“Somebody who isn’t too terrified of us to talk would be good,” Klymene said. “And Kebes can hardly have avoided coming here if he came this way at all.”
Father went down shortly after that, and Klymene followed him before long. I saw and announced the sails of fishing boats away to the northeast, where another island loomed in the blue distance. My eyes kept being drawn back to Delos. I longed to walk on it. I watched enviously as the shore party left. It was Erinna’s turn to go. Phaedrus and Kallikles had both contrived to join them, although it was not their turns. No doubt they felt the same affinity with the island I did.
At last my watch was over and I joined Ficino and Maia on the deck to watch the boat return. Erinna was rowing. “There are two priests,” she called up to us, “and they say we can come ashore and cook and take on water and worship Apollo, but we should be back on the ship before dark.”
Maecenas set a watch, for which Father volunteered. Those of us young and fit enough to swim hastily gave our kitons and sandals to friends old and frail enough to want to go in the boat. When my bare sole met the soil of Delos I felt a shock of joy that brought tears to my eyes. I felt I knew the place already. I knew where the cave was where they said Apollo had been born, and the plane tree on the mountain where he really had. I knew the altars and the temples, those already there and those not yet built. I found the words of the Homeric Hymn to Delian Apollo in my mouth as I came out of the water.
Delos did not seem to move unsteadily beneath my feet. It felt like the most solid earth I had ever trodden, as if Ios and Amorgos and even Kallisti were hollow shells and Delos alone was firm.
The sun was hot, and as I walked I saw lizards darting away from me. Kallisti was home, Amorgos and Ios felt like adventure, Naxos and Paros felt like somewhere I wanted to rescue. Delos felt like somewhere my soul had known before birth. “Mine,” Father had said, possessively. I felt that it was mine too; not just that it belonged to me, but it was mutual. I also belonged to it.
I didn’t wait for my kiton but walked on, naked as in the palaestra, leaving the others behind. If we had to be back on the ship by nightfall, I didn’t have long. There was a spring I needed to find, and I knew where it was. I kept walking around shadow-buildings that didn’t exist yet, like the opposite of ruins, potentials. The spring was in a grove of trees, exactly where I had known it would be. I heard it before I saw it and pushed through the trees to come to it. When I came out into the clearing around the spring my two hero brothers were there, grave-faced, waiting in silence. Everything felt right, even that I was naked and they were clothed. We did not speak. Kallikles brought out a cup from the fold of his kiton, which he held out to me. I took it in both hands and dipped it into the pool, raised it high so that sunlight reflected into the water, then poured out a few drops on the ground and drank. I passed it to Phaedrus, who drank and passed it on to Kallikles. We kept on passing it around between the three of us until the cup was empty.
All this time, since my foot had first touched the shore, I hadn’t thought, only acted, and everything I had done had been inevitable, necessary, and right. Once the cup was empty that changed, and I was only myself again, not a vessel of divinity, but I didn’t want to speak and break the silence. Phaedrus put his hand on my shoulder, and without discussing it we all began to walk back toward the ship. By the time the sea was in sight I felt more nearly normal, though I noticed that we all kept avoiding the future-ghosts of temples.
Ficino handed me my kiton, and I put it on. Unusually for him, he didn’t ask any questions, though his gaze was sharp. I sat down next to him. There was food ready, nut porridge and baked fish, and I ate it hungrily. The priests of Apollo, a man and a woman, came and blessed us, sprinkling water on us from branches with green leaves. I accepted their blessing with the others, avoiding my brothers’ eyes.
Klymene came over and sat down by Kallikles, who made room for her. “Joy to you, son,” she said.
“Joy,” he muttered.
Klymene rolled her eyes and turned to Ficino. “They know Minos, and Troy, and Mycenae, but no names of kings we could offer,” Klymene said to Ficino. I was listening, but like my brothers I didn’t want to talk yet. I just sat there eating in silence.
“Have they seen Kebes?” Ficino asked.
“Not by name, but they know the Goodness. They say the captain is called Massias. Some people from the Goodness have been here for the festival, and behaved appropriately. They said they thought our ship was the Goodness at first. They don’t know the location of their city, but they come here from the northeast, so that gives us a direction.”
“Northeast. Interesting,” Ficino said. “What’s northeast of Delos?”
“Well, Mykonos close by,” Klymene said. “Beyond that, nothing much for a long way. Due east gets you to Ikaria and Samos. Northwest are Tinos and Andros. Northeast, well, a biggish gap of sea and after a while you get to Chios and Lesbos.”
“And on the mainland, Troy,” Ficino pointed out.
“Why would Kebes have gone to Troy?” Klymene asked.
Ficino shook his head, as if to ask why anyone would go anywhere else.
We went back to the Excellence before nightfall, as the priests had asked. Phaedrus was in the same boat I was. “What was that?” he whispered to me.
I shrugged. “The island? We should ask Father, maybe.”
“Our souls?” he asked.
Ficino was looking at us curiously. “We should ask Father, when we can be quite sure we’ve got him alone,” I whispered.
12
ARETE
I couldn’t sleep that night with thinking about what had happened. We sailed northeast to Mykonos, which had some scattered fishing settlements a little more civilized than those of Naxos and Paros, but only a little. A party tried to talk to them, again without success. I didn’t go ashore, and I couldn’t catch Father alone. We sailed on east to Ikaria, which we reached late on the next day. There was no sign of life visible from the ship. We anchored for the night and the next morning put down a shore party, which now felt routine. We sailed around another long thin island, and met up with the shore party in the late afternoon. They had seen nobody, and we concluded that Ikaria was deserted like Ios and Amorgos. We therefore went ashore as we had done there, and began to build fires to cook a meal.
While we were ashore, the three of us cornered Father and took him off into the trees away from everyone to ask about Delos. There was a wonderful scent of pine needles all around us as we walked and scuffed up the droppings of years, a thick layer of pine must which felt as if it had never been disturbed before. Although it smelled amazing, it was uncomfortable to walk on the strange surface. My feet sank in at every step and it took a real effort to move them. Old needles kept finding their way into my sandals and scratching my feet.
“I’m glad to see you found the spring,” Father said, once we were well away.
“Why didn’t you warn us?” Kallikles asked.
“I didn’t know for sure Delos would affect you,” Father said. “And I didn’t want to disappoint you if it didn’t. I did tell Arete that it might help.”
“Was it our souls?” I asked.
“Your souls and my island,” he said. “What happened?”
“Nothing much, really,” Phaedrus said. “We went to the spring and waited, and Arete came and gave us water. That’s all. But I’ve never felt anything like it.”