Troy: A Brand of Fire

by Ben Blake

  *

  It was obvious to anyone with eyes what Priam was going to do.

  He had been asking for his sister’s return for over twenty years. First politely, directly, as that day in Thessaly while the boar roasted over a fire. Then with subtle threats of stronger action, if nothing was done. Agents from Troy came to talk with kings alone, rather than at a gathering; to Nestor in Pylos, or Menestheus in Athens, Diomedes in Argos. Usually the agent was Antenor, though he didn’t seem to enjoy the duty very much.

  None of it had worked. Hesione had borne a son to Telamon early in her captivity, proof for the whole world that she was not merely a trophy captive but was brought to his bed when the mood took him. Dragged to it, Odysseus had heard, though he didn’t know if the information was reliable. He could believe it easily enough. Telamon was that sort of man.

  There had been no children since, but nothing either to indicate that anything had changed. She might still be forced to Telamon’s bed, for all that Priam knew. The knowledge must have burned in his veins like acid, all these years. And slowly the threats had grown less veiled, the language used blunter, as Priam’s patience finally ran thin.

  Now he was going to do what the threats had suggested he would, and raise duties on the Trojan Road. For all the Greeks, probably, even those kings who’d shown a degree of empathy for Hesione’s plight. Odysseus, watching events from his eyrie on Ithaca, had become almost sure of it by spring. A conversation with Nestor had revealed the old man thinking the same thing, and for Odysseus that removed the last doubts. He knew his own mind, and trusted it, but Nestor had been clever for longer than Odysseus had been alive. When he formed an opinion, it was wise to listen to him.

  If trade through Troy was about to become impossible, then Greece needed other sources of supply. Odysseus couldn’t arrange that – but he could make provision for Ithaca.

  “I’m interested principally in wheat,” he said.

  The merchant across the table nodded. “I have good contacts in Lycia. I can get you wheat.”

  “Three hundred amphorae a month,” Odysseus said. “Paid for by myself, and by Nestor of Messenia.”

  “Not by traders?”

  “We are traders,” he said. “Have it brought to the harbour here, in Halicarnassus. Either Ithacan or Messenian ships will collect it in the first week after each new moon.”

  The two men were sitting in a roof garden, at a table in the shade of a citron tree. A tree, for Artemis’ sake, on a rooftop. The easterners certainly knew what luxury was. They had a bowl of raisins between them, and jugs of wine and water. Both men had used more of the water than the wine. You needed a clear head when you were trying to make deals.

  The merchant, whose name was Nashuja, leaned back in his chair. “And your price?”

  “That depends on you. We can pay in wool, wholly or in part, if you prefer. Nestor could offer goat’s cheese, or perhaps olives.”

  “I’d like payment in coin.”

  Odysseus nodded. “Very well. Nestor and I believe a price of two silvers per amphora is fair.”

  “Two?” Nashuja guffawed. “Please don’t waste my time. You make that offer knowing it’s much too low.”

  “I never expect the first offer to be accepted,” he said, smiling.

  “If you habitually make it such a poor one, I am not surprised,” the Lycian replied. “Come, now. Two silvers covers the transport costs from inland, but only just. It’s a derisory offer.”

  Odysseus sighed. “My friend, the transport costs are minimal. All you have to do is maintain a wagon, feed the ox that pulls it and pay a driver and a guard. The total expense is between two and three silvers for a trip from the interior to the coast here. There are eighteen amphorae in each cart. That means, simply, that the cost of transport is one silver for six amphorae.”

  “There are hidden costs,” the merchant began.

  “No, there are not,” Odysseus broke in. “My friend Eliade has factored in the risks of broken wheels and outlaws. We do transport goods by road in Greece, you know. We’re aware of the perils.”

  “You’re a tough bargainer,” Nashuja grumbled.

  “I’m from Ithaca. We don’t have much coin, so we like to know it will be worth it before we spend.”

  Nashuja knew that, of course. He and Odysseus had dealt with each other before, though never on an agreement as large as this one. He was a good businessman, a good fellow overall, though not half as canny as he thought he was. What passed for guile in Halicarnassus would mark a man as foolish in Troy. The hagglers in that city could take your money, goods and clothes, and still make you grateful to be naked. When negotiating with them Odysseus never drank any wine at all.

  It was the same on Naxos, the little island in the Aegean dominated by marble quarries that had chewed holes in the hillsides. It sat roughly in the middle of a triangle formed by Greece to the west, Anatolia in the east and Crete to the south, so trading ships stopped there whichever way they were sailing. Sometimes the captains decided to sell their cargoes on Naxos rather than carry them the extra distance. When they did they took a slightly lower price, setting that off against the time saved, which could then be used to ship more goods. It was the gift of Naxos middlemen that they could talk those captains into selling at just a little less than they wanted to, again and again.

  “Two silvers and six coppers,” Odysseus said after a moment. “For the full three hundred amphorae, that totals seven hundred and fifty in silver. It’s a lot of money, Nashuja.”

  The merchant grimaced. “Ithacan pig-shagger. Two and six isn’t enough. Three silvers.”

  “No. Too much.”

  “Why do you want the grain, anyway?” Nashuja asked. “Ithaca never needed it before. Or Messenia, either.”

  “Rats,” Odysseus said, straight-faced. If he told the truth, that the Trojan supply route might become untenable, Nashuja would push up the price without stopping to think. “We have a terrible rat problem in Greece. They’ve eaten through most of our stores.”

  “Rats?”

  “Great big ones. With three eyes, and teeth that can chew through stone.”

  “Hmm,” Nashuja said. “Life on Ithaca must be harder than I thought. Either that, or you’re stringing me along.”

  “Only a little,” Odysseus said. “All right. Two silver and nine copper, but that’s as high as I’ll go, Nashuja. If you can’t meet me on that price I’ll look for someone else who will.”

  “Agreed,” Nashuja said. “I’ll send one of my aides to discuss the details. Should he talk to your man Eliade?”

  “That would be best.”

  “Pleasure doing business with you,” Nashuja said.

  Halicarnassus was not a dangerous city, and Odysseus walked back to the rented house alone. He wasn’t surprised to find Eliade absent. The younger man had a taste for outland women that he usually satisfied when he was overseas, by charming a woman into bed if he could, or paying a girl when he had to. He claimed Anatolian women were the best lovers of all. Odysseus couldn’t see why that should be true, but if Eliade was happy it wasn’t really anyone else’s business.

  Odysseus poured himself a cup of wine, with less water this time, and went to drink it on the balcony. He sat and watched the sun set over the bay, thinking as he drank.

  His next stop was Egypt, to secure a second source of grain if he could. Wheat there was more expensive than here, and it had to be brought from further away, which made it worse. But Halicarnassus was close to Troy, politically. If Priam’s trade sanctions led to something more serious, the Lycians might side with him against Greece, and the supply Odysseus had just arranged would be lost. Egypt, further away and more powerful, didn’t care two figs for policy in Troy. A supply from there would be safer.

  Odysseus couldn’t rid himself of the fear that it would be needed. He felt as though there was a chasm in front of his feet, and soon enough he’d find himself sliding helplessly into it, with all the rest of the Greeks tumblin
g down beside him.