Salamis

IX

Seseset hadn’t been out of Menedemos’ chamber in the palace for more than a few heartbeats when someone knocked on the door. Guessing she was coming back because she’d forgotten something, he thought about not bothering to put his tunic back on before he opened up. He did, though.

And he was glad he did, because there in the hallway stood not Seseset but Demodamas. “Come along with me,” Ptolemaios’ tough-looking steward said.

Menedemos had the feeling the man would have said the same thing if he had opened the door naked. “Lead on. I’ll follow,” he said. The hard-faced Macedonian turned and walked away. After a glance over his shoulder, he grudgingly gave Menedemos time to close and latch the door—not much time, but enough.

He led Menedemos to a part of the palace where he’d never gone before. Most of the men there had the look of soldiers: they were in good shape for their age, they’d seen more sun and wind than most men, and several of them bore nasty scars or had missing bits.

At last, Demodamas brought Menedemos into a room where Ptolemaios was talking with a couple of men not far from his own age. They were going back and forth in Macedonian. Menedemos caught a word here and there, but not enough to follow what they were saying. Some people claimed Macedonian was a broad northern dialect of Greek; others said it was its own speech. Whatever it was, it was a long way from the language Menedemos used every day.

One of the other men pointed at Menedemos with his chin. Ptolemaios had to half-turn to see him. When he did, he switched at once to the almost-Attic he used with ordinary Hellenes: “Ah, the Rhodian! Hail, son of Philodemos! Tell Argaios and Kallikrates here what you told me when you got here.”

“Of course, sir.” Menedemos paused for a moment to gather his thoughts, then came as close as he could to delivering to the others the same report about Demetrios that he’d earlier given to Ptolemaios. He finished, “I expect you’ll have more recent news than this.”

“It’s the same as what you’ve already heard,” Ptolemaios said. “Demetrios holds eastern Cyprus, gods curse him. He still has my brother Menelaos holed up in Salamis, in the far southeast. Menelaos has a fair-sized fleet of his own, but he can’t break out of the harbor. He has all he can do to keep Demetrios’ ships from breaking in.”

“I’ve tied up in that harbor,” Menedemos said. “The opening is narrow. It would be hard to break into or break out of against opposition.”

“That’s about the size of it,” one of Ptolemaios’ officers said—Menedemos thought it was Argaios. A pale scar gulleyed one cheek and pulled up the corner of his mouth. Like Ptolemaios, he spoke Greek to Menedemos. Unlike his overlord, he still had a thick Macedonian accent.

“Menelaos can sneak small boats out under cover of darkness and get past Demetrios’ scout ships,” Ptolemaios said, “but it isn’t easy for a small boat to get from Cyprus to Alexandria. So our news has been spotty.”

“They’ll be getting hungry in Salamis. Awful hungry.” Argaios seemed a man who came out and said whatever was on his mind. By all accounts, such people were commoner in Macedonia than in Hellas.

“He’s right,” Ptolemaios said. “And that’s a problem for us. You’ll know, Rhodian, that the winds are mostly northerly on the stretch of sea between here and Cyprus at this time of year.”

“It’s worse yet farther north, up in the Aegean. You can count on the Etesian winds howling down from the north all the way through the autumnal equinox,” Menedemos said. “But yes, you can’t count on sailing north now.”

“Which means that, if we’re going to get help and supplies to Menelaos in time to do him any good, we’ll have to take oared ships. Those tubby merchantmen would need gods can only guess how much time to get up to Cyprus.”

“I can see that,” Menedemos said. Sailing merchantmen were lumbering tubs even when a tailwind filled their big square sails to the fullest. Tacking against a steady headwind? Menedemos would have bet on garden tortoises to outpace them. He might have bet on the snails that came out at night to nibble holes in lettuce leaves. But he felt he had to ask, “Excuse me, sir—what has this got to do with me?”

