The Sacred Land

10

“I know people say Phoenicians burn their babies when things are going badly for them,” Menedemos told a soldier with whom he was drinking wine. “But is that really true? Do they really offer them to their gods that way? “

“Yea, verily,” the mercenary answered. His name was Apollodoros; he came from Paphos, on Cyprus, and used the old-fashioned island dialect. “In sooth, Rhodian, they do nothing less, reckoning it an act of devotion; any who’d refuse or hide his babes’d be torn in pieces, did word of’s iniquity seep forth.”

“Madness,” Menedemos muttered.

“Aye, belike,” Apollodoros agreed. “But then, could we look for civilized behavior ‘mongst the barbarians, they’d be barbarians no more, but rather Hellenes.”

“I suppose so.” By then, Menedemos had drunk enough to make his wits a little fuzzy, or maybe more than a little. “When my cousin gets back from Ioudaia, I won’t be sorry to say farewell to this place.”

“And you’ll hie you homeward?” the Paphian said. Menedemos dipped his head. Apollodoros waved to the Phoenician tavernkeeper for a refill. The fellow nodded and waved back to show he’d understood, then came over with a jar of wine. The mercenary turned back to Menedemos: “Have you thought of staying here instead?”

“Only in my nightmares,” Menedemos answered. Most of those, these days, revolved around Emashtart. He feared the innkeeper’s wife would haunt his nights for years to come, screeching, Binein! Binein! He’d never known a woman with whom the prospect of physical congress seemed less appealing.

“I meant not as a trader, O best one, not as a merchant,” Apollodoros said, “but as a soldier, a warrior, a fighting man.”

“For Antigonos?”

“Certes, for Antigonos,” the mercenary answered. “A great man, the greatest of this sorry age. For whom would you liefer swing a sword?”

“I’d gladly fight for Rhodes, as any man with ballocks under his prong would fight for his polis,” Menedemos said. “But I never thought to hire myself out.” That would do till a bigger understatement came along.

“Ah, my dear, there’s no life like unto it,” Apollodoros said. “Food and shelter when not on campaign-and pay, too, mind-and all those chances for loot when the drum beats and you fare forth to war.”

“No, thanks,” Menedemos said. “I’m a peaceable sort. I don’t want any trouble with anybody, and I don’t get into fights for the fun of it.”

“By my troth, the more fool you!” Apollodoros exclaimed. “How better to show the world you make a better man than your foe?”

“By taking home silver he should have kept,” Menedemos replied. “By knowing you’ve made him into a fool.”

“A fool?” The mercenary gestured scornfully. “Make him into a slave, or a corpse. An you seek silver, take it by selling the wretch you’ve beaten.”

“This life suits you,” Menedemos said. “That’s plain. I couldn’t live as you do, though. It’s not what I want to do.”

“A pity. You could make a soldier. I see you’re strong and quick. Those count for more than size, nor never let any wight say otherwise.”

“Whether they do or not, I don’t want to carry a spear and a sword and a shield,” Menedemos said.

“Here, drink you more wine,” Apollodoros said, and waved to the taverner to fill Menedemos’ cup again, even though it was still a quarter full.

Menedemos had already drunk enough to grow a little muzzy, yes, but his wits still worked. He’s trying to get me very drunk, very drunk indeed, he thought. Why is he trying to do that? The grinning tapman came up with the winejar. “Wait,” Menedemos said, and put a hand over the mouth of his cup. He turned to the mercenary. “Do you think you can get me blind drunk and turn me into a soldier before I come to and figure out what’s happened to me?”

Apollodoros affected shock and dismay. In the course of many, many dickers, Menedemos had often seen it better done. “Wherefore should I essay so wicked a deed as that, most noble one?” the fellow asked, voice dripping innocence.

“I don’t know why, but I can make some guesses,” Menedemos answered. “How big a bonus do you get for each new recruit you bring in?”

He kept a close eye on the soldier from Paphos. Sure enough, Apollodoros flinched, though he said, “I know not what you mean, my friend, for in sooth I thought but to make symposiasts of us both, that we might revel the whole day through. I’d not bethought me to come upon so fine a boon companion in such a low dive as this.”

“That sounds very pretty,” Menedemos said, “but I don’t believe a word of it.” He drained his cup, then set it back on the table. “I don’t want any more wine,” he told the taverner in Greek. Then, for good measure, he trotted out two words of Aramaic: “Wine? No!” Sostratos would be proud of me, he thought as he got up to go.

“Wait, friend.” Apollodoros set a hand on his arm. “By my troth, you do mistake me, and in the mistaking do me wrong.”

“I don’t want to wait for anything,” Menedemos said. “Farewell.”

But when Menedemos started to leave, Apollodoros hung on tight. “Stay,” the mercenary urged. “Stay and drink.” He didn’t sound so friendly any more,

“Let go of me,” Menedemos said. The soldier still clung to him. He used a wrestling move to try to twist free. Apollodoros made the most obvious counter. Menedemos had thought he would-Apollodoros had little in the way of subtlety in him. Another twist, a sudden jerk, a grab…

“Oк!” Apollodoros yowled as his wrist bent back and back. Menedemos needed only a very little more pressure to break it, and they both knew as much. Apollodoros spoke very fast: “You do but misperceive my intentions, friend, and-”

“I think I perceive them just fine, thanks.” Menedemos bent the mercenary’s wrist a tiny bit more. Something in there gave under his grip- not a bone but a tendon or something of the sort. Apollodoros gasped and went fishbelly pale. Menedemos said, “I can use a knife, too. If you come after me, you’ll be very, very sorry. Do you believe me? Eh?” Yet more pressure.

“Yes!” Apollodoros whispered. “Furies take you, yes!”

“Good.” Menedemos let go. He didn’t turn his back on the soldier, but Apollodoros only sank down onto a stool, cradling the injured wrist. “Farewell,” Menedemos said again, and left the tavern.

This place didn’t explode in a brawl behind him. He looked back over his shoulder after he walked out, to make sure Apollodoros hadn’t changed his mind and decided to come after him, and that the Paphian didn’t have any friends in the place who might want to do the job for him. No one emerged from the wineshop. Menedemos grinned. My bet is, Apollodoros hasn’t got any friends, he thought.

Around the corner from the tavern, he passed a wineshop of a different sort, one that sold wine by the amphora rather than by the cup. Remembering the fine wine Zakerbaal the cloth merchant had served him, he stuck his head into the place and called, “Does anybody here speak Greek?”

The proprietor was a man of about his father’s age, with a bushy white beard, even bushier black eyebrows, and an enormous hooked nose. “Speak little bit,” he said, and held his thumb and forefinger close together to show how little that was.

For what Menedemos had in mind, the man didn’t need to know much of his language. He asked, “Have you got wine from Byblosa here? Good wine from Byblos?”

“From Byblos? Wine?” The Phoenician seemed to want to make sure he’d heard correctly. Menedemos dipped his head. Then, remembering he was in foreign parts, he nodded instead. The Phoenician smiled at him. “Wine from Byblos. Yes. I having. You-?” He didn’t seem able to remember how to say taste or try. Instead, he mimed drinking from a cup.

“Yes. Thank you.” Menedemos nodded again.

“Good. I give. I Mattan son of Mago,” the wine merchant said. Menedemos gave his name and that of his father. He watched as Mattan opened an amphora, and noted its shape: each city had its own distinctive style of jar, some round, others elongated. When the Phoenician handed him the cup, he sniffed. Sure enough, the wine had the rich floral bouquet that had struck him at Zakerbaal’s home.

He drank. As before, the wine’s flavor wasn’t quite so fine as its aroma, but it wasn’t bad, either. He asked, “How much for an amphora?”

