He led Sostratos past an exercise yard where soldiers were practicing under the watchful eye and iron lungs of an underofficer. “Lower-spears!” the man bellowed. Down they came. They were so long, several ranks of spearheads projected out past the first rank of men-one reason a phalanx was so hard to oppose. How did a foe get through that hedgehog of spears to the soldiers behind it? The Persians never had found an answer, not from Marathon all the way to Alexander’s time. The closest they’d come was hiring Hellenes to fight for them. In the end, that hadn’t worked, either.

The motion had looked smooth enough to Sostratos, but the underofficer flew into a rage, screaming abuse at the men in Greek and then going into Macedonian when he ran out. Sostratos didn’t get all of that, but it certainly sounded inflammatory. The soldiers looked hot and tired and resigned-even amused-about the underofficer’s curses.

“You come,” the guard said again. He lowered his spear from vertical to horizontal so he could take it down a corridor, A slave coming the other way yelped and flattened himself against the mud-brick wall to keep from getting spitted. The Macedonian laughed. The corridor opened out onto another, smaller, yard. The guard pointed. “There.”

In the courtyard, Alketas stood talking with Dionysios-the commander of the fortress-and two other officers. He waved when he saw Sostratos. “Hail, Rhodian!” he boomed.

“Hail,” Sostratos replied. “How are you today?”

“Couldn’t be better,” the Macedonian replied. “What have you got today? Have you come up with more wine from interesting places?”

In a way, Sostratos hated selling fine wine to someone like Alketas. Like as not, he’d pour it down neat, and get his tongue too numb to savor it after the first couple of gulps. A man who drank to get drunk and not to enjoy what he was drinking deserved to swill something one step above vinegar. Selling him Lesbian and Byblian was almost like pouring them straight into a chamber pot. On the other hand, as Sostratos couldn’t ignore, it was much more profitable.

Today, that issue didn’t arise. “Not wine,” Sostratos answered. “I’ve got something to decorate your quarters, if you’re interested.”

“Oh-ho!” Alketas made curving motions with his hands. “Is she a blonde?” The Macedonians with him laughed.

Sostratos gave back a dutiful smile. “Something, I said, O best one, not someone. No, what I have is… this.” He unfolded the embroidered cloth and spread his arms to display it.

All four Macedonians stared in admiration at the hunting scene. Dionysios said, “That comes out of Mesopotamia, doesn’t it? “ He was the oldest man there, his hair thin on top and more gray than brown.

“Yes, most noble, it does. I got it in Ioudaia, farther west,” Sostratos replied. “How did you know?”

“I saw the like going through that country with the Alexander,” Dionysios said. Greek could show a man’s special status by tacking the article on in front of his name. And who better deserved special status than Alexander?

If he were alive today, he wouldn’t even be fifty. Sostratos thought for a moment, then dipped his head. That was right, even if it seemed unbelievable. He’d been thirty-three when he died, and he was sixteen years dead. This graying general, certainly not a young man but still far from ancient-he was probably younger than Sostratos’ father-had likely been older than the King of Macedonia he’d served. That was a very curious thought.

“What do you want for it?” Dionysios asked now. “Those things don’t come cheap, I know-not unless you steal ‘em. But that’s a fine one, and I wouldn’t mind having it on my own wall.”

“He brought it for me,” Alketas said indignantly. Macedonians stood on very little ceremony among themselves.

“I wouldn’t mind having it, either,” said a third soldier, a fellow with only three fingers on his left hand. And the fourth officer, a foxy-faced, auburn-haired man who looked more Thracian than Macedonian, also dipped his head.

“I’ll give you fifty drakhmai for it,” Dionysios said. “I know you wouldn’t take less.”

In fact, Sostratos would have been glad to get so much. The Phoenician trader had added the cloth to a lump of beeswax to get an extra bottle of Rhodian perfume. But the foxy-faced man waited only a heartbeat before saying, “I’ll give you sixty.”

“Sixty-five, by Zeus!” Alketas exclaimed.

“Seventy!” said the officer with the missing fingers. The Macedonians glared at one another.

Sostratos? Sostratos smiled.

The soldiers kept bidding up the price of the embroidered hunting scene. In between the numbers they shouted, they yelled abuse at each other, first in Greek and then, as their tempers kindled, in the broad Macedonian dialect they’d grown up speaking. As with the underofficer in the other courtyard, Sostratos understood little of that; what he could make out seemed fouler than any insults in common use in Greek.

In due course, the officer with the missing fingers said, “One mina, eighty drakhmai.” He waited. Sostratos waited. The other Macedonians glowered, but none of them bid again. The officer beamed. He made a fist with his good hand and thumped his chest with it. “Mine!” He might have been three years old.

Sullenly, Alketas said, “I don’t care how pretty it is. Nothing’s worth that kind of silver if it doesn’t have a smooth little piggy to screw.” Since his last offer had been only ten drakhmai lower, that struck Sostratos as a case of the fox’s complaining the grapes were sour after he found he couldn’t get them,

“Mine!” repeated the officer with the missing fingers. He reached out to take the cloth from Sostratos.

The Rhodian didn’t give it to him. “Yours when I have my silver,” he said.

“Wait,” the fellow told him, and hurried away. He came back carrying a leather sack, which he thrust at Sostratos. “Here. Go ahead and count them.”

Sostratos blinked. He couldn’t remember the last time a customer gave him that kind of invitation. He hefted the sack. It felt about right. With a shrug, he replied, “Never mind, most noble one. I trust you.” The Macedonian beamed. Sostratos gave him the square of embroidered linen. His smile got wider. He was happy. Sostratos was happy, too. The only unhappy people were the other three Macedonians, the ones the officer had outbid. And they, Sostratos knew, would get over it.

Adrastos the dyer was a fat Phrygian who wore a saffron chiton with a crimson border, as if to show what he could do. His shop was in Peiraieus-not far from where the Aphrodite was tied up, in fact. When he glowered at Menedemos, his bushy eyebrows came together to form a single black bar across his forehead. “You have crimson dye for sale?” he said suspiciously, his Attic Greek good but flavored by the guttural accent of his Anatolian homeland. “I have never seen anyone but Phoenicians selling it up till now-unless you bought it from them and plan to gouge me to make up for what you paid.”

“Not at all, my good fellow,” Menedemos answered, doing his best not to wrinkle his nose against the stink of stale piss clinging to the dyeshop. They all smelled that way; no one knew a better bleach than urine. Menedemos went on, “I did buy my dye from a Phoenician, as a matter of fact.”

“Ha! I knew it,” Adrastos said.

Menedemos held up a hand. “Please, O best one-you didn’t let me finish. I bought it from a Phoenician dyemaker in Sidon when I took my akatos east last year. Because of that, I can charge what the Phoenicians usually do-no middleman’s markup, as you feared.”

“From Sidon, eh?” The dyer still sounded suspicious. “What dye-maker did you deal with there?”

“Tenashtart son of Metena,” Menedemos answered. “Do you know him?”

“I have never met him. I have not traveled to Phoenicia, and I do not think he has ever come to Athens, though I’ve heard he’s traveled to Hellas,” Adrastos said. “But I know of him, and of his firm.” He tugged at his curly black beard. “If you had not dealt with him, I do not think you would know of him.”