The Sacred Land sam-3

by Harry Turtledove

  Though Teleutas liked to disparage everything he saw, that didn’t mean he was always wrong. He wasn’t wrong here; Sostratos thought it far and away the ugliest-looking country he’d seen in his life, too. The hills through which he and his fellow Rhodians were traveling descended to the Lake of Asphalt through a series of cliffs of reddish flint on which hardly anything grew. Below those cliffs were bluffs of buff limestone, every bit as barren.

  The plains between the high ground and the lake were dazzlingly white. “You know what that reminds me of?” Moskhion said. “When they set out pans full of seawater to dry up, and they do, and there’s all the salt left in the bottom, to the crows with me if that’s not what it looks like.”

  “You’re right,” Sostratos said. But salt pans weren’t very big. These salt flats, if that was what they were, went on for stadion after stadion. “Looks as though half the salt in the world is down there.”

  “Too bad it’s not worth bringing a donkeyload back with us,” Aristeidas said. “It’s just lying there waiting for somebody to scoop it up. You wouldn’t have to bother with pans.”

  “If so many Hellenic poleis didn’t lie by the sea, we might make a profit on it,” Sostratos said. “As things are-” He tossed his head.

  Under the sun, the Lake of Asphalt itself shone golden. Beyond it, to the east, lay more hills, these of a harsh, purplish stone. Sostratos had hardly noticed them in the morning, when he’d set out from Jerusalem, but they grew ever more visible as the day wore along and the angle of the sunshine falling on them changed. He saw no trees or even bushes on them, either. The Lake of Asphalt and almost everything surrounding it might as well have been dead.

  Pointing east across the lake to the rugged purple hills, Aristeidas asked, “Are those still a part of Ioudaia, too, or do they belong to some other country full of different barbarians?”

  “I don’t know, though I’m sure a Ioudaian would,” Sostratos answered. “By the look of them, though, I’d say they aren’t likely to be full of anything, except maybe scorpions.”

  “The scorpions here are bigger and nastier than anything we’ve got back in Hellas,” Teleutas said. “Back in Jerusalem a couple of days ago, I smashed one this big.” He stuck up his thumb and shuddered. “Almost makes me wish I’d got into the habit of wearing shoes.”

  For the next quarter of an hour, he and Moskhion and Aristeidas were skittish on the road, shying away from rocks that might hide scorpions and from shadows or sticks they feared were the stinging vermin.

  Even Sostratos, who was on muleback and whose feet didn’t touch the ground, kept looking around nervously. Then a scorpion did skitter across the dirt, and it vanished into a crevice in the rocks before anyone could kill it. Teleutas’ curses should have been plenty to do it in all by themselves.

  After a while, the track leading down to the salt flats got so steep, Sostratos dismounted and walked beside the mule. The animal placed each foot with the greatest of care. So did the pack donkey, which Aristeidas led. Slowly, the Rhodians and their beasts descended from the hills.

  Not quite halfway down, Teleutas stopped and pointed southeast. “Look there. Furies take me if that isn’t green, down there right by the edge of the Lake of Asphalt. I thought this whole place was just- nothing.”

  “It can’t all be nothing, or nobody would live there,” Sostratos said. “That must be Engedi.”

  “How do they make things grow, if the lake is salty and if there’s all this salt around?” Teleutas demanded.

  “I don’t know yet. Finding out will be interesting, I think,” Sostratos said. “Maybe they have freshwater springs. We’ll see.” Teleutas still looked dissatisfied, but he held his peace.

  Down on the salt flat, the sun beat down on Sostratos with a force he’d never known before. He had to squint to escape the dazzle of Helios’ rays off the salt. The very air felt uncommonly thick and heavy. It had the salt tang he associated with the sea and hadn’t expected to smell so far inland. Here, in fact, that salt tang was stronger than he’d ever known it before.

  A raven flew past overhead. Moskhion said, “In this part of the world, I bet even the birds have to carry water bottles.”

  Sostratos laughed, but not for long. A traveler who ran out of things to drink in these parts wouldn’t last long. Sun and salt might do as good a job of embalming him as natron did for the corpses Egyptian undertakers treated. Heading on toward Engedi, Sostratos wished he hadn’t had that thought.

