Sacred Land

by H. N. Turteltaub

  She turned away from him. “You should not say such things to me. You make me think things I am not supposed to think.”

  “Do you think that I think you are beautiful? Do you think that I think you are sweet?” Sostratos said. “Do you think that I want to love you? You should think that, because it is true.”

  Still not looking at him, Zilpah spoke in a very small voice: “These are things I should not hear from you. I have never heard these things before.” She laughed. “I have heard from men who want to sleep with me. What innkeeper’s wife has not? But you . . . you mean what you say. You are not telling lies to get me to lie down with you.”

  “Yes, I mean them. No, I am not lying,” Sostratos said.

  “People who mean these things should not say them,” Zilpah insisted. “I have never heard things like these from someone who means them.”

  “Never?” Sostratos raised an eyebrow. “You spoke of this before. These are things your husband”—who kept on hammering out in the courtyard—”should say.”

  “Ithran is a good man,” Zilpah said, as if the Rhodian had denied it.

  Sostratos said nothing at all. He let her words hang in the air, let her listen to them again and again in her own mind. She brought her hands up to her face. Her shoulders shook. Sostratos knew a moment of raw fear. If she started crying loud enough for Ithran to notice, what would the Ioudaian do to him? He didn’t know, not in detail. Whatever it was, though, it wasn’t likely to be pretty.

  “I think,” Zilpah said, “I think you had better go to your room now.”

  “I would rather sit here and drink wine and talk with you and look at you so I can see how beautiful you are,” Sostratos said.

  The Ioudaian woman swung back toward him. Her black eyes flashed.

  “I said, I think you had better go to your room,” she snapped. “Do you understand me when I tell you something?”

  “I understand what you say. I do not understand why you say it,” Sostratos replied. Once again, a why question seemed all-important.

  Here, though, it got no answer. “Go!” Zilpah said, and he could hardly tell her no, not when this was her inn, this was her city, this was her country—and that was her husband out there in the courtyard. He gulped his wine and hurried out of the taproom. Ithran waved to him as he hurried back toward his room. He waved back. The innkeeper might have suspected something if he hadn’t. Part of him felt ashamed at treating the Ioudaian in a friendly way when he wanted to make love to the man’s wife. The rest of him, though . . . When he saw a good-sized stone in the courtyard, that other part of him wanted to pick it up and bash in Ithran’s head.

  Still seething, he went into his room and closed the door behind him. It didn’t drown out the noise of Ithran’s hammering. He paced back and forth in the cramped little chamber, feeling trapped. What could he do in here? Nothing except lie down and go to sleep, which he didn’t want to do, or pace and brood. He didn’t want to do that, either, but did it even so.

  After what seemed forever, the hammering stopped. Sostratos kept right on pacing. He wished he’d gone to the brothel with the sailors. But if he went there now, they’d know he’d failed with Zilpah. He didn’t feel like humiliating himself right this minute. Later would do.

  Someone tapped at the door. When Sostratos noticed the tapping, he had the feeling it had been going on for some little while. He wondered what the sailors were doing back from the brothel so soon. But when he opened the door, no sated Hellenes stood there. Instead, it was Zilpah.

  “Oh,” Sostratos said foolishly. “You.”

  “Yes, me.” She ducked inside, past Sostratos, who stood frozen, as if seeing a Gorgon had turned him to stone. “Are you daft?” she said. “Shut the door. Quick, now.”

  “Oh,” he said again. “Yes.” He did as she said. He found he could move after all, if only jerkily.

  “Ithran is gone for a while. The slave is gone for a while. And so ...” Zilpah didn’t go on for a moment. In the gloom inside the little chamber, her eyes were enormous. With a gesture that seemed more angry than anything else, she threw off her mantling robe and then the shift she wore under it. “Tell me you love me,” she said. “Tell me you think I’m beautiful. Make me believe you, at least for a little while.” Her laugh was harsh and rough as dry branches breaking. “It shouldn’t be hard. No one else is going to tell me anything like that.”

  “No?” Sostratos said. Zilpah shook her head. He sighed. “You spoke of that before. It is too bad, for someone misses a perfect chance. You are very beautiful, and I will love you as best I know how.”

  “Talk to me, too,” she said. “Tell me these things. I need to hear them.”

  Most women wanted Sostratos to keep quiet while he was making love to them. Talk before or after might be all right. During? Never before had anyone asked him to talk during. He only wished he could do it in Greek. In Aramaic, he couldn’t say a tenth part of what he wanted to tell her.

  But he did his best. In between kisses and caresses, he assured her that she was the loveliest and the sweetest woman he’d ever met, and that anyone who’d missed the chance to tell her the same thing was surely an ass, an idiot, a blockhead. While he said it, he believed it. That his tongue teased her earlobe, the side of her neck, the dark tips of her breasts, that his fingers stroked between her legs and that she arched her back and breathed hard while they did—that might have had something to do with his belief.

  She hissed when he went into her. He’d never known a sound like that from a woman. She took her pleasure almost at once and twisted her head so that his pillow muffled most of her moan of joy. He kept on, and kept on, and she heated again, and the second time she gasped and wailed she forgot all about trying to keep quiet. He might have warned her, but his own ecstasy burst over him then, irresistible as an avalanche.

  “I love you,” he said again, as soon as pleasure didn’t quite blind him.

  Zilpah started to cry. She pushed him away from her. “I have sinned,” she said. “I have sinned, and I am a fool.” She dressed as fast as she could. As she did, she went on, “You will leave tomorrow. If you don’t leave tomorrow, I will tell Ithran what we have done. I have sinned. Oh, how I have sinned.”

  “I don’t understand,” Sostratos said.

  “What do you need to understand?” Zilpah said. “I was angry at my husband for not speaking sweetly to me, and I made a mistake. I sinned, so the one god will punish me for it.”

  Sostratos had heard Ioudaioi talk of sin before. It was something like religious pollution among Hellenes, but stronger. He got the feeling Zilpah thought her bad-tempered god was angry at her. “I will do as you say,” he told her with a sigh.

  “You had better.” She hurried out the door. She didn’t slam it, but only, he judged, so she wouldn’t make a scene. He sighed again. He’d had her, and pleased her, and she still wasn’t happy. Am I? he wondered. Part of him was, anyhow. The rest? He wasn’t at all sure about the rest.

  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?” t
he 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 . . .

  “Oê!” 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.”