Harry Turtledove - The Sacred Land

“I don’t know about that, but if you’re going to Phoenicia, you’ll be going by way of Cyprus,” the local merchant said. “They may have lions in Phoenicia, but they don’t on the island. You could get a good price selling it there.”

He was right. Neither Sostratos nor Menedemos had any intention of admitting as much; that would only have driven the price higher. Grudgingly, Menedemos said, “I suppose I might give you as much for this hide as I paid for the ones last year.”

“Don’t do me any favors, by the gods!” the Kaunian exclaimed. “This is a bigger hide than either of the ones I sold you then. And look at that mane! Herakles didn’t fight a fiercer beast at Nemea.”

“It’s a lion skin,” Menedemos said in dismissive tones. “I won’t be able to charge any more for it, and you’re mad if you think I’m going to pay any more for it.”

“We wasted our time coming here,” Sostratos said. “Let’s go back to the ship.”

Words like those were part of every dicker. More often than not, they were insincere. More often than not, both sides knew as much, too. Here, Sostratos meant what he said. When he saw the merchant had no gryphon’s skull, he stopped caring about what the fellow did have. The sooner he got away from Kaunos and from the memory of what the local had had, the happier-or, at least, the less unhappy-he would be.

And the Kaunian heard that in his voice. “Don’t get yourselves in an uproar, best ones,” he said. “Don’t do anything hasty that you’d regret later. You made a good bargain last year, and it would still be a good bargain at the same price this year, is it not so?”

“It might be tolerable at the same price,” Sostratos said. “It might, mind you. But a moment ago you were talking about wanting more for this hide than you did for those. ‘Look at that mane!’ “ He mimicked the Kaunian to wicked effect.

“All right!” The fellow threw his hands in the air, “You haggle your way, I haggle mine. When you do it, you’re wonderful. When I do it, it’s a crime. That’s how you make it seem, anyhow.”

Menedemos grinned at him. “That’s our job, my friend, the same as your job is to sneer at every offer we make. But we do have a bargain here, don’t we?”

“Yes.” The Kaunian didn’t sound delighted, but he dipped his head and stuck out his hand. Sostratos and Menedemos clasped it in turn.

Menedemos went back to the ship to get the money-and to bring along a couple of sailors to make sure he wasn’t robbed of it before returning to the agora. Sostratos wandered through the market square till his cousin came back. He didn’t think, Maybe someone will have a gryphon’s skull. He knew how unlikely that was. Whenever the notion tried to climb up to the top part of his mind, he suppressed it. But he couldn’t help hoping, just a little.

Whatever he hoped, he was disappointed. The agora held fewer interesting things of any note than it had the year before. He spent an obolos for a handful of dried figs and ate them as he walked around. Had they been especially good, he might have thought about getting more to put aboard the Aphrodite . But they were ordinary- Rhodes grew far better. He finished the ones he’d bought and didn’t go back to the man who was selling them.

After Menedemos handed the Kaunian with the lion skin a sack of silver coins, Sostratos was glad to go back with him to the akatos. “This hide is better cured than the ones we got last year,” he remarked. “You can’t smell it halfway across a room.”

“I know. I noticed that, too. It’s one reason I wanted to pick it up.” Menedemos cocked his head to one side. “I am sorry you didn’t sniff out a gryphon’s skull, my dear.”

Sostratos sighed, “So am I, but I can’t do anything about it. I’ll keep looking, I suppose. Maybe, one of these days, I’ll get lucky again.” Maybe, he thought. But maybe I won’t, too.

“Rhyppa pai! ” Diokles called as the Aphrodite sailed east and south out of Kaunos. “Rhyppa pai! ” The merchant galley’s oars rose and fell, rose and fell. Before long, the keleustes stopped calling the stroke and contented himself with beating it out with his hammer and bronze square. That let him ask Menedemos, “Skipper, are you going to serve out weapons to the men?”

“I should hope so!” Menedemos exclaimed. “We’d look like fools, wouldn’t we, going into Lykian waters without weapons to hand?”

The Lykian coast harbored pirates as a filthy man harbored lice. It was rocky and jagged, full of headlands and little inlets in which a pentekonter or a hemiolia might hide, and from which the pirate ship might rush out against a passing merchantman. And the Lykians themselves seemed to take the attitude that anyone not of their blood was fair game.

Not that Lykians are the only ones manning these pirate ships, Menedemos thought. Some of the sea raiders in these parts came from other Anatolian folk: Lydians, Karians, Pamphylians, Kappadokians, and the like. And some-too many-were Hellenes. Like Kaunos, the towns on the Lykian coast were half, maybe more than half, hellenized. But Greek pirates came to these parts no less than honest settlers.

Sailors passed out swords and hatchets and pikes and bronze helmets. Menedemos called, “Aristeidas!”

“Yes, skipper?” replied a young man at one of the oars.

“Get somebody to take your place there and go on up to the foredeck,” Menedemos told him. “You’ve got the best eyes of anybody on this ship, I want you seeing where we’re going, not where we’ve been.”

“All right,” Aristeidas said agreeably. “Come on, Moskhion, will you pull for me?”

A lot of sailors would have been angry to be bidden to hard work. Moskhion only dipped his head and sat down on the rower’s bench as Aristeidas rose. “Why not?” he answered. “I’d sooner be doing this than diving for sponges any day.”

Up on the foredeck, Aristeidas took hold of the stempost with one hand and shielded his eyes with the other as he peered first dead ahead, then to port, and then to starboard. Sostratos chuckled. “Not only are his eyes better than ours, he’s showing us how much better they are. He ought to be a lookout in a play-say, in Aiskhylos’ Agamemnon. ”

“I don’t care how showy he is,” Menedemos said. “As long as he spots trouble soon enough for us to do something about it, that’s what matters.”

“Oh, certainly,” his cousin said. “I wasn’t complaining about the job he does, only saying he’s got a fancier way of doing it than he did a couple of years ago.”

“Not a thing wrong with that,” Menedemos said again,

Sostratos looked at him. “Are we both speaking Greek?”

“Now what’s that supposed to mean?” Menedemos asked. Sostratos didn’t answer, annoying him further. He knew his cousin didn’t think he was as bright as he might have been. More often than not, that amused him, for he thought Sostratos got less pleasure from life than he might have. Every so often, though, supercilious Sostratos struck a nerve, and this was one of those times, “What’s that supposed to mean?” Menedemos repeated, more sharply than before.

“If you can’t figure it out for yourself, I don’t see much point to explaining it,” Sostratos retorted.

Menedemos fumed. An ordinary sailor who spoke to him so insolently might have found himself paid off and let go at their next stop. He couldn’t do that to his cousin, however tempting it was.

Before he could snarl at Sostratos, Aristeidas sang out: “Sail ho! Sail ho to starboard!”

Along with everyone else’s, Menedemos’ eyes swung to the right. He needed a moment to spy the little pale rectangle; Aristeidas did have sharper eyes than the usual run of men. Having spotted it, Menedemos struggled to make out the hull to which it was attached. Did it belong to a plodding round ship or to a wolf of the sea on the prowl for prey?