The Sacred Land sam-3

by Harry Turtledove

  “Well, what was it like?” Menedemos asked with a leer.

  To keep from having to answer, Sostratos looked out to sea. He pointed. “Hello!” he said. “What ship is that?”

  Such a question would always draw a merchant skipper’s attention. Menedemos turned and looked out to sea, too, shading his eyes with the palm of his hand. “To the crows with me if that’s not the Dikaiosyne, coming back from her cruise,” he replied. “Shall we go over to the naval harbor and get a good close look at her?”

  “Why not, best one?” Sostratos said, though he couldn’t help adding, “We almost got a closer look at her than we wanted while we were coming back to Rhodes.”

  “Oh, nonsense,” Menedemos said. “A trihemiolia’s made to hunt pirates-that’s the whole point of the type. Of course she’s going to come up to any galley she spots and sniff around like a dog at another dog’s backside.”

  “You always did have a gift for the pungent figure of speech,” Sostratos said, whereupon his cousin held his nose.

  Chuckling, they walked up to the naval harbor, which lay just to the north of the Great Harbor. Like the latter, it had long moles protecting its waters from wind and weather. Shipsheds lined it, so the Rhodian naval vessels could be hauled up out of the sea, keeping their timbers dry and them light and swift. The narrower sheds sheltered pirate-hunting triremes; the wider ones warded the fives that would fight against any navy presuming to move against Rhodes.

  Pointing to the Dikaiosyne, which had entered the harbor by way of the north-facing entrance, Menedemos said, “They won’t have had to build anything special for her: she’ll fit into the same shed as any trireme.”

  “True.” Sostratos dipped his head. The trihemiolia put him in mind of a trireme stripped of everything that added even a drakhma’s worth of extra weight. Triremes, these days, had their projecting oarboxes, through which the upper, or thranite, oarsmen rowed, covered over with planking to protect them from arrows. Not the Dikaiosyne: hers was open. Nor was she fully decked, to let her post a maximum complement of marines. Only a narrow stretch of decking ran down her midline from foredeck to poop.

  Backing oars, the Dikaiosyne’s crew positioned her just in front of a shipshed. A couple of naked slaves came out of the shed and fitted a stout cable to the ship’s sternpost. One of them turned his head and shouted back toward the shed. More slaves inside hauled at an enormous capstan. The line went taut. Little by little, the work gang hauled the trihemiolia out of the sea and up the sloping ramp inside the shipshed. The beech planking of her protective false keel scraped on the timbers of the ramp.

  As soon as the ship’s stern came out of the water, the slaves at the capstan paused. Sailors and marines began leaving the Dikaiosyne, lightening her so the haulers would have an easier time. Easier, though, was a relative term; Sostratos wouldn’t have cared to bend his back and push against one of the great bars of the capstan.

  He and Menedemos waved to the trihemiolia’s crew. “Hail, best ones!” Menedemos called. “How was the hunting?”

  “Good,” answered a sailor who wore only a loincloth. He laughed. “As we were heading away from Rhodes, we scared the piss out of one of our own merchant galleys coming home. She looked like a pirate till we got up close. We were all set to sink her and let her crew try and swim back to Rhodes, but they had the right answers, so we let ‘em go.” He spoke with a certain rough regret.

  Sostratos could laugh about it, too-now. He bowed to the sailor. “At your service, sir. We’re the toikharkhos and captain from the Aphrodite .”

  “Is that so?” The fellow laughed some more as he returned the bow. “Well, I bet you’re glad we did stop and ask questions, then.”

  “Oh, you might say so,” Menedemos allowed. “Yes, you just might say so. How did things go once you got to the Lykian coast?”

  “Pretty well,” the sailor from the Dikaiosyne replied. “She’s fast as a galloping horse, the Justice is. We went after one hemiolia that couldn’t have been anything but a pirate. Most of the time, those bastards’ll show their heels to anything, even a trireme. But we didn’t just keep up-we gained on her. Finally, the fellow in charge beached her. The pirates aboard her ran for the woods and got away, but we sent men ashore and burned the ship.”

  “Euge!” Sostratos said. “To the crows-to the cross-with pirates.”

  “Pity you couldn’t have burned them, too,” Menedemos added.

