“I ought to charge you the extra you got from Kleokritos as commission.” Protomakhos smiled to show he didn’t mean that seriously.

“Take it,” Menedemos said at once. “You’ve shown us all sorts of kindnesses. The least we can do is pay you back a little.” Sostratos looked wounded, but set his face to rights so quickly that Menedemos didn’t think the proxenos noticed. Menedemos knew his cousin had less simple generosity than he did himself: one more thing that made Sostratos a good toikharkhos.

Protomakhos, meanwhile, tossed his head. “No, no. That’s kind of you, but I couldn’t possibly. I’m here to help you Rhodians, not to take your money.”

Menedemos didn’t insist. That might have offended the proxenos. He resolved to do something nice for Protomakhos before leaving Athens. After all, his wife has done something nice for me.

Now Menedemos let his eyes slide across the windows of the upper story. He didn’t linger at the one belonging to Xenokleia’s bedchamber. He knew better than to do anything so foolish. He hoped Xenokleia knew how to keep her mouth shut-and how to keep her demeanor from giving anything away, too. Life would get more difficult if she didn’t. He tried not to contemplate how much more difficult it might get. Sostratos was also better than he at brooding over things that might go wrong.

No disaster had struck by the time the two Rhodians set out the next morning. “Have fun in the agora,” Sostratos told Menedemos.

“People would talk if I did it there,” Menedemos replied. Sostratos spluttered and choked, spraying watered wine. Protomakhos laughed out loud.

When Sostratos could speak again, he said, “You’re trying to sell to hetairai, and I to Macedonian officers. I may make more money, but you’ll have more fun.”

“You never can tell,” Protomakhos said. “Some of those Macedonians are as wide-arsed as any Athenian effeminate.”

“I’m sorry, best one,” Sostratos said. “No matter what a Macedonian officer’s idea of fun may be, no Macedonian officer is mine.”

Menedemos made his way to the agora through morning twilight. He didn’t have a stall, of course, or even a tray slung around his neck to hold his goods. He did have lots of little jars of perfume in a leather sack, a brash manner, and a loud voice-and he got there early enough to stake out a spot by the Street of the Panathenaia, where lots of people would surely pass by.

The sun touched the buildings of the akropolis-and, to the north, the top of the hill called Lykabettos. That one was sharp and conical and useless as a fortress, or for anything else Menedemos could see. For that matter, the akropolis itself couldn’t come close to sheltering all the people of Athens, not any more. In the old days, he supposed it might have.

He reached into the sack and pulled out a jar. “Fine perfume from Rhodes!” he called. Selling this, his Doric drawl wouldn’t hurt him. “Sweet-smelling rose perfume from Rhodes, the island of roses!”

A woman with the rough hands and bent back of a laundress said, “Can I have a sniff?” He yanked out the stopper. Sniff she did, and then smiled. She asked, “How much do you want for a tiny little jar like that?” She knew how to haggle-the first thing she did was disparage Menedemos’ goods.

He told her.

Her jaw dropped. After that moment of astonishment, she got angry. “You’re having me on!” she said, and shook a fist in his face. He wouldn’t have wanted to brawl with her; she looked formidable. “I don’t make that much money in a month!”

“I’m sorry, my dear, but that is the price,” Menedemos said.

“Then you’re a polluted thief!” she exclaimed.

He tossed his head. He didn’t want her saying that. “No, indeed,” he told her, “for this jar”-he balanced it on the palm of his hand- “holds a lot of labor. The roses have to be grown and picked, the sweet-smelling petals plucked, the lot of them boiled down into an essence and mixed with fine oil-I don’t know all the details, for the perfumers keep them secret. But I do know that everyone who does that labor has to be paid, too, and that’s what you see in the price I charge.”

She didn’t call him a liar. She did say, “It’s a cursed shame when honest folk can’t afford something nice, I’ll tell you that. Who’s going to buy at your price? Those bastards who run the polis and suck our blood, that’s who, them and brothelkeepers and fancy whores. Furies take the lot of ‘em, and you, too.” She flounced off without giving Menedemos a chance to answer.

He didn’t know what he could have said to her. The people she’d named were the ones who could afford what he was selling. Hetairai weren’t exactly whores-they entertained the men they chose, not the men who chose them-but their entertainment involved, or could involve, going to bed with their clients, so they weren’t exactly not whores, either.

Oh, rich merchants could buy perfume, too. On the one hand, though, how likely were they to be honest? And, on the other, they were more likely to buy it for hetairai than for their wives. Wives would always be there. A man had to work to make a hetaira want to stay with him. He had to work, and he had to spend silver.

“Perfume!” Menedemos called again. As the sun lit up the market square, more and more people came in. “Fine perfume from Rhodes, the island of roses! Sweet perfume no sweet woman should be without!”

Another woman who’d plainly lived a hardscrabble life-and, after all, what other sort would be out shopping for herself?-asked him what he wanted for his wares. He gave her the same answer he’d given the laundress. She squalled louder than if he’d hiked up his chiton and waggled his private parts in her face. There were men who did that sort of thing to amuse themselves. Menedemos thought it was in poor taste, but what could you do?

Yet another woman came up to him, this one dressed in a long tunic of fine white wool. “Hail,” she said. “May I smell your perfume?” Her Greek held a faint accent.

“Of course,” he answered politely. She looked and sounded like the slave of someone prosperous-exactly the sort of person he was looking for. He pulled out the stopper and held the jar out to her.

She leaned forward. Her nostrils flared as she inhaled. “Oh, yes,” she said softly. “That is very fine. What price do you ask?” When he told her, she didn’t flinch. “Let me speak to my owner. She may well buy. Stay here. I will return.”

“Who is your owner, sweetheart?” Menedemos asked.

“Her name is Potheine, Rhodian,” the slave woman said. “If you came from Athens, you would know the rich and famous men who have had her as their companion.” Companion was what hetaira had first meant; the masculine form of the word, hetairos, still did mean that and nothing more. In the feminine, there were companions… and then there were companions.

Menedemos asked, “And who are you?” Showing he cared about a slave might make her urge his case more strongly to her mistress.

“Me?” She seemed surprised at the question. “They call me Threitta here.” That was Attic for Thracian. She wasn’t redheaded like the slave in Sostratos’ household, but, with light brown hair and hazel eyes, she was fairer than most Hellenes.

“Well, Threitta, I hope you hurry to your famous mistress for me,” Menedemos said. To make sure she did hurry, he gave her three oboloi. He asked for nothing in return-not a kiss, not a promise that the girl would urge the hetaira to buy the perfume. He’d found a free gift usually worked better than one where the dangling strings were obvious.

The slave girl took the little silver coins and hesitated, waiting for him to tell her what he wanted. When he said nothing more, she stuck the coins in her mouth. “You have an interesting way of doing business,” she remarked.

“Thank you,” Menedemos said, though he wasn’t sure that was praise. Threitta nodded-which would have proved she wasn’t a Hellene born, had he had any doubts-and vanished into the still-swelling crowd in the agora. Menedemos tried to keep track of her, but it was like trying to keep track of one raindrop in a storm. He blinked, and then he couldn’t find her any more.