“What, become incarnate? Yes, lots of them.”

“Learned about the things you’re learning about,” I said.

“I don’t see how they could become incarnate without discovering these things, whether that was their intention or not,” he said. “The learning process seems to be an inevitable part of the procedure.”

“But the gods who stayed on Olympos, or wherever, they don’t know it?”

“There’s not much chance for them to come across it,” he said.

“You have to tell them!” I said. “You have to explain it to them, to all of them. And to humans, too.”

“I could try to explain it to the gods,” he said, though I could see him quail at the idea. “Explaining it to humans wouldn’t be possible. I could try to inspire people to make art about it. Poems. Sculptures. But it’s one of those things that doesn’t go easily into the shapes of stories.”

“It’s not just rape. It’s understanding that everyone’s choices ought to count.”

“I know. I really do understand.” He patted my hand. I looked at him and saw tears on his cheeks. Then I hugged him and he was sobbing and I held him as if he were a child and I were his mother, rocking him and making nonsense noises.

“Do you forgive me?” he asked, with his face buried in my shoulder.

“It’s not for me to forgive you,” I said. “I’m not the person you wronged.”

He rolled over and lay with his head in my lap, face up, looking up at me. “But you still love me?”

“There’s no question of that, is there? You could murder half the city at midday in the Agora and I’d be furious with you and want to kill you, but I’d still love you. I love you like stones fall downwards, like the sun rises. I loved you even when I was almost too tired to breathe.”

“You cried when you saw me, yesterday.”

“That was because I loved you and I was so exhausted.” I looked down at his perfect face, tear-stained but no less beautiful. I smoothed a curl off his forehead. “I can’t believe I didn’t realize you were Apollo. I mean, who else could you possibly be?”

“A boy who didn’t know how to swim, and who you risked your own life to teach,” he said. He sat up. “Let’s pursue excellence together. Let’s make art. Let’s build the future. Let’s be our best selves.”

“Yes,” I said.

33

MAIA

Lysias had thought the debate on slavery would be divisive, but in fact it was our shining moment, one of the things it makes me proudest to remember.

After my conversation with Sokrates and Crocus I told Lysias that I was convinced that the workers were people and not tools. He heard me out and then nodded. “The evidence is certainly mounting up on that side,” he said. Then he changed the subject.

The day of the debate dawned as cold as any day could be on Kallisti, with a chilly wind out of the east. It was nothing to the winters I remembered in Yorkshire when I was young, but I had been acclimatized to them, besides having warmer clothes, especially socks. I spent my free time in the library. This was a popular choice on cold days, as on very hot days in the summer when it felt cool. Many of the work spaces were filled up. Walking around looking for a place to sit, I noticed Tullius and Atticus sitting with Septima on the window seat where she seemed to spend a great deal of her time. “Know where you are with a scroll, not all this flicking through pages,” Tullius was complaining in a murmur as I went by.

“No, I disagree, I think they’re wonderful. I find it much easier finding something again,” Atticus replied, his tone no louder. He raised a hand to me. “Joy to you, Maia.”

“Joy to you Atticus, Tullius, Septima,” I said, in the hushed tones appropriate to the library.

Tullius grunted in my direction, and Septima nodded at me. “We were just discussing the codex,” she said, and I noticed that although her voice was barely louder than a whisper it was still perfectly clear.

“I grew up with them, but I think both have their virtues,” I said. Most of the scrolls we had were originals, and were stored in the big library. Touching them always filled me with a kind of awe. I wished that I could have gone with Ikaros and Ficino to rescue them from Alexandria and Constantinople.

“And what are you working on today?” Atticus asked me.

“I’m not really working at all. I’m just in the library to keep warm. I’m going to be entirely self-indulgent and re-read the Gorgias,” I said. “Have you read it yet, Septima?”

We had recently allowed it onto the list of Plato the golds were allowed to access, which was of course why I was re-reading it, in advance of a lot of conversations I was expecting to have with them about it. “Oh yes,” she said, smiling to herself. I was glad she had enjoyed it.

“Are you prepared for the debate tonight?” Atticus asked.

“Oh, don’t let’s talk about that,” Tullius begged.

“I am ready, but I agree, let’s not talk about it,” I said. I was surprised Atticus would mention it in front of Septima. “I’ll see you both there, no doubt.”

I moved away to continue questing for a seat. “In the Palatine Apollo library in Rome,” Tullius was saying as I moved on.

However much he wasn’t looking forward to it, Tullius was at the Chamber early for the debate. Lysias was also there before I arrived, sitting with Klio on the crowded benches near the front. I sat with Axiothea in our usual spot. The big hall was chilly, and most of us kept our cloaks on. Creusa slipped in at the last minute and joined us. “Crisis with a baby that stopped breathing,” she said.

“Is it all right?” I asked.

“No, the poor thing died. Nothing I could do. It just happens sometimes.”

“One of the newborns?” Axiothea asked.

“No, one of the first ones, more than a year old.” Kreusa shook her head. “It’s only the second Corinthian baby we’ve lost. Charmides’s mold drugs are miraculous in most cases.”

I nodded my agreement. “It’s wonderful how few babies we’ve lost, compared to what I’d expect.”

Tullius raised his hand to begin the debate, and we all fell silent. I was expecting Aristomache to start, as she had proposed the debate, but Lysias stood up and was recognised. He went down to the rostrum then turned to address us all.

“I was wrong,” he began. “I did not believe the workers could possibly be intelligent. I come from a time closest of all of us to the time they come from, and I know the most about them and have been working most closely with them. They were never my area of study—I was a philosopher. They were tools. But since I have been here I have done my best to maintain them—and inadvertently done them much injustice. Because I believed they were tools, I refused to admit that they might have become conscious, and I have mistreated them by removing their memories.”

“Their memories!” Kreusa murmured, horrified. It did seem such a horrible thing, to tamper with what somebody remembered.

“I did this in ignorance, but it was unjust, and I owe them an apology. Now I acknowledge that some of them at least are conscious, and I have to see the others as having the potential to become so.”

“You’re admitting that they’re people?” Sokrates interrupted from the floor. Tullius frowned but allowed it, as he almost always did with Sokrates.

“Yes, that’s what I’m saying,” Lysias said. “They’re people, or potentially people, though a very different kind of people from us. I don’t know how this can be. I don’t understand them as well as I should. But there’s no question that they’re engaging in dialogues they couldn’t have if they weren’t self-aware. I don’t think all of them are conscious. I don’t believe any of them were conscious when they came. I suspect this is something they have developed here, over time.”

Klio stood up and was recognized. “I agree with Lysias, and I also want to apologize to the workers for my part in dealing unjustly with them,” she said. “And I move that we bring in the workers to speak for themselves in this debate, and to hear our apologies.”