Sacred Land

by H. N. Turteltaub

  “Well, yes,” Menedemos agreed. The cook didn’t have to make half that much noise.

  Baukis thought the same thing. “He really is an old fraud, you know.”

  “Well—yes,” Menedemos said again. “But he really is a good cook, too, you know.”

  “I suppose so,” Baukis said grudgingly. She sipped from her wine. “I don’t like quarreling with you.”

  “I’ve never like quarreling with you,” Menedemos said, which was nothing but the truth.

  “Good.” Baukis ate some more of her barley roll. “This is good, too,” she admitted, licking crumbs and a smear of oil from her fingertips with a couple of quick strokes from the tip of her tongue.

  Menedemos watched, entranced. “Yes, it is, isn’t it?” he said, a heartbeat slower than he should have. He might have been talking about the barley roll. On the other hand, he might not have been.

  Baukis, to his relief, chose to answer as if he was: “Sikon is almost as good with sitos as he is with opson.”

  “You shouldn’t tell me that,” Menedemos said. She raised an eyebrow in surprise. “By the gods, Baukis, you shouldn’t,” he insisted. “You should go right into the kitchen and tell Sikon to his face.”

  She didn’t have to think about that, but dipped her head at once. “You’re right—I should. I should, and I will.” She got to her feet and strode into the kitchen as a hoplite might have gone into battle. Menedemos, though, wouldn’t have watched a hoplite striding into battle in anything like the same way.

  He had trouble reading her expression when she came out again. “Well?” he asked.

  “He asked me how much wine I’d had, and if I’d bothered putting any water in it at all. That man!” Baukis looked as if she didn’t know whether to be furious or to burst out laughing. After a moment, laughter won.

  “What’s so funny?” Philodemos called from the bottom of the stairs.

  Menedemos got to his feet. “Hail, Father.”

  “Good day, sir,” Baukis added, prim as a young wife should have been.

  “What’s so funny?” Menedemos’ father asked again. Baukis explained. Philodemos listened, then chuckled. “Let me understand you, my dear,” he said after a moment. “You went in to Sikon and told him this? And then he said that to you?”

  “That’s right, sir,” Baukis answered. “It was Menedemos’ idea.”

  “Was it?” Menedemos’ father gave him a long look. “Well, good for you,” he said at last. “Good for both of you, in fact. High time everyone remembers we’re all living in the same house here.” He went into the kitchen to get his own breakfast.

  “Thank you, Menedemos,” Baukis said quietly.

  “Why?” he said. “I didn’t do anything—you did.” He smiled at her. She smiled back, looking as happy as he’d seen her since she came into the household.

  Philodemos walked out munching on a roll, a cup of wine in his other hand. “Did I tell you, son, I’m going to a symposion at Xanthos’ tonight?” he said. “You’re invited, too, if you care to come along.”

  “No, thanks,” Menedemos said at once, miming an enormous yawn.

  Philodemos chuckled again. “I told his slave I was pretty sure you had another engagement,” he said, “but I did think I’d let you know about it. The wine and the food and the entertainers will be good.”

  “No doubt, sir, but the price is listening to one of Xanthos’ windy speeches, or maybe more than one,” Menedemos replied. “That’s more than I care to pay, thank you very much. And with Sikon in the kitchen, the food here will be good, too.”

  “So it will,” Baukis agreed, sounding as if she really was working hard to give the cook proper credit. Menedemos wondered how long that would last, but was willing, even eager, to enjoy it while it did.

  Philodemos looked pleased, too. He’d seemed cheerful ever since he got up, unusually so. Menedemos recalled the creaking bed the night before. “All right, then,” his father said. “I’ve done my duty—I’ve told you about the symposion. Past that, it’s up to you.”

  “Thank you for giving me so much sea room.” Menedemos meant it; his father more often preferred to bark orders than to let him make his own choices. Ordering him to Xanthos’ would have gone a bit far, even for Philodemos, but it wouldn’t have been out of the question. Knowing as much, Menedemos tried to be thoughtful, too: “I wish it were the season for cabbage, to help you with your headache tomorrow.”

  “The only thing that really helps one of those headaches is a little more wine, if your stomach can stand it,” his father said. But then, as he seldom did, he realized he was turning down kind words from Menedemos, and checked himself. “Thanks,” he added gruffly. “Raw cabbage is better than nothing; I will say that.”

  Dressed in his best chiton (but still barefoot, as befit a man who’d spent a good many years at sea himself), Philodemos went off to Xanthos’ house late that afternoon. Menedemos knew he’d come reeling home sometime in the middle of the night, a beribboned wreath on his hand, songs on his lips, and a torchbearer or two lighting his way through the dark streets of Rhodes.

  And here I am staying home, Menedemos thought. Which of us, is the old man and which the young? Then he reminded himself where his father was going. He’d used the right word in describing those speeches. More winds lurked in Xanthos’ house than in the oxhide sack King Aiolos had given to Odysseus to help him make his way homeward—and they would all come out tonight, too. Menedemos laughed. Sure enough, he liked his choice better than his father’s.

  He was pretty sure he had a better supper than his father’s, too, no matter what Xanthos’ cook turned out. Sikon brought a fine stingray back from the market. He baked it Sicilian style, with cheese and silphium from Kyrene. He’d also baked some light, fluffy bread of wheat flour for sitos. Replete, Menedemos said, “This is luxury the Great Kings of Persia couldn’t top.”

  The cook leaned toward him and said, “And your father’s wife didn’t grumble about the fish, either. You ask me, that’s the best luxury of all.”

  After supper, with night already fallen, Menedemos went up to his bedroom. But a full belly didn’t make him sleepy, as it often did. He tossed and turned for a while, then put on his chiton again and went back downstairs to the courtyard to wait for his father. He could tease him about how drunk he was and boast of the lovely ray Philodemos had missed.

