She had not yet met with the mekhanikos Demetrios, her appointed didaskalos. On a rare occasion of providing useful information, Yallos told Rhita that she should meet with the didaskalos within a week or so, otherwise her standing in the academic competition might slip. She felt lost; she had had an appointment with the man since the week before sailing from Rhodos. Inquiring at his office, in a dark, ancient and ill-tended building in the western quarter of the Mouseion grounds, she had been told by a waspish male assistant, “He has been called to Krētē for a conference. He will be back inside a month.”

What was worse then the indignity was her sense of loss and alienation. Nobody here knew her; it seemed scarcely anybody cared about her. The women—with the unfortunate exception of Yallos, whom Rhita had taken a strong disliking to—ignored her or slighted her. Yallos, with an air of coming to the aid of a simpleton, had appointed herself Rhita’s informal advisor.

To the women in the dilapidated two story building, she was “an island girl,” unsophisticated and boorish. Worse, she was also from a well-known family, and yet had not been graced by the Mouseion with any apparent privileges. Her social status was a puzzle, then; she was fair game for their disdain. Within earshot, they gossiped about her, speculating wildly. She had heard whispered rumors that the Kelt was her “island lover.”

That, she thought, was probably envy.

She was not free to leave the Mouseion and wander the streets of Alexandreia; she knew very well what might happen to an innocent “island girl” there. And walking with the burly, taciturn Kelt at her side was not the sort of stroll she fancied just now, though in time she might resort to his company, just to get away from the Mouseion.

She hadn’t seen the ocean since leaving the quays in the Great Harbor.

Rhita longed for Rhodos, for the prancing sea-laughter of the waves when a storm sat offshore, the dusty green smell of olive groves and the play of dazzling clouds against lapis blue sky. What she missed most of all was the company of Rhodians, simple and sun-wise, as the island saying went; especially the beach children.

Perhaps she was just an “island girl.”