“Yes,” I said. “I feel exactly the same.” I hardly ever admitted it. Everyone complained, and so I did too, to fit in.

“And it is the same,” she said. “You work out at sea, hard work, dangerous, feeding us all. And I work with the tiny babies in the nursery, both the ones there full-time and the ones whose parents leave them with us for a few hours a day, or a few days now and then. I always have six or seven babies in my care, and I love them, and I love looking after them. And as they get older and need instruction they move up to teachers, but I still see them. There must be twenty children who call me Ma Thee, as well as my present little lovelies. They need me, and the City needs me there, and I am far far better suited to working with babies from birth to two than I should have been to anything else I could have done.”

“So you don’t resent Marsilia being consul?”

“I’m excited about it!” We were getting closer to Thessaly, but she stopped again, and I stopped too. The stones beneath our feet were incised with old debates. “All that was when I was younger. I don’t feel like that now. I’m happy with who I am. I was only talking about that because of Grandfather, trying to explain. He never made me feel stupid, or like I’m not achieving what I could, or any of that. When we were going to take our oaths and become ephebes, he talked to me about what the oath meant, and what the City meant, and I felt he loved me and he understood who I was. He could be strange sometimes, which is only to be expected. He was a god! But he saw that I was nervous and uncomfortable, and he explained it all to me, and he was right, and the Guardians were right.”

She smiled, sadly. “Dad and Ma and Marsilia are always busy. I could always go to Grandfather and tell him about the babies. The funny, ordinary, adorable things they do. It made him smile. He’d say he didn’t have enough conversations about ordinary human things. And sometimes I’d be there when people came, important people, and at first if that happened I’d try to leave, but he pressed me to stay and make small talk with them, to set them at their ease, so I’d do that. And once he told me that Simmea used to do that for him, and he never worked out how to do it. He knew he had to offer them something and talk about insignificant things first, but he always felt awkward doing it and wanted to jump right in to whatever they’d really come about. He said he admired the way I could do it naturally and make them feel comfortable.”

I couldn’t say anything. Saying I’d been in love with her for years and that this made me love her all the more would have been wrong, but there wasn’t anything else I could think of to say. I nodded.

“I’d make a terrible consul. But Marsilia is a splendid one, exactly like Dad. And she’d be awful at looking after babies, and I’m really good at that. It wasn’t only our looks, it really was our souls. So sometimes I think looks do reflect souls.”

“Maybe,” I said. “Though what I remember Plato saying about that seems to be a bit different from the way you see it. But how can you think Marsilia would be awful with babies? What about Alkippe?”

She smiled again. “Alkippe’s seven years old. And now she’s old enough, Marsilia’s the best mother in the world for her, teaching her things, and Alkippe’s so bright, she soaks it all up. But for the first three years I looked after her. If I hadn’t wanted to, I think Marsilia would have left her in the nursery full-time. The year she was two, Marsilia was away on a mission to Lucia. Alkippe hardly noticed.” Thetis smiled. “She’d notice now, though! If Marsilia had to go away again she’d take her with her, I think. But she won’t. She’s consul, and she’s fixed here for a year.”

“That’s good,” I said. “Though I don’t know how she manages to make time for everything she does and working on the boat.”

“She enjoys it,” Thetis said.

“Thee—” I stopped.

“What?”

I gathered up my nerve. “I’ve really enjoyed talking to you like this. Maybe we could do it some more. On days when your grandfather hasn’t died, I mean. And if you want to talk about the funny things the babies did, or anything.” I knew I was babbling, and I was trying hard not to sound threatening, or too eager. I knew from Marsilia that Thetis always had plenty of men buzzing around, and women too. It would have been more surprising if she didn’t, looking like that.

She looked wary and took her hand off my arm. “Aren’t you married?”

“No?” I was puzzled. Who could she think I was married to? I’d never really looked at anyone else, they all seemed to be little ripples compared to the tidal wave that was Thetis. I’d messed about with boys when I’d been a boy myself, and I volunteered at every Festival of Hera, but that was the extent of my experience. “And anyway, I didn’t mean it like that—or not only like that. I didn’t mean anything I couldn’t have meant if I had happened to be married. But I’m not.”

“But I thought you were married! I always see you with children?” She sounded puzzled. “Like down at the dock earlier.”

“Camilla is Aelia and Leonidas’s daughter,” I said. “I was wondering who you thought I’d married.”

“And I had sort of wondered who you did marry. But I don’t see you very often, and whenever I did you seemed to have little children with you, so I thought…”

“Aelia and Leonidas died at sea, five years ago. Camilla is eight, and Little Dion, Di, is six. We always knew them and loved them, and so Dion and I look out for them, when they’re free and we are, and we do all tend to be together having fun at festivals and that kind of thing. So I see why you would have seen them with me.”

“Yes, I do see,” she said. “But Jason—”

I interrupted her while I still had the courage. “I feel about twelve years old saying this, but let me say it. I really like you. I can’t say I don’t find you attractive. I’m not a stone. But I really did mean that I enjoyed talking, and with what you were saying about talking to Pytheas about the babies I thought maybe you wanted somebody you could talk to like that, probably more than you want admirers, which you can’t possibly be lacking.”

“I’ve enjoyed talking to you too, and I’d certainly like to do it again,” she said, and she kissed my cheek.

We walked on. I wasn’t feeling the cold at all now, even though the wind was scattering the clouds above us. I put my arm around her again. I wasn’t sure what any of this meant, but whatever it was, it made me happy.

Thessaly seemed to be simply an old sleeping house, like all the sleeping houses of the old city, with the name carved above the door. The history didn’t show. The door was closed, but the sconce above it was shining brightly, casting out a gold radiance and lighting up the words carved in the flagstones where we were walking: “Read, write, learn.” As we came close, something big swooped over our heads. We both ducked, instinctively. There are no birds on Plato, but of course I’d seen Arete flying, and naturally I assumed it was her, come to Thessaly for her father’s memorial. She didn’t usually fly down so low as to part people’s hair. I looked up, and was amazed to see a young man, naked, with winged sandals and a flat hat. He was looking down at us and grinning. Nobody with half a brain could have been in a moment’s doubt as to who he was.

“I should be going,” I said.

“No, stay with me,” Thetis said, not taking her hand from my arm.

“But…” I indicated Hermes, now settling gracefully to the ground a little way up the street. Also, I was starting to be aware that I was wearing trousers, that well-known mark of barbarians and people who work out of doors in cold weather. I have a kiton for special occasions, but nobody had warned me that this would be one.

“Half my family are gods,” she said.

“Yes, I know, but—” It was different for me, I was going to say, but she didn’t give me time to finish.