I can’t do that, either, he thought. Part of him wished he’d stayed here alone in his room the whole night long. The rest, though… The rest wanted, yearned for, craved, more of Baukis than he could get from a quick coupling in darkest shadow. He wanted… He wanted to yawn, and did, enormously.
Next thing he knew, the morning sun was streaming through that east-facing window. He yawned once more, and stretched, and got out of bed. Had last night been real? Memory flooded back. It had! He put on his chiton and went out into the courtyard, intent on getting some breakfast.
His father was already there, talking with one of the house slaves. “Good day,” the older man said when Menedemos emerged. “I wondered if you’d sleep the sun around and only come out at night, like an owl.”
“Hail, Father,” was all Menedemos said in reply. He glanced at the sun. It had risen almost three hours earlier, or he missed his guess.
Philodemos’ eyes went the same way. “Don’t tell me you were playing games with Sostratos all night long,” Menedemos’ father said. “He’s not in the habit of staying up so late. You went prowling for women afterwards, didn’t you? You must have found one, too, eh?”
A southbound crane flew by overhead. Menedemos watched it without saying anything. It was a straggler; most of its kind had gone south nearly a month before.
With an exasperated sigh, Philodemos asked, “Did you bring scandal down on our house? Will some angry husband lurk in the street outside, waiting for the chance to stick a knife in you?”
Still watching the crane, Menedemos tossed his head. “No, Father. You don’t have to worry about that.” True. You wouldn’t need to lurk in the street if you decided to knife me.
“You must have found some slut, then, a wench who’s as sunk in vice as you are,” Philodemos growled.
Rage and horror filled Menedemos. You fool! You’re talking about your own wife! One more thing he couldn’t-mustn’t-say. This felt like something out of a tragedy. And was Baukis listening, up there in the women’s quarters? How could she be doing anything else? What sort of fight would she have to make now, just to hold her face straight?
“By the dog of Egypt, son, what am I going to do with you?” Philodemos said.
Menedemos only shrugged. “I don’t know, Father. If you’ll excuse me…” He hurried off to the kitchen, where he got a couple of barley rolls, some olive oil, and a cup of watered wine for breakfast. He watered it less than he might have; Sikon, who was kneading dough for the day’s baking, leered at him. Menedemos ignored the cook. He made a point of ignoring him: made it so obviously, Sikon couldn’t keep from laughing.
Philodemos came into the kitchen, too. Sikon immediately fell silent and started kneading as if his life depended on it. Menedemos would sooner have dealt with the cook than with his father. Philodemos wagged a finger under his nose. “When are you going to stop your nonsense and make a proper man of yourself?” he demanded.
“ Admiral Eudemos thinks I make a proper man now,” Menedemos answered.
“He worries about what you do at sea. I worry about what you do ashore. And what do you suppose he’d say to that if he knew about it?” his father snapped.
“From some of the stories he was telling when we celebrated after my patrol in the Dikaiosyne, he’s chased a woman or two-dozen- himself,” Menedemos said. Philodemos made a disgusted noise. Menedemos pointed at him. “And what about you, Father? I asked you before-when you were younger, didn’t you ever try your luck when the women were coming home from a festival?” As long as you think I had some other man’s wife, this is another verse of the same old song. I hate it, hut I can put up with it. But if you ever find out it was Baukis… He shivered and raised the cup of wine to his lips.
Philodemos turned a dull red. “Never mind me. We’re not talking about me. We’re talking about you.”
Menedemos could guess what that probably meant. He kept quiet, though. So could Sikon, and the cook knew no such restraint. He let out a loud, rude snort, then attacked the bread dough more fiercely than ever, as if trying to pretend he’d done no such thing.
From dull red, Philodemos went the color of iron in a smith’s fire. His glare seared Sikon. “You mind your own business,” he snarled.
“Yes, master,” Sikon muttered: one of the few times Menedemos had ever heard him acknowledge he was a slave and not the lord of the household.
Philodemos also heard the submission, heard it and took it as no less than his due. His attention swung back to Menedemos. “We’re talking about you,” he repeated. “I want you to behave respectably from now on. Do you hear me?”
“Yes, Father.” All Menedemos wanted was escape. He told the truth: he did hear his father. As for behaving respectably… after last night, too late for that. Or was it? What was respectability but not getting caught? No one knew what had passed but Baukis and him. As long as that stayed true, he could go on living under the same roof with his father. He said, “I’ll do my best.”
Gruffly, Philodemos said, “You’d better.” But he sounded at least a little mollified. Maybe he hadn’t expected even so much. Fie turned on his heel and left the kitchen.
After Menedemos finished breakfast, he went back out to the courtyard. He hadn’t gone more than a couple of paces before stopping dead. Along with his father, Baukis stood there, looking at a plant in the garden. She went pale when she saw him. Natural. You have to act natural, he shouted to himself. “Good day,” he said, and hoped his voice didn’t shake too much.
“Hail,” she managed, in something like her usual tones.
To Menedemos’ vast relief, his father noticed nothing amiss. Philodemos said, “Now that we’ve had some rain, things are starting to sprout.”
“They certainly are,” Menedemos agreed. Baukis looked down at her feet. Menedemos remembered standing behind her and… He felt his face heating. Going on as if nothing had happened would be harder than he’d ever dreamt. If he didn’t betray himself, his father’s wife was liable to. She’s only seventeen, he reminded himself. She’s a woman, yes, but barely.
Perhaps fearing to give the game away, Baukis retreated to the house. Menedemos’ father rounded on him. “Now that you’ve slept half the day away like a lazy hound, what will you do with the rest of it?”
“I don’t know, Father. I was going to go out into the city,” Menedemos answered.
“And go looking for the house of the woman you debauched last night?” Philodemos said. “Wasn’t once enough to satisfy you? How much trouble will you find for yourself? “
Once wasn’t anywhere close to enough, Menedemos thought. Aloud, he said, “I know where she lives, but I don’t intend to go anywhere near there.” That was a truth, but a deceptive truth. It made his father roll his eyes. Menedemos went on, “By Zeus of the aegis, Father, I don’t.” The oath made Philodemos take him a little more seriously. He added, “My life would get more complicated than it’s worth if I did.”
“Well, at least you realize that much,” Philodemos said. “I thought you’d be blind to it, the way cockhounds usually are. Go on, then.”
Menedemos left, doing his best to saunter and not flee. Once out in the street, he sighed loud and long. No, he hadn’t begun to realize how hard this would be.
There had been years when seeing the Aphrodite drawn up out of the water at the Great Harbor in Rhodes left Sostratos sad. That seemed less true now than in times gone by. He had thought of the merchant galley as something almost magicaclass="underline" like Hermes ’ winged sandals, she could sweep him away to lands strange and mysterious, and what could be more marvelous than that? After going back to Athens, to the polis for which he’d pined like a man mourning a lost love, he thought he had an answer to that, which he hadn’t before. What could be more marvelous than going off to lands strange and mysterious? Coming back to a home you loved.