“Sure enough,” Menedemos agreed. “We won’t have to unload all the oil to come back to Rhodes with a decent profit.” He laughed. “I never would have said anything like that half a month ago-you’d best believe I wouldn’t.”
He wouldn’t have laughed half a month before, either. He’d been sure he would end up stuck with every last amphora of Damonax’s olive oil. He’d unloaded much more of it by now than he’d ever thought he would after Antigonos’ quartermaster turned him down.
A Phoenician came up the quay toward the akatos. The man wore gold hoops in his ears and a massy gold ring on one thumb; he carried a gold-headed walking stick. “Hail! This ship is from the island?” he said in accented but fluent Greek.
“That’s right, best one,” Menedemos answered. “What can I do for you today?”
“You sell olive oil, fine olive oil?” the Phoenician asked.
Menedemos dipped his head. “Yes, I do. Ah, if you don’t mind my asking, how did you know?”
The Phoenician smiled a thin smile. “You Hellenes can do many marvelous things. You have astonished the world. You have overthrown the Persians, who ruled their great kingdom for generation upon generation. You have cast down the mighty city of Tyre, a city any man would have thought could stand secure forever. But I say this, and I say true: there is one thing you Hellenes cannot do. Try as you will, you cannot keep your mouths shut.”
He was probably right. As a matter of fact, from everything Menedemos had seen, he was almost certainly right. The Rhodian found no point to arguing with him. “Would you care to come aboard and sample the oil, ah…?” He paused.
With a bow, the Phoenician said, “Your servant is called Zimrida son of Luli. And you are Menedemos son of Philodemos, is it not so?” He walked up the gangplank, his stick tapping against the timber at each step.
“Yes, I am Menedemos,” Menedemos answered, wondering what else Zimrida knew about him and his business. By the way the Phoenician spoke, by the amused glint in his black, black eyes, he was liable to have a better notion of how much silver was aboard the Aphrodite than Menedemos did himself. Trying to hide his unease, Menedemos drew the stopper from an already-open jar of oil, poured out a little, dipped a chunk of barley roll in it, and offered the roll and oil to Zimrida.
“I thank you, my master.” The Phoenician murmured something in his own language, then took a bite.
“What was that?” Menedemos asked.
“A… prayer we use over bread,” Zimrida answered, chewing. “In your tongue, it would be, ‘Blessed be you, gods who made the universe, who make bread come forth from the earth.’ In my speech, you understand, it is a poem.”
“I see. Thanks. What do you think of the oil?”
“I will not lie to you,” Zimrida said, an opening that immediately made Menedemos suspicious. “It is good olive oil. It is very good, in fact.” As if to underscore that, he dipped the barley roll again and took another bite. “But it is not worth the price you are getting for it.”
“No?” Menedemos said coolly. “As long as I am getting that price- and I am-I would have to tell you you are wrong.”
Zimrida waved that aside. “You are getting that price for an amphora here, for two amphorai there. How much oil will you have left when you must leave Sidon? More than a little, is that not so?”
“Then I’ll sell the rest somewhere else,” Menedemos answered, again trying to sound unworried. Sure enough, Zimrida was liable to know the last obolos lurking half forgotten between a sailor’s cheek and gum.
“Will you?” the Phoenician said. “Perhaps. But perhaps not, too. Such things are in the hands of the gods. You will surely know that.”
“Why should I sell to you for less than what I’m getting?” Menedemos demanded once more.
“For the sake of getting rid of all your cargo,” Zimrida answered. “You would have sold it to Andronikos for a good deal less than the seventeen and a half shekels you are getting… Excuse me, I should say sigloi in Greek, eh? You would have sold it to Andronikos for less, I tell you again, and so, if I buy a lot of what you have, you should also sell to me for less. It only stands to reason.”
“But I couldn’t make a bargain with Andronikos,” Menedemos reminded him.
“I know this Hellene,” Zimrida said. “I know you Hellenes say we Phoenicians are grasping and money-grubbing and care for nothing in all the world except silver. I tell you, Rhodian, this quartermaster of Antigonos’ is the meanest man I have met in all my days, Phoenician or Hellene-or Persian, come to that. If he could save his father’s life with a drakhma’s worth of medicine, he would try to haggle the price down to three oboloi-and woe betide the old man if he failed.”
Menedemos let out a startled bark of laughter. That summed up Andronikos pretty well, all right. “How do I know you’ll do any better for me, though?” he asked.
“You might try finding out,” the Phoenician said tartly, “instead of saying, ‘Oh, no, I’ll never sell to you, because I’m making too much money the way things are’ “
“All right.” Menedemos dipped his head. “All right, by the gods. If you buy in bulk, how much the amphora will you give me?”
“Fourteen sigloi,” Zimrida said.
“Twenty-… eight drakhmai the jar.” Menedemos made the translation into money more familiar to him. Zimrida nodded. Menedemos also translated that into its Hellenic equivalent. He said, “Is that enough profit to satisfy you, buying at twenty-eight and selling at thirty-five, when you know you may not sell all of what you buy? “
The Phoenician’s eyes were dark and distant and utterly opaque. “My master, if I did not think so, I would not make the offer, is it not so? I do not ask what you will do with my silver once you take it. Do not ask me what I will do with the oil.”
“I won’t sell it all to you at that price,” Menedemos said. “I’ll hold back fifty jars, because I think I may move that many at my price. The rest, though… twenty-eight drakhmai is a fair price, and I can’t deny it.”
I’ll be rid of Damonax’s miserable oil. By the gods, I really will, he thought, trying to hide his growing delight. And I’II have plenty of silver to buy things that are cheap here but expensive back in Rhodes.
“Have we a bargain, then?” Zimrida asked.
“Yes. We have one.” Menedemos thrust out his right hand. Zimrida clasped it. His grip was hard and firm. “Twenty-eight drakhmai or fourteen sigloi the amphora,” Menedemos said while they held each other, leaving no room for misunderstanding.
“Twenty-eight drakhmai or fourteen sigloi,” the Phoenician agreed. “You say you will keep fifty jars. I do not object to that. And you will already have sold close to a hundred jars.” Sure enough, he knew Menedemos’ affairs very well indeed. The Rhodian didn’t even try to deny it-what point? Zimrida went on, “Then you will sell me… two hundred fifty jars, more or less?”
“About that, yes. Do you want the exact count now, O best one, or will tomorrow do?” Menedemos asked. He suspected Zimrida would have an exact count by tomorrow whether he gave it to the Phoenician or not.
“Tomorrow will do well enough,” Zimrida said. “I am glad we have made this bargain, Rhodian. We will both profit from it. You will be here at sunrise?”
“Not long after, anyhow,” Menedemos answered. “I’ve taken a room at an inn.” He mimed scratching at bedbug bites.
Zimrida smiled. “Yes, I know the place where you are staying,” he said- which, again, surprised Menedemos not at all. “Tell me, is Emashtart trying to lure you into her bed?”
Hearing that, Menedemos began to wonder if there were anything at all about Sidon that Zimrida didn’t know. “Well, yes, as a matter of fact,” he answered. “Who on earth would have told you that?”
“No one. I did not know, not for certain,” Zimrida told him. “But I am not surprised. You are not the first, and I do not suppose you will be the last.” He started up the gangplank, tapping with his stick at each step.