“We don’t know, but we think it’s because he ate her mother,” Pytheas said. “Our previous goddess of wisdom. Metis.”
“Ate her?” I asked, horrified enough to speak out.
“Another thing Plato left out?” Hermes asked.
“Before you ask, we don’t know the answers,” Pytheas said. “We don’t know if or how he transformed Metis into Athene, or what it really means that she’s his daughter, born from his head. We think it might have something to do with how he treats her, but we might be wrong.”
“I don’t understand,” Thetis said. I didn’t either.
Pytheas smiled at her, not unkindly. “None of us do. I’m not sure even Father understands. He didn’t create the universe, and some of the ways things work are Mysteries even to him.”
“You are speaking of your Father?” Hilfa asked, quietly.
“Yes,” Pytheas said. He looked down at Hilfa.
“Your Father Who is also Parent of the Saeli gods?”
“He’s the father of all the gods in the universe, as far as I know,” Hermes said, smiling at Hilfa with a strange smile. Hilfa didn’t turn towards him.
“And yet you speak so lightly of.…” Hilfa hesitated, and looked at Marsilia.
“We simply say his,” she said. “If you prefer to say gla we will understand.”
“Of gla wrath,” Hilfa finished.
“Yes we do, because we’ve experienced it,” Pytheas said. “And however he may appear in the Saeli pantheons, and whatever he may have done to your people, he is not, to us, a god of wrath. Well, except when we’ve done something to deserve it. Like Metis.”
“Tell us about Jathery,” Marsilia said to Hilfa. “A god of wisdom, but also a trickster, yes?”
“Yes.” Hilfa swung around to face her, his back to Hermes, and counted the aspects off on his long fingers. “The five things that go together: wisdom, trickery, riddles, name-changing, and freedom.”
“Might he have tricked Athene into this?” Marsilia asked.
“She as much as admits that she suspects him of it,” Pytheas said, tapping the letter. “It seems they’ve been friends for some time. Jathery may even have had a hand in persuading her to set up the Republic experiment.”
“Aren’t you forbidden to mingle with gods of other pantheons?” Marsilia asked.
Pytheas and Hermes looked at her with the same puzzled expression. “No,” Hermes answered. “Why would we be?”
“Then why don’t you?” she asked.
“Aesthetic reasons,” Pytheas said. “We live in our own context, our own fabric, culture, framework. They each have their own. We don’t have any reason to meet, to interact. We stay in our own circles because that feels right. But if Athene felt ecumenical, nothing stopped her being friends with Jathery. More’s the pity.”
“And nothing would stop you doing the same?”
“Nothing except context, culture, having nothing in common, and no need.” Pytheas frowned.
“Or how about Yayzu?” Marsilia asked.
“Maybe I could have a productive conversation with him. And he speaks Greek. But it might be difficult to find somewhere comfortable for us both. Or, no. It wouldn’t.” Pytheas smiled. “If Yayzu and I wanted to compare notes on incarnation and how we best ought to help people, I know a place. Maybe. I’ll think about that. It might even be a good idea.”
“But Jathery is a Saeli god,” Marsilia said. “Shouldn’t he feel an … aesthetic need to be attending to their affairs?”
Hilfa shook his head without looking up.
“I think it would certainly be preferable if he did, instead of heading off into primal Chaos with Athene,” Pytheas said.
“So do you really think we should go to Father?” Hermes asked.
“Well, maybe. Except that she does plead for me not to tell him,” Pytheas said, looking down at the paper again. “Since you also seem against it, let’s try getting the explanation first.”
“Pleads? Athene? Can I see that?” Hermes asked, putting out his hand for it.
“No, I think not,” Pytheas said, folding it up and putting it inside his kiton.
“But Zeus must know already. He knows everything,” Thetis said.
“He knows, but he’s not aware of things until they come to his attention. If we can sort it out ourselves, it might be better if this came to his attention after Athene is safely back,” Pytheas said.
“Or at least until we’ve read the explanation and know we can’t do it without help,” Hermes said.
