“Maybe,” Menedemos said uncomfortably. He didn't want reasons to talk with Baukis; he wanted reasons to stay away from her. But Sikon had given him an opening to shift the subject, and he seized it: “What sort of tasty things did you find this afternoon?” “Some nice shrimp—they were still wriggling when I got 'em,” Sikon answered. “I'm going to glaze them with honey and oregano, the way your father likes. And a fellow there in the market had the first good eels I've seen this spring. What do you say to eel pie, baked with cabbage and mushrooms and silphium from Kyrene? And a cheesecake, to use up the rest of the honey I got for the glaze.” “What do I say? I say hurry up and cook, and quit wasting your time talking to me. Eels!” Menedemos had all he could do not to lick his chops like a hungry dog. He didn't ask what the seafood had cost. All he wanted to do was eat it. And he did, along with his father in the andron. He supposed Sikon also sent some of the splendid supper to Baukis in the women's quarters. She would surely find out from Philodemos what the cook had bought; sharing the bounty might make her better inclined to him. If anything could, that would. As he usually did, Menedemos woke before sunrise the next morning. He went to the kitchen for some barley rolls—leftovers from sitos at supper—and olive oil and wine for breakfast. Carrying them out to the courtyard, he sat down on a stone bench there and watched the sky get light. He would have done the same thing lying on the Aphrodite 's poop deck after a night spent at sea. A couple of slaves dipped their heads to him as they ducked into the kitchen for their morning meal. They ate the same sort of breakfast he did; Philodemos wasn't the sort of master who gave them a precisely measured ration of flour every day and made sure they didn't sneak into the kitchen to supplement it. To make up for that generosity, he worked them hard. When a laughing dove fluttered down into the courtyard, Mene-demos tossed a small chunk of roll onto the ground in front of it. It walked over, head bobbing, examined the morsel, and ate it. They were very tame birds. Had Sikon tossed it crumbs, it would have been with a view toward netting it for a meal. Someone came down the stairs and out into the courtyard. Tame or not, the dove took off, wings whirring. “Good day, Menedemos,” Baukis said. “Good day,” Menedemos answered gravely. “How are you?” his stepmother asked. The title, applied to a girl who couldn't have had more than sixteen years, was as absurd as Sikon's snort had made it. She was no great beauty, and even at sixteen had hardly more breasts than a boy. “I'm well, thanks.” Menedemos kept his tone formal. He knew what his father saw in her: dowry, family connection, the chance for another son or two. He was much less sure what he saw in Baukis himself. Maybe nothing but the chance to outrage his father in the greatest possible way. But maybe something more, too. Doing his best not to think about that, he asked, “And you?” She thought before answering, “Well enough.” She was no fool; the way she said even commonplace things showed that. And so? Menedemos jeered at himself. Are you Sostratos, to look for what a woman has between her ears before you look for what she has between her legs? Baukis went on, “I didn't expect to see you back in Rhodes so soon.” “I didn't expect to be in one of Antigonos' cities so close to where Ptolemaios started his campaign,” Menedemos replied. “This endless war is liable to be the death of trade,” she said. “That would be bad for Rhodes, and especially bad for this family,” “True,” Menedemos agreed. No, she was no fool; plenty of men who stood up and blathered in the Assembly
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