Owls to Athens

12

Baukis turned a pirouette in the courtyard. The hem of her long chiton flew up for a moment, displaying a pair of shapely ankles. Menedemos watched appreciatively while doing his best not to be noticed at it: she was showing off for his father, not for him. Sounding anxious, she asked, “Do I look all right?”

Menedemos couldn’t help dipping his head. Philodemos’ eyes, fortunately, were on Baukis. The older man dipped his head, too. “You look fine, my dear,” he said. There, for once, he and Menedemos agreed completely.

His wife clapped her hands together in excitement. Gold glittered on her fingers and on her wrists and in her ears. One of her rings held a big, deep-green emerald Philodemos had bought for himself-for her, in other words-after Menedemos got a good many of the precious stones from a merchant skipper from Alexandria.

“I get to go out in the city!” Baukis said-squeaked, really. She clapped her hands again. “I get to go out in the city without a veil! I even get to go out of the city without a veil!”

Philodemos muttered something, but had the sense not to make it any too clear. The parade to the temple of Hera eight or ten stadia south of the city wall-out beyond the graveyards-was a festival the women of Rhodes looked forward to every year. It gave them a momentary taste of the free and open life custom kept them from living most of the time.

Clouds drifted across the sky. The setting sun tinged them with pink. “I hope it doesn’t rain,” Baukis exclaimed. “That would be awful.”

Philodemos and Menedemos shared an amused glance. Both of them were weatherwise. “I don’t think you need to worry about that, my dear,” Philodemos said, and Menedemos dipped his head. “No rain in those clouds. That shower we had day before yesterday was enough to lay the dust, but we shouldn’t expect much more till later in the rainy season.”

“Oh, good.” Baukis’ smile showed her projecting front teeth, but it also showed how very happy she was. “If you two sailors tell me it’s so, then it must be.” She pointed at Philodemos. “And if it does rain now, I’ll blame you. You know that, don’t you?”

“Of course. People always blame me for everything that goes wrong around here,” Menedemos’ father answered. “The rain’s bound to be my fault, too.” Baukis stuck out her tongue at him. He made as if to swat her on the backside. They both laughed. No Persian torturer could have devised anything more excruciating to Menedemos than the casual, happy byplay between them. Philodemos went on, “Make sure you stay with Lysistratos’ wife and the other women of the neighborhood, mind you. You know how the young rowdies get when the women come out.”

He lowered his brows a little as he looked toward Menedemos. Scandals on nights of religious processions and festivals did happen. Plenty of comedies revolved around who met whom or who ravished whom on such nights. And Menedemos had stolen a kiss or two, and once or twice more than a kiss or two, during festivals. But he just smiled back at his father. Philodemos might be fretting about him and some other woman, but wasn’t worrying about him and Baukis.

“I’ll be careful,” Baukis promised. “And now I’d better go, or else I’ll be late.” She waved to Philodemos and then, plainly as an afterthought, to Menedemos, and hurried toward the door.

That left Menedemos and his father standing in the courtyard by themselves. They turned away from each other, both seeming nervous about being alone together. Menedemos cocked his head to one side and listened to Baukis and other women out and about calling greetings to one another. The same excitement rang in all their voices. They were out on a holiday, out doing something special, out doing something they thought was wonderful.

“And what will you do while the women are having their festival?” Philodemos asked suddenly, swinging back toward Menedemos. “Go out into the city and see if you can grab one and drag her off into the darkness somewhere while she’s on her way home?”

“Did you ever do that, Father, when you were younger? Did you have a favorite spot near the route of the procession where you’d wait and hope for someone pretty to pass by?” Menedemos asked.

“Never mind me,” his father said, a little too quickly. But then Philodemos rallied: “I never brought scandal to the family, and you’d better not, either. Now answer my question. What are you going to do tonight?”

“Me? I was going over to Uncle Lysistratos ’ house myself, to play Sostratos a game or two of diagrammismos. He just bought himself a new game board and pieces.” Menedemos smiled. “Now we can play with dogs even if we don’t go out hunting hares.”

“Pah! You and your foolishness.” But Philodemos dipped his head. “Well, go on, then. That’s not a bad way to spend some time. And if you put a little money on who takes how many dogs, you won’t want to get too drunk, for fear of playing like an idiot and costing yourself some silver.”

“Sostratos never likes to drink much when he’s playing games,” Menedemos said, and then hurried out of the house before his father could start singing hymns of praise to his cousin. He’d heard too many of those, and didn’t care to listen to another.

When he got to the door of his uncle’s house, Sostratos opened it. “The slaves have gone to bed,” he said. “I’ll keep the lamps filled and the wine coming-not that we ought to drink a lot. The game deserves a clear head.”

“Slaves are lazy creatures,” Menedemos said, forgetting that they’d no doubt been working since the sun came up. He set a hand on his cousin’s shoulder. “I told my father you’d want to go easy on the wine.”

“You know me. We know each other. We’d better, by now, like it or not.” By Sostratos’ tone, he wasn’t sure he did always like it. He stepped aside to let Menedemos in. “Come on. I’ve got the game board set up in the andron.”

As Menedemos found when he went into the men’s chamber, Sostratos had also arranged the lamps so they shone on the board to best advantage. A bowl of olives and another of figs sat on the little round table by it, so the cousins could snack as they played. Sostratos dipped up two cups of wine from the mixing bowl. When Menedemos sipped, he said, “What is this? One of wine to three of water?”

“Exactly,” Sostratos said. “That’s a little too weak for an ordinary drink, but it should be about right when we have to pay attention to what we’re doing.”

To Menedemos, it was too weak anyhow, but he let it pass. He sat down in front of the white pieces, Sostratos in front of the black. Diagrammismos was played on a twelve-by-twelve square board. Each player had thirty men, deployed at the start of the game on every other square of the first five rows. Playing the white pieces was supposed to give a slight advantage. Menedemos knew he would need all the help he could get, and probably more besides. He took hold of one of the bone dogs and shoved it forward one square.

Sostratos answered with a move on the far side of the board. The struggle developed rapidly. Whenever Menedemos moved his dogs so that a black piece was between two white ones, either vertically, horizontally, or diagonally, he captured the enemy dog. Whenever his cousin got a white between two blacks, Menedemos’ dog was lost. A clever move could capture more than one piece at a time; a dog could also be sacrificed, losing itself to capture one or, with luck, more of his opponent’s pieces. A piece could leap over an enemy to an open square just beyond, but did not necessarily capture by doing so. Sostratos massed his dogs into a formation experienced players called a polis. Menedemos tried to match him, but his mind wasn’t altogether on the game. Before too long, he was down to one lonely dog, and Sostratos, with eight black pieces left, hunted him down and captured him.

“Got you!” he said, picking up the last white dog. “Try again?”

“Yes, let’s,” Menedemos answered. “You’re a better player than I am, but I can put up more of a fight than that.” They rearranged the dogs. Menedemos went first again. He did give Sostratos a tougher game the second time, but lost again.

Sostratos set up the dogs to show a crucial position late in the game. “If you’d gone here instead of here, you would have had me in trouble,” he said, moving a piece different from the one Menedemos had chosen. “Do you see?”

“Afraid I do,” Menedemos said ruefully. “And I see you’re going to bring that polluted board along when we sail next season, aren’t you, so you can thump me like a drum every night?”

“It won’t be so bad,” said Sostratos, who plainly intended to do just that. “You win some of the time when we play, and you get better when we play regularly. I’ve seen that. And watching is fun, too. It’ll help keep the whole crew happy.”

“Maybe.” Menedemos sounded unconvinced. “I’ll tell you, though, when somebody who’s watching a game says, ‘You thick-skinned idiot, you should have moved there,’ I don’t think it’s fun. I want to clout the whipworthy villain.”