When Mattan said, “Six shekels-sigloi, you say,” Menedemos had to fight to keep his jaw from dropping. Twelve Rhodian drakhmai the jar for a wine of that quality was a bargain even without haggling.

Menedemos didn’t intend to let Mattan know that was what he thought. He put on the most severe expression he could and said, “I’ll give you three and a half.”

Mattan said something pungent in Aramaic. Menedemos bowed to him. That made the Phoenician laugh. They haggled for a while, as much for the sake of the game as because either of them was very worried about the final price. At last, they settled on five sigloi the jar.

After they clasped hands to seal the bargain, Mattan son of Mago said, “You not tell. How much of jars you want?”

“How many have you got?” Menedemos asked.

“I look.” Mattan counted the amphorai of Byblian resting in their places on the wooden shelves that lined the walls of his shop. Then he went into a back room behind the counter. When he came out, he said, “Forty-six.” To make sure he had the number right, he opened and closed his hands four times, and showed one open hand and the upthrust index finger of the other.

“Have you got a counting board?” Menedemos asked. He had to eke out the question with gestures before Mattan nodded and took it out from under the counter. Menedemos flicked pebbles back and forth in the grooves. After a little while, he looked up at the Phoenician and said, “I owe you two hundred thirty sigloi, then.”

Mattan son of Mago had watched as he worked out the answer. The Phoenician nodded. “Yes, that right,” he said.

“Good, then,” Menedemos said. “I’ll bring you the money, and I’ll bring sailors from my ship to take away the wine.”

“Is good. I here,” Mattan said.

Had the full crew been aboard the Aphrodite , they could have done the job in one trip. With so many of them off roistering in Sidon, it took three. By the time they finished hauling the heavy amphorai to the merchant galley, the men were sweaty and exhausted. A couple of the ones who could swim jumped naked off the ship into the water of the harbor to cool down. Menedemos gave all the sailors who’d hauled wine jars an extra day’s pay-that wasn’t part of their regular work.

“Smart, skipper,” Diokles said approvingly. “They’ll like you better for it.”

“They earned it,” Menedemos replied. “They worked like slaves there.”

“We’ve got a good cargo for the trip home, though,” the keleustes said. “That fancy silk you found, the crimson dye, now this good wine-”

“We’re only missing one thing,” Menedemos said.

Diokles frowned. “What’s that? With all we’ve picked up here, I can’t think of anything.”

Menedemos answered in one word: “Sostratos.”

Sostratos peered back at Jerusalem from the ridge to the north from which he’d first got a good look at the chief town of the Ioudaioi. He sighed. Next to him, Teleutas laughed. “Was she as good in bed as all that?” he asked. Aristeidas and Moskhion both chuckled. They also crowded closer to hear Sostratos’ reply.

“I don’t know,” he said after a bit of thought. He didn’t see how he could keep quiet, not when the sailors already knew so much more than he might have wished. “I really don’t know. But it’s… different when you’re not buying it, isn’t it?”

Aristeidas dipped his head. “It’s sweetest when they give it to you for love.”

Menedemos had always felt that way, which was why he liked to chase other men’s wives instead of-or in addition to-going to brothels. Now, after bedding Zilpah, Sostratos understood. He sighed again. He wouldn’t forget her. But he feared she would spend the rest of her days trying to forget him. That wasn’t what he’d had in mind, but it was how things seemed to have worked out.

Teleutas laughed again, a coarse, altogether masculine laugh. “You ask me, it’s just fine whenever you manage to stick it in there.” The other two sailors laughed, too. Moskhion dipped his head in agreement.

In one sense, Sostratos supposed Teleutas had a point. The pleasure of the act itself wasn’t much different for a man regardless of whether he bedded a whore or his own wife or someone else’s. But what it meant, what he felt about himself and his partner afterwards-those could, and indeed almost had to, vary widely.

Had Menedemos been there, Sostratos would have taken the argument further. With Teleutas, he let it drop. The less he had to talk to the sailor, the better he liked it. He said, “Let’s keep moving, that’s all. The faster we go, the sooner we’ll get back to Sidon and the Aphrodite .”

Aristeidas, Moskhion, and Teleutas all murmured approvingly at that. Moskhion said, “By the gods, it’ll be nice to speak Greek again with more people than just us.”

“That’s right.” Aristeidas dipped his head. “By now, we’re all sick of listening to each other, anyhow.” He glanced over at Sostratos, then hastily added, “Uh, meaning no offense, young sir.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Sostratos said. “I know you’re sick of me.”

He didn’t mention the obvious corollary. Aristeidas did it for him: “You’re sick of us, too, eh?”

Once again, Sostratos faced the dilemma of choosing between an unpalatable truth and an obvious lie. In the end, he chose neither. With a wry smile, he asked, “How on earth could you dream of such a thing?” That made the sailors laugh, which was better than offending them or treating them like fools.

They tramped on. After a while, Teleutas said, “I think we ought to look to our weapons. We’ve come this far without any trouble. It’d be a shame if we got robbed when we were so close to getting back to Sidon.”

Sostratos wanted to tell him he was worrying over nothing. He wanted to, but knew he couldn’t. What he did say, regretfully, was, “That’s a good idea.”

He’d never let Menedemos’ bow get far from him while he was on the road. Now he took it out of its case and strung it. The case itself, which also held his arrows, he wore at his left side, slung over his right shoulder with a leather strap. “You look like a Skythian nomad,” Aristeidas said.

“The case looks like a Skythian nomad’s,” Sostratos said, tossing his head, “for we use the same style they do-I suppose we borrowed it from them. But tell me, my dear, when have you ever imagined a Skythian nomad aboard a plodding mule?” That made the sailors laugh again. Sostratos, a thoroughly indifferent rider even on a mule, thought it was pretty funny, too.

Toward noon, half a dozen Ioudaioi came down the road toward the Hellenes. The strangers were all young men, all on the ragged side, and all armed with spears or swords. They gave Sostratos and his companions long, thoughtful looks as the two parties drew near. The Rhodians looked back, not in a way suggesting they wanted a fight, but as if to say they could put up a good one if they had to.

Both little bands got halfway off the road as they edged past each other. Neither seemed to want to give the other any excuse for starting trouble. “Peace be unto you,” Sostratos called to the Ioudaioi in Aramaic.

“And to you also peace,” a man from the other band replied.

One of the other Ioudaioi muttered something else, something Sostratos was even gladder to hear: “More trouble than they’re worth.” A couple of the young man’s friends nodded.

Despite that, Sostratos looked back over his shoulder several times to make sure the Ioudaioi weren’t turning around to come after his companions and him. Once, he saw a Ioudaian looking back over his shoulder at him and the sailors. “We made them respect us,” he told the other Rhodians.

“A good thing, too,” Moskhion said, “for I always respect bastards who outnumber me-you’d best believe I do.”

“If we run into six bandits, or eight, or even ten, we’re probably fine,” Sostratos said, “because a little band like that can see we have teeth. They might beat us, but we’d cost them half their men. One of those fellows called us more trouble than we’re worth. That’s how most bands would feel about us.”

“What about a band with forty or fifty men in it, though?” Aristeidas asked worriedly. “A bandit troop that big could roll right over us and hardly even know we were there.”

“The thing is, there aren’t very many bandit troops with forty or fifty men in them.” Teleutas spoke before Sostratos could answer. “A troop like that is more like an army than your usual pack of robbers. It needs a village of its own, pretty much, on account of keeping that many men fed isn’t easy. And it’s the big bands that soldiers move against, too. Most bandits turn back into farmers when soldiers come sniffing after ‘em. A big troop can’t do that, or not easily, anyhow-too many people know who they are and where they roost. It either splits up into a bunch of little bands or else it stands and fights.”

Aristeidas thought it over, then dipped his head. “Makes sense,” he said.

