The Sacred Land

Andronikos considered, then dipped his head. “Agreed,” he said. “Go fetch your oil. I’ll get the men together, and some bread, and some of our local oil. And then, Rhodian, we shall see what we shall see.”

“So we shall,” Menedemos said, in what he hoped wasn’t too hollow a voice. He hurried back to the harbor and freed a jar of olive oil from the rope harness and du

“What’s going on, skipper?” Diokles asked. Menedemos explained. The keleustes whistled and said, “That’s a roll of the dice, isn’t it? Any which way, though, you can’t lug that jar back to the barracks yourself. How would it look, a captain doing stevedore’s work? Lapheides!”

“What is it?” said the sailor, who’d been paying no attention to the conversation between oarmaster and captain.

“Come get this amphora and carry it for the skipper,” Diokles answered.

Lapheides looked no more delighted at that prospect than anyone else would have, but he came up and grabbed the jar by its handles. “Where to?” he asked Menedemos.

“Barracks,” Menedemos told him. “Just follow me. You’ll do fine.” He hoped Lapheides would do fine. The sailor was a scrawny little man, and the full amphora probably weighed half as much as he did.

By the time they got back to the barracks, Lapheides was bathed in sweat, but he’d done a good game job of carrying the amphora. Menedemos gave him three oboloi as a reward for his hard work. “Thanks, skipper,” he said, and stuck the coins in his mouth.

One of the sentries, plainly forewarned, escorted Menedemos and Lapheides up to Andronikos’ office. In the next room, the quartermaster had set up a table that held a loaf of bread and half a dozen shallow bowls. He-or, more likely, a slave-had poured yellow oil into three of the bowls. The other three waited, empty.

Menedemos used his belt knife to chip away at the pitch around the clay stopped to the amphora he’d had Lapheides bring. Once the stopper was out, he poured Damonax’s oil into the empty bowls. It was greener than the oil Andronikos had got locally; Menedemos’ nostrils quivered at its odor-fresh, fruity, almost spicy. The Rhodian breathed a silent sigh of relief. By all the signs, this was good oil.

He nodded to Andronikos. “Bring in your men, O best one.”

“I intend to.” The quartermaster walked down the hall, returning a moment later with what looked like a mix of ordinary soldiers and officers. To them, he said, “Here, my friends, we have one oil in these bowls and another in these. Taste them both, and tell me which is better.”

“Please wait till you’ve all tasted both before speaking,” Menedemos added. “We don’t want one man’s words coloring another man’s thoughts.”

A couple of soldiers scratched their heads. But the men wasted no time in tearing the bread into chunks and dipping those chunks first into one olive oil, then into the other. They chewed solemnly and thoughtfully, looking from one to another to see when they’d all sampled both oils. By then, only a few crumbs of the loaf were left.

A scarred veteran who wore a fat gold hoop in his right ear pointed to one of the bowls Menedemos had filled. “That oil there is better,” he said. “Tastes like it’s squeezed from the very first olives of the season. When I was a lad, I spent plenty of autumns whacking the olive trees with sticks to bring down the fruit, I did. Reckon I know a first-rate early oil when I taste one.”

Another man dipped his head. “Hippokles is right, by Zeus. I haven’t tasted oil like that since I left my old man’s farm to go soldier. Tastes like it came out of the press yesterday, to the crows with me if it doesn’t.” He smacked his lips.

Then all the soldiers were talking at once, and all of them praising Menedemos’ oil. No, all of them but one. The stubborn holdout said, “I’m used to this stuff here”-he pointed to a bowl of the local oil. “This other oil tastes different.”

“That’s the idea, Diodoros,” Hippokles said. “The stuff we’ve been eating is tolerable, I guess, but if we can get this other oil, what we’ve been using ought to go into lamps instead, far as I’m concerned.” His comrades agreed, some of them more heatedly.

Diodoros tossed his head. “I don’t think so. I like this oil fine.”

Menedemos glanced toward Andronikos. The quartermaster didn’t seem to want to meet his eye. With his confidence restored, Menedemos didn’t let that stop him. He shooed the soldiers out of the testing room, saying, “Thank you, most wise ones. Thank you very much. I’m sure we can arrange for you to have some of this oil you like-and I’ve got smoked eels and hams to sell, too, back at my ship.” Once they were gone, he rounded on Andronikos. “Can’t we arrange that?”

“Depends on what you want for it,” the quartermaster said coolly. “If you think I’m going to throw silver at you like a young fool in love with his first hetaira, you’d better think again.”

“Do you suppose your men there will keep quiet about what they just did?” Menedemos asked. “Can you afford not to buy? Will you wake up with a scorpion in your bed if you don’t?”

Andronikos said, “I’ve squashed scorpions before. And I’ll squash you, too, if you try to cheat me. What do you want for your fancy Rhodian oil?

Just so you know, I’m paying seven sigloi the amphora for what I buy hereabouts.”

Menedemos reminded himself that one Sidonian siglos held about twice as much silver as two Rhodian drakhmai. Sostratos was bound to know the exact conversion factor. When Menedemos tried to do anything but two for one, he felt as if his brains would start leaking out of his ears.

“You’ve seen for yourself that what I sell is better than what you’re getting here,” he said. “And it comes from Rhodes.”

“So what?” Andronikos retorted. “You can bring it all that way by sea as cheaply as I can get oil from a day’s journey away by land.”

“That might be true on a round ship, best one, but I’m afraid it’s not on an akatos,” Menedemos said. “I have to pay my rowers, you know.”

“Which gives you an excuse to gouge me,” the quartermaster growled.

“No,” Menedemos said, thinking, Yes. He went on, “All in all, I think thirty-five drakhmai the amphora is reasonable.”

“I wish this chamber were on a higher floor, so I could throw you out the window and be sure I was rid of you once for all,” Andronikos said. “You whipworthy rogue, do you think I’d give you more than twenty?” He had no trouble shifting from sigloi back to drakhmai.

“I certainly do think so, because I’m not going to lose money by selling you my oil,” Menedemos answered. “What will your men-and especially your officers-say when they hear you’re too cheap to buy them anything good?”

“My superiors will say I’m not wasting Antigonos’ money,” Andronikos told him. “That’s my job-not wasting his money.” He scowled at Menedemos. “What will your principal say when you go back to Rhodes with that olive oil still in the belly of your ship? How will you pay your rowers on no money at all? “

Menedemos hoped his flinch didn’t show. Andronikos was a quartermaster, all right, and a ruthless specimen of the breed. Despite all of Menedemos’ persuasive powers, he refused to go higher than twenty-four drakhmai.

“I can’t make any money on that,” Menedemos said.

“Too bad. Here.” Andronikos gave him three sigloi. They showed the battlemented walls and towers of a city-presumably Sidon-on one side and a king slaying a lion on the other. “I’m not a thief. This more than pays for the oil you used. Now close up your jar there and go.”

“But-” Menedemos said.

The quartermaster tossed his head. “Go, I told you, and I meant it. You don’t want my best price, and I won’t go higher. Good day.”

Rage threatened to choke Menedemos. He wanted to choke Andronikos. He didn’t. Nor would he give the older man the satisfaction of seeing how badly he was wounded. He’d expected to sell the olive oil after his successful demonstration. The quartermaster’s shot had been all too shrewd. Taking it back to Rhodes was the last thing he wanted to do. But all he said was, “Seal up the jar, Lapheides. We’re leaving.”