The Sacred Land

8

“Hail,” Emashtart said when Menedemos came out of his bedchamber to start another day. “How you?” the innkeeper’s wife went on in her fragmentary Greek. “You to sleep good?”

“Yes, thank you, I slept well enough,” Menedemos answered around a yawn. He scratched. Beyond any doubt, the room had bugs. He saw no point to complaining about it. What room at an inn didn’t? Oh, a clean one happened now and again, but you had to be lucky.

Emashtart was kneading dough on a countertop. She looked up from the work with a sly smile. “You not alonely, to sleep all lone?”

“I’m fine, thanks,” Menedemos said. She’d taken this tack before. Her attempts at seduction would have been funny if they hadn’t been so sad- and so annoying. This is Sostratos’ revenge on me, Menedemos thought. Here’s a woman I don’t want and never would, and what does she care about? Adultery, nothing else but.

She wasn’t subtle about it, either. “You to sleep better, you having woman with you. Woman make you all tired, no?”

“I’m plenty tired by the end of the day, believe me,” Menedemos replied.

“Once upon a time, I famous beauty. Men to fight for me all over Sidon,” the innkeeper’s wife said.

Menedemos almost asked her whether that had been during Alexander ’s reign or that of his father, Philip of Macedon. Alexander had been dead for fifteen years now, Philip for almost thirty. Had Menedemos been only a few years younger, a few years cruder, himself, he would have done it. But Emashtart probably wouldn’t have understood him. And, if she had, she would have been insulted. She’s enough trouble the way things are, the Rhodian thought, and kept quiet.

When, as usual, he refused to rise to her bait, she sent him a venomous look. After pounding the dough harder than she really needed to, she asked, “Is true, what they to say of Hellenes?”

“I don’t know,” Menedemos answered innocently, though he had a pretty good idea what would come next. “What do they say about Hellenes?”

Emashtart glared at him again. Maybe she’d hoped he would help. But when he didn’t, she wasn’t shy about speaking her mind: “They say, Hellenes sooner to put up boy’s arse than woman’s pussy.”

“Do they?” Menedemos exclaimed, as if he’d never heard of such a thing before. “Well, if we did that all the time, there wouldn’t be any more Hellenes after a little while, now would there?” He waited to find out whether she understood. When he saw she did, he gave her his sweetest, most charming smile. “Good day,” he said, and strolled out of the inn.

Behind him, the innkeeper’s wife said several things in Aramaic. Menedemos understood not a word of them, but they sounded pungent. He wondered what Sostratos would have made of them. After a moment, he tossed his head. Not knowing might be better.

“Miserable old whore,” he muttered. “Why doesn’t her husband take charge of her?” A moment’s thought gave him a couple of possible answers. Maybe Sedek-yathon feared his wife. Or maybe he didn’t want her, either, and didn’t care what she did. Well, he can go howl, Menedemos thought. He hurried off toward the Aphrodite . These days, he wished he’d stayed aboard the merchant galley instead of taking a room in Sidon. It would have been less comfortable but would have offered him more peace of mind.

“Hail,” Diokles called as Menedemos came up the quay. The oarmaster was staying aboard the Aphrodite . Every so often, he’d make a sally into Sidon after wine or a friendly woman. Other than that, he seemed content to do without a roof over his head and a mattress under him. Indeed, he kept up his usual habit of sleeping sitting up on a rower’s bench and leaning against the planking of the ship for support. Thinking about that, Menedemos didn’t mind the innkeeper’s wife so much.

“Hail yourself,” he said. “How are things here?”

“Tolerable, skipper, tolerable,” Diokles answered. “You’re out and about earlier than usual, aren’t you?”

“Work doesn’t wait,” Menedemos said. He didn’t always take that attitude. But he would have needed a much more enjoyable distraction than the innkeeper’s wife to make work wait. He went on, “One of the Hellenes from Antigonos’ garrison gave me the name of a merchant here who deals in fine cloth. I’m going to take some of our Koan silk over to him, see what it’ll bring in this part of the world.”

“Sounds good to me, skipper,” the keleustes said. “We’re a long ways from Kos, that’s for sure, so silk won’t come here every day, especially when it’s not going through fourteen middlemen. You ought to get a good price.”

“I hope so.” Menedemos hid a smile. On a Rhodian ship, everybody could speak knowledgeably of trade.

“Does this Sidonian fellow know any Greek?” Diokles asked-another relevant consideration, with Sostratos on his way to Engedi.

“That soldier said he did,” Menedemos answered. “Said he does a fair amount of business with Hellenes, so he’s had to learn.”

“All right.” The oarmaster dipped his head. “Good fortune go with you, then.”

“Thanks.” Menedemos poked through the cargo, wishing he’d made Sostratos leave him a more complete manifest. After a little while, though, he found the oiled-leather sacks that protected bolts of silk from seawater. They weren’t heavy, of course. He slung three of them over his shoulder and set off for the cloth merchant’s house.

The Hellene in Macedonian service had given him what sounded like good directions: the street opposite the entrance to the temple of Ashtart (Aphrodite ’s Phoenician counterpart), third house on the left. But Menedemos took a wrong turn somewhere. In a town built by Hellenes, he would have had an easy time spotting a temple, for it would have stood out above the roofs of houses and shops. But the Sidonians built tall. How am I supposed to find this polluted temple if they go and hide it? he thought irritably.

