Hilfa shook his head without looking up.

“I think it would certainly be preferable if he did, instead of heading off into primal Chaos with Athene,” Pytheas said.

“So do you really think we should go to Father?” Hermes asked.

“Well, maybe. Except that she does plead for me not to tell him,” Pytheas said, looking down at the paper again. “Since you also seem against it, let’s try getting the explanation first.”

“Pleads? Athene? Can I see that?” Hermes asked, putting out his hand for it.

“No, I think not,” Pytheas said, folding it up and putting it inside his kiton.

“But Zeus must know already. He knows everything,” Thetis said.

“He knows, but he’s not aware of things until they come to his attention. If we can sort it out ourselves, it might be better if this came to his attention after Athene is safely back,” Pytheas said.

“Or at least until we’ve read the explanation and know we can’t do it without help,” Hermes said.

“Time can’t be changed, except in one circumstance,” Pytheas said.

“The Darkness of the Oak,” Marsilia interrupted. Both gods turned at once to focus on her. I had no idea what she was talking about, but the words sent chills through me. I took a deep draught of my wine and looked sideways across the room to her as she continued, “It’s given me nightmares since Dad told me about Zeus talking about it on Olympos. Do you think he’d do that? Unmake the City, now? Because of this?”

“More than that, if need be,” Pytheas said. “Athene wants to know everything. There are no limits to everything. But Father has Mysteries he might not want investigated, and I fear this is one of them. It’s directly against his edicts. She might have gone too far. And as for Jathery—is Jathery a favorite of Father’s?” He swung around to Hilfa.

“No,” Hilfa whispered, his lips hardly moving.

Thetis broke the awkward silence. “Where are the pieces of Athene’s explanation?”

“Distributed through time, where only gods can get them. Kebes has one of them.”

Marsilia, Thetis and I gasped in unison. “Who’s Kebes?” Hermes asked. Astonishing. But of course, he didn’t know. He was from another world. The seventy eventful years of our history was all new to him.

“Kebes is the one I beat playing your gift upside-down,” Pytheas said. “He hates me. Worse, I was in time all the time he was alive. You’ll have to collect that piece. And it won’t be easy.”

“She must have wanted you involved,” Marsilia said, looking at Hermes. “You, or some other god at least.”

“I’m not going near this culture without a native guide,” Hermes said. He was looking at Thetis, but she was looking down at Hilfa and didn’t notice. Hilfa was rocking backwards and forwards slightly, his multicolored lids closed over his eyes.

“I said I’m staying with you,” Marsilia said to Hermes. “I’ve been to Lucia.”

“Good,” he said. Then he smiled challengingly at Pytheas. “How many pieces are there? Shall we divide them and meet back here with them?”

“I’ll manage Pico,” Pytheas said. “How are you with the Enlightenment?”

“You can definitely have that one,” Hermes said, with a little shudder.

“All right, then you can take Phila the daughter of Antipatros. Athene says she gave it to her after her wedding, so any time after that I suppose.”

“Who did she marry?” Hermes asked.

“She married Demetrios the Besieger of Cities,” Marsilia said. Then, when she realized we were all staring at her, “What? It’s in Plutarch.”

“You are going to be useful. Good!” Hermes said.

As I was drawing breath, Pytheas, Hermes, and Marsilia vanished.

Meanwhile, unnoticed by anyone except me, Thetis had slipped to the floor and put her arms around Hilfa, who immediately turned and clung to her like a baby.

8

APOLLO

I generally enjoy emotions. I like transmuting emotion into art, every shade of feeling, every nuance and tone and note. But the wrath I felt now, the anger at Athene that burned through me, was too strong for that. Human emotions happen in the veins, in the gut, as well as in the mind. Divine emotions are a thing of mind and soul alone, but are neither less strong nor less passionate for that. You hear of Olympian calm, and we are calm, detached, distant—usually. When we do feel strongly there is nothing of mortal frailty to deter us in that feeling. A mortal heart or liver might overflow and burst with too strong an emotion, but never ours. When we are moved as strongly as I was moved by Athene’s letter there is no restraint—we are the anger, while the anger lasts.

I like feeling the heat of emotions. I do not like giving way before them and becoming the conflagration. Emotions should always be manageable, never overwhelming.

Therefore my calm and control can be demonstrated by my behavior. I practiced moderation, as both my Delphic injunction and Plato recommend. I did not burn down Hilfa’s house in sudden fusion heat. I did not even char Athene’s letter to ash as I read it. I talked reasonably to the others, though I did not show the letter to them. There was no need to make things any worse.

It was the late summer of 1506 when I strode rapidly down one of the little streets in Bologna that run between the cathedral and the town hall. It was a narrow laneway, lined on both sides with people selling things, pushing them on the passersby with cries and importunities. I shoved through them impatiently. He was sitting on a high stool outside a wineshop, disputing, surrounded by a gaggle of students. He was as I had last seen him on Olympos, young and able to see, but he was wearing the robes of an Augustinian monk. He had a white ceramic winecup in his hand, and was gesturing with it. I grabbed him by the shoulder, pulled him off the stool and turned him to face me.

“Ah,” he said, admirably unsurprised. “Pytheas. With your cloak flaring around you like that, I thought you must be an avenging angel.”

His friends laughed. I glared at them, and back at Pico. “Shall we go somewhere we can talk privately?” I asked, speaking Latin because he had. It was wrong to take out my wrath on Pico. He wasn’t the one who deserved it.

He fumbled some coins out of his pouch and put them down on the table among the winecups. “An old friend. I’ll see you later,” he said to the others.

“You needn’t think you’ll get away without making a proper refutation!” one of them said.

“Tomorrow,” Pico said, smiling and shaking his head.

“Why are you dressed as an Augustinian?” I asked quietly as we walked down the street together, ignoring offers of fish, wine, fruit, and young bodies of both sexes from the street vendors.

“I’m staying at the monastery of St. Stephen’s,” he explained.

“And what are you doing here?”

“Research.” He looked wary. “And arguing with Averroists. They’re young, and they haven’t been properly trained, but some of them are extremely smart.”

“You’re not a lawyer or a doctor, so what are you researching in Bologna?” We came out of the little street into the square by the Ducal Palace.

He smiled. “Theology?”

“Really? You barely got away from the Inquisition last time, and you had influential friends then!”

He smiled at me. “I do now, too. Here you are, and before I’ve managed to get into any trouble at all. Let’s go in here.” It was another wineshop, on a corner, with only a few tables out on the street. He ducked through the door and I followed. The interior was small and dark. The patrons were older, and many of them were wearing dusty aprons, by which I deduced that they were stonemasons. Pico ordered wine, and we sat down together on a bench in a corner. The place was crowded, but the patrons moved over to make a little room for us. “If we speak Greek, we’ll have perfect privacy here,” he said in that language. “We probably would have back there, but that’s a scholars’ tavern, so you never know.”