"Before you tell us that, gentlemen, I think we had better take some food and perhaps have something to drink. Is that fair?" Anneus asked them, with a sincere expression on his coarse features.

"Yes, exceedingly fair by my reckoning," Pelleus said at once, in no rush to tell his side of the story.

The fisherman leapt to his feet like a bounding billy-goat, and rushed once again to his little fishing boat where he'd stowed his daily victuals. Marinus and Pelleus got up and followed, eager for a chance to stretch their legs.

The sand was hot underfoot as they walked, though not unpleasantly so, and a strong ocean breeze kept them cool despite the bright sun. They could see only a ridge of green grass and a few sparse trees above the dunes, until they mounted the slope of the shoreline and saw a wide range of grassy hills and wooded outcrops rising before them in a rolling landscape replete with cliffs, that seemed in every direction to withhold the real heart of the island. It just kept rising and receding beyond view, so that they felt almost as though they stood at the foot of a mighty and steadily rising mountain – but Anneus assured them it was not so.

"Here on the eastern shores the island rises in a great elevation, but the mainland is all gentle meadows and cool woodlands, without too many ravines or rocky cliffs. We are blessed in being sheltered from the harsher winds, and the climate here is kind to green and growing things especially. Our wells seldom if ever run dry, though heavy rains are rare. Yes, it is perhaps the most blessed corner of the Aegean, excepting Mount Olympus of course," he added hastily, making quick gestures of obeisance to the gods.

"And now, let us eat!" he said, pulling a little package out of his boat. There was half a loaf of bread, a portion of crumbly goats cheese, a dry and hard-looking sausage, and a number of dried and smoked fish. The food would have provided a good day's worth of nourishment for Anneus, and so the three men were well fed for their lunch. For dessert he even had a couple of figs which he insisted the young men have themselves.

"The fruit is falling off the bough this time of year, and the honey drips from the comb - you'll never want for wild provender in Arcadia, I can tell you," he said, a satisfied smile on his face as he spread out beside the remains of their meal, his stomach distended in a little paunch and his legs splayed out with the knees pointing outwards so that the soles of his feet were almost touching.

Pelleus was picking his teeth with another splinter of wood, and Marinus lay on one side as if he were at a symposium, resting his weight on his elbow. A contented silence fell over the trio, and no one was in a hurry to break it, least of all Pelleus, whose story remained to be told.

As if sensing this reluctance on the young man's part, Anneus directed his next question at the more garrulous Marinus.

"I suppose it was a rival fleet that brought your ship down – were you caught in a sea battle?" he asked, reclining his head a little as he spoke.

"Not exactly," Marinus replied. "We were in pursuit of a pirate vessel, as we thought, and it came in perilously close to Arcadia, as you may have guessed. I have never seen a ship so fast nor so agile in the water; yet it always seemed to float within reach, as if it were taunting us. Just as you expected it to disappear in haste behind some reef or outcrop of islands, it would linger there for the taking! Then, as soon as you caught up with it, the devil slipped away again."

Marinus could just barely see Anneus's eyes peering intently at him beneath their lowered lids and his eyebrows contract in thought.

"I have heard tell of strange vessels like that only in tales of the gods," he said. "And with all the other auspicious oddities of this story, I don't doubt that there was some divinity at work in bringing the two of you here at this time. Although for what purpose, I cannot guess..."

Marinus simply shrugged and shot a sideways glance at Pelleus, who now seemed resolved to speak. His long hair was tucked back behind his too-dainty ears, and his face, even drawn in a frown, looked as girlish as ever. Anneus almost blushed to meet the lad's eyes, he was so shy of femininity (even its counterfeit).

"I owe you my side of the story, I think, since you revived the two of us, and not Marinus alone," Pelleus said to the fisherman, as though committed by a sense of fairness in the matter.

"Like my friend here, I joined our naval fleet, which was rather more partisan than I had expected. It was not for the greater glory of Hellas that I was serving, but in order to police our crowded waters on behalf of Athens' own interests, on a more mercenary basis. Achaea has her share of foreign enemies, of course, but there is plenty of trouble from our own kind to keep us busy: pirates, smugglers, and more commonly rival city states – and Athens has nothing but rivals as far as other cities are concerned. It seemed that, just like our plans to sail and serve together as Pelleus and Marinus, the unity of the Achaeans under a common purpose was only a boyish dream.