“Mm, that’s true. So do I,” Sostratos said. “Most people know better, but one bigmouth is plenty to ruin things.” He paused and muttered, then spoke aloud: “Teleutas would do something like that, and laugh afterwards.”

“He probably would. But many goodbyes to him. He’s sailed with us four years in a row, and this’ll be the last,” Menedemos said.

“About time.” His cousin reached for the dogs, which sat on the table by the board. “One more game? After that, I think I’ll turn in.”

“All right. Why not?” Menedemos set up the pieces with him. He made the first move. Again, he gave Sostratos a hard fight. Again, Sostratos beat him. Sighing, Menedemos helped his cousin put the dogs back in the drawer built into the game board. “Almost,” he said. “Almost, but not quite. Do you terrorize Uncle Lysistratos, too?”

“Father and I are pretty even, as a matter of fact,” Sostratos replied. “I haven’t played your father lately. From what I remember, though, and from what my father says, he’s the dangerous one in the family.”

“He would be,” Menedemos said darkly. He hadn’t played diagrammismos with his father since he was a youth. He’d lost then, but marked it down to youthful inexperience. He didn’t want to try it again now. Knowing his father, he’d get trounced again, and would get sardonic lessons on the game along with the trouncing. That he could do without.

Sostratos ignored his comment, which was probably just as well. “Come on. I’ll walk you to the door,” he said. “Do you want a torch-bearer to light your way back to your house? I can wake a slave.”

“If I were going across town, I would,” Menedemos answered. “Across the street? Not likely, my dear, though I thank you for the thought. Farewell.” He went out through the door. Sostratos closed it after him.

Menedemos looked toward his own house. No lights showed at any of the windows he could see. His father’s room faced toward Uncle Lysistratos ’ house. It was as dark as the rest, so presumably the older man had already gone to bed. Bare feet silent on the hard-packed dirt of the street, Menedemos went around till he could see all the windows. No, not a lamp lit anywhere.

The sky was dark, too. The moon wouldn’t rise till midnight; the festival of Hera took place on the night of the third-quarter moon. Zeus’ wandering star had blazed low in the west when the evening began, but it was setting now; buildings kept Menedemos from being sure whether it had already slipped below the horizon. Kronos’ wandering star, dimmer and yellower, still glowed in the southwestern sky. It was the only wanderer Menedemos could see. Only starlight and a few lamps shining through shutter slats in other houses gave his eyes something to work with.

Someone hurried down the street not far away. Menedemos’ hand fell to the knife he wore on his belt. Maybe I should have had a torch-bearer after all, he thought. As in any Hellenic city, night was the time when the thieves and robbers came out. Rhodes had fewer than most, or so Menedemos had always thought. But meeting even one could prove disastrous.

This fellow, though, ignored Menedemos. He hurried south, toward the center of town. Menedemos brought a hand up to his mouth to muffle a chuckle. The other man was no thief, except perhaps of love. He was probably off to grab a woman-maybe one woman in particular, maybe any woman he could-when the celebrants came back from Hera ’s temple. Menedemos had done the same thing himself in years gone by. Sometimes he’d had good luck, sometimes none.

Another man, and then another, also slipped south. Menedemos stayed where he was. Only one woman mattered to him right now. He knew Baukis would be coming back to this part of town, to this very street. He didn’t have to go looking for her. She would be here.

And then what? he asked himself. She’s still your father’s wife. If you do anything like what you’re thinking of doing… He tossed his head. He hadn’t done anything yet, or hadn’t done anything much, anyhow. One kiss in three years-what was that? It couldn’t be anything.

You shouldn’t be out here. You should be in bed. You should be asleep. Relentless as the Furies, relentless as storm waves, his conscience battered him. At last, to his surprise, it beat him back inside the house. Maybe I really will curl up and go to sleep. I’ll feel good about it in the morning. For him, feeling virtuous was a pleasant novelty.

He lay down, but sleep, no matter how coaxed, would not come. He stared up at the ceiling, his thoughts full of trouble. He knew what he should do, and he knew what he wanted to do, and the one had nothing to do with the other. Presently, the darkness in his room grew a little less absolute. A strip of moonlight came through the window. Menedemos muttered a curse.

Not too long after the moon came up, he heard in the distance hundreds-no, thousands-of women’s voices raised in song. As they returned to the polis from the shrine, the women of Rhodes were praising the majesty of white-armed Hera. The chorus grew louder and sweeter as they drew nearer.

“ ‘Of Hera I sing, she of the golden throne, to whom Rheia gave birth,’ “ the women chanted.

“ ‘Queen of the immortals, who is outstanding for her beauty, And the wife and sister of loud-thundering Zeus. The glorious one, of whom all the blessed on lofty Olympos Stand in awe and honor like Zeus who delights in thunder.’ “

“ Zeus!” Menedemos said. It wasn’t a prayer. He sprang to his feet and threw on his chiton. When he left his room, he closed the door behind him. Anyone walking by would think he remained inside. Quiet as an owl gliding on soft-feathered wings, he went downstairs and left the house.

The women’s song filled the city as one group after another left the main procession and went off toward their homes. Here and there, Menedemos also heard squeals and giggles and a couple of shrieks as Rhodian men paid calls of one sort or another on the returning women.

Voices raised in song came up the street toward Menedemos’ house and the one where Sostratos lived. Menedemos ducked into a moon shadow blacker than the ink he and his cousin had sold in Athens. “Farewell!” he heard again and again, as women left the group, left the festival, and returned to their homes and their everyday lives.

And there came Baukis, arm in arm with Aunt Timokrate, both of them still hymning the praises of Zeus ’ consort. They stopped in front of Sostratos’ mother’s house. “Good night, dear,” Timokrate said.

“Farewell,” Baukis said. “Wasn’t that wonderful?”

“It always is,” the older woman answered. “To be one with the goddess…”

“To be out in the city,” Baukis said. “To be out of the city!”

Timokrate laughed. “There is that,” she agreed. Then she yawned, and laughed again. “To be out when I’m usually sleeping.”

“I don’t think I’ll sleep all night.” Baukis’ voice thrummed with excitement like a plucked kithara string.

“All right, dear. I know I will.” Aunt Timokrate sounded amused, and tolerant of her sister-in-law’s youth. She opened the door, said, “Good night,” one more time, and went inside.

Baukis sighed, then picked up the song of praise once more as she started to her own home. Menedemos hardly heard her above the hammering of his own heart. You can let her go in ahead of you, then go in yourself and go back to bed. No one would be the wiser. You can.

He stepped out of the shadow. Baukis’ hymn to Hera suddenly stopped. She froze. “Who’s there?”

“Only me.” Menedemos’ voice stumbled. His legs as light with fear as if he were going into a sea fight, he came toward her.

“Oh, Menedemos.” Baukis’ reply was only the tiniest thread of whisper. “What are you doing here?”

He almost laughed. But it wasn’t funny, and he knew it wasn’t, and she had to know as much, too. Without a word, without a sound, he reached out and brushed her cheek with the back of his hand.

It could have ended there. She might have flinched. She might have fled. She might have screamed. Instead, she sighed and shivered as if a winter downright Macedonian had all at once descended on this tiny corner of Rhodes. “Oh, Menedemos,” she said again, this time in an altogether different tone of voice. She shivered again. “We shouldn’t.”

“I know,” he answered. “But…” A shrug. “I’ve been trying to pretend this isn’t here for three years now. Every spring, I’ve run away to sea so I wouldn’t have to think about you. Every fall, when I come home…” He half turned away, but then swung back, drawn as irresistibly as iron by a lodestone. He stroked her cheek again. Just for the fragment of a heartbeat, her breath warmed his palm. But he was already on fire-or was that ice?