  MENEDEMOS TOOK the bolt of the eastern silk he’d got from Zakerbaal son of Tenes out of the oiled-leather sack where it was stowed and held it up to the sun. Diokles dipped his head in approval. “That’s mighty pretty stuff, skipper,” he said. “We’ll get a good price for it, too, when we go back to Hellas.”

  “Yes, I think so, too,” Menedemos answered. “But I’m not just thinking about the silver. Look at the cloth! Look how thin it is! The finest Koan silk might as well be wool next to this.”

  “Wonder how they do it,” the keleustes said.

  “So do I.” Menedemos dipped his head. “And I wonder who they are. People beyond India, Zakerbaal said.”

  “Not even Alexander found out what’s beyond India,” Diokles said.

  “ Alexander decided there wasn’t anything beyond India,” Menedemos agreed. “That way, he could head back toward Hellas saying he’d conquered the whole world.” He looked at the silk again. “He was wrong. He was a godlike man-even a hero, a demigod, if you like-but he was wrong.”

  “I wonder if any more of this stuff will ever come out of the east,” Diokles said.

  Menedemos shrugged. “Who can guess? I’d bet we never see another gryphon’s skull, because nobody in his right mind would pay anything for one. But this? This is different. It’s beautiful. Anybody who sees it would pay for it, and pay plenty. So maybe more’ll come from wherever it comes from, but who knows when? Next year? Ten years from now? Fifty? A hundred? Who can say?”

  He imagined strange barbarians sitting at their looms, turning out bolt after bolt of this wonderful silk. What would they be like? Beyond India, they might look like anything at all. The folk of India itself were said to be black, like Ethiopians. Did that mean everyone beyond India was black, too?

  This is only imagination, Menedemos told himself, and tossed his head. I can make these distant barbarians any color I please. Why, I can make them yellow if I want to. He laughed at that.

  “What’s funny, skipper?” the oarmaster asked. When Menedemos told him, he laughed, too. “That’s pretty good. It sure is. You think they’d have yellow hair, too, the way the Kelts do?”

  “Who knows?” Menedemos said. “In my mind, they had black hair, but you can make them look however you want. What I want to imagine now is selling this silk and the dye as we go back to Rhodes.”

  “It’ll do even better in the Aegean,” Diokles remarked. “The farther from Phoenicia we go, the better the prices we’ll get.”

  “That’s probably true,” Menedemos said. “Maybe we can make for Athens next sailing season.” He laughed again. “That would break my cousin’s heart, wouldn’t it?”

  “Oh, yes, he’d be ever so disappointed.” Diokles snorted. Finding the snort not strong enough, he laughed out loud.

  “I wouldn’t mind getting up there myself,” Menedemos allowed. “You can have a good time all kinds of different ways in Athens. If we make port early in the season, we can go to the theater for the tragedies and comedies they put on during the Greater Dionysia. Nothing tops theater in Athens.”

  “Yes, theater’s a nice way to pass a day every so often,” the keleustes agreed. “And they’ve got all kinds of wineshops there, and pretty girls in the brothels-pretty boys, too, if you’d rather do that for a change. It’s a good town.”

  “A boy’s all right every once in a while,” Menedemos said. “I’ve never been one to chase every youth in bloom through the streets, though.”

  “No-you chase wives instead.” But Diokles said
it indulgently. He didn’t sound reproving, as Sostratos always did.

  “I think wives are more fun-most wives, anyway.” Menedemos made a sour face. “The innkeeper’s wife is chasing me. I don’t intend to let her catch me, either. Sour old crone.”

  “No wonder you don’t stay there much.”

  “No wonder at all. If it weren’t for the bed…” Menedemos sighed. “I didn’t feel like sleeping on planks all the time we were here.”

  “Never bothered me,” Diokles said.

  “I know. But then, you’re comfortable sleeping sitting up. I couldn’t do that if my life depended on it.”

  The oarmaster shrugged. “All what you’re used to. That’s what I got in the habit of doing when I pulled an oar-lean up against the gunwale, close my eyes, and doze off. After you do it for a while, it seems as natural as stretching out flat.”