“Time can’t be changed, except in one circumstance,” Pytheas said.
“The Darkness of the Oak,” Marsilia interrupted. Both gods turned at once to focus on her. I had no idea what she was talking about, but the words sent chills through me. I took a deep draught of my wine and looked sideways across the room to her as she continued, “It’s given me nightmares since Dad told me about Zeus talking about it on Olympos. Do you think he’d do that? Unmake the City, now? Because of this?”
“More than that, if need be,” Pytheas said. “Athene wants to know everything. There are no limits to everything. But Father has Mysteries he might not want investigated, and I fear this is one of them. It’s directly against his edicts. She might have gone too far. And as for Jathery—is Jathery a favorite of Father’s?” He swung around to Hilfa.
“No,” Hilfa whispered, his lips hardly moving.
Thetis broke the awkward silence. “Where are the pieces of Athene’s explanation?”
“Distributed through time, where only gods can get them. Kebes has one of them.”
Marsilia, Thetis and I gasped in unison. “Who’s Kebes?” Hermes asked. Astonishing. But of course, he didn’t know. He was from another world. The seventy eventful years of our history was all new to him.
“Kebes is the one I beat playing your gift upside-down,” Pytheas said. “He hates me. Worse, I was in time all the time he was alive. You’ll have to collect that piece. And it won’t be easy.”
“She must have wanted you involved,” Marsilia said, looking at Hermes. “You, or some other god at least.”
“I’m not going near this culture without a native guide,” Hermes said. He was looking at Thetis, but she was looking down at Hilfa and didn’t notice. Hilfa was rocking backwards and forwards slightly, his multicolored lids closed over his eyes.
“I said I’m staying with you,” Marsilia said to Hermes. “I’ve been to Lucia.”
“Good,” he said. Then he smiled challengingly at Pytheas. “How many pieces are there? Shall we divide them and meet back here with them?”
“I’ll manage Pico,” Pytheas said. “How are you with the Enlightenment?”
“You can definitely have that one,” Hermes said, with a little shudder.
“All right, then you can take Phila the daughter of Antipatros. Athene says she gave it to her after her wedding, so any time after that I suppose.”
“Who did she marry?” Hermes asked.
“She married Demetrios the Besieger of Cities,” Marsilia said. Then, when she realized we were all staring at her, “What? It’s in Plutarch.”
“You are going to be useful. Good!” Hermes said.
As I was drawing breath, Pytheas, Hermes, and Marsilia vanished.
Meanwhile, unnoticed by anyone except me, Thetis had slipped to the floor and put her arms around Hilfa, who immediately turned and clung to her like a baby.
8
APOLLO
I generally enjoy emotions. I like transmuting emotion into art, every shade of feeling, every nuance and tone and note. But the wrath I felt now, the anger at Athene that burned through me, was too strong for that. Human emotions happen in the veins, in the gut, as well as in the mind. Divine emotions are a thing of mind and soul alone, but are neither less strong nor less passionate for that. You hear of Olympian calm, and we are calm, detached, distant—usually. When we do feel strongly there is nothing of mortal frailty to deter us in that feeling. A mortal heart or li
ver might overflow and burst with too strong an emotion, but never ours. When we are moved as strongly as I was moved by Athene’s letter there is no restraint—we are the anger, while the anger lasts.
I like feeling the heat of emotions. I do not like giving way before them and becoming the conflagration. Emotions should always be manageable, never overwhelming.
Therefore my calm and control can be demonstrated by my behavior. I practiced moderation, as both my Delphic injunction and Plato recommend. I did not burn down Hilfa’s house in sudden fusion heat. I did not even char Athene’s letter to ash as I read it. I talked reasonably to the others, though I did not show the letter to them. There was no need to make things any worse.
It was the late summer of 1506 when I strode rapidly down one of the little streets in Bologna that run between the cathedral and the town hall. It was a narrow laneway, lined on both sides with people selling things, pushing them on the passersby with cries and importunities. I shoved through them impatiently. He was sitting on a high stool outside a wineshop, disputing, surrounded by a gaggle of students. He was as I had last seen him on Olympos, young and able to see, but he was wearing the robes of an Augustinian monk. He had a white ceramic winecup in his hand, and was gesturing with it. I grabbed him by the shoulder, pulled him off the stool and turned him to face me.
