Salamis, p.16
Salamis, page 16
“I’ll be back in a quarter of an hour,” Sostratos said. “Thersandros, you won’t have to take the jar back to the warehouse—you’re done for the day.”
Zoïlos laughed under his breath. Sostratos made that sound himself when he had a customer on the hook, so he recognized it. He didn’t fancy being on the receiving end, but what could he do about that?
He got the curious wooden box that held the amber out of the leather sack that held his worldly goods. It was wrapped in the chiton he wasn’t wearing, which might have hidden it from a thief for an extra heartbeat—maybe even two heartbeats if the thief was a halfwit.
“Never seen work like this before, or even wood like this,” Zoïlos remarked when Sostratos set the box on the counter. Psaphon dipped his head in agreement.
“I thought the same thing when I got it,” Sostratos said, and opened the box.
Zoïlos took out the chunks of amber one by one. He paused when he found the one with the insect trapped inside. “Isn’t that something?” he murmured, and seemed reluctant to set it down.
“Have you got something to show me, too?” Sostratos asked him.
“Oh, I might, Rhodian. Yes indeed, I just might.” Smiling, Zoïlos reached under the counter and took out something wrapped in a large square of embroidered linen that had gone yellow with age. Sostratos had seen that before, but rarely. Most linen didn’t last long enough to show its years.
Before Sostratos undid the cloth, he looked a question at Zoïlos, who waved for him to go ahead. He did, and then stopped. “Oh, my,” he whispered.
The necklace was of gold and lapis lazuli and garnet. Along with beads, it had lotus flowers and, above them, the moon disc riding a boat—across the sky, Sostratos supposed. The moon was paler than the rest of the goldwork. He suspected it was of electrum. The Lydians in Anatolia had struck their first coins from the natural alloy of gold and silver.
“Where … did you come by this?” he asked.
Zoïlos tipped him a wink. “I’ll pretend I didn’t hear you. Robbing rich Egyptian tombs has been against the law since the day after they made the first one, and hasn’t stopped since. There’s a lot of gold in Egypt, especially if you’re a Hellene and you aren’t used to it. But most of it gets used over and over, not just once.”
“Isn’t that interesting?” Sostratos reached toward the necklace, then paused till Zoïlos dipped his head again. He picked up the necklace then, hefting it with experienced hands. Close to half a mina of gold, he judged: the equivalent of four or four and a half minai of silver, about what he wanted to make for the amber.
The jewels would add some value, too, and the artistry in the piece was very fine even if it wasn’t Greek. “Are you sure you want to make this bargain?” he asked. “I don’t want you to think I’ve cheated you.”
Zoïlos nodded toward the necklace. “I can get more pieces like that. They come around every so often,” he answered. “Robbers find a new tomb, maybe—I don’t know. I don’t want to know. They sell at a discount, because it isn’t stuff everybody will touch, you know what I’m saying?”
“I hear you.” Sostratos realized he’d have to be extra careful with the necklace if he took it. If Ptolemaios’ men found it on him, paying export duty would be the least of his worries. Like most traders, he didn’t see smuggling as a crime. Getting caught smuggling would be an inconvenience, though.
“Your amber, now, that’s something different here,” Zoïlos said. “I know men who’ll want it, and they’ll pay plenty. I may even keep the piece with the bug for myself. So—have we got a deal?”
“I think we do,” Sostratos said slowly. “And speaking of paying, if my men deliver the oil tomorrow, will you have the silver for it?”
“I’ll have it.” Zoïlos didn’t fuss. Sostratos liked his calm self-assurance. And if he was a man who dealt in gold, even at cut prices because it wasn’t legal gold, he would have plenty of silver around, or be able to lay hold of it in a hurry.
Sostratos hired a large, two-ox cart to carry the oil from the warehouse to Zoïlos’ shop. He had the rowers come along anyhow. If Zoïlos meant to make trouble, Sostratos hoped to leave him on the receiving end of at least some.
