“Here in the City, they have to be registered before a magistrate,” Marsilia said. “I am such a magistrate. So is my father, and so is Crocus. We also have any number of gods here who would be delighted to give their blessing if that’s necessary or useful. We’re perfectly serious, and we’re not about to yield Hilfa to you.”

“I need to speak to him.”

Marsilia’s face was set. “I think you mean to hurt him. And I won’t let you. We’re guest-friends, Jathery. You won’t hurt me, and I won’t let you hurt Hilfa. And I think you owe me this for the help I gave you.”

Marsilia took my hand, and I took Thetis’s hand in my other hand, so we were all standing there in a line with linked hands, the latrine-fountain closets behind us and Jathery between us and the door to the garden.

“If you want to talk to Hilfa, go ahead,” Thetis said.

There was a long moment of silence. “Very well, you are a pod, and I wish you all joy of it,” Jathery said. Gla bowed the sideways Saeli head bow, and we all solemnly echoed gla. Then gla spat out a long string of Saeli to Hilfa, who nodded at the end of it but did not reply.

Then Jathery turned to look at Marsilia. “You may be a pod, but Hilfa still belongs to me,” gla said.

“Then I’ll buy him from you,” Marsilia said. She let go of my hand and pulled out a little leather purse and drew out a coin from it. “Here. Is he free now?”

Jathery took the coin and turned it between gla fingers. “Hilfa is,” gla said.

“And freedom is one of your attributes,” she said.

“You’re consul,” gla responded.

“Then I will buy from you the freedom of all the Saeli on Plato, and all those who are hatched here or come here and choose to take oath.” She drew out another coin and handed it to Jathery.

“Yes,” gla said.

Then Marsilia deliberately shook out the purse. As she did, gla vanished on the instant, leaving us staring at the bare tiles where gla had been standing.

“Well, that was odd,” Marsilia said, with a quaver in her voice that had been absent the whole time she was standing up to Jathery. She stuffed the empty purse back into the fold of her kiton.

“I find I grow older but I learn nothing,” Sokrates said, ruefully.

“You mean being turned into a fly didn’t stop you going head to head against gods?” Marsilia asked.

“Oh, that? But the unexamined life isn’t worth living, you know. No, I was thinking of the wisdom of entering into marriage once again at my time of life.”

22. Marsilia’s Pod

22

MARSILIA’S POD

I. Marsilia