and especially not enough glorification of the importance of the doves. I value Klymene, even if sheâll never believe it now.â
âThe masters say we are all equally valuable,â I said.
âBut they donât act as if itâs true.â Pytheas frowned. âThe worst thing about that hunt is that there was nobody there who really knew how to do it, nobody who had done it before. Atticus and Axiothea are scholars, not warriors. The city is heavy with scholars, unsurprisingly. Testing us for courage isnât a bad idea, but that was a stupid way to do it. Boars are really dangerous. People could have been killed or crippled if I hadnât known what to do.â
âWrite a poem glorifying peace,â I suggested.
âAnd you paint a picture doing it, and youâll soon see how easy it is.â
Ikaros was walking towards us, no doubt to find out what we were doing standing still for so long. âCome on, letâs wrestle properly,â I said.
At the festival I came second in swimming and third for running long distance in armour. As I had taught swimming to Kornelia, who had won, I regarded this too as a victory. I could have eaten from the boar Pytheas had killed, but I declined in favour of bread and honey.
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9
M AIA
A month or so after the art collections began, Ficino and Ikaros blandly presented to the Art Committee a lost bronze of Michaelangelo, a David, but very unlike his most famous David. They told us unblinkingly that it was Theseus with the head of Kerkyon. I nodded and made a note of it. âExcellent,â Atticus said. âOne of the best artists of your time.â
âOf any time,â Ficino said, smiling.
I asked Ikaros if I could speak to him a little later. He agreed at once. After dinner, that day a kind of nut porridge, we went for a walk.
The island was beautiful, even then when the city was still a building site. We walked off to the west and sat under a pine tree overlooking the sea to watch the sunset. âYouâre a monk,â I began. I was speaking in Latin as we usually did together.
Ikaros jumped. âI am not! I was just wearing the habit. Iâve taken no vows of celibacy, donât worry.â
It was my turn to jump. âDid you think this was a sexual assignation?â I asked. I was simultaneously horrified and delighted. Ikaros was a handsome man, only about ten years older than me, and I had believed everyone who told me that nobody would ever want a bluestocking. Yet at the same time I felt diminished, as if it meant he wasnât taking me seriously.
âSuch things have happened,â he said, smiling. âEven here. Plato does not describe how the first generation of teachers are supposed to regulate their lives.â
âHe does talk about how children are to be born,â I said, as sternly as I could. âAnd really, sneaking off to the woods is against everything he says.â
He took my hand and ran one finger around my palm, making my breath catch. âBut if it were a proper festival of the Republic, and you and I had drawn each other by lot?â
âThat would be entirely different,â I said, pulling my hand away in as dignified a way as I possibly could. Entirely different and far too exciting, I thought. âCome on Ikaros, weâre friends.â
âAnd what does Plato say about friendship?â
âHe says not to get Eros mixed up with it,â I said crisply, though far from unmoved. I was very aware that the kiton left far more of me uncovered than the clothes of my own period. I had never really noticed that before, because nobody had been looking at me the way Ikaros was looking at me. I stared straight ahead. The sun was setting into the sea and turning both sea and sky as crimson as my cheeks felt.
âIf you didnât want that, then why did you want to drag me off alone?â
âI wanted to ask you about the David
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