Baukis started to turn away, too, but found herself as unable as Menedemos. “We shouldn’t,” she said again. She looked up at the star-crowded sky. Menedemos stared, entranced, at the smooth line of her throat in moonlight. Maybe love was a disease. But how many other diseases did the physicians know where the sufferer wanted anything but to be cured?

Afterwards, he never knew which of them moved first. One instant, they stood close together, but not touching. The next, they were in each other’s arms, each one trying to squeeze the breath from the other. The soft firmness of Baukis pressed against him drove Menedemos even further into that delicious madness everyone said he ought to fear.

And he was afraid, but not of that madness, only of what might come from it. His lips found hers. The kiss was deep and desperate: drowning-deep, and he never wanted to come up for air. At last, he had to. He trailed more kisses along the angle of her jaw, the side of her neck, the lobe of her ear, her fluttering eyelids. When his lips touched her cheek, he tasted tears, but she clung to him as if her ship had sunk and he were the only floating spar.

She still might have fled. When he cupped the round fullness of her breast through her tunic, he thought for a moment she would, even if her firm nipple thrust against the soft wool of the chiton. But then, with what might have been laugh or sob or both commingled, she clung to him more fiercely than ever. They kissed again. Baukis moaned, down deep in her throat.

Menedemos led her back to the shadowed wall where he’d waited. Some things, even the silent moon should not see. Baukis bent forward. “Oh,” she said softly when he went into her. He set his hands on her hips, just where they swelled from her narrow waist. She looked back over her shoulder at him. “Hurry!”

Menedemos also knew he had to be quick, and did his best. But as much as he wanted to hurry, he wanted to please Baukis more. If he didn’t, after waiting so long… The irony there was too cruel to contemplate. As his pleasure mounted and his breath came short, he listened anxiously to make sure hers did, too. Then a small mewling cry burst from her lips. She quivered, inside and out. Menedemos groaned as he spent himself.

Baukis pulled away from him and straightened. Her hiked-up chiton fell down around her ankles once more. “Darling,” Menedemos said, quickly setting his own tunic to rights. He kissed her again. “I do love you.”

“Yes.” Baukis sounded as if she’d only half heard him. Her thoughts were elsewhere. “I’ll go in first, and I won’t bar the door. If you don’t hear a commotion, you’ll know your father-my husband-is still asleep.” She gulped. He wondered if she would start to cry. Guilt filled some women after they were unfaithful; the innkeeper’s wife Sostratos had known in Ioudaia was of that sort. But Baukis gathered herself, finishing, “And the slaves, too, of course.”

“And the slaves,” Menedemos echoed. “We’ll have to act as though nothing’s happened in the morning, you know.”

She dipped her head. “Oh, yes. I’ll remember. Don’t you forget.”

That was probably-no, certainly-good advice. Menedemos knew how much his father tried him. The temptation to fling this in Philodemos’ face might grow overwhelming. He would have to hold it down. From the very first, he’d seen this could be death between them if it ever came to pass. Now it had, and now the secret had to stay a secret forever.

He kissed Baukis once more. She clung to him for a moment, then twisted free. “I’m going. If there’s any trouble, I’ll try to let you know. I-” She stopped. Had she been about to say, 1 love you? He never knew. She squared her shoulders and, almost as if marching into battle, went into the house.

Menedemos waited, there in the shadows. He cocked his head to one side, anxiously listening. All he heard were an owl and, off in the distance, a last hymn to Hera that suddenly stopped as the woman singing it found her way home. No sound of any sort came from inside the house.

He waited a little longer all the same. Then, as quietly as he could, he went to the door. He opened it, slid inside, and closed it behind him. When he reached for the bar, he made sure he took firm hold of it and didn’t drop it as he set it in the brackets: the clatter would have roused the whole household. He breathed a silent sigh of relief after setting it in place.

At the edge of the courtyard, he paused again to listen. Everything was quiet but for a horrible rasping snore coming from Sikon’s room. Sleeping on his back, Menedemos thought. Whenever the cook rolled over, he sounded like a sawmill.

Quickly, Menedemos crossed the courtyard, tiptoed upstairs, and ducked into his own room. He barred his door as carefully as he had the one to the house. Then he lay down, stared at the ceiling as he had earlier in the night, and let out a long sigh. “I did it,” he murmured. “I really did it.”

That wasn’t pride talking. He didn’t quite know what it was. Guilt? Shame? Some of those, more than he’d expected. Adultery for adultery’s sake was losing its appeal. But what had passed between Baukis and him was more than adultery for adultery’s sake, and what he felt had little to do with pride. Even though guilt and shame were mixed into it, they were only part-and a small part at that-of what crashed through him like storm waves. Up till now, he’d never made love with a woman with whom he was in love. All at once, he fully understood why the passion was so powerful, so dangerous. The only thing he could think of was making love to Baukis again.

I can’t do that, he realized, and the knowledge burned like a viper’s venom. The next time Baukis made love, she would lie in his father’s arms. The mere idea filled Menedemos with fury. He’d long known that, if he was to lie with his father’s wife, that could make Philodemos want to kill him. He’d never dreamt lying with Baukis might make him want to kill his father.

I can’t do that, either, he thought. Part of him wished he’d stayed here alone in his room the whole night long. The rest, though… The rest wanted, yearned for, craved, more of Baukis than he could get from a quick coupling in darkest shadow. He wanted… He wanted to yawn, and did, enormously.

Next thing he knew, the morning sun was streaming through that east-facing window. He yawned once more, and stretched, and got out of bed. Had last night been real? Memory flooded back. It had! He put on his chiton and went out into the courtyard, intent on getting some breakfast.

His father was already there, talking with one of the house slaves. “Good day,” the older man said when Menedemos emerged. “I wondered if you’d sleep the sun around and only come out at night, like an owl.”

“Hail, Father,” was all Menedemos said in reply. He glanced at the sun. It had risen almost three hours earlier, or he missed his guess.

Philodemos’ eyes went the same way. “Don’t tell me you were playing games with Sostratos all night long,” Menedemos’ father said. “He’s not in the habit of staying up so late. You went prowling for women afterwards, didn’t you? You must have found one, too, eh?”

A southbound crane flew by overhead. Menedemos watched it without saying anything. It was a straggler; most of its kind had gone south nearly a month before.

With an exasperated sigh, Philodemos asked, “Did you bring scandal down on our house? Will some angry husband lurk in the street outside, waiting for the chance to stick a knife in you?”

Still watching the crane, Menedemos tossed his head. “No, Father. You don’t have to worry about that.” True. You wouldn’t need to lurk in the street if you decided to knife me.

“You must have found some slut, then, a wench who’s as sunk in vice as you are,” Philodemos growled.

Rage and horror filled Menedemos. You fool! You’re talking about your own wife! One more thing he couldn’t-mustn’t-say. This felt like something out of a tragedy. And was Baukis listening, up there in the women’s quarters? How could she be doing anything else? What sort of fight would she have to make now, just to hold her face straight?

“By the dog of Egypt, son, what am I going to do with you?” Philodemos said.

Menedemos only shrugged. “I don’t know, Father. If you’ll excuse me…” He hurried off to the kitchen, where he got a couple of barley rolls, some olive oil, and a cup of watered wine for breakfast. He watered it less than he might have; Sikon, who was kneading dough for the day’s baking, leered at him. Menedemos ignored the cook. He made a point of ignoring him: made it so obviously, Sikon couldn’t keep from laughing.

Philodemos came into the kitchen, too. Sikon immediately fell silent and started kneading as if his life depended on it. Menedemos would sooner have dealt with the cook than with his father. Philodemos wagged a finger under his nose. “When are you going to stop your nonsense and make a proper man of yourself?” he demanded.

“ Admiral Eudemos thinks I make a proper man now,” Menedemos answered.

“He worries about what you do at sea. I worry about what you do ashore. And what do you suppose he’d say to that if he knew about it?” his father snapped.

