The Sacred Land sam-3

by Harry Turtledove

  “I’ll ask,” Sostratos said with a sigh.

  He didn’t like asking such practical questions of strangers even in Greek. Historical or philosophical queries were a different matter-there his curiosity overcame everything else. But something as mundane as directions? He wished he could get away without them.

  Here, though, he obviously couldn’t. Taking a deep breath, he made himself beard another Ioudaian: “I crave pardon, my master, but could you direct your servant to the inn of Ithran son of Akhbor?”

  The fellow pointed. The flood of words that followed flowed too swiftly for Sostratos to understand.

  “Slow! Slow!” he exclaimed.

  More pointing. More quick, guttural Aramaic. Sostratos threw his hands in the air. More than any of his own words, the despairing gesture got through to the Ioudaian. On his third go-round, the man really did slow down, enough so that Sostratos could actually figure out most of what he was saying.

  “Four blocks up, two to the right, and then one more up? Is that right?” Sostratos asked.

  “Yes, of course. What did you think I said?” the Ioudaian asked.

  “I was not sure,” Sostratos answered truthfully. He gave the man one of the tiny silver coins the local governors issued. The loudaian put it in his mouth, as a Hellene might have. It was so small, Sostratos wondered if he would swallow it without noticing.

  Ithran’s inn proved to be a large, noisy, ramshackle place. When Sostratos and the sailors from the Aphrodite got there, the innkeeper was patching a crack in a mud-brick wall with what looked and smelled like a mixture of clay and cow dung. He wiped his hands on his robe, but still had second thoughts about clasping hands with Sostratos. Instead, bowing, he said, “How may I serve you, my master?”

  “A room for me. A room for my men,” Sostratos replied. “And stalls for the animals.”

  Ithran bowed again. “It shall be just as you require, of course,” he said. He was a few years older than Sostratos, tall and lean, handsome in a swarthy way, with a scar on one cheek that vanished into his bushy black beard.

  Sostratos snapped his fingers, remembering something. “Is it not true, sir, that another Ionian is here?” When the innkeeper nodded, Sostratos switched to Greek and asked, “Do you speak the tongue of the Hellenes, then?”

  “Speak little bit,” Ithran answered in the same language. “Was soldier for Antigonos before wound.” He touched his face to show what he meant. “Learn Greek from soldiers.” Had he not told that to Sostratos, his accent would have. It was one of the strangest the Rhodian had ever met: half guttural Aramaic, half broad Macedonian. If he hadn’t already heard foreigners mangle Greek a lot of different ways, he wouldn’t have been able to make head or tail of it.

  “How much for the lodgings?” he asked.

  When Ithran told him, he thought he’d misheard. The Ioudaian had replied in Aramaic. Sostratos went over to Greek again, but the answer didn’t change. He did his best not to show how astonished he was. He haggled a little for form’s sake, but he would have been content to take the first price the innkeeper quoted. In Rhodes or Sidon, he would have paid three times as much.

  Once he and the sailors from the Aphrodite got to their rooms, he remarked on that. He all but chortled with glee, as a matter of fact. But Teleutas put things in perspective. “Of course rooms are cheap here,” he said. “You go to Sidon or Rhodes, those are places people really want to visit. But who in his right mind would want to come to this miserable sheep turd of a town?”

  Sostratos considered what he’d seen walking through Jerusalem’s narrow, winding, smelly streets. He heaved a sigh. “I hadn’t thought of it like that,” he admitted, “but to the crows with me if I can tell you you’re wrong.”

  A Macedonian trooper too far down on the social scale to care about whether he did his own work lugged an amphora of olive oil and a Lykian ham off the Aphrodite, down the pier, and back into Sidon. As soon as he was off the ship, Menedemos stopped paying much attention to him. Instead, the Rhodian merchant looked down at the gleaming silver that filled his hands: a mixture of Sidonian silver and coins from all over Hellas.

  “By the dog, I really am almost starting to think that pimp of an Andronikos did us a favor when he wouldn’t buy our whole shipment of oil,” he said. “ Garrison troops just keep coming in and taking it away a jar at a time.”

  “And paying a lot more per jar than he would have,” Diokles said.

