Sostratos perched himself on a stool. “Wine, please,” he said in Aramaic.

“Here.” Ithran dipped it out of a jar. He also poured a cup for himself. Before drinking from it, he murmured a brief prayer. He watched Sostratos pour out a few drops onto the floor as a libation for the gods and let out a sigh. Had that sigh held words, it would have meant something like, You are only a Hellene. You know no better.

“Peace be unto you,” Sostratos said-not as the usual greeting, but a real request. “We do not aim to offend you. We have our own customs.”

“Yes, I know that,” Ithran answered. “You cannot help being what you are. And to you also peace.” Would he have said that had he noticed Sostratos eyeing Zilpah? Not likely.

The next day was the sabbath of the Ioudaioi. No one lit the fire that morning: that would have been reckoned work. Hekataios went up to the fortress overlooking the temple to talk with one of Antigonos’ officers whose acquaintance he had made. Sostratos had intended to see what he might find in the market square, but he knew the square would be quiet and empty on the day of rest. He still thought the local custom a colossal waste of time, but the loudaioi cared for his opinion not at all.

With nothing useful to do, he stayed at the inn. Oil and yesterday’s bread and wine made a tolerable breakfast. Aristeidas and Moskhion went off to the brothel to find out if the women there were also taking a day of rest. When the two sailors didn’t come back right away, Teleutas began fidgeting on his stool. After a bit, he asked Sostratos, “You’re not going anywhere much today, are you?”

“Who, me?” Sostratos said. “I intended to be in Macedonia this morning and Carthage this afternoon. Why?”

“Heh,” Teleutas said-almost but not quite a laugh. “Well, if you aren’t going anywhere, I suppose I can head on over to the girls myself. I mean to say, you’re not likely to get in trouble just hanging around here at the inn, are you?”

“That depends,” Sostratos answered gravely. “If the Stymphalian birds and the Hydra come by, I may have to fight them, because I haven’t seen Herakles anywhere in these parts.”

“Heh,” Teleutas said again. He hurried out of the inn, perhaps as much to get away from Sostratos as to choose a woman for himself.

Sostratos hid a smile. He no more wanted Teleutas’ company than the sailor wanted his. He held up a hand. Zilpah nodded to him and asked, “Yes? What is it?”

“May your slave have another cup of wine, please?” he said in Aramaic.

“Yes, of course, I’ll get it for you.” She hesitated, then added, “You need not be so formal for such a small request.”

“Better too formal than not enough,” Sostratos answered. She set the cup of wine on the little table in front of him. He said, “Thank you very much.”

“You’re welcome,” Zilpah said. “You speak more of our language than any other Ionian I have known. That was good yesterday. You managed to show your man meant no harm with his picture of the unclean beast. That could have caused trouble, bad trouble.” Her face clouded. “Some Ionians laugh at us because of what we believe. We do not laugh at other folk for what they believe. It is not for us, but we do not laugh at it.”

“I know what I believe,” Sostratos said, sipping at the wine.

“What is that?” Zilpah asked gravely.

“I believe you are beautiful.” Sostratos hadn’t known he was going to say that till the words were out of his mouth.

Zilpah had started to turn away from him. She turned back, suddenly and sharply. If she was angry, Sostratos knew he’d found himself more trouble than he’d helped Moskhion escape. But her voice was quiet, even amused, as she answered, “And I believe you have been away from your home too long. Maybe you should go down the block with your friends.”

Sostratos tossed his head. He needed a heartbeat to remember to shake it instead. “I do not want that. The body of a woman…” He shrugged. Trying to tell Zilpah how he felt in a language he didn’t speak at all well was one more problem, one more frustration. He wondered if even Menedemos would have had any luck under such circumstances. He did his best, continuing, “The body of a woman matters not so much. A woman I care about, that matters.”

If Zilpah squawked and ran for her husband, he’d already said enough to get himself in deep trouble. But she didn’t. She said, “I have had this happen before. A traveling man happens to be kind enough to think I am pretty, and then he thinks he is in love with me because of that. It is only foolishness, though. How can you think you care about me when you do not even know me, not in any way that matters?”

That was the sort of question Sostratos often asked his cousin when Menedemos imagined he’d fallen in love with some girl who’d caught his eye. Having it come back at him would have been funny if he’d looked at it the right way. Just then, he was in no mood for that.

“I know ways that matter,” Sostratos said. Zilpah giggled. He realized he’d used the feminine verb form, as she had. “I know,” he said again, this time correctly. “I know you are kind. I know you are patient. I know you are generous. I know these are good things for a woman to be.” He managed a wry grin. “I know my Aramaic is bad.”

She smiled at that, but quickly became serious once more. “The other Ionian here tried to give me money so I would give him my body,” she said. “I have had that happen before, with us and with foreigners.”

“If I want a woman I can buy, I will go down the block,” Sostratos said.

“Yes, I believe you. You are a strange man, do you know that? You pay me these compliments-they make me want to blush. I am an innkeeper’s wife. I do not blush very often. I have seen too much, heard too much. But I think you mean what you say. I do not think you say it to lure me into bed.”

“Of course I mean it,” Sostratos said. Menedemos might not have, but he was a practiced seducer. Telling anything but what he saw as the truth hadn’t occurred to Sostratos.

Zilpah smiled again. “How old are you, Ionian?”

“Twenty-seven,” he answered.

“I would have guessed you younger,” she told him. He wondered if that was praise or something else. Maybe she didn’t know, either; she went on, “I have not had anyone say such things to me.”

“Not even your husband?” Sostratos asked. “He should.”

“No.” Zilpah’s voice was troubled. “When no one says these things, you do not miss them. But when someone does… I am not going to take you into my bed here, Sostratos son of Lysistratos, but I think you have made my marriage a colder place even so.”

“I did not mean to do that,” Sostratos said.

“No. You meant to lay me. That would have been simpler than making me wonder why I have had no praise since I stood under the wedding canopy with my husband.”

“Oimoi!” Sostratos said. That was Greek, but Zilpah took the meaning from the sound, as he’d thought she could. In Aramaic, he went on, “I did not mean to make you unhappy. I am sorry I did.”

“I don’t think you made me unhappy,” Zilpah said. “I think I was unhappy. I think I have been unhappy for years without even knowing it. You made me see that. I ought to thank you.”

“I am surprised you are not angry,” Sostratos said. When someone pointed out to him something he hadn’t seen before, he was-usually, when he remembered to be-grateful. Most people, from everything he’d seen, got angry when anyone made them change their view of the way the world worked. If anything did, that marked the difference between those who aspired to philosophy and ordinary men.

“Angry? No.” The innkeeper’s wife shook her head. “It is not your fault. It is Ithran’s fault for taking me as much for granted as the bed he sleeps in, and my fault for letting him do it, for not even noticing he was doing it.” Sudden tears glinted in her eyes. “Maybe it would have been different if either of our children had lived.”