Themistocles broke a crate open while they all watched him. He ran a hand over the silver within, seeing how the guards stared. Perhaps they assumed any man would dream of stealing such a fortune. The truth was, he would not touch a single coin. He would emulate Aristides in that, rather than be brought down over petty accounting. No, he would show his honour by keeping the silver for Athens and the ships they would build.

‘Bring clerks and slaves to keep tally,’ Themistocles ordered. ‘I want to count them here, before we leave.’

‘Master, the coins have already been counted,’ one of the guards protested.

‘And if I get to the council building and find a dozen drachms missing, there are those who would believe the worst – of you, or me. No, better to make my own count, and be certain, than lose my life and yours for a few coins.’

The guard seemed to understand that quickly enough. He put his spear aside and cracked his knuckles, ready to help. Themistocles bowed his head solemnly.

‘This silver is a sacred trust. Given by Miltiades to Athens, after the loss of ships and good men. We must account for every coin, in all honour. In peril of the loss of our souls.’

The gathered slaves seemed struck by his words. He hoped they were, though he’d still have everyone in that room warned, then stripped and searched at the end. So much silver brought greed to the fore, in slave and kurios, man and woman alike.

20

The hiss and flutter of torches was the only sound, thousands of them, enough to make the great cemetery outside the walls of Athens into a place of gold and black shadow, with too much light to see the stars above. Themistocles had not known so many would be present when he’d made his offer to speak. Nor that they would be so young. It seemed Cimon had his own following in the city, present that day to honour his father. Themistocles saw them lounging against tombs centuries old. Most had brought wine, unmixed and raw, too strong in his estimation. It seemed they had begun drinking during the procession out of the city, through the Thriasian gate and the road beyond. The cemetery crowded there, with tombs right up hard against the city wall and spreading always, year by year. Houses that had once been apart from the city’s districts were encroached upon. It was not hard to imagine the graves spreading out beyond, until they ringed all Athens, or reached all the way to the sea.

Cimon had spoken to thank the crowd. His voice had been tight and choked, breaking as he talked of his father. It had been short and simple, unadorned, though all the more powerful for that. Themistocles considered it as he decided how to speak. The audience waited patiently as he stood, looking on the open tomb that would house the wrapped figure of Miltiades. He would join his parents and two of his sisters who had died in their youth. Their remains sat like dolls on stone shelves in the mausoleum, deep in the gloom. When the speeches were over, Miltiades would be raised on the shoulders of his son and his friends, to be carried in among the bones of his family. It was just flesh, of course. The shade was gone. There. That was where he could start.