‘Are you unwell, Themistocles?’ the epistates said.

What was his name? The tone was sneering and the man had taken on a faint flush, as if he knew he was being ignored.

‘I am well enough,’ Themistocles said.

The man raised his eyebrows.

‘Then perhaps you have an answer, one I can take to the council. Where are the records for the mine workers? We have rumours of men being forced to pay a part of their income before they even receive it.’

Themistocles said nothing, though he glowered and lowered his head like a trapped bull. It was a historic arrangement, right back to the first dig on the new seam at Laurium. He had agreed a collective rate for the men, higher than it might have been, with a little taken for his labour. Such things were meant to be private, and they had been at first. If he had not been distracted in the city, he might have remembered to check the arrangement, to renew it with the overseers at the mine. Instead, faces and names had changed – and suddenly there were questions from the council about the little cart of silver ore that was collected each month without being tallied with the rest.

Instead of staying in command of the details, Themistocles had been forced to deal with a thousand other matters. Little by little, he had become aware of things left undone once Aristides had gone. Themistocles had never appreciated how many hours the dour little man had spent serving the city. It was not just the docks and the reports from the carpenters and shipwrights, not even the woodcutters and cartmen bringing in new stocks, or the lumber yards where wood was dried and seasoned. A month after Aristides had gone into exile, two men had brought a survey of the city sewers, with every private home and pit marked on a map that had cost a small fortune in labour. They’d needed paying, but they’d also wanted to discuss some scheme Aristides had been mulling to sink the main sewage runs beneath the surface of the city, so that they could not overflow as easily.

It was incredibly dull, but the work had gone on nonetheless, unseen, unrewarded. Without Aristides, or Xanthippus, or even Miltiades, much of the work fell to men of the council who had been elected for a single month. Men without particular skill, without vision. Of course, they came to Themistocles, more and more often.

‘I will look into it, epistates, of course,’ he said. ‘I will bring a report to the council next week.’

‘You said something similar last month, so I was told.’

Themistocles raised his eyes. He had relied on the constant change of officials to put them off, and it had worked for a long time. Unfortunately, they had begun to talk and discuss his reluctance. He saw it in the suspicious glances that followed him.

‘It takes time to send men out to the mine, to question witnesses and examine the accounts there.’