This was what she wanted to avoid. Being stupidly straightforward, she told him the truth: "Sometimes."

"What do you do with yourself?"

"Tomorrow I am going to see a mime actor."

He looked interested; she groaned inwardly. "I heard you singing. And you like the dancers?"

"I like the flute music. You can lose yourself," she muttered, not wanting to talk about it. She knew better than to entrust her soul to anyone of rank.

"You don't need losing," he chivvied her. "Going with someone nice?"

"Oh yes!" she snapped without thinking. "With myself." She crunched her teeth into a crisp curl of the loaf and pointedly did not look at him. There was a very slight pause.

"No man?"

Better prepared now, she was able to duck the question: "Men are not nice, lord. Sometimes useful, occasionally amusing, hardly ever genuine, and never nice."

"Women are worse; they cost a lot and still let you down." He was teasing. She let it pass.

"Actually, I go by myself because I seriously object when idiots talk to me through the music."

He smiled, because he recognized that was just like her. She was as single-minded as himself. "Who's doing the mime?"

"Blathyllos."

"Any good? I might come too. I don't talk; I always go to sleep. Luckily I never snore."

They could not go to the theater as a couple. They would not be permitted to sit together; even women of his own rank must watch separately. Antonia's slave should not be seen alone with him in any case. But he asked, without hesitation, "Would you meet me afterward?" Absorbing herself in biting a peppercorn from the pickled fish, Caenis tried not to answer. He interpreted her silence his own way. "Where shall I find you?"

Too late; she was committed. Her heart pounded. "A young lord who does not know the theater rendezvous?" she reproved, still foolishly attempting to slither out of this.

"Sheltered upbringing."