“No, thanks,” Menedemos said. “I’m a peaceable sort. I don’t want any trouble with anybody, and I don’t get into fights for the fun of it.”
“By my troth, the more fool you!” Apollodoros exclaimed. “How better to show the world you make a better man than your foe?”
“By taking home silver he should have kept,” Menedemos replied. “By knowing you’ve made him into a fool.”
“A fool?” The mercenary gestured scornfully. “Make him into a slave, or a corpse. An you seek silver, take it by selling the wretch you’ve beaten.”
“This life suits you,” Menedemos said. “That’s plain. I couldn’t live as you do, though. It’s not what I want to do.”
“A pity. You could make a soldier. I see you’re strong and quick. Those count for more than size, nor never let any wight say otherwise.”
“Whether they do or not, I don’t want to carry a spear and a sword and a shield,” Menedemos said.
“Here, drink you more wine,” Apollodoros said, and waved to the taverner to fill Menedemos’ cup again, even though it was still a quarter full.
Menedemos had already drunk enough to grow a little muzzy, yes, but his wits still worked. He’s trying to get me very drunk, very drunk indeed, he thought. Why is he trying to do that? The grinning tapman came up with the winejar. “Wait,” Menedemos said, and put a hand over the mouth of his cup. He turned to the mercenary. “Do you think you can get me blind drunk and turn me into a soldier before I come to and figure out what’s happened to me?”
Apollodoros affected shock and dismay. In the course of many, many dickers, Menedemos had often seen it better done. “Wherefore should I essay so wicked a deed as that, most noble one?” the fellow asked, voice dripping innocence.
“I don’t know why, but I can make some guesses,” Menedemos answered. “How big a bonus do you get for each new recruit you bring in?”
He kept a close eye on the soldier from Paphos. Sure enough, Apollodoros flinched, though he said, “I know not what you mean, my friend, for in sooth I thought but to make symposiasts of us both, that we might revel the whole day through. I’d not bethought me to come upon so fine a boon companion in such a low dive as this.”
“That sounds very pretty,” Menedemos said, “but I don’t believe a word of it.” He drained his cup, then set it back on the table. “I don’t want any more wine,” he told the taverner in Greek. Then, for good measure, he trotted out two words of Aramaic: “Wine? No!” Sostratos would be proud of me, he thought as he got up to go.
“Wait, friend.” Apollodoros set a hand on his arm. “By my troth, you do mistake me, and in the mistaking do me wrong.”
“I don’t want to wait for anything,” Menedemos said. “Farewell.”
But when Menedemos started to leave, Apollodoros hung on tight. “Stay,” the mercenary urged. “Stay and drink.” He didn’t sound so friendly any more,
“Let go of me,” Menedemos said. The soldier still clung to him. He used a wrestling move to try to twist free. Apollodoros made the most obvious counter. Menedemos had thought he would-Apollodoros had little in the way of subtlety in him. Another twist, a sudden jerk, a grab…
“Oк!” Apollodoros yowled as his wrist bent back and back. Menedemos needed only a very little more pressure to break it, and they both knew as much. Apollodoros spoke very fast: “You do but misperceive my intentions, friend, and-”
“I think I perceive them just fine, thanks.” Menedemos bent the mercenary’s wrist a tiny bit more. Something in there gave under his grip- not a bone but a tendon or something of the sort. Apollodoros gasped and went fishbelly pale. Menedemos said, “I can use a knife, too. If you come after me, you’ll be very, very sorry. Do you believe me? Eh?” Yet more pressure.
“Yes!” Apollodoros whispered. “Furies take you, yes!”
“Good.” Menedemos let go. He didn’t turn his back on the soldier, but Apollodoros only sank down onto a stool, cradling the injured wrist. “Farewell,” Menedemos said again, and left the tavern.
This place didn’t explode in a brawl behind him. He looked back over his shoulder after he walked out, to make sure Apollodoros hadn’t changed his mind and decided to come after him, and that the Paphian didn’t have any friends in the place who might want to do the job for him. No one emerged from the wineshop. Menedemos grinned. My bet is, Apollodoros hasn’t got any friends, he thought.
Around the corner from the tavern, he passed a wineshop of a different sort, one that sold wine by the amphora rather than by the cup. Remembering the fine wine Zakerbaal the cloth merchant had served him, he stuck his head into the place and called, “Does anybody here speak Greek?”
The proprietor was a man of about his father’s age, with a bushy white beard, even bushier black eyebrows, and an enormous hooked nose. “Speak little bit,” he said, and held his thumb and forefinger close together to show how little that was.
For what Menedemos had in mind, the man didn’t need to know much of his language. He asked, “Have you got wine from Byblosa here? Good wine from Byblos?”
“From Byblos? Wine?” The Phoenician seemed to want to make sure he’d heard correctly. Menedemos dipped his head. Then, remembering he was in foreign parts, he nodded instead. The Phoenician smiled at him. “Wine from Byblos. Yes. I having. You-?” He didn’t seem able to remember how to say taste or try. Instead, he mimed drinking from a cup.
“Yes. Thank you.” Menedemos nodded again.
“Good. I give. I Mattan son of Mago,” the wine merchant said. Menedemos gave his name and that of his father. He watched as Mattan opened an amphora, and noted its shape: each city had its own distinctive style of jar, some round, others elongated. When the Phoenician handed him the cup, he sniffed. Sure enough, the wine had the rich floral bouquet that had struck him at Zakerbaal’s home.
He drank. As before, the wine’s flavor wasn’t quite so fine as its aroma, but it wasn’t bad, either. He asked, “How much for an amphora?”
When Mattan said, “Six shekels-sigloi, you say,” Menedemos had to fight to keep his jaw from dropping. Twelve Rhodian drakhmai the jar for a wine of that quality was a bargain even without haggling.
Menedemos didn’t intend to let Mattan know that was what he thought. He put on the most severe expression he could and said, “I’ll give you three and a half.”
Mattan said something pungent in Aramaic. Menedemos bowed to him. That made the Phoenician laugh. They haggled for a while, as much for the sake of the game as because either of them was very worried about the final price. At last, they settled on five sigloi the jar.
After they clasped hands to seal the bargain, Mattan son of Mago said, “You not tell. How much of jars you want?”
“How many have you got?” Menedemos asked.
“I look.” Mattan counted the amphorai of Byblian resting in their places on the wooden shelves that lined the walls of his shop. Then he went into a back room behind the counter. When he came out, he said, “Forty-six.” To make sure he had the number right, he opened and closed his hands four times, and showed one open hand and the upthrust index finger of the other.
“Have you got a counting board?” Menedemos asked. He had to eke out the question with gestures before Mattan nodded and took it out from under the counter. Menedemos flicked pebbles back and forth in the grooves. After a little while, he looked up at the Phoenician and said, “I owe you two hundred thirty sigloi, then.”
Mattan son of Mago had watched as he worked out the answer. The Phoenician nodded. “Yes, that right,” he said.
“Good, then,” Menedemos said. “I’ll bring you the money, and I’ll bring sailors from my ship to take away the wine.”
“Is good. I here,” Mattan said.
Had the full crew been aboard the Aphrodite , they could have done the job in one trip. With so many of them off roistering in Sidon, it took three. By the time they finished hauling the heavy amphorai to the merchant galley, the men were sweaty and exhausted. A couple of the ones who could swim jumped naked off the ship into the water of the harbor to cool down. Menedemos gave all the sailors who’d hauled wine jars an extra day’s pay-that wasn’t part of their regular work.