“If I am an envoy, I will behave as an envoy,” I said, standing up and bumping my head on the cabin roof.

“I wasn’t challenging your honor, man,” Maecenas said. “Sit down. You go, and Klymene, and take Phaenarete and Dion. We’ll stay anchored right here, in bowshot. If there’s trouble, we’ll hear. But if there’s trouble, get back here as fast as you can.” Phaenarete and Dion were older Young Ones, strong, and well-trained with weapons.

“That place doesn’t have a palisade,” Klymene said. “And they didn’t run off. We ought to be able to talk.”

“Wear armor,” Maecenas said.

So I had to put on a cuirass, and endure the envy of the entire ship’s company as I was rowed ashore. Samos has a natural deep harbor, and they had built a wooden wharf with poles—they were clearly used to receiving a big ship like ours. There was a crowd waiting to receive our little boat, and the armor didn’t feel like much protection.

Nobody looked familiar. Most of the crowd were young, and so I wouldn’t have expected to recognize anyone, but some of them were older, indeed aged. They were also the wrong mix of people to be the Goodness Group—all of these had what I think of as typical Ionian Greek looks. They could have been carved in marble. “Joy,” one of them said, a middle-aged man. “You have come early. Why do you stand off from shore? Is there sickness aboard Goodness?”

His accent was unusual, but he spoke good Greek.

“Joy to you. We’re not the Goodness,” Klymene said. “Our ship is called Excellence. We come from Kallisti. Who are you?”