“Ah,” he said, admirably unsurprised. “Pytheas. With your cloak flaring around you like that, I thought you must be an avenging angel.”
His friends laughed. I glared at them, and back at Pico. “Shall we go somewhere we can talk privately?” I asked, speaking Latin because he had. It was wrong to take out my wrath on Pico. He wasn’t the one who deserved it.
He fumbled some coins out of his pouch and put them down on the table among the winecups. “An old friend. I’ll see you later,” he said to the others.
“You needn’t think you’ll get away without making a proper refutation!” one of them said.
“Tomorrow,” Pico said, smiling and shaking his head.
“Why are you dressed as an Augustinian?” I asked quietly as we walked down the street together, ignoring offers of fish, wine, fruit, and young bodies of both sexes from the street vendors.
“I’m staying at the monastery of St. Stephen’s,” he explained.
“And what are you doing here?”
“Research.” He looked wary. “And arguing with Averroists. They’re young, and they haven’t been properly trained, but some of them are extremely smart.”
“You’re not a lawyer or a doctor, so what are you researching in Bologna?” We came out of the little street into the square by the Ducal Palace.
He smiled. “Theology?”
“Really? You barely got away from the Inquisition last time, and you had influential friends then!”
He smiled at me. “I do now, too. Here you are, and before I’ve managed to get into any trouble at all. Let’s go in here.” It was another wineshop, on a corner, with only a few tables out on the street. He ducked through the door and I followed. The interior was small and dark. The patrons were older, and many of them were wearing dusty aprons, by which I deduced that they were stonemasons. Pico ordered wine, and we sat down together on a bench in a corner. The place was crowded, but the patrons moved over to make a little room for us. “If we speak Greek, we’ll have perfect privacy here,” he said in that language. “We probably would have back there, but that’s a scholars’ tavern, so you never know.”
It was amazing, really. A count by birth, a Humanist by inclination, befriended by Ficino, imprisoned by the Inquisition, saved by Lorenzo and Savonarola, taken to the City an instant before death, snatched to Olympos by Zeus, set to work with Athene, abandoned by her in Bologna mere months before it was due to be sacked, and still his optimism was undimmed. There aren’t many like him. “Do you know where Athene is?”
He looked wary again. “She was going somewhere she thought was too dangerous for me. And since you’re here, it seems she was right. Do you know where she was going, or should I explain?” He glanced at the oblivious guzzling stonemasons as if worried that they might be able to speak Greek after all.
“Give me whatever she gave you to give to me.” I put out my hand.
“It’s in my cell.”
“You left it in your cell among a lot of thieving Augustinians?” Optimism is not always a virtue.
He shrugged. “It’s inside my copy of Ficino’s Plato, which they think is magic and won’t touch. Besides, I’ve given a copy of it to Raffaele Maffei, in case.”
“Why don’t you simply keep it in your pocket?” I growled. “And Maffei? The Volterran encyclopaedist? Why Maffei?”
“When you’re not a count in Renaissance Italy, you’re always getting your pocket picked. And Raffaele is an old acquaintance. He thinks I’m my own illegitimate son.”
“Let’s hope for the copy in your Plato,” I said. I put my full winecup down on the table and stood. We wouldn’t be driven to Maffei’s copy in any event. If the original copy was missing, I could go back to a time when Pico had it and recover it—ten seconds after he had left it alone in his cell, if that’s what it took.
“It’s incredibly frustrating. Wherever I am, I never have access to all the books I need,” he said, swallowing his wine and putting the cup down. “Here I have all the Christian books, even those that will be destroyed when Julius gets here in November, but not the ones we rescued from Alexandria. My memory’s good, but it’s so useful to be able to check things.”
“Are you done with the ones here?” I asked.