  “We sank a couple of others, and many goodbyes to the whipworthy rogues they carried,” the sailor said. “Whoever came up with the notion for the Dikaiosyne was a pretty clever fellow, let me tell you. And now farewell, friends-I’m off for some wine and a go or two at a boy brothel.” With a wave and a smile, he hurried away.

  “Well, you pretty clever fellow, what do you think of that?” Sostratos asked.

  “I like it,” Menedemos said. “Let the pirates beware, by the gods. Here’s a ship they can’t hope to fight, and one that can hunt them down even when they try to run. I hope we build a fleet of trihemioliai, a big fleet. It’d make things a lot safer for merchant skippers. What do you think, my dear?”

  “I’m with you,” Sostratos answered. “With any luck at all, your name will live forever-and deserve to.”

  He expected his cousin to strut even more after that. He didn’t praise Menedemos every day. When he did, Menedemos had to know he meant it, and to be sure such praise was well deserved. But Menedemos, as it happened, wasn’t thinking about him just then. With a sigh, he said, “I could be as famous as Alexander, and it wouldn’t be enough to suit my father. He’d stay convinced nobody’d ever heard of me.”

  “You must exaggerate,” Sostratos said. “It can’t be so bad as that.”

  “As a matter of fact, it can be worse than that. It can be-and it is,” Menedemos said.

  “That’s… unfortunate,” Sostratos said. “And you didn’t give him anything to complain about this sailing season. See what a handy thing your oath was?”

  “Oh, yes.” But that was sarcasm from his cousin, not agreement. “He started railing at the whole younger generation, not just at me.”

  “Why did he start railing at the-?” Sostratos broke off. “You told him about Zilpah?” he asked in dismay.

  “I’m afraid I did, O best one. I’m sorry. Part of me is sorry, anyhow. He was holding you up for a paragon, and I wanted to show him you were made of flesh and blood, too, not cast from bronze or carved in marble. But that wasn’t the lesson he drew. I suppose I should have known it wouldn’t be.”

  “Yes, you should have.” For a moment, Sostratos was furious. He discovered he couldn’t hold on to his anger, though. “Never mind. It can’t be helped, and it’s not as if you told him about anything I didn’t do.” He kicked at a pebble with the side of his foot. “I understand the temptation now, where I never did before. To have a woman want you enough to give herself to you regardless of the risk-that’s a powerful lure. No wonder you enjoy fishing in those waters.”

  “No wonder at all,” Menedemos agreed. “In fishing, though, you eat what you catch. With women, if you like, what you catch eats you.”

  Sostratos made a face at him. “I should have known better. Here I was trying to tell you I’d found some sympathy for what you’ve been doing, and what do I get for it? A lewd pun, that’s what. I think all your Aristophanes has gone to your head-or somewhere.”

  “Why, whatever can you mean, my dear?” Menedemos asked archly. Sostratos made another face. Menedemos went on in a more serious vein: “You’re right, though. That’s what makes wives more fun than whores- they really want it. Anybody can buy a whore’s twat. Wives are different. Some wives are, anyhow.”

  “True enough. Some wives stay loyal to their husbands.”

  “Well, yes, but those aren’t the ones I meant,” Menedemos said. “Some wives’ll give it away to just about anybody, too. They aren’t worth having. That horrid Harpy of an Emashtart…” He shuddered. “You had the luck with women this trip,
believe me.”

  “Mine wasn’t all good,” Sostratos said.

  “Mine was just about all bad,” Menedemos said. “I could make it better, but-” He tossed his head.

  “What do you mean?” Sostratos asked.

  “Nothing. Nothing at all. Not a thing,” Menedemos answered quickly.

  He was lying. Sostratos had no doubt of that. But, whatever the truth was, his cousin wouldn’t give it to him.

  A delicious smell came from the kitchen. Menedemos drifted toward it, sniffing like a hunting dog on the trail of a hare. He stuck his nose in the door. “What is that?” he asked the cook. “Whatever it is, you’ve outdone yourself.”

  “Thanks, young master,” Sikon answered. “Nothing fancy-just prawns baked with a little oil and cumin and some leeks.”

  “ ‘Nothing fancy,’ he says.” Menedemos came all the way in. “If the gods had you for a cook, they’d be better-natured than they are.”

