He also thought of Aristeidas, who’d spent so much time up here doing lookout duty. But the sharp-eyed sailor’s bones lay in Ioudaia. Sostratos pounded a fist down on the rail. The robbers there could easily have killed him, too.
Like most of the cities of southwestern Anatolia, Knidos was nominally free and autonomous. Also like most of them, it held a garrison of Antigonos’ soldiers. A couple of war galleys—big, beamy fives, full of rowers and marines—patrolled in front of the harbor. Sostratos wondered if one of them would come rushing out to investigate the Aphrodite. He wouldn’t have been surprised. Antigonos’ men were no less arrogant than those who followed Ptolemaios or Kassandros or Lysimakhos or, he supposed, Seleukos. The Macedonian marshals ruled the civilized world. Poleis like Rhodes, poleis that really were free and autonomous, were few and far between nowadays.
To Sostratos’ relief, the fives kept prowling back and forth, back and forth. He didn’t think one of their skippers would have been highhanded enough to plunder the Aphrodite. That would have offended Rhodes. He didn’t think so, but he was just as well pleased not to have to find out.
Also to his relief, the wind blew more from the east than from the north as the merchant galley made her way up through the channel between the mainland and the little island of Nisyros to the west. Menedemos kept eight men on each side at the oars to help the sail propel the ship through the water. Had the wind turned against the Aphrodite, he would have had to raise the sail to the yard and put more men on the oars to make any decent headway: either that or tack like a round ship, and almost as slowly as a round ship would have.
I wish there were a way to get closer to the wind than a square sail can, Sostratos thought. After a moment, though, he shrugged. He’d sailed from Sicily to Phoenicia, and he’d never seen any other kind of rig. That was all too likely to mean no other kind was practical. He tried to imagine a different way to mount a sail, tried and felt himself failing.
Kos climbed up out of the sea ahead. Menedemos pointed to some tumbledown ruins on the southwestern coast. “I wish Astypalaia were still the Koans’ main town,” he said. “We’d be almost there already.”
“I wouldn’t want to live in what was left of a polis after a Spartan sack and an earthquake,” Sostratos said. “The town they have now is better situated all the way around—it looks right across the channel to Halikarnassos. And it’s laid out in a sensible grid like Rhodes, so a stranger has some chance of finding his way around. The streets in the old city were probably tracks that wandered wherever they wanted.”
“Every word you say is true, my dear,” Menedemos replied. “But Astypalaia’s right here in front of our noses, and we’ve still got some traveling to do before we get to the polis of Kos.”
Ptolemaios’ galleys prowled in front of Kos. Antigonos’ warships patrolled in front of Halikarnassos. Sostratos supposed they clashed every so often. At the moment, they were leaving one another alone, for which he was duly grateful.
The sun was just setting as the Aphrodite came to the harbor. Before the akatos could enter, one of Ptolemaios’ fives hurried up to look her over. The war galley’s banners displayed the eagle of the lord of Egypt. “Heave to!” an officer at the bow shouted.
“Oop!” Diokles called to the rowers, and they rested at their oars.
“What ship are you?” the officer demanded. “Where are you from, what are you carrying, and where are you bound?”
“We’re the Aphrodite, out of Rhodes and bound for Athens,” Sostratos answered. The war galley’s flank loomed up out of the water like a wooden wall. She had twice the freeboard of the akatos; her deck stood six or seven cubits above the surface of the sea. A ripe stench wafted out of her oarports. She had two rowers on each thranite and zygite oar, a single man on each bottommost, or thalamite, oar. All the rowers were enclosed under the decking that held marines and kept missiles from striking home. It had to be like an oven in there. Sostratos wondered how often they swabbed out the bilges. Not often enough, by the stink.
“A Rhodian, eh?” the officer said. “What firm?”
“That of Philodemos and Lysistratos,” Sostratos said.
The officer turned his head and spoke to some of the men behind him. One of them must have vouched for the firm’s existence, for he grunted and asked, “What’s your cargo?”
