“I’ve seen more really bad choices these past ten years than I can ever remember before,” the Rhodian proxenos answered. “I suspect that has to do with…” He shrugged. “Well, you know what I mean.”

Sostratos didn’t, not at first, but he also didn’t need long to figure out what Protomakhos meant. “Lots of things for sale these days?” he asked casually, not mentioning Demetrios of Phaleron by name: he’d learned his lesson.

Protomakhos dipped his head. “You might say so. Yes, you just might say so.”

But then the head of the panel of judges cupped his hands in front of his mouth and called, “The winner of the prize for comedy this year is The Flatterer, by Menandros!” People who hadn’t left the theater cheered and clapped their hands. A thin man of about thirty-five sitting in the second row stood up, waved rather sheepishly, and then sat down again.

“He can do better than that,” Protomakhos said, clucking in disapproval. “He’s been winning prizes for ten years now. He ought to show that he thinks he deserves them.” He shrugged. “Well, no help for it. And we’ll be going back to our regular lives in a couple of days. The Dionysia comes only once a year.”

“I’m glad we got here in time for it, though,” Sostratos said. “Now Menedemos and I can start thinking about making enough profit to cover all these idle days.” He looked north and west, toward the agora. “We’ll do it.”

6

Xenokleia clung to Menedemos and wept in the darkness of her bedchamber. “What are we going to do?” she wailed- but quietly, so no sound seeped out through the door or the shutters. “The Dionysia ends after tonight, and I’ll never see you again.”

Kissing her, he tasted the salt of her tears. He’d thought she would show better sense; she had to be three or four years older than he was, somewhere on the far side of thirty. He tried to make light of things: “What do you mean, you’ll never see me again, sweetheart? Don’t be silly. All you’ll have to do is look down from that window into the courtyard, and there I’ll be. My cousin and I are going to stay in Athens most of the summer.”

She cried harder than ever. “That’s even worse,” she said. “I’ll see you, but I won’t be able to talk to you, won’t be able to touch you…” She did, very intimately. “You might as well let a starving man see a banquet but keep him from eating.”

That was flattering and alarming at the same time. He’d thought he’d found an affair with which to enjoy himself at the Dionysia. But Xenokleia thought she’d found… what? A lover to carry her away, as Paris had carried off Helen? If so, she was due for disappointment. And you may be due for trouble, Menedemos told himself. “There’s something you need to do,” he said to her.

“What? This?” Her hand closed on him again. He felt himself starting to rise. Had he met her a few years earlier, they would already have been coupling once more. He needed a little longer between rounds than he had in his early twenties.

But, despite the distraction, he tossed his head. “No, dear. Sometime soon, you need to seduce your husband. Put on something saffron and make up your face. When he takes you, stretch your slippers up toward the roof.” He knew he was quoting from the oath in Lysistrate, but Aristophanes had said it better than he could.

“You tell me that now? When we’re like this?” Xenokleia seized his hand and set it on her bare breast. Though she and Protomakhos had a married daughter and a young grandson, her breasts were as firm and upstanding as a younger woman’s-she probably hadn’t nursed her baby herself.

Menedemos knew she was angry. He also knew he had to risk that anger. “I do, darling,” he said seriously. “If you happen to be with child, he’d better be able to think it’s his.”

“Oh.” To his relief, Xenokleia’s anger evaporated. She sighed. “After you, he’ll be moldy salt-fish after mullet.”

“You’re sweet,” he said, and, poising himself above her, stretched her feet up toward the roof, though she wasn’t wearing slippers. Afterwards, she started to cry again. “Don’t do that,” he told her, running a hand along the sweet curve of her hip. “It was fun. We enjoyed it. Remember that. Forget the rest.”

“It’s over.” Xenokleia wept harder than ever.

“Maybe we’ll find another chance, if your husband goes to a symposion or something,” Menedemos said. “But it was good-for what it was-even if we don’t.”

“For what it was.” Xenokleia plainly didn’t like the sound of that. “I wanted it to be…” She sighed. “But that’s not going to happen, is it?”

“No.” Menedemos was, in his own way, honest. “And even if it did, after a while you’d decide you would rather have kept this. Believe me, my dear-you would.”

“You don’t know how little this is,” Xenokleia said. To someone like Menedemos, who associated an Attic accent with wisdom and authority, her words carried extra weight because of the way she said them. She said, “If I do take Protomakhos to bed, he’s liable to fall over dead from surprise.”

“Do it anyhow,” Menedemos told her. No matter how much weight her words held, he remained sure of what this situation needed. “And besides, love-who knows? If you make him happy, maybe he’ll make you happy, too.”

Xenokleia’s voice held only vinegar. “Not likely! All he cares for is his own pleasure. That’s why…” She didn’t go on, not with words, but squeezed him tight.

“You could teach him, you know. I think he can learn if you do. He’s not a stupid man. Friendly women taught me,” Menedemos said.

Protomakhos’ wife stared at him, her eyes enormous in the darkness.

She laughed again, this time on a different note. “Funny that an adulterer should give me advice about how to get on better with my husband. “

“Why?” Menedemos asked, stroking her. “He’s going to be here. I’m not. You should have all the fun you can, no matter where you get it.”

“You mean that,” Xenokleia said wonderingly.

Menedemos dipped his head. “Yes, of course I do.”

“‘Of course,’ “ she echoed, and laughed once more. “No wonder you get so many women-don’t try to tell me this is the first time you’ve played this game, because I know better. You’re too good at it, much too good. But you really do want everybody to have a good time, don’t you?”

“Well, yes,” Menedemos said. “Life’s a lot more enjoyable when you do, and a lot of the time you can, if only you’ll work at it a little. Don’t you think so?” Now he squeezed her, and bent his head to tease her nipple with his tongue.

Her breath sighed out. “If you keep doing that, I won’t ever want to let you go, and I have to, don’t I?”

“I’m afraid so.” He kissed her one last time, put on his chiton, and slid downstairs without a sound. The bedroom door closed softly behind him.

He peered out across the courtyard from the darkness at the bottom of the stairway. No slaves stirring. Good. He hurried over to the little chamber Protomakhos had given him. He’d almost got there when a churring nightjar swooping low after a moth flew in front of his face and made him recoil in alarm.

“Stupid bird,” Menedemos muttered. Here was the door. He let out a sigh of relief. He’d made it.

He worked the latch, opened the door, stepped inside, and closed and barred it behind him. The room was inky black. No lamp was lit, but he needed none to find the bed. He’d taken one step toward it when a deep voice spoke from out of the gloom: “Good evening, son of Philodemos.”

Menedemos froze. Ice climbed his spine faster than a squirrel racing up a tree. If Protomakhos had caught him sneaking back to his chamber, that was almost as bad as catching him in bed with Xenokleia. “I- I can expl-” he began, and then broke off as wit started to penetrate the first shock of terror. “Furies take you, Sostratos!” he burst out.