It did indeed make sense. It made so much sense, Sostratos sent Teleutas a very thoughtful look. How had the sailor acquired such intimate knowledge of the way robber bands worked? Had he been part of one, or more than one, himself? That wouldn’t have surprised Sostratos, not a bit. There were technical treatises on things like cookery and how to build catapults, but he’d never heard of, never imagined, a technical treatise on how to become a successful bandit. Even if such a monster of a book existed, he didn’t think Teleutas could read.

Moskhion must have been thinking along with him. “I got out of sponge diving because pulling an oar was a better job,” he said. “What did you get out of to turn sailor, Teleutas?”

“Oh, this and that,” Teleutas answered, and gave no details.

The Hellenes took a more westerly route up to Sidon than they had on their way down to Jerusalem. They spent the night in a village called Gamzo. The place was so small it didn’t even have an inn. Having got permission from the locals, Sostratos built a fire in the middle of the market square. He bought bread and oil and wine and, feeling extravagant, a duck. He and the other men from the Aphrodite roasted the meat over the fire and feasted.

Children-and more than a few adults-came out of their houses to stare at the Rhodians. As elsewhere in Ioudaia, Sostratos wondered if these people had ever seen a Hellene before. He got to his feet, bowed in all directions, and spoke in Aramaic: “Peace be unto you all.”

Even though he’d already dickered with them for food, some of them seemed surprised he spoke their language. By their expressions, some seemed surprised he spoke any human language. But three or four men answered, “And to you also peace.” That was the right response.

Even though it was, it didn’t feel hearty enough to satisfy Sostratos. He bowed again. This time, he said, “May your one god bless Gamzo and all its people.”

That did the trick. Broad smiles gleamed on the faces of the Ioudaioi. All the men bowed to Sostratos. “May the one god bless you as well, stranger, and your friends,” a graybeard said. The rest of the villagers nodded.

“Stand up,” Sostratos hissed in Greek to the other Rhodians. “Bow to them. Be friendly.”

One after another, the sailors did. Aristeidas even proved able to say, “Peace be unto you,” in Aramaic. That made the people of Gamzo smile. Moskhion refrained from trotting out his frightful Aramaic obscenity. That made Sostratos smile.

Another gray-bearded man, this one wearing a robe of fine wool, said, “You are Ionians, not so?” Sostratos remembered to nod. The Ioudaian said, “We have heard evil things of Ionians, but you seem to be good enough men, even if you are foreigners. May the one god bless you and keep you. May he lift up his countenance unto you and give you peace.”

“Thank you,” Sostratos said, and bowed once more. A little more slowly than they should have, the sailors bowed again, too. Sostratos added, “And we thank you for your generous hospitality.”

“You are welcome in Gamzo,” the Ioudaian-plainly a village leader- declared. He strode up, clasped Sostratos’ hand, and kissed him on both cheeks. Then he did the same with the rest of the Rhodians. The men in the crowd came up after him. They greeted Sostratos and his companions the same way. Even the women drew near, though the Hellenes got no handclasps or kisses from them. Remembering the kisses he’d had from Zilpah in Jerusalem, Sostratos sighed. Somehow he’d pleased her and made her desperately unhappy all at the same time.

Deciding the Rhodians were safe enough, the folk of Gamzo withdrew back into their homes. Even so, Sostratos said, “We’ll divide the night into four watches. Everybody will take one. You never know.” The sailors didn’t argue with him. He’d half expected that they, or at least Teleutas, would, on the grounds that one sentry couldn’t keep the locals from doing whatever they were going to do. Maybe they’re starting to take me seriously, Sostratos thought with no small pride.

When morning came, Teleutas was all for an early departure. Sostratos’ pride only grew. Even the sometimes difficult sailor was acting responsible. Sostratos wondered if Teleutas was following his example.

It was about the third hour of the day when Sostratos noticed Teleutas was wearing a golden bracelet he didn’t recall seeing before. “Where did you get that?” he asked.

The sailor grinned a sly grin. “Back in that miserable little dump where we stayed last night.”

That was likely to mean only one thing. Sostratos clapped a hand to his forehead. “Papai! You stole it?” So much for responsibility!

“Nothing to get upset about,” Teleutas said soothingly. “We’ll never see that place again in all our days.”

“They made us guest-friends, and that’s how you paid them back?” Sostratos said. Teleutas only shrugged; the ritual duties of guest-friends plainly meant nothing to him. Sostratos tried another tack: “What if all the men in Gamzo come after us and want to cut our livers out?”

Teleutas looked back toward the south and shrugged again. “I’ve been watching. No sign of a dust cloud or anything like that. We’re far enough ahead of ‘em by now that they can’t catch us. By Hermes, the fool I lifted it from probably still hasn’t figured out it’s gone missing.”

“No wonder you swear by the god of thieves,” Sostratos said. Teleutas grinned again, singularly unrepentant. Sostratos might have said a good deal more, but decided the road in a foreign land was no place to do it. He also decided that if the men of Gamzo came after the bracelet and Teleutas he would hand them the ornament and the sailor without a qualm.

He kept that to himself. He didn’t know how Aristeidas and Moskhion would react, and he didn’t want to risk destroying his ability to lead unless he had to. But he vowed he would talk with Menedemos about leaving Teleutas behind when he got back to Sidon. A man who would steal from barbarians he was unlikely to see again might not try stealing from his own shipmates. Then again, he might.

For the rest of the day, Sostratos kept looking back over his shoulder. He saw no sign of the villagers. In a way, that relieved him. In another way, it disappointed him. He might have used them as an excuse to be rid of Teleutas.

Farmers tended vineyards and olive groves. Shepherds and goatherds followed their flocks through the hills. Hawks circled overhead, looking for the mice and other small animals frightened out of cover when the flocks went by. Sostratos saw one swoop down and rise with something struggling in its talons. The struggle didn’t last long.

As the sun sank toward the Inner Sea, another band of young Ioudaioi came toward the Rhodians. There were eight of them. Sostratos saw they were all armed. He didn’t like the way their heads came up when they spotted his comrades and him: it put him in mind of a pack of dogs spotting a sick sheep they hoped to be able to pull down.

“Let’s get off the road and let them go by,” he said. “Look-there’s a clump of boulders where we can make a stand if we have to.”

He hoped the sailors would laugh at him and tell him he was starting at shadows. Instead, they all dipped their heads. Teleutas said, “Good idea. They look like a nasty bunch, and I’ll be glad to see their backs.” If he thought the Ioudaioi looked dangerous, they were only too likely to mean trouble.

By the time they came up to the Hellenes, Sostratos and the other men from the Aphrodite had already taken cover among the boulders by the side of the road. The sailors and Sostratos got their helmets from the pack donkey and jammed them down onto their heads. The Ioudaioi kept on toward the south, some of them trailing the butts of their spears in the dirt. They did not seem to own any body armor.

One of them waved to the Hellenes as he went past. “Peace be unto you,” he called. A couple of his pals laughed. Sostratos didn’t like the sound of that baying, mocking laughter. He didn’t answer.

“Maybe they’ll decide we’re a tough nut to crack, and they’ll go on by,” Moskhion said. “That’s what you said they do most of the time.”

“Maybe. I hope so.” Sostratos watched the young men head on down the track in the direction of Gamzo. “All the same, though, I don’t think we ought to leave this place for a while yet. They may try doubling back to catch us out in the open.” He thought about the hawk and about the little animal that had writhed-for a bit-in its claws.

Aristeidas peered out from a south-facing crevice between two good-sized stones. After perhaps a quarter of an hour had passed, he stiffened. “Here they come!”

