“Well, you didn’t come up very far.”
Zoïlos came up a bit more. Sostratos spun out another tale of peafowl. He stopped again. Zoïlos came up again. After a while, they had a price that left neither man too unhappy, and clasped hands on it.
“I’ll get some laughs with your stories. That may turn out to be worth money for me,” Zoïlos said. “Somebody laughs with you, he doesn’t haggle so hard.” He cocked his head to one side. “What else have you got? Never can tell what I might buy, if I think I can make a profit off it.”
I made you laugh with me, Sostratos thought. Aloud, he answered, “Well, I have some amber that I bought last year. That won’t come cheap, though. I paid two minai of silver for it. But when will any Egyptian jewelers see amber again?”
“When I still lived in Corinth, I saw some,” Zoïlos said. “One chunk had what looked like a piece of fern in it.”
“One of the bits I bought has a bug in it,” Sostratos said. “How does something like that get inside a piece of rock?”
“I have no idea. I wish I did,” Zoïlos replied. “So tell me—did you bring your amber up the river from Alexandria?”
“Before I answer, tell me why you want to know,” Sostratos said.
“Because you’re right—that kind of stuff doesn’t come to Egypt, and whatever the price I pay to you, I’ll make more when I unload it. And if you like, I’ll trade you something the likes of which you aren’t likely to find in Hellas, either. So what do you say?”
“I’ll be back in a quarter of an hour,” Sostratos said. “Thersandros, you won’t have to take the jar back to the warehouse—you’re done for the day.”
Zoïlos laughed under his breath. Sostratos made that sound himself when he had a customer on the hook, so he recognized it. He didn’t fancy being on the receiving end, but what could he do about that?
He got the curious wooden box that held the amber out of the leather sack that held his worldly goods. It was wrapped in the chiton he wasn’t wearing, which might have hidden it from a thief for an extra heartbeat—maybe even two heartbeats if the thief was a halfwit.
“Never seen work like this before, or even wood like this,” Zoïlos remarked when Sostratos set the box on the counter. Psaphon dipped his head in agreement.
“I thought the same thing when I got it,” Sostratos said, and opened the box.
Zoïlos took out the chunks of amber one by one. He paused when he found the one with the insect trapped inside. “Isn’t that something?” he murmured, and seemed reluctant to set it down.
“Have you got something to show me, too?” Sostratos asked him.
“Oh, I might, Rhodian. Yes indeed, I just might.” Smiling, Zoïlos reached under the counter and took out something wrapped in a large square of embroidered linen that had gone yellow with age. Sostratos had seen that before, but rarely. Most linen didn’t last long enough to show its years.
Before Sostratos undid the cloth, he looked a question at Zoïlos, who waved for him to go ahead. He did, and then stopped. “Oh, my,” he whispered.
The necklace was of gold and lapis lazuli and garnet. Along with beads, it had lotus flowers and, above them, the moon disc riding a boat—across the sky, Sostratos supposed. The moon was paler than the rest of the goldwork. He suspected it was of electrum. The Lydians in Anatolia had struck their first coins from the natural alloy of gold and silver.
“Where … did you come by this?” he asked.
Zoïlos tipped him a wink. “I’ll pretend I didn’t hear you. Robbing rich Egyptian tombs has been against the law since the day after they made the first one, and hasn’t stopped since. There’s a lot of gold in Egypt, especially if you’re a Hellene and you aren’t used to it. But most of it gets used over and over, not just once.”
“Isn’t that interesting?” Sostratos reached toward the necklace, then paused till Zoïlos dipped his head again. He picked up the necklace then, hefting it with experienced hands. Close to half a mina of gold, he judged: the equivalent of four or four and a half minai of silver, about what he wanted to make for the amber.
The jewels would add some value, too, and the artistry in the piece was very fine even if it wasn’t Greek. “Are you sure you want to make this bargain?” he asked. “I don’t want you to think I’ve cheated you.”
Zoïlos nodded toward the necklace. “I can get more pieces like that. They come around every so often,” he answered. “Robbers find a new tomb, maybe—I don’t know. I don’t want to know. They sell at a discount, because it isn’t stuff everybody will touch, you know what I’m saying?”
“I hear you.” Sostratos realized he’d have to be extra careful with the necklace if he took it. If Ptolemaios’ men found it on him, paying export duty would be the least of his worries. Like most traders, he didn’t see smuggling as a crime. Getting caught smuggling would be an inconvenience, though.
“Your amber, now, that’s something different here,” Zoïlos said. “I know men who’ll want it, and they’ll pay plenty. I may even keep the piece with the bug for myself. So—have we got a deal?”
“I think we do,” Sostratos said slowly. “And speaking of paying, if my men deliver the oil tomorrow, will you have the silver for it?”
“I’ll have it.” Zoïlos didn’t fuss. Sostratos liked his calm self-assurance. And if he was a man who dealt in gold, even at cut prices because it wasn’t legal gold, he would have plenty of silver around, or be able to lay hold of it in a hurry.
Sostratos hired a large, two-ox cart to carry the oil from the warehouse to Zoïlos’ shop. He had the rowers come along anyhow. If Zoïlos meant to make trouble, Sostratos hoped to leave him on the receiving end of at least some.
But Zoïlos didn’t. Like a lot of men on the fringes of the law, he was scrupulous about doing everything just so when he walked on the legitimate side of the street. He had Sostratos’ silver waiting in three leather sacks. “You can count the drakhmai if you want,” he said. “They won’t all weight the same—they come from all over Hellas.”
“Do you have a scale?” Sostratos asked. Zoïlos pulled a balance and a set of weights off a shelf on the wall behind the counter. Sostratos eyed the weights. He hefted a couple of them. They felt about right, anyhow. Zoïlos couldn’t get away with cheating customers too openly. The local merchant grinned at him, seeing what was in his mind. With a shrug, Sostratos weighed each sack in turn. His lips moved as he added the three weights together. He dipped his head. “Close enough.” If Damonax wasn’t perfectly happy with the accounting he’d get, too bad.
“Pleasure doing business with you,” Zoïlos said.
Sostratos gave each rower a drakhma above their daily wage. No, Damonax wouldn’t miss the money. “Have yourselves a drink or three, boys,” he said. That made them grin, too. A tavern lay a few doors down the street.
The first thing Sostratos did when he got back to his room was to take the necklace he’d traded for the day before and put in in the least full sack of coins, covering it over with silver. Coins were coins. He had several sacks of them here, and a robber might easily miss one. The necklace was something special. Anywhere else among his personal goods, it would surely draw notice.
Only a little while after he’d made his arrangements, someone knocked on the door. When he opened it, he found a Hellene he’d never seen before standing in the inn’s narrow hallway. “Tell me your name,” the stranger said.
“Sostratos son of Lysistratos,” Sostratos answered automatically. Only then did he think to ask, “Who are you, and why do you want to know?”
“I am a messenger from the Ptolemaios, that’s who,” the man said. “You and the sailors who came to Memphis with you are ordered to return to Alexandria with me at once. I came by horse, but I have a boat waiting on the Nile.”