“How often did Matthias flay heretics?” I asked.

“Not often. Every year or so, here, less often in the other cities,” Auge’s son said. “Some people like it, but I think it’s horrible to watch. I hate screaming.”

“It’s horrible. But Kebes deserves to end up that way,” I said.

The sun was setting as we came down to the harbor, sinking peacefully and splendidly into the sea, which spread out gold and blue like a bolt of shot silk, an even more beautiful sunset than the day before. Auge’s children had invited us to their home, but we wanted to get back to our ship. The Excellence was still bobbing safely at her anchorage in the bay, but to our astonishment the Goodness was a smoldering wreck at the dockside.

I hadn’t understood from what Kebes said about attacking the Excellence that this was something that he had arranged to have happen during the contest. Flaying suddenly seemed too good for him.

It seemed our little boat had been burned in the fighting, but Erinna persuaded one of the women who had a fishing boat ready to go out that she could do better ferrying people back to the Excellence. She gave her a coin. “Where did you get that?” I asked as the fisherwoman rowed us to the ship.

“Maecenas gave me a handful at Marissa, for buying stores. I have a few left.”

There had been a battle aboard, very bloody, but we had won and beaten off the Lucians. As in the colosseum, not all the Lucians had wanted to fight us, and the small number Kebes could organize to attack weren’t all that many more than the watch Maecenas had left aboard.

Maia was standing at the rail with a bow slung as we came aboard. She had a cut on her forehead which had bled a great deal, staining her kiton, but she was otherwise unharmed. “I killed two people,” she said, shaken.

“I killed one in the fighting in the colosseum, and so did Neleus,” Erinna said. “I also wounded two people, but of course I don’t know if they’ll recover.” I was sure the man I’d pushed onto her blade would die. Maia hugged her, and then me too. She gave her bow to somebody else and we sat down together on the big coil of rope on the deck.

“What happened?” she asked. We started to tell her, the contest first, and then the fight. I was relieved that Erinna’s description of my flight was that I took a great leap in the air and landed as easily as a cat.