By the way Ptolemaios looked at him, he knew he’d lost points. “You brought your galley here from Rhodes. It’s not a big hull, but it’s one more I can fill with grain and raisins and weapons and get them to my brother in Salamis while he can still use them. What will it cost me to hire the Aphrodite to do just that?”

Argaios spoke up once more: “Don’t be shy, Rhodian. Everybody knows what a cheap prick the Ptolemaios is—”

“To the crows with you, Argaios!” Ptolemaios broke in without great heat.

The officer went on as if he hadn’t spoken: “—but not when his brother’s arse is on the line. Squeeze him. He’ll pay.” How long had the two men known each other, and how well, for Argaios to be able to say such things with Ptolemaios listening?

That question flickered through Menedemos’ mind for a moment, then went out like a lamp flame in a strong wind. A much bigger worry loomed instead: “Forgive me, sir, but I don’t think I can do that,” he said to Ptolemaios. “My polis is neutral in your fight with Demetrios and Antigonos. If they got word I was helping you against Demetrios—”

“I can just seize your gods-cursed akatos,” Ptolemaios said, and he might have poured snow down the neck hole of Menedemos’ tunic. “You know I can, too. What could you do about it? Not even this!” He snapped his fingers. But then, a scowl on his heavy features, he went on, “You can’t, no, but your detestable free and independent polis is liable to. You don’t want to get Antigonos and Demetrios angry at you. I don’t want Rhodes angry at me, or she might go over to old Cyclops, and that would be a nuisance.”

“I’m glad to hear it, sir,” Menedemos said, and he didn’t think he’d ever told the truth more sincerely in all his life.

“I’ll bet you are,” Ptolemaios growled. “Look, I’m not asking you to lend a hand for nothing. Argaios is right, even if he is a loud-mouthed son of a whore who—”

“Listen to the lakkoproktos, why don’t you?” the officer said. That was one of Aristophanes’ choicer bits of obscenity. If someone who wasn’t a bosom friend called you anything like that, you’d punch him in the nose and then kick him in the teeth.

Ptolemaios just laughed. “Never mind him. Tell me what you hoped to make on your trading run here. I know what all you brought. I even know about the amber—and some of my customs men are looking for work somewhere else because they missed it. Tell me, then, and I’ll double it. By the gods, Rhodian, I will, and you have witnesses!” He waved to his officers. They solemnly dipped their heads.

“More than your little shit-stained galley’s worth, too,” Argaios said. “If we didn’t need every hull that can keep up with the fleet ….”

Menedemos gulped. He believed the overlord of Egypt. Ptolemaios literally had more silver than he knew what to do with. He spent a talent the way an ordinary man spent an obolos, and thought no more about it. Fear of not getting his silver wasn’t what made Menedemos stop and think. He had more than that to worry about.

After a long pause for thought, he said, “Sir, if I were just here working for the firm my father and uncle run, I’d say yes, I’d say thank you, and I’d spend the rest of my days singing your praises to the gods.”

“I doubt it,” Ptolemaios grunted. “Gratitude goes bad faster than octopus does.”

Don’t let him put you off, Menedemos told himself. Aloud, he went on, “I have to think of Rhodes, though. What good does your money do me if it makes Antigonos declare war on my polis? What good does it do me if Demetrios takes Rhodes the way he’s taking the cities on Cyprus? He’ll sell me into slavery or knock me over the head.”

Ptolemaios’ nostrils flared. His cheeks, already sun-browned, went darker still. He’d been playing a game before. Now he was really angry. “How much do you pay your rowers?” he said in a cold, deadly voice. “A drakhma and a half a day? Two drakhmai? How would you like to stay here in Alexandria till our campaign is over? Wouldn’t it be a shame if that weren’t till fall started and you’d risk going home in stormy weather? Wouldn’t it be a shame if you had to overwinter here, owing them close to a mina of silver every day?”

A mina—a pound—of silver held a hundred drakhmai. Menedemos wouldn’t owe his men quite that much every day, but they would easily soak up a talent’s worth—sixty minai—of debt if they couldn’t go back to Rhodes till next spring. And if Ptolemaios found or invented some fresh reason to delay them then ….