He tried asking people on the streets, but they started at him in blank incomprehension and gave back streams of gibberish. Not for the first time since coming here, he wished he’d spent part of the winter learning Aramaic, too. At last, he found a couple of Antigonos’ soldiers lurching out of a wineshop.

They were drunk, but they understood Greek. “The temple of Ashtart, is it?” one of them said. “You want a go at the temple prostitutes? Most of ‘em are ugly.”

“No, not the prostitutes.” Menedemos tossed his head, thinking, Maybe another time. “I’m trying to find a house near the temple.”

“Ugly girls,” the soldier repeated. His pal told Menedemos how to find the temple and even declined the tip the Rhodian tried to give him. That, to a Hellene, was a minor miracle. Menedemos followed his directions and found they worked. That wasn’t a minor miracle, but came close.

“Third house on the left, street opposite the entrance,” Menedemos muttered when he got to the temple. The street seemed more of an alley, narrow and cramped. Menedemos planted his bare feet with care. When he knocked on the door to the third house on the left, a dog inside began to bark. It sounded like a big, fierce dog. After a minute, somebody on the other side of the door said something in Aramaic.

In Greek, Menedemos answered, “Is this the house of Zakerbaal son of Tenes, the cloth merchant?”

A pause inside. The dog kept barking. Then, very suddenly, it stopped with a yelp, as if someone had kicked it. One word came through the door, in heavily accented Greek: “Wait.”

Menedemos waited. After what seemed to him much too long, the door opened. A short, wide-shouldered, muscular man looked out at him. “I am Zakerbaal. Who are you, and what do you want?” he asked. His Greek was considerably better than his slave’s.

“I’m Menedemos son of Philodemos, of Rhodes,” Menedemos began.

“Ah. The fellow from the merchant galley.” Zakerbaal nodded. His heavy features brightened into a smile. “You’re at Sedek-yathon’s inn these days, aren’t you? Tell me, has his wife tried pulling you into bed yet?”

“ Zeus!” Menedemos muttered, gaping at the cloth merchant. A moment later, he realized he would have done better to swear by wing-footed Hermes, messenger of the gods and god of rumor. He pulled himself together enough to dip his head in agreement and say, “Yes, that’s right, best one. Er-how did you know?”

“Merchants hear about merchants, my master,” the Phoenician answered. “I wondered if you might call on me. Or did you mean about the innkeeper’s wife? She is no secret in Sidon, believe me. But come in. Drink wine with me. Eat dates and raisins. Show me your wares. What have you there?”

“Silk from Kos, the finest fabric in the world,” Menedemos said proudly.

“I know of it. I will gladly look at it,” Zakerbaal said. The reaction was polite, interested, but less than Menedemos had hoped for. Was Zakerbaal so formidable a bargainer? Or was it that, never having seen silk, he didn’t know how splendid a cloth it was? Menedemos hoped for the latter.

He followed the Phoenician into the courtyard of his house: a courtyard rather bare by Hellenic standards, for it had no garden. The dog growled and lunged at Menedemos, but a chain brought it up short. Zakerbaal spoke in his own guttural language. Servants brought stools and took the dog away. They fetched a basin of water, in which Zakerbaal ceremoniously washed his hands. Menedemos followed his host’s lead. Refreshments followed. The wine was quite good. “Where does this come from?” Menedemos asked.

“Byblos, my master,” Zakerbaal replied.

As was the Phoenician way, he served the wine neat. That concentrated its bouquet, which measured up against that of any Menedemos had ever known, even the finest Khian and Thasian vintages. “Very good,” he repeated. Its flavor didn’t quite match that marvelous, flowery bouquet, but it was more than worth drinking: good enough, in fact, to make Menedemos wonder whether he could get some and bring it back to Rhodes.

With the wine, Zakerbaal’s slave brought out figs and dates and raisins and balls of dried chickpeas fried in olive oil and dusted with cumin. Menedemos found those very tasty, but spicy enough to raise his thirst. He drank more wine to put it down.

Zakerbaal chatted affably about matters of little importance while his guest ate and drank. Presently, the cloth merchant said, “Perhaps you would be so good, my master, as to show me some of this famous Koan silk you have. Your servant has heard of it, and would be glad to learn its quality.”

“I’d be happy to, most noble one,” Menedemos answered. His hands were steady as he undid the rawhide lashing that held one of his leather sacks closed. His wits were steady, too, or he thought they were. He hadn’t been silly enough to pour down a lot of unmixed wine, not with a dicker ahead of him. He took out a bolt of the finest, filmiest silk he had and held it up against the sun so Zakerbaal could see how nearly transparent it was. “Imagine a beautiful woman wearing-or almost wearing-robes of this,” he told the Phoenician.

Zakerbaal smiled. Whatever he was imagining, he liked it. He reached for the silk but politely stopped before touching it. “May I feel of it?” he asked.

“Of course.” Menedemos handed him the fine, fine cloth. “There’s nothing like it in all the world.”

“Perhaps,” was all Zakerbaal said. His fingers traveled the fabric as delicately, as knowingly, as if exploring that imaginary woman’s body. He held the silk up to his face so he could peer through it, even breathe through it. When he lowered it, he nodded to Menedemos. “This is good. This is very good. I must tell you, though, my master, and I mean no offense: I have seen better.”