“Oh, a pestilence!” Sostratos exclaimed. He’d been cautious, yes, but he hadn’t really believed the Ioudaioi would come back and try to rob his companions and him. But when he peered south himself, he saw that Aristeidas was right. The Ioudaioi were loping across the fields toward the boulders among which the Rhodians sheltered.

“Shoot the gods-detested catamites!” Moskhion said.

Sostratos put an arrow in the bow and drew a bead on the closest Ioudaian. The fellow wasn’t quite in range yet, but he would be soon. Sostratos drew the arrow back to his breast and then, in Persian fashion, back to his ear. The would-be robber ran straight at him-probably hadn’t seen him there among the rocks.

Well, too bad for him, Sostratos thought, and let fly. The bowstring lashed his wrist. Real archers wore leather guards. Sostratos knew as much but didn’t have one. But he felt very much like a real archer a moment later, for his arrow caught the Ioudaian square in the chest.

The man ran on for another couple of paces, clawing at the shaft. Then his legs might suddenly have gone from bone and flesh to wet clay. They gave way beneath him. He crumpled to the ground. The Ioudaioi shouted in surprise and dismay.

“Euge! Well shot!” The Rhodians were shouting, too. “Give ‘em another

one!

“I’ll try.” Sostratos nocked a second arrow. The onrushing foes weren’t trying to dodge. The only way they could have given him easier marks would have been by standing still. He drew the bow and loosed in one smooth motion.

A second Ioudaian toppled, this one with an arrow through the thigh. He let out a horrible scream of pain. Sostratos didn’t think that wound would be mortal, but it would take the man out of the fight. He couldn’t ask for anything better, not now he couldn’t.

“Knock ‘em all down!” Teleutas said.

“I’ll do my best,” Sostratos answered. Already he’d cut the odds against his side from two-to-one to three-to-two. But the Ioudaioi he hadn’t shot were getting dreadfully close.

He let fly at another man, a shot he should have made in his sleep-and missed. Now he scrabbled for an arrow with desperate haste. He’d have time for only one more shot before the fighting went hand-to-hand. He loosed again, at the same bandit, and hit him just above the bridge of the nose. The Ioudaian fell, dead before he hit the ground.

No one cheered this time. The surviving Ioudaioi were scrambling toward the Rhodians. A couple of them flung rocks to make Sostratos and his comrades keep their heads down. “Curses upon them,” one of the robbers said. “Already they’ve cost us too much.”

“We have to pay them back,” another Ioudaian said. “Come on! Be brave!”

They couldn’t know that Sostratos understood Aramaic. He hadn’t hailed them when they went by before. It didn’t matter, not yet, but it might.

A rock banged off a boulder just above his head, then hit him in the back on the rebound. He yelped. A Ioudaian with a sword came toward him. The fellow’s face wore a furious snarl.

Sostratos had only an eating knife on his belt. He stooped and picked up the rock the robber had flung at him. He hurled it back with all his strength. It caught the Ioudaian on the shoulder. He howled out an obscenity. Sostratos had to fight to keep from giggling like an idiot-the curse was the same as the one Moskhion had brought out on the road a few days earlier. The Rhodian grabbed another rock and threw it. It thudded into the robber’s ribs. With that, the Ioudaian decided he’d had enough. He turned around and ran away, one hand clutched to his chest. Sostratos hoped the rock had broken something.

He whirled to help his comrades. Moskhion and Teleutas were both fighting hard. Sostratos didn’t see Aristeidas among the rocks and didn’t have time to look for him. “Eleleu! Eleleu!” he shouted, dashing toward the pair of Ioudaioi besetting Teleutas.

Either the war cry or the sound of running feet was enough to discourage them. They ran like their companion. “I never thought we’d pay so dear,” one of them cried as he fled.

“We must have angered the one god,” his friend said.

Robbing travelers who’ve caused you no harm might do that, Sostratos thought. He and Teleutas turned on the pair Moskhion was holding off with his pike. Suddenly, Hellenes outnumbered Ioudaioi. The last robbers ran off, too. One of them also loudly wondered why their god had forsaken them. Sostratos understood him, but knowing Aramaic hadn’t mattered at all in the fight.

As quickly as that, it was over. “Aristei-” Sostratos began.

He heard the groan before he finished the sailor’s name. Most likely, Aristeidas had been moaning behind a boulder a few cubits away ever since he went down, but in the heat of the fight Sostratos hadn’t paid any attention. Now, with his own life not immediately in danger, he gave more heed to things around him.

So did the other Rhodians. “That doesn’t sound good,” Teleutas said. He was bleeding from a cut on one arm and a scraped knee but didn’t seem to notice his hurts.

“No,” Sostratos said, and scrambled over the rocks till he came upon the Aphrodite ’s lookout. His breath hissed from him in dismay. “Oh, by the gods,” he whispered.

Aristeidas lay on his side, still clutching with both hands the shaft of the spear that pierced his belly. His blood ran down the smooth wood and pooled on the stony ground under him. It also poured from his mouth and from his nose. Every breath brought another groan. He was dying, but not fast enough.

From behind Sostratos, Teleutas said, “Pull out the spear, and that’ll be the end of it. Either that or cut his throat. One way or the other, get it over with.”

“But-” Sostratos gulped. Killing enemies from a distance with a bow was one thing. Ending the life of a shipmate, the bright, sharp-eyed sailor who’d been on the way toward turning into a friend, was something else again.

“He can’t live,” Teleutas said patiently. “If you haven’t got the stomach for it, young sir, move aside, and I’ll take care of it. It’s nothing I haven’t done before.”

Though Teleutas was obviously right, Sostratos might have argued further. But Aristeidas, through his pain, managed to bring out a recognizable word: “Please.”

“Do you want to do it, or shall I?” Teleutas asked again.

“I will,” Sostratos said. “It’s my fault he came here. I’ll tend to it.” Despite his words, he gulped again. He knelt by Aristeidas and tried to get the dying sailor’s hands away from the spear that had drunk his life. But Aristeidas wouldn’t let go. Sostratos realized a death grip was something real, not a clichй of bad tragedy.

“Pull it out,” Teleutas urged again. “He can’t last more than another couple of minutes after you do.”

“No.” Sostratos tossed his head. He knelt beside Aristeidas, lifted the sailor’s chin with his left hand, and cut his throat with the knife in his right. Some of the blood that spurted from the wound splashed his fingers. It was hot and wet and sticky. Sostratos jerked his hand away with a moan of disgust.

Aristeidas thrashed for a little while, but not long. His hands fell away from the spear. He lay still. Sostratos turned away and threw up on the dirt.

“No blood-guilt to you, young sir,” Moskhion said. “You were only putting him out of his torment. He asked you to do it. Teleutas and I both heard him along with you.”

“That’s right,” Teleutas said. “That’s just right. You did what you had to do, and you did it proper. You put paid to three of the robbers, too, all by yourself, and I guess you drove the fourth bastard away. That’s pretty good work for somebody who’s not supposed to be much of a fighter.”

“Sure is,” Moskhion agreed. “You’ll never have trouble from me anymore.”

Sostratos hardly heard him. He spat again and again, trying to get the nasty taste out of his mouth. He knew he would, before too long. Whether he ever got the blackness out of his spirit-that was a different question. He looked at Aristeidas’ body, then quickly looked away. His guts wanted to heave up again.

But he wasn’t done, and he knew it. “We can’t bring him back to Sidon,” he said, “and we can’t get enough wood for a proper pyre. We’ll have to bury him here.”

“Cover him with stones, you mean,” Teleutas said. “I wouldn’t want to try digging in this miserable, rocky dirt, especially without the proper tools.”

