It was his voice that rang out a few moments later, gathering in a few more of the errant female servants, herding the group together and leading the way. Agariste looked to her two sons and her daughter. They still thought of it as a great adventure, of course. Journeys on a galley’s deck, a sea battle played out before their very eyes. Agariste hid her own fear from them. There was a Persian army still in Greece, a host larger than all the cities could muster. She hid her terror from them. Daughters and sons faced different fates, when Persia made war. Despair flickered in her, like the dying light of a fire. It would be too cruel to watch the impossible victory at Salamis and still lose.

There was always hope, she reminded herself. Xanthippus and Themistocles and Cimon had triumphed against a huge, royal fleet. She began to hum an old prayer to Athena, something Xanthippus had taught her. He said it had been sung at Marathon and it gave her comfort. She looked up when she heard the tune echoed in the crowd walking back to the city. More and more began to sing, the sound spreading throat to throat. They knew the words because they were Athenian. She felt her heart lift as Pericles and Eleni and Ariphron joined in. It was not a joyous tune, but she felt her heart swell nonetheless.

They entered Athens in song, though the sight of burned streets and rubble choked the hymn back to shocked murmurs. As the stream of men, women and children passed the broken stones that had been walls and a gate, many wept or called aloud in grief. For most of them, it had not been real before. The men had rowed in a private hell, or fought on deck, their world reduced to whosoever stood against them. Their families had waited on a sandy shore, enduring.

The reality was a blow to the heart, with each corner revealing more destruction. Ash coated everything , so that those first through the gates were soon made black by whatever they touched or picked up. As Agariste and her family went further, they reached places where families huddled in the ruins of their old homes. Mothers and fathers were already seeking whole tiles they could salvage, though tears ran in soot and muck down their cheeks. To Agariste’s surprise, she saw children chasing one another through gaps, scrambling along charred beams and laughing. It made her smile as she passed by, heading to her husband’s town-house.

The Persians had been thorough. Everything had been set alight, or pulled down with ropes and hooks. Only the streets themselves remained open, though the sewage trenches had been baked by fires roaring overhead. For once, the smell of the city was smothered by charcoal and the peppery taint of stones heated until they cracked.