“From some of the stories he was telling when we celebrated after my patrol in the Dikaiosyne, he’s chased a woman or two-dozen- himself,” Menedemos said. Philodemos made a disgusted noise. Menedemos pointed at him. “And what about you, Father? I asked you before-when you were younger, didn’t you ever try your luck when the women were coming home from a festival?” As long as you think I had some other man’s wife, this is another verse of the same old song. I hate it, hut I can put up with it. But if you ever find out it was Baukis… He shivered and raised the cup of wine to his lips.

Philodemos turned a dull red. “Never mind me. We’re not talking about me. We’re talking about you.”

Menedemos could guess what that probably meant. He kept quiet, though. So could Sikon, and the cook knew no such restraint. He let out a loud, rude snort, then attacked the bread dough more fiercely than ever, as if trying to pretend he’d done no such thing.

From dull red, Philodemos went the color of iron in a smith’s fire. His glare seared Sikon. “You mind your own business,” he snarled.

“Yes, master,” Sikon muttered: one of the few times Menedemos had ever heard him acknowledge he was a slave and not the lord of the household.

Philodemos also heard the submission, heard it and took it as no less than his due. His attention swung back to Menedemos. “We’re talking about you,” he repeated. “I want you to behave respectably from now on. Do you hear me?”

“Yes, Father.” All Menedemos wanted was escape. He told the truth: he did hear his father. As for behaving respectably… after last night, too late for that. Or was it? What was respectability but not getting caught? No one knew what had passed but Baukis and him. As long as that stayed true, he could go on living under the same roof with his father. He said, “I’ll do my best.”

Gruffly, Philodemos said, “You’d better.” But he sounded at least a little mollified. Maybe he hadn’t expected even so much. Fie turned on his heel and left the kitchen.

After Menedemos finished breakfast, he went back out to the courtyard. He hadn’t gone more than a couple of paces before stopping dead. Along with his father, Baukis stood there, looking at a plant in the garden. She went pale when she saw him. Natural. You have to act natural, he shouted to himself. “Good day,” he said, and hoped his voice didn’t shake too much.

“Hail,” she managed, in something like her usual tones.

To Menedemos’ vast relief, his father noticed nothing amiss. Philodemos said, “Now that we’ve had some rain, things are starting to sprout.”

“They certainly are,” Menedemos agreed. Baukis looked down at her feet. Menedemos remembered standing behind her and… He felt his face heating. Going on as if nothing had happened would be harder than he’d ever dreamt. If he didn’t betray himself, his father’s wife was liable to. She’s only seventeen, he reminded himself. She’s a woman, yes, but barely.

Perhaps fearing to give the game away, Baukis retreated to the house. Menedemos’ father rounded on him. “Now that you’ve slept half the day away like a lazy hound, what will you do with the rest of it?”

“I don’t know, Father. I was going to go out into the city,” Menedemos answered.

“And go looking for the house of the woman you debauched last night?” Philodemos said. “Wasn’t once enough to satisfy you? How much trouble will you find for yourself? “

Once wasn’t anywhere close to enough, Menedemos thought. Aloud, he said, “I know where she lives, but I don’t intend to go anywhere near there.” That was a truth, but a deceptive truth. It made his father roll his eyes. Menedemos went on, “By Zeus of the aegis, Father, I don’t.” The oath made Philodemos take him a little more seriously. He added, “My life would get more complicated than it’s worth if I did.”

“Well, at least you realize that much,” Philodemos said. “I thought you’d be blind to it, the way cockhounds usually are. Go on, then.”

Menedemos left, doing his best to saunter and not flee. Once out in the street, he sighed loud and long. No, he hadn’t begun to realize how hard this would be.

There had been years when seeing the Aphrodite drawn up out of the water at the Great Harbor in Rhodes left Sostratos sad. That seemed less true now than in times gone by. He had thought of the merchant galley as something almost magical: like Hermes ’ winged sandals, she could sweep him away to lands strange and mysterious, and what could be more marvelous than that? After going back to Athens, to the polis for which he’d pined like a man mourning a lost love, he thought he had an answer to that, which he hadn’t before. What could be more marvelous than going off to lands strange and mysterious? Coming back to a home you loved.

Khremes the carpenter waved to Sostratos. “Hail, son of Lysistratos. How are you today?”

“Well, thanks,” Sostratos answered. “And yourself?” “Pretty well,” Khremes said. “My son gave me a grandchild this summer, while you were at sea.”

“Congratulations!” Sostratos said. “You’re young to be a grandfather.” That was no idle compliment; he doubted Khremes was much above fifty, and most men among the Hellenes didn’t marry till they were thirty or so.

Sure enough, the carpenter chuckled in mingled embarrassment and pride. “I’ll tell you what it is: we’re a hot-pronged bunch, my family. I liked the thought of screwing without paying for it so well, I talked my father into letting me wed early. And Aristion, he’s the same way. I had to marry him off. I was afraid he’d get some respectable girl in trouble.”

“You don’t want that,” Sostratos agreed. “A feud between families doesn’t do anybody any good.”

They chatted a little while longer, then went their separate ways. Sostratos strolled south along the edge of the Great Harbor, eyeing the ships tied up at the quays or drawn up onto dry land. Most of them were as familiar to him as acquaintances he might meet in the agora. Every so often, he would note one that had had some major work done since the last time he saw her. He started with the same surprise he might have shown on seeing a bald man who came out sporting a wig.

He also saw a few ships that were new to him. One in particular gave him pause: a merchant galley bigger than the Aphrodite , and almost lean enough to make a pirate ship. Pointing to her, he asked a harborside lounger, “What ship is this, O best one?”

The man didn’t answer. He might have been afflicted with deafness, or perhaps with idiocy. He might have been, but he wasn’t. Sostratos knew exactly what his trouble was. An obolos effected a miraculous cure. Once the lounger had popped the little silver coin into his mouth, he said, “That’s the Thalia, friend.”

“Abundance, eh? A good name for a merchant ship,” Sostratos said. “Who owns her?”

He wondered if the other Rhodian would have the hubris to try to squeeze a second obolos from him. The fellow started to, then visibly thought better of it. He said, “She belongs to Rhodokles son of Simos.”

“Does she?” Sostratos said, and the lounger dipped his head. “He’s come into some silver, then.” Rhodokles was a competitor. Up till now, he’d never been a serious competitor. His ships had all been older and smaller than the Aphrodite and the other vessels Philodemos and Lysistratos owned. The Thalia, though, could go anywhere on the Inner Sea, and could get where she was going as fast as anything afloat.

Thoughtfully, Sostratos asked, “Has he got any others like her?”

This time, the other man did dummy up. Instead of paying him again, Sostratos turned his back. That earned him some of the hottest, earthiest curses he’d ever got. He ignored them and walked away. The lounger cursed louder, which won him no money.

Sostratos paused by a large, ramshackle warehouse only a long spit from the sea. No one stirred there till he stuck his head in the doorway and called, “Somebody’s giving away decorated drinking cups in the agora.”

He waited. He didn’t have to wait long. A deep-voiced, gutturally accented rumble came from the bowels of the building: “Giving them away?” Out came Himilkon the Phoenician, swaddled in his long robe. A gold ring gleamed in one ear; more gold shone on several fingers. When he spotted Sostratos, suspicions spread across his narrow, hook-nosed face. “You liar, you cozener, you trickster!” he began, and went on from there. When he ran out of Greek, he switched to Aramaic.

Since he’d taught Sostratos that language, the Rhodian followed some of it. Even if he hadn’t, the sounds would have been plenty to show Himilkon’s displeasure. With its coughs and grunts and choking noises, Aramaic was a tongue made to show anger.

