Sostratos frowned. He thought he saw a logical flaw in the other man’s argument, but for once he let it go. Hekataios of Abdera had studied the Ioudaioi more thoroughly than he had-had studied them as he wished he might have, in fact. “Now that you’ve learned all these things, I hope you write them down so other Hellenes can have the benefit of your inquiries,” Sostratos said.
“I intend to, when I get back to Alexandria,” Hekataios answered. “I want my name to live forever.”
“I understand,” Sostratos said, and sighed. You have to write one day, too, he told himself, or who will remember you once you’re gone? He sighed again, wondering if he would ever find the time.
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 Gree
k: “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.”
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