But Zoïlos didn’t. Like a lot of men on the fringes of the law, he was scrupulous about doing everything just so when he walked on the legitimate side of the street. He had Sostratos’ silver waiting in three leather sacks. “You can count the drakhmai if you want,” he said. “They won’t all weight the same—they come from all over Hellas.”
“Do you have a scale?” Sostratos asked. Zoïlos pulled a balance and a set of weights off a shelf on the wall behind the counter. Sostratos eyed the weights. He hefted a couple of them. They felt about right, anyhow. Zoïlos couldn’t get away with cheating customers too openly. The local merchant grinned at him, seeing what was in his mind. With a shrug, Sostratos weighed each sack in turn. His lips moved as he added the three weights together. He dipped his head. “Close enough.” If Damonax wasn’t perfectly happy with the accounting he’d get, too bad.
“Pleasure doing business with you,” Zoïlos said.
Sostratos gave each rower a drakhma above their daily wage. No, Damonax wouldn’t miss the money. “Have yourselves a drink or three, boys,” he said. That made them grin, too. A tavern lay a few doors down the street.
The first thing Sostratos did when he got back to his room was to take the necklace he’d traded for the day before and put in in the least full sack of coins, covering it over with silver. Coins were coins. He had several sacks of them here, and a robber might easily miss one. The necklace was something special. Anywhere else among his personal goods, it would surely draw notice.
Only a little while after he’d made his arrangements, someone knocked on the door. When he opened it, he found a Hellene he’d never seen before standing in the inn’s narrow hallway. “Tell me your name,” the stranger said.
“Sostratos son of Lysistratos,” Sostratos answered automatically. Only then did he think to ask, “Who are you, and why do you want to know?”
“I am a messenger from the Ptolemaios, that’s who,” the man said. “You and the sailors who came to Memphis with you are ordered to return to Alexandria with me at once. I came by horse, but I have a boat waiting on the Nile.”
“I’m not going anywhere on your say-so,” Sostratos said. “For all I know, you’ll cut my throat and toss my body in the river.”
“Tempting,” the man said, which left Sostratos with his mouth hanging open. The Hellene went on, “If the nomarch vouches for me, will that make you happy, O marvelous one?”
“Y-yes,” Sostratos managed. He and the man went over to the nomarch’s residence together. Sure enough, Alexandros affirmed that the newcomer, whose name Sostratos still didn’t know, was in Ptolemaios’ service. When Sostratos told Ptolemaios’ official where his rowers were, the nomarch sent men to bring them back to the inn. Everything else went just as smoothly. Sostratos barely had time to clean out his chamber before he was on his way down to the riverbank.
Menedemos watched workmen load the Aphrodite with weapons of war. Now she lay in a shipshed, as he’d asked of Ptolemaios. The shed had been built for a trireme, the smallest kind of war galley in the Egyptian navy. Even so, inside it the Aphrodite seemed like a puppy in a doghouse made for a big, mean Molossian hound.
Menedemos’ mouth twisted in wry amusement. Nothing was too good for him or his ship as long as they were in Ptolemaios’ service. Before, the akatos could have stayed tied up in the harbor till shipworms bored holes in her planking and she quietly sank.
Diokles waved from the steering platform at the stern. Ptolemaios’ payment for use of the Aphrodite was stashed under the platform. That was the safest spot on the ship, but someone from her company always kept watch now. Otherwise, no telling what the men who brought aboard arrows and spears and swords and shields would walk off with.
These were sheaves of arrows coming aboard now, their iron heads glistening with oil so they wouldn’t rust. Diokles ordered the men carrying them forward. With Sostratos gone, he was best suited to deciding how to stow her new, deadly cargo in ways that kept her trim and as seaworthy as possible.
Not three heartbeats after Menedemos thought of Sostratos, a familiar voice behind him said, “We’ve come up in the world a bit, I see.”
Whirling, Menedemos embraced his cousin. “By the dog of Egypt!” he exclaimed—a fitting oath here. “The Ptolemaios told me he was going to bring you back from Memphis as fast as he could, but I didn’t expect you for another couple of days.”
“His agents are like the Persian couriers Herodotos wrote about. Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays them from the swift completion of their appointed rounds,” Sostratos said.
