Ramiro said bluntly, ‘I wanted it. For a while. I wanted exactly what he wanted.’

‘Why?’ she asked.

‘Because the way things are makes me angry,’ he said. ‘I’m not afraid that men will be wiped off the mountain – I’m afraid that nothing will ever change for us. We’ll keep on being made for the one remaining purpose where we can’t be replaced, and if we try to do anything else with our lives we’ll be treated like mistakes.’

Tarquinia was silent for a while. Ramiro had expected her to be enraged and disgusted, but even if that had been her first impulse she seemed to be searching for another response.

‘Do something,’ she said.

‘I’m sorry?’

‘If you want things to change, you’re going to have to do something.’

‘Like Pio? Like Giacomo?’

Tarquinia hummed impatiently. ‘No. Tamara didn’t blow anything up. Carlo didn’t blow anything up.’

Ramiro said, ‘I’m not a biologist. I don’t know how to fix the problem that way.’

‘What do you want for the men who come after you?’

‘I want them to have easier choices than I had.’

‘That’s a little vague,’ Tarquinia complained. ‘But I’m sure we can work on it. There’s an election coming up, and we haven’t had a single male Councillor for far too long.’

Ramiro drew away from her. ‘No. Find another punishment.’

‘You want change,’ she said. ‘It’s Giacomo’s way, or it’s politics.’

‘I’m not too old to study biology.’

‘I think you might be.’ Tarquinia became serious. ‘If even a fraction of the men on the Peerless feel that there’s nothing left to do but plant a bomb somewhere, we’re never going to have peace. If you’ve shared that rage, if you understand it, it’s your responsibility to help find a better way.’

Ramiro replied irritably, ‘And the women who run things have nothing to do with it?’

‘I didn’t say that. We’re still insecure, because we know exactly how bad it would be for us if everything unwound. But do you really think the only voice for men on the Council should come from women?’

‘Not at all. I’ve voted for male candidates, but they never get a seat.’

Tarquinia said, ‘Consider it. That’s all I’m asking.’

They shared Ramiro’s bed, but lay apart. Ramiro watched Tarquinia sleeping in the moss-light. He didn’t know if she was telling the truth about the inscription, but he didn’t care; he’d had enough of trying to fit his own life around some supposed future certainty.