The Sacred Land

“Don’t you worry, best one,” Menedemos said smoothly. “I’ll figure out how many sigloi make thirty-five drakhmai, never fear.” Sostratos would have done it in his head. Menedemos had to flick beads on a counting board. With the board, he got the answer about as quickly as his cousin would have: “Seventeen and a half.”

“Sounds about right.” The other Hellene counted out sigloi one by one and gave them to Menedemos. “… sixteen… seventeen.” He handed the Rhodian a smaller coin. “And here’s the half-siglos to make it square.”

“Thanks very much,” Menedemos said. “I’ve got hams from Patara, too, if you’d be interested in one of those…”

“Let me try a bit,” the officer said. Menedemos did. The officer gri

“Yes, boss,” the slave replied in halting, Aramaic-accented Greek. Sweat poured from him as he followed his master off the ship. He was shorter and much ski

Menedemos and Diokles watched the two men go. “How about that?” the oarmaster said. “If one soldier had come here, I’d’ve said it was a nice happenstance and forgotten about it the next day. But if two do it of a morning…”

“Yes.” Menedemos dipped his head. He looked down at his new handful of silver. “I wonder how many more we’ll get.” Something else occurred to him. “And I wonder if the other oil Andronikos had in that room was some of the best he serves out, not the everyday stuff. Wouldn’t surprise me. Even if it was, it wasn’t good enough.”

“He’s the only one who knows for sure,” Diokles answered. “One thing, though: at least now we know the olive oil we’ve got really is as good as we’ve been saying.”

“Yes. The same thing occurred to me.” Menedemos sighed. “All the trouble we’ve had getting rid of it, I was worrying about that myself. Harder to make sure you get top quality from in-laws, but you’d better. Otherwise, who’s going to trust you when you come back to a place in a year or two?”

Diokles laughed. “It might not matter here, skipper. If we come back to this place in a couple of years, we’re liable to find Ptolemaios’ garrison here, not Antigonos’.”

“Well, I can’t tell you you’re wrong, and I won’t even try,” Menedemos answered. “Or, of course, we might find that Ptolemaios’ men had been here, and Antigonos’ had run them out again.”

“That, too,” the oarmaster agreed. “It’s like the pankration with those two-they’ll keep pounding away till one of them can’t pound any more.”

“And with Lysimakhos, and with Kassandros,” Menedemos added. “And if one of them does go down, somebody else will probably rise up to take his place-that Seleukos, maybe, out in the east. Somebody. I don’t think anyone can fill Alexander ’s shoes, but nobody’s willing to leave them empty, either.”

“The marshals don’t care what they step on while they’re fighting,” Diokles said. “They’ll step on Rhodes if they get the chance.”

“Don’t I know it,” Menedemos said. “We really are a free and autonomous polis, and even Ptolemaios, who’s the best friend we’ve got among the Macedonians, even he thinks it’s fu

Instead of taking the political talk further, Diokles pointed down to the base of the quay. “Furies take me if those don’t look like more soldiers looking around for the Aphrodite .”

“You’re right,” Menedemos murmured. “Maybe that session at the barracks is going to pay off pretty well after all, even if that abandoned rascal of an Andronikos didn’t do any buying himself.”

Up the pier came the Hellenes. They remained tentative till Menedemos waved and called to them. Then they sped up. One of them said, “You’re the trader with the good oil?”

“That’s me, sure enough.” Menedemos looked from one man to the next. “How do you know about it? I’ve got a good memory for faces, and I don’t think any of you were at the quartermaster’s taste test.”

“No, but we heard about it, and we know what he feeds us,” replied the soldier who’d spoken before. He made a face to show what he thought of it. “We figured we’d club together, buy an amphora of the good stuff, and share it amongst us. Isn’t that right, boys?” The other mercenaries dipped their heads to show it was.

“Fine with me,” Menedemos said. Then he told them what a jar cost.

“Papai!” their spokesman said as the others flinched in dismay. “Can’t you give us a break on that? It’s pretty steep for ordinary mortals.”

“I’ve already sold three jars for that price this morning,” Menedemos answered. “If I sell it to you for less, your pals will come by and say, ‘Oh, you gave it to good old What’s-his-name for twenty drakhmai, so let us have it for twenty, too.’ There goes my profit-you see what I mean?” He spread his hands to show he was sorry, but he held firm.

The soldiers put their heads together. Menedemos ostentatiously didn’t listen to their low-voiced argument. At last, they separated again. The fellow who did the talking for them said, “All right, thirty-five drakhmai it is.

This is supposed to be good stuff, so we’ll pay for it this once.”

“And I do thank you very much, most noble ones,” Menedemos said. “Come aboard, then, and choose the amphora you want.” They were as near identical as one ear of barley to another, but he’d seen before that giving-or rather, seeming to give-customers such choices made them happier. As they picked their jar, he added, “Would you like to buy some ham or some smoked eels?”

Antigonos’ men put their heads together again and then spent some more money on eels. Menedemos ended up happy when they paid him, too. Some of the coins they used were Sidonian sigloi, which he accepted as equaling two Rhodian drakhmai. But others were drakhmai and didrakhms and tetradrakhms from all over Hellas. Athenian owls and turtles from Aigina were considerably heavier than Rhodian coins. To the soldiers, one drakhma was as good as another. Menedemos knew better- and also knew better than to say anything about the extra profit he was making.

Before long, another party of soldiers came up the pier toward the Aphrodite . “You may end up thanking that quartermaster for turning you down, not cursing him,” Diokles remarked.

Menedemos thought about how very many amphorai of olive oil remained aboard the akatos. But then he thought about how large Antigonos’ garrison in Sidon was. If Damonax’s oil became a fad… “By the dog of Egypt,” he said slowly, “so I may.”

As Sostratos traveled father into Ioudaia, he began to see why Hellenes knew so little about the land and its folk. The people stuck together, clinging to their own kind and having as little to do with outsiders as they could. And the land worked with them. It was broken and hilly and hot and poor. As far as he could see, the Ioudaioi were welcome to it. Who in his right mind would want to take it away from them?

He knew he couldn’t have been so very many stadia from the I

In every village and town through which he passed, Sostratos had looked for a temple to this mysterious god. He never found one. At last, he’d asked a Ioudaian who’d proved friendly enough over a couple of cups of wine in a tavern. The fellow had shaken his head and looked amused at the question: amused and pitying, as if Sostratos couldn’t be expected to know any better.