“Call it whatever you please,” the Ioudaian said. “But we trade our balsam for silver, weight for weight. How do we make the scales balance with perfume?”

All around the Inner Sea, Phoenician merchants traded balsam of Engedi for twice its weight in silver. Sostratos wanted some of that profit for himself. He said, “I do not sell perfume by weight, but by the jar. For each jar, I would hope to get twenty Sidonian sigloi.”

Eliphaz laughed. “You might hope to get so much, but how likely is it? If you think I will give you twenty shekels’ weight of balsam for one of those paltry little jars, I must ask you to think again.”

“Perfume jars are small because what they hold is boiled many times to make it stronger,” Sostratos said. “All this takes much labor. So does gathering the roses to make the perfume.”

“Do you think there is no labor in making balsam?” Eliphaz demanded.

“Not only is there labor, there is the secret. No one but we of Engedi knows how to do what needs doing.”

“What of the men of Jericho?” Sostratos asked.

“Frauds! Fakes! Phonies, the lot of them!” Eliphaz said. “Our balsam, the balsam of Engedi, is far finer than theirs.”

“Well, my master, all trades have secrets,” Sostratos said. “You grow roses here. Do you make perfume? I think not.”

“Our secret is harder and more important,” the Ioudaian insisted.

“You would say so, of course,” Sostratos answered politely.

Eliphaz muttered in Aramaic. “You are worse than a Phoenician,” he told Sostratos, who smiled as if what was meant for an insult were a compliment. That smile made Eliphaz mutter some more. He said, “Even if I were to give you ten shekels of balsam for one jar, it would be too much.”

“My master, it grieves me to tell a man so obviously wise that he is wrong,” Sostratos said. “But you must know you are speaking nonsense. If you truly believed a jar of perfume was worth less than ten sigloi”-he still had trouble pronouncing the sh sound that began shekels, a sound Greek didn’t use-”you would throw me out, and that would be the end of our dicker.”

“Not necessarily,” Eliphaz said. “I might simply want something to amuse me. And I tell you straight out, it has been a long time since I heard anything so funny as the idea of paying twenty shekels of balsam for a jar of your perfume. You must think that because you come from far away and I stay in Engedi I have no notion of what anything is worth.”

“Certainly not,” said Sostratos, who had hoped for something exactly like that. “But think, my master. How often does Rhodian perfume come here to your town?”

“None has ever come here before,” Eliphaz told him. “And if the price you want for it is any indication, I can understand why not.”

Patiently, Sostratos said, “But when you have the only fine perfume in these parts, for how much will you sell it? Do not think only of prices. Remember, think also of profit after you buy.”

Eliphaz’s smile bared strong yellowish teeth. “I am not a child, Ionian. I am not a blushing virgin brought to the marriage bed. I know about buying, and I know about selling. And suppose I said, all right, I will give you ten shekels’ weight of balsam for a jar. Yes, suppose I said that. You would only scorn me. You would say, ‘It is not enough. You are a thief.’ “

Sostratos smiled, too. He thought he recognized an opening gambit there. “Ten sigloi are not enough,” he agreed, and he let the smile get broader. “You are a thief, my master.”

In Greek, he would have been sure he sounded like a man playacting. In Aramaic, he only hoped he did. When Eliphaz son of Gatam laughed out loud, he grinned with relief: he’d done it right. “You are a dangerous man, Sostratos son of Lysistratos,” the Ioudaian said.

“I do not want to be dangerous,” Sostratos said. “I only want to trade.”

“Ha! So you say. So you say.” Eliphaz shook his head. “Even if I said ten shekels and a half for one of those nasty little jars, still would you laugh. You would not come down at all, not even by one of those tiny coins the governors issue.”

That was an opening gambit. Sostratos realized he would have to move, that he would lose any chance of a deal if he didn’t. “I will come as far as you have come. If you pay me nineteen and a half sigloi of balsam the jar, the perfume is yours.”

“Mesha!” Eliphaz shouted. When the Moabite slave came up, the balsam-maker said, “Fetch more wine. Fetch it at once. We have work to do here, and wine will grease the way.”

Muttering, the slave went off to get the wine. He was still muttering when he came back with it. When he was a free man, had he had Ioudaioi serving him? Raids across a long-established border could produce ironies like that.

Eliphaz haggled as if he had all the time in the world. Plainly, dickering was among his favorite sports. Sostratos knew Hellenes who took the same pleasure in the act of making the deal. He wasn’t among them, though he wanted the best price he could get.

The best price he could get turned out to be fourteen and a half sigloi of balsam per jar of perfume. Eliphaz son of Gatam stubbornly refused to go to fifteen. “I do not need perfume so badly as that,” the Ioudaian said. “It is too much. I will not pay it.”

That left Sostratos muttering to himself. He knew what he could get for the balsam once he took it back to Hellas, and he knew what he could get for the perfume in ports around the Inner Sea. He would make more for the balsam, yes. Would he make enough more to justify this long, dangerous trip to Engedi? Maybe. On the other hand, maybe not.

But, having come so far, could he justify turning around and going back to Sidon without balsam? He doubted he’d get a better price from any of the other balsam-makers; like any other group of artisans, they would talk among themselves. And he was sure he wouldn’t get a much better price.

Did you think this would be easy? he asked himself. Did you think Eliphaz would say, “Oh, twenty sigloi of balsam the jar isn‘t enough-let me give you thirty”? He knew perfectly well he’d thought nothing of the sort. Whether he had or not, though, it would have been nice.

“Fourteen and a half shekels,” Eliphaz said again. “Is it yes, my master, or is it no? If yes, we have a bargain. If no, I am pleased to have met you. Some Ionian soldiers have come here before, but never till now a trader.”

“Fourteen and a half,” Sostratos agreed unhappily, far from sure he was doing the right thing. “It is a bargain.”

“Whew!” the Ioudaian said. If that wasn’t a sigh of relief, it certainly sounded like one. “You are a formidable foe. I am glad most of your people stay far from Engedi. I’d much sooner dicker with Phoenicians.”

Was that true? Or was he just saying it to make Sostratos feel better? It did the job, no doubt of that. “You are a hard bargainer yourself,” Sostratos said, and meant every word of it. He held out his hand.

Eliphaz took it. His grip was hard and firm. “A good bargain,” he declared. “Neither one of us is happy-it must be a good bargain.”

“Yes,” Sostratos said, and then, “A different question: may I bathe in the Lake of Asphalt? Does it hold up a bather so he cannot sink?”

“It does,” Eliphaz answered. “And of course you may. It is there.” He pointed east, toward the water. “How could anyone stop you?”

“May I bathe naked?” Sostratos persisted. “This is the custom of my people, but you Ioudaioi have different rules.”

“You may bathe naked,” Eliphaz said. “You would be polite to bathe well away from women and to dress as soon as you come out of the water. And do not get any of it in your eyes or in your mouth. It burns. It burns very much.”

“Thank you. I will do as you say,” Sostratos told him.

He got Aristeidas to come with him to make sure no light-fingered Ioudaian lifted his tunic after he doffed it. When he walked into the water, he exclaimed in astonishment; it was as warm as blood, as if it were a heated bath. The oceanic smell overwhelmed him. He walked out till the water covered his privates, to satisfy Ioudaian notions of modesty. Then he lifted his feet and leaned back to float.