by Jo Walton
“Yes,” Jathery said, flatly, like Hilfa.
“And you’re in charge of wisdom, is that right?” Sokrates asked. I took a cautious step away, drawing Hilfa with me. “What responsibilities do you have?”
“We each have responsibility in certain spheres.” I took another step back.
“But I believe they are divided up differently among your pantheon? How did that come to be?” Sokrates looked politely interested. Jathery’s face was unreadable.
“We each have five things,” Jathery said.
“And is five a significant number among the Saeli?”
“Yes.”
“And how is it that you are the only Saeli god to have left the Saeli planet?” Sokrates asked, persistently.
Hilfa and I retreated back into the fountain room. The black and white tiles and shining silver faucets seemed very welcoming. I swallowed all the wine in my cup in one gulp and set it down on the window sill. “Sokrates is wonderful,” I said.
“It is only a respite,” Hilfa said. His markings had faded to almost nothing and he was rocking a little.
“Jathery is incredibly intimidating even when gla doesn’t do anything but stand there, and gla voice is very persuasive. But you said yesterday that gla wasn’t too bad. What specifically are you afraid of?” I asked.
“That gla will get me alone and unmake me. Gla is one of my parents, Arete said. I think gla could do that, now that gla and Athene don’t need me as an anchor anymore,” Hilfa said, looking down so I could not see his eyes but only the turquoise and orange of the lids. “I thought now that my purpose was fulfilled I could be free. But Jathery put power into me, and now I think instead gla will take gla part of me back, to be stronger.”
“Kill you?”
“Worse than kill me. I do not want to cease to be me, but I could bear it. I am afraid gla will unbind my soul. Gla and Athene made my soul. Gla could take back what gla put into it.” He rocked once and then back, then looked up at me. “Don’t leave me alone with gla, Jason. Please.”
“No way. But I don’t think gods can make souls. I think it was your body Arete was talking about. And she said you’re part human too, remember, and belong to Plato. You’re a child of gods. You must have a heroic soul.” I put my hand on his shoulder.
“Arete did say I belong here,” Hilfa said, tentatively, as if testing a proposition.
Marsilia stepped from the main room into the fountain room as he was saying this. “Of course you do, Hilfa. I’ve been enquiring, and Dad says if you enroll in classes now, you can take oath in the spring.”
“I want to take oath right now. Then I’d belong to Plato and not to Jathery. You’re consul. You could hear it.” There was a note of panic in his tone.
Marsilia shook her head. “It has to be done at the altar before the archons. And it can’t be rushed, because you have to be classified, and that takes a lot of thought.”
“Pah. I am Silver, like Jason and Dion. I work on the boat.”
“But I work on the boat too, and perhaps you should be Gold like me,” Marsilia said. “It’s not easy or quick, making that decision for anyone. And why are you in a hurry anyway?”
As she asked, Jathery came into the fountain room, with Sokrates in hot pursuit.
“I want to speak to Hilfa, before I answer any more of your enquiries,” gla said. Sokrates shrugged and caught my eye, as if to say he had done his best.
“Then speak to him,” I said. “He’s here.”
“We need to speak alone.” Again, gla made it seem like such a reasonable request that it was hard to protest.
I went on and protested anyway. “Why? You can have privacy simply by speaking in Saeli. Arete’s the only other person here who speaks it and she’s in there.” I gestured to the main room of the sleeping house, where the sounds of the party could be heard.
“It’s a Saeli matter, you wouldn’t understand,” Jathery said.
“Please explain it to us,” Sokrates said, in his usual tone of enthusiastic enquiry.
Hilfa was rocking again. I put a hand on his arm. “I’m Hilfa’s friend, and I’m not leaving him unless he wants me to.”
Then as Jathery opened gla mouth to respond, Marsilia jumped in. “We’re his pod,” she said. “Surely there isn’t anything you need to say to a Sael without their podmembers. Indeed, by our law any Sael can specifically request the presence of podmembers even when accused of a crime.”
Sokrates opened his mouth, clearly dying to ask something about this, but managed for once to keep quiet.
