Agariste kept Pericles and Eleni close, though Ariphron stood in cloak, helmet, bronze greaves and chestplate. He wore a sword on his hip, painfully aware of it. His shield rested against a pillar of wood, while his dory spear was too tall for that low roof and had to be laid down. As his father still lived and wore the family set, Ariphron wore pieces purchased from three families deep in grief, new widows who needed silver as they glimpsed life without a husband’s care.

Agariste could hardly see her son beneath the helmet’s shadow. She knew Ariphron was not yet comfortable in the new kit. In more normal times, she would have had the greaves adjusted to fit, the sword’s grip remade for his hand, so that it could not be sent spinning away by some jarring blow. At eighteen, her son was unaware of such things, of course. Pericles had walked around him as if admiring a statue. Ariphron clearly thought he looked like a young Heracles, standing guard on his mother and sister with new-found earnestness.

Agariste did not smile at his strutting walk. She only hoped he would not have to draw the sword before the emergency was over. Seated with her hands about her knees and her children murmuring, she was not sure she would get her wish. Some of the faces around them were pale, stunned by the mocking twist of fate that had raised all their hopes, then returned them to the same island. Others seemed to have found refuge in furious anger. They spoke harshly to one another, close to violence, bickering over every piece of space or shelter.

‘Where is your father now, Peri?’ Agariste asked her younger son.

The boy took it as an opportunity to vanish, of course, going to look for Xanthippus. It seemed an age before Pericles returned, but no one dared approach her in that time. Once more she had space around her children, though she thought it was less her family line and more the hoplites who stood and watched nearby, with iron on their hips. Either way, the crowd knew the protection of her husband stood between them. She hoped they did. Too many scowled at her, as if she was the author of their troubles! As many wept as glared, though she could do nothing for them.

If there were to be furious accusations, even sly spite, it would not be where she could note faces and names, Agariste was half-sure. Weak people always looked for those to blame – and Xanthippus was a name, a senior man. For every oarsman or trierarch who bent the knee in his presence, there would be a dozen wives and mothers who still blamed him for the death of a husband or son. Agariste felt eyes on her, every moment. She was in reach, and they were eaten up with formless anger.