“What? Where?” Menedemos yelped. “There is no better fabric than Koan silk.” He’d heard plenty of ploys for lowering prices. This had to be another one. “If you’ve got better, O marvelous one”-a bit of sarcasm Zakerbaal might or might not notice-”please show it to me.”

He confidently expected the Phoenician to say he’d just sold it, or that he’d seen it year before last in another town, or to give some other excuse for not producing it. Instead, Zakerbaal called out to the slave again, rattling off a string of Aramaic gutturals and hisses. The slave bowed and hurried away. Zakerbaal turned back to Menedemos. “Be so kind as to wait but one moment, my master. Tubalu will fetch it.”

“All right.” Cautiously, Menedemos sipped more wine. Did Zakerbaal really believe he had cloth finer than Koan silk? Menedemos tossed his head. The barbarian couldn’t possibly. Or, if he did, he had to be wrong.

Tubalu took considerably longer than the promised moment. Menedemos began to wonder if he would come back at all. But he did, carrying in his arms a good-sized bolt of cloth. He bore it as tenderly as if it were a baby. Even so, Menedemos turned to Zakerbaal in perplexity and annoyance. “I mean no disrespect, best one, but that is only linen, and not the finest linen, either.”

The Phoenician nodded. “Yes, that is only linen. But it is also only a cover for what lies within, just as your leather sacks cover your Koan silk and keep it safe.” He took the bolt of linen from Tubalu as carefully as the slave had carried it. Unfolding it, he drew from it the fabric it concealed and held that out to Menedemos. “Here. Behold with your own eyes, with your own fingers.”

“Ohhh.” Menedemos’ soft exclamation was altogether involuntary. For the first time, he understood exactly how Sostratos had felt the moment he set eyes on the gryphon’s skull. Here, too, something completely unexpected and at the same time completely marvelous came before a Hellene for the first time.

Menedemos hadn’t cared so much about the gryphon’s skull. One had to love wisdom for its own sake more than he did to get excited about ancient bones, no matter how unusual they were. This… This was different.

He’d shown Zakerbaal the finest Koan silk he had. Next to the fabric the Phoenician merchant showed him, that cloth might almost have been coarse wool by comparison. Here, it was as if someone at a loom had managed to weave strands of air into cloth. The delicate blue of the dye only made the resemblance stronger, for it put him in mind of the color of the sky on a perfect spring day.

Then, ever so gently, Menedemos touched the cloth. “Ohhh,” he said again, even more softly than before. Under his hand, the fabric was as soft, as smooth, as the fanciest courtesan’s skin to a lover’s fingers.

Zakerbaal didn’t even gloat. He only nodded again, as if he’d expected nothing else. “You see, my friend,” he said.

“I see.” Menedemos didn’t want to stop stroking the… silk? He supposed it had to be silk, though it was far finer, far smoother, far more transparent than anything the Koan weavers made. He forced himself to stop staring at it and looked up to Zakerbaal. “I see, O marvelous one”- for once, he meant that literally-”I see, yes, but I don’t understand. I know cloth-well, I thought I knew cloth-but I never dreamt there could be anything like this. Where does it come from?”

“I know cloth, too-well, I thought I knew cloth,” the Phoenician answered. He eyed the blue silk with as much wonder as Menedemos showed, and he’d seen it before. “Your Koan fabric comes here now and again. When I first saw-that-I thought it more of the same. Then I got a better look, and I knew I had to have it.” He might have been a rich Hellene speaking of a beautiful hetaira.

And Menedemos could only dip his head in agreement. “Where does it come from?” he asked again. “The Koans would kill to be able to make cloth like this. They never imagined anything so fine, and neither did I.” As a trader, he should have stayed blasй, uninterested. He knew that. Here, in the presence of what might as well have been a miracle, he couldn’t make himself do it.

Zakerbaal’s slow smile said he understood. It even said he might not take advantage, which surely proved how miraculous that silk was. “It comes from out of the east,” he said.

“Where?” Menedemos asked for the third time. “The east, you say? India?”

“No, not India.” The cloth merchant shook his head. “Somewhere beyond India-maybe farther east, maybe farther north, maybe both. The man from whom I bought it could tell me no more than that. He did not know himself. He had not brought it all the way, you understand-he had bought it from another trader who had got it from another, with who knows how many more since it left the land where it was made?”

Menedemos stroked the astonishing silk once more. As his fingers slid across its amazing smoothness, the gryphon’s skull came to mind again. It too had entered the world Hellenes knew from out of the trackless east. Alexander had conquered so much, people-especially people who still dwelt by the Inner Sea-often thought he’d taken all there was to take. Things like this were a reminder that the world was larger and stranger than even Alexander had imagined.

Like a man slowly emerging from a trance, Menedemos looked up from the silk to Zakerbaal. “How much of this do you have?” the Rhodian asked. “What price do you want?”

Zakerbaal sighed, as if he too didn’t much care to return to the mundane world of commerce. “I have twelve bolts in all, each much like this in size, some in different colors,” he answered. “I would have bought more, but that was all the trader had. Price?” He smiled a sad smile. “I would say it is worth its weight in gold. And now I have made you want to flee, I doubt not.”

“No, best one.” Menedemos tossed his head. “If I’d heard about this without seeing it, I would have laughed in your face. Now… Now I understand why you say what you say.” He did laugh then. “Telling you something like that makes me a terrible trader, one who deserves to be overcharged. But here, for this, I can’t help it. It’s the truth.”