“All podmembers,” Jathery said. Gla had his eyes fixed on Marsilia’s as if they were children in a staring contest. “You are only three.”
“Get Thetis,” Marsilia said to me, without looking away from Jathery’s gaze.
Sokrates stepped forward and took one of Hilfa’s hands. Marsilia took the other. I turned and went into the main room. Everyone there was drinking wine and talking loudly. Thetis was still with her mother, deep in conversation.
“Thee, you have to come,” I said.
“What?”
“It’s really important. Marsilia sent me.” She looked impatient. “Hilfa needs you.”
“I’ll be back soon,” she said to Erinna, who was frowning, and followed me. “What is it?”
“Jathery’s trying to bully Hilfa, and Hilfa’s afraid gla wants to kill him, or worse, and Marsilia has told him that we’re Hilfa’s pod,” I explained as succinctly as possible as we crossed the crowded room.
“His pod?” she asked, astonished. Then we stepped into the fountain room. “His pod,” she confirmed with a brisk nod at the alien god. “Don’t you dare think you can do anything to Hilfa without our consent.”
“That is still only four,” Jathery said.
“I’d be honored to make the fifth,” Sokrates said.
“Pods are not a joke, or an arrangement to be hastily put together and hastily abandoned,” Jathery said.
“Are they your sphere of patronage?” Sokrates asked, in his best tone of interested enquiry.
Jathery snarled at him. Sokrates was famously good at making gods lose their tempers. Perhaps he had got the better of gla in their debate outside.
“Here in the City, they have to be registered before a magistrate,” Marsilia said. “I am such a magistrate. So is my father, and so is Crocus. We also have any number of gods here who would be delighted to give their blessing if that’s necessary or useful. We’re perfectly serious, and we’re not about to yield Hilfa to you.”
“I need to speak to him.”
Marsilia’s face was set. “I think you mean to hurt him. And I won’t let you. We’re guest-friends, Jathery. You won’t hurt me, and I won’t let you hurt Hilfa. And I think you owe me this for the help I gave you.”
Marsilia took my hand, and I took Thetis’s hand in my other hand, so we were all standing there in a line with linked hands, the latrine-fountain closets behind us and Jathery between us and the door to the garden.
“If you want to talk to Hilfa, go ahead,” Thetis said.
There was a long moment of silence. “Very well, you are a pod, and I wish you all joy of it,” Jathery said. Gla bowed the sideways Saeli head bow, and we all solemnly echoed gla. Then gla spat out a long string of Saeli to Hilfa, who nodded at the end of it but did not reply.
Then Jathery turned to look at Marsilia. “You may be a pod, but Hilfa still belongs to me,” gla said.
“Then I’ll buy him from you,” Marsilia said. She let go of my hand and pulled out a little leather purse and drew out a coin from it. “Here. Is he free now?”
Jathery took the coin and turned it between gla fingers. “Hilfa is,” gla said.
“And freedom is one of your attributes,” she said.
“You’re consul,” gla responded.
“Then I will buy from you the freedom of all the Saeli on Plato, and all those who are hatched here or come here and choose to take oath.” She drew out another coin and handed it
to Jathery.
“Yes,” gla said.
Then Marsilia deliberately shook out the purse. As she did, gla vanished on the instant, leaving us staring at the bare tiles where gla had been standing.
“Well, that was odd,” Marsilia said, with a quaver in her voice that had been absent the whole time she was standing up to Jathery. She stuffed the empty purse back into the fold of her kiton.
“I find I grow older but I learn nothing,” Sokrates said, ruefully.
“You mean being turned into a fly didn’t stop you going head to head against gods?” Marsilia asked.
“Oh, that? But the unexamined life isn’t worth living, you know. No, I was thinking of the wisdom of entering into marriage once again at my time of life.”
22
MARSILIA’S POD
I. Marsilia
And there it was, the great achievement of my political career, in haste, in the fountain room of Thessaly. Platonic Saeli didn’t need to ransom themselves individually from Jathery anymore. I had freed them all with a coin he had given me.
