Menedemos sipped more slowly, but he was hardly less troubled. “That’s… laying it on with a shovel, isn’t it?” he said, “I hope Demetrios has the sense not to take any of this twaddle too seriously. It he starts believing he’s a god on earth… Well, that wouldn’t be so good-for him or for anyone else.” Demetrios had struck him as being on the vain side. He was glad it was Athens’ worry, not his or Rhodes’.

“You can see that-you’ve got sense,” Protomakhos said. Sostratos doesn’t think so, Menedemos thought. And neither would you, if you knew Xenokleia might be carrying my child. Since the proxenos, fortunately, didn’t know that, he continued, “I can see it, too. Men like Stratokles and Dromokleides?” He tossed his head. “And I still haven’t told you the worst.”

“There’s more yet? Papai!” Menedemos said. “Come on, then. Let me hear it. After ninety-nine lashes, what’s the hundredth?”

“Just so. As part of an offering, we Athenians are supposed to consecrate some shields at Delphi. There’s been a disagreement over how best to do it. So Dromokleides, that worthless arse-licker, put forth a motion that the people of Athens should choose a man who would sacrifice, get good omens, and then approach Demetrios-approach the savior god, is how the motion puts it-and get his oracular response on how best to perform the consecration. And whatever he says, that’s what Athens will do. And the motion passed. Someone’s probably busy cutting the letters into stone right now.”

“Oh, dear,” Menedemos said again. That wasn’t enough. “Oh, my.” That wasn’t enough, either. He finished his wine in a hurry and poured himself some more. That might not have been enough, either, but it was on the right track.

“We won at Marathon,” Protomakhos said bitterly. “We won at Salamis. We fought Sparta for a generation. I was just going from youth to man when we gave the Macedonians all they wanted at Khaironeia, That would have been around the time you were born. We lost, but we fought hard. We gave it everything we had. Even Leosthenes stood up against the Macedonians after Alexander died. And now this! It makes you want to cry.” By his anguished expression, he meant it literally.

Menedemos set a hand on the Rhodian proxenos’ shoulder. “I’m sorry, best one,” he said; on matters political, he could and did sympathize with Protomakhos. “Times are hard nowadays.”

“Furies take all the Macedonians-Demetrios and Antigonos, Kassandros, Lysimakhos, Ptolemaios, Polyperkhon, all of them!” Protomakhos burst out. It’s the wine, Menedemos thought. This is too strong a mix, and it’s having its way with him. But Protomakhos didn’t sound the least bit drunk as he went on. “This could happen to Rhodes, too, you know. If one of the marshals ever gets inside your walls, you’ll bend over backward-bend over forward-to keep him happy, too.”

That made Menedemos take a swig from the cup he’d refilled. He spat into the bosom of his chiton to turn aside the evil omen. “May that day never come,” he said. If it did, he feared Protomakhos was right. Flatterers lived everywhere, and none of the Macedonian marshals- with the possible exception of Antigonos-had shown himself immune to praise.

“We said the same thing, Rhodian. Don’t forget that,” Protomakhos replied. “What you wish for and what you get too often don’t match.” He eyed the little jars of perfume Menedemos had set down so he could drink some wine. “I’m sorry I burdened you with this. Go on back to the agora and make yourself some silver.”

“It’s all right,” Menedemos said easily, “Don’t worry about it. You’ve shown Sostratos and me every kindness.” More than you know, in fact. “The least I can do in return is lend an ear.”

“Nice of you to say so,” Protomakhos told him. “What I say is, the two of you have been the best guests I’ve had since I became proxenos. I’ll be sorry when you go back to Rhodes, and you’re welcome in my home any time.”

“Thank you very much.” Menedemos took a long pull at his wine to help hide any blush he might be wearing. He wasn’t immune to embarrassment. Hearing such praise from a man whose wife he’d bedded made him feel foolish, not to mention guilty. But showing what he felt would only land him in trouble, and what Protomakhos had to say then would be anything but praise.

For now, the Rhodian proxenos remained oblivious. “I tell you only what you deserve,” he said.

Menedemos finished his wine, took up the perfume, and left Protomakhos’ house in a hurry. He didn’t want to betray himself, and he didn’t want to lacerate his conscience any more, either. As he threaded his way through Athens’ twisting streets toward the agora, he wondered why it troubled him. It hadn’t during his affairs in Halikarnassos and Taras and Aigina and any of several other towns. Why here? Why now?

You’ve been listening to Sostratos for too long, and he’s finally started rubbing off on you. But Menedemos tossed his head. It wasn’t that simple, and he knew it. Part of it was that he’d come to know and to like Protomakhos, which he hadn’t with any of the other husbands he’d outraged. Part of it was that he remained unsure how much of what Xenokleia said about Protomakhos was true and how much invented to spur on her new lover.

And part of it was that seducing other men’s wives was a sport that was starting to pall. The thrill of sneaking into a strange bedroom seemed smaller. The risks seemed bigger. And he’d come to realize that what he got from the women, while better in its way than what he got in a brothel, wasn’t exactly what he wanted, or wasn’t all of what he wanted.

Maybe I need a wife. The thought so surprised him, he stopped short in the middle of the street. A man behind him who was leading a scrawny donkey loaded down with sacks of grain or beans let out an indignant squawk. Menedemos got moving again. His father had started talking about looking for a bride for him. Up till this moment, he hadn’t taken the idea seriously himself.

And Father has the woman I really want-and I think she wants me. Menedemos muttered under his breath. For the past several sailing seasons, he’d done his best to leave thoughts of Baukis behind when Rhodes dropped below the horizon. Some things he would not do, no matter how tempting. He hoped he wouldn’t, anyhow.

He wondered why she drew him so. She wasn’t spectacularly beautiful, even if she did have a nice shape. The only thing he could think of was that he’d got to know her even before he first found her attractive.

She’d been a person to him, a person he liked… and then he’d noticed her sweet hips and rounded bosom (considerably sweeter and more rounded now than when she’d come into the household as a girl of fourteen). He whistled tunelessly. Could that make such a difference? Maybe it could.

Here was the agora. He’d got to it without noticing the last half of his journey. He tried to put Baukis out of his mind-tried, but didn’t have much luck. He made an unhappy noise, down deep in his throat. Even he knew how dangerous falling in love could be. And it would have been dangerous even if she weren’t his father’s wife. Like any Hellene, he reckoned falling in love a disease. It was, in many ways, an enjoyable disease, but that didn’t improve the prognosis. Of course, the prognosis for anyone who fell in love with his stepmother-even if she was years younger than he-was bad.

The hurly-burly of the market square came as a relief. With people chattering and chaffering all around him, Menedemos couldn’t keep his mind on his own worries. Somebody said, “I wonder how the world could have existed before DemetrioZeus created it. I suppose all our ancestors were just figments of his imagination.”

“Fig-sucking figments,” somebody else replied, and added another obscenity on top of that.

Menedemos laughed. Not all the Athenians were impressed with what the Assembly had voted, then. That was a good sign. He almost paused to talk politics with the men who’d jeered at the latest decree. Then he decided to keep walking instead, for he realized they likely wouldn’t want to talk to him, not when his accent proved him a foreigner the instant he opened his mouth. A man could say things to his friends that he wouldn’t to a stranger.