Sacred Land

by H. N. Turteltaub

  “Yes, but not so much money as with other goods that have more value and less bulk,” Sostratos replied. “And I must say I think we were lucky to do as well as we did this past sailing season. I doubt we could come close to matching what we made if we go to Athens, as looks likely. Athens exports oil; you don’t bring it there.”

  Damonax whistled, a low, unhappy note. “You’re very frank, aren’t you?”

  “I have to be, wouldn’t you say?” Sostratos replied. “You’re part of my family now. I did business for you, and I’m glad it went so well. You need to understand why I don’t believe it would go that well again. I have nothing against you or your oil. In bulk, on a round ship without the great cost of paying an akatos’ crew every day, it would do splendidly. But the Aphrodite truly isn’t the right ship to carry it. Menedemos feels the same, even more strongly than I do.”

  “Does he?” Damonax said. Sostratos dipped his head. Damonax grunted. “And he’s the captain, and he’s not married to your sister.”

  “Both those things are also true,” Sostratos agreed. Trying to soften the disagreement, he went on, “This isn’t malice, most noble one—only business. Silver doesn’t spring from the ground like soldiers after Kadmos sowed the dragon’s teeth.”

  “Oh, yes. I do understand that.” His brother-in-law managed a wry grin. “My own reverses these past couple of years have made me all too painfully aware of it.”

  How angry was he? Not too, or he would have shown it more openly. Hellenes looked down their noses at men who felt one thing but feigned another. How could you trust anyone like that? Simple—you couldn’t. Sostratos said, “May I see my sister for a few minutes? I’d like to congratulate her myself.”

  As Erinna’s husband, Damonax could say yes or no as he chose. “Certainly nothing scandalous about it, not when you’re her brother,” he murmured. “Well, why not?” He called for a slave woman to bring her down from the women’s quarters.

  By the haste with which Erinna appeared in the courtyard, she must have hoped Sostratos would ask after her. “Hail,” she said, taking his hands in his. “It’s good to see you.”

  “Good to see you, my dear,” he answered. “You look well. I’m glad. And I’m very glad you’re going to have a child. I was happier than I can say when Father told me.”

  Her eyes glowed when she smiled. She freed her right hand, setting it on her belly. When she did that, Sostratos could see the beginning of a bulge there under her long chiton. “So far, everything seems to be well,” she said. “You’ll have a nephew before you sail next spring.” She didn’t even mention the possibility of a girl.

  “That’ll be fine,” Sostratos said, and then stuck fast as he cast about, wondering what to say next. He and Erinna couldn’t talk the way they had back at his family’s house, not with Damonax standing there listening to every word. He’d been foolish to imagine they could. By his sister’s expression, she was realizing the same thing. He sighed. “I’d better be going. It’s wonderful you’re going to have a baby. I’ll help spoil him for the two of you.”

  Damonax chuckled at that in an indulgent, husbandly way. Erinna smiled but looked disappointed as Sostratos turned and headed for the doorway. For a moment, he wondered why. He could tell she too knew they couldn’t talk the way they had in the old days. What point to pretending they could?

  Then he thought, You can go out that door. You can do what you please in the city. Erinna’s a respectable wife. That means she has to stay here. Such restrictions had chafed at her back when she was living in her father’s house. They were even stronger, even harsher, for a married woman.

  “Take care of yourself,” Erinna called after him.

  “And you, my dear,” Sostratos answered. “And you.” He hurried away then, not wanting to look back.

  Philodemos sat in the andron, drinking wine and eating olives. When Menedemos started out of the house, he wanted to pretend he didn’t see his father’s wave. He wanted to, yes, but he didn’t have the nerve. He stopped and waved back. “Hail, Father,” he said. “What can I do for you?”

  “Come here.” Philodemos sounded as peremptory as usual. “You don’t need to go drinking or whoring right this minute, do you?”

  Menedemos’ hackles rose. His father always assumed he was in the wrong. Sometimes he was, of course, but not always. “I’m coming,” he replied with what dignity he could. “As a matter of fact, though, I was going to the agora, not out drinking or whoring.”

