The day was warm and bright. The shutters to the upstairs windows were open, to let in air and light. They let out music: Baukis was softly singing to herself as she spun wool into thread. The song was one any girl might have sung to help make time go by while she did a job that needed doing but wasn’t very interesting. Her voice, though true enough, was nothing out of the ordinary.
Listening to her, though, made Menedemos wish his ears were plugged with wax, as Odysseus’ had been when he sailed past the sweetly singing Sirens. He clenched his fists till his nails bit into his palms. It’s always worse when I’m angry at Father… and I’m angry at him so much of the time. He fled his own house as if the Furies pursued him. And so, maybe, they did.
Sostratos bowed to Himilkon in the Phoenician’s crowded harborside warehouse. “Peace be unto you, my master,” he said in Aramaic.
“And to you also peace,” the merchant replied in the same language, returning his bow. “Your slave hopes the poor teaching he gave to you proved of some small use on your journey.”
“Indeed.” Deliberately, Sostratos nodded instead of dipping his head. “Your servant came here to give his thanks for your generous assistance.”
Himilkon raised a thick, dark eyebrow. “You speak better, much better, now than you did when you sailed for Phoenicia. Not only are you more fluent, but your accent has improved.”
“I suppose that comes from hearing and speaking the language so much,” Sostratos said, still in Aramaic. “I could not have done it, though, if you had not started me down the road.”
“You are kind, my master, more kind than you need be.” Himilkon’s face still wore that measuring expression. He scratched at his curly black beard. “Most men could not have done it at all, I think. This is especially true of Ionians, who expect everyone to know Greek and do not take kindly to the idea of learning a foreign language.”
“That is not altogether true,” Sostratos said, though he knew it was to a large degree. “Even Menedemos learned a few words while he was in Sidon.”
“Truly?” Himilkon raised that eyebrow again. “He must have met a pretty woman there, eh?”
“Well, no, or I don’t think so.” Sostratos was too honest to lie to the Phoenician. “As a matter of fact, I was the one who met a pretty woman there-in Jerusalem, not Sidon.”
“Did you? That surprises me,” Himilkon said. “I would not have guessed the Ioudaioi had any pretty women.” He didn’t bother hiding his scorn. “Did you see how strange and silly their customs are?”
“They are wild for their god, no doubt of that,” Sostratos said. “But still, my master, why worry about them? They will never amount to anything, not when they are trapped away from the sea in a small stretch of land no one else wants.”
“You can say this-you are an Ionian,” Himilkon answered. “Your people have never had much trouble with them. We Phoenicians have.”
“Tell me more, my master,” Sostratos said.
“There was the time, for instance, when a petty king among the Ioudaioi wed the daughter of the king of Sidon-Iezebel, her name was,” Himilkon said. “She wanted to keep on giving reverence to her own gods whilst she lived amongst the Ioudaioi. Did they let her? No! When she kept on trying, they killed her and fed her to their dogs. Her, the daughter of a king and the wife of a king! They fed her to the dogs! Can you imagine such a people?”
“Shocking,” Sostratos said. But it didn’t much surprise him. He could easily picture the Ioudaioi doing such a thing. He went on, “I think, though, that they will become more civilized as they deal with us Ionians.”
“Maybe,” Himilkon said: the maybe of a man too polite to say, Nonsense! to someone he liked. “I for one, though, will believe it when I see it.”
Sostratos didn’t care to argue, either, not when he’d come to thank the Phoenician for his Aramaic lessons. Bowing again, he said, “Your slave is grateful for your hearkening unto him and now must depart.”
“May the gods keep you safe,” Himilkon said, bowing back to him. Sostratos made his way out of the warehouse, past shelves piled high with treasures and others piled even higher with trash. Himilkon, no doubt, would be as passionate about selling the trash as he would the treasure. He was a merchant down to the very tips of his toes.
After the gloom inside Himilkon’s lair, the bright morning sun sparkling off the water of the Great Harbor made Sostratos blink and rub his eyes till he got used to it. He saw Menedemos talking with a carpenter over at the base of a quay a plethron or so away. Waving, he walked over toward them.
His cousin clapped the carpenter on the back, saying, “I’ll see you later, Khremes,” and came toward him. “Hail. How are you?”
“Not bad,” Sostratos answered. “Yourself?”
“I could be worse,” Menedemos said. “I could be better, but I could be worse. Were you making horrible growling and hissing noises with Himilkon?”
“I was speaking Aramaic, yes. You can’t say my learning it didn’t come in handy.”
“No, I don’t suppose I can,” Menedemos agreed. “After all, you never would have been able to seduce that innkeeper’s wife if you hadn’t been able to speak her language.”
“That isn’t what I meant,” Sostratos said. “I was talking about the beeswax and the balsam and the embroidered cloth and the help I gave you in Sidon. I think of those things, and what do you talk about? What else but a woman?”
“I’m entitled to talk about her. I didn’t go to bed with her,” Menedemos said. “I didn’t go to bed with anybody this sailing season, unless you count whores-and I wouldn’t, believe me. You were the one who had the good time.”
“It wasn’t that good a time,” Sostratos said. “It was strange and sad.”
His cousin started to sing a melancholy love song. The object of the lover’s affection in the song was a pretty boy, but that didn’t stop Menedemos. “Oh, go howl!” Sostratos said. “It wasn’t like that, either.” The lovemaking itself had been fine. He would have remembered it fondly if Zilpah hadn’t changed her mind about him the moment the two of them finished. But she had, and he couldn’t do anything about it now.
“Well, what was it like?” Menedemos asked with a leer.
To keep from having to answer, Sostratos looked out to sea. He pointed. “Hello!” he said. “What ship is that?”
Such a question would always draw a merchant skipper’s attention. Menedemos turned and looked out to sea, too, shading his eyes with the palm of his hand. “To the crows with me if that’s not the Dikaiosyne, coming back from her cruise,” he replied. “Shall we go over to the naval harbor and get a good close look at her?”
“Why not, best one?” Sostratos said, though he couldn’t help adding, “We almost got a closer look at her than we wanted while we were coming back to Rhodes.”
“Oh, nonsense,” Menedemos said. “A trihemiolia’s made to hunt pirates-that’s the whole point of the type. Of course she’s going to come up to any galley she spots and sniff around like a dog at another dog’s backside.”
“You always did have a gift for the pungent figure of speech,” Sostratos said, whereupon his cousin held his nose.
Chuckling, they walked up to the naval harbor, which lay just to the north of the Great Harbor. Like the latter, it had long moles protecting its waters from wind and weather. Shipsheds lined it, so the Rhodian naval vessels could be hauled up out of the sea, keeping their timbers dry and them light and swift. The narrower sheds sheltered pirate-hunting triremes; the wider ones warded the fives that would fight against any navy presuming to move against Rhodes.
Pointing to the Dikaiosyne, which had entered the harbor by way of the north-facing entrance, Menedemos said, “They won’t have had to build anything special for her: she’ll fit into the same shed as any trireme.”
“True.” Sostratos dipped his head. The trihemiolia put him in mind of a trireme stripped of everything that added even a drakhma’s worth of extra weight. Triremes, these days, had their projecting oarboxes, through which the upper, or thranite, oarsmen rowed, covered over with planking to protect them from arrows. Not the Dikaiosyne: hers was open. Nor was she fully decked, to let her post a maximum complement of marines. Only a narrow stretch of decking ran down her midline from foredeck to poop.