I don’t know how I sounded, but I was frightened inside the whole time. I’d spent all that time with Jathery, thinking gla was Hermes, but seeing gla in gla real form threatening Hilfa was terrifying. If I hadn’t spent that time with gla in disguise, and especially if I hadn’t known that we were guest-friends, I doubt I’d have been able to stand up to gla. I think it was what gla wanted, though. Gla wasn’t pretending. Gla would have liked to take back the power gla put into Hilfa. But gla was also tricking us, tricking me. Gla really wanted the Saeli to be free and equipped with Platonic ideas. Why else had gla given me the purse? It was one of gla riddles, and I think I guessed right.
I was focused on that, and it wasn’t until Sokrates used the word marriage that I fully realized what I’d done to my friends.
“Marriage!” Thetis said, pulling her hand away from Jason’s. I couldn’t look at Jason, so I looked at Hilfa. His expressionless face was soothing.
“A pod isn’t exactly a marriage,” I said. I was exhausted. The need to save Alkippe and then Hilfa had buoyed me up, and now that I had done it and they were both safe the relief came with a wave of tiredness and a familiar cramping in my belly that meant my bleeding would likely start the next morning.
“It’s the Saeli way of forming a family,” Jason said, speaking gently and looking at Thetis in that way nobody ever looked at me. “Hilfa was talking about it last night after you left.”
“But I—” Thee’s expression was comical as she looked from Sokrates to Hilfa to me and then back at Jason, who was standing there, solid and warm and reliable. You could always count on him to have your back.
“This is merely an expression of our intent to form a pod. We haven’t gone to a magistrate or asked a god for blessing, only said we could,” I said. Jason had taken my hand again, and Hilfa was still clinging to the other. Jason’s was warm, and Hilfa’s was slightly cold, as was normal for him. “Hilfa’s free now whatever we do, and so are the other Saeli. And anyway, nobody is trapped. Pods can be dissolved here. It takes the consent of all members, and the magistrate has to be satisfied by the arrangement for the care of children. Nobody who has been part of a pod dissolution may enter into any form of marriage for a year, including marriage at the Festival of Hera.”
Thetis sighed, and I thought she was going to accuse me of knowing too much law and not enough about people, the way she always used to. “It’s really only that it’s so unexpected,” she said. “Jason said Hilfa needed me, and then suddenly that.”
“He did need you,” I said.
“Yes, I saw. Jathery was so menacing. But a pod!” Thetis took a step backwards on the black and white tiled floor, and almost fell into the drain recess. She caught herself with a hand to the wall, laughing.
“It’s a most interesting experiment,” Sokrates said. “The practical details may take a little working out. This is my house. Pytheas said I could have it back. I know Hilfa has a house.”
“Maybe it would make more sense if we looked for a house down near the harbor,” Jason said, sounding the way he did on the boat when he was laying out what needed doing. “And there’s also Camilla and little Di. I have a responsibility to them.” He looked at Sokrates. “Their parents were killed at sea five years ago. They were friends of mine, we grew up together. I think I should ask Camilla and Di if they would like to live with our new family, or if they’d prefer to stay where they are in the sleeping houses. Would we get an allocation if we gave up our places and asked for a house, do you think, Marsilia?”
“I expect so,” I said. “There’s not much precedent.” This was moving very fast. I hadn’t thought at all about practical arrangements. Indeed, I hadn’t thought it through at all. There would be political repercussions, too—I didn’t know whether they’d be good or bad, but they’d certainly exist. A consul cannot marry without drawing attention, and this really was a kind of marriage. No humans had ever formed part of a pod before, so that was sure to cause comment. I couldn’t even hope everyone would be so focused on the gods and the space humans that they’d take no notice, because Sokrates was involved. Well, it would never be boring, having Sokrates in the family. And Alkippe would love having somebody around to answer all her questions with more questions. And she’d be delighted to live in the same house as Camilla.
“Does forming a pod with citizens give me the right to stay in the Republic?” Sokrates asked.
He was looking at me questioningly. “Not inherently, no. But you have that right. You’re already a citizen here,” I said, surprised.
