"Absolutely not!" Pelleus protested hotly; "I, dress as a girl? You've gone too far, Marinus!"

  "But think of it, Pelleus: it's the perfect disguise to slip past Agon's suspicions and get to know his daughter, Chrysanthe!"

  The two friends were still standing in the lane by Anneus's hut, caught in a heated argument over Marinus's brilliant new scheme. That it was brilliant Pelleus did not dispute, he only objected to the role Marinus would have him play in it.

  "What I am is not a costume, Marinus!" he said, going red in the face with indignation.

  "I never said it was," his friend replied, lowering his voice to a respectful tone. "I'm asking you to put on a disguise, and take on a false identity for a very brief time – just as long as it takes to form some kind of impression of this family."

  "I can't believe you, I really can't..." Pelleus said, and throwing Marinus a withering look, he tramped inside the hut and drew the curtain across the door.

  Anneus came trudging down the avenue just a few minutes later, bearing the coracle on his shoulders.

  "A good catch, today?" Marinus asked.

  "Not a winkle," the fisherman said, with a frown.

  "I think Pelleus was upset about something similar," Marinus said, the corners of his mouth twitching.

  "He's very devoted to you, you know," said Anneus, heaving the coracle off his shoulders and setting it on its hook. When he turned back Marinus was alarmed to see he had tears in his eyes again.

  "You've got to treasure friends like that, you really do," he said, clapping a meaty hand on Marinus's shoulder.

  Marinus felt his stomach turn over with some sudden pang of emotion – remorse. He'd taken Pelleus's friendship for granted, and just gone rubbing salt into his wounds, for what? A foolish fancy, stirred up by the sight of a pretty girl.

  "Why don't you help me prepare the supper, anyway?" Anneus said, seeing a change in the lad's expression.

  "N-no, I'm sorry, I feel a bit funny. Think I'd better take a walk; get some air..." Marinus said, and he hurried away.

  He didn't know where he was going; he just wanted to give his friend some space and try to clarify his own thoughts. His walk led him past the long carriage drive of the Hermenides estate, farther than he'd yet wandered in that direction.

  As he began to descend a long lane fringed by bushes, he noticed a rather scruffy man walking up towards him. His arms and legs were covered in mud, and he had girded up his loins as if to spare his tattered clothes from the same treatment. Dishevelled as he was, the man gave Marinus a smile and a little bow as he approached.

  "Onesimus?" Marinus asked, by way of a greeting.

  "No! I am Calchas, the swineherd," he replied, with another bow.

  "I beg your pardon – I thought you were someone else; someone Anneus the fisherman had mentioned," Marinus explained.

  "Anneus and Onesimus!" the man said, "then you're in good company, if I may say so!"

  Marinus returned his smile uncertainly.

  "My name is Marinus of Aeolia," he said, "I'm very pleased to meet you, Calchas."

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  The swineherd stirred at these words, and looked at him strangely.

  "Did you take me for someone else?" Marinus asked, growing uncomfortable at this reaction.

  "No, no, forgive me. I'm just not used to such good manners from the gentry..." Calchaus said, his voice tailing off to a low murmur.

  "You work for Agon?" Marinus asked, in what he thought was a pointed manner. Calchas nodded.

  "I'm in his debt – he lets me live here, on this land, and I tend to the pigs for him."

  He waved his mucky hands by way of explanation.

  Given this unequal relationship – of what he could only imagine as indentured servitude – Marinus felt it best not to mention that he was hoping to meet Agon and make a good impression on the old despot. And, as he considered it, he was anxious not to be seen chatting to a lowly pig-keeper – what if Chysanthe were watching? So he bid the man a good evening and made a swift departure, lapsing back into his conflicting thoughts as he returned to Anneus's hut.

  Marinus still strongly desired to see Chrysanthe again – at almost any cost – but he sincerely cared for Pelleus also, and regretted offending him with his wild ideas. If push came to shove, it was obvious to him that he would choose friendship over this flash-in-the-pan passion, but he could not see himself making that sacrifice without some feelings of resentment following afterwards. If he could only have them both...

  "In any case, it was wrong of me to ask so much of Pelleus: that he should put himself in such a humiliating position solely on my account. I must apologise," he said, and he hastened up the lane with this resolution.

  He found the other lad outside, walking about rather listlessly by the hut.

  "Pelleus, I'm sorry, I should never have suggested what I said to you earlier, I... I was totally in the wrong."

  Marinus let it all out in a flurry of words, casting his eyes down and folding his arms behind his back like a naughty schoolboy. He stole a quick glance at Pelleus, but the young man was looking the other way, apparently deep in thought. Eventually he spoke.

  "I've just spent a whole day in Anneus's company, failing to catch fish," Pelleus said, raising his eyebrows meaningfully – back in the hut they could hear the fisherman singing a jaunty tune in full voice – "and though I hate to admit it, I think I value the time I spend with you a lot more, even accounting for the risks and dangers involved."

  He sighed.

  "I don't want to be stuck here for much longer, and, well, any plan is better than no plan, so... I guess I'm saying that I'm willing to hear you out," he said, blushing slightly.

  "You don't have to say that, Pelleus. This scheme of mine, it's really nothing... couldn't ask you to do anything more..." Marinus mumbled.

  "I know," Pelleus replied, "but who else has the skill and intelligence required to carry out your ideas?"

  He straightened up proudly, throwing his shoulders back.

  Marinus beamed; he could have jumped for joy, and only just refrained from joining Anneus in a hearty chorus as his singing rang out from the hut. Instead, he gestured to Pelleus, and the two of them headed away to put their heads together in a plan to infiltrate Agon's estate.