  “That’s easy enough for you to say.” Philodemos rolled his eyes up to the heavens. “I can’t prove you’re wrong.” By his tone, the matter of proof was just a detail.

  After helping himself to an olive from the bowl on the table in front of his father, Menedemos tried a thrust of his own: “You’re the one with the wine cup here.”

  “Yes, and it’s properly watered, too,” his father snapped. “Do you want a taste, so you can tell for yourself?”

  “No, never mind,” Menedemos said. “Why did you call me?” Except to carp at me, he added, but only to himself. That would have made things worse.

  “Why did I call you?” Philodemos echoed. He took a pull from the cup himself, perhaps to disguise his confusion. Menedemos wondered if he’d called for any real reason at all, or just for the sake of exasperating him. At last, Philodemos said, “About the eastern route. Yes, that’s it— about the eastern route. Do you think we can use it every year?”

  That was a legitimate question; Menedemos could hardly deny as much. He said, “We can, sir, but I don’t think we’d be wise. It’s not just pirates. The war between Antigonos and Ptolemaios looks to be heating up. Any ship at all heading for Phoenicia is taking a chance these days.”

  Philodemos grunted. “If you talk that way, we never should have sent the Aphrodite.”

  “Perhaps we shouldn’t have,” Menedemos agreed.

  His father didn’t just grunt this time. He blinked in astonishment. “You really do say that? You, the fellow who took the ship through a Carthaginian siege into Syracuse a couple of years ago?”

  Ears heating, Menedemos dipped his head. “Yes, Father, I do say that. Taking the Aphrodite to Syracuse was one risk. As soon as we got past the Carthaginian fleet, we were fine. But there’s risk every digit of the way between here and Phoenicia, from pirates and from the Macedonian marshals. We got into trouble, and I think almost any ship heading that way would. We came out the other side all right. Whether another ship would . . . Well, who knows?”

  “Maybe you really are starting to grow up a little,” Philodemos muttered, more to himself than to Menedemos. “Who would have believed that?”

  “Father—” Menedemos broke off. He didn’t want to quarrel if he could help it. That being so, he kept talking about the struggle between the marshals: “Did Alexander the Great’s sister ever get out of Sardis? When we headed east, there was talk she wanted to get away from Antigonos and go over to Ptolemaios. Did old One-Eye let Kleopatra get away with it? We never heard anything after that, going to Sidon or coming back.”

  “Kleopatra’s dead. Does that answer your question?” Philodemos replied.

  “Oimoi!” Menedemos exclaimed, though he wasn’t really much surprised. “So Antigonos did her in?”

  “He says not,” Philodemos answered. “But when she tried to leave Sardis, his governor there wouldn’t let her go. Later on, some of her serving women murdered her. They wouldn’t have done it if the governor hadn’t told them to, and he wouldn’t have told them to if Antigonos hadn’t told him to. He made a show of putting them to death afterwards, but then, he would.”

  “Yes.” Menedemos clicked his tongue between his teeth. “Sostratos called that one when we first heard Kleopatra wanted to get away from Antigonos. She wouldn’t marry him, and she was too valuable a prize for him to let any of the other marshals have her.” He sighed. “So now none of Alexander’s kin is left alive. These Macedonians are bloodthirsty bastards, aren’t they?”

  “That th
ey are.” Philodemos dipped his head. “And your cousin is a clever fellow.” Which means you aren’t. Menedemos heard the addition even though his father didn’t say it. It stung. It always did. And then Philodemos quivered, like a dog taking a scent. “Or are you telling me we shouldn’t go back to Sidon because you made it impossible for any ship from our family to go back to Sidon? Whose wife did you debauch while you were there? The garrison commander’s, maybe?”

  “Nobody’s, by the gods,” Menedemos said.

  “Is that the truth?” But Philodemos checked himself before Menedemos became really angry. “You don’t lie about your adulteries; I will say that. If anything, you revel in them. All right, then. That’s good news.”

  “I didn’t have any adulteries to revel in, as I say,” Menedemos replied. “Sostratos did—an innkeeper’s wife down in Ioudaia—but not me.”

  “Sostratos . . . your cousin . . . seduced another man’s wife?” his father said. Menedemos dipped his head. Philodemos clapped a hand to his forehead. “Papai! What is the younger generation coming to?”

