‘I can confirm three more ships are back, filled with grain and cured hams. The fishing fleet report great shoals, so many they are in danger of tearing their nets. It is a start, but I can confirm supplies for another week. With discipline and restraint, there will be food enough for all. Be assured, we will continue to fish and seek out provisions. No one will starve.’

They cheered at that, revealing more worry than they had known themselves. Xanthippus raised an arm to include Aristides.

‘If you would honour anyone, it should be Aristides, who organised the crews and, more importantly, allocated their catch fairly.’

There was another cheer, though it was more muted. There had been riots in the first few days, with fishing crews overwhelmed and six men stabbed to death. Aristides had restored order with brutal efficiency and set his hoplites to oversee every part of the process. It was all new to them, but they had learned quickly.

‘What about the Persians?’ a voice called out from the midst.

Xanthippus might have ignored it, but it was echoed by a dozen more, growing louder as he hesitated. He was not a man who enjoyed being harangued by the crowd. He could not raise their spirits or make them laugh the way Themistocles could. Yet the noise did not die down. Of course they were worried, he reminded himself. They had been forced to run once. The army of Persia was still in Greece and could appear over the hills at any moment. Xanthippus had endured the same questions from his children and wife, from his friend Epikleos and a hundred other voices. It was the weight that pressed them all down, the not knowing. He wondered what they thought he could possibly add. Themistocles said they just needed to see confidence at such times, that men were not so very different from children, at least when they were afraid. Xanthippus blew air out and nodded, looking across the heads of the Assembly. They were afraid. It would have been madness not to be.

‘The Persians have made a camp for themselves in Thessaly. They have organised patrols, felled trees for wood, piled up ramps of earth and stone as a boundary. Our scouts say it all looks … solid. I imagine they have settled in for winter.’ Someone else began to call out and Xanthippus snapped an answer over him. ‘If they do come before then, perhaps with supplies stripped from the orchards and flocks of Thessaly, we will either meet them in the field with our allies – or if Sparta still refuses to come, we can abandon Athens a second time.’

He raised his voice then over the babble of fear and anger.