“You respect the cloth,” Zakerbaal said seriously. “I respect you because of it. With stuffs like this, we throw out the ordinary rules.” He mimed tossing the contents of a chamber pot out the window and into the street below.

“Worth its weight in gold, you say?” Menedemos asked, and the Phoenician nodded. Menedemos didn’t even try to argue with him. Considering how far the silk had come, considering how fine it was, that seemed fair. But he didn’t want to give up gold or silver for the silk, not directly. “What would you say if I offered you half again its weight in my Koan silk here? “

“I would say, that is not enough,” Zakerbaal replied at once. “Koan silk is all very well. I mean no insult, Rhodian, but I say this is far better. I say it is so much better, if ever it comes here often and in large quantities, the Koans will go out of business, for they cannot compete with it.”

Half an hour before, Menedemos would have laughed at him. With the silk from the distant east in his lap, under his fingers, he suspected Zakerbaal might be right. Even so, he said, “All right. Koan silk is not so splendid. How can I deny it? But Koan silk is still very fine cloth. Koan silk is still no common thing itself in Phoenicia. So-one and a half times the weight is not enough, you say. What would be enough?”

The Phoenician looked up toward the sky. His lips moved silently. Sostratos got the same faraway expression when he was calculating. At last, Zakerbaal said, “Three and a half times.”

“No. That’s too much.” Menedemos tossed his head once more. Zakerbaal had indeed dealt with a good many Hellenes, for he showed he understood the gesture by a small nod of his own. Menedemos, for his part, knew that nod wasn’t one of agreement, only of acknowledgment. He went on, “Here in Sidon, you’ll be able to get just about as much for Koan silk as you will for this cloth from out of the east, because they’re both foreign and exotic in Phoenicia.”

“There is, perhaps, some truth in what you say, best one, but only some,” the cloth merchant replied. “What I have is better than what you are trying to trade for it, though.”

“And I’m offering you more Koan silk than the eastern silk I’d get in return,” Menedemos said. In Hellas, Koan silk wasn’t exotic, but it was expensive. Just how much he might get for twelve bolts of these new stuffs… He didn’t know just how much, but he was ever so eager to find out. “Three and a half times by weight leaves me no profit.” He doubted even that, but Zakerbaal didn’t need to know his doubts.

“Three times, then,” the Phoenician said. “Bolt for bolt, Koan silk is heavier than the fabric I have, because yours is so much coarser and thicker.”

They haggled for the next hour, each calling the other a liar and a thief. Menedemos sometimes enjoyed taking on a skilled opponent, even if that meant ending up with a little less than he would have otherwise. By Zakerbaal’s small smile, he felt the same. The closer they came to a bargain, the harder they dickered over tiny fractions. At last, they settled on Koan silk for two and seventeen thirty-seconds the weight of the eastern silk.

“My master, you should have been born a Phoenician, for you are wasted as a Hellene,” Zakerbaal said when they clasped hands.

“You’re a formidable fellow yourself, most noble one,” Menedemos replied truthfully. He resolved to make sure that Zakerbaal weighed both kinds of silk on the same pan of his scales. So skillful a bargainer would surely find a way to make everything possible work for him. But the cloth merchant didn’t even try setting one kind in one pan and the other in the other. Maybe that was a compliment to Menedemos. Maybe it meant Zakerbaal had some other way to cheat. If so, Menedemos didn’t spot it.

The Rhodian’s burden on the way back to the Aphrodite was lighter than what he’d taken from the ship, but he didn’t mind. In fact, he felt like kicking up his heels. No, he didn’t mind at all.

I shouldn’t be doing this, Sostratos told himself. It’s wrong. If Menedemos knew, how he would laugh…

Then he laughed at himself. He was enjoying himself too much to care whether his cousin would mock him.

“Keep going,” he said, panting a little. “Don’t stop there.”

“I don’t intend to, my dear,” Hekataios of Abdera answered. “I was only getting a pebble out of my sandal. The temple of the Ioudaioi is just around this next corner here.”

I should be in the market square, selling whatever I can, Sostratos thought. But Menedemos does know I aimed to learn about the loudaioi, too. Of one thing he was certain: his cousin wouldn’t have minded if he’d stayed away from the market square to bed the innkeeper’s pretty wife. That was how Menedemos would have entertained himself in Jerusalem. If I find my amusement in different places, Menedemos will just have to make the best of it.

Along with Hekataios, Sostratos rounded that last corner. Having done so, he stopped in his tracks and pointed. “That’s a temple?” he said, unable to hide his disappointment.

“I’m afraid so,” Hekataios told him. “Not very impressive, is it?”

“In a word, no,” Sostratos said. He was used to the colonnades, the entablatures, and carved and painted friezes that marked out a sacred place throughout the Hellenic world. Where poleis were rich, the shrines would be built of gleaming marble. Where they were not so rich, or where no more suitable stone was close by, limestone would serve. He’d even heard of temples where tree trunks did duty for columns.

The Phoenicians worshiped their gods with rites different from the ones Hellenes used. And yet, as Sostratos had seen in Sidon, they’d come under the influence of Hellenic architecture, so that from the front their shrines looked much like those to be found anywhere in the Hellenic world from Syracuse to Rhodes. The same held true for other barbarians like the Samnites and Karians and Lykians.

