Father’s hand on my shoulder seemed to become heavier. There was a hiss of drawn breath from the crowd. Maia was frowning. Saying do what they want seemed better to me at that moment than saying kill. But why would Kebes suggest it? He was lying when he said they both had a fair chance. He believed he would win. How could he?

“I can agree to that,” Father said. “What should it be? Original lyre composition?”

“Any instrument,” Kebes said. “Original composition. I have an instrument you may not have seen.”

I could almost hear Father’s sneer. “Who judges this competition?” he asked.

“Four of yours and four of ours,” Kebes said, then he glanced down at me again. “None of our children.”

“Nine judges,” Father countered. “Four of yours, four of ours, and one chosen by lot.”

“Very well,” Kebes said. “And the winner does what they want to the loser, and the loser doesn’t stop them?”

“Without a judgment? That’s barbaric,” Aristomache put in. There was a muttering of agreement in the crowd. “It’s one thing when somebody has been condemned, but we’ve never done it without that.”

“We’re all civilized people,” Kebes said, lying again, and still staring over my head at Father.

“Pytheas has been unhinged since Simmea’s death,” Klymene said. I hadn’t noticed her there in the crowd. “This is madness. We know the Goodness Group didn’t kill her. The ship was in Troy last autumn, nowhere near Kallisti.” She was speaking the truth as she knew it, even about Father being mad.

“I believe that,” Father said. “This isn’t about that. It’s about what he did to Simmea before he left.” Father didn’t ever lie, I realized. He sometimes deliberately said things that could be misinterpreted, but as far as I could see he always told the truth.

“What did you do to Simmea?” Maia asked. She had a soft voice but it sounded hard now.

“Nothing you didn’t personally sanction,” Kebes said, looking at her for the first time since he had greeted her. “You chose the partners for the Florentines for the Festival of Hera. You yourself matched me with her.”

Maia made an inarticulate choking sound.

“He raped her,” I said, into the silence, to make it clear, since it seemed nobody else was going to. “She wrote about it.”

Klymene looked shocked. “Is this true?”

Kebes looked at me, then at her. “No. She wanted it. She loved me.” He wanted to believe what he was saying, but he couldn’t quite manage it. There was guilt behind his words. I wished everyone could hear it as clearly as I could.

“But there’s a written record?” Klymene asked, glancing back at me.