“That’s worth waking up for,” he said. I remembered him saying he didn’t sleep much these days, and was sorry to have disturbed him. He swung out of the hammock and pulled his kiton on. I looked away from his old-man’s wrinkled skin, like a plucked chicken. I drew Erinna away, hardly noticing until afterward that I had touched her arm. Ficino had earned his dignity.

He came over to us as soon as he came out on the deck. Neleus had joined Maia by the rail and we all crowded together. “Holy Mother!” Ficino said.

“Literally and specifically, I think,” Maia said. She sounded furious about it.

“This can’t have anything to do with Ikaros,” Ficino said. Erinna raised her eyebrows at me. I shook my head. I had no idea why he would say that.

“It could just be a goddess we don’t know,” Neleus said.

“That’s exactly what it is,” Erinna said. “I don’t know her. It seems as if you two do?”

“It’s the pose,” Ficino said. “It seems Christian.”

“Like Botticelli,” I said, seeing it at once now that he had pointed it out. The statue resembled Botticelli’s Madonnas, the ones in the book we had at home, the book Maia had brought with her. The child on her lap, her head bent over him.

Ficino looked at me sharply. “Not like any of the Botticellis we have in Florentia,” he said.

Maia blushed. “Remember, I had a book,” she said. “Ikaros brought it from one of his art expeditions with Athene. It has the Madonnas.”

“Did you show it to Auge?” Ficino asked.

“Yes,” Maia admitted. “When she was just starting to sculpt seriously. That’s probably all this is. Influence. It probably is Hera.” She sounded as if she were trying to convince herself.

“Where is that book now?” Ficino asked.

“In Thessaly,” I said. “My mother loved it.”

“Simmea always loved Botticelli,” Ficino said, sounding sad. “In the dining hall at Florentia she’d always sit so that she could stare at one or another of his paintings.”

On the quay Father and the others were talking intently with a group of locals. They were wearing kitons that were each dyed in one solid color, mostly blues and pinks.

“So what goddess do you think it might be?” Erinna asked, patiently.

“Maria,” Ficino said. “The mother of God in Christianity.”

“That thing the Amazons are into?” Erinna asked. “How would the Goodness Group know about it?”

“Where did you get Kebes?” Maia asked Ficino abruptly.

“The slave market at Smyrna,” he said. “The same place I found Simmea. They were chained together.” I shuddered. I knew that all the Children had been enslaved, but knowing it was different from hearing a detail like that dropped casually. That was my mother he was talking about. Thank Athene he had been there to rescue her!

“What year was it?”