  “Sure enough,” Menedemos agreed. “We won’t have to unload all the oil to come back to Rhodes with a decent profit.” He laughed. “I never would have said anything like that half a month ago-you’d best believe I wouldn’t.”

  He wouldn’t have laughed half a month before, either. He’d been sure he would end up stuck with every last amphora of Damonax’s olive oil. He’d unloaded much more of it by now than he’d ever thought he would after Antigonos’ quartermaster turned him down.

  A Phoenician came up the quay toward the akatos. The man wore gold hoops in his ears and a massy gold ring on one thumb; he carried a gold-headed walking stick. “Hail! This ship is from the island?” he said in accented but fluent Greek.

  “That’s right, best one,” Menedemos answered. “What can I do for you today?”

  “You sell olive oil, fine olive oil?” the Phoenician asked.

  Menedemos dipped his head. “Yes, I do. Ah, if you don’t mind my asking, how did you know?”

  The Phoenician smiled a thin smile. “You Hellenes can do many marvelous things. You have astonished the world. You have overthrown the Persians, who ruled their great kingdom for generation upon generation. You have cast down the mighty city of Tyre, a city any man would have thought could stand secure forever. But I say this, and I say true: there is one thing you Hellenes cannot do. Try as you will, you cannot keep your mouths shut.”

  He was probably right. As a matter of fact, from everything Menedemos had seen, he was almost certainly right. The Rhodian found no point to arguing with him. “Would you care to come aboard and sample the oil, ah…?” He paused.

  With a bow, the Phoenician said, “Your servant is called Zimrida son of Luli. And you are Menedemos son of Philodemos, is it not so?” He walked up the gangplank, his stick tapping against the timber at each step.

  “Yes, I am Menedemos,” Menedemos answered, wondering what else Zimrida knew about him and his business. By the way the Phoenician spoke, by the amused glint in his black, black eyes, he was liable to have a better notion of how much silver was aboard the Aphrodite than Menedemos did himself. Trying to hide his unease, Menedemos drew the stopper from an already-open jar of oil, poured out a little, dipped a chunk of barley roll in it, and offered the roll and oil to Zimrida.

  “I thank you, my master.” The Phoenician murmured something in his own language, then took a bite.

  “What was that?” Menedemos asked.

  “A… prayer we use over bread,” Zimrida answered, chewing. “In your tongue, it would be, ‘Blessed be you, gods who made the universe, who make bread come forth from the earth.’ In my speech, you understand, it is a poem.”

  “I see. Thanks. What do you think of the oil?”

  “I will not lie to you,” Zimrida said, an opening that immediately made Menedemos suspicious. “It is good olive oil. It is very good, in fact.” As if to underscore that, he dipped the barley roll again and took another bite. “But it is not worth the price you are getting for it.”

  “No?” Menedemos said coolly. “As long as I am getting that price- and I am-I would have to tell you you are wrong.”

  Zimrida waved that aside. “You are getting that price for an amphora here, for two amphorai there. How much oil will you have left when you must leave Sidon? More than a little, is that not so?”

  “Then I’ll sell the rest somewhere else,” Menedemos answered, again trying to sound unworried. Sure enough, Zimrida was liable to know the last obolos lurking half forgotten between a sailor’s cheek and gum.

  “Will you?”
the Phoenician said. “Perhaps. But perhaps not, too. Such things are in the hands of the gods. You will surely know that.”

  “Why should I sell to you for less than what I’m getting?” Menedemos demanded once more.

  “For the sake of getting rid of all your cargo,” Zimrida answered. “You would have sold it to Andronikos for a good deal less than the seventeen and a half shekels you are getting… Excuse me, I should say sigloi in Greek, eh? You would have sold it to Andronikos for less, I tell you again, and so, if I buy a lot of what you have, you should also sell to me for less. It only stands to reason.”

  “But I couldn’t make a bargain with Andronikos,” Menedemos reminded him.

  “I know this Hellene,” Zimrida said. “I know you Hellenes say we Phoenicians are grasping and money-grubbing and care for nothing in all the world except silver. I tell you, Rhodian, this quartermaster of Antigonos’ is the meanest man I have met in all my days, Phoenician or Hellene-or Persian, come to that. If he could save his father’s life with a drakhma’s worth of medicine, he would try to haggle the price down to three oboloi-and woe betide the old man if he failed.”