“Crimson dye, ink and papyrus, beeswax, embroidered linen, Rhodian rose perfume ...” Sostratos replied, thinking, And no olive oil, gods be praised.
“All right. Pass on, Rhodian,” the officer on the war galley said. “You know, you look like a pirate at first glance.”
“Really?” Sostratos raised an astonished eyebrow. “No one’s ever told me that before.” Behind him, half a dozen sailors snickered and snorted. Ptolemaios’ officer scratched his head, as if wondering whether the Rhodian was making sport of him. Too late, Sostratos realized he should have swallowed his sarcasm. Diokles smote the bronze square. The rowers bent their backs. The Aphrodite slid toward the harbor. After a long, worrying moment of sitting quiet in the water, the war galley resumed its patrol.
“Come back here a moment, O best one, if you’d be so kind,” Menedemos called from the poop deck. Sostratos came. He came with all the eagerness of a small boy summoned to a whipping by his father, and for the same reason. But all Menedemos said was, “You’d do better not to crack wise when that fellow’s ship could sink us without even noticing she’d done it.”
“Yes, my dear,” Sostratos said meekly. Still, he couldn’t help adding, “I’m not the only one who’s ever done such a thing, you know.”
“Are you talking about me}” Menedemos demanded in disbelieving tones.
That was too much. “Yes, by the dog, I am talking about you,” Sostratos said.
Menedemos reached out and poked him in the ribs. He jumped and squawked. Menedemos laughed. “Got you!” he said. “Got you twice, in fact. I know I’ve let my tongue run freer than it might have every now and again. That still doesn’t mean it’s a good idea, whether I do it or you do.”
“By the dog,” Sostratos said again, this time in an altogether different tone of voice. “Maybe you’re growing up.”
His cousin looked aggrieved. “Is that a nice thing to tell someone?”
“Some people would think so,” Sostratos answered. “But then, they’d already be grown up, so I wouldn’t need to say it to them.” This time, his cousin looked genuinely affronted, which made him feel a little better.
When Menedemos woke up in a bed, he needed a moment to remember where he was. Hearing Sostratos’ snore coming from another bed no more than a cubit away reminded him the two of them had taken a room at an inn not far from the harbor at Kos. Menedemos yawned, scratched, and sat up. Then he scratched again, more earnestly. He hoped he hadn’t shared the bed with little guests who hadn’t paid for it.
Sunlight slid through the shutters over a narrow window—and poured through a couple of broken slats. Menedemos stood up and used the chamber pot under the bed. Sostratos twisted so that one of those sunbeams fell across his face. He threw up a hand, which sufficed to wake him. “Good day,” he said around a yawn of his own.
“And a good day to you.” Menedemos held out the pot. “Here. I was going to boot you out of bed anyhow, as soon as I finished using this.”
“Thanks. I’m so sorry to disappoint you.” Sostratos used the chamber pot, then carried it over to the window. “Coming out!” he called as he opened the shutters. He poured the slops into the street below. An irate yelp said somebody might not have moved fast enough at his warning. He turned back to Menedemos. “Do you suppose the innkeeper will have bread for breakfast?”
Menedemos shrugged. “If he doesn’t, we can stop at a bakery or buy something from someone on the street. And then—on to Pixodaros’.”
“Pity he couldn’t have seen that silk we sold to Menelaos,” Sostratos said. “I wonder what he would have made of it.”
“He would have made money, that’s what,�
� Menedemos said. “But he couldn’t have matched that silk. None of the Koan weavers can. If it ever starts coming out of the east regularly, they’ll have to find another line of work, because what they make doesn’t come close.”
“You get no arguments from me. I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes, but I did.” Sostratos headed for the door. “Now the question is, will I see breakfast with my own eyes?”
The innkeeper was munching on a barley roll when the two Rhodians walked into the main room. “No, I don’t sell breakfast,” he said when Sostratos asked. “You can buy some wine from me, though.”
Menedemos tossed his head. “Why do that now and then something to eat later on?” he said. “Come on, Sostratos—we’ll get ‘em both in the same place.” His cousin didn’t disagree. The innkeeper’s glare burned into their backs as they walked out onto the street.
