“I don’t think we were wrong to make idealistic rules,” Maia said, her voice shaking a little. “I don’t know, Pytheas. I’ve been trying to make the Republic work since I was a young woman, and I’m getting old now. Ficino was always so delighted to be here, to be doing it. He loved everything, except when we divided after the Last Debate. When I came back from Amazonia he was so pleased to see me. I don’t know how I can take it all up again without his enthusiasm to keep me going.”

“I’m the worst person to ask,” I said. “I only just worked out that what I’m supposed to do is keep on working and doing Simmea’s share too, as best I can.”

“I can’t possibly do Ficino’s share!” she said, horrified.

“You can do some of it, and I’ll do some of it, and other friends will do some of it.”

“You’ll teach music and mathematics?”

I had been teaching gymnastics in the palaestra but diligently avoiding teaching music and mathematics, as we called all intellectual study. I had evaded it by taking a larger share of the physical labor we all had to share since the Workers left.

“And you’ll serve on committees for Simmea?” she went on.

“Oh Maia!”

“You can teach Ficino’s beginning Plato course, for the fourteen-year-olds,” she said, relentlessly. “And you can teach the advanced lyric poetry class. I don’t understand how you’ve got out of that so far.”

“I always volunteer to judge at festivals, and I couldn’t judge fairly if I were teaching them too,” I said smugly.

“Well, that’s been a good argument, but now you can teach them. You can do it better than anyone else, so it’s your Platonic duty. And you can serve on the Curriculum Committee too, as well as taking Simmea’s place on the Foreign Negotiations Committee.”

I looked at her face in the glow of the sunrise. She had stopped crying. “I believe I have actually comforted you a little,” I said.

“And I you,” she replied.

It was true. Taking on those responsibilities wouldn’t be any fun, but knowing they needed doing and I could help do them in Simmea’s name did ease my grief a little.

As for stopping the art raids, I was working on a song.

When the Excellence tied up at the City, the travelers who had been together for so long divided immediately. Kallikles went off with his girl, Rhea. Maia headed for Florentia to tell the sad news to Ficino’s friends there. Arete was immediately embraced by her agemates. Neleus and Phaedrus headed for Thessaly. Everyone else went their separate ways. I was so desperate to be alone to get my song straight that I went straight to the practice rooms on the Street of Hermes.