‘There you are. Can you blame them? When the need for their skill is so great? I’m surprised they are not asking for more.’

‘But that will practically double the cost of the ships! What good will a pouch of silver do them when the Persian fleet returns? Are you saying Themistocles is behind such demands? I have never heard of such a thing!’

Epikleos spread his hands.

‘You are not a deal-maker, Xan. Your wealth protects you. Men like Themistocles can raise a fleet or dig silver ore for Athens, but they are not above skimming cream from the deal or taking a cut to make themselves rich. He has no family fortune, I’ve heard. If he ever had, the way he spends would beggar anyone. Feasts and plays and new buildings, three triremes promised from his own funds? The people love him.’

‘We will never allow another tyrant,’ Xanthippus said sternly.

‘Perhaps we’ll raise one even so – one the Assembly choose. I’d say Themistocles wants to be first man in Athens, Xan, wouldn’t you? Anyone can see. Miltiades might have stopped him, but you brought him down. Aristides still could – or you. Who else? Just be careful, would you? For all his laughter, Themistocles is ruthless, never doubt it.’

‘You’re wrong,’ Xanthippus replied. He thought back to the day at the gymnasium, when Themistocles had talked of his childhood. ‘I know him, better than you realise. He is … vulgar, loud, yes, all the things I find tiresome. He has little sense of the value of silver, I know that much. Yet I think he is a man of honour. He is a true Athenian.’

‘I hope so,’ Epikleos said. ‘He is certainly the sort of man others follow. I saw it at the funeral. The trouble with that is where he will lead them.’

‘He argued for the new silver from Laurium to be spent on a fleet,’ Xanthippus reminded his friend. ‘Not his own enrichment, for slaves or roads and tiles. That was right – as I said at the time. I tell you, I would welcome two or three of him, if we had four hundred triremes as a result!’

Epikleos looked away into the distance rather than continue to argue with his friend, his doubts clear. Seeing it, Xanthippus felt his patience unravel. He was almost forty and the subtleties of politics and shifting alliances felt trivial, almost childish. In the natural pause, he patted Epikleos on the arm.

‘Let me ask my questions inside. Give me just a short time and I’ll come out. We’ll run to the port today – and back.’

Epikleos groaned and smiled as he was expected to do, but his expression was worried as Xanthippus vanished into the council building. He had watched Themistocles speak at Miltiades’ funeral. With an orator of such great skill, there were a dozen ways it could have gone. Yet the sense of Miltiades being a wronged man, a hero brought down by his accuser, had come from that eulogy. Perhaps not all the blame for it could be laid at the feet of Themistocles, but that was part of what made him dangerous. There was always another way of seeing. Men loved Themistocles – and they could see no evil in him. Epikleos knew Xanthippus admired the man, for his warmth and his extraordinary skill with a crowd – for all, perhaps, that Xanthippus was not.