Not here. Seeing this temple in the northern corner of Jerusalem was almost like a blow in the face: it reminded Sostratos just how far from home he was. A stone wall defended the perimeter of the temple precinct. It wasn’t the strongest work Sostratos had ever seen, but it was a long way from the weakest. Laughing, he said, “I thought this was part of the citadel.”

“Oh, no, best one.” Hekataios of Abdera tossed his head and pointed northwest, up toward higher ground. “There’s the citadel, surrounding the governor’s palace.”

Sostratos craned his neck. “I see. It’s well sited. In any fight that breaks out between the governor and the Ioudaioi, the governor and his garrison here have the advantage of the ground.”

“Er-yes.” Hekataios dipped his head. “I hadn’t thought of it in quite those terms, but you’re perfectly correct. The palace, of course, dates back to Persian days, so the Great Kings must have been nervous about trouble from the Ioudaioi even then. An interesting point.”

“It is, isn’t it?” Sostratos said. “How old is the temple?”

“It was built in Persian times, too,” Hekataios answered. “But it’s supposed to lie on the spot where an older temple stood before Jerusalem was sacked.” He shrugged regretfully. “History in these parts is pretty much a blur before the days of the Persians, unless you want to believe all the mad fables about Queen Semiramis and the rest of those absurdities.”

“They are hard to swallow, aren’t they?” Sostratos agreed. “Hard to make any real sense of history when you’re trying to investigate times too distant to let you question the people who shaped events.”

“Just so. Just so,” Hekataios said. “You do understand how these things work, don’t you?”

“I try.” Sostratos realized the older man took him for a merchant and nothing more. With some asperity, he said, “I may have to buy and sell for a living, O marvelous one, but I’m not an ignorant man on account of that. I studied at the Lykeion in Athens under the great Theophrastos. I may not be lucky enough to study full time”-the look he sent his companion was frankly jealous-”but I do what I can in the time I have.”

Hekataios of Abdera coughed a couple of times and turned as red as a modest youth hearing praise from his suitors for the first time. “I beg your pardon, my dear. Please believe me when I tell you I meant no offense.”

“Oh, I believe you.” That wasn’t the problem. The problem was all the assumptions Hekataios had been making. Sostratos didn’t know what to do about those. He doubted he could do anything about them. Hekataios was obviously a gentleman from a privileged family. Like anyone who didn’t have to get his hands dirty, he looked down his nose at men who did. He was polite about it; Sostratos had met plenty of kaloi k’agathoi who weren’t. But the bias remained. With a sigh, Sostratos said, “Let’s go on toward the temple, shall we?”

“Certainly. That’s a good idea.” Hekataios sounded relieved. By talking about the curious customs of the Ioudaioi, he could escape talking- and thinking-about the curious customs of the Hellenes. “We can go into the lower court here-anyone’s allowed to do that. But we can’t go into the upper, inner, courtyard, the one surrounding the temple itself. Only Ioudaioi are allowed to do that.”

“What would happen if we tried?” Sostratos asked-he wanted to get as close a look at the temple as he could. Unlike the shrines in Sidon, this one, he could see even from a distance of several plethra, had been built by men who knew nothing of Hellenic architecture. It was a plain, rather dumpy rectangle of a building, oriented east-west, its face adorned with sparkling gold ornaments, a curtain over the entrance. In front of the temple stood a large altar-ten cubits high and twenty broad, Sostratos guessed-of unhewn white stones.

But Hekataios of Abdera was tossing his head in dismay. “What would happen if we tried? First off, they wouldn’t let us. The priests of the Ioudaioi run things here-Antigonos’ men don’t. Second, if we did manage to sneak into the inner court, they would say we polluted it just by being there. They take ritual cleanliness very seriously. Didn’t you see that in your travels through Ioudaia coming here?”

“Well, yes,” Sostratos said. “But even so-”

“But me no buts,” the other Hellene said. “What would happen after we tried to go into the inner court is that Jerusalem would see rioting of a kind you wouldn’t believe. Even if the Ioudaioi didn’t murder us-and they probably would-Antigonos’ men would want to, for causing so much trouble. You have to be a dangerous madman to want to try to go up there. Do you understand me?”

“I suppose so,” Sostratos said sulkily. Hekataios waited. Sostratos realized something more was expected of him. The guard at the gate had warned him about the temple of the Ioudaioi, too, so it really was a problem for Hellenes. More sulkily still, he gave his word: “I promise.”

“Good. Thank you. You worried me there for a moment,” Hekataios said. “Now we can go on.”

“Thank you so much,” Sostratos said. Hekataios of Abdera ignored his sarcasm. They entered the outer courtyard. Looking around, Sostratos remarked, “It’s all cobblestones. Where are the bushes and saplings that mark off a holy precinct?”

“They don’t use them,” Hekataios said. “They think this is enough.”

“Strange,” Sostratos said. “Very strange.”

“They’re strange people. Hadn’t you noticed that?”

“Oh, you might say so.” Sostratos’ voice was dry. “What I think is especially peculiar is the day of rest they take every seven.”

“They say their god created the world in six days and rested on the seventh, and so they think they should imitate him.”

“I understand that,” Sostratos said. “It’s not what bothers me. I don’t believe their god did what they say he did, but never mind that. If they spent that seventh day relaxing, well and good. But it’s more than that. They won’t light fires or cook or do anything much at all. If soldiers attacked them, I don’t think they would fight back or try to save their own lives. And that’s crazy, you know.”

