'Clearly Dionysius took all the good slaves,' Satyrus muttered, walking out into the courtyard. The last time he'd been here, it had been covered in blood – dead slaves who had been his friends, and dead men who'd tried to kill him. The day he found out why men thought Philokles the Spartan was the avatar of Ares on earth.
At the gate he found a Persian mounted on a tall horse. He looked up at the man – who wore a long Persian coat against the cold, and was on one of the most beautiful horses he'd ever seen. 'Yes?' he asked.
The Persian slipped down from his charger's back like a Sakje. He was handsome, even by Persian standards, and his smile filled his face. 'No need to tell me your name, son of Kineas,' he said.
'You have the advantage of me,' Satyrus answered. Then it struck him that this must be Diodorus's messenger. 'Do I know you?' he asked.
'I hope that you've heard my name once or twice,' the Persian said. 'I was your father's friend.'
'You are Darius?' Satyrus said. 'Leon speaks of you often!'
Darius embraced him. He wore scent, like most Persians, and his coat was made of a wool so soft that it was like rabbit fur. 'It is about Leon I have come,' he said. Satyrus sat on a couch while Darius prowled the room, looking at the furnishings and cursing the worthlessness of slaves. 'Mine are no better.' Darius laughed. 'The moment I'm away from my home, nothing is done. The horses don't even foal when I leave.'
'You've been serving with Diodorus?' Satyrus asked.
Darius nodded. 'All summer. No great battles, Son of Kineas, but a great deal of scouting, patrolling and some routing out of bandits. We earned our keep. Babylon is secure, and now Seleucus is laying siege to one of Demetrios's forts in Syria. Diodorus finished his contract and left with Seleucus's full permission. Indeed, I believe our troops will be fed as far as Phrygia.'
'Where Antigonus is lord,' Satyrus smiled.
'Exactly. Where our troops may pillage as they please.' Darius was a Persian lord – he had no care for the sufferings of Phrygian peasants. 'He should be here in twenty days. If the weather holds as well as it has, perhaps half that. I have already waited three weeks here for you, and we set out together.'
Satyrus poured more wine. 'Sorry to keep you waiting,' he said.
Darius shook his head. 'No – nothing to be concerned at. I am here to try a rescue of Leon. It is my – hmm – my speciality? To go unseen where other men do not go.'
Satyrus smiled at the richly dressed nobleman before him. 'Lord Darius, I can't imagine that you would go unnoticed anywhere.'
Darius laughed. 'You see what I want you to see, son of Kineas. But thank you for your flattery. I think.' He shook his head. 'No more wine for me. I gather that you were present when Philokles died?'
Satyrus told him the story. By the end, he had tears in his eyes and the Persian cried. 'He was the bravest of men,' Darius said. 'I honour him. Crax and Diodorus said to ask you of his end. Now – I do not want you to tell me anything of your plans. I may be taken. But I will ask this – where shall I meet you, if I recover Leon?'
Satyrus was pleased by the sheer confidence of the man. 'I mean to strike for Olbia,' he said.
'You know your sister is loose in the high ground north of Tanais,' Darius said.
'She moves fast,' Satyrus said. 'But sooner or later, we must fight for Olbia and Pantecapaeum.'
Darius shook his head. 'Eumenes – our Eumenes, the Olbian – he will have Olbia for you whenever you want it,' he said. 'He left us in the autumn to be archon.'
Satyrus had heard as much in Alexandria. 'So?'
'So – there's little need for you to go to Olbia. And if you were to appear off Pantecapaeum in, say, ten days?'
'Fifteen,' Satyrus said. 'I can't be ready before that. And I need marines from Diodorus.'
Darius nodded. 'So, say twenty-five days. I will be ready and then some.'
Satyrus raised an eyebrow. 'You are that confident?' he asked.
Darius had a curious facial tic – he could frown and smile at the same time, like a man who smelled something bad. 'I would never offend the gods with such a phrase,' he said. 'But I will say that Pantecapaeum, like all the Euxine cities, has a glut of Persian slaves. And I would assume that you would free any man that I said had aided me – true?'
'Of course,' Satyrus said.
Darius shrugged. 'Then the thing is as good as done. If you will appear off Pantecapaeum in twenty-five days from tomorrow, I will undertake to bring your uncle – my sworn brother – out to your fleet by late afternoon.'
'But…' Satyrus shook his head. 'I want to know how.'