He was right, as he had been with putting Aristeidas out of his pain. Before beginning the work, Sostratos cut off a lock of his hair and tossed it down on the sailor’s corpse as a token of mourning. Moskhion and Teleutas did the same. Teleutas yanked the spear out of Aristeidas’ belly and flung it far away. Then the three surviving Rhodians piled boulders and smaller stones on the body, covering it well enough to keep dogs and foxes and carrion birds from feasting on it.

By the time they finished, their hands were battered and scraped and bloody. Sostratos hardly noticed, let alone cared. He stood by the makeshift grave and murmured, “Sleep well, Aristeidas. I’m sorry we leave you on foreign soil. May your shade find peace.”

Moskhion let a couple of oboloi fall through the gaps between the stones toward the corpse. “There’s the ferryman’s fee, to pay your way over the Styx,” he said.

“Good.” Sostratos looked west. The sun stood only a little way above the horizon. “Let’s get moving, and keep moving till it gets too dark to travel or till we find a campsite that’s easy to defend. And then… tomorrow we’ll push on toward Sidon.”

Menedemos busied himself about the Aphrodite , fussing over where the jars of crimson dye he’d bought from Tenashtart were stowed. He moved them farther aft, then farther forward. He knew they wouldn’t affect the akatos’ trim very much, but he fussed over them anyhow.

The amphorai of Byblian wine posed a more interesting problem. He had fewer of them, but each was far heavier than a jar of dye. And he couldn’t properly test the merchant galley’s trim till he got out onto the open sea any which way.

Diokles said, “Seems to me, skipper, you’ve got too much time on your hands. You’re looking around for things to do.”

“Well, what if I am?” Menedemos said, admitting what he could hardly deny. “I don’t feel like going out and getting drunk today. As long as I’m messing around here, I may get something useful done.” Or I may change things again tomorrow, he thought. If he did, it wouldn’t be the first time.

The oarmaster tactfully didn’t point that out. Maybe Diokles assumed Menedemos could see it for himself. He did say, “Time kind of wears when you stay in one port all summer long.”

“It does, doesn’t it?” Menedemos dipped his head. “I had the same thought not so long ago.”

One of the sailors pointed toward the base of the pier. “Look! Isn’t that-?”

“By the dog of Egypt, it is!” Menedemos exclaimed. “There’s Sostratos, and Moskhion and Teleutas with him. Papai! Where’s Aristeidas, though?”

“Don’t care for the look of that,” Diokles said.

“Neither do I.” Menedemos ran along the gangplank from the Aphrodite to the quay, then down the planks to his cousin and the sailors. “Hail, O best one! Wonderful to see you again at last, after you’ve tramped the wilds of loudaia. But where s Aristeidas?”

“Dead,” Sostratos said shortly. He’d lost weight on his travels. His skin stretched tight over the bones of his face. He looked older, harder, than he had before setting out for Engedi. “Robbers. Day before yesterday. Spear in the belly. I had to put him out of his pain.” He slashed a thumb across his throat.

“Oh, by the gods!” Menedemos said, thinking, No wonder he looks older. He put an arm around his cousin’s shoulder. “That’s a hard thing to do, my dear, none harder. I’m very sorry. Aristeidas was a good man.”

“Yes. It would have been hard with anyone.” Sostratos’ eye slid toward Teleutas, who fortunately didn’t notice. “With the lookout, it was doubly so. But with the wound he had, all I did was save him hours of pain.”

“See what would have happened if you’d gone alone?” Menedemos said.

“Who knows?” Sostratos answered wearily. “Maybe I would have taken a different road back to Sidon traveling alone. Maybe I would have been earlier or later on the same road and not run into the bandits at all. There’s no way to tell, not for certain. Why don’t you just let that be?”

He sounded older, too, as impatient with Menedemos as a grown man might be with a child who’d asked him to pull the moon down from the sky. “All right. Excuse me for breathing,” Menedemos said, stung. “How did the business go? Did you get to Engedi? Have you got the balsam?”

“Yes, and some other things besides,” Sostratos said. “Beeswax, embroidered cloth… I’ll show you everything, if you’ll let us get on down to the ship. Your inn will have a stable for the mule and donkey, won’t it?”

“I’m not staying there anymore,” Menedemos said. “The innkeeper’s wife tried to seduce me, so I came back to the ship.” He held up a hand to forestall Sostratos. “The oath had nothing to do with that, though I’ve kept it. I wouldn’t want her on a bet.”

“We’ll find somewhere else to put the beasts, then,” Sostratos said. “It doesn’t matter. After everything I’ve been through the past couple of days, I have trouble seeing what does matter, aside from getting home safe. To the crows with everything else.”

Menedemos started to ask him about profit. He started to, but then checked himself. Here, for once, he saw no point in making Sostratos say something he would regret later. That was all very well for a joke, but not just after a good man died. Regardless of whether Sostratos did, Aristeidas’ shade deserved more respect than that.

His cousin said, “When we got back here, I was going to surprise you: I was going to quote from the Odyssey.”

“Were you?” Menedemos said. “What, the bit where Odysseus has slain the suitors and made love to Penelope who’s stayed home all those years, and then he tells her of his adventures in about thirty lines?”

“Yes, that’s the very passage I had in mind, as a matter of fact,” Sostratos answered. “I don’t suppose I ought to be surprised you could guess.”

“I hope you shouldn’t, my dear,” Menedemos said. “And I don’t thank you for putting me in the woman’s role. I wasn’t idle here in Sidon, you know.”

“I never said you were-not that Penelope was idle in Odysseus’ palace.” Sostratos scowled. “After what happened to poor Aristeidas, though, I haven’t the heart for any sort of playfulness.”

Moskhion said, “Skipper, he’s a host in himself, your cousin is. Eight thieving Ioudaioi set upon us-eight! Sostratos shot two of ‘em dead before they could close, he wounded a third, and he went and drove off another one with rocks. If he didn’t show himself a second Teukros there, we all would’ve died amongst those boulders.”

“That’s the truth,” Teleutas agreed.

“Euge!” Menedemos stared at Sostratos as if he’d never seen him before. He’d known his cousin could shoot pretty well, but to hear him described in such terms was… startling. Sostratos was among the mildest and most inoffensive of men. Or, at least, he was most of the time. With his freedom and his life in the balance, that might be a different story. That evidently was a different story.

“I wish I’d done better,” he said now. “If I’d shot the bastard who speared Aristeidas, he’d still be with us now.”

“You can’t blame yourself,” Menedemos said.

“We’ve been telling him the same thing,” Teleutas said. “He doesn’t want to listen.”

“Well, he should.” Menedemos looked straight at Sostratos. “You should. For four to drive off eight-that’s no mean feat, my dear, all by itself. You can’t expect everything to have gone perfectly.”

“Everything had, near enough, till we ran into those polluted robbers on the way back here,” Sostratos said. “Were another couple of days of luck too much to ask of the gods?”

“You can’t ask such things of me-I’ll tell you that,” Menedemos said. “Let’s get the goods off your donkey and onto the akatos. Balsam and beeswax and what all else did you tell me?”

“Embroidered cloth,” Sostratos answered. Business seemed to recall him to himself. “How did you do here?”

“Could have been worse. Could have been a lot worse, in fact,” Menedemos said. “I got rid of almost all your brother-in-law’s olive oil, and at a good price, too.”

Worn and sorrowful as Sostratos was, he sat up and took notice of that. “Did you? And what escaped madman came along to buy it?”

“Some went to the soldiers of Antigonos’ garrison here, after their gods-detested quartermaster wouldn’t pay a decent price,” Menedemos replied. “A Phoenician dealer bought the rest for the luxury trade. The books are all gone-you had a good idea there. And the Koan silk-and I got something better for it.” Just thinking of the silk he’d got from Zaker-baal set excitement bubbling inside him.