“Not likely they need to worry about snow or even rain here,” Menedemos said with a snort. “Heat, now, heat’s a different business.”
“Worse in Memphis than it is here, too.” Sostratos looked around to make sure no one could overhear, then lowered his voice anyhow. “And Ptolemaios’ helpers may as well be his Eyes and Ears.”
That was what people called the Persian kings’ secret agents. In the old days, they’d been pointed to as proof of Persian oppression. Menedemos would have bet Ptolemaios wasn’t the only Macedonian warlord using such Persian tricks these days, though. Once again, it made him wonder who’d really conquered whom.
“Did you see your precious Pyramids?” he asked.
He couldn’t help but smile at the way his cousin’s face lit up. “I did! I really did! And the Sphinx, too!” Sostratos said. “And they were …. You can’t imagine how big they were. I couldn’t imagine till I saw with my own eyes. Nothing human beings make has any business being that big.”
“Maybe the Egyptian gods did it,” Menedemos said slyly.
Sostratos tossed his head in indignation. “Oh, rubbish! There’s a gigantic ramp, a causeway, whatever you want to call it, that leads from the Nile to where the Pyramids sit. Herodotos talks more about it than he does about them. The Egyptians quarried the stones farther south, floated them down the Nile till they got to the right place, and hauled them along the causeway so they could trim each one perfectly square and set it just where it went. If gods built the Pyramids, they wouldn’t have gone to all that trouble. They’d have just plopped them down where they wanted them, wouldn’t they?”
“Don’t ask me, my dear. I’m no god,” Menedemos said. “What did the rowers think of them?”
“They thought we were way the daimon out in the desert. They were keeping an eye on the fellow who owned the camels we rode on, and on his friends. We didn’t have any trouble with them, so that worked out all right,” Sostratos said.
“Good. And how was business?” To Menedemos, that was more important than Sostratos’ sightseeing.
“Damonax’s oil is gone, gods be praised, and at a decent price, too,” his cousin answered. “The nomarch’s kitchens bought some, and I unloaded the rest on a merchant in Memphis.” He lowered his voice again. “I made a deal for the amber with him, too.”
“Ah? And how did you do on that?”
“I’ll show you when we go back to the room,” Sostratos said. “How was your trading up here?”
“Just about all of the wine is gone,” Menedemos said. “Prices were good—not great, but good. I bought some incenses, so not all the pay was in silver. We’ll have something to sell when we get home. And the Ptolemaios is paying plenty to hire the Aphrodite, too. We’ll make a nice profit on the trip—if we don’t get sunk, I mean.”
X
When they did get back to the chamber in Ptolemaios’ palace, Menedemos watched in amusement as his cousin made a small production out of barring the door. Then Sostratos rummaged in his large leather sack till he found a smaller one that clinked nicely as he lifted it out.
He reached inside and rummaged through the drakhmai before lifting out something that wasn’t silver. “This,” he said softly but proudly, “this is what I got for the amber I brought here.”
“By the dog!” Menedemos exclaimed. He held out both hands close together, palms up. “Let me have a better look at that.” With visible reluctance, Sostratos gave him the necklace. He felt the weight of the gold and admired the workmanship. “You got value for value and then some, I’d say,” Menedemos agreed. “Do you have any idea how old this is?”
“Old,” Sostratos said. “That’s as much as I can tell you. Five hundred years? A thousand? Five thousand? I couldn’t begin to guess. If I had to bet, I’d say it goes back to the days before the Trojan War.”
“That’s ri—” Menedemos broke off. It might not be ridiculous after all. The Trojan War, people thought, had been fought about nine hundred years before. Everyone knew Egypt was an ancient land. They’d had goldsmiths and jewelers long before brilliant Akhilleus slew Hektor of the shining helm on the windy plains of Troy. Menedemos found a business question instead: “Will you break it up and sell the pieces or keep it together?”
“I’d like to leave it intact,” his cousin answered. “It’s stayed this way for all these centuries. I’d feel I was robbing the world of something precious and wonderful if I took it apart.”
