“Will make bowls for lamps,” Crocus inscribed. He waited politely for a moment to see if I had anything else to say, then went back to his half-finished library roof. And there was his half of the dialogue, there in the marble for anyone to read. “Thomas Aquinas. Ikaros owns forbidden books.” Ikaros was no friend of mine. But I felt the urge to protect him nevertheless. No good could come of everyone knowing he had forbidden books. I took a piece of heavy wood from an unfinished house nearby and used it as a crowbar to pry up the heavy marble paving stone. Then I flipped it over so that the carving was on the underside and set it back in place. It was earth-stained and filthy compared to the other flags, but I hoped the rain would soon wash it clean. I went off to find Ikaros.

I wanted to talk to him in private, but I wasn’t the stupid young girl who had gone off to the woods alone with him, unconscious of anything but my own burning desire for philosophical conversation. I was over thirty now. I sought Klio about the city. She knew about my Botticelli book, and about the rape. She was pressing olives with a crowd of Children and couldn’t come immediately. She agreed to talk to Ikaros with me after dinner.

As luck would have it, I ran into him a few minutes later in the street. He was alone, coming toward me. It was raining more heavily now and my braid was so wet it was coming down from where it was bound up around my head. “I need to ask you something,” I said.

“Come inside,” he said, opening the door of a nearby house. “This is going to be Ardeia and Diomedes’s house.”

The house was complete, and held a large bed. “I don’t want to go inside there with you,” I said.

Ikaros rolled his eyes, half-smiling. “You’re not as irresistible as you imagine,” he said. “I have quite enough going with Lukretia.” Lukretia was a woman of the Renaissance. She had been the other master of Ferrara, and now she and Ikaros were sharing a house here. “But stand in the rain if you prefer. I shall keep dry.” He stepped inside, and I stood in the doorway, in view of anyone passing by. “Which of us are you afraid of, you or me?” he asked.

“I have quite enough going with Lysias,” I snapped. The trouble was that there was some truth in his accusation. I had always found Ikaros powerfully attractive. But that didn’t mean I wanted to be taken against my will, and he had shown me that he didn’t care what I wanted.

“What do you want me for then?” He grinned, and I scowled at him.

“Crocus wants Thomas Aquinas. In Greek. And he says you have it.”