“I’ll put it to the committee,” Simmea said. “And meanwhile, be welcome to the Just City. This sleeping house is at your disposal. You may eat in Florentia, or anywhere you are invited by friends, of course. I’ll call an immediate meeting of the committee and talk to you again tomorrow or the day after.”

We all parted with great courtesy and formality. Once back in the street, Maecenas turned to Simmea. “You sounded as if you were considering it!”

“Well, what’s the alternative?” she asked. “I think we’re going to have to give it to them, if they insist. Some of it, anyway.”

“Never!” Maecenas said. “Nobody made them leave, nobody makes them stay away. If they want to share our art, they can come back.”

Simmea looked at me. “How do you feel about it?”

“Much the same as Maecenas,” I admitted. “Think how horrible it would be to divide it all up. Think of only having half the Botticellis in Florentia.”

Simmea winced. “I’d hate that. But would you fight to keep them?”

“Yes, I certainly would,” Maecenas said, without a heartbeat’s hesitation.

Simmea shook her head. “Being on the Foreign Negotiation Committee I’ve developed a sense for when people will and won’t give way on issues. This seems to me like something they won’t give way on.”

“Surely it would never really come to fighting over art?” I said.

“I don’t know,” she said. “It’s hard to imagine. But Plato gives rules for warfare. And it could come to that.”

24

ARETE

Father came back at dawn. I saw him from the masthead where Erinna and I were both looking out. Maecenas had sent us both aloft as soon as we came on watch. “Let me know of anything unusual, on land or sea,” he said.

Erinna was very quiet.

“Are you all right?” I asked.

“Of course I am,” she snapped. “Sorry. I’m just trying to deal with the fact that I killed at least two people yesterday.”

“But you’re an ephebe,” I said. “You’re trained.”

“Knowing how to do it is different from actually doing it,” she said. “Is that—no, it’s just a dolphin.”

“They were trying to kill us,” I ventured.

“Maybe Plato’s right and we should have been going out to battles since we were little children, so that we could get used to it.”

“Is that really what he suggests?” I was horrified. “Slaughter is such a horrible thing that it’s hard to imagine thinking it right for children to watch. But the Lucian children were there yesterday.”

“Yes. And I don’t think having seen it would have helped when it came to killing people myself. Didn’t it bother you at all?”

“I didn’t kill anyone. I gave the swords to you and Neleus, because I didn’t know how to use them.”

“You pushed that one man onto my sword. And how did you do that anyway? You leaped right over him from a standing start.”

“I don’t know.” I was uncomfortable. I didn’t want to lie to her. “It felt natural, like the normal thing to do when he was coming at me.”

“They tell us to jump in the palaestra, but not like that! You’ll have to teach me.”

“I’m not sure I can.” The sky was starting to pale behind the city and the fading stars seemed to be listening to me lie. “I never leaped that high before. It was fear I suppose, or battle frenzy.”

“So you were afraid? Even though you rushed straight in?”

“I didn’t have time to think about being afraid. I saw them running toward you with swords, and I saw Father’s swords on the ground, and I just leaped for them.” Just then I saw Father come walking down toward the harbor with Neleus, Nikias, Timon, and some of the other Lucians. I called the news to Maecenas below.

“I was terrified,” Erinna said. “Until I saw you coming with the swords, I was frozen where I was. I didn’t think of going for them, though I’d seen Pytheas put them down earlier. I’d have just sat there and let myself be spitted.” She was still staring at the horizon, not looking at me.

“You might have been afraid, but you did everything right. You knew how to use the sword, you killed them, and when that one surrendered you stopped.”

She nodded. Father had reached the side of the quay, where I could see him clearly. He was covered in blood, but he seemed unconscious of it as he stood talking to the others. They were gesturing at the wreck of the Goodness, which had sunk further overnight.

“You saved my life,” Erinna said.

“You saved mine. We fought side by side. You knew how to use the sword. I realized as soon as I got there that I was useless.”

“You’re not an ephebe yet. You haven’t had training. And you were safe where you were up on the stand,” Erinna said.

“I couldn’t just stay there while you and Ficino and Neleus and Father got killed!” I was indignant. On the quay everyone was waving their arms around. Clearly, the argument was getting heated.

“You came straight toward me,” she said. I didn’t say anything. I had, and I couldn’t deny it. “Thank you.”

I still didn’t know what to say. “You were in danger. Anyone would have—”

“You really like me, don’t you?” she asked.

Now I really didn’t know how to answer. “Yes.” I stared down at the argument on the quayside.

“I like you, but not like that,” Erinna said.

“Like what?” I muttered, feeling the heat rising in my cheeks. “I know,” I went on, making it worse.

“You’re so much younger, and losing Simmea—I was looking out for you a bit. That’s all.”

“I know,” I said, more loudly. “It’s all right. I understand. I don’t want anything but to go on being friends the way we have been.”

“Good,” she said, but I knew that everything was spoiled. Tears stung my eyes. On the quayside, Father shrugged and dove neatly into the sea.

“You should go down to talk to him,” Erinna said.

I slid down the mast. The blood was washed off his hair and skin by the time he pulled himself onto the deck, but his cloak and kiton were still stained. He pulled them off and stood naked on the deck, dripping sea-water, with a strand of seaweed caught over his shoulder.

Maecenas looked at me and raised an eyebrow. “Erinna’s still up there watching,” I said. He nodded. I embraced Father, getting myself wet in the process. Kallikles and Phaedrus came up the ladder onto the deck and embraced Father one at a time, and we all wished each other joy. The sun was up behind the hill and the sky was bright. Again I thought that this was like a scene in a play. But in a play, the gods show up at the end to sort everything out, and let the people who love each other be together. I picked the seaweed off Father’s shoulder and dropped it back into the water.

“Kebes is dead?” Maecenas asked, as Phaedrus stepped back.

“Dead,” Father confirmed. “Dead and gone back where he came from. And after all the trouble I had getting the skin off in one piece, it vanished with him.”

I shuddered. The worst of it was that he said it so calmly. There were times when he wasn’t like other people at all. Maecenas started to speak, then swallowed hard and began again. “How are the rest of them?”

“They want reparations because we burned their ship,” Father said.

“Zeus burned it,” Maecenas said. “Literally, by all accounts. They tried to burn us, but the wind changed all in an instant and drove the fireship back on the Goodness.”

Father glanced at Kallikles, who smiled. “The winds do back unexpectedly sometimes,” Father said.

“Yes, but they tell me also that the first man to try to board was struck by lightning, out of a clear sky,” Maecenas said. He too looked at Kallikles. “You saw that, didn’t you?”

“I was right there,” Kallikles agreed.

“I didn’t want to believe it either, but you see there’s no question about it,” Maecenas said. “It discouraged the rest of them, as you can imagine.”

I looked with admiration at Kallikles. Without him we might have lost the ship and everyone aboard. My own powers weren’t anything like as useful.