Pausanias turned to the Spartiate officers. He gave orders for them to tally the stores available to the column, as well as designating helots to seek out any spring or source of water in the hills around. He sent the rest further down the slopes to locate flat parts for them to sleep, wrapped in their cloaks. Finally, he summoned the leaders to attend him as they ate that evening. Order had been restored in his life. He stared down at an implacable enemy, three times the number of his own forces, armed with horsemen and bows and Persian Immortals just itching for a chance to repay their humiliation at Thermopylae. One way or another, fate had taken his hand and turned him towards that plain, near Plataea.

Xanthippus worked the rudder of the little boat while Pericles doused the sail in water from a leather bucket. The sun was hot, the wind no more than a breath. In the perfect stillness, Xanthippus wanted to laugh at the ludicrousness of their position. They were barely eight days out of Athens. They had expected to spend weeks or even months searching the Aegean for sight or sound of Persian ships, taking them in twos or threes, following every rumour and false sighting, though it cost them labour and injury and precious supplies. He frowned at that thought. Of the hundred and sixty ships he had gathered as vengeance on Persian shipping, two had sunk. One had struck an unmarked rock and gone down as if determined to sail right to the seabed. Only six men had been recovered from that. The other had sprung a leak their carpenter could not patch. The ship had gone down slowly enough for the crew to be taken off, though at the end they’d waded across a deck barely on the surface, bringing back ugly memories of Salamis.

Xanthippus had kept a grim countenance in those passing days, though part of him took joy in the simple work. The men rowed, but not to exhaustion. They landed at every island they sighted, asking questions and purchasing whatever supplies they needed. In the evenings, he and his sons dined on board, or joined the Spartan navarch, King Leotychides. To Xanthippus’ surprise, he found the Spartan good company, a teller of tales that often ended with Pericles blowing wine back through his nose and having to have his back thumped. If they had not been at war against a terrible enemy, it would have been idyllic, almost embarrassingly so. Xanthippus had filled every hour with signal training and manoeuvres, repeating actions over and over until he was certain the allies would perform well under pressure. That was the entire purpose of such work, so that men kept moving when ships crunched alongside and blood spattered the decks.