  Menedemos let out a startled bark of laughter. That summed up Andronikos pretty well, all right. “How do I know you’ll do any better for me, though?” he asked.

  “You might try finding out,” the Phoenician said tartly, “instead of saying, ‘Oh, no, I’ll never sell to you, because I’m making too much money the way things are’ “

  “All right.” Menedemos dipped his head. “All right, by the gods. If you buy in bulk, how much the amphora will you give me?”

  “Fourteen sigloi,” Zimrida said.

  “Twenty-… eight drakhmai the jar.” Menedemos made the translation into money more familiar to him. Zimrida nodded. Menedemos also translated that into its Hellenic equivalent. He said, “Is that enough profit to satisfy you, buying at twenty-eight and selling at thirty-five, when you know you may not sell all of what you buy? “

  The Phoenician’s eyes were dark and distant and utterly opaque. “My master, if I did not think so, I would not make the offer, is it not so? I do not ask what you will do with my silver once you take it. Do not ask me what I will do with the oil.”

  “I won’t sell it all to you at that price,” Menedemos said. “I’ll hold back fifty jars, because I think I may move that many at my price. The rest, though… twenty-eight drakhmai is a fair price, and I can’t deny it.”

  I’ll be rid of Damonax’s miserable oil. By the gods, I really will, he thought, trying to hide his growing delight. And I’II have plenty of silver to buy things that are cheap here but expensive back in Rhodes.

  “Have we a bargain, then?” Zimrida asked.

  “Yes. We have one.” Menedemos thrust out his right hand. Zimrida clasped it. His grip was hard and firm. “Twenty-eight drakhmai or fourteen sigloi the amphora,” Menedemos said while they held each other, leaving no room for misunderstanding.

  “Twenty-eight drakhmai or fourteen sigloi,” the Phoenician agreed. “You say you will keep fifty jars. I do not object to that. And you will already have sold close to a hundred jars.” Sure enough, he knew Menedemos’ affairs very well indeed. The Rhodian didn’t even try to deny it-what point? Zimrida went on, “Then you will sell me… two hundred fifty jars, more or less?”

  “About that, yes. Do you want the exact count now, O best one, or will tomorrow do?” Menedemos asked. He suspected Zimrida would have an exact count by tomorrow whether he gave it to the Phoenician or not.

  “Tomorrow will do well enough,” Zimrida said. “I am glad we have made this bargain, Rhodian. We will both profit from it. You will be here at sunrise?”

  “Not long after, anyhow,” Menedemos answered. “I’ve taken a room at an inn.” He mimed scratching at bedbug bites.

  Zimrida smiled. “Yes, I know the place where you are staying,” he said- which, again, surprised Menedemos not at all. “Tell me, is Emashtart trying to lure you into her bed?”

  Hearing that, Menedemos began to wonder if there were anything at all about Sidon that Zimrida didn’t know. “Well, yes, as a matter of fact,” he answered. “Who on earth would have told you that?”

  “No one. I did not know, not for certain,” Zimrida told him. “But I am not surprised. You are not the first, and I do not suppose you will be the last.” He started up the gangplank, tapping with his stick at each step.

  “Why doesn’t her husband keep her happy?” Menedemos asked. “Then she wouldn’t have to play the whore.” Am I saying that? he wondered. How many wives have I lured away from their husbands’ beds? He didn’t know, not exactly. Maybe Sostratos could have given him a precise number; he wouldn’t have been surprised to learn his cousin had been keeping a tally. But the difference here was simplicity itself: he didn’t want the innkeeper’s wife. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been pursued by a woman who interested him less.

  “Why?” Zimrida echoed. “You have seen her, is it not so? Having seen her, you can answer the question for yourself. And I will tell you one thing more, my master. Two doors down from the inn lives a potter with a friendly, pretty young wife. She is even friendlier than he thinks.”

  “Is she?” Menedemos said. Zimrida son of Luli nodded. Menedemos’ opinion was that she would have to be friendly to the point of madness to find Sedek-yathon attractive, but women had peculiar taste.

  “Good day,” Zimrida told him. “I will be here tomorrow with the silver, and with slaves and donkeys to take away the olive oil.” Down the pier he went.

  “Not bad, skipper,” Diokles said when the Sidonian was out of earshot. “Not bad at all, tell you the truth.”

