The Philosopher Kings (22 page)

“Why are you and Phaedrus suddenly interested in Italian poetry?” Ficino asked.

I gaped at him, entirely without an answer. If I'd known Petrarka had written in Italian as well as Latin, I could have said I was interested because of that, but I'd had no idea. “We were just wondering what it sounded like,” I said, feebly. “It's beautiful. And that's such an interesting thought. Did you see her?”

He smiled. “She'd been dead for almost two hundred years before I read the poem.”

“It's hard to understand the time things take, chronology, that kind of thing. The vast expanses of history.”

We had walked through the streets so that we were now outside the marble pillars of the entrance to the colosseum. Ficino stopped. “It's especially hard because we're at the wrong end of it, and because you've met people from so many different times. Why shouldn't I have seen Laura, when we both lived in Florentia in the Renaissance, as if it was all one big party?”

“She could be here, or Petrarka could at least,” I said.

“Too good a Christian, for all that he loved classical learning,” Ficino said. “And he didn't know Greek, so he couldn't have read Plato. Before I translated his work, Plato was only a legend in Italy.”

“It's so hard to imagine,” I said. “Ages without Plato. How wonderful that you could bring him back.” I wondered if my language gift could be used in that way.

Ficino smiled, and gestured to the colosseum. “Shall we go in?”

Inside, the colosseum descended in banks of earthwork seats down to a raked sand oval. They clearly used it as a palaestra, as there were weights stacked up ready for use. It was empty, and Ficino and I walked down the steps that divided seating sections from each other. I walked out onto the sand and sang a couple of lines from one of Father's praise songs. “Good acoustics,” I said. “I expect they use it as a theater too.” Looking up, I saw that it was built of earth and marble, not concrete the way the colosseum in Rome is described.

“Probably they use it for all kinds of things,” Ficino said. “There are grills on the gates there, look.”

We walked over to the gates. There was a strange smell there too, musky and acrid. “Animals,” I said. “Do you think they have animal fights in here?”

“The Romans did,” Ficino said. “And clearly they do.” He was peering in through the grill. “I can see what might be a trident. Maybe they have Roman gladiatorial combat too.”

“But they seem so nice,” I said. I had to step back because the smell was making me feel queasy.

“Well, the Romans did it, and most of these Marissans are from the mainland and would be used to watching violent kinds of entertainment.” Ficino wasn't as disturbed as I was. “I wonder what Aristomache thinks of it.”

“I don't like to think of them raking blood off the sand,” I said, looking at the sand, which seemed so clean and innocent. “I don't like to think of the Romans doing it either.”

“The problem with only giving you art that shows good people doing good things is that it makes you uncompromising, and doesn't give you useful examples,” Ficino said. “This isn't a dark secret. It's open to everyone.”

As if to demonstrate this, a group of ephebes came in and, after greeting us politely, started to race around the outside of the circuit, exactly as my friends and I would in the palaestra at home.

We walked back through the city. I realized this time that the houses near the agora were larger and better-built than the ones further away. The smaller ones didn't have glass in their windows, just wooden shutters. I saw a woman in a courtyard bent over, turning a stone on another stone. “What's she doing?” I asked.

Ficino looked. “Grinding wheat.”

“They don't have Workers, or electricity,” I said.

“They don't even have wind or water mills, which we used to grind wheat to flour in my time. They're starting without our technological base.”

Just then another woman came out into the courtyard and started to berate the woman turning the stone. We moved away.

“They have social classes,” I said.

“Yes,” Ficino agreed.

“And money. And wealth and poverty.”

“They started with adults who knew those things,” Ficino said. “That must have made it difficult.”

“Are they pursuing excellence?” I asked.

Ficino looked at me approvingly. “That's the question I've been asking myself. They haven't said they are. They talk about rescuing people and spreading their civilization. But they haven't mentioned excellence at all. And in the discussion just now, did you notice how much of what they said was about politics?”