“What? More cloth?” Sostratos asked. When Menedemos dipped his head, his cousin looked dismayed. Sostratos, in fact, looked downright disgusted. He said, “What were you drinking, my dear, when the wily Phoenician convinced you of that? There is no finer cloth than Koan silk.”

“We do have some jars of Byblian wine aboard, and crimson dye, too,” Menedemos said. “But you’re wrong about the Koan silk. Before we got here, I would have said you were right, but I know better now.”

“This I have to see for myself,” Sostratos declared.

“Come aboard, then, O best one, and see you shall.” Menedemos steered Sostratos back toward the Aphrodite . He went on, “By what you and the sailors say, you were the best one with the bow. No one could have done better than you did.”

“It wasn’t good enough,” Sostratos said bleakly. “Otherwise, we all would have come back from Engedi.” As always, Sostratos looked for perfection from himself. Being only human, he didn’t always get it. And, when he didn’t, he blamed himself more fiercely than he should have for falling short.

Menedemos almost said so to his face. But then, knowing his cousin as well as he did, he thought better of it. Instead, he simply guided Sostratos down into the merchant galley, guided him along to the leather sacks storing the silk, and opened one of them to draw out a bolt.

Sostratos’ eyes widened. Menedemos had known they would. Sostratos stared at the fine, fine fabric, then reached out to feel it. He dipped his head decisively. “Well, when you’re right, you’re right. The Koans never dreamt of anything like this. Where does it come from? How is it made?” Curiosity came close to bringing him back to his usual self.

“I don’t know how it’s made,” Menedemos replied. “It’s from out of the east, Zakerbaal said-he’s the Phoenician I got it from. From somewhere beyond India, maybe north, maybe east, maybe both.”

“Like the gryphon’s skull,” Sostratos said.

“Yes, that occurred to me, too,” Menedemos agreed. “But I think we’ll see more of this silk coming west into the lands around the Inner Sea, where the gods only know if another skull like that will ever turn up.”

Plainly, Sostratos wanted to argue with him. Just as plainly, he couldn’t. He asked, “What did you pay for this, and how much did you get?” When Menedemos told him, he muttered to himself, then dipped his head again. “That’s not bad.”

“Thanks. I think we’re going to squeeze a pretty fair profit out of this run, though we’ll take a while to do it because so much of what we earn will depend on selling things we’ve got here back in Hellas,” Menedemos said.

“Yes, I’m pretty sure you’re right,” Sostratos said. “I know where we can get a good price for some of this silk, or maybe all of it: in Salamis.”

“Do you really think so?” Menedemos asked. “Don’t you want to take it farther from Phoenicia?”

“Normally, I’d say yes,” Sostratos replied. “But remember, my dear, Menelaos is in Salamis. And if Ptolemaios’ brother can’t pay top price for something strange from far away, who can?”

Now it was Menedemos’ turn to say, “When you’re right, you’re right. I’d thought you meant we’d sell it to some rich Salaminian. But Menelaos is a special case, sure enough. Yes, we’ll definitely have to call on him when we get back to Cyprus.”

“How soon can we leave?” Sostratos asked.

“Now, or as soon as Diokles pulls all the men out of the wineshops and brothels,” Menedemos answered. “I’ve been waiting for you to get back-that’s all that’s been keeping me here. You’ll want to sell the mule and the donkey, too, I suppose, but that won’t take long. Diokles has always been good at getting the crew out of their dives, so we should be ready to go in a couple of days. I won’t be sorry to head home, believe me.”

“I don’t look forward to calling on Aristeidas’ family,” Sostratos said.

Menedemos grunted. “There is that, isn’t there? No, you’re right. I don’t look forward to it, either. But we’ve got to do it. How did he and the others do while you were wandering through Ioudaia?”

Sostratos looked around to see where Moskhion and Teleutas were before he answered. Once he’d made sure they couldn’t hear him, he said, “I haven’t got a bad word to say about poor Aristeidas, or about Moskhion, either. Teleutas… Teleutas did everything he was supposed to do as far as helping me went. He fought bravely against the robbers, too-of course, it was fight or die-but he stole from the Ioudaioi on the way back here from Jerusalem.”

“Did he?” Menedemos eyed Teleutas, who was talking to some of the other sailors, probably telling them of his adventures. “Why am I not surprised?”

“I don’t know. Why aren’t you?” Sostratos said. “I wasn’t all that surprised, either. I was just glad the Ioudaioi didn’t come after us with murder in their hearts. We could have had a lot worse trouble than just robbers. We didn’t, but we could have.”

“Yes, I see that,” Menedemos agreed. “But it’s not the biggest question, not now. The biggest question is, will Teleutas steal from his own shipmates?”

“I know. I wondered about the same thing.” Sostratos looked very unhappy. “I don’t know what the answer is. This is the third year he’s sailed with us, and no one’s complained about theft on the Aphrodite , I will say that. Even so, I don’t like what happened. I don’t like it at all.”

“And I don’t blame you a bit.” Menedemos studied Teleutas again. “He always tries to find out how close to the edge of the cliff he can walk, doesn’t he? When somebody acts like that, he will fall off one of these days, won’t he?”

“Who can say for certain?” Sostratos sounded as unhappy as he looked. “That seems to be the way to bet, though, doesn’t it?”

“Yes. What shall we do about it? Do you want to leave him behind here in Sidon?”

Regretfully, Sostratos tossed his head. “No, I suppose not. He hasn’t done anything to a Hellene that I can prove-though the way he offered to cut Aristeidas’ throat for me chilled my blood. He said he’d had practice, and I believe him. But I think we should take him back to Rhodes. Whether I want him sailing with us next spring… That’s liable to be a different question.”

“All right. I suppose you have a point,” Menedemos said. “If he gives us trouble on the way home, we can always put him ashore in Pamphylia or Lykia.”

“Yes, and do you know what will happen if we do?” Sostratos said. “He’ll turn pirate, sure as we’re standing here talking. One of these days, we’ll sail east again, and there he’ll be, swarming out of a hemiolia with a knife clamped between his teeth.”

“I’d like to go east in a trihemiolia,” Menedemos said. “Let’s see the Lykians come after one of those in their miserable, polluted pirate ships, by the gods.”

“That would be pretty fine,” Sostratos agreed. “It could happen, you know. They’re building one now-probably have built it by this time.”

“I know,” Menedemos said. “But even so, even if it was my idea, they probably won’t name me skipper. How can they, when I have to sail away every spring to make a living? No, it’ll be some kalos k’agathos who can afford to spend his time serving the polis like that.”

“Not fair,” Sostratos said.

“In one sense of the word, no, for I do deserve it,” Menedemos replied. “In another sense, though… Well, who can say? A rich man is able to give his time in a way that I’m not, so why shouldn’t he have the chance?” He muttered under his breath, not wanting to think about whether it was fair or not. To keep from having to ponder it, he called, “Diokles!”

“What do you need, skipper?” asked the keleustes, who’d hung back to let Menedemos and Sostratos talk by themselves.

Menedemos grinned at him. “What do I need? I need the whole crew back aboard as fast as we can get ‘em here. Now that Sostratos is back, we’ve got no reason to stay in Sidon anymore.”

“Ah,” Diokles dipped his head. “I thought you were going to say that. I hoped you were going to say that, as a matter of fact. Time for me to go hunting-is that what you’re telling me?”

“That’s just what I’m telling you,” Menedemos said. “The sailors know they can’t hide from you-or if they don’t by now, they’d better.”

Now the oarmaster grinned, too. “That’s right, skipper. I’ll bring ‘em in, never you fear. Shouldn’t even be that hard. It’s not like this was a Hellenic polis-they can’t just disappear in amongst the people.”

He was, as usual, as good as his word. A lot of sailors came back to the Aphrodite of their own accord once they heard the merchant galley would head back to Rhodes. “Be nice to find more than a handful of people who speak Greek,” was a comment Menedemos heard several times.