“Am I?”
“Everyone who was a citizen at the time of the Last Debate remained a citizen of the Remnant if they wanted to be. Lots of people left and came back. Admittedly, it hasn’t happened with an original citizen since immediately after the Relocation. I think my grandfather Nikias was one of the last. But it still holds.”
“But was I a citizen then? I was not a Master, for I never prayed to Athene to bring me here. The Children took oaths of citizenship and in token of that were given pins designed by Simmea, which I see you still use.” I withdrew my hand from Hilfa’s and touched the bee on my pin, and saw Jason and Thetis making the same automatic movement towards theirs. The pins were all identical, whatever metal they were cast in. I had forgotten they had been designed by my grandmother. Sokrates’s kiton was pinned with a plain iron pin. “I never took that oath, or went through any other form of citizenship. I regarded myself always as an Athenian citizen in exile.”
“And that’s why you called this house Thessaly,” I said. “I’ve always wondered about that.”
“Krito suggested I escape to Thessaly instead of drinking the hemlock,” he said, smiling. “If he’d suggested this plan, I’d have had even stronger arguments against. But I’m here now, and from what I’m hearing, things are much improved from when I was here before.”
“You’re Sokrates,” Thetis said, and indeed, that was enough. “Whether or not you’re a citizen in your own mind, or legally, nobody would dream of saying you couldn’t stay here. You’re Sokrates, and this is Plato’s Republic!”
“One of them,” Sokrates said.
“Do you want citizenship here now?” Jason asked.
“I’d have to examine the question, the implications and obligations, and also the details of your laws,” Sokrates said.
“You can take the course with Hilfa,” I said. “You’ll love it. You can argue as much as you like, and debate every single point.” Thetis and Jason were both smiling, probably remembering their classes. “You can both take oath together, if you decide you want to. But Thetis is right. Whether or not you take our citizenship oath, whether or not you’re part of a pod, everyone will want you to stay. Think how you were welcomed in Chamber this morning.”
“I wish you’d been on the course when I took it,” Thetis said.
“Oh, so do I! I think you should take the course all the time,” I said, su
ddenly realizing how wonderful that would be. “I don’t mean teach it, though maybe you could, later, if you wanted to, but I think if you stay, you should always be around some of the time when the kids are taking the course. For one thing, there isn’t a sixteen-year-old on this planet who wouldn’t love being on that course with you to shake things up. But the real reason is that we have a tendency to become—well, Jathery said it yesterday about me. Piously Platonic. We accept it too much as received wisdom and we don’t question enough. All of this has made me see that. If you were around the young people they wouldn’t get complacent.”
“You’re asking me to corrupt your youth?” Sokrates asked. “You know I have a conviction for that at home?”
We all laughed. “Yes, you’re perfectly qualified, and it’s precisely the kind of corruption we need for our youth,” I said.
“I have made a committment to join this pod,” Sokrates said, smiling. “I’d also like to explore the other cities, and indeed the other worlds. But I’m an old man. Don’t count on me being around to help with these things long-term.”
He was hale and fit, but definitely an old man. “The space humans were talking about possibilities of medical and technological rejuvenation,” I said, remembering what had been said in the morning’s meeting.
As I spoke, I looked at Hilfa again, and I realized he hadn’t spoken since Jathery left us.
“Are you all right, Hilfa?” I asked.
“Yes,” he said, in that flat way he had. The pink marks on his skin were the brightest I’d ever seen them. “I am free. I belong to Plato. And I have helped free all the Saeli here. I am very all right.”
“What did gla say to you?” Jason asked.
“It’s hard to translate,” Hilfa said. “Gla said gla could have reunited me with gla, and that he wished me joy of my folly. And then gla said that Our Parent wants us to learn and experience and comprehend new things.”
“What?” Sokrates asked, completely focused on Hilfa now, not a shred of amusement left in his face. “Do you mean to say gla told you what Zeus wants? The purpose of life, spat at you like a curse? Gods! They’re not fit to be entrusted with their responsibilities. They’re like a bunch of heavily armed toddlers.”
