“What is this made of?” he asked, picking up the drape of lace at his cuff again.

“Silk, I think, though they sometimes make it from linen,” I said. “It’s called lace.”

“And what is silk?” Sokrates asked, patiently.

“It’s a thread spun by worms who eat mulberry leaves,” Pico explained. He twirled his wrists, making his own lace flare gorgeously. “It makes a cloth that’s cool to wear in hot weather and that’s gentle next to the skin, not scratchy. It originates in China, but in my time we make it in Italy. But lace came later.”

“And this lace is made by humans?”

“By women, mostly, using bobbins, which are things like little distaffs,” I said.

“This is an incredibly unnecessary waste of human labor and human souls,” Sokrates pronounced. “Those women should be freed from their bobbins and taught reason. It would be a useless frivolity even if Workers made it as fast and unthinkingly as any cloth. Nobody needs dangling frills like this. Look at this incredible detail. It’s beautiful, in itself, but nonsensical as clothing.”

“I agree,” I said. “Though it looks elegant on Ikaros.”

“Don’t you think it’s unjust?”

“What if it’s somebody’s vocation, to make lace?” Ikaros asked. “Their art?”

“It is a normal part of these people’s clothing,” Sokrates said. “Far too much for it to be made as somebody’s art. Look at these paintings, everyone has it. If somebody wanted to make it as their art, it might be a harmless decoration, like the borders some people embroider on their kitons. It’s this volume of it that’s wrong. Close work like that? Women must be compelled to make it from economic necessity.”

“Yes, that’s wrong,” Ikaros said, soberly. “When there’s so much injustice it becomes invisible.”

“Is this silk also?” Sokrates asked, stroking his velvet sleeve.

“I think so,” I said, not at all sure what velvet was made of. “You should ask Athene when we have her back, fabrics are one of her specialities.”

“She would not approve of this lace,” Sokrates said, quite certain that whatever they might disagree about, they’d be as one on such fundamentals as that. “Not even Alkibiades would like lace. And think of the time it must take, every day, putting on all these ridiculous things. I sleep with my kiton over me as a covering, I wake up and shake it, I fold it and put it on and I am ready for the day. Putting on all these layers and choosing the colors to match must waste so much time, and worse, attention.”

“In cold places people need more layers and thicker clothes,” I said.

“Certainly. But it’s not cold here,” Sokrates said, which was inarguable that day.

“What if wearing clothes and choosing colors is somebody’s art?” Pico asked.