There were more women than men in the City of Amazons, but not by a huge degree—the city was about sixty percent female. I’ve heard ridiculous stories in other cities about harems and men being waited on by women in return for sexual favors. This seems to me to say rather more about men’s fantasies than about anything real in Amazonia. There was a slight surplus of single women, but when you consider women who prefer other women, and families that have more than two adult partners, and men who maintained relationships with each other or with several women—Ikaros among them—it didn’t amount to much. Heterosexual men were not a scarce resource. I’d had one or two discreet offers myself since Lysias moved out. It wasn’t sex I was feeling deprived of.

“He shouldn’t have said anything to her about me, and even if he did, she shouldn’t have said anything to you,” I said, as evenly as I could, braiding my damp hair and twisting it up on top of my head. “Is there any point to this scurrilous gossip?”

Ikaros ignored this. “So who do you love? Klio and Axiothea? Friends only, although they love each other. The children? You like them, you care about them, but you don’t really love them. There’s no love in your life, because you have closed off your soul, and that closes out the possibility of God’s love. And that’s why you won’t consider the New Concordance.”

“Nonsense,” I said. “I love all those people. And the kind of love you’re talking about is specifically what Plato tells us to avoid.”

“No it’s not. It’s what he thinks you can use to bring yourself closer to God.” He was leaning forward now, passionate. “It is by loving each other that our souls rise up and grow wings to approach heaven. It’s in the Phaedrus.” He pushed back his hair, which was starting to silver now, making him better-looking than ever. “For a while, before I read Aquinas again and realized I was mistaken, I thought that love was enough. Now I see it isn’t, that we need reason even more. But we do need love.”

“I don’t oppose you because I don’t have enough love. I oppose you because I disagree with you. Because you’re wrong. I started off half-wanting to believe Athene was an angel, and that God was still there. The more I hear your proofs and arguments, the less I’m prepared to consider it.”