“And I’ve lost my milk. Ficino said it must have been connected to the illness, perhaps making me ill.”

“There are enough mothers still to feed the babies,” Pytheas said, scraping my breasts and stomach now. “Your little one won’t starve.”

“Have you seen him?”

He barely hesitated. “I have. He’s thriving.”

“What did Ficino call him? No, wait, don’t tell me. I’m not sure I ought to know.”

“Neleus,” Pytheas said, firmly. A good name, and I was glad to know. I swore in my heart to Zeus and Demeter that I wouldn’t act any differently towards him, but it was good to know in any case. “And your next son will be mine.”

“I’m not sure I can face going through that again,” I said. “Not so much the pregnancy and birth as the sickness after, now that I’ve shaken it off.”

Pytheas stopped scraping. “You’ll have to do it at least once more. All the women will have to have two children, and some of them will have to have three, because even if they’re not exposing them, some will surely die.” He sounded far too calm about it.

“Well, if I have to then—wait, would a son of yours be a hero?”

“Of course.” He sounded entirely confident.

“You’re the god Apollo,” I said, dropping my voice to a whisper and shaking my head. “I can’t get over it. You are, and you take it for granted.”

“I’m used to it,” he said. “You’ll get used to it.”

Even Sokrates was used to it. He’d had three years to accustom himself to the idea, even if Pytheas hadn’t been talking to him about it. It was only to me that the idea was new and strange.

“What made you decide to become Pytheas? I know it was volition and equal significance, but what made you realise you needed to understand them?”

“That’s a long story, and I’d really like to talk to you about it, but not here where someone might overhear. Let’s go down to the water.”

I retrieved my kiton and shrugged it around me. I couldn’t believe how well I felt. I wanted to bounce and run and get all sweaty again now that all the old sweat was scraped off. We walked together down to the gate of Poseidon and down the curve to the harbor and the beach. As we went past the temple of Nike we could see the sea change colour out in the bay, where the deep water was, and the dolphins. “You couldn’t swim because normally when you want to you became a dolphin,” I said, realising.

“Human bodies aren’t made for it,” he agreed. “Dolphins are. I always said so.”

“But you wouldn’t give in,” I said. It was the first thing I had admired about him.

The beach was empty—it was too early in the year for anyone to be swimming, the very edge of spring. There was a pelican down by the water’s edge, and a worker on the harbor doing something to the Excellence. We sat together on the rocks at the top of the beach. Gulls were flying overhead and calling out occasionally. “The sea speaks Greek, but the gulls speak Latin,” Pytheas said. “Listen. The sea against the shore says its name in Greek, THA-lass-ssa, THA-la-ssa, over and over. And the gulls cry out in Latin, Mare, Mare.”

I wasn’t to be distracted. “Why did you become Pytheas, really?”

He handed me a pear from inside his kiton, warm from his body’s heat. I bit into it. The juice ran down my chin.

“I’ve been thinking about it for a long time and I think I have it figured out now, but maybe you can help me understand it better. There was a nymph. Her father was a river. Her name was Daphne.” He stared out to sea. There was a little breeze just beginning to ruffle the surface “I wanted her. She didn’t want me, but I thought she was playing.”

The pear tasted sour in my mouth. I drew away from him. “You raped her?”

“No! But I would have. I didn’t know. I didn’t understand at all. It was a game, chasing and running away. I called to her to run slower and I’d chase more slowly. But she didn’t want to play and I didn’t understand.” He sounded guiltier than I had ever heard him. “She prayed to Artemis, and Artemis turned her into a tree. I was embracing her. I had one hand on her stomach, and then I was touching bark. She became a tree, a Daphne tree, a laurel.”

“You live in Laurel, here,” I said.

“Athene’s idea of a joke,” he said. His face twisted. “I’ve wondered if I could do something with the tree, to show her I understand her choices now and value her. I’ve thought I could make garlands.”

“It would make good garlands,” I said, considering it. “It would weave well and look recognizable and attractive. They’re pretty leaves. And it is giving her something. I think that’s a good idea.”

“I could wear one, and they could be for poets and artists,” he said. “I think I’ll adopt that when I get back.”

“But how did she turn into a tree?” I asked.

“Artemis transformed her. It’s not that difficult. She had prayed to her for help. The question was why. I just couldn’t understand why she wanted to do that, why she was so strongly oppposed to mating with me that she’d rather turn into a tree.”

“But you understand now?” I buried the pear in the stones. I wasn’t going to be able to eat any more of it.

He nodded. “I didn’t ask. And she didn’t want me. And I thought she was playing. But she wasn’t.”

“She must have been terrified,” I said, imagining running to try to escape rape, pursued by a laughing tireless god.

He bit his lip, then turned to me. “Do you think so? I thought she just hated the idea.”

“I was really nervous the first time, and I had agreed. It’s a scary kind of thing, especially if you’ve seen rape and violence.”

“Had you seen it?” He was staring at the sea again, his eyes following the pelican swimming away.

“When the pirates came, and on the ship. It was brutal.” I could remember only too clearly. And the taste in my mouth, and choking, and the sense of violation, and the contempt of the men.

Pytheas put his hand on mine. I looked down at our hands together. The pebbles were grey and black, my hand was brown and his was golden. It would have made an interesting composition, maybe in oils. “I wouldn’t have been like that, like them.”

“Well, there was only one of you, but I don’t see how otherwise it would have been different.”

“I feel sick,” he said.

“You ought to. It’s sickening. It’s unjust. But you didn’t do it, because fortunately she turned into a tree. And you know better now.”

“I do. I talked to Artemis and to Athene, and I finally got it through my head that her choices should have counted, not just mine. What I was talking about yesterday, volition. Equal significance. She should have had it and I wasn’t giving it to her.”

“That’s horrible,” I said. I almost moved my hand away, but I looked at his face and what I saw there reminded me how much I loved him. He was trying to pursue excellence, even in trying to understand this crime he had so nearly committed, trying so hard to make even his own nature better.

“I know now. But I didn’t understand then. I became incarnate to try to understand. And you know I’ve been trying!”

“I’m really horrified that you wanted to rape her.” I was still trying to cope with the idea.

“I didn’t! Rape isn’t something I want at all. I wanted to mate with her. I just didn’t understand that she didn’t want me. The others had wanted me. They ran away, but they wanted to be caught. The chase, catching, it’s erotic play. But Daphne—I do understand all this much better since that time with Klymene.” He shuddered.

“Thousands of years as a god and you weren’t considering her choices at all?”

“I have learned more about considering other people’s choices in the eighteen years I have been a mortal than in the whole of my life before. Gods don’t have to think about those things very much. Not for mortals. Only each other.”

It was true that he had really been trying to understand these things. I’d seen him. I’d helped him with it, even when I didn’t know why he needed that help. “Have other gods done this?”