Bodies were beginning to wash up along the shore. There was not much wind, but the movement of the waters seemed to be bringing them in. Agariste knew, in the instant, that Pericles would want to go down and investigate. She did not relish the battle of wills that would surely follow. Fear had exhausted her, for Xanthippus, for the children, for herself and all the roots of her family. Athens was home. She could not easily imagine starting again somewhere else.

‘It will be a long time before we have news,’ she said.

She did not have to gesture to the vast Persian fleet that had not yet joined the fighting. For sheer lack of sea room they could not engage, yet they remained, holding place, fresh and savage, while Greeks tired and bled. Of course she was afraid, Agariste told herself. There would be no victory that day. She prayed under her breath for Athena to intervene. Her own city, set aflame! It was an obscenity.

‘Ariphron can stay on watch here,’ Pericles said. ‘I’ll go down to the beach. I can see some lads already down there. I’ll get news, find out what they know.’

He rose to his feet, shading his eyes. His mother breathed out slowly, trying to keep her temper. It was not his fault, she told herself. He was not made to sit still.

‘No. Stay with me, with your sister.’

He began to object, of course. The boy did not listen! Ariphron could write out a thousand lines of Homer, but Pericles would not apply himself long enough to learn a single verse. He hated to write, though he spoke so well; it was hard to doubt the mind behind those dark eyes. His wits were there, but he was like a wild horse, exhausting himself in temper and thrashing.

‘Sit!’ she said. She held his gaze once more, weary of his stubbornness. ‘You think this is the first time our family has been in danger? We’ve survived worse than this, Pericles. By knowing when to follow orders.’

Anger came off her younger son like a noon heat. In the end, she was an authority he was in the habit of obeying. She wondered how much longer that would last, now he was stronger than his mother. She was thirty-five years old on that day. Her youth and beauty were still there as she gestured to the shoreline and all the people of Athens waiting to learn their fate.

‘You see how we sit alone? How there is space between us and the rest? Do you think it was just out of respect?’

Eleni shrugged with the two boys, looking around them with fresh eyes and confusion showing.

Agariste shook her head. She raised one hand and cut the air with it.