“As a matter of fact, yes. I agree with you completely,” Hekataios of Abdera told him. “One thing quickly becomes plain when you start looking at the way the Ioudaioi live their lives: they have no sense of proportion whatsoever.”

“Sense of proportion,” Sostratos echoed. He dipped his head. “Yes, that’s exactly what they’re missing. Nicely put, noble one.”

“Why, thank you, my dear. You’re very kind.” Hekataios looked suitably modest.

“I was talking with my cousin-he’s back in Sidon now-on the way here,” Sostratos said. “One of the proverbs from the Seven Sages came up: ‘Nothing too much.’ I don’t believe that one would appeal to the Ioudaioi.” He didn’t think it appealed to Menedemos, either, but he didn’t care to discuss that with a near stranger.

Laughing, Hekataios dipped his head, too. “You’re right. The loudaioi, I think, do everything to excess.”

“Or sometimes, as with their day of rest, they even do nothing to excess,” Sostratos said.

Hekataios laughed again. “Oh, that’s very nice. I do like that.” He made as if to clap his hands.

Sostratos went up as close to the terraced stairway leading up to the inner courtyard as he could-close enough to make Hekataios look nervous. He stared at the temple. “How old is it?” he asked.

“It was built, I believe, in the reign of the first Dareios,” Hekataios replied. “But, as I said before, this isn’t the first temple. There was another one before it, but that one was destroyed when Jerusalem was sacked.”

“I wish we could figure out exactly when that was,” Sostratos said.

“Before the days of the Persian Empire, as I said before-that’s all I can tell you,” the other Hellene said with a shrug. Then he snapped his fingers. “Come to think of it, though, the Ioudaioi do have a sort of a history that talks about such things, but who knows what’s in it? It’s not in Greek.”

“A history? A written one?” Sostratos asked. Hekataios dipped his head. Sostratos said, “I read Aramaic-a little, anyhow.”

“Do you? How strange.” Hekataios raised an eyebrow. “But that won’t help, I’m afraid.”

“What? Why not?”

“Because this book the Ioudaioi have isn’t in Aramaic,” Hekataios answered.

“What? Well, by the dog, what language is it in? Egyptian?”

“I don’t think so.” Hekataios pondered, then tossed his head. “No, it can’t be. I know what Egyptian looks like-all those little pictures of people and animals and plants running riot all over everywhere. No, I’ve seen this book, and it looks as if it ought to be in Aramaic, more or less, but it isn’t. It’s written in the language the Ioudaioi used to speak before Aramaic spread all over the countryside, the language the priests use when they pray.” He pointed toward the men in fringed robes and fringed, striped shawls who were sacrificing a sheep at the altar.

“Is that what it is?” Sostratos said in relief. “I was listening to them before we started talking just now, and I couldn’t make heads or tails of what they were saying. I thought it was just me. Whatever language that is, it sounds a lot like Aramaic-it has the same set of noises at the back of the throat-but the words are different.”

“That sort of thing happens with us, too,” Hekataios observed. “Ever try to make sense out of what Macedonians say when they start talking among themselves? You can’t do it, no matter how much the language sounds as though it ought to be proper Greek.”

“Some Hellenes can-the ones from the northwest, whose own dialect isn’t too far away from what the Macedonians speak,” Sostratos said. “So it’s not quite the same.”

“Maybe not. I certainly don’t care to have to try to figure out Macedonian, and I have to do it in Alexandria every now and again.” Hekataios made a wry face. “The men with the money and the power too often aren’t the ones with the culture.”

“No doubt, O best one,” Sostratos said politely. He wanted to scream in Hekataios’ face instead, something like, You stupid, self-centered twit, you don’t know when you’re well off. You’ve got patrons in Alexandria, and what do you do? You complain about them! And yet you have the leisure to travel around doing research, and you’ll be able to sit down and write your book and have scribes make copies of it, so that it has a chance to live forever. How would you like to deal in perfume and beeswax and balsam and linen and silk instead? Do you think you would find the time to touch pen to papyrus then? Good luck!

He hoped none of that showed on his face. If it did, it was liable to look uncommonly like murder. He hadn’t known this sort of savage envy since he’d had to go home from the Lykeion. For him, a spell in Athens had been the capstone on his education. For others there, it had been the first step toward a life lived loving wisdom. He went back to the world of trade. They went on to the world of knowledge. As his ship sailed out of Peiraieus, bound for Rhodes, he’d wanted to kill them, simply because they got to do what he so desperately wanted to do.

Over the years, his resentment of scholars had faded. It had… till he met Hekataios, who complained of problems Sostratos would have been delighted to have.

“Shall we go back?” Sostratos said. “I don’t think I want to see any more.” What he really didn’t want to do was think about Hekataios’ good fortune.

“Well, why not?” Hekataios spoke with obvious relief. Now Sostratos hid a smile, though it was a bitter one. Hekataios must have feared he would try to go up the terraced stairs to the second courtyard, the one forbidden to all but the Ioudaioi. From everything he’d seen of the locals, though, he knew how foolish that would have been. No matter how curious he was, he didn’t want to touch off an insurrection or get himself killed.

He sent a last glance up to the governor’s residence above the temple of the Ioudaioi. That residence was a fortress in its own right. A Hellenic or Macedonian soldier up on the walls peered out and recognized more Hellenes in the lower courtyard below, doubtless by the short chitons they wore and by Hekataios’ clean-shaven face. The sentry waved and called out, “Hail.”

