Pelias had been wary of him at first, seeing the scarred arms and manner of a soldier. Yet Xanthippus worked as hard as any of them, earning blisters and splinters, then calluses as the long summer days wore on. He had settled into the task, staying almost silent with the other men. He did not need companions or friends. They seemed to sense that in him and left him alone for the most part. One fool who had tried to take his bowl of stew had frozen when a hoplite knife appeared from nowhere, held against the warm flesh of his groin. The man had put the bowl down with more care than he had taken it up, though Xanthippus had not said a word, nor risen from his seat.

There was a certain pride in feeding himself through his own labour. The coins he earned were not many. They could be held in a palm that was scratched and split and battered, but they were completely his. He could have had Agariste send funds each month from the family estates, but he preferred not to be a supplicant. Some things were more valuable than mere silver – his pride was one. As far as he had fallen, he was no man’s slave, to be fed and kept warm like a hound.

Xanthippus had been burned lean by his exile. He had written letters in the first couple of years, almost constantly. For the longest time, he’d tried to continue his life as it had been. How does a man spend ten years away from home? From his family, his city and everything he loves? He would be fifty by the time he was allowed to return to Athens, a period too long to just wait out. Xanthippus had understood at last that he needed to work, to train and remain fit, but also to occupy his hours. Time hung heavy on a man with no purpose. He had never understood before what a punishment too much time could be.

Agariste had brought the children out to see him just once, a few months after he’d left. It had been a huge undertaking, or at least she’d made it seem as if it was. Her complaints about the days on the road had been a clear warning to him. He’d vowed not to ask again, until she offered. Of course, she had not. He had not seen his children for six years. Ariphron would be almost ready to join the Assembly. Eleni would be fifteen and Pericles would be thirteen, almost fourteen. It was impossible to imagine.

‘Hold it steady,’ Xanthippus said.

The man gripping the post had a tendency to flinch as the hammer came down. He would have been better wielding the hammer, but Xanthippus didn’t trust his aim, not when it was his hands underneath. The man was not a mute, but like Xanthippus, he spoke only rarely.

Over and over, Xanthippus brought the iron head down, pounding the post into the ground. They had covered an extraordinary amount of land with the fencing, so that it stretched right back to the farmhouse in the distance. Not that Xanthippus had seen the family. He was just a labourer, there to think and lose himself in heat and repetition.