Harry Turtledove - Owls to Athens

“Well… maybe,” Himilkon said. Sostratos thought he’d vanquished the Phoenician, but Himilkon added, “Of course, you Hellenes do a great many odd things, which is why everyone else thinks you are peculiar.”

“Oh, never mind,” Sostratos said in some irritation. “We were going to go into your warehouse when all this came up.”

“I suppose we were.” Himilkon didn’t seem angry about the argument. Belatedly, Sostratos realized he was lucky. Some people got offended when you presumed to disagree with them. He didn’t want Himilkon offended, not when he did business with him. The Phoenician asked, “Where do you think you will go next spring? That will have something to do with what I show you.”

“I’m not certain yet,” Sostratos said. “Perhaps Alexandria. I’ve never been there, but a new, wide-open city like that gives a man plenty of chances for profit.”

“Alexandria,” Himilkon echoed. “Now there I have never been, either. In your grandfather’s day, you know, or maybe your great-grandfather’s, Rhodes was a new, wide-open city like that.”

“Maybe.” But Sostratos didn’t sound convinced. “ Rhodes never had all the wealth of Egypt to draw on, though.”

“Not back then, she didn’t,” the Phoenician merchant said. “Now she does.” With all the trade from Ptolemaios’ realm that went through Rhodes these days, that held some truth: quite a bit, in fact. Himilkon ducked into the warehouse and gestured for Sostratos to follow. “Here, come along with me.”

Sostratos was glad to obey. Himilkon’s place of business fascinated him, for he could never be sure what would turn up there. He paused inside the doorway to let his eyes adapt to the gloom in the warehouse. He needed to see where he was going, for the passageways between cabinets and shelves were narrow. Things stuck out, ready either to trip him or to poke him in the eye. His nostrils twitched. Himilkon stocked frankincense, myrrh, cinnamon, and pepper, along with other spices and incenses the Rhodian had more trouble identifying.

“Here.” Himilkon paused and took down a box of curious workmanship made from a pale wood Sostratos had never seen before. “Tell me what you think of.. this.” With a melodramatic flourish, Himilkon opened the box.

“ Amber!” Sostratos exclaimed. The box was full of the precious, honey-colored stuff. It too had a faint, spicy odor, or maybe Sostratos was still smelling all the other things in the warehouse. He reached out and picked up a piece. Even unpolished like this, it was smooth against his palm. “Is that a fly trapped inside it?” he said, bringing it up close to his face for a better look.

“Let me see.” Himilkon took it from him. “Some kind of bug, anyway. You find that fairly often in amber, you know. That piece you picked up isn’t the only one in the box with something in it.”

“I do know that about bugs,” Sostratos said. “I just wonder how they could get into the stone in the first place. It’s almost as if they got stuck in pine resin, and then the resin somehow petrified.”

“I don’t see how that could happen,” Himilkon said.

“I don’t, either,” Sostratos admitted. “But it does look that way, doesn’t it?”

“I suppose so,” the Phoenician said. “But I didn’t show you the amber on account of bugs. I showed it to you because it is something that comes down from the north. Alexandria has all manner of strange and wonderful things that come up the Nile. But does Alexandria have amber? I do not think so. Will the jewelers of Alexandria want amber? There, I think they will.”

Sostratos thought they would, too. No matter what he thought, he didn’t care to admit it to Himilkon. He said, “I don’t even know yet if I want amber, O best one. That depends on how much I have to pay for it, and on what I can hope to get for it in Alexandria.”

“Well, yes, of course,” Himilkon said. “I am not in this for my health, either, you know. If I cannot make a profit, I will not sell you the lovely stuff at all.”

“If I can’t make a profit, I won’t buy,” Sostratos said. They glared at each other. Sostratos had looked for nothing else. In some exasperation, he asked, “How much do you want for all the amber you have in this box?”

“Three minai,” Himilkon replied at once.

“Three minai?” Sostratos made as if he couldn’t believe his ears. Actually, the price was more reasonable than he’d expected. But he couldn’t let the Phoenician know that, or he’d lose the dicker before it even began. He threw his hands in the air to show the dismay he was supposed to be feeling. “That’s ridiculous!” he said. “If I want my blood sucked, I’ll go to an inn and let the bedbugs do it.”

Himilkon made a face, as if he’d just taken a big swig of vinegar. “Funny man,” he said. “You Hellenes write these comedies to go on the stage. This I know. Are you practicing to do one of them? I know you want to write things.”

“Not comedies, by the dog of Egypt, and I wasn’t joking,” Sostratos answered. “You’ve given me a price you can’t possibly expect me to pay.” The more he pretended to be outraged, the more real outrage he felt. He knew that made no rational sense, but he’d had it happen before in other dickers.

Setting hands on hips, Himilkon haughtily demanded, “Well, O marvelous one, how much does your Majesty think the amber is worth?”

“Oh, a mina’s probably a little high, but not too,” Sostratos said.

“One mina? One?” Himilkon’s eyes bulged. The veins in his neck swelled. So did the smaller ones on his forehead. He let loose with a torrent of Aramaic that should have burned down not only his warehouse but half the city. It amounted to “no,” but he was a good deal more emphatic about it than that.

“Have a care, my dear, or you’ll do yourself an injury,” Sostratos said.

“Oh, no. Oh, no.” Himilkon shook his head, too upset to impersonate the Hellenes. “I may do you an injury, but not myself. You are a brigand, a bandit, a pirate…” He ran out of Greek and went back to his own language again. This sounded even hotter than his first eruption.

“Gently. Gently.” Now Sostratos held his hands out in front of him in a placating gesture. “Since you’ve let yourself get so overwrought, I suppose I could go up to a mina and twenty drakhmai.” The Rhodian spoke with the air of a man making a great concession. And so, in a way, he was. He never liked being the first one to shift his price in a haggle. Now he had to see how much Himilkon would move-and whether Himilkon was inclined to move at all.

When the Phoenician kept on fuming in Aramaic, Sostratos feared he wouldn’t move. Three minai wasn’t a bad price, but it wasn’t a great price, either. Sostratos hoped to drive him down further-and the Rhodian knew he could get a lot more in Alexandria, especially if he sold the amber chunk by chunk and not as a single lot.

At last, grudgingly, Himilkon said, “I don’t suppose I would starve in the street-quite-if you paid me two minai, ninety drakhmai.”

He hadn’t moved much, but he had moved. He wasn’t wedded to three drakhmai as his price. That was what Sostratos had needed to know. “You only came down half as much as I came up,” he complained.

“By Ashtart’s pink-tipped tits, you’re lucky I came down at all,” Himilkon growled.

So I am, Sostratos thought, but that agreement didn’t show on his face. He said, “You’ll have to come down some more, too, if we’re going to make a deal.”

Himilkon raised his eyes to the heavens, as if asking the gods why they’d given him such a cruel and unfeeling opponent in this dicker. “I try to keep myself from being robbed. I try to keep my family fed. And what does it get me? Nothing, that’s what! Nothing, not a single, solitary thing! Here is amber, the frozen tears of the gods, brought down to the Inner Sea from beyond the lands of the Kelts, and-”