He had built a number of statues—we called them colossi, because they were so immense. They combined hyperrealism—you could see all the hairs up Sokrates’s nose in his Last Debate—with strange outbreaks of fantasy—in that same statue, one of Sokrates’s eyes is already a fly’s multifaceted eye. Parts of them were painted and parts of them were plain marble or other stone. He had decided to make a sculpture of Mother, but he hadn’t decided where. We went together to look at various places in the city he thought might be appropriate. I know he tried to talk to Father about this too. But Father was too sunk in grief to give an opinion—though he did sensibly agree with me that having a colossus of Mother in the garden at Thessaly would be a bad idea.
One day when it was my turn to help cook dinner in Florentia, I came out to eat late and saw Maia and Aeschines sitting with Father and Phaedrus. I took my plate over to join them. Father wasn’t crying at that moment, but his face still had that devastated look. Maia looked firm. Aeschines was looking troubled. He was one of the Children, and father of my friend Baukis. He had been a good friend of Mother’s, though not especially of Father’s. Father found him slow. He was a member of the Chamber, and on a number of important committees.
“Nobody is going to agree to a voyage of vengeance,” Maia was saying as I put my plate down.
Father looked up. “Arete. Joy to you.”
“Joy,” I echoed, though joy was the furthest thing from either of our voices.
“Joy to you, Arete,” Aeschines said. “I haven’t seen you in a long time. You must come and eat with me and Baukis in Ithaka one of these days.”
“Joy, and thank you,” I said. There was a fresco at Ithaka that Mother had painted when she’d been young. When Aeschines invited me, I was suddenly filled with a need to see it. She had painted it so long ago, and she had done better work since, as she always said. But I liked it, especially the way she had shown Odysseus in the harbor that was our own harbor. “I’ll come one day soon,” I promised.
“Baukis will be glad.” He smiled at me in a friendly way, as if he genuinely liked me.
Meanwhile Father had turned back to Maia. “Maybe nobody wants a voyage of vengeance. But how about a voyage of exploration? It’s ridiculous when you think about it, nonsensical for us to be here and know so little about what’s out there right now. Finding Kebes would be an advantage, if we could, whether or not he’s responsible for … for killing Simmea.” His face crumpled up.
“Exploration, yes, maybe,” Aeschines said, briskly. “But it would leave us without a ship here.”
“What’s the use of a ship that takes up so much maintenance but which nobody ever uses?” Father countered.
Aeschines nodded. “We use it for training, and visiting the other cities, but I do see your point. It would also mean a number of people wouldn’t be here if we were attacked. I assume you’d want to take a troop?”
“I think so. It could be dangerous. And if we did find Kebes, well, we’d definitely need a troop. But we wouldn’t be looking for danger or vengeance or anything. We’d just be trying to find out what was there. If that was Kebes, well…”
“What you’re a lot more likely to find is a lot of Minoan and Mycenaean settlements,” Maia said.
“Well, wouldn’t it be useful to see if they’re where they’re listed as being in the Catalog of Ships?” Father asked.
“I want to come,” my brother Phaedrus said. “I want to see something that isn’t just this island.”
“So do I,” I said.
“You’re much too young,” Maia said.
“Too young for a voyage of vengeance, true,” I said, choosing my words carefully. “I’m not yet an ephebe, I haven’t taken up arms or been chosen for a metal. But I’m old enough to go on a voyage of exploration.”
“Good point,” Aeschines said. “Would this be a safe voyage of exploration, safe enough to take children, or would it be a dangerous voyage of vengeance?”
Father looked at me, then back at Aeschines. Before he could speak, Ficino came over to join us. He’d finished eating, but he had a cup of wine in his hand. The red hat he almost always wore was askew. “You all look very solemn,” he said, after he’d greeted those of us he hadn’t already seen that day.
“We’re discussing sending out a voyage of exploration in the spring,” Aeschines said. “Arete wants to go, and—”
“Splendid!” Ficino said, unexpectedly, beaming at me. “I want to go too.”
“Old men and children,” Phaedrus said dismissively.
Ficino laughed. “What better explorers could there be? How far will we go, Pytheas? Do you mean to get to Ithaka?”
Aeschines laughed, and Father actually smiled, for the first time in months. “I hadn’t thought we’d go as far as that,” he said. “Around the Kyklades, and north to the Ionian islands. Maybe touching the mainland at Mycenae.”
“Mycenae!” Ficino said. “I really have been extraordinarily lucky all my life, and now to have this voyage proposed at the very end of it! How about Pylos? Nestor might be there as a young man. Or Troy itself? Imagine meeting the young Priam, perhaps attending his wedding to Hekabe.” Maia reached over and straightened his hat.
“We know so much about the future, and so little about this time where we’re living,” I said. Ficino grinned at me.
“We want to find Kebes,” Phaedrus said.
“Kebes is probably the least interesting thing in the whole Aegean,” Ficino said. “Though no, it would be interesting to know what kind of city the Goodness Group have come up with, to compare it with the others.”
“Kebes couldn’t found a city without other people out there hearing rumors of it,” I said.
“We have,” Maia said.
“Well, but we’re on an island, and we had divine help,” Father said.
“Kebes may be on an island,” Phaedrus said.
Father leaned forward. “He probably is. But he doesn’t have enough people or enough resources to stay on an island and entirely out of contact. He must have been trading or raiding, and if he has, we’ll hear about him.”
“Also, we don’t know whether or not there are rumors out there about us. If we’re supposed to inspire the legend of Atlantis, there probably are,” Aeschines said.
“I don’t think Kebes was responsible for the raid,” Maia said. “He’s never been involved in art raids before, or contacted us at all. It doesn’t make any sense.”
Father looked stubborn. “Everyone else has denied it.”
“They’ve lied before. Psyche have lied. They just can’t be trusted,” Maia insisted. “It probably was them. Or the Amazons.”
Father hesitated for a moment. “How could we find out? Send spies?”
“Perhaps,” Maia said. “But it will be sure to come out sooner or later. Whoever has the head will be sure to display it, eventually, and then we’ll hear.”
“And go to war,” Phaedrus said, fiercely, slapping the table and making the cups and plates bounce.
“Unless it is Kebes,” Father said. “Then we’d never hear and there would be no vengeance and … nothing. I want a voyage of exploration so we have more information.”
“More information would be a good thing, certainly,” Aeschines said. “I’ll suggest it to the committee.”