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finish it for you, and your legacy is tainted.’ He paused. ‘A shame, though.
You would have warranted a most interesting chapter to yourself. Instead, you will be forgotten by history.’
    ‘The only slaves that are remembered are those who were foolish or treacherous, or died badly. To be forgotten is not so bad.’
    Isocrates went to leave, but stopped at the doorway. Solon looked up at him. ‘Something else?’
    The slave turned back. ‘I am curious. Why start your work, if you know you will never finish it?’
    Solon paused. ‘I remember, a few years ago, at one court or another, listening to a boy recite a poem. It was quite beautiful. After he had finished, I asked him to teach it to me. Another
man in the room looked at my grey hair – what is left of it – and asked me why I was bothering to learn the poem, old man that I was. I told him, “So that I may learn it and then
die.”’ He shrugged. ‘What else is there to do?’
    Isocrates kept his head low and his pace steady after he left the guest chamber. He looked at no one as he walked through the narrow corridors of the palace, and paused only to
flatten himself against the wall when someone approached.
    As he walked, he felt eyes pass over him briefly, then slip away just as quickly. He wondered whether any of those men and women, if asked about it an hour later, would say that they they had
seen him at all. He doubted it. They would not be lying. They had simply trained themselves not to see him or any other slave, any more than one would notice a door or a well that one used every
day. If any of them had noticed him, they would have assumed that he was running an errand for his king. None would have suspected that he might be running an errand for himself.
    It took him some time to find whom he was looking for. There was no predicting what her movements would be, where she would be found or even if she could be found at all. Many times, he had
squandered what free time he had travelling from one room in the palace to another, chasing phantoms through the corridors of Sardis. This time, he was fortunate. After only a short search, in a
small courtyard at the gate of palace, he found Maia, the slave who watched the king’s second son.
    As always, she was with her charge. He watched as the boy slowly paced around the dusty courtyard. The guards who stood near by were careful to stay away from him. Any other mute they would have
laughed at and toyed with, and so, unable to mock a royal prince and not knowing what else to do with him, they tried to ignore him. They watched Maia instead.
    She was not one of the beautiful slaves. Plain-faced and heavy-set, Maia had little to draw the wandering eye to her. When, on occasion, Isocrates was asked by another slave why he had chosen
her as his wife, he would say, and only half in jest, ‘Because she’s patient.’
    It was a quality that well suited her to her task as the boy’s guardian. For the most part, she left Gyges alone, staying just out of arm’s reach. Occasionally, judging his mood, she
would move quickly to pick up something for him to play with. A loose reed, a cracked piece of pottery, a rag of cloth, whatever came to hand. He was known to reject any toys that were given to
him, accepting only these improvised, adapted objects which he used for games that no one else could understand.
    Isocrates watched them together, his wife and the boy, as they moved around the courtyard in a strange, broken dance, sometimes drawing close, but never touching. For a moment, he allowed
himself to imagine that it was his son at play there, not the king’s.
    Maia looked up for a moment from her charge, and saw her husband standing in the doorway. He smiled, opened his mouth to call to her, but her eyes warned against it. She made a slight gesture
with her hand. He looked up, and saw, from a balcony, the king of Lydia looking down on the courtyard.
    Croesus was watching Maia playing patiently with