“You kept asking about philosophy, and they always answered in terms of politics,” I said. It was clear, now that I thought about it.

Ficino nodded. “I can't help thinking about Kebes, how stubborn he was. These cities are more than just Kebes, and they're clearly very influenced by the culture of the people they rescued, as well as what the
Goodness
brought. Do you remember your project on how to tell how philosophical a city is?”

I remembered it very well. I nodded.

“How would you assess this one?” We stepped out of the way of a man leading a laden donkey.

“The people you were debating with seemed to understand rhetoric, and to want to debate. But they don't have a library,” I said. “Of course, one of the things they want from us is books, and it must be very difficult without.”

“It may seem strange to you, but is possible to hand-copy books,” Ficino said. “We did it in my day. They've done it too. They have versions of the Bible, the holy book of Christianity, as best they can remember it. And they have versions of Plato, the ones Aristomache knows by heart. There are some books in the school. But you're right that they don't have a library, and that's significant. There's a school and a church and a colosseum.” Ficino gestured to a house we were passing, one of the ones with window glass. “They're doing well on a material level, not compared to us, but compared to what we've seen in the islands.”

“But maybe not so much philosophically?”

“I keep reminding myself that it was justice Kebes cried out for.”

“It was?” I'd never heard that.

“At the Last Debate. I was trying to hold him back but he leaped up onto the rostrum and started yelling out. ‘These pagan gods are unjust.'”

We were almost back in the agora. “Athene had just acted very unjustly.”

“Yes. But the gadfly that had been Sokrates spurned Kebes and flew toward your parents, which has always seemed to me an indisputable sign. Still, Kebes started rallying people, and off they went.” He looked around him. “And here they are, and we'll have to make the best of it.”

We spent two more days in Marissa. On the second of them there was a bull baiting in the colosseum. Neleus and Erinna went, but I volunteered for duty aboard to avoid it. Erinna said it was disgusting, and Neleus said it was kind of fun but he wouldn't go again. Maia, who also hadn't attended, said she was glad that at least they ate the bull afterward. Father just shook his head.

We left Marissa with a plan. We'd sail to Chios and spend a night at the Goodness city there, Theodoros, the gift of God, and then sail on to Lucia. We should arrive there just before the festival began. Aristomache asked if she could sail with us, and so did half a dozen other Marissans. They only had one ship, and so moving between islands only happened when the
Goodness
called. In addition, the
Goodness
made a circuit of their eight cities, so taking a voyage meant being away from home for a long period. We intended to return to Kallisti immediately after the festival, and could bring them home to Marissa on the way. There was also talk of sending a diplomatic mission to Kallisti. I happened to be present when this was discussed. “Won't that be for Lucia to decide?” Caerellia asked Deiphobos, who was one of the elected Kings of Marissa.

“Oh, I don't think it would be a problem if we want to send somebody. They can send somebody too, if they want to. We wouldn't speak for them, only for ourselves. We're not subject to Lucia. Though of course, we know how much we owe them, and we're all good friends.”

Our sailing plan did not allow for bad weather. The weather, which had been good all the way from Kallisti, now let us down badly. The first day I was reminded of the storms in the
Aeneid
and the
Odyssey
. Many people were sick, and we had to manage the ship short-handed. I fell once wrestling sails, and did instinctively fly for a moment until I could regain the yard. I don't think anyone saw anything more than a well-recovered stumble; they were all too busy with their own tasks. The second day, when there was no letup in the gale, it reminded me of my dream where the ship was history being blown out of control by stormwinds. After that the days blurred together and the storm didn't remind me of anything except itself. I was quite sure we were going to founder, and worried about how long I could fly and how many people I could carry. There were just too many people aboard I loved. I finally understood Father not wanting all of us to come. It wasn't even possible to stay near one person I cared about. Too much of the time, if we'd breached I wouldn't have been able to save any of them. I decided that Phaedrus and Kallikles could save themselves, and if Erinna and Maia and Ficino and Neleus and Father weren't near enough I'd just grab whoever was and save them, even if it was sarcastic Caerellia or grumpy Phaenarete. I slept in exhausted snatches and took water to those too weak to fetch it for themselves. I discovered I had no divine abilities to heal, no sense of what was wrong with people the way Phaedrus described.