“Hail,” Sostratos replied. Hekataios waved back to the soldier. To Hekataios, Sostratos remarked, “Always good to hear Greek.”

“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 know 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.

Zilpah got up and filled a pitcher with wine. She stood beside Sostratos to pour more into his cup. People use wine as an excuse for doing things they would never dream of doing sober, Sostratos thought again. Before he could tell it not to, his right arm slipped around Zilpah’s waist.

She could have screamed. She could have broken the pitcher over his head. She could have done any number of things that would have led to quick irrevocable catastrophe for him. She didn’t. She didn’t even try to twist free or to knock his hand away. She just shook her head a little and murmured, “Wine.”

“Wine,” Sostratos agreed. “Wine, and you. You are lovely. I would make you happy, if I could. If you let me.”

“Foolishness,” Zilpah said. But was she talking to him or to herself? Sostratos couldn’t tell, not till she set the pitcher on the table and sat down on his lap.

His arms went round her in glad surprise. He lifted his face as she lowered hers. Their lips met. Her mouth tasted of wine and of her own sweetness. She sighed, back deep in his throat.

The kiss went on and on. Sostratos had thought the wine was making him drunk. This… Next to this, the wine was as nothing. He slipped one hand under her robes. It slid up past her knee, up the smooth flesh of her inner thigh, toward the joining of her legs.

But that hand, hurrying toward her secret place, must have reminded her just what game they’d started playing. With a little, frightened moan, she jerked away and sprang to her feet again. “No,” she said. “I told you, I would not take you to my bed.”

Had she been a slave, he might have pulled her down to the floor and had her by force. Such things even happened to free Hellenic women of good family every now and again, as when they were coming back at night from a religious procession. Comic poets wrote plays about the complications that rose from mischances like that. But Sostratos had never been one to think of force first. And using it on a foreign woman in a town full of barbarians… He tossed his head.

He couldn’t help letting out a long, angry breath. “If you did not mean to finish, I wish you had not started,” he said. The throbbing in his own crotch told him how much he wished that.

“I am sorry,” Zilpah replied. “I wanted a little sweetness-not too much, but a little. I didn’t think you…” She let that trail away. “I didn’t think.”

“No. You did not. Neither did I.” Sostratos sighed. He gulped down the rest of the wine in the cup. “Maybe I should go down the block after all.”

“Maybe you should,” Zilpah said. “But now, Ionian, now what am I supposed to do?” And for that, no matter how much Sostratos prided himself on his cleverness, he had no answer at all.

Menedemos had taken his time going over to the dyeworks on the outskirts of Sidon. He kept finding excuses for staying away. The real reason was simple: the dyeworks that made the Phoenician cities famous stank too badly for him to want to get close to them.

That stench came into the city when the wind blew the wrong way. But Sidon, like any town around the Inner Sea, had plenty of other foul odors to dilute that one. Out by the dyeworks, the smell of rotting shellfish was both overpowering and unalloyed.

How did anyone ever find out that murexes, once crushed, yielded a liquor which, after it was properly treated, became the marvelous Phoenician crimson dye? he wondered. Some inventions seemed natural to him. Anyone could see that sticks floated, and all sorts of things caught the wind and were pushed along by it. From there to rafts and boats could only be a small step. But purple dye? Menedemos tossed his head. It struck him as very unlikely.

He wished he had Sostratos along. Seeing a Phoenician smashing shells with a mallet, he called out, “Hail! Do you speak Greek?”

The fellow shook his head. But he knew what Menedemos was trying to ask, for he said something in Aramaic in which the Rhodian caught the word Ionian. The Phoenician pointed to a shack not far away. He gave forth with another sentence full of coughing and hissing noises. Again, Menedemos heard the local word for a Hellene. Maybe that meant someone who spoke his language was in there. He hoped so, anyhow.

“Thanks,” he said. The Phoenician waved and went back to smashing seashells. After a moment, he paused, picked up a morsel of meat, and popped it into his mouth. Can’t get your op son any fresher than that, Menedemos thought.

When he opened the door to the shack, a couple of Phoenicians, one stout, the other lean, looked up at him. The stout one began to speak before he could say a word: “You must be the Rhodian. Wondered when you were going to show up around here.” His Greek was fluent, colloquial, and sounded as if he’d learned it from someone right on the edge of the law.

“Yes, that’s right. I’m Menedemos son of Philodemos,” Menedemos said. “Hail. And you gentlemen are…?”

“I’m Tenashtart son of Metena,” the stout Phoenician answered. “This is my brother, Ithobaal. Miserable son of a whore doesn’t speak any Greek. Pleased to meet you. You want to buy some dye, right?”

“Yes,” Menedemos said. “Uh-where did you learn Greek so… well?”

“Here and there, pal, here and there,” Tenashtart answered. “I’ve done some knocking around in my time, you bet I have. There are towns in Hellas… But you didn’t come here to listen to me bang my gums.”

“It’s all right,” Menedemos told him, more fascinated than anything else. “Do you mind if I ask you a question?”

“Sure,” Tenashtart said expansively. “Go right ahead.”

“In the name of the gods, O best one, how do you stand the stink?” Menedemos blurted.

Before answering, Tenashtart said something in Aramaic to Ithobaal. Both brothers laughed. Tenashtart went back to Greek: “Everybody asks us that. Doesn’t matter who: Phoenicians, Hellenes-even Persians, back when I was a kid. They all say the same thing.”

