“Oh Maia, honestly! You can’t expect me to remember that! So long ago, and so many children.”

“But was it after Christianity?” she asked.

“Oh yes. They both had saints’ names, I remember.” He stared at the statue. “But they were only ten.”

“Simmea used to say that we should have started with the abandoned babies of antiquity,” Maia said. I had heard her say so myself.

“Ten-year-olds are not wax tablets that can be wiped clean and written afresh,” Ficino agreed.

“I can’t understand how Plato could have thought they were,” Neleus said.

Just then the shore party sent a signal that it was safe for us to come in. “Are you sure?” Maia muttered, but Caerellia began to give orders for the Hesperides watch to take the ship in to the wharf, where there were poles for us to tie up to as we did at home. Proper docking facilities, no doubt intended for the Goodness.

“There were some masters among the Goodness Group,” Ficino said. “It isn’t necessarily a case of what ten-year-olds remembered.” There was a cheer from the shore.

“Somebody, some Jesuit or Dominican I think, said that if you gave him a boy until he was seven he’d be theirs for life,” Maia said.

Ficino barked a laugh.

“So Christianity was a big thing?” Erinna asked. “In the bit of history we don’t hear about?”

“It was the dominant religion of Europe for fifteen hundred years,” Maia said. “We just try not to mention it much.”

“Even Rome became Christian,” Ficino said.

Erinna and I looked at each other, astonished. “Rome!” It seemed entirely implausible.

“They even counted their years from the birth of Christ,” Neleus said. He was scanning the crowd on shore intently as we came in closer. “Father mentioned that once.”

“And where did you get Pytheas?” Maia asked.

Ficino laughed. “Pytheas is something else. He came from the slave market in Euboia. One of the earliest expeditions. Athene named him herself, the only one she ever would.”

“But what year?” Maia asked.

“Four or five hundred years after the founding of Rome?” Ficino said, uncertain.

“So how would he know that?”

“Somebody must have told him,” Neleus said. “Maybe one of you let it slip. Or one of the other Masters.”

We were tying up. I realized I’d be able to step ashore, no need for swimming this time. Father was still talking to the locals, but Klymene and Phaenarete strode over toward the ship.

“Interesting that Athene named him,” Maia said. “Did she know what she was doing, and did she have the right to do it?”

“That neatly sums up the Last Debate,” Neleus said.

“It seems so strange to think that you’ve actually met a goddess,” Erinna said. Neleus’s eyes met mine. It didn’t seem strange to us at all.