When Himilkon at last slowed down a little, Sostratos used a sentence of Aramaic of his own: “Peace be unto you, my friend.”

“And to you also peace,” Himilkon said grudgingly, “so long as you do not trick an honest man like that. What do you want? Besides trouble, I mean.”

“Trouble? Me? No.” Sostratos spoke in Aramaic, as the Phoenician merchant had. Having learned the language, he was glad to get a chance to use it, to keep it fresh. He did his best to look innocent. Instead of tossing his head to show that he hadn’t meant to cause trouble, he shook it. He wanted to act as much like a native speaker as he could.

Himilkon noticed. Very little went on around Himilkon that he didn’t notice. Still in his own language, he said, “Most Ionians”-in Aramaic, all Hellenes were Ionians, probably because Aramaic-speakers had met them first-”Most Ionians, I say, who took the trouble to learn my speech (and precious few care about any language but their own) would not bother with the gestures my folk use.”

“If I do something, my master, I want to do it well. I want to do it as I should.” In Greek, Sostratos would never have called any man his master. In Aramaic, though, it was only a polite phrase: another illustration of the difference between the two tongues, and of the differences in the thoughts of the men who spoke them. The Rhodian cast about for a word in Himilkon’s language. Failing to find it, he dropped back into Greek: “When I do something, I want to do it thoroughly.”

“Your slave has known you for some years now, and has noticed this about you, yes.” Even speaking Greek, Himilkon kept flowery Aramaic turns of phrase. Sostratos tried not to talk like a Hellene when using Aramaic; how well he succeeded might have been a different story.

Sostratos wondered how many people had noticed that about him. When men talked about him while he wasn’t there, did they say things like, “Sostratos will drive you mad, trying to nail down every last little detail”? He hoped they did. A reputation for taking pains was far from the worst thing in the world.

Himilkon returned to Aramaic: “If you did not come here to wring my liver with your japes, my master, for what reason did you assail my peace?”

“To see what you got while Menedemos and I were in Athens,” Sostratos replied. He had to pause for a heartbeat to come up with the second-person plural masculine verb form; Aramaic conjugations took gender into account, which Greek verb forms (except participles) didn’t. “To learn if you have anything we might want for the next sailing season.”

“When you bought papyrus from me last winter, you called me a thief,” Himilkon said. “But now you want to do more business, eh?”

“I had to beat you down to a price where I could add in my profit and still sell in Athens at a level where other people could afford to buy,” Sostratos said-in Greek, the idea being too complex for his rusty Aramaic. “I managed to do that. And besides, tell me you’ve never called me such names and I’ll tell you you’re a liar.”

“I?” Himilkon was the picture of affronted dignity. He too went on in Greek: “I am calm. I am restrained. I am judicious.” Sostratos laughed out loud. Himilkon glared. “I am going to bash you in the head with a board.”

“A calm, restrained, judicious board, I have no doubt,” Sostratos replied.

That made Himilkon laugh. “No one who grew up speaking Aramaic would ever think to call a board restrained or judicious. You Hellenes can do strange things with your language. That is probably why you are such a peculiar folk.”

Now Sostratos, reminded he was a Hellene, tossed his head to show he disagreed. “We’re not strange,” he said. “It’s all you folk who aren’t Hellenes who are strange.”

Himilkon laughed raucously. “No, O marvelous one, this time you are wrong. Everybody from Karia to Carthage, as the saying goes, thinks Hellenes are the ones who are peculiar. And if you go farther east, if you go among Phoenicians or Egyptians or Persians, well, they will all say the same thing. This proves my point; is it not so?”

Sostratos laughed once more to hear a barbarian use a stock tagline from any number of philosophical dialogues. The Rhodian also tossed his head again. “I’m sorry, my dear, but it proves nothing of the sort.”

“What? Why not?” Himilkon’s already swarthy features darkened with anger.

“Well, wouldn’t everyone from Karia to Carthage say Egyptians are strange because of all the funny animal-headed gods they worship and the picture-writing they use?”

“Certainly. Egyptians are strange,” Himilkon answered. “They do everything the opposite of the way most people do.”

That made Sostratos laugh yet again, for Herodotos had written almost the same thing about the Egyptians. Sostratos went on, “And wouldn’t everyone say the Ioudaioi are strange, with their god whom no one can see and who forbids them from doing so many perfectly ordinary things?”

“Oh, yes. The Ioudaioi are strange, too, no doubt about it. They are full of wicked customs.” Himilkon spoke with the certainty and scorn only a neighbor could have.

“Some people,” Sostratos remarked, “some people, mind you, might even say Phoenicians are strange.”

“What?” Himilkon stared at him. “What a daft notion! Phoenicians strange? We are the salt of the earth, the most ordinary folk around. How could anyone, even an idiot”-he eyed Sostratos in a speculative way-”think Phoenicians are strange?”

“Well, for one thing, you burn your own children in times of trouble,” Sostratos replied.

“That is not strangeness. That is piety, to show the gods we are their slaves and would give them anything and everything we have,” Himilkon said, “It is only because other folk are not religious enough to do the same that it seems odd to them.”

“There you are!” Sostratos pounced. “Whatever any one folk does will seem odd to other people. That doesn’t prove the folk really is strange.”

“Well… maybe,” Himilkon said. Sostratos thought he’d vanquished the Phoenician, but Himilkon added, “Of course, you Hellenes do a great many odd things, which is why everyone else thinks you are peculiar.”

“Oh, never mind,” Sostratos said in some irritation. “We were going to go into your warehouse when all this came up.”

“I suppose we were.” Himilkon didn’t seem angry about the argument. Belatedly, Sostratos realized he was lucky. Some people got offended when you presumed to disagree with them. He didn’t want Himilkon offended, not when he did business with him. The Phoenician asked, “Where do you think you will go next spring? That will have something to do with what I show you.”

“I’m not certain yet,” Sostratos said. “Perhaps Alexandria. I’ve never been there, but a new, wide-open city like that gives a man plenty of chances for profit.”

“Alexandria,” Himilkon echoed. “Now there I have never been, either. In your grandfather’s day, you know, or maybe your great-grandfather’s, Rhodes was a new, wide-open city like that.”

“Maybe.” But Sostratos didn’t sound convinced. “ Rhodes never had all the wealth of Egypt to draw on, though.”

“Not back then, she didn’t,” the Phoenician merchant said. “Now she does.” With all the trade from Ptolemaios’ realm that went through Rhodes these days, that held some truth: quite a bit, in fact. Himilkon ducked into the warehouse and gestured for Sostratos to follow. “Here, come along with me.”

Sostratos was glad to obey. Himilkon’s place of business fascinated him, for he could never be sure what would turn up there. He paused inside the doorway to let his eyes adapt to the gloom in the warehouse. He needed to see where he was going, for the passageways between cabinets and shelves were narrow. Things stuck out, ready either to trip him or to poke him in the eye. His nostrils twitched. Himilkon stocked frankincense, myrrh, cinnamon, and pepper, along with other spices and incenses the Rhodian had more trouble identifying.

“Here.” Himilkon paused and took down a box of curious workmanship made from a pale wood Sostratos had never seen before. “Tell me what you think of.. this.” With a melodramatic flourish, Himilkon opened the box.

“ Amber!” Sostratos exclaimed. The box was full of the precious, honey-colored stuff. It too had a faint, spicy odor, or maybe Sostratos was still smelling all the other things in the warehouse. He reached out and picked up a piece. Even unpolished like this, it was smooth against his palm. “Is that a fly trapped inside it?” he said, bringing it up close to his face for a better look.

“Let me see.” Himilkon took it from him. “Some kind of bug, anyway. You find that fairly often in amber, you know. That piece you picked up isn’t the only one in the box with something in it.”