  “Maybe to you.” Menedemos glanced down toward the base of the pier. “If that’s not a Hellene coming this way, I’m a yellow barbarian myself.” He raised his voice: “Hail, friend! How are you today?”

  “Not bad,” the other man answered, his Doric drawl not much different from the one that Menedemos spoke. “How’s yourself?”

  “I’ve been worse,” Menedemos allowed. “What can I do for you?”

  “Are you the fellow who was selling books at the barracks a while ago?”

  Menedemos dipped his head. “That’s me, O best one. I haven’t got many left. Why didn’t you decide to buy sooner?”

  “I couldn’t, that’s why,” the stranger said. “I’m a horseman, and I just got back in from a sweep through the hills after bandits.” He had a horseman’s scars, sure enough-on his legs and on his left arm. A hoplite’s large round shield protected that arm, but a horseman couldn’t bear anything so big and heavy.

  “I hope the sweep went well,” Menedemos said. “You won’t find a merchant with a good thing to say about bandits.”

  “We smoked out a couple of nests,” the other Hellene said. “But it’s more a matter of keeping them down and making them cautious than it is of getting rid of them. Those hills will spawn robber bands for the next thousand years. Too many hiding places for ‘em to use, too many towns and roads close to ‘em. Can’t be helped.” He changed the subject back toward what interested him: “Have you still got any books left?”

  “A couple,” Menedemos answered. “One’s the book of the Iliad where godlike Akhilleus and glorious Hektor fight it out; the other’s from the Odyssey, the book where resourceful Odysseus meets Polyphemos the Cyclops.”

  “I’d like ‘em both,” the cavalryman said wistfully. “Nothing like a book to make the time pass by. But you’re going to put some great whacking price on ‘em, because where else can I buy if I don’t get ‘em from you?”

  “You can’t make me feel guilty, most noble one,” Menedemos said. “I’m not in business to lose money any more than soldiers are in business to lose battles. You can have ‘em both for thirty-five drakhmai. No haggling, no cheating-that’s the same price the garrison soldiers were paying.”

  “Papai!” the cavalryman said. “That’s a lot of money, just the same.” Menedemos didn’t answer. He just stood and waited. The other Hellene frowned. Menedemos thought he knew the expression: that of a man who was talking himself into something. And, sure enough, the fellow said, “All right. All right! I’ll take ‘em. You count two drakhmai for one Sidonian siglos?”

  “Yes,” Menedemos answered. That gave the other man a very slight break on the rate of exchange. Maybe Sostratos would have worked it out to the last obolos, but Menedemos didn’t feel like bothering. He took the silver, got the last two books in his store out of their sack, and gave them to the horseman.

  “Thanks,” the man said. “I’ll carry these till they fall to pieces. I’d pay even more for the books from Herodotos where the Persians and Hellenes go at it. You don’t happen to have those, do you?”

  “Sorry, no.” Menedemos hoped he hid his bemusement. Not even Sostratos had thought he could sell history books in Phoenicia. Customers never failed to be surprising. This one went on down the pier. Menedemos called after him: “Lykian ham? Fine oil?”

  “No, thanks,” the soldier answered. “I’ve spent all the silver I’m going to. Some men would rather eat fancy. Me, I’d rather read.” He kept on walking.

  To Diokles, Menedemos said, “A pity Sostratos is off in the back of beyond. He would have made himself a friend for life.”

  “That’s the truth,” the keleustes agreed. “I know my alpha-beta, but I’ve never had much cause to use it. Most of the time, you can find out whatever you need to know just by talking with people.”

  “I enjoy Homer, and I think I do like him better because I can read him for myself,” Menedemos said. “Same with Aristophanes -maybe even more so, because you don’t hear him read in the agora all the time, the way you do Homer. But I don’t dive into a roll of papyrus headfirst like Sostratos.”

  “He knows all sorts of funny things, I will say,” Diokles remarked. “And what’s really strange is, every once in a while they come in handy.”

  “I know.” Menedemos drummed the fingers of his right hand on the outside of his thigh. “It happens just often enough to keep me from teasing him too hard about everything he reads.” His fingers went up and down, up and down. “Too bad.”

