“Why don’t you just hire a pedagogue to take me here and there, the way you did when I was seven years old?” Menedemos said bitterly. His father took no notice of that. He hadn’t really expected that Philodemos would. But the look of smug satisfaction on his father’s face when he left for the market square stung like sweat dripping onto a raw sore.

Fuming still, Menedemos went into the kitchen. Sikon the cook would listen to him grumble, or give him something tasty to make him forget about grumbling. But Sikon wasn’t there. He’d probably gone to the agora, too, or to the harborside fish markets to see what he could bring home for the evening’s supper. Barley porridge still simmered above a low fire. Menedemos had eaten some for breakfast. He’d hoped for something better now: tunny or octopus, perhaps. Those failing, he dipped out another bowl of porridge. His father would have complained about his eating at midmorning, too. But Father’s not here, he thought, and ate. The porridge, bland stuff, tasted better for being illicit.

Splashes that had nothing to do with rain greeted his ears when he went back out into the courtyard. At the direction of Philodemos’ second wife, a slave poured water from a hydria onto the flowers and herbs in the garden there. “Careful, now,” Baukis told him. “Don’t miss the marjoram.”

“I won’t, mistress.” The slave turned the stream from the big, heavy water jug where she pointed.

“That’s better,” she said, and dipped her head. When she looked up again, she saw Menedemos. She smiled. “Hail.”

“Hail,” he answered gravely. “How are you?”

“Well enough. Glad of this sunshine,” Baukis said.

“It is nice, isn’t it?” Menedemos agreed. Nothings, commonplaces… but he could look at her while they talked. Here inside her own household, she went unveiled, of course. She was no great beauty, but, except for front teeth that stuck out, pretty enough-and, at seventeen, any woman seemed fresh and glowing and ripe. Her figure had certainly ripened, these past few years. When she’d wed Philodemos, she’d been hardly more than a girl, with hardly more than a girl’s shape. No more.