Darius got to his feet. 'We'll see.' He shrugged. 'To be honest, I don't know myself.' It was four days before his fleet arrived, and Darius had already slipped away on an Olbia-bound freighter carrying copper from Cyprus and empty earthenware amphorae for the grain trade. Satyrus had seen him go – a nondescript figure, like a prosperous slave factor or a lower-class Asian merchant. His confidence in the man increased.
It was the next day that Bias reported forty sail in the roadstead, and by dark he had sixty-eight warships filling the harbour. Bias was ready, and he stationed the Rhodians and the Alexandrians at one end of the mole, and put the pirates at the other end, separated by a powerful squadron of Heraklean ships. Every one of Nestor's men was in the streets, and the first sign of pirate trouble was ruthlessly crushed, a message that was understood in every squadron.
In the morning, Satyrus met with all the captains in a warehouse – the only building that was big enough to keep them all out of the wind. There was no hearth, and the icy air got in through loose boards.
'My army will be here in ten days,' Satyrus said. 'And our presence here won't be a secret long. Demostrate – would you care to close the Bosporus to our enemy?'
'Poseidon's prick, lad. We had it closed from Byzantium!' the old pirate said.
'Rumour is that Eumeles has got a shipment of mercenaries and money coming from Athens,' Satyrus said.
'Now that's worth knowing,' Demostrate allowed. 'We'll find 'em.'
'Abraham, I'd like you to take our ships and Lysimachos's and visit the towns on the western shore – starting with Tomis. A day each – clear out any interlopers and do our part by our ally.'
Abraham might have wanted to sail with the pirates, but he didn't show it. 'At your service, Navarch,' he said.
Panther of Rhodos waited until the command conference was over. There was shouting and dickering and the pirates had to make a special treaty about the expected plunder from Athens before one of the captains would sail. Panther watched them with contempt. 'You kept us here,' he said.
'Your men won't make trouble in Heraklea,' Satyrus said.
Panther frowned. 'My men get bored just as quickly as a pirate crew,' he said.
'Ten days,' Satyrus returned. Twelve days after Darius left, and no sign of Diodorus, even from the Heraklean scouts at the mountain passes. Abraham's squadrons returned in high sprits. They'd met a pair of Pantecapaean triremes and taken them in a very one-sided fight off Tomis.
'Calchus sends his regards,' Abraham said. 'I don't think he knew what to do with me, but he was courteous enough, once I said I was from Lysimachos. And he dotes on Theron.'
Theron smiled. 'I believe that I will retire to Tomis,' he said. 'I like it.'
They were still enjoying the triumph of clearing the west coast when Bias sent a slave to announce that Coenus had arrived. Satyrus had seldom spent a more uncomfortable half-hour than that one, waiting for news of his sister.
Coenus and Nihmu came in like lost relatives, escorted from the port by his friend Dionysius. Nihmu looked drained – her skin was grey and her hair lank. Coenus, on the other hand, looked like a man who had shed ten years of age. He fairly shone with health in the late-afternoon sun.
'Satyrus,' he said, taking his hands. 'Your sister sends her love.'
'She is well!' Satyrus said. He realized that he had been holding some part of his breath for an hour.
&nbs
p; 'She will not hold back from war. She has had some hard times. But she is well, and she misses you. And she has made herself queen of the Assagatje.'
'Marthax?'
'Dead at her hand.' Coenus shrugged. 'To tell it thus is to make him seem a blackguard. Marthax died like a king, and the manner of his death made sure she would be queen.'
Satyrus turned to his captains. He caught Neiron's eye, and Diokles'. 'No more archers on Eumeles' ships,' he said. Then, to his aunt and uncle, he said, 'Where is she now?'
Coenus shook his head. 'No idea. Listen – I see you have a fleet. Let me tell my news as quickly as I may.' He explained rapidly, and then explained again when Neiron provided a hastily drawn chart of the Euxine.
'When I left, Eumeles' general, Nikephoros, was in the Bay of Salmon. He was afraid you'd trap him there and end the war.'
'Poseidon's cock,' Diokles muttered, and many of the other captains, Rhodian, Greek and Alexandrian, muttered too.
'If Diodorus had been on time,' Satyrus said, 'the war would be over.'
Coenus laughed. 'Sometimes your age shows, lad. War is all luck. There's no use in whining about luck you didn't have. Stick with the luck you do have. Tyche has given you a fleet and your sister an army.'
'We need Diodorus,' Satyrus insisted. 'We need his men as marines. We can't face Eumeles' fleet without an edge.'
