So anyway, Erinna and Neleus got married, way back, even though she’s Silver and he’s Gold. And they did mix up the metals, and Marsilia is Gold, as I said, and she works on my boat what time she’s not too busy with Chamber affairs. But her sister Thetis is Iron, and she works with little children.

Looking at it that way, even though she’s from a family with a god in it, I should feel Thetis is below me. I always felt the opposite, though, that she’s infinitely above me. It’s not that she’s the most beautiful woman on the planet. But she’s extremely beautiful, and—she’s Thee. Every time I see her my blood pounds in my veins, and that has been the case since we were both fifteen and I first met her in Arete’s communication class. I thought she didn’t care about me at all. I figured she knew who I was—Jason who took his oath the same time she did and worked on the same boat her sister works on. I doubted she thought about me once a month. I didn’t see her all that often. But when I did, even if I only caught sight of her in the agora, I was happy for days afterwards. I didn’t want anything from her, simply for her to exist and for me to see her sometimes. Maybe this is the kind of love Plato talks about in the Phaedrus, I don’t know. No, because I always knew I’d be only too delighted to make it carnal, if that could be an option. But I thought it couldn’t, and there it was. What I thought is that it didn’t do her any harm for me to feel this way about her, and it did me a lot of good, because it gave me something in my life that was special, that lifted it above the everyday.

Marsilia pulled one of the gloaters out of the tub as Hilfa and I set our tack. Once that was done there was nothing to do for the moment but glide smoothly into the harbor. “It’s so big, and it looks so delicious. I could almost eat it right now, raw!” She mimed taking a bite.

I laughed. “I hope some of these get to the tables while they’re still fresh and they don’t decide to salt them all down. How about you? Do you fancy it, Hilfa?”