In negotiations with Sparta, everything had to be finely judged. They cared nothing for wealth or trappings of power. Worse, they often scorned such things and considered them effete. Xanthippus rode with Cimon at his side and just two servants riding behind, Relas and Onesimos, both men in their early thirties and veterans of Salamis. All four carried swords and Relas had a bow case on his back, hard-shelled and well worn. Together, they made a fearsome enough group to warn off thieves or vagabonds, or so Xanthippus hoped. Rumours were that the roads were quiet that year. Criminals who scraped a living by robbing or murdering travellers had retreated before the movement of armies. He imagined they would be back when their starvation was greater than their fear.

Xanthippus had seen no sign of anyone watching his progress as he and Cimon left the broken walls of Athens behind. The countryside seemed deserted, entire demes of a dozen houses or more left empty and echoing. Some of them would have lost their men to the sea, he had realised, others to Persian outriders. It was a grim thought.

Xanthippus had paused briefly at his own estate on the road north-west. Whoever had torched and looted the place had been thorough. Even his horses had been butchered to feed the enemy. Xanthippus had found the heads and hooves piled in his yard, white tendons showing. The mounts the Assembly had rounded up for their party were skittish things in comparison – the sort of animals that survived an invasion by spooking and galloping away at the first threat. Cimon cursed the one he rode, keeping the rein tight so that the beast nodded and pranced in circles, clearly in distress. The young man may have been the future of Athens, Xanthippus considered, but he was a terrible horseman.

‘Ease the bit a little,’ Xanthippus called. ‘He’s fighting you because it’s pinching his tongue.’

He looked away as Cimon glared at him, but the horse quieted a while later. Xanthippus could not say he enjoyed the younger man’s company. The thought of spending days with Cimon was wearing. Yet his father, Miltiades, had commanded at Marathon – a vital victory against the Persians ten years before. Having Cimon there was a reminder to Sparta of Athenian strength. Or so Xanthippus assumed. He suspected Themistocles had arranged it, all to some plan or design of his own. The man was determined to make them dance. Xanthippus shook his head. The day was getting late and he knew he should look out for a good spot to hobble the horses, sleep and eat. The road was no place to let his guard down.

‘Do you want to take first watch tonight?’ he asked Cimon.

The young man considered.

‘I don’t sleep much. Not unless I’m behind a good wall. Out here, I doubt I’ll get my head down at all. It doesn’t matter. I can stay up.’