  “That’s kind of you-mighty kind.” Sikon scooped a prawn, still in its shell, off the clay baking dish and handed it to Menedemos. “Here. Why don’t you try one? Supper won’t be for a little while yet, and I expect you’re hungry.”

  “Starving,” Menedemos agreed. As it often did, flattery had its reward. Holding the prawn by the tail, he left the kitchen. He paused just outside to peel off the shell and take a big bite, then sighed ecstatically. It tasted as good as it smelled. He could imagine no higher praise. Another bite got him down to the tail. He took the prawn by the very end, bit gently, and pulled it away from his mouth. The flesh stuck in the tail came free. Savoring the last delicious morsel, he tossed the empty tail to the ground next to the rest of the shell.

  “I hope you enjoyed that.”

  By the way Baukis sounded, she hoped Menedemos would have choked on the prawn. “Oh. Hail,” he told his father’s young wife. All of a sudden, the treat didn’t seem nearly so sweet and succulent. He went on, “I didn’t notice you come into the courtyard.”

  “I’m sure of that.” She sounded chillier yet. “You had your eyes closed while you slobbered over your seafood.”

  That stung. “I don’t slobber,” Menedemos said. “And it was good. You’ll see for yourself-supper won’t be long.”

  “I’m sure Sikon gave you that prawn from the goodness of his heart.”

  Menedemos wondered where Baukis, who was very young and who, like any woman of good family, had led a sheltered life, had learned such irony. “Well, why else?” he asked.

  “To keep you sweet, that’s why!” Baukis flared. “As long as you get little tidbits every now and then, you don’t care how much they cost. Your tongue is happy, your tummy’s happy, and to the crows with everything else.”

  “That’s not fair,” he said uncomfortably. Was Sikon devious enough to do such a thing? Easily. The next question Menedemos asked himself was harder. Am I foolish enough to fall for a ploy like that? He sighed. The answer to that looked to be the same as the one before: easily.

  “You’re right-that’s not fair, but what can I do about it?” Baukis looked and sounded on the edge of tears. “If the slaves in my own house won’t obey me, am I a wife or just a child? And if no one else in the family will back me against a slave, am I even a child, or only a slave myself?”

  Her words held a painful amount of truth-certainly painful to her. But Menedemos said, “My dear, you’ll find yourself without allies if you pick the wrong fight. I’m afraid that’s what’s happened here. We really can afford to eat well, so why shouldn’t we?”

  She stared at him, then did start to cry. “Oh! You hate me! Everyone hates me!” she stormed. She spun away from him and rushed toward the stairs. Up she went. A moment later, the door to the women’s quarters slammed.

  “Oh, a pestilence,” Menedemos muttered. Now he was liable to end up with not only Baukis but also his father angry at him. Philodemos could find any excuse for getting in a temper against him, but Baukis… He muttered some more. Having her dash away from him was the last thing he wanted-even if it may be the best and safest thing for you, he told himself.

  That slamming door brought his father out into the courtyard. “By the gods, what now?” Philodemos asked, scowling.

  Despite that scowl, Menedemos knew a certain amount of relief that he could be the first to tell his father what had happened. If Philodemos listened to Baukis first, he probably wouldn’t heed anyone else afterwards. Menedemos summarized what had led to Baukis’ abrupt departure. When he finished, he waited for Philodemos to start railing at him.

  But all Philodemos did was slowly dip his head. “Well, maybe it’s for the best,” he said.

  “Sir?” Menedemos gaped, hardly believing his ears.

  “Maybe it’s for the best,” Philodemos repeated. “Her quarrel with Sikon’s been going on far too long. I didn’t want to stick my nose into it; one or the other of them would have bitten it off. But maybe she’ll pay attention to you. She takes you seriously, though I’m sure I can’t imagine why.”

  “Thank you so much,” Menedemos murmured. His father couldn’t possibly praise him without stirring some vinegar in with the honey. Even so, he was glad to learn Baukis did take him seriously.

  She didn’t come downstairs for supper. Sikon sent some of the prawns up to her, along with fine white barley rolls for sitos and a cup of wine. When the slave woman brought back the dish without a prawn left on it, the cook looked almost unbearably smug. Menedemos was tempted to smack him. Even Philodemos noticed, and said, “Gloating isn’t a good idea.”