Menedemos suspected the firm might make more profit from selling off the bracelet piecemeal, but he didn’t quarrel with Sostratos. For one thing, they still had to get the piece, and themselves, out of Egypt and back to Rhodes. For another, he understood what Sostratos was talking about. Selling the gold and ivory from the image of Athena in the Parthenon might net more than the statue would as a whole, but it would also be a dreadful desecration. Breaking up the necklace would make a smaller sin, but one of the same kind.
As gently as he could, he gave the necklace back to Sostratos. His cousin hid it under the silver he’d got for Damonax’s oil. The coins had their own value, of course, but that whole sack probably didn’t match the necklace.
“When will the fleet sail? Do you know?” Sostratos asked.
“Not to the day, but it won’t be long,” Menedemos said. “The Ptolemaios has been making ready since before you left for Memphis.” He paused as a different thought struck him. “I wonder if my father’s wife has had the baby yet.”
“We’ll find out when we get back.” Sostratos had only a dim interest in Baukis’ baby.
“I guess we will,” Menedemos agreed tonelessly. He couldn’t let on that his own interest was much greater than his cousin’s. As far as Sostratos knew—as far as anyone but he and Baukis knew—the child surely sprouted from his father’s seed. That was how things had to look to the outside world.
“Would you rather have a little boy or a little girl running around and getting into trouble?” his cousin asked.
“A boy,” Menedemos answered at once. A son! he thought. “I’m glad the gods made me a man. I could teach him what he needs to know to get along in the world.” But not who is father is, or may be, curse it!
“Well, I can see that. A sister isn’t so bad, though,” Sostratos said.
“If you say so. I played with Erinna a bit when we were all small, but I don’t know much about little girls.” Thinking a leer was called for, Menedemos duly produced one. “When they get bigger, though ….”
“Yes, my dear. You don’t have to remind me you’re cockproud,” Sostratos said. “I already know that. Maybe you should remind me which towns we can’t trade in because they have outraged husbands who want to kill you.”
Menedemos raised an eyebrow. “You must have eaten something sour on your way back to Alexandria.”
“The whole thing was sour,” Sostratos said. “I didn’t even know why I was ordered out of Memphis till I walked into the palace here. If Ptolemaios’ man did know why he had to fetch me, he didn’t let on, not even a little bit. Are you sure hiring the Aphrodite to Ptolemaios was smart? If Antigonos and Demetrios get wind of it—”
“I thought about all that. You said it yourself—I’m not as stupid as I look,” Menedemos replied. “I had two choices, O cousin of mine. I could take Ptolemaios’ silver and let him hire the akatos, or I could watch him confiscate it without giving me even a khalkos. He may not call himself a king, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t one.”
Sostratos opened his mouth, then closed it again. After a moment, he remarked, “Maybe I should just shut up.”
“Maybe you should,” Menedemos agreed. “When the lions fight, the mice get mauled by accident.”
“Or not by accident. We’re worth more to Ptolemaios the way we are, but Antigonos just itches to get his hands on our island and our polis and our people and our fleet,” Sostratos said.
“I’d sooner see every trireme we own burn in its shipshed than let the Cyclops get hold of it,” Menedemos said savagely.
“The really frightening thing is, he could be worse,” Sostratos said. “Up in Macedonia, Kassandros is just a soldier. Antigonos is clever—you have to give him that.”
“I’d like to give him a good swift kick, is what I’d like to give him.” Menedemos lowered his voice. “I’d like to give the Ptolemaios another one, too, even harder.”
“He’s made you do something you didn’t want to do, something that may prove bad for Rhodes,” Sostratos said, also not much above a whisper.
“Too cursed right, he has,” Menedemos said, sending Sostratos a grateful glance—his cousin knew what was gnawing at him, all right. “I’m a free Hellene, from a free and independent polis. He’s got no right to treat me like a barbarian or a slave.”
“Remember what the Alexander said on his deathbed when they asked him to whom his empire should go,” Sostratos said.
“ ‘To the strongest,’ ” Menedemos responded. Almost any Hellene from Sicily to the Indos could have done the same. “I don’t care if Alexander did study with what’s-his-name—”
