King Darius had trusted those Greeks that came over to him, just as he had trusted Medes and Lydians, Egyptians, or mountain men of India. Xerxes had done the same, accepting strange tongues and foreign blood out of love for his father. Mardonius felt his teeth creak as he clenched and unclenched his jaw. He would not lose a battle for some childish belief in the honour of his allies. He had Persian regiments ready to step in if his Greeks failed him.

He felt himself sweating copiously, suffering with the old madness of command. Had he thought of everything ? Was there a detail he had overlooked? He prayed it was not so.

He had seen through the first ruse, when tens of thousands marched away. There was a bird at home in Persia that trailed its wing on the ground to draw predators from its nest. Rats sometimes chased the little things, but when foxes saw it calling in distress, they had learned to search for eggs.

Everything had changed when his cavalry had risked their necks, going close enough to really see the Greeks. They were certainly many, but they were armed like fishermen and farmers, without the bronze that made a hoplite so hard to bring down. Mardonius had seen his chance – and the danger of being flanked, with all the Greeks watching like wolves on the mountain.

The general gave a grunt. His was not a peasant army, but trained and disciplined men of forty nations. He had been intending to set a hundred thousand to hold that edge, while he went out to slaughter the rest. Yet the moment he had moved, the Spartans and their allies had come racing down the slopes! Mardonius had thought they would surely attack him, but instead they had pressed ahead of his marching ranks. As the dust thickened, he had lost sight of them, but he had learned something vital. The Spartans valued the men who faced him. Enough to risk everything to get out onto the plain, to give up whatever advantage they had held on the heights.

He’d seen his infantry meet the enemy in a great crash that resounded like a bell rung. Mardonius had gone forward then, keeping discipline, dressing his lines. His men slaughtered those Greeks without armour, killing hundreds every time he breathed, faster and faster.

Dust had swallowed friend and enemy, smothering individual acts of valour. Instead, the battle was revealed in the bodies he reached, lines and patches of them, draining into the earth. They appeared out of the swirling fogs, revealed by his steps as if summoned. It was a chilling thought. Many of them still cried in pain, panting away their last. Some writhed, turning and clutching, reminding him of crabs he had caught as a child.