Coenus looked around. He knew most of Leon's captains, and his eyes settled on Aekes. 'And you, farmer? Do you need Diodorus's men?'
Aekes shrugged. 'Not for myself. But Satyrus has allies. We must wait for them. And they have no marines.'
'Pirates,' Panther spat.
Coenus looked around and laughed. 'You mean you have more ships?' Two days of feverish planning and Demostrate sailed in with most of his ships. He was in a foul mood when he came ashore.
'I lost a pair of ships to one of Eumeles' hundred-handed spawn – gods, it was Dios's own fault, caught like a lubber in the fog. Where did Eumeles get these captains?' The old man drank off a cup of neat wine and threw it against the wall, where it smashed. 'But the worst of it is that the Athenian squadron got past us. Ten triremes and four troop ships, and all the cash.'
Satyrus felt the prickle of disaster – and suspicion. 'You had thirty ships!' he said, and regretted the words.
'Oh, if only you'd been there yourself, I'm sure you'd have done better!' Demostrate said. He stormed out of the door.
Coenus slipped away after him and brought him back. Demostrate's bad temper seemed dispelled by the Megaran, and they embraced warmly. Then the pirate admiral apologized.
'I'm a fool when angry, and no mistake,' he said. 'Coenus says your sister is up on the Tanais with an army,' he went on.
Satyrus nodded.
Demostrate looked around. 'Then we've got Eumeles,' he said.
Satyrus shook his head. 'We need Diodorus,' he said.
'Your sister is waiting for you,' Coenus reminded him.
Satyrus looked around. They were all there – his own captains, and Demostrate, and all the Rhodian officers. Nestor stood alone, representing Heraklea. Satyrus rose to his feet and they grew quiet.
'My sister isn't waiting,' he said. 'She has an army and she's on the move, skirmishing with the Sauromatae who are just as much my enemies as Eumeles and his ships. She can't wait for me. Her fort at the Tanais may be besieged by Eumeles at any time, for all that she left it provisioned and garrisoned.' He looked around. 'If we strike now, we show Eumeles our strength and he no longer has to guess. Without Diodorus, we are weak. Weaker than Eumeles. And if we lose at sea, we're finished – the whole war comes apart like scale armour when the cord breaks. Right?'
Even Coenus nodded.
'We wait,' Satyrus said. Seventeen days after Darius sailed away, and a Rhodian officer killed one of Manes' oarsmen in a brawl on the waterfront. Manes led his men on a riot of destruction, killing a local man and two Rhodians and burning a warehouse.
Satyrus summoned the officers, but of the pirates, only Demostrate came.
Telereus, Lysimachos's navarch, began by suggesting that he'd had enough. 'This sitting in port accomplishes nothing,' he said. 'I will go to Tomis, and watch the coast.'
Panther shook his head. 'Any day now, if Satyrus is to be believed, we'll get our marines – and then we're off to find Eumeles.'
'This mercenary might never come. He could be forty days away. How long do we wait?' Telereus asked.
Satyrus held his temper. 'I ask you to wait five more days,' he said. 'In the meantime, I need your crews and my crews to share the duty of patrolling the wharves, and I'd like the navarchs to work out districts of the waterfront, so that I can confine the Rhodians and the pirates to their own neighbourhoods. Panther, I must inform you that Nestor, the tyrant's right hand, says that he must take your helmsman into custody.'
Panther shook his head. 'No,' he said. 'No man of mine goes to the axe for killing a pirate.'
'Let me be clear,' Satyrus said. 'You gave orders that this sort of thing be avoided. This man disobeyed you, and now you treat him as a hero?'
Panther pointed at Diokles. 'If Diokles there had done it, would you hand him over to this Nestor?'
Satyrus nodded. 'Yes,' he said.
'Not a helmsman,' Diokles offered. 'Lead oar, port side, on the Lord of the Silver Bow. And the other fool drew first.' He shrugged. 'And Manes killed two of theirs. He's the bugger that needs killing.'
Nestor pushed forward. Even among hard men like these, his size imposed. 'That is for me to decide,' he said. 'You are allies here, not conquerors. If your man is not given up, you are no longer welcome here.' Nestor didn't bluff, and he was looking at Satyrus. Satyrus knew that the killing was merely the last straw, after a week of theft, some armed robbery and scuffles in every market.