“You fight filthy!” Menedemos yelped.

Argaios, who seemed to do the talking for himself and Kallikrates both, guffawed. “You only just now noticed, pup of a Rhodian?” he said, and laughed some more.

“You’ve got yourself a choice, Menedemos,” Ptolemaios said, ignoring his officer. “You can let me pay you twice as much as you think your cargo’s worth and take your chances and your polis’ chances on the Cyclops and his boy, or you can stand on your principles and see how much your father and uncle love you when I finally decide to let you go home. If I ever do decide to let you go home, I mean.”

The kind of debt the firm could owe the rowers after months in Alexandria wouldn’t break it, but wouldn’t do it any good, either. Menedemos wanted to kick Ptolemaios in his plump belly. The overlord of Egypt looked insufferably smug, and well he might—he had all the power here. This wasn’t anything like a dicker between equals, and Ptolemaios had just rubbed Menedemos’ nose in that unpalatable fact.

What had Argaios called him? Pup of a Rhodian, that was it. Ptolemaios was treating him like a pup, all right, like a pup that had shat in the andron. The Macedonian was rubbing his nose in the turd. He was enjoying himself while he did it, too.

“Well, Rhodian? What’s it going to be?” Ptolemaios asked genially.

“I think you talked me into it.” Menedemos, by contrast, sounded as sullen as he had since he started shaving.

“You’ve decided to get rich instead of bleeding money. A merchant smart enough to do that will go a long way in this sorry old world,” Ptolemaios said. That sent Argaios into another fit of laughter. Even Kallikrates chuckled once or twice.

“Joke all you please, sir. You aren’t—” A few words too late, Menedemos broke off. Sure enough, he and Sostratos might add up to one diplomat. He certainly wasn’t a diplomat all by himself.

“I’m not what? Not putting my land on the line?” Sure enough, Ptolemaios could divine what Menedemos hadn’t swallowed soon enough. He’d mostly been playing at anger before, as a cat might play with a mouse. Now the mouse had nipped him, and he showed another spasm of real anger. The difference terrified Menedemos. “Furies take you if you’re fool enough to think I’m not. I’ll be in that fleet bound for Cyprus, you know. If Demetrios sinks my flagship, do you think a dolphin will carry me away like that one was supposed to do for Arion? Not fornicating likely! I’ll rot on the bottom of the sea, and the crabs and the eels will quarrel over who gets my eyes for opson.”

Menedemos stared at the floor between his feet. He hated being stupid. He hated getting called out for being stupid even more. “I’m sorry,” he muttered, and meant it more than he was in the habit of doing.

“Likely tell! I ought to commandeer your gods-detested akatos, just for that crack. Even your father would say you deserved it,” Ptolemaios told him. Did he know Philodemos? Whether he did or not, he was much too likely to be right. Contemptuously, he tossed his head. “Can’t offend the other citizens of your free and independent pisspot, though—ah, polis. Is there any reason you can’t drag your men away from our brothels and taverns and be ready to head north in a few days’ time?”

“Yes, sir,” Menedemos answered. Ptolemaios glowered at him. The vultures tearing at Prometheus’ liver might have worn expressions like that. Menedemos quickly explained: “Sostratos and five rowers are down in Memphis, sir, trying to sell some of the olive oil we brought to Egypt.”

“Oh.” For a moment, a wordless rumble resounded, down deep in Ptolemaios’ throat. “I don’t give a fart about the rowers. “If you just need a handful of them, you can pick up others just as good right here from my fleet. But there are times when I think your cousin has enough in the way of brains to be worth noticing.”

“I thank you for him, then,” Menedemos said. Sostratos wasn’t likely to win praise from a more discerning judge of men any time soon. Too bad he wasn’t around to hear it in person.

“I will send up to Memphis to bring him and the rowers back here as soon as possible,” Ptolemaios said. “The few days won’t matter. We’re still bringing soldiers into Alexandria, after all.”

