“You are growing up. It’s taken you longer than it should have, but you are.” Philodemos hardly ever gave a compliment without dipping it in vinegar first.
Philodemos knocked on the door to the women’s quarters instead of just going in, as he had the right to do. He’d knocked the evening before, too, maybe because he’d also had Menedemos along them, maybe as a courtesy to the new mother inside.
A slave woman opened the door. She dipped her head to Philodemos. “Good day, Master.” She dipped it again to Menedemos, not quite so deeply. “And good day to you, young master.”
“Good day, Xanthe,” Menedemos and his father answered together. The slave’s hair was more light brown than yellow, but they called her Blondie anyhow.
“You wish to see the mistress and your son, sir?” she asked. Then she glanced at Menedemos. “Your little son, I mean.”
“I understood you.” Philodemos smiled. He seemed happier than he had before the Aphrodite sailed for Alexandria. And why not? He had that new son (or at least thought Diodoros was his), and Baukis had come through childbirth as well as could be expected. He went on, “We heard the baby crying when we were eating breakfast downstairs—and if he’s awake, Baukis will be, too.”
Xanthe also smiled. “That’s right. She’s nursing him now. Let me tell her the two of you are here.” As a Hellene would have, she used the dual, not the plural, to show that Philodemos and Menedemos formed a natural pair. She’d grown up speaking Greek; her mother had been a slave before her.
She ducked back into the mistress’ bedroom. Except a few times with his father after Philodemos remarried, Menedemos hadn’t gone in there since the days when he was a little boy with his own mother. He wondered how he would have been different had she lived longer, but shrugged a tiny shrug. How could you hope to know such a thing?
Sticking her head out the door, Xanthe said, “She’s ready for you, masters.”
Menedemos stayed a step behind his father as they went inside. He was here on Philodemos’ sufferance. Had Philodemos known how he felt about Baukis, had he known they’d lain together ….
No. That didn’t bear thinking about. And Father didn’t know any of those things. Gods willing, he never would.
The bedroom smelled a bit of human waste, but any room with a chamber pot in it was liable to. The odor here didn’t seem much stronger than usual.
Baukis sat at the edge of the bed. A shawl draped over her shoulder and over the baby let her preserve her modesty while the baby nursed. Diodoros made little grunting and sucking noises, the way a puppy or a lamb might have.
“Good day, my husband,” Baukis said. “I should be finished here soon. He drank the other breast dry—he won’t want much at this one.”
“All right. I’m always glad to hear he’s eating well.” Philodemos wore that almost-foolish smile again. He might be immune to all the ploys Menedemos used to soften him, but just by existing Diodoros had him wrapped around his finger.
“Good day,” Menedemos said to Baukis. “How do you hold?”
“How do I hold?” Her mouth twisted into a wry smile. “I’m tired, son of my husband. I don’t go anywhere—I hardly leave this room. I don’t do anything but nurse the baby and take care of the baby, and that’s plenty to leave me so tired, I can hardly see.”
Menedemos noticed the way she said son of my husband. Diodoros also was, or might be, the son of her husband. Was she thinking about how things that worked to the baby’s advantage might work against Menedemos, and the other way round? If she was, what could he do about it? Not much he could see.
Diodoros wiggled under the shawl. Baukis said, “See? I knew he was just about done. Turn your backs, both of you, while I set myself to rights.”
Along with his father, Menedemos turned and looked at the door through which he’d come in. He didn’t try to sneak a glance at his stepmother while she rearranged her clothes. He knew better than to blunder into such a simple trap.
“All right. You can turn around again,” she said.
He did, along with his father. Her chiton covered her the way it should once more. She’d folded the shawl and put it on her left shoulder. Diodoros’ head—still a bit misshapen after his passage through the birth canal—lay on it. She held him nearly upright with her left arm, using the crook of her elbow to support his backside. She patted—almost drummed—his back with the palm of her right hand.
Diodoros soon let out a surprisingly loud, surprisingly deep belch. Laughing in surprise, Menedemos exclaimed, “Brekekekex! Koax! Koax!”
His father chuckled, too. Baukis just blinked—she knew no Aristophanes. She asked, “Did he spit up any?”
“Not this time,” Philodemos said.
“Good,” she said. “I’m going to try to get him back to sleep.” She slid Diodoros from almost upright to flat, making sure she supported his floppy little head all the while. Then she rocked him in her arms as if they made a cradle. Philodemos slipped out of the bedchamber, Menedemos half a step behind.
Menedemos didn’t throw himself over the handrail and down into the courtyard headfirst. Why he didn’t, he couldn’t have said just then, but he didn’t. He walked down the stairs behind his father instead.
Sostratos took to hanging around the harbor for news so much, anyone who didn’t know him as a prominent merchant’s son and as a rising merchant himself would have taken him for one of the odd-jobs men who made their oboloi running errands and hauling bundles from ship to storeroom or from storeroom to ship.
A skipper just in from Corinth did mistake him for one of those men, and gave him three oboloi to tell Himilkon the Phoenician his ship had arrived. Keeping a straight face, Sostratos took the little silver coins and stowed them between his gum and his cheek; he didn’t happen to have a pouch on his belt.
One of the real dockside loungers told the Corinthian, “You silly fool, don’t you know that’s Lysistratos’ son?”
“It’s all right, Epinikos,” Sostratos said easily. “I know where Himilkon’s warehouse is, and I need to talk with him anyhow.”
“I crave your pardon, O best one,” said the Corinthian, who’d plainly heard of Sostratos’ father. “I meant no offense.”
“I took none. And it’s fair pay for the job,” Sostratos replied over his shoulder. “I’ll be back with him before long.”
Himilkon came back to the piers readily enough. “Mikkiades has some marble I hope to buy. I’ve got a sculptor asking after it,” he said.
“It’s all right with me,” Sostratos answered in Aramaic. Talking with Himilkon helped him stay in practice. “Did you hire that Egyptian I sent you?”
“Yes, and thank you,” Himilkon answered in the same language. “I’m glad you did. He works hard, and he’s smart. May I ask you something else, if you would be so kind?”
“Ask, my master,” Sostratos said. Aramaic had more flowery politeness built into it than his own language did.
Perhaps to make sure he’d be understood, the Phoenician fell back into Greek: “If Antigonos and Demetrios attack Rhodes, what will the polis do with resident aliens like me?”
“I don’t think anything has been decided. If it has, I don’t know about it. But I might not, since I’m just back from Alexandria,” Sostratos said carefully. “Are you willing to fight for the polis?”
“Willing, yes. But I am no warrior,” Himilkon said. Sure enough, he was middle-aged, potbellied, and soft-handed.
“If you’re on top of the wall and trying to keep enemies from getting up there with you, that may not matter so much. Siege warfare is different from a battle on the plains.”
“I suppose so.” Himilkon seemed unconvinced.