‘And you are sure you were pregnant?’ he whispered, eyeing the curve of her womb as she stood before him.

She nodded, fierce and afraid at the same time.

‘If you had told me, I could have taken a mistress to bear children. Even Epikleos has …’

‘They would not be your heirs,’ she said. ‘Or they would compete with Ariphron and Pericles for your inheritance. Or you would seek to put me aside and marry her! Why would I ever choose that?’ She began to sob, tears streaming. ‘I regret it, Xan. I do regret what I did. I only wanted a year or two without giving birth. I took the tea a dozen times with just a heavier bleed … Please don’t look at me like that.’

‘I am wondering how many of my children you have murdered,’ he said. ‘I’m going to go back to the city, Agariste. I think I will kill you if I stay here.’

‘Please don’t go. Just stay and talk with me. I am so sorry, Xan.’

She tried to embrace him and he pushed her back, more roughly than he had intended, so that she stumbled against the desk. A knock sounded instantly on the door at his back. Xanthippus mastered himself. He was no young man to be consumed by his passions. He turned to open the door and found Manias there, with a basket, looking past him in concern.

‘The mistress asked me to bring her some fruit, kurios,’ Manias said.

Xanthippus nodded at the lie. He took an orange and smelled it, breathing in deeply.

‘Very well. I am finished here,’ he said.

He did not look back, though he heard the soft choking sounds of Agariste weeping as he strode away.

Xanthippus came awake with a start, looking sleepily around at the narrow room of his town-house, in the shadow of the Acropolis. Knocking? The slaves would answer it. He felt fresh and alert, so it could not be too early. The house had served him well over the years when he didn’t want to go home to his wife, when he and a few friends had stayed up all night to talk and laugh and drink, before collapsing and snoring through the mornings. The night before, he’d been uncharacteristically sober. The slaves had sensed it. Though he kept only six in that building, they had caught each other’s eye in wonder as he’d requested a light meal and asked for his room to be aired and made ready.

He had decided to forgive Agariste. Her tears had moved him even in his anger. That was part of it. Her family could also make his life harder than it was, if they believed he had mistreated her. Even as one of the Marathonomachoi, he had not risen so far that they could not snag his hem and pull him back down, not if they set out to do it. Her father was a stern and pompous old man, who seemed to think Agariste could have made a better match.