‘Will there be more training drills?’ he asked.

Xanthippus shook his head.

‘I don’t think so. Perhaps Themistocles or Eurybiades … no. Any ships manoeuvring now would fall behind.’

He became aware of faces turned to hear. The men were desperate for any scrap of information. Little boats rowed between the triremes, carrying officers and stores while they sat at anchor. Whatever he said there would spread from ship to ship with extraordinary speed.

‘Unless the plan changes, we’ll go north until we cross the Persian fleet. We’ll stop them in our waters. Our trierarchs know their ships and crews. They know the flag signals and the formations. We have honed them to a fearsome sharpness. The enemy have no idea we have so many ships out to send them to the bottom. Take heart from that, Epikleos. May the gods keep them blind a little longer!’

Epikleos looked a little pale around the mouth as he nodded. The reality was rushing down upon them and somehow clashed with the normal routines of their lives. Around them, three hundred ships prepared a cold and glutinous stew. Some seventy thousand men rested there, scattered along the coast of Attica. Xanthippus and Epikleos felt their ship tug on her lines and settle, like a horse brought to a halt on a long rein.

They were close enough to see crews and ships they knew on all sides. There were few strangers in that fleet, not after their close association. Men raised arms in salute or greeting, but there was none of the usual laughter or cheerful insults that marked their lives. They knew what lay ahead and yet they did not feel ready for it, not then. They had trained together, sweated and sworn together. The reality was still unfolding before them. They would bleed, they would die together as well. They would drown and kill and win, or lose everything that mattered, when the time came. It was a strange brotherhood. As he stood there, Xanthippus wished once again for a railing, so he could have gripped it and stopped his hands trembling.

41

The flagship was by far the largest vessel in all the forces Xerxes had brought to Greek waters. He had not appreciated how slow it would be, so that each day’s end found him towards the rear, though some oar-slaves had died in their labours to keep up with the main group.

Even so, there were comforts. He walked the deck with Immortals standing as sentinels, facing the sea. The flagship sat higher on the waves than most of the Phoenician triremes. It rolled as a result, but took on less water and seemed so heavy that it was hard to imagine being thrown over by a wave. He set his jaw at that thought. He still struggled to sleep on board. Wooden ships seemed alive in the noises they made, never mind the constant motion. There were horses in the hold, as well as the live animals kept for food. They all whinnied and shrieked in the night, dragging him awake in cold sweat. He had sprung up from nightmares dozens of times, so that dawn found him on deck, sipping a hot tisane with a cloak wrapped around him. Only opium worked, though of late it had brought nightmares that left him ill and retching. He had taken to sleeping on shore whenever there was no threat. He still remembered one perfectly sheltered cove in Macedonia, with no route down to it from the land. He had slept a full night then, like a child in his slumbers.