The masters paid what the slavers asked, unquestioningly. I could see how delighted the slavers were, although of course they tried to hide it. They had made more for each of us children than they would have for a beautiful young woman or a strong man. We were roped together and led down to a ship.

I had grown up on the shifting shore of the Delta, seeing ships only far out to sea, before the pirates had come in to attack us. Since then I had seen only their slave ship. I could tell that this ship was different, but not in what way. It had no banks of oars and no great square sail, but two masts and a series of stepped sails. I later learned that she was a schooner, and sailed by wind and tide alone. Her name was Goodness.

On the deck of the ship a woman was sitting with her legs crossed, a book in her hand. One of the masters unbound the ropes from our hands and legs as we came aboard and we were led up to her in pairs. The woman seemed to be writing down the names of the children, after which they were led to a hatchway and disappeared. My own master, he of the red hat, led me up to her with my tormentor. “These two have saints’ names,” he said. “Will you name them, Sophia?”

She looked up, and I saw that her eyes were grey. “Not I. You should know better than to ask, Marsilio. You name them.”

“Very well, then. They were chained together. Write them down as Kebes, the boy, and Simmea, the girl.” He smiled at me again as he named us. “These are good names, names that will stand you well in the city. Forget your old names, as you should forget your childhoods and your time in misery. You are going to a good place. You are all brothers and sisters here, all reborn to new lives.”

“And your name, master?” Kebes asked.

“He is Ficino, the Translator,” the woman answered for him. “He is one of the masters of the Just City.”

Then one of the others shepherded us to the hatch, and we climbed down a ladder into a big open space. The hold was nothing like the hold of the slaver. It was surprisingly well lit by strange glowing beams that lay along the curving slope of the ship. By their light I could see that it was full of children, all strangers. I had never seen so many ten-year-olds in one place, and apart from the market, never so many people. There must have been more than a hundred. Some were sleeping, some were sitting in groups talking or playing games, others were standing alone. None of them took much notice of the new arrivals. There were so many strangers suddenly that those who had been chained by me seemed like friends by comparison. Kebes was the only one whose name I knew. I stayed beside him as we went in among the others. “Do you think the masters mean well by us?” I asked him.

“I hate them,” he replied. “I hate all of them, all masters whoever they are, whatever they mean. I shall never forgive them, never submit to them. They think they bought me, think they changed my name, but nobody can buy me or change me against my will.”

I looked at him, surprised. Like a dog who had been beaten, I had been ready to love and trust the first kind word I received. He was different. He looked fierce and proud, like a hunting hawk who cannot be tamed. “Why did you poke me?” I asked.

“I will not submit.”

“I wasn’t the one who bound you. I was bound beside you.”

“I couldn’t get at the ones who bound me, and you were bound beside me where you were the only one I could reach.” He looked a little guilty. “It was a small rebellion, but the only one I could achieve at that moment. And besides, you got me back.” He pointed at the fading mark on his leg. “We’re equal. Tell me your name?”

“Simmea, the master Ficino said.” I saw his lip curl as if he despised me. “Oh, all right. Lucia.”

“Well Lucia, though I shall call you Simmea and you may call me Kebes where the masters can hear, my name is Matthias. And I will never forgive them. I may wait for my revenge, but I will get it when they do not expect it.”

We had not even reached the city. The ship was barely out of the harbour of Smyrna. Already the seeds of rebellion were growing.

3

MAIA

I was born in Knaresborough in Yorkshire in 1841, the third child and second daughter of the local rector. My parents christened me Ethel.

My father, the Rev. John Beecham, M.A., was a scholar who had been at Oxford and cared as much or more for the classics than he did for God. My mother was a worldly woman, the daughter of a baron, and therefore entitled to call herself “the honourable,” which she did on all occasions. She loved nothing so much as pretty clothes and decorations. Her recreations were embroidery and visiting friends, and her charity consisted of doing good works in the parish. My elder sister, Margaret, known as Meg, was so entirely my mother’s daughter as to be almost another edition of her in miniature. My father had hoped to have the same for himself in my brother, Edward, who was born the year before me. Unfortunately, Edward’s temperament was not at all like my father’s. He was an active, energetic boy, but sadly unsuited to scholarship. My father frequently grew impatient with him. From the first I can remember, I was consoling Edward and helping him con his lessons.

I do not remember learning to read. Perhaps my mother taught me, as she had certainly taught Meg. I have been able to read for as far back as my memory stretches, so perhaps it is true what Plato says, that we bring some memories from our past lives. If so, then all I remembered was reading. Certainly I remember clearly that when I first saw the Greek alphabet, when I was six and poor Edward was seven, it came to me immediately, more like recollecting something forgotten than learning something new. The shapes of the Greek letters were like old friends, and I only needed to be told their names once. But for Edward it was torture. I remember coaching him in it over and over. He would get hopelessly lost, poor boy. That was when we began to work together in earnest. He would always bring me his lessons as soon as he left Father, and we would go over them together until he understood them. In this way we both progressed together in Latin and Greek. Soon I was reading ahead of him in his books. I had already read everything in the house in English.

Mother and Father did not take much notice of me in early childhood. I was brought down daily to greet my parents in the afternoon for an hour after tea, and often that was the only time I saw them. Meg was four years older than Edward and five years older than me. Mother taught Meg herself and took her about with her. She had a splendid wardrobe which suited her very well. She was a fetching child, good natured, always smiling and laughing, with golden curls and pink cheeks. My hair was paler, and lifeless in comparison, it would never take a curl. Nor did I ever try to charm the company. I retreated into myself until my mother thought me dull and sullen. When Meg was already old enough to begin to play the piano and to sew prettily, Edward and I were still under the care of our nurse.

Edward had his lessons with Father every morning. I stayed in the nursery and read everything I could lay my hands on. Then in the afternoons, after I had helped Edward understand his morning’s lessons, we took healthful walks on the moors. This went on happily enough until Edward was twelve and Father began to talk of sending him away to school. Edward dreaded it, and begged to be allowed to stay at home. “But your work is so much better,” Edward reported that Father had said. “Your last Latin composition had only one mistake, and your last Greek had none.” Edward then burst out crying and admitted to Father that they were both my work. Father forgave him but was bewildered. “Little Ethel? But how does she know enough to do it?” He called me in and tested me on unseen passages of Greek and Latin, which I translated with pride and without difficulty.