It felt strange to be greeted by Baukis and Boas and Rhea, to see people I knew well who hadn’t been with us. I had almost forgotten they existed, that home was still there behind us all the time. It must have been how Odysseus felt coming back to Ithaka.

26. Apollo

26

APOLLO

I spent the voyage home composing a song. It was the song I had been reaching for for months, the song that wouldn’t come, because I couldn’t make any true art about Simmea’s death while I didn’t understand why she had chosen to die.

I had been maddened with grief, and now I was not. I still missed Simmea. But I understood now that she had died to increase my excellence and the excellence of the world, and I would increase it, for her, for myself, and for the world. I would savor this mortal life while I had it, learn and experience all I could. And when it ended, I would take what I had learned and be a more excellent god and make the world better. That was what I always wanted. That was why I had chosen to become mortal.

The song I had sung in the colosseum at Lucia had been a cold Platonic composition, perfect but passionless. This one was the opposite. It made the Dorian mode burn with passion. If I had been on Olympos my hair would have stood on end and glowed as I made the song. I would also have concentrated and done nothing else for however long it took until the song was done. As it was, onboard the Excellence I had to stand my watches, sleep, and eat, and beyond that I was constantly interrupted. There’s no privacy on a ship, and it’s hard to be alone. I couldn’t so much as play a chord without someone stopping to listen, and I didn’t want anyone to hear this song before it was ready. The ship was teeming with people—in addition to the surviving crew we had a whole slew of envoys. Maecenas was very firm that I wasn’t allowed ashore. I don’t know what he thought I was going to do, or whether he thought the Lucians would try to kill me if they had the chance. I wanted nothing more than to be quiet somewhere alone to work on the song, but instead I trimmed the sails and talked to people who wanted to talk to me. These frustrations too were part of mortal life, and fueled the song.

Every day I went up on deck to watch the sun rise, as the lyrics and music echoed through my head. One morning Maia was there by the rail, twisting Ficino’s hat in her hands as she stared out to sea. Always thin, she was gaunt now, and her silvering hair wisped out of its neat braid in the sea wind.