“I do know that about bugs,” Sostratos said. “I just wonder how they could get into the stone in the first place. It’s almost as if they got stuck in pine resin, and then the resin somehow petrified.”

“I don’t see how that could happen,” Himilkon said.

“I don’t, either,” Sostratos admitted. “But it does look that way, doesn’t it?”

“I suppose so,” the Phoenician said. “But I didn’t show you the amber on account of bugs. I showed it to you because it is something that comes down from the north. Alexandria has all manner of strange and wonderful things that come up the Nile. But does Alexandria have amber? I do not think so. Will the jewelers of Alexandria want amber? There, I think they will.”

Sostratos thought they would, too. No matter what he thought, he didn’t care to admit it to Himilkon. He said, “I don’t even know yet if I want amber, O best one. That depends on how much I have to pay for it, and on what I can hope to get for it in Alexandria.”

“Well, yes, of course,” Himilkon said. “I am not in this for my health, either, you know. If I cannot make a profit, I will not sell you the lovely stuff at all.”

“If I can’t make a profit, I won’t buy,” Sostratos said. They glared at each other. Sostratos had looked for nothing else. In some exasperation, he asked, “How much do you want for all the amber you have in this box?”

“Three minai,” Himilkon replied at once.

“Three minai?” Sostratos made as if he couldn’t believe his ears. Actually, the price was more reasonable than he’d expected. But he couldn’t let the Phoenician know that, or he’d lose the dicker before it even began. He threw his hands in the air to show the dismay he was supposed to be feeling. “That’s ridiculous!” he said. “If I want my blood sucked, I’ll go to an inn and let the bedbugs do it.”

Himilkon made a face, as if he’d just taken a big swig of vinegar. “Funny man,” he said. “You Hellenes write these comedies to go on the stage. This I know. Are you practicing to do one of them? I know you want to write things.”

“Not comedies, by the dog of Egypt, and I wasn’t joking,” Sostratos answered. “You’ve given me a price you can’t possibly expect me to pay.” The more he pretended to be outraged, the more real outrage he felt. He knew that made no rational sense, but he’d had it happen before in other dickers.

Setting hands on hips, Himilkon haughtily demanded, “Well, O marvelous one, how much does your Majesty think the amber is worth?”

“Oh, a mina’s probably a little high, but not too,” Sostratos said.

“One mina? One?” Himilkon’s eyes bulged. The veins in his neck swelled. So did the smaller ones on his forehead. He let loose with a torrent of Aramaic that should have burned down not only his warehouse but half the city. It amounted to “no,” but he was a good deal more emphatic about it than that.

“Have a care, my dear, or you’ll do yourself an injury,” Sostratos said.

“Oh, no. Oh, no.” Himilkon shook his head, too upset to impersonate the Hellenes. “I may do you an injury, but not myself. You are a brigand, a bandit, a pirate…” He ran out of Greek and went back to his own language again. This sounded even hotter than his first eruption.

“Gently. Gently.” Now Sostratos held his hands out in front of him in a placating gesture. “Since you’ve let yourself get so overwrought, I suppose I could go up to a mina and twenty drakhmai.” The Rhodian spoke with the air of a man making a great concession. And so, in a way, he was. He never liked being the first one to shift his price in a haggle. Now he had to see how much Himilkon would move-and whether Himilkon was inclined to move at all.

When the Phoenician kept on fuming in Aramaic, Sostratos feared he wouldn’t move. Three minai wasn’t a bad price, but it wasn’t a great price, either. Sostratos hoped to drive him down further-and the Rhodian knew he could get a lot more in Alexandria, especially if he sold the amber chunk by chunk and not as a single lot.

At last, grudgingly, Himilkon said, “I don’t suppose I would starve in the street-quite-if you paid me two minai, ninety drakhmai.”

He hadn’t moved much, but he had moved. He wasn’t wedded to three drakhmai as his price. That was what Sostratos had needed to know. “You only came down half as much as I came up,” he complained.

“By Ashtart’s pink-tipped tits, you’re lucky I came down at all,” Himilkon growled.

So I am, Sostratos thought, but that agreement didn’t show on his face. He said, “You’ll have to come down some more, too, if we’re going to make a deal.”

Himilkon raised his eyes to the heavens, as if asking the gods why they’d given him such a cruel and unfeeling opponent in this dicker. “I try to keep myself from being robbed. I try to keep my family fed. And what does it get me? Nothing, that’s what! Nothing, not a single, solitary thing! Here is amber, the frozen tears of the gods, brought down to the Inner Sea from beyond the lands of the Kelts, and-”

“Wait.” He’d roused Sostratos’ curiosity. “What do you know about the country from which amber comes? Herodotos says it’s at the ends of the earth, but no more than that.”

“All I know is, it’s up in the north somewhere.” Himilkon was plainly indifferent. “No: the other thing I know is, you won’t see any of this amber ever again if you don’t come closer to meeting my price. You may be dreaming of making a killing in Alexandria, but you can’t make a killing if you haven’t got the goods.”

That, unfortunately, was true. Sostratos made the best comeback he could: “And you can’t hope to make a profit on your amber if you ask an unreasonable price.”

“Which I do not,” Himilkon said indignantly.

That, unfortunately, was also true. Sostratos had no intention of admitting it. He did say, “Well, I suppose I could come up another twenty drakhmai.” He sighed and spread his hands again, as if to show he was being magnanimous beyond the bounds of reason by doing so.

Himilkon came down another ten drakhmai. He grumbled and scowled and fumed, as if to show he was being put upon beyond the bounds of reason by doing so.

At length, they settled on two minai, forty-five drakhmai. Sostratos couldn’t get the Phoenician to lower his price even another obolos. Part of him felt he’d made a pretty good deal: the part that had noted that even three minai wasn’t a bad price. The other part mourned because he hadn’t been able to get Himilkon down as far as he’d hoped. He shrugged. If he couldn’t decide whether to be pleased, the Phoenician probably had just as many doubts, which meant they were within shouting distance of the right price.

“Do you have a scale?” Sostratos asked. “I want to weigh the amber.”

“Why?” Himilkon was suspicion personified. “We already made the bargain.”

“Yes, of course,” Sostratos said impatiently. “I want to know just how much I have, though, so I can tell my father.”

“Oh. All right.” Himilkon grunted. “Come this way. I use it mostly to weigh spices.” Sostratos followed him through the warren of the warehouse, reflecting that Theseus probably hadn’t had a harder time finding his way through the Labyrinth. The Rhodian also had another reason for wanting the amber weighed: if he knew just how much he was getting, Himilkon couldn’t make a chunk or two disappear before exchanging it for silver.

The amber turned out to weigh less than Sostratos had expected. That set him to worrying again. Was Himilkon laughing at him behind his curly beard? Sostratos said, “Let me take one piece to show my father.”

“I would not do this for just anyone, mind you,” Himilkon said. “For you, and especially for Lysistratos… very well. Take one piece, whichever you choose.” Sostratos picked the one he’d eyed before, the one with the bug in it.

With it in his hand, he hurried up to his house. When he got there, Threissa was pouring water from an amphora onto the herb garden in the courtyard. His father sat on a bench in the courtyard, quietly but most attentively watching the snub-nosed, redheaded slave girl. As far as Sostratos knew, his father had never done anything more than watch Threissa; a husband who bedded a slave in his household was asking for trouble from his wife. Sostratos himself had lain with her several times. Sometimes his lust got the better of him, enough to overcome his disappointment at her lack of enthusiasm.

“Hail, Father,” Sostratos said. “Come see what I’ve got.”

“Oh, hail, Sostratos,” Lysistratos said. Sostratos was convinced that, until he spoke, his father had had no idea he was there. Lysistratos reluctantly dragged his eyes away from the Thracian slave girl and got to his feet. “What is it?”

