“I’m not going anywhere on your say-so,” Sostratos said. “For all I know, you’ll cut my throat and toss my body in the river.”
“Tempting,” the man said, which left Sostratos with his mouth hanging open. The Hellene went on, “If the nomarch vouches for me, will that make you happy, O marvelous one?”
“Y-yes,” Sostratos managed. He and the man went over to the nomarch’s residence together. Sure enough, Alexandros affirmed that the newcomer, whose name Sostratos still didn’t know, was in Ptolemaios’ service. When Sostratos told Ptolemaios’ official where his rowers were, the nomarch sent men to bring them back to the inn. Everything else went just as smoothly. Sostratos barely had time to clean out his chamber before he was on his way down to the riverbank.
Menedemos watched workmen load the Aphrodite with weapons of war. Now she lay in a shipshed, as he’d asked of Ptolemaios. The shed had been built for a trireme, the smallest kind of war galley in the Egyptian navy. Even so, inside it the Aphrodite seemed like a puppy in a doghouse made for a big, mean Molossian hound.
Menedemos’ mouth twisted in wry amusement. Nothing was too good for him or his ship as long as they were in Ptolemaios’ service. Before, the akatos could have stayed tied up in the harbor till shipworms bored holes in her planking and she quietly sank.
Diokles waved from the steering platform at the stern. Ptolemaios’ payment for use of the Aphrodite was stashed under the platform. That was the safest spot on the ship, but someone from her company always kept watch now. Otherwise, no telling what the men who brought aboard arrows and spears and swords and shields would walk off with.
These were sheaves of arrows coming aboard now, their iron heads glistening with oil so they wouldn’t rust. Diokles ordered the men carrying them forward. With Sostratos gone, he was best suited to deciding how to stow her new, deadly cargo in ways that kept her trim and as seaworthy as possible.
Not three heartbeats after Menedemos thought of Sostratos, a familiar voice behind him said, “We’ve come up in the world a bit, I see.”
Whirling, Menedemos embraced his cousin. “By the dog of Egypt!” he exclaimed—a fitting oath here. “The Ptolemaios told me he was going to bring you back from Memphis as fast as he could, but I didn’t expect you for another couple of days.”
“His agents are like the Persian couriers Herodotos wrote about. Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays them from the swift completion of their appointed rounds,” Sostratos said.
“Not likely they need to worry about snow or even rain here,” Menedemos said with a snort. “Heat, now, heat’s a different business.”
“Worse in Memphis than it is here, too.” Sostratos looked around to make sure no one could overhear, then lowered his voice anyhow. “And Ptolemaios’ helpers may as well be his Eyes and Ears.”
That was what people called the Persian kings’ secret agents. In the old days, they’d been pointed to as proof of Persian oppression. Menedemos would have bet Ptolemaios wasn’t the only Macedonian warlord using such Persian tricks these days, though. Once again, it made him wonder who’d really conquered whom.
“Did you see your precious Pyramids?” he asked.
He couldn’t help but smile at the way his cousin’s face lit up. “I did! I really did! And the Sphinx, too!” Sostratos said. “And they were …. You can’t imagine how big they were. I couldn’t imagine till I saw with my own eyes. Nothing human beings make has any business being that big.”
“Maybe the Egyptian gods did it,” Menedemos said slyly.
Sostratos tossed his head in indignation. “Oh, rubbish! There’s a gigantic ramp, a causeway, whatever you want to call it, that leads from the Nile to where the Pyramids sit. Herodotos talks more about it than he does about them. The Egyptians quarried the stones farther south, floated them down the Nile till they got to the right place, and hauled them along the causeway so they could trim each one perfectly square and set it just where it went. If gods built the Pyramids, they wouldn’t have gone to all that trouble. They’d have just plopped them down where they wanted them, wouldn’t they?”
“Don’t ask me, my dear. I’m no god,” Menedemos said. “What did the rowers think of them?”
“They thought we were way the daimon out in the desert. They were keeping an eye on the fellow who owned the camels we rode on, and on his friends. We didn’t have any trouble with them, so that worked out all right,” Sostratos said.
“Good. And how was business?” To Menedemos, that was more important than Sostratos’ sightseeing.
“Damonax’s oil is gone, gods be praised, and at a decent price, too,” his cousin answered. “The nomarch’s kitchens bought some, and I unloaded the rest on a merchant in Memphis.” He lowered his voice again. “I made a deal for the amber with him, too.”
“Ah? And how did you do on that?”
“I’ll show you when we go back to the room,” Sostratos said. “How was your trading up here?”
“Just about all of the wine is gone,” Menedemos said. “Prices were good—not great, but good. I bought some incenses, so not all the pay was in silver. We’ll have something to sell when we get home. And the Ptolemaios is paying plenty to hire the Aphrodite, too. We’ll make a nice profit on the trip—if we don’t get sunk, I mean.”
X
When they did get back to the chamber in Ptolemaios’ palace, Menedemos watched in amusement as his cousin made a small production out of barring the door. Then Sostratos rummaged in his large leather sack till he found a smaller one that clinked nicely as he lifted it out.
He reached inside and rummaged through the drakhmai before lifting out something that wasn’t silver. “This,” he said softly but proudly, “this is what I got for the amber I brought here.”
“By the dog!” Menedemos exclaimed. He held out both hands close together, palms up. “Let me have a better look at that.” With visible reluctance, Sostratos gave him the necklace. He felt the weight of the gold and admired the workmanship. “You got value for value and then some, I’d say,” Menedemos agreed. “Do you have any idea how old this is?”
“Old,” Sostratos said. “That’s as much as I can tell you. Five hundred years? A thousand? Five thousand? I couldn’t begin to guess. If I had to bet, I’d say it goes back to the days before the Trojan War.”
“That’s ri—” Menedemos broke off. It might not be ridiculous after all. The Trojan War, people thought, had been fought about nine hundred years before. Everyone knew Egypt was an ancient land. They’d had goldsmiths and jewelers long before brilliant Akhilleus slew Hektor of the shining helm on the windy plains of Troy. Menedemos found a business question instead: “Will you break it up and sell the pieces or keep it together?”
“I’d like to leave it intact,” his cousin answered. “It’s stayed this way for all these centuries. I’d feel I was robbing the world of something precious and wonderful if I took it apart.”
Menedemos suspected the firm might make more profit from selling off the bracelet piecemeal, but he didn’t quarrel with Sostratos. For one thing, they still had to get the piece, and themselves, out of Egypt and back to Rhodes. For another, he understood what Sostratos was talking about. Selling the gold and ivory from the image of Athena in the Parthenon might net more than the statue would as a whole, but it would also be a dreadful desecration. Breaking up the necklace would make a smaller sin, but one of the same kind.
As gently as he could, he gave the necklace back to Sostratos. His cousin hid it under the silver he’d got for Damonax’s oil. The coins had their own value, of course, but that whole sack probably didn’t match the necklace.