Below his feet, those oarsmen rowed with eyes screwed shut and every breath like molten iron – but they endured. They could see the ships passing on either side well enough, through gaps in the leather and the oarlocks. Ram and prow were both hidden to their view and they relied on officers and the helmsmen to steer straight and choose targets. Their strength and will was another resource, to be spent well rather than squandered. That they were already exhausted did not need to be said.

In the previous hour, Themistocles had been forced to send two hoplites to replace men who had died in their seats, their hearts giving way. Those bodies had been put overboard, watched by those who remained with a terrible, sick gaze. Yet they were young men, one and all. It would not be them next. It would never be them.

Themistocles was down to just twelve hoplites on deck, ready to leap across if the call came for boarding. Those men watched him for orders, for all the world like his own youth, clad in golden bronze. He jerked his head up in response to their gaze, looking as confident as he could. A couple of them flashed a grin before they turned back to look over the sea. Themistocles the unconquerable. Themistocles the bully, the arrogant, who knew no fear! Themistocles the lucky.

He didn’t mind what they called him. It didn’t matter how blessed by the gods they thought he was. Nothing he had ever won for himself had come through fortune or fate. He scowled at that foolish thought and touched his tongue to a medallion held in his cheek. His mother had given it to him. It bore the owl of Athena and, though the cord had snapped, he carried it still. He would rather not tempt the gods to punish his pride, not while he rode a fragile shell in the midst of an enemy fleet.