“They’ll dry up if you don’t keep them moist,” Baukis said sharply. “And if you don’t dry up, I’ll find something for you to do that you’ll like a lot less than watering the garden.”

Muttering to himself in a language that wasn’t Greek, the slave shouldered the hydria and carried it back toward the cistern. Had it been late summer, with the cistern dry, Baukis would have sent a slave woman to the well a few blocks away. Menedemos laughed to himself. Who could guess when the woman would have come back from the well? Men talked in the market square. Women gossiped around the wellhead.

For that matter, who could guess when Lydos would come back from the cistern-and it was only at the rear of the house? By the way he dragged his feet going there, he was in no hurry to get on with his work. But then, what slave ever was in a hurry, except maybe to go out and get drunk on a festival day?

Menedemos wasn’t about to rush him, either. Now he could gaze his fill at Baukis… provided he didn’t do it too openly. They still weren’t alone. As if to prove that, Sikon the cook came into the house, his face a thundercloud-shopping for fish must not have gone well. He stormed into the kitchen and made a racket as he started on the day’s baking. Maybe he was working out his anger. Maybe he thought that the noisier he was, the busier everybody would think he was. That was another slave trick old as time. The doorman was puttering around, too, and the slave women upstairs. In a household full of slaves, you could never count on being alone for very long.

Baukis took not quite half a step toward Menedemos. Then she stopped, a rueful-and more than a little frightened-smile on her face. She knew the risks of living in a house full of slaves as well as he did. They were lucky they hadn’t been found out the one time their lips did touch.

We can’t, she mouthed silently. They’d been saying that to each other ever since discovering they both wanted to.