“Well, if that doesn’t make them hostile to foreigners all by itself, I don’t know what would,” Hekataios said.
Sostratos frowned. He thought he saw a logical flaw in the other man’s argument, but for once he let it go. Hekataios of Abdera had studied the Ioudaioi more thoroughly than he had-had studied them as he wished he might have, in fact. “Now that you’ve learned all these things, I hope you write them down so other Hellenes can have the benefit of your inquiries,” Sostratos said.
“I intend to, when I get back to Alexandria,” Hekataios answered. “I want my name to live forever.”
“I understand,” Sostratos said, and sighed. You have to write one day, too, he told himself, or who will remember you once you’re gone? He sighed again, wondering if he would ever find the time.
8
“Hail,” Emashtart said when Menedemos came out of his bedchamber to start another day. “How you?” the innkeeper’s wife went on in her fragmentary Greek. “You to sleep good?”
“Yes, thank you, I slept well enough,” Menedemos answered around a yawn. He scratched. Beyond any doubt, the room had bugs. He saw no point to complaining about it. What room at an inn didn’t? Oh, a clean one happened now and again, but you had to be lucky.
Emashtart was kneading dough on a countertop. She looked up from the work with a sly smile. “You not alonely, to sleep all lone?”
“I’m fine, thanks,” Menedemos said. She’d taken this tack before. Her attempts at seduction would have been funny if they hadn’t been so sad- and so annoying. This is Sostratos’ revenge on me, Menedemos thought. Here’s a woman I don’t want and never would, and what does she care about? Adultery, nothing else but.
She wasn’t subtle about it, either. “You to sleep better, you having woman with you. Woman make you all tired, no?”
“I’m plenty tired by the end of the day, believe me,” Menedemos replied.
“Once upon a time, I famous beauty. Men to fight for me all over Sidon,” the innkeeper’s wife said.
Menedemos almost asked her whether that had been during Alexander ’s reign or that of his father, Philip of Macedon. Alexander had been dead for fifteen years now, Philip for almost thirty. Had Menedemos been only a few years younger, a few years cruder, himself, he would have done it. But Emashtart probably wouldn’t have understood him. And, if she had, she would have been insulted. She’s enough trouble the way things are, the Rhodian thought, and kept quiet.
When, as usual, he refused to rise to her bait, she sent him a venomous look. After pounding the dough harder than she really needed to, she asked, “Is true, what they to say of Hellenes?”
“I don’t know,” Menedemos answered innocently, though he had a pretty good idea what would come next. “What do they say about Hellenes?”
Emashtart glared at him again. Maybe she’d hoped he would help. But when he didn’t, she wasn’t shy about speaking her mind: “They say, Hellenes sooner to put up boy’s arse than woman’s pussy.”
“Do they?” Menedemos exclaimed, as if he’d never heard of such a thing before. “Well, if we did that all the time, there wouldn’t be any more Hellenes after a little while, now would there?” He waited to find out whether she understood. When he saw she did, he gave her his sweetest, most charming smile. “Good day,” he said, and strolled out of the inn.
Behind him, the innkeeper’s wife said several things in Aramaic. Menedemos understood not a word of them, but they sounded pungent. He wondered what Sostratos would have made of them. After a moment, he tossed his head. Not knowing might be better.
“Miserable old whore,” he muttered. “Why doesn’t her husband take charge of her?” A moment’s thought gave him a couple of possible answers. Maybe Sedek-yathon feared his wife. Or maybe he didn’t want her, either, and didn’t care what she did. Well, he can go howl, Menedemos thought. He hurried off toward the Aphrodite. These days, he wished he’d stayed aboard the merchant galley instead of taking a room in Sidon. It would have been less comfortable but would have offered him more peace of mind.
“Hail,” Diokles called as Menedemos came up the quay. The oarmaster was staying aboard the Aphrodite. Every so often, he’d make a sally into Sidon after wine or a friendly woman. Other than that, he seemed content to do without a roof over his head and a mattress under him. Indeed, he kept up his usual habit of sleeping sitting up on a rower’s bench and leaning against the planking of the ship for support. Thinking about that, Menedemos didn’t mind the innkeeper’s wife so much.
“Hail yourself,” he said. “How are things here?”
“Tolerable, skipper, tolerable,” Diokles answered. “You’re out and about earlier than usual, aren’t you?”
“Work doesn’t wait,” Menedemos said. He didn’t always take that attitude. But he would have needed a much more enjoyable distraction than the innkeeper’s wife to make work wait. He went on, “One of the Hellenes from Antigonos’ garrison gave me the name of a merchant here who deals in fine cloth. I’m going to take some of our Koan silk over to him, see what it’ll bring in this part of the world.”
“Sounds good to me, skipper,” the keleustes said. “We’re a long ways from Kos, that’s for sure, so silk won’t come here every day, especially when it’s not going through fourteen middlemen. You ought to get a good price.”
“I hope so.” Menedemos hid a smile. On a Rhodian ship, everybody could speak knowledgeably of trade.
“Does this Sidonian fellow know any Greek?” Diokles asked-another relevant consideration, with Sostratos on his way to Engedi.
“That soldier said he did,” Menedemos answered. “Said he does a fair amount of business with Hellenes, so he’s had to learn.”
“All right.” The oarmaster dipped his head. “Good fortune go with you, then.”
“Thanks.” Menedemos poked through the cargo, wishing he’d made Sostratos leave him a more complete manifest. After a little while, though, he found the oiled-leather sacks that protected bolts of silk from seawater. They weren’t heavy, of course. He slung three of them over his shoulder and set off for the cloth merchant’s house.
The Hellene in Macedonian service had given him what sounded like good directions: the street opposite the entrance to the temple of Ashtart (Aphrodite ’s Phoenician counterpart), third house on the left. But Menedemos took a wrong turn somewhere. In a town built by Hellenes, he would have had an easy time spotting a temple, for it would have stood out above the roofs of houses and shops. But the Sidonians built tall. How am I supposed to find this polluted temple if they go and hide it? he thought irritably.
He tried asking people on the streets, but they started at him in blank incomprehension and gave back streams of gibberish. Not for the first time since coming here, he wished he’d spent part of the winter learning Aramaic, too. At last, he found a couple of Antigonos’ soldiers lurching out of a wineshop.
They were drunk, but they understood Greek. “The temple of Ashtart, is it?” one of them said. “You want a go at the temple prostitutes? Most of ‘em are ugly.”
“No, not the prostitutes.” Menedemos tossed his head, thinking, Maybe another time. “I’m trying to find a house near the temple.”
“Ugly girls,” the soldier repeated. His pal told Menedemos how to find the temple and even declined the tip the Rhodian tried to give him. That, to a Hellene, was a minor miracle. Menedemos followed his directions and found they worked. That wasn’t a minor miracle, but came close.
“Third house on the left, street opposite the entrance,” Menedemos muttered when he got to the temple. The street seemed more of an alley, narrow and cramped. Menedemos planted his bare feet with care. When he knocked on the door to the third house on the left, a dog inside began to bark. It sounded like a big, fierce dog. After a minute, somebody on the other side of the door said something in Aramaic.