“And do you give them the same answer?” Menedemos asked. Tenashtart had spent a lot of time among Hellenes; he dipped his head instead of nodding, as almost all barbarians would have done. Menedemos said, “Well, what is the answer?”

“You want to know the truth?” the dyemaker said. “The truth is, we both spend so much time with the shells, we don’t even notice it any more. Only time I know it’s there is when I’ve been away for a bit. Then I smell it for a while when I get back. But except for that, it’s not even there for me, any more than air is there for me, you know what I mean?”

“I suppose so,” Menedemos answered. “It seems hard to believe, though.”

Tenashtart said something else in Aramaic. His brother nodded. Ithobaal pointed out toward the workman crushing murexes, touched his formidable nose, and shrugged. He might have been saying he didn’t notice the reek of rotting shellfish, either.

Even to Menedemos, it didn’t seem quite so appalling as it had when he first got to the dyeworks. All the same, he remained a long way from not noticing it. He wished he were as oblivious as the two Phoenician brothers.

Tenashtart said, “You come all this way to talk about nasty smells, or do you want to do some business?”

“Let’s do business,” Menedemos said agreeably. “What do you charge for a jar of your best dye?” When the Sidonian told him, he let out a yip. “That’s outrageous!”

Tenashtart spread his hands. “That’s the way it goes, buddy. I’ve got to make a living, same as everybody else.”

But Menedemos wagged a finger at him. “Oh, no, you don’t, my dear. You’re not going to get away with that, not for a minute you won’t, and I’ll tell you why not. I’ve seen Phoenicians over in Hellas selling crimson dye for the very same price, and that’s after their middleman’s markup. What do they pay you?”

“You must be talking about men from Byblos or from Arados,” Tenashtart said easily. “They’ve got lower quality dye, so naturally they can charge less.”

Menedemos tossed his head. “Oh, no, you don’t,” he said again. “For one thing, they’d say Byblian or Aradian dye’s as good as Sidonian. W’ith Tyre wrecked, nobody has a sure best any more. And, for another, I’ve seen Sidonians selling for the very same price.”

Tenashtart’s engagingly ugly grin showed a missing bottom front tooth. “I like you, Rhodian, to the crows with me if I don’t. You’ve got balls. But tell me this-why should I give a Hellene the same rate I give my own people?” He translated his words for Ithobaal, who nodded again.

“Why?” Menedemos said. “I’ll tell you why. Because silver is silver, that’s why. Now kindly tell your brother that in Aramaic, too.”

“You’ve got your nerve,” Tenashtart said, but he sounded more admiring than otherwise. He and Ithobaal did go back and forth in their own language, a crackle of sounds strange to Greek ears. When they finished, Tenashtart named another price, this one only a little more than half as high as what he’d suggested before.

“Well, that’s better,” Menedemos said. “I don’t know that it’s good-I still think you charge your own folk less than that-but it’s better. We’ll talk more later. First, though, do you want silver, or are we working a trade?”

“You came here in an akatos,” Tenashtart said. “That means you’re bound to have goodies tucked away under the rowers’ benches. What have you got, and what do you want for it?”

“My cousin took perfume into the country of the Ioudaioi, but I’ve still got plenty left,” Menedemos answered. “A merchant galley can carry a lot more than a pack donkey’s able to.”

“You talking about the rose essence you Rhodians make?” Tenashtart asked. Menedemos dipped his head. The Sidonian said, “That’s good stuff, and it doesn’t get over here all that often. You sell it in those little tiny jars, though, don’t you?”

“Yes. It’s concentrated, so a little goes a long way,” Menedemos said.

“What do you want for one of those jars? No. Wait.” Tenashtart held up a dye-stained hand. “Let’s settle on how many jars of perfume go into one jar of dye. As long as we’re talking about jars, and not sigloi or drakhmai, it seems friendlier, whether it really is or not.”

It didn’t seem friendly to Menedemos for very long. Tenashtart mocked his initial offer. He scorned Tenashtart’s. Each accused the other of being a brigand descended from a long line of pirates and thieves. Each claimed the other was thinking of his own profit at the expense of the deal as a whole. Each was undoubtedly right.

Half a digit’s breadth at a time, they got closer together. The closer they got, the more they railed at each other. After a while, Menedemos grinned at Tenashtart and said, “This is fun, isn’t it?”

Tenashtart got up from his stool and folded Menedemos into a bear hug. “Ah, Hellene, if you’d only stay in Sidon for a year, I’d make a Phoenician out of you, to the crows with me if I wouldn’t.” Then he made an offer hardly more reasonable than his previous one.

Menedemos didn’t want to be a Phoenician. Coming out and saying so struck him as impolitic. He made another offer of his own. Tenashtart rained curses down on him in Greek and Aramaic. They both started laughing, which didn’t mean they stopped yelling at each other or trying to best each other in the bargain.

When at last they clasped hands, they were both sweating. “Whew!”

Menedemos said. “Now we’re both going to say we got cheated, and then we’re both going to make a pile of money on what we just did. But if we see each other again in a couple of years, neither one of us will admit it.”

“That’s how it goes,” Tenashtart agreed. “You’re pretty good, Hellene, Furies take me if you’re not.”

“You’re pretty good yourself,” Menedemos replied. I skinned you, he thought. Tenashtart, no doubt, thought the same. It was a good bargain all the way around.