Argaios made a face at him. “You’ll send up to Memphis to bring him back, Ptolemaios? You old Egyptian, you!”

Menedemos hadn’t even noticed what Ptolemaios said till the officer spoke up. Sure enough, what Egyptians termed Upper Egypt lay below what they called Lower Egypt. They spoke in terms of the Nile, with farther up it being closer to its unknown source and farther down it being nearer to where it emptied into the Inner Sea. Hellenes didn’t commonly think in those terms—not unless, Menedemos supposed, they’d lived in Egypt for a long time.

Clicking his tongue between his teeth, Ptolemaios said, “You know, Rhodian, this fool has been my friend longer than you’ve been alive. He’s been taking advantage of it longer than you’ve been alive, too.”

“That’s what friends are for, sir,” Menedemos said. “My cousin and I, we’re the same way with each other.”

“At least you have the bond of blood, the way I do with Menelaos,” Ptolemaios said. “I’m just stuck with Argaios and Kallikrates.”

“I thought you’d forgotten about me, the way you usually do.” Kallikrates proved he could talk after all, and to wicked effect, too.

Ptolemaios snorted laughter. “This kind of rubbish is what you’ve got to look forward to, Rhodian. I do thank you one more time for lending your akatos’ service to my fleet. Always glad to do business with a fellow who’s so eager to help.”

“Uh, yes, sir,” Menedemos said. “Since I am helping, will you be kind enough to haul the Aphrodite up into a shipshed and let her planking dry out? If you want her keeping up with your fleet, that’ll help.”

“I’ll give the order,” Ptolemaios said at once. “That’s fair enough. Anything else? No? Hail!” The dismissal couldn’t have been any shorter or sharper.

Ears burning, Menedemos all but fled the chamber. Behind him, Ptolemaios and his officers went back to slanging one another in Macedonian. Kallikrates had plenty to say in the tongue he’d grown up using, even if he didn’t in Greek. Menedemos understood not a word of it.

Sostratos eyed the shop before he went inside. It was in a good-sized building, and one that had been well kept up. It also lay only a couple of blocks from the nomarch’s sprawling residence, on a street as prominent as any in Memphis. All things considered, Rhodoios had probably done him a good turn by suggesting that he try to sell what was left of his olive oil here.

He turned to Thersandros, who was lugging an amphora of oil. “Shall we go in?”

“I’ll go anywhere that gets me out of the sun for a while,” Thersandros answered. Since Sostratos felt the same way, he ducked through the doorway (it was barely tall enough for someone of his height). His two-legged beast of burden came right behind him.

It was a little cooler and a lot dimmer inside. The smell of spices in the air tickled Sostratos’ nose. He recognized the fragrances of cinnamon and pepper. A man a few years younger than he was stood behind the counter. “Hail!” he said. “Are you Zoïlos?”

The young man tossed his head. “No, that’s my father. He’s in back. My name is Psaphon. Do you need him, or can I help you with something?”

“Well, I don’t know.” Sostratos nodded toward the amphora of oil, whose pointed end Thersandros had promptly stuck into the smooth earth of the floor. “I have some fine olive oil from Rhodes, and Rhodoios the cook told me your shop might want to buy it.”

“Oh, you’re that fellow!” Psaphon said. “Father told me Rhodoios told him you might be coming by.”

“Did he?” Sostratos said. He’d already given the cook a little silver for the tip. If Rhodoios wanted to earn a bit more from the shopkeeper … well, why not? You made money as you found the chance.

An older man who looked a lot like Psaphon except that he was going bald stuck his head out of the back room. “Hail,” he said, and he sounded like his son, too. “Thought I heard voices out here. I’m Zoïlos son of Psaphon. What can I do for you?”

Like many Hellenes, he’d named his son for his father. “Hail,” Sostratos said, and then summarized what he’d told Psaphon. “Would you like to try the oil, O best one? And your son, too, of course. If you care for it, we can talk about price. If not”—he shrugged—“I’ll say good day and leave you at peace.”

