“Exploration, yes, maybe,” Aeschines said, briskly. “But it would leave us without a ship here.”

“What’s the use of a ship that takes up so much maintenance but which nobody ever uses?” Father countered.

Aeschines nodded. “We use it for training, and visiting the other cities, but I do see your point. It would also mean a number of people wouldn’t be here if we were attacked. I assume you’d want to take a troop?”

“I think so. It could be dangerous. And if we did find Kebes, well, we’d definitely need a troop. But we wouldn’t be looking for danger or vengeance or anything. We’d just be trying to find out what was there. If that was Kebes, well…”

“What you’re a lot more likely to find is a lot of Minoan and Mycenaean settlements,” Maia said.

“Well, wouldn’t it be useful to see if they’re where they’re listed as being in the Catalog of Ships?” Father asked.

“I want to come,” my brother Phaedrus said. “I want to see something that isn’t just this island.”

“So do I,” I said.

“You’re much too young,” Maia said.

“Too young for a voyage of vengeance, true,” I said, choosing my words carefully. “I’m not yet an ephebe, I haven’t taken up arms or been chosen for a metal. But I’m old enough to go on a voyage of exploration.”

“Good point,” Aeschines said. “Would this be a safe voyage of exploration, safe enough to take children, or would it be a dangerous voyage of vengeance?”

Father looked at me, then back at Aeschines. Before he could speak, Ficino came over to join us. He’d finished eating, but he had a cup of wine in his hand. The red hat he almost always wore was askew. “You all look very solemn,” he said, after he’d greeted those of us he hadn’t already seen that day.

“We’re discussing sending out a voyage of exploration in the spring,” Aeschines said. “Arete wants to go, and—”

“Splendid!” Ficino said, unexpectedly, beaming at me. “I want to go too.”

“Old men and children,” Phaedrus said dismissively.

Ficino laughed. “What better explorers could there be? How far will we go, Pytheas? Do you mean to get to Ithaka?”

Aeschines laughed, and Father actually smiled, for the first time in months. “I hadn’t thought we’d go as far as that,” he said. “Around the Kyklades, and north to the Ionian islands. Maybe touching the mainland at Mycenae.”

“Mycenae!” Ficino said. “I really have been extraordinarily lucky all my life, and now to have this voyage proposed at the very end of it! How about Pylos? Nestor might be there as a young man. Or Troy itself? Imagine meeting the young Priam, perhaps attending his wedding to Hekabe.” Maia reached over and straightened his hat.