The Sacred Land

He walked up to Aristeidas. The sharp-eyed young sailor smiled and said, “Hail.”

“Hail,” Sostratos answered. “How would you like to come to Engedi with me, to serve as a bodyguard along the way?”

“That depends,” Aristeidas answered. “How much extra will you pay me if I do?”

“A drakhma a day, on top of the drakhma and a half you already make,” Sostratos said. The other two sailors had asked the same question. The extra money hadn’t been enough to interest them. They were happier staying in Sidon and spending their silver on wine and women.

But Aristeidas, after a momentary hesitation, dipped his head. “I’ll come,” he said, and smiled again. Like most though not all men of his generation, he shaved his face, which made him look even younger than he was. He’d probably made a striking youth, though that might have gone u

In any case, a youth’s beauty did less for Sostratos than did a woman’s. “Oh, very good!” he said. “I’ll be glad to have you along.” He meant it, and explained why. “It’s not just that you’ve got good eyes. You’ve got good sense, too.”

“Thank you very much,” Aristeidas said. “I don’t exactly know that that’s true, but I like to hear you say it.”

The next sailor Sostratos asked was Moskhion. He wasn’t particularly young or particularly smart, but he had been smart enough to see that while pulling an oar wasn’t an easy life, it beat the whey out of his former career of sponge diving. And he was big enough and strong enough to be worth more than a little in case of a brawl.

“Sure, I’ll come,” he said when Sostratos put the question to him. “Why not? With a little luck, all we’ll have to do is go there and come back, right?”

“Yes, with a little luck,” Sostratos answered. “But what will you do if our luck isn’t so good? What will you do if we have to fight?”

“I expect I’ll fight. What else?” Moskhion didn’t sound worried.

Sostratos supposed that if you’d got used to jumping out of a boat with a trident in one hand and with a rock held against your chest in the other to make you sink faster, nothing that might happen on dry land was likely to faze you. He said, “I’m glad to have you along. You’re a host all by yourself.”

“Maybe. Maybe not, too,” Moskhion said. “But people think so when they look at me. Every once in a while, that gets me into fights. More often, though, it keeps me out of them.”

“That’s what I want it to do here,” Sostratos said. “I’m not looking to get into fights with the barbarians.”

“Good,” Moskhion said. “Some people fight for sport, but I’m not one of them.”

“I wouldn’t want you along if you were,” Sostratos said. The next three men he asked all told him no. A

His cousin a

“I might take the whole crew and not manage that,” Sostratos protested.

“I’m not asking you to take the whole crew,” Menedemos said. “I am asking you to take one more man.”

Since he was the captain, Sostratos had to pay attention to him. Sostratos liked getting orders no more than any other free Hellene. Indeed, he liked it less than a lot of other Hellenes might have. Here, though, he had to obey.

As he came down from the Aphrodite ’s poop deck with a storm cloud on his face, one of the sailors said, “Excuse me, but if you’re looking for somebody to go with you when you head inland, I’ll do it.”

“You, Teleutas?” Sostratos said in surprise-and not necessarily pleased surprise, either. “Why do you want to come?”

“Well, I’d be lying if I said I couldn’t use the extra silver. A drakhma a day over and above the usual? That’s not bad. Not half bad, matter of fact. And it ought to be pretty easy money, so long as everything goes well.”

“Yes, but what if it doesn’t?” Sostratos asked.

Teleutas took his time thinking about that. He was perhaps ten years older than Sostratos-in his mid- to late thirties. Rowing under the fierce summer sun had made his lean face dark and leathery, with lines like gullies, so that at first glance he seemed older than he was. His eyes, though, retained what was either a childlike i

At last the sailor said, “Whatever happens, I expect I can handle it.”

“Can you?” Sostratos meant the question. Once, in Italy, Teleutas might have left him and Menedemos in the lurch. He’d quickly returned to the agora in that town in Great Hellas with other sailors from the merchant galley. Maybe he’d only gone to get help. Maybe.

“I expect I can,” he said now. Was his grin as open and friendly as it seemed, or an actor’s mask to hide cowardice? Try as Sostratos would, he couldn’t tell. Teleutas went on in reasonable, rational tones, as if arguing a point at the Lykeion: “I’m not likely to light out, am I, not in a countryside full of barbarians? You may like making those fu

Isn’t that interesting? Sostratos thought. He knows I don’t trust him, and he’s giving me a reason why I should this time. It was a good reason, too. Sure enough, why would Teleutas want to do anything but what he was paid to do when he spoke no Aramaic? He couldn’t easily disappear among strangers here, as he could in a polis full of Hellenes. Sostratos plucked at his beard, considering.

Teleutas added, “I know a thing or two that might come in handy, too, the sort of thing you probably wouldn’t.”

“Oh? Such as?” Sostratos asked.

“This and that,” the sailor answered. “You never can tell when it’d be useful, but it just might.” Plainly, he didn’t want to give details. Sostratos wondered what that meant. Had he been a bandit at one time or another? He spoke like a Rhodian, and few Rhodians needed to turn to brigandage to survive. But if, say, he’d been a mercenary and seen things go sour, who could guess what he’d had to do to keep eating? He didn’t have a soldier’s scars, but maybe he’d been lucky.

With sudden decision, Sostratos dipped his head. “All right, Teleutas. I’ll take you on. We’ll see what comes of it.”

Teleutas gave him that charming grin again. “I thank you kindly. You won’t be sorry.”

“I’d better not be,” Sostratos said. “If you make me sorry, I’ll make you sorry, too. I promise you that. Do you believe me?”

“Yes,” Teleutas said. But what would he say? More than a few people took Sostratos lightly because he used his wits more readily than his fists. He’d made some of them regret it. He hoped he wouldn’t have to worry about that with Teleutas.

When he told Menedemos he’d chosen his third escort, his cousin looked pained. “By the dog of Egypt, I wish you’d picked almost anybody else,” Menedemos said. “Can you trust Teleutas when your back is turned? I wouldn’t want to-I’ll tell you that.”

“I wouldn’t want to in Hellas. I’d be lying if I said anything else,” Sostratos replied. “But here? Yes, I think I can. He’s not going to make friends with bandits when he can’t speak their language, and he doesn’t know any Aramaic. He should be safe enough.”

“I hope so.” Menedemos didn’t sound convinced.

Since Sostratos wasn’t altogether convinced, either, he couldn’t get angry at his cousin. He said, “I think everything will be all right.”

“I hope so,” Menedemos said again, even more dubiously than before.

“What harm can he do me?” Sostratos asked. “I asked myself again and again, and I couldn’t see any.”