“If it’s any good, I’ll buy some,” Zoïlos said. “Rhodoios got some for the nomarch, so it can’t be too bad.” He turned to his son. “Why don’t you run get us some bread so we can see what we’ve got here?”

“All right, Father.” Psaphon went into and likely through the back room. Zoïlos came all the way out to talk with Sostratos. The first thing he said was, “What’s this I hear about Demetrios landing on Cyprus?”

“It’s true,” Sostratos replied, wondering how Zoïlos knew. He hadn’t even told the nomarch here in Memphis. Had news already come up the river from Alexandria? Or were the rowers gossiping in the wineshops and brothels? He hadn’t told them not to; that hadn’t crossed his mind. But it was an odd state of affairs when a merchant knew something a provincial governor might well not.

Psaphon came back then with half a loaf on an earthenware plate. “Mother just finished baking, so it’s fresh from the oven,” he said.

Sostratos’ nostrils twitched. “Nothing in all the world like the smell of new-baked bread,” he said.

“That’s the truth,” Zoïlos agreed. “Let’s see what we’ve got here, shall we?” He reached under the counter and pulled out a small bowl in the same style as the plate the bread lay on. “Pour in some of that oil and we’ll all have ourselves a taste.”

The weight of the full amphora made Sostratos grunt, but he got oil into the bowl without spilling it all over the counter, so he set the jar down well pleased with himself. Psaphon was the first to tear off a chunk of bread, dip it, and take a bite. He looked pleased “That is good oil!” he said with his mouth full.

His father let out a theatrical sigh. “Smooth going, boy! You just made the price go up.” Then he tasted the oil, too. His verdict was more judicious: “I’ve had worse, I will say that.”

Sostratos also ate some. It was Damonax’s oil, still good, still fresh. “The bread’s very fine,” he said. “The flour tastes like it’s half wheat, half barley.”

“That’s just what it is,” Psaphon said. “Mother puts it through the mill once more than most do, to make it extra fine.”

“I’ll buy your oil,” Zoïlos said to Sostratos. “Tell me what they gave you for it in the nomarch’s kitchens.” But when Sostratos did, he clapped a hand to his forehead in dismay. “Papai! You’re making that up!”

“By the gods, best one, I’m doing no such thing,” Sostratos answered. “Send your son to Rhodoios and ask him if you doubt me.”

“Never mind. I believe you,” Zoïlos said. “But you have to remember, the nomarch’s cooks have a whole nome’s worth of money to play with. I’m just a plain old merchant, so I don’t.”

Sostratos had thought the same thing when Rhodoios didn’t dicker as hard as he might have. Since he didn’t want to take any of his brother-in-law’s oil back to Alexandria, he asked, “Well, what can you afford, then?” The price Zoïlos proposed made him toss his head. “You can do better than that, O marvelous one. Plenty of Hellenes in Memphis these days, and when’s the next time anyone will bring oil this good this far up the river?”

“You must get laid a lot. If you sweet-talk the girls the way you’re sweet-talking me, how can they tell you no?” Zoïlos said.

“If only it were so!” Sostratos said with real regret. Both men laughed. Sostratos went on, “Seriously, my dear, you can do better. You know you’ll charge more than whatever you pay me.”

“Of course I will, but I’ll get it back a little at a time, and I’ll have to pay you for all the oil at once,” the Memphite merchant said.

“That’s the way trade works,” Sostratos said. “The time my cousin and I sailed to Italy and Sicily with a cargo that included peafowl …. Oimoi!” Even years later, that wasn’t a pleasant memory, even if they’d made money on the voyage.

“Peafowl! I’ve heard of them, but I’ve never seen one,” Zoïlos said. “Are the peacocks really as fancy as they say?”

“Fancier,” Sostratos answered. “But they’re also stupid and bad-tempered. Are they ever! Come up a bit and I’ll tell you some stories.”

Zoïlos did. Sostratos told a story. When he stopped, Zoïlos said, “That’s only one.”

“Well, you didn’t come up very far.”

