‘Yes, I understand,’ Xerxes said.

He felt peace run cool in his veins once again. His father’s spirit. He had forgotten for a moment that he carried the old man. There were no problems that could not be overcome, not in that perfect union.

‘From this moment, Mardonius,’ Xerxes went on, ‘as I set foot once more on the land across the bridge, you are in command here, with my blessing. You will come from the north; I will come by ship. We will meet in Athens, as God wills.’

Mardonius lowered himself again to kiss the young man’s royal sandal. The general’s heart filled with pride, for his people, for Xerxes and for the army he loved. They had been formed for this, as a potter shapes clay. In the years since Marathon and the disaster of that fool General Datis, Mardonius had trained them and hardened them and armoured them. The gold of the Achaemenids had flowed in a torrent and if any softness, any weakness, yet remained in his men, it would be burned out in the mountains and hundreds of miles ahead.

‘I swear it, Majesty. We are your sword. We will not let you down.’

Xerxes allowed his general to cup hands to help him remount, then rode back across the bridge. On the other side, his fleet waited at sea, already raising anchor as they watched his progress. Sails were filling out in the bay, while thousands of oars dipped and swung.

Only his flagship still waited on the docks, Immortals in white cloaks on deck to salute his arrival. Xerxes breathed deeply as he watched his horse taken up in a sling, whinnying piteously as it was swung on board. He had planned the campaign for years, every detail. He had lived and breathed the destruction of the Greeks. For his father, for the insult of Marathon, for how they had scorned his offer of earth and water – but also for himself, for his own need to burn their cities to ash.

‘I will make an ending,’ he whispered in a personal vow.

The coolness he felt could only be his father’s spirit in his veins. He had known that creeping cold many times before, when he had drunk an infusion of poppy to help him sleep. Yet this time he was invigorated.

‘Thank you, father. I will be the glad shout, the battle roar. I will be your answer to them – and my own.’

Xerxes walked over planking to join the crew, accepting the ceremonial sword of fleet admiral as his feet touched the deck. He would command at sea, as Mardonius commanded on land. They would strike Athens from both sides and his enemies would understand at last what they had done.

29

Themistocles wondered if there would be blood spilled that evening. When the arguments grew heated, it was an easy thing to imagine. Yet they had come, at his formal request. Though nine-tenths of the delegates he’d sent had returned with a refusal, thirty separate cities and regions had answered Athens. Perhaps hundreds of small fish had not, but those who had travelled to the neutral ground of Thessaly, to the city of Larissa, were among the most powerful of the Hellene states. Sparta had come, the linchpin, along with representatives of Megara, Chalcis, Sicyon, Arcadia, Corinth and two dozen others. It confirmed Themistocles in his belief that Athens could be the leader of all Greece, with the right men to guide her. With himself to guide her.