“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.