“Sostratos went back to the Lykeion in Athens,” Menedemos remarked.

“Did he?” Philodemos said. “What did he think?”

“His time stretched instead of shrinking-he found he didn’t belong there anymore,” Menedemos answered. “He sold the philosophers papyrus and ink at an outrageous price and made ‘em pay it.”

That made Philodemos grin in approval unalloyed. “Good for him!” he exclaimed. “I can’t think of a surer way to prove you’ve beaten your past.”

Menedemos didn’t know whether his cousin had beaten his past or simply moved away from it. He didn’t think Sostratos was sure, either. Again, though, he saw no point to contradicting his father. He asked, “How are things here inside the house? Are your wife and Sikon still quarreling whenever you turn your back?”

“Things aren’t perfect there,” Philodemos answered. “Baukis will still give the cook a hard time every now and then. And I’m sure Sikon sometimes buys fancy, expensive fish just to spite her. But they do get on better than they did. They aren’t at war all the time, and they don’t fight so hard when they do lock horns.” By the relief in his voice, he was thoroughly glad of that, too.

So was Menedemos, who said, “Good. I always hated getting stuck in the middle when they started shouting at each other. And they’d both get offended when I didn’t take their side.”

“Oh, yes!” Philodemos dipped his head. “That’s happened to me, too. Hasn’t been so bad lately, though, gods be praised.”

“Good,” Menedemos repeated, and meant it. He asked his father no more about Baukis. Even though they lived in the same house, too much curiosity about the older man’s wife would have been unseemly. It might also have roused Philodemos’ suspicions, and that was the last thing Menedemos wanted.

One of the first things he wanted was Baukis. He’d known as much for years. He hadn’t done anything about it, no matter how much he wanted her-in fact, precisely because he wanted her so much. He hadn’t, and hoped he wouldn’t. He’d been fighting this lonely, silent battle ever since the knowledge of his desire first flowered in him. And I’ll win, too.

It would have been easier-it would have been much easier-to be confident of that, and, indeed, to want to win, if he hadn’t begun to realize Baukis wanted him, too. He gulped down his wine, not that wine would help.

Sostratos felt as if he’d been riding this miserable donkey forever. In point of fact, he hadn’t set out from the city of Rhodes more than a couple of hours earlier. He’d left around noon, and the sun wasn’t even halfway down the southwestern sky. His brain was sure of the time. His backside and his inner thighs would have argued differently.

He’d probably come about eighty stadia, heading south and west. He’d passed through Ialysos not long before. Along with Lindos and Kameiros, Ialysos had been one of the three main settlements on the island of Rhodes before they joined together to build the polis of Rhodes. Ialysos never had been a polis, not in the proper sense of the word. It wasn’t a city, but a community of villages with a well-sited fortress on the nearby high ground. All those villages had shrunk in the hundred years since the polis of Rhodes became the most important place in the northern part of the island-indeed, the most important place on the island as a whole. But they persisted, like an old, decrepit olive tree that kept sending out green shoots whenever the life-giving rains came.

Ahead, the ground rose toward steep hills and then, farther southwest, toward Mount Atabyrion, the highest peak on Rhodes. Damonax’s farm and olive groves-about whose products Sostratos knew more than he’d ever wanted to-lay near the lower edge of the steeply rising ground. It was good country for olives: not so near the coast that flies ruined the crop, but not high enough to let cooler weather damage it, either.

Before Sostratos got to Damonax’s farm, he was glad he’d decided to hire the donkey instead of walking. It wasn’t so much that he’d shifted the pain from his feet to his hindquarters. But when a farm dog came rushing up, yapping and growling, the donkey lashed out with a clever hoof and knocked the dog sprawling. When it got up again, it retreated even more rapidly than it had advanced. Its yelps were music to Sostratos’ ears.

“What a good fellow!” he exclaimed, and patted the donkey’s neck. He didn’t think that meant much to the beast. Getting off and letting it crop the lush green grass by the side of a creek counted for more.

A couple of pigs with ridges of hair down their backs nosed through garbage by Damonax’s farmhouse. A nanny goat tied to a tree had nibbled the grass around it down to the ground and had stood on her hind legs to devour all the shoots and tender twigs she could reach. Chickens scratched and clucked between the farmhouse and the barn.

Out of the barn came a middle-aged, sun-browned man in a short chiton and stout sandals. He scratched at his shaggy beard-a beard worn not in defiance of fashion like Sostratos’ but seemingly in ignorance of it-and crushed something between his thumbnails. Only after he’d wiped his hand on his tunic did he call, “If you’ve come to pick olives, you’re still a few days early, and you know you’re supposed to bring your own pole to knock the fruit off the trees.”

Sostratos’ gaze went to the olive grove. Sure enough, the olives were ripening on the branches, getting darker and fuller of oil. He turned back toward the overseer. “I’m not here for the olive harvest. I’m Sostratos son of Lysistratos, Damonax’s brother-in-law. You must be Anthebas.”

“That’s me, young sir. Hail, and pleased to make your acquaintance,” Anthebas answered. “I beg your pardon for not knowing you by sight. I was, uh, expecting someone grander.” He dug the toe of one of those sandals into the dirt to show his embarrassment.

Someone better groomed and all perfumed, he means-someone like his boss, Sostratos thought without much anger. Sliding down off the donkey, he let out a sigh of relief and rubbed at his hams. Anthebas sent him a chuckle and a sympathetic smile. Sostratos said, “Damonax and my sister and their son are here?” That was what the slaves had said back in Rhodes. If they’d been wrong, or perhaps lied for the sport of it, his fundament would get even sorer on the way back.

But Anthebas dipped his head. He pointed to the farmhouse. “Oh, yes, sir. They’re in there. Would you like me to take care of your donkey?”

“If you’d be so kind.” Sostratos went over to the door and knocked on it.

He’d wondered if his brother-in-law would let him in himself. But Damonax didn’t carry rusticity so far. One of his slaves, a man Sostratos had seen in Rhodes, did the honors. Unlike Anthebas, who spent all his time out here, this fellow recognized the new arrival. Bowing slightly, he said, “Hail, O best one. Welcome, in my master’s name. Please come in.”

“Thank you, Atys,” Sostratos said, and the Lydian slave beamed as he stood aside, proud to have his own name remembered.

Though Sostratos didn’t say so, the farmhouse struck him as cramped and dark, especially compared to the fine home where Damonax lived while staying in the city. It was simply one room after another to form a square; it wasn’t built around a courtyard as all city houses above the level of shanty were. That contributed to the gloom, for the only light in the rooms came through the windows, which were small and partly covered by shutters. Sostratos wondered why anyone would choose to live in such an uncomfortable place when he didn’t have to.

“Hail, most noble one!” There was Damonax, handsome and elegantly turned out as always. “Good to see you.” He stuck out his hand.

Sostratos clasped it. Damonax’s grip said he was holding back strength. Sostratos hoped his said he didn’t care about such petty games. “How’s your son?” he asked. “How’s my sister?” He could ask that, where inquiring after Damonax’s wife would have been rude.