  “Probably about the same as yours did, and the one before yours, and the one before that, and the one before that,” Menedemos said with a cheerful grin. “Aristophanes complained about the younger generation a hundred years ago.”

  “Well, what if he did?” Philodemos retorted. “He was an Athenian, and everybody knows about them. You and your cousin are Rhodians. Good people. Sensible people.”

  “What about Nestor, in the Iliad?” Menedemos said. “He complained about the younger generation, too.”

  That gave Philodemos pause. He loved Homer no less than Menedemos did; Menedemos had got his fondness for the Iliad and Odyssey from his father. Philodemos returned the best answer he could: “You can’t tell me we Hellenes haven’t gone downhill since the days of the heroes.”

  “Maybe,” Menedemos said. “Speaking of going downhill, how many speeches did Xanthos give in the Assembly while I was away? “

  His father sent him a sour stare. Xanthos was a man of Philodemos’ generation: was, in fact, a friend of Philodemos’. He was also a great and crashing bore. Philodemos could hardly deny that. To his credit, he didn’t try. “Probably too many,” he answered. Then, to forestall Menedemos, he added, “And yes, he gave them all over again, first chance he got, whenever he saw me.”

  “And how’s Sikon?” Menedemos asked. “I’ve hardly had the chance to say good day to him, but those were some very nice eels last night, don’t you think?”

  “I’ve always liked eels,” Philodemos said. “And Sikon is as well as a cook can be.” He rolled his eyes again. Cooks had—and deserved—a reputation for tyrannizing the households in which they lived.

  “Is he still quarreling with your wife?” Menedemos asked cautiously. The less he spoke about Baukis around his father, the better. He was sure of that. But he couldn’t ignore her feud with Sikon. The way the two of them stormed at each other, the whole neighborhood had trouble ignoring it.

  “They . . . still don’t get along as well as they might,” Philodemos said.

  “You really ought to do something about that, Father.” Menedemos again seized the chance to take the offensive.

  “Wait till you have a wife. Wait till you’re running a household with a temperamental cook—and there’s no other kind,” Philodemos said. “Better they should yell at each other than that they should both yell at me.”

  To Menedemos, that seemed a coward’s counsel. He said, “Better they shouldn’t yell. You ought to put your foot down.”

  “Ha!” his father said. “How many times have I put my foot down with you? How much good has it done me?”

  “I wasn’t the one who chased women this summer,” Menedemos said. His father snorted at the qualification, but he pressed on: “And I wasn’t the one who loaded so much olive oil onto the Aphrodite, either. No—I was the one who not only sold it but got a cursed good price for it, too.”

  “I told you before—we won’t have to worry about that again,” Philodemos said. “Damonax and his family needed the silver that oil brought. Sometimes there’s no help for something. Sometimes there’s no help for the kinsfolk one has.”

  By the way he looked at Menedemos, he wasn’t thinking of Damonax alone. “If you’ll excuse me, Father . . . ,” Menedemos said, and left the andron before he found out whether Philodemos would excuse him. He stormed out of the house, too. If Philodemos tried to call him back, he made himself not hear.

  Why do I bother? he wondered. Whatever I do, it will never satisfy him. And, knowing it will never satisfy him, why do I get so angry when it doesn’t? But the answer to that was all too obvious. He’s my father. If a man can’t please his own father, what sort of man is he?

  Sparrows hopped around, pecking in the dirt for whatever they could find. Menedemos pointed at one of them, which fluttered off for a few cubits but then lit again and went back to pecking. Is your father angry at you because you don’t gather enough seeds to suit him? The bird bounced this way and that. Whatever worries it had—kestrels, snakes, ferrets—its father wasn’t among them. Ah, little bird, you don’t know when you’re well off.

  The day was warm and bright. The shutters to the upstairs windows were open, to let in air and light. They let out music: Baukis was softly singing to herself as she spun wool into thread. The song was one any girl might have sung to help make time go by while she did a job that needed doing but wasn’t very interesting. Her voice, though true enough, was nothing out of the ordinary.

