Menedemos snorted. No wonder Aristophanes had written a sausage-seller into his Knights. The only thing redeeming Kleon’s vulgarity was that he seemed as unaware of it as a dog licking its privates. He went on crying his wares and making crude cracks about Demetrios’ wedding. A good many Athenians laughed, too, and several of them bought his wares.

Holding up a little jar of perfume, Menedemos called, “Fine scent from Rhodes! Eat Kleon’s sausages and don’t stink afterwards!” Kleon shot him an obscene gesture. With a laugh, he returned it.

The Rhodian soon went back to his usual sales pitch. The other made a good joke, but wasn’t likely to draw anybody who could afford the perfume. Too bad, he thought.

He kept on calling. A couple of women and one man stopped and asked him how much he wanted for the perfume. When he told them, they beat hasty retreats, as did most would-be customers. The man proved abusive. Menedemos gave at least as good as he got, as he had with Kleon,

A man selling wine by the cup strolled through the agora. On a warm day like this, he did a brisk business; Menedemos waved to him and spent another obolos. The wine was a long way from the best the Rhodian had ever drunk, but he’d expected nothing better. No one sold Ariousian or Thasian or Lesbian for an obolos. This cooled him and quenched his thirst, which was all he’d had in mind.

Another woman came up to him. She wasn’t far from his own age, and wasn’t bad-looking; slim, dark-haired, bright-eyed, with fine white teeth. He smiled and said, “Hail, my dear. How are you today?”

“Well, thank you,” she answered. Her Greek, though fluent, had an accent that proclaimed it wasn’t her native tongue. Menedemos’ hopes soared-that probably meant she was a slave, perhaps the slave of someone prosperous. She asked, “For how much are you selling your perfume?” When he told her, she didn’t flinch. All she said was, “Can you come with me to my mistress’ house?”

“That depends,” Menedemos said. “Who is your mistress, and can she afford to buy?”

“She can afford to buy,” the slave woman said gravely. “Her name is Melite, and she is not the least renowned hetaira in Athens.”

“I’m sure she’s the honey of the city,” Menedemos said. The slave began to nod agreement-again proving herself not a Hellene by birth-but then made a face at him. He gave back an impudent grin; the hetaira’s name sounded like the word for honey.

“Will you come?” Melite’s slave asked again.

“I’d love to,” Menedemos answered. The woman sent him a sharp look. He stared back, as innocently as if the remark couldn’t have been taken more than one way. After a moment, she shrugged and started out of the agora. Scooping up the perfume jars on the hard-packed ground by his feet, Menedemos followed.

Melite’s house was nothing special on the outside, but Hellenes, no matter how prosperous, didn’t make a habit of displaying what they had. The more they showed off, the likelier someone was to try to take away what they’d worked so hard to get. The man who opened the door for the slave and Menedemos wasn’t so ferocious-looking as the Kelt who served Menedemos’ earlier customer, but the Rhodian wouldn’t have cared to quarrel with him: his broad shoulders and thick arms said he could take care of himself in a brawl, and his flat nose said he’d been in a few in his time. He and the slave woman exchanged a few words in a language that wasn’t Greek. The way he looked at her told Menedemos not to bother her in his sight.

The woman went upstairs. Even in a house Melite owned, she lived in the women’s quarters. She came downstairs with the slave, veiled as if she were altogether respectable. But, just for an instant, the breeze blew the veiling aside. Menedemos exclaimed in surprise: “Oк! You were at Demetrios’ when my cousin and I came to supper.”

“That’s right.” Melite dipped her head. “You didn’t see me for long, then or now.”

“No, I didn’t.” Menedemos smiled his most charming smile. “But I remembered you. You’re worth remembering.”

“I thank you for saying so.” To Menedemos’ disappointment, the hetaira sounded more amused than impressed. She went on, “I hope you will not be angry when I tell you one of the things I have seen is that men-especially young men-will say almost anything if they think it will give them a better chance to take a woman to bed.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Menedemos answered, deadpan. The slave woman snorted. Her mistress laughed out loud. With a bow to Melite, Menedemos continued, “My dear, one of the things you will also have seen is that telling the truth often works best. I was telling the truth when I said I recognized you.”

“So you were.” Melite didn’t give him another glimpse of her face. She used the veil as a hoplite used a shield, interposing it between his eyes and her features, leaving him guessing about what she was thinking. He believed her voice still held amusement when she said, “Whether you recognized me or not, though, you need to understand I am not looking for a new… friend. I have as many as I care to.”

“I’m sure you do, if you can count Demetrios among them.” Menedemos spoke as if her warning bothered him not in the least. That too was how the game was played. No matter how he spoke, though, he couldn’t help remembering that when Sostratos sold Koan silk to a hetaira in Miletos a couple of years before, she’d paid him silver and given him herself. Menedemos didn’t care to think his bookish cousin could outdo him with women. He didn’t care to think it, but here it might be true.

Melite said, “Demetrios plays with women the way a child plays with soldiers carved from wood. Because he is who he is, he can do that. But no woman would put up with it from an ordinary man.”

Menedemos drew himself up to his full height, which was considerably less than Demetrios’ godlike stature. “If you were to know me, you would find I am no ordinary man, either.”

“Oh? Would you also give me golden bracelets and necklaces and rubies and emeralds for a single night, the way Demetrios did?” Melite asked.

Backtracking, Menedemos answered, “I didn’t claim I had Demetrios’ money. But I would give silver in due measure. And I would give you something I daresay Demetrios didn’t.”

“Would you?” the hetaira said. “And what is that?”

Joy-She cocked her head to one side, studying him. He could feel her eyes, even if they remained indistinct behind the veiling, “You are brash,” she said, Menedemos bowed again, though he wasn’t sure she’d paid him a compliment. She went on, “One of the things a hetaira does not do is talk about her friends. That is how and why they stay friends with her.”

Hetairai, as Menedemos knew perfectly well, were no more immune to gossip than any other people. Still, he didn’t really care to learn how Demetrios reverenced Aphrodite. He was more interested in paying his own respects to the goddess.

But when Melite said, “Is it not true that you came here to sell me perfume, not yourself?” he decided he wouldn’t worship Aphrodite in her company.

A grin let him put the best face on it he could. “My dear, I would never be so rude as to charge you for that,” he said. Both the hetaira and her slave laughed then. Menedemos held out a jar of perfume. “For this, on the other hand…”

“Let me smell it,” she said. He undid the stopper and handed her the jar. She sniffed. “That is sweet,” she admitted, returning it to him. “What is your price? For the perfume, I mean, not for anything else.” When he told her, she gasped in artfully simulated anger. “That’s robbery!”

“Your slave didn’t think so, when I told her the same thing in the agora,” Menedemos replied.

“What does a slave know?” Melite said with a scornful toss of her head. The glare she aimed at the barbarian woman said her slave should have known enough to keep her mouth shut. The slave looked as if she wanted to vanish into thin air. Melite gave her attention back to Menedemos. “Anyhow, that’s much too much. I’m not made of silver. I’ll give you half of what you asked.”