When I woke on the fourth or fifth morning to smooth sailing, and clear skies with visible stars, I actually wept.

 

18

ARETE

We had been blown in all directions, too far from safe harbors, and had sailed with the wind, avoiding islands as hazards. We were sure we were far to the northwest of Chios. We had no idea where we were. We hadn't seen any islands for days except as chaotic shapes whose rocks could destroy us. Now we had an even wind, and we were sailing east. Some people said we should head back to Marissa, or home to Kallisti, but Maecenas was set on visiting Lucia.

So, to my surprise, was Father. I wanted to talk to him about my powers, but the first time I caught him anything like alone he was standing at the rail with Neleus, looking out at the waves. Neleus had been extremely ill all through the storm and still looked wobbly. He was one of the very last people I wanted to know about my powers. It was unfair enough as it was. “I want to go to their city to see Kebes. Or Matthias if that's what he wants to call himself,” Father said, as I came up to them, sounding as grim as ever I had heard him.

“But do you really still think he killed Mother?” I asked. “They don't have any of our art, and they said they avoided Kallisti until now for fear of Athene.”

“Perhaps he didn't kill her,” Father agreed. He looked at me and then at Neleus. “I still want to know where the
Goodness
was that day. The Marissans may not know everything. But even if he didn't—I didn't want to tell you. But she wrote in her autobiography that he raped her.”

“What?” I thought for a moment that he meant Kebes had raped Mother on the day she was killed.

“When? Before the Last Debate?” Neleus asked.

“Yes. At the last Festival of Hera.” Father was staring out at a shadow of a shoreline on the horizon.
Before I was born,
I thought,
and only a few months after Neleus was born.

“But if it was the Festival of Hera, weren't they supposed to…?” Neleus asked.

“They were supposed to try to make a baby. He wasn't supposed to take her against her will when she was saying no.” Father sounded vehement enough to bring the storm back. I saw people turning to look from across the deck.

“If they'd been married in front of everyone…” Neleus trailed off again.

“That's why she didn't tell anyone. She didn't tell
me
.” There was a lot of pain in his voice, but it was quieter now. “It was rape, and he hurt her, and I'm going to kill him.”

“Right,” Neleus said. “I'll help.”

“The punishment for rape is flogging,” I said. I had been reading the laws in preparation for my adulthood tests. “And it would be very hard to prove now, even with her direct written testimony.”

“We're not going to take him to court in the City, we're going to kill him in Lucia,” Father said, looking irritated. Neleus nodded.

“But—” I opened my mouth and then stopped. But the rule of law, I'd wanted to say, but the terrible things that happen when bloodfeud replaces it? And why had Mother kept quiet about the rape except to prevent exactly this? Then again, the idea that she had been raped and hadn't told anyone for so many years was awful. The thought of it made my stomach churn. “I want to kill him too. I think rape should be considered a more serious offense.”

“When you're an adult you should argue that in Chamber,” Father said. “Lots of us would support that. It has the death penalty in the City of Amazons.”

“Maybe we could drag him back and try him there,” Neleus said. “And look for the head at the same time.”

“No. I couldn't bear being on the ship with him for that long. I'm not sure I'm going to be able to bear having any conversation with him at all. I'm going to kill him as soon as I possibly can.” Father bit his lip hard, but even so tears ran down his cheeks. “I hate the thought that he's still alive and breathing after he did that to her.”

So did I. “But what about trade agreements and diplomatic relationships between us and the Goodness Group?” I asked.