  Listening to her, though, made Menedemos wish his ears were plugged with wax, as Odysseus’ had been when he sailed past the sweetly singing Sirens. He clenched his fists till his nails bit into his palms. It’s always worse when I’m angry at Father. . . and I’m angry at him so much of the time. He fled his own house as if the Furies pursued him. And so, maybe, they did.

  Sostratos bowed to Himilkon in the Phoenician’s crowded harborside warehouse. “Peace be unto you, my master,” he said in Aramaic.

  “And to you also peace,” the merchant replied in the same language, returning his bow. “Your slave hopes the poor teaching he gave to you proved of some small use on your journey.”

  “Indeed.” Deliberately, Sostratos nodded instead of dipping his head. “Your servant came here to give his thanks for your generous assistance.”

  Himilkon raised a thick, dark eyebrow. “You speak better, much better, now than you did when you sailed for Phoenicia. Not only are you more fluent, but your accent has improved.”

  “I suppose that comes from hearing and speaking the language so much,” Sostratos said, still in Aramaic. “I could not have done it, though, if you had not started me down the road.”

  “You are kind, my master, more kind than you need be.” Himilkon’s face still wore that measuring expression. He scratched at his curly black beard. “Most men could not have done it at all, I think. This is especially true of Ionians, who expect everyone to know Greek and do not take kindly to the idea of learning a foreign language.”

  “That is not altogether true,” Sostratos said, though he knew it was to a large degree. “Even Menedemos learned a few words while he was in Sidon.”

  “Truly?” Himilkon raised that eyebrow again. “He must have met a pretty woman there, eh?”

  “Well, no, or I don’t think so.” Sostratos was too honest to lie to the Phoenician. “As a matter of fact, I was the one who met a pretty woman there—in Jerusalem, not Sidon.”

  “Did you? That surprises me,” Himilkon said. “I would not have guessed the Ioudaioi had any pretty women.” He didn’t bother hiding his scorn. “Did you see how strange and silly their customs are?”

  “They are wild for their god, no doubt of that,” Sostratos said. “But still, my master, why worry about them? They will never amount to anything, not when they are trapped away from the sea in a small stretch of land no one else wants.”

  “You can say this—you are an Ionian,” Himilkon answered. �
�Your people have never had much trouble with them. We Phoenicians have.”

  “Tell me more, my master,” Sostratos said.

  “There was the time, for instance, when a petty king among the Ioudaioi wed the daughter of the king of Sidon—Iezebel, her name was,” Himilkon said. “She wanted to keep on giving reverence to her own gods whilst she lived amongst the Ioudaioi. Did they let her? No! When she kept on trying, they killed her and fed her to their dogs. Her, the daughter of a king and the wife of a king! They fed her to the dogs! Can you imagine such a people?”

  “Shocking,” Sostratos said. But it didn’t much surprise him. He could easily picture the Ioudaioi doing such a thing. He went on, “I think, though, that they will become more civilized as they deal with us Ionians.”

  “Maybe,” Himilkon said: the maybe of a man too polite to say, Nonsense! to someone he liked. “I for one, though, will believe it when I see it.”

  Sostratos didn’t care to argue, either, not when he’d come to thank the Phoenician for his Aramaic lessons. Bowing again, he said, “Your slave is grateful for your hearkening unto him and now must depart.”

  “May the gods keep you safe,” Himilkon said, bowing back to him. Sostratos made his way out of the warehouse, past shelves piled high with treasures and others piled even higher with trash. Himilkon, no doubt, would be as passionate about selling the trash as he would the treasure. He was a merchant down to the very tips of his toes.

  After the gloom inside Himilkon’s lair, the bright morning sun sparkling off the water of the Great Harbor made Sostratos blink and rub his eyes till he got used to it. He saw Menedemos talking with a carpenter over at the base of a quay a plethron or so away. Waving, he walked over toward them.

  His cousin clapped the carpenter on the back, saying, “I’ll see you later, Khremes,” and came toward him. “Hail. How are you?”

  “Not bad,” Sostratos answered. “Yourself?”

  “I could be worse,” Menedemos said. “I could be better, but I could be worse. Were you making horrible growling and hissing noises with Himilkon?”