The Sacred Land

Menedemos pointed to one of the women playing knucklebones. “Come on, sweetheart. Yes, you.”

“All right. I come,” she answered resignedly in accented Greek. She was about his age, swarthy, with a prominent nose and hair so black it was almost blue. She wasn’t beautiful-as well hope to find a ruby the size of a man’s thumb as a beautiful girl in a harborside whorehouse-but she wasn’t ugly, either. As she got to her feet, Sostratos picked a woman, too: one of those who’d been spi

The whore he’d chosen took him to a little room that held a bed, a stool, and not much else. As Menedemos shut the door behind them, he asked, “What do I call you?”

She looked at him in surprise. “Most men do not bother to ask. You can call me Armene. It is not my name, but Hellenes ca

“That means you’re from Armenia, doesn’t it?” he said. He had a vague idea where the place was: somewhere in eastern Anatolia or the Caucasus. He didn’t think he’d ever met anyone from that land before.

Armene nodded, which by itself would have proved her no Hellene. “Yes. My valley had no rain two years in a row. My father sold me to a slave trader to keep me alive and let him and my mother buy food so they could live, too. The slave trader sold me to Kritias here, and so…” She shrugged once, and then, shrugging again, pulled her long chiton off over her head.

Her body was stocky but still curved, her breasts large and heavy and tipped with dark nipples. Though a barbarian, she’d taken up the Hellenic custom of singeing away the hair between her legs. Menedemos took off his tunic, too, and sat down on the edge of the bed.

“I am a gift for you, yes?” Armene said. “Tell me what you want, then.” She couldn’t keep a certain apprehension from her voice. He’d heard that in other brothels. The women had no choice and knew it too well.

Menedemos stretched out on the bed. “Come here. Lie down beside me.” She did. The bed was narrow for two side by side. Her breasts brushed his chest; her legs bumped his.

She gave him a worried look. “I am sorry.”

“It’s all right,” He squeezed her breasts, then lowered his head to them. Surprisingly often, even a slave in a brothel would take pleasure if a man worked a little to give it to her. Menedemos caressed her. He stroked her between her legs, as a Rhodian hetaira had taught him to do a long time before.

After a while, though, Armene set her hand on his. “You are a kind man,” she said, “but I do not kindle. I do this, but I do not enjoy it.”

“All right. I thought I’d try,” he said, and she nodded again. He rolled onto his back. “Why don’t you ride me like a racehorse?” If the brothel-keeper-Kritias, Armene had called him-was going to give him a present, he’d take the most expensive one he could get. If he were paying for it, having the girl climb on top would have cost him more than bending her forward or bending her back.

She nodded as she swung herself over him. “I thought you would ask this.”

“Why?”

“Because I am doing the work,” she answered. She took him in hand and guided him into her, then slowly began to move. Her breasts hung just above his face, like sweet, ripe fruit. He leaned up a little and teased her nipples with his tongue. She kept methodically moving up and down, up and down.

Before long, Menedemos was moving, too, driving his spear home with every thrust. His hands clutched her meaty buttocks. The bed squeaked under the two of them. As his delight peaked, he went into her as deeply as he could, holding her against him till the spasm of pleasure passed.

Then, laughing, he said, “You see? You didn’t do all the work.”

“No, not all,” Armene agreed as she slid off him. Some of his seed dribbled down onto his hipbone. “Good,” she said. “The more out, the less in to make a baby.” That wasn’t Menedemos’ worry. He rubbed the stuff off of him and onto the mattress cover while Armene squatted over a chamber pot she pulled out from under the bed. He’d seen more than a few women, whores and bored wives alike, assume that position after making love. He’d heard more than a few of them say the same thing, too.

He and Armene both dressed. With a conspiratorial grin, he gave her a couple of oboloi, whispering, “Don’t tell Kritias,” She popped the little silver coins into her mouth. She and Menedemos went out into the waiting room.

Sostratos and the woman he’d chosen emerged from her chamber a few minutes later, Menedemos still thought her plain. By the way she smiled now, though, Sostratos had made her enjoy their time together. Menedemos laughed to himself. He tried to please women because, when they took pleasure, it added to his own, Sostratos, he suspected, did it for its own sake. He hadn’t asked his cousin about that, but Sostratos also looked pretty contented now.

The whores had lit lamps in the waiting room. “Boy!” Kritias the brothelkeeper shouted. No one appeared. Kritias muttered to himself. “Boy!” he shouted again. “Get your lazy, worthless carcass in here, before I sell you to a silver miner I know!”

That brought the slave-a scrawny youth of about fourteen-on the run. Maybe Kritias was joking. The boy didn’t care to take the chance. Slaves sent to the mines seldom lasted long. “What you need, boss?” he asked.

“Light a torch and take these fellows back to the harbor. Then hurry back here. I know how long you need to get there and back. If you don’t hurry, I’ll make you sorry.”

“I’ll hurry. I’ll hurry.” Under his breath, the slave added something that wasn’t Greek. The torch hissed and popped and crackled as it caught from a lamp. The boy nodded to Menedemos and Sostratos. “Let’s go.”

“Have a good time?” Diokles asked when they got back to the Aphrodite.

“Hard to have a bad time with a woman, wouldn’t you say?” Sostratos answered. He handed the slave an obolos. The youth stuck the coin in his cheek and went back into Olbia. Sostratos continued, “She said her mother sold her into slavery to keep them both from starving.”

“Did she?” Menedemos said. “The girl I was with said her father sold her for the same reason.” He shrugged. “They both might have been telling the truth.”

“Yes, but they both might have been lying to make us feel sorry for them and give them a little something,” Sostratos said. “You have to be foolish to believe much of what you hear from a whore in a brothel, I suppose, but from now on I’ll believe even less.”

Menedemos took off his chiton, crumpled it into a ball, and laid it on the poop deck. He wrapped himself in his mantle and lay down for the night. Sostratos imitated him. The timbers were hard, but Menedemos didn’t mind. He slept aboard the merchant galley often enough during the sailing season to be used to the way they felt. He yawned, twisted a couple of times, said, “Good night,” to his cousin, and slept.

The Aphrodite crawled east along the southern coast of Anatolia from Pamphylia into Kilikia. Every so often, when she went farther from shore than usual, Sostratos got glimpses of Cyprus, lying low on the southern horizon. He’d never come so far east, but the island didn’t excite him as it would have had it been the merchant galley’s destination. As things were, he looked forward to visiting it for a little while and then pressing on toward Phoenicia.

“Some of the towns on Cyprus are Phoenician, you know,” Menedemos reminded him. “They planted colonies there at the same time we Hellenes did.”

“Yes, yes, of course,” Sostratos said impatiently-everyone knew that. “But we probably won’t stop at any of them before we go farther east, will we?”

Menedemos tossed his head. “I hadn’t pla