A few others were less eager to go home. One man they didn’t get back; he’d taken service with Antigonos. “Many goodbyes to him,” Menedemos remarked when he found out about that. “Anyone who wants to eat the food Andronikos’ cooks serve up…” He tossed his head.

Another sailor had taken up with a courtesan. Diokles came back to Menedemos empty-handed. “Philon says he’d sooner stay here, skipper,” the oarmaster reported. “Says he’s in love, and he doesn’t want to leave the woman.”

“Oh, he does, does he?” Menedemos said. “Does the woman speak any Greek?”

“Some. I don’t know how much,” Diokles answered.

“All right. Go back there. Make sure you find ‘em both together,” Menedemos said. “Then tell him his pay’s cut off, as of now. Tell him he gets not another obolos from me. If the woman doesn’t throw him out on his ear after that, maybe they really are in love. In that case, you ask me, they deserve each other.”

Philon came back aboard the Aphrodite the next day. He looked ashamed of himself. No one chaffed him very hard, though. How many sailors kept from falling in love, or imagining they were in love, at some port or another around the Inner Sea? Not many.

The day after that, Menedemos had his crew back again but for the one fool who thought Antigonos a better paymaster. A good many men looked wan, having thrown away their silver on a last carouse, but they were there. Sostratos grumbled about the price he’d got for the two animals he’d taken to Engedi, but the difference between that and what he’d paid was still less than what hiring them for the journey would have cost.

Menedemos, steering-oar tillers in his hands once more, grinned at the sailors and called, “Well, boys, are you about ready to see your home polis again?” They dipped their heads as they looked back at him from the rowers’ benches. “Good,” he told them. “Do you think you still remember what to do with your oars?” They dipped their heads again. Some of them managed smiles of their own. He waved to Diokles. “Then I’ll give you to the keleustes, and he’ll find out if you’re right.”

“First thing is, we’d better cast off,” Diokles said. “We’d look like proper fools if we tried to row away while we’re still tied up.” Lines snaked back aboard the Aphrodite . Sailors came back aboard down the gangplank, then stowed it at the stern. Diokles raised his voice: “At my order… back oars! Rhyppapai! Rhyppapai!” The merchant galley slid away from the pier.

“How does she feel?” Sostratos asked quietly.

“Heavy,” Menedemos answered as Diokles smote his little bronze square with his mallet to set the stroke. “It’s to be expected, when she’s been sitting here soaking up seawater for so long.” He pushed one tiller away and pulled the other one in. The Aphrodite spun in the sea till her bow faced west-northwest.

“At my order…,” Diokles said again, and the rowers, knowing what was coming, held their oars out of the water till he called, “Normal stroke!” They reversed the rhythm of what they’d been doing. Now when their oars dug in, they pushed the akatos forward instead of pulling her back.

Little by little, Sidon and the promontory on which the Phoenician city sat began to recede behind her. Menedemos adjusted her course, ever so slightly. He laughed at himself, knowing how inexact navigation was. “Cyprus,” he told Sostratos. He was confident he’d bring the Aphrodite to the island. Whereabouts on its east or south coast? That was a different question, and much harder to answer.

“Cyprus,” his cousin agreed.

Sostratos stood on the foredeck, feeling out of place and all too conscious of his own inadequacies as lookout. Aristeidas should have been here, he of the lynxlike eyes. Sostratos knew his own vision was average at best. But he still lived, while Aristeidas lay forever beneath boulders in Ioudaia. He had to do the best he could.

He peered ahead, looking for land rising up above the infinite smooth horizon of the Inner Sea. He knew Cyprus should come into sight any time, and he wanted to be the first to spy the island. Aristeidas surely would have been. If Sostratos was doing the dead man’s job, he wanted to do it as well as he could. Having some sailor spy Cyprus ahead of him would be a humiliation.

Above and behind him, the sail made strange sighing noises, now bellying full, now falling flat and limp in the fitful breeze from the northeast. The yard stretched back from the starboard bow to take best advantage of what wind there was. To keep the merchant galley going regardless of whether that wind blew hard or failed altogether, Menedemos kept eight men rowing on either side. He changed rowers fairly often so they would stay as fresh as they could if he needed them to flee from or fight pirates.

“Pirates,” Sostratos muttered. He had to keep watch for sails and hulls, too, not just for the jut of land out of the sea. Sailing west toward Cyprus, the Aphrodite had met a couple of ships bound for Sidon or the other Phoenician towns from Salamis. Everyone had been nervous till they passed each other by. Any stranger on the sea was too likely to prove a predator waiting only for his chance to strike.

He peered ahead again, then stiffened. Was that…? If he sang out and it wasn’t, he would feel a fool. If he didn’t sing out and somebody beat him to it, he would feel a worse fool. He took another, longer look.

“Land ho!” he shouted. “Land off the port bow!”

“I see it,” a sailor echoed. “I was going to sing out myself, but the young sir went and beat me to it.” That made Sostratos feel very fine indeed.

From his station at the stern, Menedemos said, “That’s got to be Cyprus. Now the only question is, where along the coast are we? See if you can spy a fishing boat, Sostratos. Fishermen will know.”

But they proved to need no fishermen. As they came closer to the shore, Sostratos said, “To the crows with me if this isn’t the very landscape we saw when we sailed out of Salamis for Sidon. You couldn’t have placed us any better if you’d been able to look across every stadion of sea. Euge, O best one!”

“Euge!” the sailors echoed.

Menedemos shuffled his feet on the poop deck like a shy schoolboy who had to recite. “Thank you, friends. I’d thank you more if we didn’t all know it was just luck that put us here and not two or three hundred stadia up or down the coast.”

“Modesty?” Sostratos asked. “Are you well, my dear?”

“I’ll gladly take credit where credit’s mine-or even when I can get away with claiming it,” his cousin answered. “Not here, though. If I say I can navigate from Sidon to Salamis every time straight as an arrow flies, you’ll expect me to do it again, and you’ll laugh at me when I don’t. I’m not fool enough to say anything of the sort, because I’d likely make myself a liar the next time we had to sail out of sight of land.”

Before long, a five flying Ptolemaios’ eagle pendant roared out of Salamis harbor’s narrow mouth and raced toward the Aphrodite . An officer cupped his hands in front of his mouth and shouted, “What ship are you?” across the water.

“The Aphrodite , out of Sidon, bound for Rhodes and home,” Sostratos yelled back, resigning himself to another long, suspicious interrogation.

But no. The officer on the war galley waved and said, “So you’re the Rhodians, are you? Pass on. We remember you from when you came here out of the west.”

“Thank you, most noble one!” Sostratos exclaimed in glad surprise. “Tell me, if you’d be so kind: is Menelaos still here in Salamis?”

“Yes, he is,” Ptolemaios’ officer replied. “Why do you want to know?”

“We found something at Sidon we hope he might be interested in buying,” Sostratos said.

“Ah. Well, I can’t say anything about that-you’ll have to find out for yourselves.” The naval officer waved once more. “Good fortune go with you.

“Thanks again,” Sostratos said. As the Aphrodite made for the harbor mouth, he went back to the poop deck. “That was easier than I expected,” he told Menedemos.

His cousin dipped his head. “It was, wasn’t it? Nice to have something go right for us, by the gods. And if Menelaos likes this fancy silk of ours…”

“Here’s hoping,” Sostratos said. “How can we even be sure he’ll look at it?”

“We’ll show some to his servants, to the highest-ranking steward they’ll let us see,” Menedemos answered. “If that’s not enough to get us brought before him, I don’t know what would be.”

