There was a moment of stillness, but then Pausanias smiled and nodded his head.

‘I feel a weight lift from my shoulders, soothsayer.’

‘I was never a soothsayer, Pausanias, you know that. Just a man promised five victories by the oracle at Delphi. Just that.’

‘It is enough,’ Pausanias said.

He was no longer breathing hard and he began to walk back down the hill to the city waiting below. After a while, both men broke into a run, faster and faster, skidding on the stones and risking their necks.

19

Aristides stood on a low wall, watching a Spartan army approach Athens. It was hard not to feel a thrill of fear at the sight of those red cloaks in the distance. Few men had ever seen so many Spartiate warriors in one place. It seemed Pausanias had kept his word, his father’s oath. The oath of Leonidas, reaching out to them, long past his own death.

Themistocles scrambled up beside him, panting slightly and shading his gaze against the pale afternoon sun. The morning had been warm and dry, the sky the blue of childhood memory. Two months had passed since they’d seen Athens burned a second time. The Assembly had sent a formal ultimatum then, to Sparta. Hard choices had to be made in war – what was true one day might not be true the next. Still, both men were pleased they had not been forced to leave their honour on the pyre of Athens. Word had come at last from Pausanias as regent – that year, battle king of Sparta. It had been accepted by his co-ruler, King Leotychides. No one had expected Leotychides to bring the small group of Spartan ships down the coast, joining them to the allied fleet. Of course, Leotychides had insisted on Xanthippus acknowledging him in command. Themistocles still smiled when he recalled his own struggle with the Spartans in that regard. Xanthippus had hesitated for about as long as a heartbeat before accepting vital crews to add to his forces.

From what Aristides could see, the Spartan kings had to have left only women and children at home. None of the archons of Athens had even been certain Sparta could put so many in the field. He swallowed, a little nervously. No Spartan ever built a wall, he reminded himself, or shaped a pot, or cut wood for the fire. Their helots did every bit of manual labour in Sparta. All the while, Spartiates trained, in skill and fitness, for all the hours of light, from the age of seven to the age of sixty, when they finally laid down their weapons. They had no equal in Greece, Aristides was certain. War was their calling, their single purpose. He did not know if it would be enough.