Terentius was nodding, looking appalled. They both seemed utterly sincere. I exchanged a quick glance with Dion. I didn’t like to think that Kebes was doing better at civilization than we were.

14

ARETE

I seemed to spend half my time at the top of the mast looking far out at the sea and thinking, and the other half at the rail looking at close-up islands. Usually my time at the masthead was peaceful. I suppose I should have been contemplating philosophy, but my mind had a tendency to wander.

The day we left Ikaria I wanted to think about our powers, and what they meant, and what father had said about the gods, but there was no time for contemplation. We had our first squall on my watch. I stayed at the masthead looking for rocks, and calling them out when I did see them. The others were worn out adjusting sails and changing tack—all our practice had been in smooth weather. When your sails are wet and the wind backs as you’re trying to adjust them, canvas feels alive, as if it’s trying to get away from you. Erinna nearly fell into the sea helping Nemea wrestle with a sail. She saved herself by swinging on a rope. My heart nearly stopped when I saw it. There was no time to do anything, but my impulse in the moment before she caught the rope was to fly down from the mast and snatch her up. I had risen to my feet and was about to leap. On sober reflection I had no idea whether I could fly, let alone carry another person as I did it. I resolved to ask Father. But it felt like the right thing to do, the thing my instincts prompted, and in another instant I would have tried it.

In the excitement I nearly missed seeing a fishing boat scudding before the wind. Fortunately, it saw us and veered off. I kept watching for rocks and calling them out. By the time the clouds lifted our watch was almost over, and Samos was close at hand.

When Thano, my replacement lookout, came up I went down to the deck and hugged Erinna, intensely aware of the feeling of her body and fighting down the sensations in my own. “I’m so glad you’re safe!” I said.

“My own clumsiness that I slipped in the first place,” she said, but she did hug me back for a moment before letting go. “It shows how important all those drills are. My body knew what to do when there was no time to think.”

I felt nothing but relief that I hadn’t yielded to my own instincts. Whether I could have flown and caught her or not, I’d have revealed what I was to everyone. That wouldn’t have mattered if I could have saved her life, but what would she have thought? “I’d never been aloft in a storm before,” I said.

“That was no more than a little squall. If there’s any sign of a real storm we’ll find somewhere sheltered to anchor, I should think. Real storms can be bad for sailing ships. Like the one at the beginning of the Aeneid.”

“Or when they open the bag of winds in the Odyssey,” I said.

She grinned. “Isn’t it fun to think we’re sailing their very seas, before they sailed them?”

“What would have happened if you’d gone overboard?”

“I can swim. The water was rough, but I’d probably have been fine. Maecenas would have put the ship to, which would have wasted time, but we’re not in a life or death race.”

I was even more glad I hadn’t flown down off the mast and perhaps killed myself when she wasn’t in real danger.

“But my head might have hit the deck, or a rock,” she went on. “You can’t help thinking about that kind of thing. I’m glad the rope was there and I caught it.”

“Oh yes,” I said, wholeheartedly. Just then I caught sight of something over her shoulder, on the shore. “What’s that?”

It was a city, a proper city. We sailed closer and anchored near it, and a small shore group was sent in. It was a real city, which seemed homelike after the places we had seen. It had columns and broad streets and it was clean. There was even a colosseum, which we didn’t have at home, though of course I recognized it from paintings. There was an unpainted marble statue on the wharf, a goddess with a baby on her knee. The style was familiar, although of course I hadn’t seen that particular statue before. It made me feel welcome after the strange decorated heads on Paros and Mykonos. There hadn’t been any statues that I’d seen on Delos, only immense columns and future ghosts.

“Auge,” Maia said, coming up to us at the rail. I turned to her questioningly.

“Auge must have carved that,” she said. “I recognize her style.”

“I suppose that means that this is definitely the Goodness Group.” We were quite close to the statue, which was bigger than life-size so I could see it well. The goddess was looking down at the baby, who was looking out at us, with his hand stretched toward us.

Maia nodded. Erinna was also looking at the statue. “Who is she?” she asked.

“Auge was one of the Children,” Maia said. “She left with Kebes.”

“I meant, which goddess,” Erinna said.

“Hera—” Maia said, with much less certainty. “No, Demeter, or perhaps—”

I looked questioningly at Maia. Her voice sounded strange.

“Aphrodite with baby Eros?” Erinna suggested. “But he doesn’t have any wings.”

“Surely Kebes wouldn’t…? Where’s Ficino?” Maia turned to me. “Can you see if you can find him?”

Erinna and I went to look for him. He was asleep in a hammock, looking so old and tired that I hesitated to wake him. Erinna clapped her hands softly, and he woke at once, instantly alert. “What is it?” he asked.

“We’re at a city that might be the Goodness Group city, and Maia wanted you to look at a mysterious statue,” Erinna said.

“That’s worth waking up for,” he said. I remembered him saying he didn’t sleep much these days, and was sorry to have disturbed him. He swung out of the hammock and pulled his kiton on. I looked away from his old-man’s wrinkled skin, like a plucked chicken. I drew Erinna away, hardly noticing until afterward that I had touched her arm. Ficino had earned his dignity.

He came over to us as soon as he came out on the deck. Neleus had joined Maia by the rail and we all crowded together. “Holy Mother!” Ficino said.

“Literally and specifically, I think,” Maia said. She sounded furious about it.

“This can’t have anything to do with Ikaros,” Ficino said. Erinna raised her eyebrows at me. I shook my head. I had no idea why he would say that.

“It could just be a goddess we don’t know,” Neleus said.

“That’s exactly what it is,” Erinna said. “I don’t know her. It seems as if you two do?”

“It’s the pose,” Ficino said. “It seems Christian.”

“Like Botticelli,” I said, seeing it at once now that he had pointed it out. The statue resembled Botticelli’s Madonnas, the ones in the book we had at home, the book Maia had brought with her. The child on her lap, her head bent over him.

Ficino looked at me sharply. “Not like any of the Botticellis we have in Florentia,” he said.

Maia blushed. “Remember, I had a book,” she said. “Ikaros brought it from one of his art expeditions with Athene. It has the Madonnas.”

“Did you show it to Auge?” Ficino asked.

“Yes,” Maia admitted. “When she was just starting to sculpt seriously. That’s probably all this is. Influence. It probably is Hera.” She sounded as if she were trying to convince herself.

“Where is that book now?” Ficino asked.

“In Thessaly,” I said. “My mother loved it.”

“Simmea always loved Botticelli,” Ficino said, sounding sad. “In the dining hall at Florentia she’d always sit so that she could stare at one or another of his paintings.”

On the quay Father and the others were talking intently with a group of locals. They were wearing kitons that were each dyed in one solid color, mostly blues and pinks.

“So what goddess do you think it might be?” Erinna asked, patiently.

“Maria,” Ficino said. “The mother of God in Christianity.”