“Very smooth and comfortable,” Hermeias said, inclining his head to Maecenas. “We called at the City of Amazons, where I had a dispute with Ikaros.”
Simmea laughed. “Maia and I were just discussing the New Concordance.”
“It’s the most ridiculous misunderstanding of Iamblikius you could possibly imagine,” Hermeias said, stroking his beard. “I’m glad he didn’t live to see it. I managed to refute a few of Ikaros’s theses, and he was good enough to thank me for it.”
“Will you allow them to preach in Psyche?” she asked.
“We’ll agreed to allow them to debate, which is a slightly different thing,” Aurelius said. “It’s hardly likely to win many converts in a city made up of Platonists.”
“It does seem unlikely,” Simmea said.
“So what brings you here?” Maecenas said, blunt as ever.
Hermeias and Aurelius looked at Salutius, who had been quiet since exchanging greetings. “Art,” he said, and took a deep breath. “Simply put. You have it all, except for what has been produced by us since we left. The original art was brought to the City by Athene and the Art Committee.” He nodded to me, as the only member of the original Art Committee present. He had been serving on the committee designing the physical shape of the city at the time, and the one on Children. “It stayed in the Remnant City by default, and you have no more claim on it than the rest of us do. We of Psyche have decided that we ought to have a proportionate share of it. We have just over a thousand people, and we should therefore have ten percent of the art.”
I could hardly believe his effrontery in coming here and asking for it. Maecenas’s eyebrows were lost in his hair, and Simmea blinked several times before answering. “That’s a question we’ll have to debate in full committee, and probably in Chamber too,” she said. “I’m sure you see that it’s something where we can’t be expected to give an immediate response.”
“Indeed,” Salutius said. “We’ve done without it for ten years, after all. We’re not in a tearing hurry. But we have various proposals about how it could be equitably distributed.” He turned to Aurelius, who brought out a notebook which he handed to Simmea. She took it but did not open it.
“Am I right in thinking you mean that all the cities want a share in the art, not just Psyche?” she asked.
“Ikaros was most interested,” Hermeias said.
“How is this different from when the Athenians asked for a share of the technology ten years ago?” Maecenas asked.
The Psychians exchanged glances, and Aurelius replied. “We agreed about technology because we don’t really understand it, and because it’s all one thing and difficult to distribute. You argued that if we tried to share it out we’d risk losing what we had, and the very life of the Workers. And you agreed to help us make printing presses, and other such necessities.”
“Which you have done, according to treaty,” Hermeias put in. “But art is different. A statue can be in one city and a painting in another city. It isn’t all needed in the same place to get any of it working properly like technology.”
“I see,” Maecenas said.
Simmea was chewing her lip with her big front teeth. “I think—I can’t say anything until I’ve talked to the whole committee. But I personally feel it would be better for all of us to be making new art than arguing over the art we have.”
Salutius nodded courteously. “I know your own work. But we do feel very strongly in Psyche that we’re entitled to our proper share of the rescued ancient art.”
“I’ll put it to the committee,” Simmea said. “And meanwhile, be welcome to the Just City. This sleeping house is at your disposal. You may eat in Florentia, or anywhere you are invited by friends, of course. I’ll call an immediate meeting of the committee and talk to you again tomorrow or the day after.”
We all parted with great courtesy and formality. Once back in the street, Maecenas turned to Simmea. “You sounded as if you were considering it!”
“Well, what’s the alternative?” she asked. “I think we’re going to have to give it to them, if they insist. Some of it, anyway.”
“Never!” Maecenas said. “Nobody made them leave, nobody makes them stay away. If they want to share our art, they can come back.”
Simmea looked at me. “How do you feel about it?”
“Much the same as Maecenas,” I admitted. “Think how horrible it would be to divide it all up. Think of only having half the Botticellis in Florentia.”
Simmea winced. “I’d hate that. But would you fight to keep them?”
“Yes, I certainly would,” Maecenas said, without a heartbeat’s hesitation.
Simmea shook her head. “Being on the Foreign Negotiation Committee I’ve developed a sense for when people will and won’t give way on issues. This seems to me like something they won’t give way on.”
“Surely it would never really come to fighting over art?” I said.
“I don’t know,” she said. “It’s hard to imagine. But Plato gives rules for warfare. And it could come to that.”
24
ARETE
Father came back at dawn. I saw him from the masthead where Erinna and I were both looking out. Maecenas had sent us both aloft as soon as we came on watch. “Let me know of anything unusual, on land or sea,” he said.
Erinna was very quiet.
“Are you all right?” I asked.
“Of course I am,” she snapped. “Sorry. I’m just trying to deal with the fact that I killed at least two people yesterday.”
“But you’re an ephebe,” I said. “You’re trained.”
“Knowing how to do it is different from actually doing it,” she said. “Is that—no, it’s just a dolphin.”
“They were trying to kill us,” I ventured.
“Maybe Plato’s right and we should have been going out to battles since we were little children, so that we could get used to it.”
“Is that really what he suggests?” I was horrified. “Slaughter is such a horrible thing that it’s hard to imagine thinking it right for children to watch. But the Lucian children were there yesterday.”
“Yes. And I don’t think having seen it would have helped when it came to killing people myself. Didn’t it bother you at all?”
“I didn’t kill anyone. I gave the swords to you and Neleus, because I didn’t know how to use them.”
“You pushed that one man onto my sword. And how did you do that anyway? You leaped right over him from a standing start.”
“I don’t know.” I was uncomfortable. I didn’t want to lie to her. “It felt natural, like the normal thing to do when he was coming at me.”
“They tell us to jump in the palaestra, but not like that! You’ll have to teach me.”
“I’m not sure I can.” The sky was starting to pale behind the city and the fading stars seemed to be listening to me lie. “I never leaped that high before. It was fear I suppose, or battle frenzy.”
“So you were afraid? Even though you rushed straight in?”
“I didn’t have time to think about being afraid. I saw them running toward you with swords, and I saw Father’s swords on the ground, and I just leaped for them.” Just then I saw Father come walking down toward the harbor with Neleus, Nikias, Timon, and some of the other Lucians. I called the news to Maecenas below.
“I was terrified,” Erinna said. “Until I saw you coming with the swords, I was frozen where I was. I didn’t think of going for them, though I’d seen Pytheas put them down earlier. I’d have just sat there and let myself be spitted.” She was still staring at the horizon, not looking at me.
“You might have been afraid, but you did everything right. You knew how to use the sword, you killed them, and when that one surrendered you stopped.”