Harry Turtledove - Salamis

When Menedemos paused to look at a couple of hats on display on poles, a little dog ran out of the shop and yapped at him. When it made as if to nip an ankle, he drew back his foot. That was plenty to send the dog away in a hurry, its stumpy tail down.

An Egyptian following the dog scooped it up and scratched it behind the ears. “Good you no kick,” he said to Menedemos in bad but understandable Greek. “He no bite you. He better not bite you.” He aimed a stream of crackling Egyptian syllables at the dog as he set it down. It scooted into the shop.

“Are you Marempsemis, by any chance?” Menedemos asked.

“That me.” The Egyptian jabbed a thumb at his own chest. He was within a digit of Menedemos’ height, and strikingly handsome. Had he been a Hellene, suitors would have misspelled his name scrawling it on walls when he was a youth. He had a thick head of jet-black hair, regular features, and a strong chin. His smile, though, showed a missing front tooth, lost in an accident, in a brawl, or to a dentist.

“A man named Diophantes told me you make fine hats.” Menedemos decided to try the experiment.

Marempsemis nodded. “Ah. Him. Yes. He buy hat from me every year.”

“Will you show me what you have?”

“I do.” The hatmaker nodded again, then disappeared into his shop, which was also plainly his home. He came back with half a dozen hats. Some were of straw, some of rushes. Some were wide, others narrower. Two had cloth straps that could go under the chin to help hold them on if the wind blew hard; the rest didn’t.

Menedemos took a wide one with a chinstrap. He put it on his head. “What do you think?” he asked the hatmaker.

Marempsemis winked at him. “I think I try sell you hat.”

That made Menedemos chuckle. “I think you just sold me one, my dear. How much did you sell it to me for?”

“Usually four oboloi. Since you know Diophantes, for you three oboloi, four chalkoi. I take off half-obolos for friend of friend.”

And maybe he did, and maybe the hat usually cost three oboloi and he’d give the extra bronze coins to the Hellene Menedemos had met on the street. Menedemos didn’t worry about it for long. Even four oboloi wouldn’t have been a bad price. A lot of skilled work went into weaving the straw into shape.

As Menedemos was paying the Egyptian, the little dog ran out again. A boy of about ten followed. He had a half-finished hat in his hands and looked just like Marempsemis, though he still owned all his front teeth. Marempsemis put an arm around his shoulder. “Son of my,” he said.

Menedemos dipped his head to the boy. “Hail, sonny! Do you speak Greek?”

“Only a little bit,” the hatmaker’s son replied. He had a better accent than his father. Well, he’d started picking it up younger than Marempsemis had. With a shy smile for Menedemos, he grabbed the dog and went back in.

“I get old, he do after me,” Marempsemis said, as any father might.

“Good,” Menedemos said. Barbarians might only now be discovering the glories of Greek culture and the beauty and precision of the Greek language. If not for Alexander’s conquests, they might have wallowed in squalid ignorance for centuries more. Ignorant or not, though, they were still recognizably people. Marempsemis’ hope for his son would have made perfect sense to Philodemos back in Rhodes.

Menedemos paid the hatmaker four small silver coins. He got four broad bronze ones in return. Bronze coins, for amounts smaller than silver could easily deal with, were new in the world. No one had thought of them when the polis of Rhodes was first built. That was only a hundred years ago, too , Menedemos thought—change visible almost within the span of a lifetime. They certainly helped grease the capstan of commerce so it went round and round without squeaking.

After the Hellene set the hat on his head, he looked a question at Marempsemis. “You fine,” the brown man assured him. “No cook over—ah, under—sun.”

“Thanks,” Menedemos said. He fiddled with the hat to get its brim just so. Along with shielding him from the remorseless fire in the sky, it also cut some of the glare. He liked that.

Well pleased with himself, he made his way back to the palace. By now, he was starting to be practiced at negotiating the maze of corridors that led to the room he and Sostratos shared. He tapped on the door and waited. If Sostratos and Seseset were in there together, he’d give them time to put on their clothes, even if he’d seen both of them naked.

But Sostratos’ voice penetrated the wood: “Come in.” Menedemos did. Sostratos pointed to his hat. “So you went and got one, did you?”

“Yes, I did. I’m tired of baking under this horrible sun.”

“What did you pay and where did you get it? I think I’ll do the same,” Sostratos said. “I’m a bit darker than you, but not enough to keep from baking myself.”

Menedemos told him what he needed to know, adding, “Tell Marempsemis that Diophantes sent you. He’ll knock the price down a bit.”

“Who’s Diophantes?”

“A Hellene who had a hat. I met him on the street when I was sweating like a swine, so I asked him where he got it. He sent me to that hatmaker.”

Sostratos looked at him in admiration. “I’d never have the nerve to do anything like that.”

“It’s easy enough,” Menedemos said. So it was—for him. “You don’t have any trouble doing business. What’s so tough about talking to someone on the street?”

“Business is almost as full of ritual as sacrificing is,” Sostratos said. “And I’m dealing with people I know, or at least with people who may want to do business with me. Just chatting up a stranger …?” He tossed his head.

“Really, my dear? I never should have guessed,” Menedemos said, and started to laugh. Sostratos swore at him. That only made him laugh harder. These days, he had to work to get under his cousin’s skin. He’d done it this time, though.

Breakfast for guests in Ptolemaios’ palace wasn’t fancy, but breakfast anywhere Hellenes lived wasn’t commonly fancy. Sostratos and Menedemos sat on low stools in front of a table that held good wheat bread, indifferent olive oil, and pitchers of wine and water. Both Rhodians watered their wine more than they would have at home; getting drunk or even giddy was the last thing they wanted to do here.

A couple of Egyptians from well up the Nile didn’t worry about it, and poured down neat wine. They were involved in some kind of lawsuit whose appeals had finally gone all the way up to Ptolemaios himself. They knew enough Greek to get by, but talked to each other in their own language. Only when another Egyptian came in did they clam up. He also pretended they weren’t there. Sostratos guessed he was involved in the lawsuit, too, but on the other side.

The hard-faced steward who looked as if he’d campaigned with Alexander walked up to the Rhodians and tapped each of them on the shoulder. “I am to bring you before the Ptolemaios,” Demodamas said. “Come along with me, if you please.”

They came. Sostratos gulped his cup empty; Menedemos ate one more big bite of bread and left the refectory still chewing. Sostratos didn’t think the steward was leading them on the same route they’d used before.

He soon found he was right. Instead of going to a private chamber, they washed up in a waiting room to an audience chamber that would have been a throne room if only Ptolemaios called himself a king. None of Alexander’s marshals had yet taken that step, though Sostratos kept thinking it couldn’t be far away.

He planted himself on a stool no different from the ones in the refectory. A couple of other Hellenes already sat in the room, waiting to be summoned. They didn’t speak to Sostratos or Menedemos, but chatted with each other in low voices so the Rhodians couldn’t overhear.