“ Amber.” Sostratos opened his hand to show the honey-colored jewel. “I’ve just bought quite a bit of it from Himilkon.”

“You have? And this is a sample?” Lysistratos asked. Sostratos dipped his head. “Well, let me have a look,” his father said. When Sostratos gave him the amber, he started to bring it up close to his face, then broke off the gesture with a frustrated grimace. “It gets all blurry when I try to look at it the way I used to,” he grumbled. “Reading’s a trial these days, too.” He held the piece of amber out at arm’s length. “That’s better… It does seem to be of good quality.”

“I’m glad you think so. I did, too.” Sostratos’ grin held real relief. He and his father got on a lot better than Menedemos and Uncle Philodemos, for which he thanked the gods, but he still felt nervous when he made a large purchase in Rhodes on his own.

“This won’t be the only chunk you bought, will it?” Lysistratos asked.

“Oh, no.” Sostratos told exactly how much he’d bought, to the hemiobolos.

His father blinked, then smiled. “I might have known you’d be precise. And precisely how much did you pay? I’m assuming the rest was of the quality of this piece?”

Sostratos dipped his head again. “I thought it was,” he answered. “I paid two minai, forty-five drakhmai for all of it. Himilkon started out wanting three minai, and he wouldn’t come down much.”

“Two minai, forty-five drakhmai.” Lysistratos spoke in musing tones, almost tasting the words. He looked up into the sky, his lips moving silently, as he decided what he thought of that. He wasn’t such a finicky calculator as Sostratos, but he had more experience and, perhaps, better instincts. After half a minute or so, he smiled again. “Euge! That’s very well done, especially if you go to Alexandria next spring. You should get a fine price there.”

“That’s just what I had in mind when I made the deal.” Sostratos beamed. “I’m glad you think I was right.”

“Egypt is rich in gold. It has all manner of precious stones-I remember those fine emeralds your cousin got hold of a couple of years ago. But I’ve never heard of any amber there. The jewelers should slobber all over you, the way dogs will if you come out with a piece of meat.”

“There’s a pretty picture,” Sostratos said, and Lysistratos laughed. Sostratos went on, “We’ll get the rest when I bring Himilkon the silver. He talked about going to Alexandria with amber, too. I trust it more hearing it from you, I will say.”

“I’m a little surprised he let you bring home any amber at all,” his father said.

“He told me he wouldn’t have for most people, but he was making an exception for me-and especially for you,” Sostratos answered. “I took that for a typical piece of Phoenician flattery, but maybe I was wrong.”

“Well, I am flattered that Himilkon would trust the two of us so far,” Lysistratos said. “We’ve done business with him for a while now, and he knows we’re reliable. He’s pretty reliable, too, come to that, as long as you keep an eye on him.”

“You’d better!” Sostratos exclaimed. “That little game he played just before we sailed, buying up all the papyrus in town and then gouging me when I bought it from him… It was cursed clever, and I wish I’d thought of it myself.”

“He’s sly, no doubt of that,” Lysistratos said. “But if a Hellene can’t stay up with a Phoenician when it comes to trade-well, he doesn’t deserve to, that’s all.” He paused, then changed the subject: “Is your cousin well?”

“Menedemos? I think so, though I haven’t seen much of him the past few days,” Sostratos said. “Why?”

“Because I was talking with him this afternoon while you were down by the harbor, and he just didn’t seem himself,” Lysistratos said. “Half the time, when I asked him something, I’d have to ask him twice. It was as though he wasn’t really paying attention to me, as though his mind were somewhere else. He looked worried, too, and that made me worry-about him.”

“I wonder if he’s had a love affair go wrong, or if some husband discovered he was sniffing around where he shouldn’t,” Sostratos said thoughtfully. “That’s what your description sounds like, and I’ve seen him go through spells like that before. Sailing season before last, he seemed awfully glad to get out of Rhodes, and he needed weeks away to get back to his old self. I remember asking him about it, but he wouldn’t say anything. That’s strange all by itself, for he usually likes to brag. Whatever happened, it hit him hard. Maybe this is more of the same.”

“Yes, it could be.” His father also sounded thoughtful. “It certainly could. I’m glad you have better sense than to leap headlong into foolish love affairs, by the dog.”

“Thank you,” Sostratos said. Lysistratos set a hand on his shoulder. Sostratos laid his own hand on his father’s. “And thank you for not jumping down my throat all the time, the way Uncle Philodemos does with Menedemos.”

“Philodemos wants things just so. He always has.” Lysistratos’ face tightened for a moment. “Before he had a son, he used to jump on me instead. That’s one reason I don’t keep you on such a short leash as he does with Menedemos: he taught me not to. And I’m more naturally easygoing than he is. I know things won’t always be just so, and I try not to fret about it the way Philodemos does. And you’re steadier than your cousin, generally speaking, for which I praise the gods.”

“I praise the gods that we do get along, whatever the reasons,” Sostratos said. “Whenever I think of Menedemos and Uncle Philodemos, I know how lucky I am.”

“How lucky we are,” Lysistratos corrected. Sostratos grinned. He didn’t mind that correction at all.

Now I’ve had what I wanted for so long, Menedemos thought. Why aren’t I happier? He had no trouble finding one of the reasons he wasn’t happier: he hadn’t been able to lie with Baukis since the night of the festival. He’d never found a time when either his father or some of the house slaves weren’t around. He’d paid several visits to brothels since, but what he bought at a brothel made him feel good for a little while without solving his real problem, which was that making love with someone he loved had proved fundamentally different from taking pleasure with a whore.

His father noticed him moping, too, though Philodemos didn’t know all of what he was noticing. He even offered what, from him, amounted to sympathy of sorts: “If her husband’s home now, son, you have to make the best of things till he goes away again. No point to wandering around like a bitch who’s just had her pups drowned.”

Menedemos was eating olives in the andron when his father came out with that bit of advice. He’d been about to spit out a pit. Instead, he choked on it. His father pounded him on the back. The pit came loose. He spat it across the men’s chamber, then wheezed, “Thank you, Father.”

“Any time,” Philodemos answered. “You can suffocate on one of those polluted things if you aren’t careful and you aren’t lucky. Or isn’t that what you meant?”

“Well… some of both,” Menedemos said.

With a sigh, Philodemos said, “Way you’ve been dragging around here, way you’ve been muttering snatches of poetry when you think nobody’s listening, way you’ve… Well, a lot of things show you’ve gone and fallen in love with whoever your latest wife is. Adultery’s bad enough, but love’s worse, because it makes you stupider. I don’t want you to do anything to get yourself in trouble, and I don’t want you to do anything to get the family in trouble. If I talk to you now, maybe I can keep you from acting too foolish. Maybe. I hope so, anyway.”

He does care about me, Menedemos realized with no small astonishment. He mostly has no idea how to show it-it comes out as anger because I don’t act the way he wants me to-but he does. And what am I supposed to do about that?

It shamed him. The mere idea of wanting his father’s wife had shamed him for years-but, finally, not enough to stop him. He had it coming, on account of the way he treats me had been in the back of his mind-sometimes in the front of his mind-ever since. If that wasn’t true, if he couldn’t even pretend it was…

He started to cry. It took him altogether by surprise. One moment he was fine, or thought he was, and the next tears were streaming down his cheeks.

“Here, now. Here, now,” Philodemos said awkwardly, at least as startled as Menedemos was himself. “It can’t be as bad as that.”

“No-it’s worse,” Menedemos choked out. Once the tears started, they didn’t want to stop. He saw his father as a series of shifting, blurry shapes, not as a man at all.

“You see? This is what love does to you.” But Philodemos, for a wonder, didn’t sound outraged or scornful. He put his arm around Menedemos: a rough caress, but a caress even so. “You think this never happened to me? You’d better think again.”

