The man with the fried pork walked out gnawing on it. The innkeeper and his wife didn’t start quarreling again, but the woman did send Menedemos a wink and a leer. He retreated faster than the Persian king had after each battle against Alexander. The Phoenician woman let out a sigh doubtless intended to be alluring. It only made Menedemos retreat faster still.
When he told Sostratos about it on the Aphrodite , his cousin said, “Yes, now give me another story. You’re trying to back out of your oath, is what you’re doing.”
“By the gods, I am not!” Menedemos said with a shudder. “Come to the inn with me and you’ll see for yourself. I tell you, I wouldn’t have this woman on a bet, and to the crows with me if I can understand why the barbarian married her.”
“Maybe she brought a large dowry,” Sostratos suggested.
“Maybe,” Menedemos said. “That makes more sense than anything else I can think of, but even so…” He shuddered again, then went halfway toward changing the subject: “I tried to sell the innkeeper some of your brother-in-law’s olive oil.”
“Did you? Well, thanks,” Sostratos said. “Let me guess-no luck?”
“I’m afraid not, my dear. He was using some dreadful, nasty stuff to fry meat, and I hoped he might want something better, but no. He used the nasty oil because it was cheap, and he turned green when I told him what I wanted for ours-as green as if he were seasick, or as if he’d been tasting his own oil. I did try, though.”
Sostratos sighed. “I already said thank you. I’ll say it again. Gods only know how we’re going to unload that stuff. It is good oil, but even so…” He clicked his tongue between his teeth. “I wouldn’t mind breaking an amphora of it over Damonax’s head.”
“Have you got your donkey yet?” Menedemos asked. “Besides your brother-in-law, I mean?”
“Heh,” Sostratos said, and then tossed his head. “No, not yet. Prices for beasts of burden are higher than I want to pay, because Antigonos’ soldiers have bought up-or maybe stolen, for all I know-so many of them. But there’s one-a mule, actually, not a donkey-I have my eye on, if I can get the man who owns it down to something like a reasonable price.”
“I wished I had you along today, so you could have told the innkeeper just how vile his olive oil was,” Menedemos said. “Maybe I should have learned some Aramaic after all.”
“I could say, ‘I told you so,’ “ Sostratos remarked. But then he surprised Menedemos by continuing, “But I won’t. I’ve been speaking it all day, and my head feels pounded flat.”
“I believe you.” Menedemos didn’t really want to speak Aramaic. He wanted all the barbarians he dealt with to speak Greek. Doing things the other way round was, in his mind, a poor second best.
A big round ship made her slow, stately way into Sidon’s harbor. Her entrance had to be slow and stately. The wind had brought her south past the promontory on which the Phoenician town sat, but that same wind blew dead against her when she tried to come about and sail in. That failing, the crew worked their sweeps and rowed the round ship into port. Her performance under oars was to the Aphrodite ’s as a spavined ass’ was to that of a Persian stallion.
When at last she tied up at a quay perhaps a plethron from the Aphrodite , she started disgorging soldiers. Some of them wore their corselets and crested bronze helms; more carried them. In this warm weather, Menedemos reckoned that sensible. He wouldn’t have wanted to wear any more than he had to, either.
Sostratos’ lips were moving. After the last trooper came off the merchantman, he said, “I counted two hundred and eight men there. The next interesting question is whether they’ll stay here or go on to someplace else-someplace farther south, say.”
“If they stay here, Antigonos or his general probably intends to use them against Cyprus,” Menedemos said, and his cousin dipped his head in agreement. Menedemos went on, “If they move south, where will they be going? Against Egypt, do you think?”
“That seems likely,” Sostratos said. “The next question is, how long will Ptolemaios or his brother Menelaos need to hear those men are here and they’ve done whatever they end up doing?”
“Only a few days’ sail from here to Cyprus,” Menedemos observed. “Not much more to Alexandria-maybe no more, because you’re likely to have the wind with you all the way down to the Nile. If someone doesn’t leave with the news before the sun sets tomorrow, I’d be astonished.”
“So would I.” Sostratos dipped his head once more. He went on, “I can hardly wait to start down toward the land of the Ioudaioi. I wonder how many Hellenes have ever gone there. Not many, unless I miss my guess.”
“You could write a book,” Menedemos said.
He didn’t like the glow that lit his cousin’s eyes. “You’re right,” Sostratos murmured. “I could, couldn’t I? Every Hellene who ever set foot in India seems to have written down what he saw and heard there. Maybe I could do the same for this place.”
“That’s fine,” Menedemos told him. “Or it’s fine as long as you remember you’re there first to buy balsam and whatever else you find. If you take care of that, whatever else you do is your own affair. If you don’t, though, you’ll have to explain to me and to your father-and to mine-why you didn’t.”
“Yes, my dear. I do understand that, I really do,” Sostratos said patiently.
Menedemos wondered whether to believe him.
Having bought his mule, Sostratos wished he could leave Sidon without an escort. The more he thought about having several sailors with him, the less he liked it. But he’d made the bargain with Menedemos, and he had a merchant’s horror of broken bargains. Then, after the first two men he asked to come with him to the land of the Ioudaioi turned him down flat, he began to wonder if he could keep this one.
What will I do if they all say no? he wondered nervously. I’ll have to hire guards here in Sidon, I suppose. His mouth twisted. He didn’t like that. Trusting himself to the company of strangers seemed more dangerous than going alone. He wondered whether his cousin would agree. He doubted it.
He walked up to Aristeidas. The sharp-eyed young sailor smiled and said, “Hail.”
“Hail,” Sostratos answered. “How would you like to come to Engedi with me, to serve as a bodyguard along the way?”
“That depends,” Aristeidas answered. “How much extra will you pay me if I do?”
“A drakhma a day, on top of the drakhma and a half you already make,” Sostratos said. The other two sailors had asked the same question. The extra money hadn’t been enough to interest them. They were happier staying in Sidon and spending their silver on wine and women.
But Aristeidas, after a momentary hesitation, dipped his head. “I’ll come,” he said, and smiled again. Like most though not all men of his generation, he shaved his face, which made him look even younger than he was. He’d probably made a striking youth, though that might have gone unnoticed in someone growing up without wealth.
In any case, a youth’s beauty did less for Sostratos than did a woman’s. “Oh, very good!” he said. “I’ll be glad to have you along.” He meant it, and explained why. “It’s not just that you’ve got good eyes. You’ve got good sense, too.”
“Thank you very much,” Aristeidas said. “I don’t exactly know that that’s true, but I like to hear you say it.”
The next sailor Sostratos asked was Moskhion. He wasn’t particularly young or particularly smart, but he had been smart enough to see that while pulling an oar wasn’t an easy life, it beat the whey out of his former career of sponge diving. And he was big enough and strong enough to be worth more than a little in case of a brawl.
“Sure, I’ll come,” he said when Sostratos put the question to him. “Why not? With a little luck, all we’ll have to do is go there and come back, right?”