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"But there was worse in store for me; far worse. I ran afoul of danger far sooner than my comrade here," he looked from under his brows at Marinus, "and before my first year at sea was out, I had been seized by pirates."

"No!" Anneus cried. His eyes were wide open again, and his jaw was agape. Pelleus nodded dolefully. It was a minute before he could bring himself to go on.

"Sold into slavery, I was," he said in a hoarse voice. "Though they saw at once that I was not like most of the miserable louts on board that ship, the Parnassus; that I was educated, and of noble stock.

"I confess I did my best to convey that impression to my captors, and heaven knows if that was the right course to take! In any case they treated me differently, and set me aside for a special purpose."

He shuddered, and shook his hair in front of his face.

"I was pleased; delighted, even, to be favoured by those cutthroat crooks. They mentioned finding me a place at the court of some foreign tyrant, over in Sardanapolis..."

Marinus gasped, suddenly realising something, and his hands shot up to his mouth.

"There was just one condition for my appointment there, and it was not pleasant," Pelleus went on. He looked up at them both, drawing back his hair again, and his eyes blazed with defiance. "Perhaps you can guess now why I speak in this high, unbroken voice; why my features are so boyish, even feminine? Yes: it was not in my 'natural' state that those traffickers wanted to sell me. They wielded the knife themselves, and passed me off as a court eunuch – very highly sought after in the land of Sardanapolis, where their tyrant lives in mortal fear of any rival claimants to his throne."

But before he could continue his account, something strange took place in Anneus the fisherman. He was watching the young man speak with wide eyes and a trembling lip, until suddenly he burst into tears.

"Oh it's s-so c-c-cruel!" he sobbed, his wrinkled eyes squeezing out fat tears like pearls that ran down into his beard. He was doubled up with emotion, and his two youthful companions looked at him dumbfounded for a moment, before Pelleus thought to put an arm around the poor wretch.

"There, there," he said in his gentlest voice. "It's all right my friend..."

He shot a confused look at Marinus, who joined him on the other side of the fisherman, patting him on the back and speaking words of comfort.

"A-A-Anneus, is my name," the man said, taking deep breaths now as his sobbing slowly subsided. "I'm sorry; getting em-m-motional like this. It's just... the world seems such a harsh place these d-d-days. And p-p-poor Pelleus, only a young boy and s-subjected to that..."

"It's all right," said Pelleus, thoroughly bemused. "I am still alive and kicking after all, and you haven't heard how I got away!"

"No, I h-haven't," said Anneus with a watery smile.

"Well, there isn't much to tell, admittedly," Pelleus went on, retracting his arm from the man's side and growing thoughtful again.

"Of course, everyone has to start somewhere, and although of a status quite different from most men, I was still near the bottom of the heap when I did get sold into servitude. Thus I was not received into the tyrant's own household, but that of a lesser noble family in Sardanapolis. The head of the family was a prominent courtier himself, though not a eunuch. He was a useful statesman, and he had need of assistance in the administration of the tyrant's affairs.

"I soon gained his trust, and he allowed me to go out on diplomatic visits, to other city states. I was even allowed to return to Athens on one occasion, though I was received as a foreigner. Well, as you can imagine, I did not waste these opportunities. I was always looking for a means of escape, but I was terribly afraid of pursuit from my masters in Sardanapolis."

"How did you get away, then?" Marinus asked, his own curiosity piqued by this story.

"Oh it was nothing very exciting. I bribed the crew on one of those voyages, and they agreed to stage a kind of mutiny. My fellow passengers and I were lowered into a dinghy, and set adrift.

"Of course, they wanted to set a course for the nearest port, and I obliged them, with my own rudimentary sailing skills coming in handy. But when my companions sought refuge upon a friendly merchant vessel, I remained in the small boat.

"I thought my tracks would be thoroughly covered up, if I made my own way to freedom and let the others pass on news of my tragic death at sea."

"And so you made your way here," Marinus said, his voice full of admiration. "But why Arcadia?"

Pelleus smiled.

"That, I confess, was not my doing. I tried to set a course for Delos, but a storm picked me up and blew me far off course, for many days and nights..."

"Well, I thank the gods you did make it here, my friend," Anneus said, and Pelleus was relieved to see his sparkling eyes were tear-free. "But we ought to be on our way, I think. The time has flown, sitting here and talking, and I have an appointment to keep."

And with that, the fisherman leap to his feet again, and made ready to depart from the beach with the two youths in tow.