Zoïlos came up a bit more. Sostratos spun out another tale of peafowl. He stopped again. Zoïlos came up again. After a while, they had a price that left neither man too unhappy, and clasped hands on it.

“I’ll get some laughs with your stories. That may turn out to be worth money for me,” Zoïlos said. “Somebody laughs with you, he doesn’t haggle so hard.” He cocked his head to one side. “What else have you got? Never can tell what I might buy, if I think I can make a profit off it.”

I made you laugh with me, Sostratos thought. Aloud, he answered, “Well, I have some amber that I bought last year. That won’t come cheap, though. I paid two minai of silver for it. But when will any Egyptian jewelers see amber again?”

“When I still lived in Corinth, I saw some,” Zoïlos said. “One chunk had what looked like a piece of fern in it.”

“One of the bits I bought has a bug in it,” Sostratos said. “How does something like that get inside a piece of rock?”

“I have no idea. I wish I did,” Zoïlos replied. “So tell me—did you bring your amber up the river from Alexandria?”

“Before I answer, tell me why you want to know,” Sostratos said.

“Because you’re right—that kind of stuff doesn’t come to Egypt, and whatever the price I pay to you, I’ll make more when I unload it. And if you like, I’ll trade you something the likes of which you aren’t likely to find in Hellas, either. So what do you say?”

“I’ll be back in a quarter of an hour,” Sostratos said. “Thersandros, you won’t have to take the jar back to the warehouse—you’re done for the day.”

Zoïlos laughed under his breath. Sostratos made that sound himself when he had a customer on the hook, so he recognized it. He didn’t fancy being on the receiving end, but what could he do about that?

He got the curious wooden box that held the amber out of the leather sack that held his worldly goods. It was wrapped in the chiton he wasn’t wearing, which might have hidden it from a thief for an extra heartbeat—maybe even two heartbeats if the thief was a halfwit.

“Never seen work like this before, or even wood like this,” Zoïlos remarked when Sostratos set the box on the counter. Psaphon dipped his head in agreement.

“I thought the same thing when I got it,” Sostratos said, and opened the box.

Zoïlos took out the chunks of amber one by one. He paused when he found the one with the insect trapped inside. “Isn’t that something?” he murmured, and seemed reluctant to set it down.

“Have you got something to show me, too?” Sostratos asked him.

“Oh, I might, Rhodian. Yes indeed, I just might.” Smiling, Zoïlos reached under the counter and took out something wrapped in a large square of embroidered linen that had gone yellow with age. Sostratos had seen that before, but rarely. Most linen didn’t last long enough to show its years.

Before Sostratos undid the cloth, he looked a question at Zoïlos, who waved for him to go ahead. He did, and then stopped. “Oh, my,” he whispered.

The necklace was of gold and lapis lazuli and garnet. Along with beads, it had lotus flowers and, above them, the moon disc riding a boat—across the sky, Sostratos supposed. The moon was paler than the rest of the goldwork. He suspected it was of electrum. The Lydians in Anatolia had struck their first coins from the natural alloy of gold and silver.

“Where … did you come by this?” he asked.

Zoïlos tipped him a wink. “I’ll pretend I didn’t hear you. Robbing rich Egyptian tombs has been against the law since the day after they made the first one, and hasn’t stopped since. There’s a lot of gold in Egypt, especially if you’re a Hellene and you aren’t used to it. But most of it gets used over and over, not just once.”

“Isn’t that interesting?” Sostratos reached toward the necklace, then paused till Zoïlos dipped his head again. He picked up the necklace then, hefting it with experienced hands. Close to half a mina of gold, he judged: the equivalent of four or four and a half minai of silver, about what he wanted to make for the amber.

The jewels would add some value, too, and the artistry in the piece was very fine even if it wasn’t Greek. “Are you sure you want to make this bargain?” he asked. “I don’t want you to think I’ve cheated you.”

Zoïlos nodded toward the necklace. “I can get more pieces like that. They come around every so often,” he answered. “Robbers find a new tomb, maybe—I don’t know. I don’t want to know. They sell at a discount, because it isn’t stuff everybody will touch, you know what I’m saying?”

