He knew dangers lay ahead, but he had trained the fleet in the tactics and signals of war. They had learned to ram, sink and burn well enough. Now they would be sharks, gliding out after Persian ships. It was good to hunt; he was eager for it to begin and sensed the same in the other commanders whenever they met. From captains of Corinth and Megara to the Spartan king himself, they were all Greeks that year. Xanthippus sensed a brotherhood that might even survive the war. They wanted to answer the Persians who had slaughtered and burned and raped their people. Plataea had been sacked, Xanthippus had heard, the valiant little city stripped and burned as the Persians marched through. Its people had run for the hills. Some of them had come to stand with Aristides outside Athens, as they had at Marathon. It was an old alliance, but it was based on one language and the gods. That year, they were one people.

Xanthippus recalled the family farm he had passed on his way to Sparta. Cimon, Relas and Onesimos were with him in that very fleet, perhaps recalling the graves they had dug, the dusty earth they had shovelled over pale faces. It was right to hunt the ones who had brought about such things. There was no mercy in Xanthippus. He looked out at ships all around and felt his heart grow light.

The sea was vast, but he knew the Persian fleet would have left a mark wherever they went, wherever they had gathered food or stores. Some ships had gone home with their king, of course. Others would have scattered to the four winds. Yet there had been sightings reported for months, whispers and rumours passed from fishing boat to merchant. Xanthippus knew they were out there still. He hoped they kept watch and were afraid, those Persian captains. They had come for slaughter, after all. There was more work to be done, more blood to be spilt, before he could know peace. Wherever they had found to anchor, rest and repair, Xanthippus would be sailing behind, closer every day. After all, he sailed a Greek sea, not a Persian one.

Ropes were unwound from iron stanchions set into the quayside. Oars rumbled out below, pushing the prow away so that the ship swung. Each man below tested his position for comfort, easing pads of cloth into place, or even rubbing a stone against some new splinter that might gouge their side. There were not many of those. The ship had been sanded and oiled from end to end over weeks of preparation. The small hold in the stern was filled with water casks, beans, salt, dried meat and grain sacks, even fresh fruit that had to be eaten quickly before it perished.