“That thing the Amazons are into?” Erinna asked. “How would the Goodness Group know about it?”

“Where did you get Kebes?” Maia asked Ficino abruptly.

“The slave market at Smyrna,” he said. “The same place I found Simmea. They were chained together.” I shuddered. I knew that all the Children had been enslaved, but knowing it was different from hearing a detail like that dropped casually. That was my mother he was talking about. Thank Athene he had been there to rescue her!

“What year was it?”

“Oh Maia, honestly! You can’t expect me to remember that! So long ago, and so many children.”

“But was it after Christianity?” she asked.

“Oh yes. They both had saints’ names, I remember.” He stared at the statue. “But they were only ten.”

“Simmea used to say that we should have started with the abandoned babies of antiquity,” Maia said. I had heard her say so myself.

“Ten-year-olds are not wax tablets that can be wiped clean and written afresh,” Ficino agreed.

“I can’t understand how Plato could have thought they were,” Neleus said.

Just then the shore party sent a signal that it was safe for us to come in. “Are you sure?” Maia muttered, but Caerellia began to give orders for the Hesperides watch to take the ship in to the wharf, where there were poles for us to tie up to as we did at home. Proper docking facilities, no doubt intended for the Goodness.

“There were some masters among the Goodness Group,” Ficino said. “It isn’t necessarily a case of what ten-year-olds remembered.” There was a cheer from the shore.

“Somebody, some Jesuit or Dominican I think, said that if you gave him a boy until he was seven he’d be theirs for life,” Maia said.

Ficino barked a laugh.

“So Christianity was a big thing?” Erinna asked. “In the bit of history we don’t hear about?”

“It was the dominant religion of Europe for fifteen hundred years,” Maia said. “We just try not to mention it much.”

“Even Rome became Christian,” Ficino said.

Erinna and I looked at each other, astonished. “Rome!” It seemed entirely implausible.

“They even counted their years from the birth of Christ,” Neleus said. He was scanning the crowd on shore intently as we came in closer. “Father mentioned that once.”

“And where did you get Pytheas?” Maia asked.

Ficino laughed. “Pytheas is something else. He came from the slave market in Euboia. One of the earliest expeditions. Athene named him herself, the only one she ever would.”

“But what year?” Maia asked.

“Four or five hundred years after the founding of Rome?” Ficino said, uncertain.

“So how would he know that?”

“Somebody must have told him,” Neleus said. “Maybe one of you let it slip. Or one of the other Masters.”

We were tying up. I realized I’d be able to step ashore, no need for swimming this time. Father was still talking to the locals, but Klymene and Phaenarete strode over toward the ship.

“Interesting that Athene named him,” Maia said. “Did she know what she was doing, and did she have the right to do it?”

“That neatly sums up the Last Debate,” Neleus said.

“It seems so strange to think that you’ve actually met a goddess,” Erinna said. Neleus’s eyes met mine. It didn’t seem strange to us at all.

“She rescued me from a life where I was stifled, and gave me a life I wanted to lead,” Maia said. “And we did all have the very best intentions for building the Good Life.”

Klymene swung herself onto the Excellence. Caerellia and Maecenas were there to greet her. “This is Marissa, a colony founded by the Goodness Group but mostly consisting of refugees from the wars of the mainland,” she said concisely, to them but loudly enough that the rest of us pressing around could hear. “They are friendly and want to talk about trade. They have other cities, we don’t yet know where.”

“Marissa,” muttered Ficino. Maia nodded, as if it meant something. Too close to Maria? She seemed a benevolent goddess from what I knew of her, which was entirely pictorial. Of course I had not read the words of the Botticelli book, which were in the Latin alphabet but some language I did not know. I hadn’t heard much about the religion she was part of. Even Rome, I thought, still amazed.

“You said it’s safe?” Maecenas asked.

“Safe enough. Leave a watch aboard, I’d say.”

Caerellia nodded and started giving orders, that the watch on duty would stay aboard. Everyone not part of the Hesperides watch started for the rail.

“Safe for old men and children,” Ficino said, taking my arm. I was surprised how thin his hand felt. I swung over the rail and he followed me more slowly.

“Wait,” Maecenas said.

We stopped and turned.

“I want you to help with negotiations,” Maecenas said to Ficino.

“That’s never been one of my areas of interest,” Ficino said.

“No, but you’re good with people,” Maecenas said.

Ficino sighed and took his hand off my arm. “Very well. But I insist on having time to explore Marissa, at least as much as we did at Delos.”

“I don’t know how long we’ll stay, but I won’t keep you in negotiations every minute,” Maecenas said.

Ficino nodded and went with him.

I could see Father still surrounded by people. Erinna and Neleus had both stepped onto dry land, and were staggering a little, the same way I was. Maia was already striding off toward the statue. We followed after her.

Looking around, I found myself remembering the visit I had made to Sokratea with Mother a year ago. I touched Erinna’s arm—it just wasn’t possible to avoid touching her, but even the most normal things were charged with tingling erotic potential that I had to fight down. She turned to me. “Remember Sokratea?” I said, keeping my voice as even as I could. She nodded. “This feels the same, sort of. It’s like the City but not like it, and everyone is a stranger.”

She nodded again. “In some ways it’s stranger than those weird primitive villages, because it is like home. But it’s not like Sokratea either. We’ve been in constant contact with Sokratea. We’re allies. We have diplomatic relations, and trade. We were there on a recognized mission.”

“I was thinking that,” Neleus put in. “We haven’t heard anything from the Goodness Group in all this time. How did Klymene decide to just trust them and bring the ship in?”

“Klymene and Pytheas,” Erinna said. She put her hand to her side where she kept a little knife for cutting ropes and whittling wood. Neleus did the same with his, and I realized as their eyes met that they were ephebes, they had gone through weapons training, and that whatever other uses they had every day, the knives at their sides were also weapons. I felt useless and young and unarmed. “Your father wants vengeance more than anyone,” she went on. “He wouldn’t have called us in if he thought they were responsible.”

It was true. I looked over to him, still surrounded by Marissans. An old woman at his side said something and came toward us, or rather toward Maia and the statue. “Maia!” she called, clearly delighted. “Joy to you!” It must have been true what Ficino said about the Goodness Group having Masters in it, because she looked very old, almost as old as he was.

Maia turned. “Aristomache! Joy! How lovely to see you. What have you been doing?” They hugged each other

“Teaching, as always,” Aristomache said.

“Here?”

“Here, and in Hieronymos on the other side of the island. And before that in Lucia, our first city, on Lesbos. And you?”

“Teaching too, in Amazonia and now back in the original city. You have three cities?”

“We have eight, on three islands. And you have five, all on Kallisti, Pytheas says?”

“That’s right,” Maia confirmed. “We’ve been calling you the Lost City, we never thought of you having so many!”

“Well, with only a hundred and fifty of us we had to find recruits, and when we saw how many people needed help we just kept on with it,” Aristomache said. “War’s such a terrible thing. We do what we can.” She smiled. “Now who are these?”