His cousin, as far as he could tell, might not have noticed the boat at all-he was watching dolphins leaping and cavorting off to port. He started at the sound of his name and looked around wildly, as if wondering what had been going on while his mind was elsewhere. “What is it?” he asked apprehensively.
“See that fishing boat?” Menedemos said. By Sostratos’ expression, he might never have heard of fishing boats, let alone seen one before; when he thought about other things, he thought hard. Patiently, Menedemos pointed it out. He was relieved to see the light of intelligence appear on his cousin’s face, and went on, “How would you like to practice your Aramaic with whoever’s aboard her?”
“I can do that, I suppose,” Sostratos said. “What do you want me to say?”
Maybe that hadn’t been the light of intelligence after all. Menedemos drummed his fingers on the steering-oar tiller. “Do you know where we are, my dear?” he asked sweetly. “Do you have any idea which Phoenician city we’re closest to?”
“Of course not.” Sostratos sounded affronted. “How could I know that?”
“Well, one good way might be to ask the people on the boat there, don’t you think?”
“Oh,” Sostratos said. This time, it really was the light of intelligence, or something like it, anyhow. Still sounding slightly peevish, Sostratos asked, “Why didn’t you tell me to do that before?”
Menedemos drummed his fingers on the tiller again. “Never mind,” he said; he didn’t feel like arguing with his cousin. “Just take care of it when we catch up with them, all right?”
“Certainly, O best one,” Sostratos replied with such dignity as he could muster. “And it goes to show some people in these parts do catch fish, doesn’t it?” Menedemos supposed it did. He hadn’t thought of that.
The fishermen in that boat were good sailors. They got the sail down with commendable haste and wrung every digit of speed they could from their little craft. That made the Aphrodite take longer to catch up to them but never gave them the slightest chance of escaping her. They were much too far out to sea to get to shore before she came up alongside them. Even then, they were ready to fight. A couple of them brandished what were either gutting knives or shortswords. A third shot an arrow that splashed into the sea fifteen or twenty cubits short of the merchant galley.
“Tell them we’re friendly. Tell them we don’t want to murder them or sell them into slavery,” Menedemos said. The fisherman with the bow let fly again. This arrow came closer. Menedemos scowled. “I get more tempted every minute, though.”
His cousin shouted something in Aramaic. The fishermen shouted back. Menedemos raised a questioning eyebrow. Sostratos coughed. Then he said, “They’re telling me to do things to my mother Sophokles never thought of in Oidipous Tyrannos .”
“Barbarians curse that way, don’t they?” Menedemos said.
“They’re not paying me compliments, my dear,” Sostratos answered.
“Heh,” Menedemos said. “All right. Find out what we need to know. And tell them that if they don’t learn manners we cursed well will ram them and sink them, just to teach them to respect their betters.”
“I don’t think I can say all that in Aramaic,” Sostratos warned.
“Try.”
Sostratos dipped his head. He made what to Menedemos sounded like horrible choking noises. The Phoenicians in the fishing boat shouted back. This time, they seemed less impassioned. So did Sostratos when he replied to them. After a bit, he turned to Menedemos and said, “Euge, my dear. Sidon is a couple of hours’ sail to the south. A very nice bit of navigating.”
“Euge is right, skipper,” Diokles agreed. “All that water to cross, and then to make it to the coast almost right where we wanted to be…” He raised his voice, calling out to the sailors, “Give the captain a cheer, boys! He put us right where he wanted to.”
“Euge!” the men called. Menedemos grinned and waved. Somebody added, “The skipper always puts it right where he wants to.” Menedemos laughed at that. After a moment, though, he felt like scowling again. Thanks to his bargain with his cousin, he might not have the chance to put it where he wanted to.
“Shall I send them on their way?” Sostratos asked.
“Yes, go ahead,” Menedemos answered. “We’ve found out what we needed to know. If they’re telling the truth, that is.”
“Not much point to lying about something like that,” Sostratos said. “We’d find the truth soon enough, and their lie wouldn’t do us any harm, no matter how much they might wish it would.” He shouted once more, in incomprehensible Aramaic. The fishermen understood it well enough, though, whether Menedemos did or not. They steered away from the Aphrodite , and were no doubt delighted when the akatos, which dwarfed their little boat, did not match their course.
Sidon, once the merchant galley reached it, proved to lie on a small promontory behind a line of islets running parallel to the coast. “It’s not a very big place, is it?” Menedemos said, none too happily-he wanted a good market for the Aphrodite ’s wares.
“But look at the buildings,” Sostratos said. “I’ve heard the Phoenicians build tall, and now I see it’s true. They go up and up and up.”
He was right. Few buildings in a polis full of Hellenes rose more than two stories above the street, so that the temples and other public structures stood out. Sidon was different. Every other building seemed to tower four or five stories high. Menedemos said, “The Sidonians must have strong legs, from going up and down all those stairs so often.”
“I wouldn’t be surprised if you’re right,” his cousin answered. “They have to get their exercise somewhere, I suppose. There certainly doesn’t look to be room in the town for a gymnasion.” He paused, then laughed. “In fact, the very idea of a gymnasion in a place like Sidon is absurd.”
“Why? “ Menedemos asked. “They could squeeze one in if they wanted to badly enough.”
Sostratos gave him the sort of look he hated, the look that said he’d been so blatantly stupid, he should have been ashamed of himself. Menedemos scratched his head. He couldn’t see why, which only made things worse. Holding on to patience with both hands-and making a point of doing so-Sostratos said, “What is a gymnasion? Literally, that is-what does the word mean?”
“A place to go nak-” Menedemos stopped. “Oh. Phoenicians don’t go naked, do they?”
He could see they didn’t for himself. The day was warm, warmer than it was likely to have been in Rhodes at this season of the year. It was more than warm enough for a lot of male Hellenes to have stripped off their chitons and gone through the streets bare without a second thought. They took nudity in stride and took it for granted.
But almost all the people he could see in Sidon covered themselves in cloth all the way down to their feet. The only exceptions were men- probably slaves-bearing heavy burdens, and even they wore loincloths. Those were the only exceptions Menedemos spotted, at any rate. Sostratos pointed to a knot of men on a quay and said, “Look. They’re Hellenes, or maybe Macedonians.”
He was right. He usually was. Some of the men he’d spotted wore short tunics like the ones he and Menedemos had on. A couple of others were in linen corselets and bronze helms with tall horsehair crests. Menedemos couldn’t imagine why they wanted to show they were soldiers in a town unlikely to be attacked. All it would do was make them sweat more than they had to. But that was their worry, not his.
Sostratos did some more pointing, this time at some of the ships and, more important, at the large ship sheds by the water’s edge. “Look at all the war galleys Antigonos has here,” he said. “Do you suppose Menelaos knows about that, over in Salamis?”