Pixodaros’ house was only a few blocks away, across the street from a brothel full of pretty boys. The slave who opened the door at the silk dealer’s exclaimed in surprise: “The Rhodians!” He bowed very low, then went on in accented Greek, “You not come back last year, master think something bad happen.”
“No, we’re fine,” Menedemos answered. “We sailed east last year instead of west, that’s all. Not much point coming to Kos when you’re bound for Sidon, is there?”
The slave shook his head. “No, sir, none at all. You come in. You both come in. My master, he be glad to see you.” He stood aside to let them through the doorway, then hurried past them into the house, calling, “Master, master! The Rhodians is here!”
“Are they?” Menedemos heard Pixodaros say. He had an accent, too: just enough to make someone notice he hadn’t been born a Hellene. “Well, that’s very good news indeed. Fetch them some wine and something to go with it, Ibanollis.”
“Ibanollis,” Sostratos murmured, fixing the name in his memory. “Ibanollis. Ibanollis.” Menedemos knew his cousin had it now. He relied on Sostratos’ memory more than he cared to admit, even to himself.
Out came Pixodaros: a plump, prosperous-looking Karian with a luxuriant black beard just beginning to show streaks of gray. “Hail, Rhodians,” he said, bowing to Menedemos and Sostratos before stepping forward to clasp their hands. “Very good to see you again. I feared for your safety: going out on the wine-dark sea is a risky business.”
Menedemos smiled. Pixodaros surely used the Homeric epithet to show that, even though he came from barbarian stock, he’d been grafted on to the tree of Hellenic culture. “We’re well, as I told your slave,” he replied; he wouldn’t try to pronounce Ibanollis’ name. “We sailed east last year, that’s all. You seem to be doing splendidly for yourself.”
“I’m lucky,” Pixodaros said with un-Hellenic modesty. But it was true. He went on, “If my master had had children who lived ...” He shrugged broad shoulders. Old Xenophanes had died childless and left his business to the slave—a freedman now—who’d been his right-hand man. Had the Hellene had a son—or even a daughter with a husband— Pixodaros would have stayed a slave himself instead of owning slaves. “Come.” He waved the Rhodians toward the andron. “Drink wine with me. Eat olives and cheese and bread. So you went east, did you?”
“Yes, to Sidon, and I went down into Ioudaia from there,” Sostratos said.
“Well, well. You Hellenes have always had itchy feet, haven’t you?” Pixodaros said. “Me, I’m here, and I like being here just fine.” Ibanollis came in with a wooden tray with wine and snacks on it. He poured wine for his master and for the Rhodians. Pixodaros spat an olive pit onto the ground, then asked, “Tell me, O most noble ones, did you see any . . . unusual silk while you were in Phoenicia?”
Menedemos and Sostratos looked at each other. “You know of the silk that comes out of the east, then?” Menedemos said.
“I have heard of it. I have not seen it,” the Karian answered. “I have heard it is finer than any we make on Kos. Is this true?”
“It is, I’m afraid,” Menedemos said. “It’s so fine and thin and smooth, it might almost be another fabric. Do you know Zakerbaal son of Tenes, the Sidonian cloth merchant?”
“I have heard his name, but I have never done business with him,” Pixodaros replied. “He is the man who had this eastern silk?”
“That’s right.” Menedemos dipped his head. “I bought twelve bolts from him, paying more than two and a half times their weight in Koan silk. And I sold all twelve bolts to Ptolemaios’ brother, Menelaos, at Cypriot Salamis, for a hundred and eight minai of silver.” Had Pixodaros been ignorant of Zakerbaal, he would have been tempted to say he’d given the Phoenician merchant even more. But the truth might get back here, and that truth was impressive enough by itself.
It certainly impressed Pixodaros. “By Zeus Labraundeus!” he muttered—Zeus of the double-headed axe, with his cult center at Labraunda, was a leading Karian god. The silk merchant gathered himself. “I find that hard to believe.”