  Everything was dark and cool and quiet. Sikon and the other slaves had long since gone to sleep. Blowing clouds drifted past the moon, hiding it more often than not, though the rain still held off. A nightjar flew past overhead; its croaking call put Menedemos in mind of a frog. An owl hooted in the distance. Even farther off, a dog barked, and then another.

  Menedemos yawned. Now that he was out of bed, he felt like getting back into it. Laughing at himself, he started toward the stairs. Then he stopped in surprise, for someone else was coming down to the courtyard.

  Seeing his motion, Baukis stopped in surprise, too, right at the foot of the stairway. “Who’s there?” she called quietly, and then, as the moon came out from behind one of those clouds, “Oh. Is that you, Menedemos? I was going to wait for your father.”

  “So was I,” he answered. “We can wait together, if you like. We’ll keep each other awake—I was getting sleepy out here by myself.”

  “All right.” Baukis walked over to the bench in the courtyard. “Aren’t you cold in just your chiton?” she asked. “I’m chilly, and I’ve got a mantle on.”

  “Not me,” he said, sitting down beside her. “You can always spot a sailor in a crowd. He’ll be the barefoot fellow who never bothers with a himation. The only reason I take a mantle aboard the Aphrodite is to use it for a blanket when I sleep aboard ship.”

  “Oh,” she said. That owl hooted again. Another cloud slid in front of the moon. She looked toward the entrance. “I wonder how long it will be before Philodemos comes home.”

  “Probably a good while yet,” said Menedemos, who had considerable experience
of symposia. “Xanthos isn’t the type to order a strong mix to the wine, so people will have to do a lot of drinking before they get properly drunk.”

  “And before he brings out the flute-girls and the dancing girls and the acrobats or whoever else he’s hired from the brothelkeeper.” Baukis’ voice stayed quiet, but she couldn’t keep a snarl from it.

  “Well, yes.” Menedemos knew he sounded uncomfortable. “That’s what men do at symposia.”

  “I know.” Baukis packed the two words with devastating scorn.

  Any answer would have been worse than none. Menedemos didn’t even shrug. The moon came out again. Its pale light showed Baukis angrily staring down at the ground between her feet. Something small skittered, over by the andron. Her head swung toward it. So did Menedemos’. “Just a mouse,” he said.

  “I suppose so,” she said, and then, hunching her shoulders a little, “I am cold.”

  Before he thought, he slipped an arm around her. She sighed and slid closer to him. The next moment, they were kissing, his hands stroking her hair, her hand caressing his cheek, the soft, firm flesh of her breasts pressed maddeningly against him.

  And, the moment after that, they flew apart as if each found the other red-hot. “We can’t,” Baukis gasped.

  “We don’t dare,” Menedemos agreed. His heart thudded hard in his chest. “But oh, darling, how I want to!”

  “So do—” Baukis tossed her head. She wasn’t going to admit that, perhaps not even to herself. She changed course: “I know you do, dear Mene—” She tossed her head again. “I know you do. But we can’t. We mustn’t. The scandal! I’m trying to be—I want to be—a proper wife to your father. And if anyone sees us ... If anyone saw us ...” She looked around in alarm.

  “I know,” Menedemos said grimly. “Oh, by the gods, how I know. And I know it isn’t right, and I know—” He sprang to his feet and ran up the stairs, taking them two and three at a time even in the dark, careless of a stumble. He shut the door to his room and barred it, as if to lock temptation away. But it was there inside with him, inside him, and now that he knew it dwelt in his father’s wife, too. . . .

  He lay down again, but he didn’t sleep. Quite a while later, Philodemos came home. Baukis greeted him as if nothing at all were wrong. Menedemos knew he would have to do the same in the morning. It wouldn’t be easy. He also knew that, knew it all too well. From now on, nothing in the world would be easy.

  HISTORICAL NOTE

  The Sacred Land is set in 308 B.C. Menedemos himself is a historical figure. Sostratos and the other members of their families are fictional. Other real people who appear in the novel are Ptolemaios’ brother Menelaos, Areios the kitharist, and Hekataios of Abdera. Historical figures mentioned in the novel but not actually on stage include Ptolemaios; Antigonos; Lysimakhos; Kassandros; Philip of Macedon’s daughter, Kleopatra; King Nikokreon of Salamis; and his victims, Stratonikos the kitharist and Anaxarkhos of Abdera.

  Hekataios of Abdera’s account of the Jews survives, though just barely. Diodorus Siculus quoted him fairly extensively in his universal history, written in the first century B.C. That part of Diodorus’ work does not itself exist in the original, but was in turn excerpted by the Byzantine scholar-patriarch Photios in the ninth century A.D. How closely Photios’ excerpt of Diodorus’ excerpt of Hekataios’ work resembles the latter remains a subject of scholarly debate, and it obviously will never be answered in full without a miraculously fortunate papyrus find. Hekataios worked in Egypt. He probably did not in fact go up into Palestine itself, but a novelist is entitled to bend history a bit now and again.

  As usual in this series, I’ve spelled most names of places and people as a Greek would have: thus Lykia, not Lycia; Kassandros, not Cassander. I’ve broken this rule for toponyms that have well-established English spellings: Rhodes, Cyprus, and so on. I’ve also broken it for Alexander the Great and Philip of Macedon. The two great Macedonians dominate this period even though Alexander was about fifteen years dead when The Sacred Land begins. Also as usual, translations from the Greek are, for better or worse, my own.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  A NOTE ON WEIGHTS, MEASURES, AND MONEY

  Map

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  HISTORICAL NOTE