“It’s all right,” Menedemos told him, more fascinated than anything else. “Do you mind if I ask you a question?”

“Sure,” Tenashtart said expansively. “Go right ahead.”

“In the name of the gods, O best one, how do you stand the stink?” Menedemos blurted.

Before answering, Tenashtart said something in Aramaic to Ithobaal. Both brothers laughed. Tenashtart went back to Greek: “Everybody asks us that. Doesn’t matter who: Phoenicians, Hellenes-even Persians, back when I was a kid. They all say the same thing.”

“And do you give them the same answer?” Menedemos asked. Tenashtart had spent a lot of time among Hellenes; he dipped his head instead of nodding, as almost all barbarians would have done. Menedemos said, “Well, what is the answer?”

“You want to know the truth?” the dyemaker said. “The truth is, we both spend so much time with the shells, we don’t even notice it any more. Only time I know it’s there is when I’ve been away for a bit. Then I smell it for a while when I get back. But except for that, it’s not even there for me, any more than air is there for me, you know what I mean?”

“I suppose so,” Menedemos answered. “It seems hard to believe, though.”

Tenashtart said something else in Aramaic. His brother nodded. Ithobaal pointed out toward the workman crushing murexes, touched his formidable nose, and shrugged. He might have been saying he didn’t notice the reek of rotting shellfish, either.

Even to Menedemos, it didn’t seem quite so appalling as it had when he first got to the dyeworks. All the same, he remained a long way from not noticing it. He wished he were as oblivious as the two Phoenician brothers.

Tenashtart said, “You come all this way to talk about nasty smells, or do you want to do some business?”

“Let’s do business,” Menedemos said agreeably. “What do you charge for a jar of your best dye?” When the Sidonian told him, he let out a yip. “That’s outrageous!”

Tenashtart spread his hands. “That’s the way it goes, buddy. I’ve got to make a living, same as everybody else.”

But Menedemos wagged a finger at him. “Oh, no, you don’t, my dear. You’re not going to get away with that, not for a minute you won’t, and I’ll tell you why not. I’ve seen Phoenicians over in Hellas selling crimson dye for the very same price, and that’s after their middleman’s markup. What do they pay you?”

“You must be talking about men from Byblos or from Arados,” Tenashtart said easily. “They’ve got lower quality dye, so naturally they can charge less.”

Menedemos tossed his head. “Oh, no, you don’t,” he said again. “For one thing, they’d say Byblian or Aradian dye’s as good as Sidonian. W’ith Tyre wrecked, nobody has a sure best any more. And, for another, I’ve seen Sidonians selling for the very same price.”

Tenashtart’s engagingly ugly grin showed a missing bottom front tooth. “I like you, Rhodian, to the crows with me if I don’t. You’ve got balls. But tell me this-why should I give a Hellene the same rate I give my own people?” He translated his words for Ithobaal, who nodded again.

“Why?” Menedemos said. “I’ll tell you why. Because silver is silver, that’s why. Now kindly tell your brother that in Aramaic, too.”

“You’ve got your nerve,” Tenashtart said, but he sounded more admiring than otherwise. He and Ithobaal did go back and forth in their own language, a crackle of sounds strange to Greek ears. When they finished, Tenashtart named another price, this one only a little more than half as high as what he’d suggested before.

“Well, that’s better,” Menedemos said. “I don’t know that it’s good-I still think you charge your own folk less than that-but it’s better. We’ll talk more later. First, though, do you want silver, or are we working a trade?”

“You came here in an akatos,” Tenashtart said. “That means you’re bound to have goodies tucked away under the rowers’ benches. What have you got, and what do you want for it?”

“My cousin took perfume into the country of the Ioudaioi, but I’ve still got plenty left,” Menedemos answered. “A merchant galley can carry a lot more than a pack donkey’s able to.”

“You talking about the rose essence you Rhodians make?” Tenashtart asked. Menedemos dipped his head. The Sidonian said, “That’s good stuff, and it doesn’t get over here all that often. You sell it in those little tiny jars, though, don’t you?”

“Yes. It’s concentrated, so a little goes a long way,” Menedemos said.

“What do you want for one of those jars? No. Wait.” Tenashtart held up a dye-stained hand. “Let’s settle on how many jars of perfume go into one jar of dye. As long as we’re talking about jars, and not sigloi or drakhmai, it seems friendlier, whether it really is or not.”

It didn’t seem friendly to Menedemos for very long. Tenashtart mocked his initial offer. He scorned Tenashtart’s. Each accused the other of being a brigand descended from a long line of pirates and thieves. Each claimed the other was thinking of his own profit at the expense of the deal as a whole. Each was undoubtedly right.

Half a digit’s breadth at a time, they got closer together. The closer they got, the more they railed at each other. After a while, Menedemos grinned at Tenashtart and said, “This is fun, isn’t it?”

Tenashtart got up from his stool and folded Menedemos into a bear hug. “Ah, Hellene, if you’d only stay in Sidon for a year, I’d make a Phoenician out of you, to the crows with me if I wouldn’t.” Then he made an offer hardly more reasonable than his previous one.

Menedemos didn’t want to be a Phoenician. Coming out and saying so struck him as impolitic. He made another offer of his own. Tenashtart rained curses down on him in Greek and Aramaic. They both started laughing, which didn’t mean they stopped yelling at each other or trying to best each other in the bargain.

When at last they clasped hands, they were both sweating. “Whew!”

Menedemos said. “Now we’re both going to say we got cheated, and then we’re both going to make a pile of money on what we just did. But if we see each other again in a couple of years, neither one of us will admit it.”

“That’s how it goes,” Tenashtart agreed. “You’re pretty good, Hellene, Furies take me if you’re not.”

“You’re pretty good yourself,” Menedemos replied. I skinned you, he thought. Tenashtart, no doubt, thought the same. It was a good bargain all the way around.

9

As Sostratos and the sailors from the Aphrodite left Jerusalem, Teleutas heaved a sigh. “That wasn’t such a bad town, even if I couldn’t speak the language,” he said. “The wine was pretty good-”

“And plenty strong,” Moskhion broke in. “Drinking it unmixed isn’t so bad, once you get used to it.”

“No, not half bad,” Teleutas agreed. “The girls were friendly, too, or they acted friendly enough once you gave ‘em silver.” He eyed Sostratos. “You ever get yourself laid while we were there, young sir?”

“Yes, once or twice,” Sostratos answered truthfully. “The girls in the brothel I went to were just girls in a brothel, as far as I’m concerned. They didn’t seem special one way or another.”

He couldn’t say the same about Zilpah, but he didn’t care to talk about the innkeeper’s wife with his escorts. For one thing, he hadn’t actually done anything with her. For another, even if he had… He tossed his head. Menedemos bragged about his adulteries. Sostratos sometimes thought his cousin committed them not least so he could brag about them. If I ever seduce another man’s wife, I hope I’ll have the sense to keep my mouth shut about it.

Aristeidas asked, “How long before we get to this Engedi place?”

“Shouldn’t be more than a couple of days,” Sostratos answered. “It’s supposed to lie by the edge of what they call the Lake of Asphalt, or something like that. They say all sorts of funny things about that lake. They say it holds so much salt, nothing can live in it. And they say that if you walk out into it, you can’t even sink-it’s so salty, you just float in it, the way an egg will float in water if you put enough salt into it.”