Satyrus spread his arms. 'Must I beg you, Panther? All my hopes come down to this. I sent them to sea to prevent this – but I cannot make Diodorus arrive on time. I know that your men and the pirates are oil and water. Help me here. I will offer private surety…' He looked at Nestor to gauge his reaction. 'That the man will not be found guilty.'
Nestor offered the smallest fraction of a nod.
'Your word?' Panther asked.
And Satyrus knew he had kept the Rhodians. For a day or two. He turned to the pirate king. 'And you?'
Demostrate shrugged. 'Manes is his own law,' he said. 'He's worse every day. He wants to kill me – he certainly doesn't take my orders.'
And he commands five ships – ships that I need, Satyrus thought.
In private, he asked Nestor to ignore Manes. He sent his own marines to watch Manes, but the monster seemed glutted with his latest rampage, and sat in his ships. Satyrus paid restitution to the merchant whose warehouse burned and tried to think of a way to make this all better.
He tried to get the whole fleet to practise rowing, to practise the complex battle tactics that professional captains and crews used to win battles. The Rhodians were at sea every day, rowing up and down, and his own ships emulated them. But Demostrate laughed. 'We don't need any schoolbook tactics,' he said, and walked away, leaving Satyrus fuming.
According to rumour, Manes had farted when told of the orders.
Satyrus planned to dine that night with his own captains. He felt besieged – Amastris would not meet with him, and Dionysius the tyrant was daily less receptive to him as Diodorus failed to appear. Without marines, he had little chance of striking a firm blow, as his ships were outnumbered. Panther was too angry to be supportive, and Demostrate wouldn't meet his eyes. His fleet was divided and untrained. He wondered what Eumeles' fleet was doing. Drilling, no doubt.
Satyrus was in his room at what had been Kinon's, brooding, when there was a knock.
'Lord Satyrus?' Helios came in. 'Visitors, my lord.'
Out in the main room, Satyrus could hear the tone change – men were speaking happily.
He heard a man's voice, and then a woman's, and then he was there, embracing Crax and then Nih
mu.
'By the gods!' he said.
In two hours he had the situation in his head, and when he was done drawing maps on the floor, he turned to them. Diokles and Abraham were on the floor with him, following the new campaign, and Theron lay above them on his couch. The other captains and some of his ship's officers ringed them.
'We'll have our marines in two days,' he said.
Coenus shook his head. 'Well done, Nihmu,' he said.
'I can still ride,' she said. 'Even if other things have left me.' She turned to Satyrus. 'As soon as we landed and Coenus told me, I rode for the hills. I took six horses and I rode them hard.' She motioned to Crax.
Crax gave his golden laugh. 'We've had the very Furies dogging us, Satyrus,' he said. 'Phrygia is full of soldiers. Half serve Demetrios and the other half are masterless men. Either way, they prey on each other.' He shrugged. 'There's no food and no maintenance for the roads. The peasants are gone or dead. The weather has been – brutal.' He looked around, acknowledging men he knew with a wave or a wink. 'But Lord Diodorus is over the mountains at Bithynia.'
'But Eumeles has his reinforcements and his money,' Satyrus said. 'We've missed one opportunity, or possibly two. I need to strike quickly.'
'Pshaw, lad,' Crax said. Then he smiled. 'You are no lad. Listen then. Diodorus is coming. And from what Coenus says, your sister is fine. She's every bit the soldier you are. She'll keep ten days – maybe more.'
'Darius won't keep,' Satyrus said. 'He expects me in seven days. I can't see being there.'
Nihmu raised her head. 'I can be there in seven days,' she said. 'One barbarian woman – no one will notice me.'
Satyrus turned. 'How will you find Darius?' he asked.
Nihmu laughed. 'We are Pythagoreans,' she said. 'Even a barbarian like me. Trust me, Satyrus – I will find him.'
Satyrus sighed.
'I'll go back,' Coenus said, 'and find Melitta.' He glanced at Nihmu, and a long look passed between them. 'But first I'll have a word with Demostrate.'
That night, Satyrus dreamed that he was juggling eggs. One after another he dropped them – each containing a tiny man who died as his egg splattered on the cobbles of the street. At first the men were faceless, but then he watched Demostrate die, gasping for air like a fish, and Nihmu, her body broken. He woke to silence and lay awake for an hour, and then another. Eventually he rose and walked to the yard, where Coenus was putting his bed roll on a horse. He had another pair behind him. Satyrus recognized Darius's magnificent Nisaean charger.
King of the Bosphorus t-4 Page 32