Sostratos admired his confidence. A merchant needed it in full measure, and Sostratos knew he had less than his own fair share. “Here’s hoping you’re right,” he said.

With a shrug, Menedemos said, “If I’m not, we just don’t sell here, that’s all. I hope Menelaos will want what we’ve got. He’s someone who can afford to buy it. But if he doesn’t, well, I expect someone else will.” Yes, he had confidence and to spare.

And he and Sostratos also had that marvelous silk from the land beyond India. When they presented themselves at what had been the palace of the kings of Salamis and was now Menelaos’ residence, a supercilious servant declared, “The governor does not see tradesmen.”

“No?” Sostratos said. “Not even when we’ve got-this?” He waved to Menedemos. Like a conjurer, his cousin pulled a bolt of that transparent silk from the sack in which he carried it and displayed it for the servant.

That worthy immediately lost some of his hauteur. He reached out as if to touch the silk. Menedemos jerked it away. The servant asked, “Is that… Koan cloth? It can’t be-it’s too fine. But it can’t be anything else, either.”

“No, it’s not Koan silk,” Sostratos answered. “What it is isn’t any of your business, but it is Menelaos’.” To soften the sting of that, he slipped the servant a drakhma. In a lot of households, he would have overpaid; here, if anything, the bribe was barely enough.

It didn’t suffice to get the Rhodians an audience with Ptolemaios’ brother. But it did get them to his chief steward, who blinked when he saw the silk they displayed. “Yes, the master had better have a look at this himself,” the steward murmured. A few minutes later, Sostratos and Menedemos stood before Menelaos son of Lagos.

“Hail, Rhodians,” Menelaos said. He not only looked like his older brother, he sounded like him, too, which was, in Sostratos’ experience, much more unusual. “Simias says you’ve got something interesting for me to see, so let’s have a look, eh?”

Ptolemaios also had that way of coming straight to the point. Sostratos said, “Certainly, sir,” and showed him the silk as he and Menedemos had shown it to Simias.

Menelaos whistled. “By the dog, that’s something!” he said, and dipped his head. “Yes, indeed, that’s really something. It’s not Koan. It can’t be Koan. The Koans couldn’t match this if their lives depended on it. Where’s it come from? You got it in Sidon, but you can’t tell me the Phoenicians made it.”

“No, sir.” This was Menedemos’ story, and he told it: “Zakerbaal, the cloth merchant who sold it to me, says it comes from a country beyond India-he doesn’t know whether to the east or to the north. He knows Koan silk, too, and said the same thing you did.”

“Next question is, how much do you want for it?” Yes, Menelaos did cut to the chase.

“Zakerbaal said it was worth its weight in gold,” Menedemos answered. “But it’s worth more than that, just because it’s so very light and filmy. I paid him in Koan silk, at five times its weight for the weight of each bolt of this.” Sostratos sent him a sharp look; he’d really paid only about half that. Of course, how would Menelaos know?

And Menedemos knew what he was doing, too, for Ptolemaios’ brother said, “So you’re telling me each bolt of this is worth five times as much as a bolt of Koan silk? That seems fair enough, I think.”

Sostratos and Menedemos both tossed their heads at the same time, an almost identical motion that looked odd because Sostratos was so much taller than his cousin. Sostratos said, “Not quite, O most noble one. We’re telling you that’s what we paid.”

“Ah.” Menelaos’ grin displayed strong yellow teeth. “And you’re telling me you want a profit, are you?”

Some Hellenes-usually those who didn’t have to worry about it- looked down their noses at the mere idea of profit. Menelaos didn’t sound as if he was one of those. Sostratos hoped he wasn’t, anyhow. Menedemos said, “Sir, that silk didn’t swim across the sea to Salamis by itself. We have to pay our crew. We have to take care of our ship. We have to live, too.”

“And you’re thinking, Besides, Menelaos has all the money in the world, aren’t you?” Menelaos rolled his eyes. “That’s because you don’t know what a skinflint my brother is.”

“As a matter of fact, we do,” Sostratos said. “We dealt with him last year on Kos.”

“If you were to give him some of this silk, he might not worry so much about what you spend on it,” Menedemos said, his voice sly.

“How much have you got?” Menelaos asked.

“A dozen bolts, all of size and quality like this, dyed several different colors,” Menedemos replied.

Menelaos rubbed his chin. “You’re a sneaky one, aren’t you, Rhodian? Yes, that might do the trick.” He raised his voice: “Simias!”

The steward appeared on the instant. “Yes, your Excellency?”

“What would a bolt of good Koan silk cost?”

“About a mina, sir.”

Menelaos looked to Sostratos and Menedemos. “Is he right?”

They glanced at each other. Sostratos answered, “I’d say it might cost a little more, but he’s not far wrong, though.”

“So you paid five minai, more or less, for each bolt of this eastern silk?”

The Rhodians looked at each other again. “Probably be closer to six, best one,” Menedemos said.

“And how much more than that would it take to make it worth your while to sell the silk to me?” Menelaos asked.

“Twice as much,” Sostratos said.

“What? You’d want a dozen minai, by your reckoning, per bolt? By Zeus, Rhodian, that’s too much! I’ll give you half again as much, not a drakhma more.”

Counting on his fingers, Sostratos worked out how much that would be. “Nine minai the bolt. We have twelve bolts in all, so you’d pay”-he muttered to himself as he did the arithmetic-”one hundred eight minai all told?” Almost two talents of silver-10,800 drakhmai. That was, by anybody’s standards, a lot of money.

Menelaos turned to his steward. “Is that what it would come to, Simias? My head turns to mush when I try to figure things without a counting board.”

“Yes, sir. He calculated it correctly,” Simias answered. “Whether you want to pay the price is a different question, of course.”

“Isn’t it just?” Menelaos agreed. “Still, if I share the silk with Ptolemaios, he can’t very well complain about it.” He dipped his head in sudden decision. “All right, Rhodians-a bargain. Your fancy eastern silk, all twelve bolts, for one hundred eight minai of silver-or would you rather have it in gold? Gold would be a lot easier for you to carry.”

Egypt was a land rich in gold, where most Hellenes used silver as their main monetary metal. “What rate of exchange would you give?” Sostratos asked. “That makes a difference, you know.”

“Ten to one, no more,” Menelaos said. “This isn’t Philip of Macedon’s day, when a gold drakhma would buy you twelve silver ones.”

He wasn’t wrong; ten to one was the most common exchange rate nowadays. A century before, the ratio had been thirteen or even fourteen to one. “If you’ll wait till we can bring a couple of men here, I think I’d sooner have it in silver,” Sostratos answered. “As you say, gold’s fallen over this past generation, and it may fall further.”

“However you please,” Ptolemaios’ brother said with a shrug. “I’ve got the silver.” Sostratos was sure he had it. How big was his army on Cyprus? He probably spent more than a couple of talents every day on his soldiers’ pay.

Menedemos said, “I’ll go over to the Aphrodite to get the sailors. Can you give us some guards when we’re taking the money back to the ship, most noble one?”

“Certainly,” Menelaos answered. “Worried about getting knocked over the head between here and the harbor, are you? Don’t blame you a bit. Salamis can be a tough town.”

“Thank you, sir,” Menedemos said. “If you’d told me no, I’d’ve come back with a lot more than just two men, I’ll tell you that.” He waved and hurried away.

That left Sostratos alone with Menelaos and Simias. He usually hated such situations, as he was a man of little small talk. Now, though, he asked, “Sir, did you hunt tigers in distant India, as Ptolemaios did?”

“Did I? I should say I did!” Menelaos exclaimed, and he was off on a hunting story that not only fascinated Sostratos and told him two or three things about tigers that he hadn’t known but also relieved him of the obligation to say much more till his cousin got back with the sailors. Not bad, he thought, for a double handful of words.