  “No,” Menedemos agreed. “This is better than I hoped for. We really are rid of Damonax’s oil. I feel so glad to be out from under it, too-as if Sisyphos didn’t have to roll his stone up the hill anymore.”

  “I believe that,” the oarmaster said. “Now the only worry is, will he really pay us what he said he would?”

  “Did you see all the gold he was wearing?” Menedemos said. “He can afford it; I’m sure of that. And he wasn’t putting on the dog to try to impress us, the way a cheat would. His robe was fine wool, and it was well worn, too. He hadn’t just borrowed it to make himself look richer than he was.”

  “Oh, no. That’s not what I meant. You’re right-I’m sure he can afford to pay. But will he try to stiff us some kind of way? You never can tell with barbarians… or with Hellenes, either, come to that.”

  “I only wish I could say you were wrong,” Menedemos told him. “Well, we’ll find out.”

  Diokles pointed toward the base of the pier. “Now who’s this fellow coming our way, and what’s he going to want? Besides our money, I mean?”

  “He’s selling something-something to eat, I bet. Look at that big, flat basket he’s carrying. You see hucksters with that kind of basket all the time back in Hellas,” Menedemos said. “There, they’d have fried fish on it, or songbirds, or most likely fruit. What do you want to bet he’s got raisins or plums or figs or something like that?”

  They had to wait a little while to find out. The peddler stopped at every ship tied up along the quay. He called out the name of whatever he was selling in Aramaic, which did Menedemos no good at all. Seeing Hellenes aboard the akatos, though, the fellow switched to Greek: “Dates! Fresh dates!”

  “Dates?” Menedemos echoed, and the Phoenician nodded. “Fresh dates?” The peddler nodded again, and invitingly held out the basket.

  “Well, well,” Diokles said. “Isn’t that interesting?”

  “It certainly is,” Menedemos said. “Sostratos would be fascinated. I wonder if he’s seen any.” A few date palms grew in Rhodes; Menedemos had seen them on the islands of the Kyklades, too, and had heard they were also found on Crete. But no date palm anywhere in Hellas gave forth fruit; the climate wasn’t warm enough to let the trees come to full maturity. All the dates that reached the land of the Hellenes from Phoenicia and Egypt were sun
-dried like raisins or, often, figs.

  “You want?” the peddler asked.

  “Yes, I want,” Menedemos answered. To Diokles, he went on, “We wouldn’t be able to take ‘em back to Rhodes; they won’t keep for us any more than they do for anybody else. But they’re still something to talk about.”

  “Sounds good to me, skipper,” the keleustes answered. “I’m always game for something new.”

  An obolos bought a handful for each of them. Menedemos exclaimed in delight at the sweet taste of his. He’d had dried dates often enough. They cost more than figs, but that didn’t always stop Sikon from keeping them in the house. Menedemos tossed his head. It hadn’t always stopped Sikon from keeping them in the house. With Baukis quarreling over every obolos-no, every khalkos-who could say whether the cook still dared buy them?

  Menedemos sighed. He’d mostly been too busy to think about his father’s second wife since sailing out of Rhodes. That was one of the reasons, and not the least, he was so glad when winter ended and good weather returned. Brooding about Baukis could only lead to misery, and to trouble.

  To try to get her out of his mind, he asked the huckster, “Do you also sell dried dates?”

  The Phoenician didn’t speak a lot of Greek. Menedemos had to repeat himself and point to the sun before the fellow got the idea. When he did, he nodded again. “Sell sometimes,” he answered. His expression was scornful, though. “Dried dates for servants, for slaves. Fresh dates proper food, good food.”

  “Did he say what I think he did?” Diokles asked after the huckster went on to the next pier. “Back in Hellas, we eat for a treat what’s slave food here? I like our kind of dates. But for honey, you can’t find anything much sweeter. Don’t know that I’ll want ‘em any more, though.”

  “Can’t be helped,” Menedemos said. “Like I said, fresh dates won’t keep on a voyage back to Hellas, any more than fresh grapes would.”

  “Well, maybe not,” the oarmaster said. “But it still galls me that the Phoenicians send us their leavings and keep the best for themselves. There was that miserable fellow with his cheap basket, and he’s selling something nobody in Hellas can have. It doesn’t seem right.”