“The wash fountains and latrine fountains here are better than we had where I come from too,” Ikaros admitted.

“How demonstrate plumbing?” I asked, completely perplexed.

“Part of biological life. Humans need to drink water, and when our bodies have taken what they need from it, we expel it again, as you saw that baby do,” Sokrates said. Of course, I had seen animals doing similar things, and humans are a special kind of animals. It was a hard thing to keep in mind. “Some people say it’s disgusting, but it’s merely a natural function. We can control when we do it, once we’re a bit older, and we expel it into the latrine fountains. So we need drinking fountains to drink and latrine fountains to relieve ourselves, and wash fountains to keep clean. Only the drinking fountains are really essential.”

“Like electricity,” I wrote.

“Like the way you need electricity, yes, a good analogy,” Sokrates said.

I underlined that plumbing was important. “Priority,” I wrote. “Electricity, plumbing.”

“But who decides the priorities?” Sokrates asked.

Who had decided the priority list in my memory? Probably Lysias, but I didn’t know. “List,” I wrote.

“That’s no good, going from an arbitrary list that somebody gave you,” Sokrates said. “You need to examine these things! If that latrine fountain hadn’t been fixed until tomorrow, the women in the birthing house could have used the other.”

The water had been running straight through in both fountains. “Both broken,” I inscribed.

“They could have gone into the hall,” Ikaros said, waving at the crenellated bulk of the Ferraran hall in front of us. “Or to one of the nearby sleeping houses. It’s more convenient for them to have latrine fountains right there, but they could have managed without until your work shift tomorrow. Or more likely until Lukretia found another Worker to do it.”

“Or they could have come out into the street, though it would be smellier.” Sokrates poked at his kiton with his foot.

I considered this. “Who should decide?” I wrote.

“Good question!” Ikaros said.

“Yes, that was a very good question,” Sokrates said. “You obeyed Lukretia without considering, because you had a list of priorities, and you should have examined the situation and decided for yourself.”

“Except that there really are things that need to be done right away, sometimes, without stopping to examine,” Ikaros said. “If there’s a fire, for instance.”

Sokrates frowned.

“Look, if a house was burning down and somebody called us to fetch water, we’d go!” Ikaros said. “Even you would. And when an enemy attacks. In the army at Potidaia, didn’t you take orders from your commanders? And if you were sick, wouldn’t you obey a doctor?”