‘We are not the crowd. We are Alcmaeonidae – an ancient line.’ She bowed her head a little, luring her children closer. ‘Your father fought at the fennel field, at Marathon – with Themistocles, with Aristides, with Miltiades, father to Cimon. On my side, my uncle revised half the laws of Athens. He enlarged the Assembly, named the ten tribes, a hundred other things. They know they owe their votes to him – to us. Your blood is a golden thread, children. There may be one or two other families who stand as high, but no more. None higher.’

Pericles frowned at the clusters of Athenians all around. They did not seem particularly respectful, at least to his quick glances. Yet they had left space around Agariste and her children. That was true enough. He thought sometimes that his mother put too much trust in the influence or the protection of her family. She had not seen the darker alleys Pericles wandered on his own, away from the crowds. Bodies could be found there sometimes, sprawled in the sun, or tugged by dogs. In his heart, he knew death could take any one of them, no matter where they laid their head. It watched them from the ships in that moment. Yet he did not say so. He had no wish to hurt his mother.

Agariste sat straighter, watching drowned men appear in the frothing surf. She shuddered. Some turned as they rolled, limbs flopping. The sea wore them like a skin, of splinters and broken oars and the dead. Even as she watched, two more ships crashed together, ripping alongside so that oarsmen were crushed and broken deep within. Agariste swallowed.

‘Look! Look there!’ Pericles said, pointing.

He too had been staring at the dead, of course, fascinated by corpses. Agariste knew he did not see them as men, not really. Boys had to grow into kindness, she thought. Men were built slowly, like towers along the city wall. It did not make her love him less. If anything, it made her love him more, as he needed her. In an instant, Agariste recalled when Pericles had found a dead crow and dissected it on her kitchen table. She had found him staring in awe as he spread the bones of its wing.

She shook away the memory, following his pointing finger to where a dark smudge rolled with the rest.

‘It’s Conis, I think!’ he said. ‘I’m sure of it.’