwhelm him here, on whom could he call for help?

  No one. No one at all.

  “We did get through it,” he told Hekataios. “In the end, that’s all that really matters.”

  The other Hellene said something in reply. Now Sostratos hardly heard him. He was watching Zilpah listening to her husband’s account of the affair-which was, for all Sostratos knew, quite different from the way it had looked to Moskhion and him and Hekataios of Abdera.

  She’s as foreign as any of the other loudaioi, Sostratos told himself: another undoubted truth. But she was, to his eyes, a great deal more decorative than any of the others. That shouldn’t have made so much difference. It shouldn’t have, but it did.

  She happened to look his way at the same time as he was looking at her. He knew he should have turned his gaze in a different direction. Staring at another man’s wife could easily bring trouble down on his head. If he hadn’t been able to see that for himself, traveling with Menedemos should have pounded it home.

  And yet… He looked, and could not look away. The longer he stayed in Jerusalem, the more he understood Menedemos’ madness, the madness that had only infuriated him before. The line of Zilpah’s jaw, the way her lips opened just a little when she breathed, the shine of her eyes, her wavy midnight hair…

  He knew what he was thinking as he looked at her. But what was going through her mind while she looked back at him? He was sure she could read his face as readily as he would have read an inscription in the agora at Rhodes. And if she could, she had but to say a word to scarred and dangerous Ithran there, and hovering danger would hover no longer, but strike.

  She did not say the word. Sostratos wondered why. Moskhion stalked out of the inn, muttering about getting mutton if he couldn’t have pork. Hekataios of Abdera said, “I am going to write up what I saw today, so that I don’t forget it. Hail.” Off he went.

  Sostratos perched himself on a stool. “Wine, please,” he said in Aramaic.

  “Here.” Ithran dipped it out of a jar. He also poured a cup for himself. Before drinking from it, he murmured a brief prayer. He watched Sostratos pour out a few drops onto the floor as a libation for the gods and let out a sigh. Had that sigh held words, it would have meant something like, You are only a Hellene. You kno
w no better.

  “Peace be unto you,” Sostratos said-not as the usual greeting, but a real request. “We do not aim to offend you. We have our own customs.”

  “Yes, I know that,” Ithran answered. “You cannot help being what you are. And to you also peace.” Would he have said that had he noticed Sostratos eyeing Zilpah? Not likely.

  The next day was the sabbath of the Ioudaioi. No one lit the fire that morning: that would have been reckoned work. Hekataios went up to the fortress overlooking the temple to talk with one of Antigonos’ officers whose acquaintance he had made. Sostratos had intended to see what he might find in the market square, but he knew the square would be quiet and empty on the day of rest. He still thought the local custom a colossal waste of time, but the loudaioi cared for his opinion not at all.

  With nothing useful to do, he stayed at the inn. Oil and yesterday’s bread and wine made a tolerable breakfast. Aristeidas and Moskhion went off to the brothel to find out if the women there were also taking a day of rest. When the two sailors didn’t come back right away, Teleutas began fidgeting on his stool. After a bit, he asked Sostratos, “You’re not going anywhere much today, are you?”

  “Who, me?” Sostratos said. “I intended to be in Macedonia this morning and Carthage this afternoon. Why?”

  “Heh,” Teleutas said-almost but not quite a laugh. “Well, if you aren’t going anywhere, I suppose I can head on over to the girls myself. I mean to say, you’re not likely to get in trouble just hanging around here at the inn, are you?”

  “That depends,” Sostratos answered gravely. “If the Stymphalian birds and the Hydra come by, I may have to fight them, because I haven’t seen Herakles anywhere in these parts.”

  “Heh,” Teleutas said again. He hurried out of the inn, perhaps as much to get away from Sostratos as to choose a woman for himself.

  Sostratos hid a smile. He no more wanted Teleutas’ company than the sailor wanted his. He held up a hand. Zilpah nodded to him and asked, “Yes? What is it?”

  “May your slave have another cup of wine, please?” he said in Aramaic.

  “Yes, of course, I’ll get it for you.” She hesitated, then added, “You need not be so formal for such a small request.”

  “Better too formal than not enough,” Sostratos answered. She set the cup of wine on the little table in front of him. He said, “Thank you very much.”

  “You’re welcome,” Zilpah said. “You speak more of our language than any other Ionian I have known. That was good yesterday. You managed to show your man meant no harm with his picture of the unclean beast. That could have caused trouble, bad trouble.” Her face clouded. “Some Ionians laugh at us because of what we believe. We do not laugh at other folk for what they believe. It is not for us, but we do not laugh at it.”

  “I know what I believe,” Sostratos said, sipping at the wine.

  “What is that?” Zilpah asked gravely.

  “I believe you are beautiful.” Sostratos hadn’t known he was going to say that till the words were out of his mouth.

  Zilpah had started to turn away from him. She turned back, suddenly and sharply. If she was angry, Sostratos knew he’d found himself more trouble than he’d helped Moskhion escape. But her voice was quiet, even amused, as she answered, “And I believe you have been away from your home too long. Maybe you should go down the block with your friends.”

  Sostratos tossed his head. He needed a heartbeat to remember to shake it instead. “I do not want that. The body of a woman…” He shrugged. Trying to tell Zilpah how he felt in a language he didn’t speak at all well was one more problem, one more frustration. He wondered if even Menedemos would have had any luck under such circumstances. He did his best, continuing, “The body of a woman matters not so much. A woman I care about, that matters.”