  Before he went back to Sedek-yathon’s inn that evening, Menedemos bought a sausage half a cubit long; the gut-wrapped length of chopped meat smelled strongly of garlic and cumin. He also got himself a small loaf with olives baked into it: sitos to go with his opson. He chuckled when that thought crossed his mind. Could Sostratos have known of it, he would have chided Menedemos for a self-confessed opsophagos: a man who put the relish ahead of the staple. The sausage was supposed to go with the bread, not the other way round.

  Sedek-yathon’s wife dropped the sausage into hot oil for Menedemos. The oil was the same cheap stuff the innkeeper always used. Not only that, but it had done a lot of cooking before that sausage went into it. The smell filled the taproom at the front of the inn. It wasn’t precisely unpleasant, but it was strong.

  Emashtart fished the sausage out of the oil with a pair of wooden tongs. She set it on a plate and carried it over to Menedemos. Putting it on the table in front of him, she smirked and said, “Phallos.”

  “That’s not how you say ‘sausage’ in Greek,” Menedemos answered. The word for sausage, physke, was close enough that she might have used the other one in honest error. She might have. Menedemos hoped she had.

  The way her smirk got wider-and, to his eyes, less lovely-argued she hadn’t. “Phallos,” she repeated, and then went on in her horrible Greek: “You to have biggerest phallos already, eh?” Her eyes went to Menedemos’ crotch.

  His went to the formidable length of grayish-brown meat on the table in front of him. “By the gods, I hope not!” he exclaimed. “What do you take me for, a donkey?” He thought Emashtart a perfect donkey, but for different reasons.

  She shook her head. “No, just man.” She put a slavering emphasis on the word. Her gaze still hadn’t risen to Menedemos’ face.

  A couple of other men were eating in the taproom. They were Phoenicians, though, and gave no sign of understanding Greek. Emashtart could be shameless in front of them without their knowing. Hoping to quell her, Menedemos asked, “Where’s your husband?”

  She gave him a scornful look. He’d seen that expression on the faces of more than a few women who’d been interested in him and hadn’t cared about their husbands at all. It was the last one he wanted to see on Emashtart’s. She said, “He drinking.” She mimed lifting a cup with both hands, bringing it to her mouth, and then staggering around, as if with too much wine. Menedemos chuckled. It was involuntary, but he couldn’t help himself; she made a fine mimic. She added, “Not to coming home at alls.”

  “Oh,” Menedemos said tonelessly. “How nice.” He drank some of his own wine, then yawned. “I’m going to go to bed
early tonight, I am. I’m very, very tired.” He yawned again, theatrically.

  Emashtart watched him. She didn’t say a word. Menedemos didn’t like that. He wanted her to believe him. That way, she wouldn’t come scratching at his door sometime in the middle of the night. He’d been glad to have women scratch at his door before. He expected he would be again, once he could forget about this annoying oath he’d sworn to Sostratos. He couldn’t imagine being glad if Emashtart did, not even if she stood in the courtyard naked-maybe especially not if she stood in the courtyard naked.

  Finally, despite looking back over her shoulder as she went, she left him alone. He had to eat in a hurry, yawning every so often, so she wouldn’t think he’d been lying about how tired he was-which he had. The sausage, though not quite like any he’d eaten back in Hellas, proved tasty. As he brought it up to his mouth, Emashtart ran her tongue over her lips in a silent obscenity that struck him as far grosser and more disgusting than anything the cheerfully bawdy Aristophanes had ever come up with.

  As soon as Menedemos finished eating, he hurried out of the taproom and into the cramped, stuffy little chamber where he’d sleep tonight. He didn’t even bother lighting the lamp. He just took off his chiton, made sure the door was barred from the inside, and lay down naked on the narrow bed. To his surprise, he quickly fell asleep.

  Not very much to his surprise, he was awakened some unknown stretch of time later by someone softly tapping on the door. Maybe she’ll go away if I lie here quietly and pretend to stay asleep, he thought.

  He tried it. Emashtart didn’t go away. She kept right on tapping, louder and louder. At last, he doubted whether a dead man could have ignored her. Muttering to himself, he got out of bed and went to the door. “Who is it?” he asked, there being one chance in a myriad it was somebody besides the innkeeper’s wife.

  But she answered, “I are it.”

  “What do you want?” Menedemos asked. “And what hour is it, anyway? “