“Yes. That too. But he hates Plato, and all of Plato’s ideas. He said he couldn’t become his best self because his best self would never have been enslaved or brought to the city, and what he had left was revenge.” I remembered him saying it. Kebes was older now, closing on forty like all the Children, but he was still exactly the same as the bull-headed boy he had been that day in the garden at Thessaly. “He wasn’t prepared to go on from where he was and make the best of what he could be. And he hates me because I do pursue excellence, and because Simmea chose me and excellence over him and his idea of freedom.”

“He hates Plato?” Kallikles echoed, as if the words made no sense.

“I’ve heard that they say harsh things about Plato sometimes in Sokratea,” Phaedrus said.

“Most of the Goodness Group don’t hate Plato,” I said. “That’s clear. But Kebes does.”

“But won’t the rest of them object to his torturing you?” Kallikles asked.

“I’m sure he’s done it before. I expect they do it to criminals. I think that’s what Aristomache meant when she said it was barbaric without a judgment,” Arete said. “They have that statue. They have gladiatorial combats. They probably think it’s all right.”

I nodded. “Yes, and Kebes introduced Christianity—which is about to put him in a bad spot. He’s a priest. They’re likely to be telling him it’s his Christian duty to forgive me. At least nobody offered me that kind of pap.”

“What will you do if he does forgive you?” Arete asked.

I took the wine jar from her and drank again. “If he could forgive me he wouldn’t be Kebes. He won’t forgive me. And he won’t win. And I’ll kill him.”

“Is it what Mother would have wanted?” Phaedrus asked.

“Not really,” I admitted. “If she’d wanted revenge she’d have told me right away and I’d have killed him then, that day, before the Last Debate. I’d have come up behind him in the dark and got a hold and told him who it was and what I was doing and then broken his neck and left him there, making it look as if he tripped.” It would have been so easy.

“If she were here she’d be arguing about the nature of justice,” Arete said. “Though maybe she would want revenge. How dare he look at me and say you weren’t practicing agape!”