“My cousin speaks the truth,” Sostratos said. “Give us any oath you please, and we will swear it. You know us well enough to know we don’t swear lightly, either.”
By Pixodaros’ expression, he did know that, and didn’t like it. His next question was one that had also occurred to Menedemos: “How much of this new eastern silk will come to the lands around the Inner Sea?”
“I don’t think anyone can say yet,” Menedemos answered. “Till I got to Sidon, I hadn’t even heard of it. I suppose that, since you sell silk yourself, word would have come to you sooner than to most people.”
“Yes, I would think so.” The Karian emptied his cup, then filled it again. A sigh made his wide shoulders sag. “All I can do is keep selling what I make. No matter how fine this other stuff may be, I know mine is good, too. Anyone who wants it will still have to pay the proper price.” He looked a challenge at the two Rhodians.
“Well, best one, when we were here two years ago, we worked out a bargain for silk and dye and perfume,” Menedemos said. “That suited us well enough. How did your side of it work out?”
“Not bad,” Pixodaros said. “Will you expect the same rates again?”
“Certainly,” Sostratos said.
“Why shouldn’t we?” Menedemos added.
“Because, if you went to Phoenicia, you got the crimson dye yourselves,” Pixodaros answered. “You paid less for it than you would have if you’d bought it in Rhodes.”
“But we had the cost of bringing it back ourselves,” Menedemos countered. “That isn’t cheap, not with the Aphrodite.”
“And we got attacked by pirates off the Lykian coast,” Sostratos said. “The dye almost didn’t get here. We almost didn’t get here.”
“Oimoi!” Pixodaros exclaimed. “Tell me your story.”
Menedemos and Sostratos told it together. As usual, Menedemos did most of the talking. He couldn’t be quite so dramatic as he would have liked, for he knew his cousin would add a dry correction or two if he strayed too far from the facts. Even without embellishment, the story was a good one.
When the Rhodians finished, Pixodaros clapped his hands and said, “Euge! I am glad to see both of you here and safe.”
“Believe me, we’re glad to be here and safe,” Sostratos said. “But now you see why we charge what we charge for the crimson dye.”
Although Menedemos dipped his head in agreement, he sent Sostratos an annoyed look. This wasn’t the time to start banging away at business again. Sostratos should have smiled and told another story, or a joke, or something of the sort. Menedemos reached for the oinokhoe and poured his winecup and his cousin’s full again. Dickers had a rhythm to them, no less than tunes on the kithara. Make one go too fast and it would come out wrong, just as a tune would. Sostratos didn’t always have a feel for that.
To make sure this bargain went as it should, Menedemos asked, “Has any news from Athens reached Kos this sailing season?”
Pixodaros hesitated for a fraction of a heartbeat before tossing his head. Menedemos h
ad seen that response before from barbarians who wanted to seem as Hellenic as they could. Their first impulse was to shake the head, as most foreign folk did, and they needed that tiny moment to catch themselves and remember Hellenes did things differently. The Karian answered, “No, not yet. Ships are only beginning to put to sea this spring, and none from Athens has come here yet.”
Sostratos asked, “Has any ship bound for Athens been here to buy silk?”
That was a legitimate question. Menedemos would have asked it if Sostratos hadn’t beaten him to it. This time, Pixodaros tossed his head without hesitation. “No, you are the first,” he replied, and smiled a sly smile. “Maybe I should charge you more, because I know you’ll make more there.”
Sostratos jumped as if stung by a wasp. “That’s not just!” he exclaimed.
“He’s joking, my dear,” Menedemos said. “He wanted to startle you, and he did.”
Pixodaros’ smile got wider, showing strong, white teeth—he didn’t look as if he were one who’d suffer miseries on that account as he got older. “I know it is not just, my friends, and I would not do it. But startling a friend every now and again—you should have seen the look on your face.” He laughed out loud.
“Oh.” Sostratos looked foolish. But then he managed a small, self-deprecating laugh. He didn’t get angry, or at least didn’t show anger, for which Menedemos was glad. In his own way, Sostratos was a good bargainer, but he could forget himself. Not here, though.
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