Most women wanted Sostratos to keep quiet while he was making love to them. Talk before or after might be all right. During? Never before had anyone asked him to talk during. He only wished he could do it in Greek. In Aramaic, he couldn’t say a tenth part of what he wanted to tell her.

But he did his best. In between kisses and caresses, he assured her that she was the loveliest and the sweetest woman he’d ever met, and that anyone who’d missed the chance to tell her the same thing was surely an ass, an idiot, a blockhead. While he said it, he believed it. That his tongue teased her earlobe, the side of her neck, the dark tips of her breasts, that his fingers stroked between her legs and that she arched her back and breathed hard while they did-that might have had something to do with his belief.

She hissed when he went into her. He’d never known a sound like that from a woman. She took her pleasure almost at once and twisted her head so that his pillow muffled most of her moan of joy. He kept on, and kept on, and she heated again, and the second time she gasped and wailed she forgot all about trying to keep quiet. He might have warned her, but his own ecstasy burst over him then, irresistible as an avalanche.

“I love you,” he said again, as soon as pleasure didn’t quite blind him.

Zilpah started to cry. She pushed him away from her. “I have sinned,” she said. “I have sinned, and I am a fool.” She dressed as fast as she could. As she did, she went on, “You will leave tomorrow. If you don’t leave tomorrow, I will tell Ithran what we have done. I have sinned. Oh, how I have sinned.”

“I don’t understand,” Sostratos said.

“What do you need to understand?” Zilpah said. “I was angry at my husband for not speaking sweetly to me, and I made a mistake. I sinned, so the one god will punish me for it.”

Sostratos had heard Ioudaioi talk of sin before. It was something like religious pollution among Hellenes, but stronger. He got the feeling Zilpah thought her bad-tempered god was angry at her. “I will do as you say,” he told her with a sigh.

“You had better.” She hurried out the door. She didn’t slam it, but only, he judged, so she wouldn’t make a scene. He sighed again. He’d had her, and pleased her, and she still wasn’t happy. Am I? he wondered. Part of him was, anyhow. The rest? He wasn’t at all sure about the rest.

10

“I know people say Phoenicians burn their babies when things are going badly for them,” Menedemos told a soldier with whom he was drinking wine. “But is that really true? Do they really offer them to their gods that way? “

“Yea, verily,” the mercenary answered. His name was Apollodoros; he came from Paphos, on Cyprus, and used the old-fashioned island dialect. “In sooth, Rhodian, they do nothing less, reckoning it an act of devotion; any who’d refuse or hide his babes’d be torn in pieces, did word of’s iniquity seep forth.”

“Madness,” Menedemos muttered.

“Aye, belike,” Apollodoros agreed. “But then, could we look for civilized behavior ‘mongst the barbarians, they’d be barbarians no more, but rather Hellenes.”

“I suppose so.” By then, Menedemos had drunk enough to make his wits a little fuzzy, or maybe more than a little. “When my cousin gets back from Ioudaia, I won’t be sorry to say farewell to this place.”

“And you’ll hie you homeward?” the Paphian said. Menedemos dipped his head. Apollodoros waved to the Phoenician tavernkeeper for a refill. The fellow nodded and waved back to show he’d understood, then came over with a jar of wine. The mercenary turned back to Menedemos: “Have you thought of staying here instead?”

“Only in my nightmares,” Menedemos answered. Most of those, these days, revolved around Emashtart. He feared the innkeeper’s wife would haunt his nights for years to come, screeching, Binein! Binein! He’d never known a woman with whom the prospect of physical congress seemed less appealing.

“I meant not as a trader, O best one, not as a merchant,” Apollodoros said, “but as a soldier, a warrior, a fighting man.”

“For Antigonos?”

“Certes, for Antigonos,” the mercenary answered. “A great man, the greatest of this sorry age. For whom would you liefer swing a sword?”

“I’d gladly fight for Rhodes, as any man with ballocks under his prong would fight for his polis,” Menedemos said. “But I never thought to hire myself out.” That would do till a bigger understatement came along.

“Ah, my dear, there’s no life like unto it,” Apollodoros said. “Food and shelter when not on campaign-and pay, too, mind-and all those chances for loot when the drum beats and you fare forth to war.”

“No, thanks,” Menedemos said. “I’m a peaceable sort. I don’t want any trouble with anybody, and I don’t get into fights for the fun of it.”

“By my troth, the more fool you!” Apollodoros exclaimed. “How better to show the world you make a better man than your foe?”

“By taking home silver he should have kept,” Menedemos replied. “By knowing you’ve made him into a fool.”

“A fool?” The mercenary gestured scornfully. “Make him into a slave, or a corpse. An you seek silver, take it by selling the wretch you’ve beaten.”

“This life suits you,” Menedemos said. “That’s plain. I couldn’t live as you do, though. It’s not what I want to do.”

“A pity. You could make a soldier. I see you’re strong and quick. Those count for more than size, nor never let any wight say otherwise.”

“Whether they do or not, I don’t want to carry a spear and a sword and a shield,” Menedemos said.

“Here, drink you more wine,” Apollodoros said, and waved to the taverner to fill Menedemos’ cup again, even though it was still a quarter full.

Menedemos had already drunk enough to grow a little muzzy, yes, but his wits still worked. He’s trying to get me very drunk, very drunk indeed, he thought. Why is he trying to do that? The grinning tapman came up with the winejar. “Wait,” Menedemos said, and put a hand over the mouth of his cup. He turned to the mercenary. “Do you think you can get me blind drunk and turn me into a soldier before I come to and figure out what’s happened to me?”

Apollodoros affected shock and dismay. In the course of many, many dickers, Menedemos had often seen it better done. “Wherefore should I essay so wicked a deed as that, most noble one?” the fellow asked, voice dripping innocence.

“I don’t know why, but I can make some guesses,” Menedemos answered. “How big a bonus do you get for each new recruit you bring in?”

He kept a close eye on the soldier from Paphos. Sure enough, Apollodoros flinched, though he said, “I know not what you mean, my friend, for in sooth I thought but to make symposiasts of us both, that we might revel the whole day through. I’d not bethought me to come upon so fine a boon companion in such a low dive as this.”

“That sounds very pretty,” Menedemos said, “but I don’t believe a word of it.” He drained his cup, then set it back on the table. “I don’t want any more wine,” he told the taverner in Greek. Then, for good measure, he trotted out two words of Aramaic: “Wine? No!” Sostratos would be proud of me, he thought as he got up to go.

“Wait, friend.” Apollodoros set a hand on his arm. “By my troth, you do mistake me, and in the mistaking do me wrong.”

“I don’t want to wait for anything,” Menedemos said. “Farewell.”

But when Menedemos started to leave, Apollodoros hung on tight. “Stay,” the mercenary urged. “Stay and drink.” He didn’t sound so friendly any more,

“Let go of me,” Menedemos said. The soldier still clung to him. He used a wrestling move to try to twist free. Apollodoros made the most obvious counter. Menedemos had thought he would-Apollodoros had little in the way of subtlety in him. Another twist, a sudden jerk, a grab…