High above those streets, the Acropolis filled the gaze wherever it fell. Xerxes could see temples up there, some of them with a wooden scaffold on the walls and unfinished columns, all to honour the deities of the Greeks. His spies had described it, even to the monuments that commemorated the battle of Marathon, ten years before. That Greek victory over the Persians had hurt his father, Xerxes knew. It had damaged his spirit, perhaps even led to the illness that tore him from the world, half his weight and all his strength gone. Xerxes felt a pulse of rage at that thought. He would take down those stones!

He paused then, seeing movement high on the great rock.

‘Are … people up there still, general?’

Mardonius shaded his eyes to stare up.

‘A few dozen, Majesty. Just some priests, as far as I can tell. We’ll dig them out.’

He did not tell the king that the skinny old men on the Acropolis had blocked the main route to the top. They had also armed themselves with ancient weapons and armour apparently taken from temple walls. Their presence was no more than a biting fly, but they had not been dislodged by the time the young king insisted on entering the city. Mardonius longed to distract Xerxes from his frowning concentration.

On a sudden whim, the young king glanced at the rock of the Areopagus, not a hundred paces off. Without a word to his general, Xerxes jogged to where it touched the street below and clambered up the steps in a rush of youthful energy. He was still breathing lightly as he reached the huge, flat top.

Athenian noblemen had stood there for hundreds of years. The king rested one foot on the highest point, looking up at the Acropolis as it rose before him. Even the Areopagus was dwarfed by it.

Mardonius was physically fit, hardened by months on the march. He too was breathing lightly as he came alongside. Xerxes nodded to him. The king was in a good mood, able to go anywhere he wanted, in the sacred places of his enemies.

Mardonius narrowed his eyes at movement on the Acropolis, reading the scene. There was not much to trouble him.

‘I have sent an entire hazarabam to climb the rear of the great rock, Majesty. There are more men at the foot of the steps there, to distract the Greeks above with arrows. You see them? The rest will overwhelm the defenders when they reach the top.’

‘And then make an example of them,’ Xerxes said. ‘That would please me, general. Make it so. Display the bodies for their gods to see.’

‘As you wish, Majesty.’

Mardonius saw the young king turn slowly, enjoying the elevated position. The sea was dark to the south-west and Xerxes squinted into the distance, the Acropolis at his back.