  However harsh he was with his own son, he was usually mild to the cook. Sikon got the point. “All right, master-I’ll remember,” he promised.

  “See that you do,” Philodemos said.

  Clouds drifting down from the north not only warned of the beginning of the autumn rains but also brought darkness sooner than it would have come with good weather. Menedemos was just as glad to be back in Rhodes. He wouldn’t have wanted to try steering the Aphrodite through rain and fog and light murky at best. He tossed his head. No, he wouldn’t have wanted that at all. Too easy to end up aground before you even knew you were in trouble.

  Yawning, he went upstairs to bed. These longer nights made him want to curl up like a dormouse and sleep and sleep. But he hadn’t drifted off when his father came upstairs, too. Philodemos went into the women’s quarters. A few minutes later, the bed there started creaking rhythmically.

  Menedemos pulled his himation up over his head to smother the noise. No good. After a while, it stopped. After a much longer while, he slept.

  He woke before sunrise the next morning and tiptoed down to the kitchen for some barley rolls, olive oil, and wine to break his fast, then sat down on a bench in the courtyard to eat. He managed a wry chuckle when his gaze went to the stairs. After the exertions of the night before, how late would his father sleep?

  That thought had hardly occurred to him when he heard footsteps on the stairs. But it wasn’t his father coming down; it was Baukis. She paused in the doorway when she saw Menedemos up before her. For a moment, he thought she would withdraw. After a brief pause, though, she came out. “Hail,” she said, and, after gathering herself, “Good day.”

  “Good day,” he answered gravely. “How are you?”

  “Well.” Baukis thought about that, then made a slight correction: “Well enough.”

  “I’m glad,” Menedemos said, as if he hadn’t heard the correction. He didn’t want to keep up a fight with her. “The rolls from yesterday’s baking are still very good,” he offered. No matter what she thought about Sikon’s choices for opson, she couldn’t very well complain about the sitos… could she?

  She came close. “Are they?” she said tonelessly. Menedemos dipped his head. She let out a small sigh. “All right,” she murmured, and went into the kitchen to get her own breakfast.

  When she came out again, Menedemos shifted on the bench to give her more room to sit down. She hesitated but did. She poured out a small libation f
rom her cup of wine before tearing off a chunk from a barley roll, dipping it in oil, and eating it.

  Sikon came out of his little downstairs room just then. “Good day, young master,” he said, “Good day, mistress.” Whatever he thought about Baukis, he remembered Philodemos’ warning and kept it to himself.

  “Hail,” Menedemos said. He wondered if Baukis would scold the cook for not being up before her and hard at work. She seldom missed a chance to fuel their feud.

  But all she said this morning was, “Good day, Sikon.” Looking both surprised and relieved-he’d evidently expected a snarl from her, too- Sikon hurried into the kitchen. Pots clattered. Firewood thumped. Baukis let out what was unmistakably a snort of laughter. “He’s showing off how busy he is.”

  “Well, yes,” Menedemos agreed. The cook didn’t have to make half that much noise.

  Baukis thought the same thing. “He really is an old fraud, you know.”

  “Well-yes,” Menedemos said again. “But he really is a good cook, too, you know.”

  “I suppose so,” Baukis said grudgingly. She sipped from her wine. “I don’t like quarreling with you.”

  “I’ve never like quarreling with you,” Menedemos said, which was nothing but the truth.

  “Good.” Baukis ate some more of her barley roll. “This is good, too,” she admitted, licking crumbs and a smear of oil from her fingertips with a couple of quick strokes from the tip of her tongue.

  Menedemos watched, entranced. “Yes, it is, isn’t it?” he said, a heartbeat slower than he should have. He might have been talking about the barley roll. On the other hand, he might not have been.

  Baukis, to his relief, chose to answer as if he was: “Sikon is almost as good with sitos as he is with opson.”

  “You shouldn’t tell me that,” Menedemos said. She raised an eyebrow in surprise. “By the gods, Baukis, you shouldn’t,” he insisted. “You should go right into the kitchen and tell Sikon to his face.”

  She didn’t have to think about that, but dipped her head at once. “You’re right-I should. I should, and I will.” She got to her feet and strode into the kitchen as a hoplite might have gone into battle. Menedemos, though, wouldn’t have watched a hoplite striding into battle in anything like the same way.