He nodded. “But I wish there were somewhere we could have everything.”
We walked together through the streets. Bologna is a remarkably medieval city. It was a provincial nowhere as Roman Bononia, and thrived in the Middle Ages; but in my opinion, while the food is usually good, it was never really beautiful until the renewal of the periphique in the twenty-second century. True, it had pillars and colonnades, but as we walked in their shade I couldn’t help noticing that all the pillars were different. There was no harmony, no true proportion. Nothing matched. It was all a medieval jumble. Occasionally I noticed a lovely classical pillar, and felt an urge to rescue it and put it somewhere it could be comfortable.
“You’re not so angry now?” Pico asked.
“I’m not unjustly taking out my anger on the wrong person,” I said. “When I find Athene will be soon enough to indulge my wrath.”
“You really did look like an avenging angel, with your cloak flaring around you like that,” he said.
In Pico’s New Concordance, Olympian gods are classed as angels. I think of it as a metaphor. I had changed the appearance of my clothes to be locally inconspicuous. Everyone’s cloak flared in 1506. But there was no point in arguing.
* * *
There’s nothing wrong with brick, brick can be beautiful, but it can easily be overdone. The church and monastery of St. Stephen was a mess. It contained different sections built at different times. It had been owned by a number of different orders, and they had all built onto it, none of them completing the designs of their predecessors. It was like a chambered nautilus where each chamber had been designed by a different committee. “It’s as if the Renaissance had never happened,” I murmured to Pico as we passed through a room containing an enormous pulpit in the shape of the Holy Sepulchre, with scarcely room for two people to pass by around it. It would have done well enough in a correspondingly huge and Gothic nave, here it was ridiculous and unserviceable, almost intimidating in its size and impracticality.
“The Renaissance is thriving right now in Florence and Rome,” he said with a sideways smile. “It’ll make it here eventually. I hope.”
We came out into an enclosed courtyard. I was glad to see the sky and the sun again. There was a piece of sad mosaic on the wall—abstract, only a pattern, but what made it sad was the presence of two tiny fragments of porphyry given pride of place. Porphyry is a speckled purple rock which, over time, had in
Medieval Europe come to stand for the lost wonders of Rome. The Egyptian quarry it came from was lost after Rome fell, and so were the skills of making steel tough enough to work it. It’s a volcanic rock, and it’s therefore present in quantity on Plato. The Workers can work with it easily, so there’s lots of it everywhere and we have all kinds of things made out of it. But here and now, porphyry symbolized the lost heritage of Rome, and here set in the wall were these two minute pieces, all poor Bologna had left of the ancient world. They had not entirely forgotten what it meant, but they couldn’t come any closer than this to regaining or re-creating it. I wished somebody in Bologna would pray for my help so that I could give them something better than this. And they were about to be sacked, too. It really wasn’t fair.
Pico led me into a cloister. The shadows of the pillars were falling across the open central space. A heavily bearded monk was sitting on the wall reading Latin poetry, a cat curled on his lap. Pico frowned. “We should wait here,” he said, quietly. “We’re not supposed to have guests in our cells, and I’m not supposed to be in my cell at this time of day. He’ll go to Vespers soon.”
He nodded to the monk and took a seat against a pillar on the other side of the cloister. “Won’t they expect you to go?” I asked, sitting beside him and looking over at the well in the center of the courtyard.
“I’m only visiting. They know I’m a scholar.”
“He won’t speak Greek?” I asked, smiling at the monk, who smiled back uncertainly.
“Here?” Pico asked. He was right. It was even less likely we’d find someone who understood Greek here than among the stonemasons.
It was too much. “If she had to leave you somewhere in 1506 with Christian books and a university, why aren’t you in Florence?”
“There was a book here I needed. And there are people there who know me too well not to recognize me, even if I tell them I’m my own son. They poisoned me the first time, after all. And Soderini’s in power, and the Medici will be back soon and feeling vengeful—I could hardly bear to see it. It’s the last days of the Republic.” He stopped. “The Florentine Republic, that is, not Plato’s Republic.”