Menedemos was sure this had never happened to his father, for his grandfather hadn’t remarried after his grandmother died. Imagining his father in love with anyone took work. “Did it?” he asked in a small voice, trying to gulp his way out of weeping.

“Oh, yes. Oh, yes,” Philodemos said. “She was a hetaira, not another man’s wife-I’m not quite so foolish as you.” Even in sympathy, even in consolation, he couldn’t omit the gibe. He went on, “Her name was Arkhippe, and I thought the sun rose and set on her. This was before you were born, you understand, before I wed your mother.” Now, as he looked back across the years, his voice softened. So did his features. As they did, Menedemos realized how much his father looked like Uncle Lysistratos. Most of the time, he had trouble seeing the resemblance, for Philodemos wore a severe expression that contrasted with his younger brother’s cheerful air.

After some small silence, Menedemos asked, “What happened?”

His father’s usual sour look returned. “I told you-she was a hetaira,” he replied. “She was out for what she could get. When I gave her more than anyone else, she loved me-or she said she did. But when she took up with a gilded fop who owned a big farm on the east coast.. well, after that she forgot she’d ever heard my name. She ended up betraying him, too. They’re both dead now, and the fellow who beat me out had no sons. I go on, and so does my line.” He spoke with a certain somber pride: about as much as he ever let himself show when the subject had anything to do with Menedemos.

“You’ve never talked much about this,” Menedemos said. “Now I understand-a little-why you worry so about what I do with women.”

“Of course I don’t talk about it,” Philodemos said impatiently. “A hurt like that isn’t a battle scar you display to show how brave you were. You put it away and do your best to pretend it never happened. I do, anyway.” His face defied Menedemos to challenge him on his choice. After another pause, he changed the subject: “High time we get you married off. Maybe then you won’t play the cuckoo, leaving your eggs in other birds’ nests. By the dog, you’re old enough now.”

Menedemos thought of Protomakhos and Xenokleia. His father, fortunately, didn’t know about that. He also thought about Baukis. Philodemos, even more fortunately, didn’t know about that, either. Menedemos said, “I don’t think I’m ready for a wife of my own.” Not when the one I wish I had is yours.

But Philodemos, again fortunately, was unable to follow his thought, and replied, “It’s time. Thirty is a good age to wed, and you’re getting close. Finding the right family, finding the right girl, will take a while, and so will the dicker over her dowry. But you’ll be glad when it’s done. Having a woman to come home to every day will settle you down.”

Not if she’s someone I don’t want, someone I don’t care about. One more thing Menedemos found it best not to say. All he did say was, “Maybe.”

His father took politeness for agreement. Philodemos was and always had been remarkably good at hearing what he wanted to hear, and hearing it the way he wanted to. He said, “I’ll start asking around. I can think of three or four likely maidens about the right age just like that.” He snapped his fingers.

“There’s no rush,” Menedemos said. His father was also remarkably good at not hearing what he didn’t want to hear. He hurried out of the house, as if he expected to come back with a match all sewn up by suppertime. Maybe he did. Menedemos started to call him back, but what was the use? He’d waste his breath, he might anger his father, and he wouldn’t change a thing. Besides, he didn’t think Philodemos would come back with a match. The older man had said it would take time, then ignored his own words.

As if to escape the mere possibility, Menedemos went to the stairway and started up to his own room. No sooner had he set foot on the lowest stair than he heard footsteps coming down. He climbed the stairs with a lightened heart after that, his feet hardly seeming to touch them-it was Baukis. Her pace sped up, too. As his eyes adjusted to the gloom of the stairwell, he saw the smile on her face. He knew his own wore the same kind of smile, too.

They both stopped halfway. Menedemos looked up past Baukis to the second story. She looked down past him to the doorway that led out to the courtyard. This was probably the only place in the house where they could meet without the fear that a slave was, or could be, spying on them.

“I love you,” Menedemos said softly.

“I love you.” Baukis’ smile crumpled like the thin timbers of a fishing boat when a trihemiolia’s ram slammed into them at full speed. “Oh, Menedemos, what are we going to do? We can’t… I mean, we mustn’t…”

“I know.” He reached out and took her hands in his. By the way she held on to him, she might have been pitched from the deck into a sea full of sharks. He leaned forward and brushed his lips against hers. He wanted to do so much more than that. He wanted to, but knew he couldn’t. Even that little was too much, for it left him all on fire inside- on fire, and feeling as if a torturer were flaying him, one digit of hide at a time.

“After the festival, we never should have…” Baukis kept on leaving her sentences unfinished, but Menedemos kept on knowing how she would have ended them.

“I know,” he said again. Regardless of what he said, though, he wouldn’t have traded those few minutes for any in the rest of his life- or for all the rest of his life put together.

“I can’t look at your father-at my husband-the same way anymore,” Baukis said miserably, but her hands kept clutching Menedemos’. He dipped his head. He couldn’t look at his father the same way anymore, either. Sudden alarm-no, sudden terror-in her voice, she asked, “Where is Philodemos?”

“He’s not here. He decided I needed a wife, and he’s gone off to start looking for a match.” Menedemos spoke the truth without thinking.

Baukis gasped in dismay. “Oh, no! I couldn’t stand it if-” She broke off again. Now she grabbed Menedemos’ hands hard enough to hurt.

“Don’t worry,” he told her. “Nothing will come of it right away, if anything comes of it at all.” He knew something would come of it in a couple of years, but that felt like forever to him.

“What will we do? What can we do?” Baukis moaned.

Before Menedemos could find any sort of answer, a noise in the courtyard sent the two of them flying apart. Baukis scurried down the stairs. Menedemos went up to the second story two steps at a time. That wasn’t why his heart thuttered as he walked down the hall to his room, though.

What will we do? What can we do? He had no idea. He saw no good end ahead, either, no matter what happened. He couldn’t even escape from Rhodes till spring, and spring seemed a hundred years away. And for Baukis there was no escape, no escape at all.

Historical Note

Owls to Athens is set in 307 B.C. Menedemos is a historical character, though little is known of him. The rest of his family is fictitious in all respects. Other historical characters who appear in the novel include Demetrios of Phaleron, Demetrios son of Antigonos, Dionysios the commander at Mounykhia, Dromokleides of Sphettos, Eu-xenides of Phaselis, Kratesipolis, Menandros the playwright, Stratokles, and Theophrastos. The Macedonian marshals mentioned from time to time-Antigonos (Demetrios ’ father), Lysimakhos, Ptolemaios, and Seleukos-are also historical, as is Demetrios son of Antigonos’ brother, Philippos. Though Philip of Macedon died in 336 B.C. and his son, Alexander the Great, in 323 B.C., their shadows dominate this period.

The decrees honoring Antigonos and his son Demetrios voted by the Athenians after the ouster of Demetrios of Phaleron may seem extravagant, but they are attested to by inscriptions, by the history of Diodoros of Sicily, and by Plutarch’s biography of Demetrios son of Antigonos; the latter two are our principal literary sources for what Antigonos and Demetrios called the restoration of Athenian democracy. Some scholars believe Dromokleides of Sphettos’ decree came later than those of Stratokles, during another conquest of Athens by Demetrios. This is certainly possible, but Plutarch puts them all together under the events of 307 B.C., and a mere novelist may tread where a historian fears to go.

It is not known in what year Menandros offered The Flatterer, which survives in fragments. Other plays and poets said to be at the Greater Dionysia are fictitious.

As usual in this series, all translations from the Greek are my own. I claim no great poetic virtues for them, but do hope they accurately present what their originals say. Most names of persons and places are transliterated directly from Greek into English, with no detour through Latin: Demetrios, not Demetrius; Euboia, not Euboea. Where names are very well known in a particular form-Alexander, Athens-I have for the most part preserved that form. Transliteration is always a compromise, and compromises rarely make anyone perfectly happy.