“I hear you.” Sostratos realized he’d have to be extra careful with the necklace if he took it. If Ptolemaios’ men found it on him, paying export duty would be the least of his worries. Like most traders, he didn’t see smuggling as a crime. Getting caught smuggling would be an inconvenience, though.

“Your amber, now, that’s something different here,” Zoïlos said. “I know men who’ll want it, and they’ll pay plenty. I may even keep the piece with the bug for myself. So—have we got a deal?”

“I think we do,” Sostratos said slowly. “And speaking of paying, if my men deliver the oil tomorrow, will you have the silver for it?”

“I’ll have it.” Zoïlos didn’t fuss. Sostratos liked his calm self-assurance. And if he was a man who dealt in gold, even at cut prices because it wasn’t legal gold, he would have plenty of silver around, or be able to lay hold of it in a hurry.

Sostratos hired a large, two-ox cart to carry the oil from the warehouse to Zoïlos’ shop. He had the rowers come along anyhow. If Zoïlos meant to make trouble, Sostratos hoped to leave him on the receiving end of at least some.

But Zoïlos didn’t. Like a lot of men on the fringes of the law, he was scrupulous about doing everything just so when he walked on the legitimate side of the street. He had Sostratos’ silver waiting in three leather sacks. “You can count the drakhmai if you want,” he said. “They won’t all weight the same—they come from all over Hellas.”

“Do you have a scale?” Sostratos asked. Zoïlos pulled a balance and a set of weights off a shelf on the wall behind the counter. Sostratos eyed the weights. He hefted a couple of them. They felt about right, anyhow. Zoïlos couldn’t get away with cheating customers too openly. The local merchant grinned at him, seeing what was in his mind. With a shrug, Sostratos weighed each sack in turn. His lips moved as he added the three weights together. He dipped his head. “Close enough.” If Damonax wasn’t perfectly happy with the accounting he’d get, too bad.

“Pleasure doing business with you,” Zoïlos said.

Sostratos gave each rower a drakhma above their daily wage. No, Damonax wouldn’t miss the money. “Have yourselves a drink or three, boys,” he said. That made them grin, too. A tavern lay a few doors down the street.

The first thing Sostratos did when he got back to his room was to take the necklace he’d traded for the day before and put in in the least full sack of coins, covering it over with silver. Coins were coins. He had several sacks of them here, and a robber might easily miss one. The necklace was something special. Anywhere else among his personal goods, it would surely draw notice.

Only a little while after he’d made his arrangements, someone knocked on the door. When he opened it, he found a Hellene he’d never seen before standing in the inn’s narrow hallway. “Tell me your name,” the stranger said.

“Sostratos son of Lysistratos,” Sostratos answered automatically. Only then did he think to ask, “Who are you, and why do you want to know?”

“I am a messenger from the Ptolemaios, that’s who,” the man said. “You and the sailors who came to Memphis with you are ordered to return to Alexandria with me at once. I came by horse, but I have a boat waiting on the Nile.”

“I’m not going anywhere on your say-so,” Sostratos said. “For all I know, you’ll cut my throat and toss my body in the river.”

“Tempting,” the man said, which left Sostratos with his mouth hanging open. The Hellene went on, “If the nomarch vouches for me, will that make you happy, O marvelous one?”

“Y-yes,” Sostratos managed. He and the man went over to the nomarch’s residence together. Sure enough, Alexandros affirmed that the newcomer, whose name Sostratos still didn’t know, was in Ptolemaios’ service. When Sostratos told Ptolemaios’ official where his rowers were, the nomarch sent men to bring them back to the inn. Everything else went just as smoothly. Sostratos barely had time to clean out his chamber before he was on his way down to the riverbank.

Menedemos watched workmen load the Aphrodite with weapons of war. Now she lay in a shipshed, as he’d asked of Ptolemaios. The shed had been built for a trireme, the smallest kind of war galley in the Egyptian navy. Even so, inside it the Aphrodite seemed like a puppy in a doghouse made for a big, mean Molossian hound.