  If Zilpah squawked and ran for her husband, he’d already said enough to get himself in deep trouble. But she didn’t. She said, “I have had this happen before. A traveling man happens to be kind enough to think I am pretty, and then he thinks he is in love with me because of that. It is only foolishness, though. How can you think you care about me when you do not even know me, not in any way that matters?”

  That was the sort of question Sostratos often asked his cousin when Menedemos imagined he’d fallen in love with some girl who’d caught his eye. Having it come back at him would have been funny if he’d looked at it the right way. Just then, he was in no mood for that.

  “I know ways that matter,” Sostratos said. Zilpah giggled. He realized he’d used the feminine verb form, as she had. “I know,” he said again, this time correctly. “I know you are kind. I know you are patient. I know you are generous. I know these are good things for a woman to be.” He managed a wry grin. “I know my Aramaic is bad.”

  She smiled at that, but quickly became serious once more. “The other Ionian here tried to give me money so I would give him my body,” she said. “I have had that happen before, with us and with foreigners.”

  “If I want a woman I can buy, I will go down the block,” Sostratos said.

  “Yes, I believe you. You are a strange man, do you know that? You pay me these compliments-they make me want to blush. I am an innkeeper’s wife. I do not blush very often. I have seen too much, heard too much. But I think you mean what you say. I do not think you say it to lure me into bed.”

  “Of course I mean it,” Sostratos said. Menedemos might not have, but he was a practiced seducer. Telling anything but what he saw as the truth hadn’t occurred to Sostratos.

  Zilpah smiled again. “How old are you, Ionian?”

  “Twenty-seven,” he answered.

  “I would have guessed you younger,” she told him. He wondered if that was praise or something else. Maybe she didn’t know, either; she went on, “I have not had anyone say such things to me.”

  “Not even your husband?” Sostratos asked. “He should.”

  “No.” Zilpah’s voice was troubled. “When no one says these things, you do not miss them. But when someone does… I am not going to take you into my bed here, Sostratos son of Lysistratos, but I think you have made my marriage a colder place even so.”

  “I did not mean to do that,” Sostratos said.

  “No. You meant to lay me. That would have been simpler than making me wonder why I have had no praise since I stood under the wedding canopy with my husband.”

  “Oimoi!” Sostratos said. That was Greek, but Zilpah took the meaning from the sound, as he’d thought she could. In Aramaic, he went on, “I did not mean to make you unhappy. I am sorry I did.”

  “I don’t think you made me unhappy,” Zilpah said. “I think I was unhappy. I think I have been unhappy for years without even knowing it. You made me see that. I ought to thank you.”

  “I am surprised you are not angry,” Sostratos said. When someone pointed out to him something he hadn’t seen before, he was-usually, when he remembered to be-grateful. Most people, from everything he’d seen, got angry when anyone made them change their view of the way the world worked. If anything did, that marked the difference between those who aspired to philosophy and ordinary men.

  “Angry? No.” The innkeeper’s wife shook her head. “It is not your fault. It is Ithran’s fault for taking me as much for granted as the bed he sleeps in, and my fault for letting him do it, for not even noticing he was doing it.” Sudden tears glinted in her eyes. “Maybe it would have been different if either of our children had lived.”

  “I’m sorry,” Sostratos said. So many families had a lament like Zilpah’s. Infants died so readily, burying them inside city walls brought no religious pollution, as it did with the bodies of older people.

  “Everything is as the one god wills,” Zilpah said. “The priests say this, and I believe them, but I cannot understand why he willed that my babies died.”

  “We Ionians wonder about these same things,” Sostratos said. “We do not know. I do not think we can know.” He finished his wine and held out the cup to her. “
May I have more, please?” He was usually very moderate with the unmixed stuff, knowing how strong it was, but nerves made him want a refill.

  “Of course. You hardly drink at all,” Zilpah said. It didn’t seem that way to Sostratos, but he let it go. She poured his cup full and her own as well. He spilled out a little libation onto the floor, while she murmured the blessing the Ioudaioi used over wine. They both drank. Zilpah managed a small laugh. “Here we are, pouring down wine to drown our sorrow because neither of us got what we wanted.”

  “That is funny, is it not? Or it could be,” Sostratos said. The wine, sweet and thick, went down very smoothly. Sostratos hooked another stool with his ankle and slid it over to the table where he sat. “Here. No need to stand. If you do nothing else, you can sit by me.”

  “I suppose so.” When Zilpah did sit, she perched on the edge of the stool like a nervous bird. She gulped her wine, got up to pour herself another cup, and sat again. “I don’t know why I drink,” she remarked, looking down into the purple wine. “After I am done, everything will still be the same.”

  “Yes,” said Sostratos, who felt the same way himself. “But while you drink…” He usually spoke as she did. Today, he found himself praising wine.

  “For a little while, yes,” Zilpah said. “For a little while, even things you know are foolish seem… not so bad.”

  In Greek, Sostratos would have answered, That’s why people use wine as an excuse for doing things they would never dream of doing sober. He knew he couldn’t say anything so complex-and so far removed from the world of trade and bargaining-in Aramaic. But a nod, once he remembered to use the local gesture and not the one he was used to, seemed to get his meaning across well enough.

  “More wine?” Zilpah asked him. Her cup was already empty again.

  His was still half full. He took another sip from it and nodded again. He would never have drunk so much neat wine in the morning back in Rhodes, but he wasn’t in Rhodes any more. If he had a thick head later in the day, then he did, that was all.