“I knew him as a god first, and was his votary, and only later came to know him as Pytheas, and vulnerable,” he said.

“Yes, that’s a real difference,” I acknowledged. “You knew him as a god for so long. I did that the other way around. But you also loved him all that time. And now both of you passionately want to increase each other’s excellence, just the same as he and I do. This is so great! We both want that for him, and he wants it for us,” I was so pleased I’d worked this out. “And we want that for him a lot.”

“We do,” Sokrates said, staring at me. “Sometimes I think the most important thing I can be doing—and the same for you—is helping him to increase his excellence. More important than the workers or the city or anything. Because he’s not just our friend Pytheas, he really is the god Apollo. He’s the light. And what he learns and knows and understands is so important for the world. His excellence has a future, and nothing else here does.”

“Well, ours does for our souls,” I amended. “But Pytheas still has so much to learn about being human, so much that he ought to understand about it. He really is wonderful. And he tries so hard. It’s marvellous that he says excellence is something even the gods must pursue.”

“He certainly pursues it. I can’t speak for all the gods, and he doesn’t either. I do wonder what his Father pursues, alone in the centre.”

“He said he didn’t know.”

“That doesn’t stop me wondering about it all the more.” Sokrates tugged at his beard, as he sometimes did when thinking hard.

“But Pytheas—Apollo—wants to increase my excellence, as I want to increase his. And it’s the same with you.” I beamed at him. I was so delighted to have figured this out.

Sokrates focused on me and sighed. “You are truly very close to what Plato dreamed. You’re almost enough to justify this whole absurd structure.”

“It’s not absurd,” I said. “Though I must admit it does have its absurd side sometimes.”

“Plato understood so little about what people are like,” Sokrates said.

“If I were making a plan for a Just City, there are things I’d change. I’d let people choose their partners, and whether to bring up their own children.”

“It’s like a delicate mosaic, if you change anything the whole thing falls apart into incoherence. Plato had logical reasons for those things.”

“I do wish I could read it. Maia says not until I’m fifty, which is ridiculous.”

“Didn’t Pytheas tell you what it said?” Sokrates was looking at me alertly, his most characteristic expression. I wondered how many debates we’d had sitting just where we were in this garden, and how many more we would have in the years to come.

“He told me about the masters cheating at the lots to get better children. Though it wasn’t the masters cheating that put me with Kebes, it was Athene, to punish Pytheas and me for annoying her.”

“What?” Sokrates puffed up with anger. “That’s unjust!”

“Pytheas says she can be spiteful. He says you shouldn’t make the mistake of assuming that they’re good.”

“They shouldn’t have that power if they’re not responsible with it. This city is a great many things, but one of them is directly enforced with Athene’s power.” He leapt to his feet and began to pace around the garden. “I have a good mind to challenge her. I’ve been thinking about it for a while. I am her votary too. And what she is doing and learning here is also an issue that has very deep consequences for the world.”

“You love her too, in that same way,” I said.

“Of course I do. I have always loved wisdom. Pytheas says she wants to know everything. I have questions it would do her soul good to consider.”

“Pytheas says she’s really angry now, but she’ll calm down. It might be better to wait until she calms down before you challenge her.”

“Did he say how long it would take?” Sokrates asked, stopping and looking down at me.

“He said maybe a decade.”

“I don’t have a decade. I’m seventy-four years old.” He began to pace again.

Nobody would have been able to tell he was that old, especially watching him pace. He looked a vigorous sixty. “You’re not about to drop dead. And I think she should have a little bit longer. She and Pytheas had an argument yesterday.”

He spun around. “She’s the goddess of reason and logic. She shouldn’t quarrel and act in anger.”

“I agree, but if that’s the way things are, there’s not much point saying they ought to be different because that would be better and more logical,” I said.

Sokrates laughed. “I do have a tendency in that direction, yes. I want to challenge her—” There was a scratch at the outside door, and he went to open it. I hoped it wouldn’t be Pytheas, as I wasn’t ready to see him yet. I knew it wouldn’t be Kebes.

It was Aristomache and Ikaros. I heard them wishing Sokrates joy before they came outside and wished me the same thing. “Weren’t you drawn in the lots today?” Aristomache asked as I returned their greetings. “Are you still recovering from childbirth?”

“I was drawn, and I have played my part and finished,” I said.

“It must be a very uncomfortable thing,” Ikaros said. “I’m glad I don’t have to abide by it. A random partner every four months, sometimes friends, sometimes enemies, sometimes strangers.”

“We were just saying that we don’t know what Plato was thinking,” Sokrates said.

They laughed, as if this was an often repeated joke.

I started to get up and excuse myself and leave them to their accustomed conversation. Sokrates waved me back. “I’m thinking about challenging Athene to a debate,” he said, to all of us. “On The Good Life. In front of everyone. In the Agora.”

“I haven’t seen her for a long time,” Ikaros said, sitting down by the tree.

“She’s here,” Aristomache said, sitting by the Herm. “I know how to get in touch with her if you need her. But a debate?”

“I’m an old man,” Sokrates said. He stayed standing in the middle of the garden. “I want to debate her before I die, like poor Tullius.”

“You’re a long way from death,” Ikaros said. “But I’d love to hear you debate her. That would be…”

“Socratic frenzy?” Sokrates said, clearly teasing him, because Ikaros laughed.

“We’d all love to hear it,” Aristomache said. “But I don’t know if she’d agree.”

“We’d all love to hear it too,” I said. “I can’t think of anything we’d enjoy more.”

“The good life,” mused Ikaros. “I don’t suppose you could consider asking her to debate my theory of will and reason?”

“What’s that?” I asked.

“That will, or love, and reason are the two horses of the chariot in the Phaedrus, and it doesn’t matter which one you follow if it’s taking you closer to God.”

“So if you love something it doesn’t matter if you understand it? It can still take you closer to divinity, just by loving it?” I asked.

“Yes!” Ikaros looked excited.

“That’s just mystical twaddle,” I said. I wasn’t in the mood for it.

“That’s what Septima said,” Ikaros said, not discouraged at all. “But wait until you see how it fits with my theory of the gods.”

“Besides,” Aristomache interrupted, “Plato said one of the horses was human and one divine. Which would be which?”

“That’s the beauty of this idea,” Ikaros said.

“If Athene agrees to debate me, you will be there, perhaps you could ask her to debate this afterwards,” Sokrates said, starting to pace again. “Or maybe I will mention your theory of the gods in my argument, if things take the right turn. Or we could have a whole series of debates.”

“Do you want me to invite her?” Aristomache asked.

“If you can find her, I’d like you to deliver a formal written invitation,” Sokrates said. “And don’t keep it secret, let everyone know I want to do this so they can start anticipating it.”

“Are you really sure this is the best time?” I asked.

Sokrates smiled. “It feels to me like the very best time.”