Menedemos’ mouth twisted in wry amusement. Nothing was too good for him or his ship as long as they were in Ptolemaios’ service. Before, the akatos could have stayed tied up in the harbor till shipworms bored holes in her planking and she quietly sank.

Diokles waved from the steering platform at the stern. Ptolemaios’ payment for use of the Aphrodite was stashed under the platform. That was the safest spot on the ship, but someone from her company always kept watch now. Otherwise, no telling what the men who brought aboard arrows and spears and swords and shields would walk off with.

These were sheaves of arrows coming aboard now, their iron heads glistening with oil so they wouldn’t rust. Diokles ordered the men carrying them forward. With Sostratos gone, he was best suited to deciding how to stow her new, deadly cargo in ways that kept her trim and as seaworthy as possible.

Not three heartbeats after Menedemos thought of Sostratos, a familiar voice behind him said, “We’ve come up in the world a bit, I see.”

Whirling, Menedemos embraced his cousin. “By the dog of Egypt!” he exclaimed—a fitting oath here. “The Ptolemaios told me he was going to bring you back from Memphis as fast as he could, but I didn’t expect you for another couple of days.”

“His agents are like the Persian couriers Herodotos wrote about. Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays them from the swift completion of their appointed rounds,” Sostratos said.

“Not likely they need to worry about snow or even rain here,” Menedemos said with a snort. “Heat, now, heat’s a different business.”

“Worse in Memphis than it is here, too.” Sostratos looked around to make sure no one could overhear, then lowered his voice anyhow. “And Ptolemaios’ helpers may as well be his Eyes and Ears.”

That was what people called the Persian kings’ secret agents. In the old days, they’d been pointed to as proof of Persian oppression. Menedemos would have bet Ptolemaios wasn’t the only Macedonian warlord using such Persian tricks these days, though. Once again, it made him wonder who’d really conquered whom.

“Did you see your precious Pyramids?” he asked.

He couldn’t help but smile at the way his cousin’s face lit up. “I did! I really did! And the Sphinx, too!” Sostratos said. “And they were …. You can’t imagine how big they were. I couldn’t imagine till I saw with my own eyes. Nothing human beings make has any business being that big.”

“Maybe the Egyptian gods did it,” Menedemos said slyly.

Sostratos tossed his head in indignation. “Oh, rubbish! There’s a gigantic ramp, a causeway, whatever you want to call it, that leads from the Nile to where the Pyramids sit. Herodotos talks more about it than he does about them. The Egyptians quarried the stones farther south, floated them down the Nile till they got to the right place, and hauled them along the causeway so they could trim each one perfectly square and set it just where it went. If gods built the Pyramids, they wouldn’t have gone to all that trouble. They’d have just plopped them down where they wanted them, wouldn’t they?”

“Don’t ask me, my dear. I’m no god,” Menedemos said. “What did the rowers think of them?”

“They thought we were way the daimon out in the desert. They were keeping an eye on the fellow who owned the camels we rode on, and on his friends. We didn’t have any trouble with them, so that worked out all right,” Sostratos said.

“Good. And how was business?” To Menedemos, that was more important than Sostratos’ sightseeing.

“Damonax’s oil is gone, gods be praised, and at a decent price, too,” his cousin answered. “The nomarch’s kitchens bought some, and I unloaded the rest on a merchant in Memphis.” He lowered his voice again. “I made a deal for the amber with him, too.”

“Ah? And how did you do on that?”

“I’ll show you when we go back to the room,” Sostratos said. “How was your trading up here?”

“Just about all of the wine is gone,” Menedemos said. “Prices were good—not great, but good. I bought some incenses, so not all the pay was in silver. We’ll have something to sell when we get home. And the Ptolemaios is paying plenty to hire the Aphrodite, too. We’ll make a nice profit on the trip—if we don’t get sunk, I mean.”