Themistocles kept a smile plastered across his face, but he had been accused and jostled and irritated since the sun rose. He had seen himself once as a master of those around him, capable of employing the currents of public feeling to take him anywhere he wanted to go. He shook his head as if in sorrow, feeling his thoughts moving sluggishly. Had he lost that sense, that delicacy? Age stole many things from a man. Had the scythe of time taken his ability to read a crowd? How many greybeards had he known who no longer seemed to understand the conversations of the young?

‘… of walls built across the isthmus,’ Cimon was saying, haranguing the crowd.

Themistocles dragged his attention back, realising he had missed the main point. By Athena, he was tired! He rubbed his face, wanting nothing more than a little wine, a few hours of sleep. He had to struggle to listen to whatever Cimon was saying, though it seemed to support him.

‘If the cities of the Peloponnese believe they can live behind those walls while Persia rapes Greece, they are certainly mistaken! Sparta has but sixteen warships. The Persians could land armies anywhere on their coast. Yet that does not matter. If the Spartans and the Corinthians believe they are safe behind their barricade, they might not engage. Remember, we are their allies only by necessity. Themistocles made them understand we had a better chance together than in two parts. That is a victory, regardless of how it came about.’

Cimon stepped abruptly away from the speaker’s stone, as if he disdained their support. Some of his people cheered him even so. Yet there were not enough of them, even though he had offered his fields and harvest to any man of Athens who needed food.

Themistocles saw dozens more wanting to speak. He felt his eyelids droop at the thought of listening to them all. Though he loved them, by Apollo, they burned the hours.

He knew he could not leave the Pnyx, not without securing what he had come for. Themistocles sighed to himself. One hand hid the other as he tugged one of his fingers and then twisted. The joint popped and dislocated, as it had a dozen times before in his life. It was an old wrestling injury, but the effect was immediate. Pain snapped him back to sharpness and his thoughts flew. He approached the stone again and the epistates gestured for others to take their seats. They had summoned Themistocles, after all. He had the right to speak.

‘Thank you, Cimon,’ he said, formally, before raising his great head and voice. Themistocles felt his jaw jut as he looked across his people.

‘You have all heard the reports!’ he said. ‘One by one, we have had witnesses traipse their way up here to tell their stories over the previous months and years. Will you deny all of those? Persian soldiers spotted in Macedonia, building camps and forts and cutting roads. A bridge of ships across the Hellespont! An army of such numbers no two men can agree. A fleet of empire, commanded by Xerxes himself, with his brothers as his officers. They come! At last! And they will be met!’