King of the Bosphorus t-4

by Christian Cameron

  'That's Darius's horse!' Satyrus said without thinking.

  Coenus smiled. 'Darius is my brother,' Coenus said, 'as Leon is. As Philokles was and Diodorus. Surely you know that.'

  Satyrus had never thought about it. In a heartbeat, he understood better what had been before his eyes all his life. 'You really do share,' he said.

  Coenus ruffled his hair. 'Wish me luck,' he said. He vaulted into the saddle. 'Getting too old for this. Listen – my last military advice. Take your time. Force Eumeles to a battle on the sea if you can. But remember – it is the sight of your fleet that will aid your sister and crush Eumeles. Your sister will be pinched hard for the lack of you. Understand me? I'll go hard. If she's on the Hypanis, I'll find her in ten days – perhaps less.'

  Satyrus nodded. 'I understand. And I know how you hate to give advice.'

  'Bah, your sister's got me into the habit.' He used his knees to turn the Nisaean and made for the gate. 'Athena guide your guile, Satyrus.'

  'And Hermes your travels,' Satyrus said. But the dream was still with him. And he shivered.

  And in the morning, Nihmu was gone as well.

  *

  Twenty-three days after Darius sailed away, Diodorus's advance guard marched into Heraklea. Satyrus rode out to meet them, and he almost wept to see the men of his childhood – Sitalkes and the giant Carlus, the Keltoi, a handful of Olbians and dozens of men he knew by sight if not by name. Diodorus himself led the column in a plain breastplate, his copper and grey beard moving with his horse.

  'You look like a king,' Diodorus said. He reached out and clasped Satyrus's arm. 'Sorry to be late, lad,' he added.

  To Satyrus, his soldier uncle, the one who had always seemed the most vital, the most powerful, now seemed a husk of himself. He seemed smaller. He hunched his shoulders.

  'Will of the gods,' Satyrus said. 'How much rest do your men need?'

  Diodorus took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. 'The horses need a week of food and pasture. It's still winter in the hills. The infantrymen – they could march right up the gangplanks. Crax says you need our Macedonians for marines.' He waved at the infantry trudging along. They were four files wide on the road, two files of shield-bearers between two files of spearmen. The two officers at the head of the column looked familiar.

  Satyrus touched his heels to his mount and trotted over to the road. 'Amyntas! Draco!' he called, and the two mercenaries grinned at him.

  'Thought you'd forgotten us,' Draco said.

  'Although it didn't seem all that likely,' Amyntas said.

  Satyrus slipped down and clasped their hands. 'I need your taxeis,' he said. 'I need them as soon as I can get them afloat. How much rest do you need?'

  Amyntas stared at the sky and Draco laughed. 'I'd like to have a cup of wine and a fuck,' he said.

  'He's old,' Amyntas said, as the soldiers behind Draco shouted their agreement. 'All I need is the fuck.'

  'I'll take that as meaning you can sail tomorrow,' Satyrus said. He felt the weight of the world lifting away, to be replaced by a new feeling in his stomach.

  He carried that feeling up the hill to the palace, where suddenly he was again welcome. Dionysius the tyrant received him like a peer, and he sat through a dinner on a couch at the man's right hand.

  The tyrant mocked his former soldiers. Draco and Amyntas had left Heraklea years before as escorts and had never returned. Macedonian soldiers were too valuable to be allowed to wander about. 'Deserters!' he roared, and laughed to watch them flinch.

  Satyrus watched Amastris. She looked everywhere but into his eyes until the meal was mostly gone, and then her gaze skipped over his – her eyes drew his to her maid-slave, who handed something to Helios.

  She was a fine actress, his Amastris. She acted her indifference to him so well that he was coming to believe it, except for these notes.

  'You'll sail tomorrow?' Dionysius asked, snapping him out of his reverie.

  'With the favour of the gods,' Satyrus said piously.

  'I'd swear you asked me for twenty days,' Dionysius said. 'And now you've been here twenty-five. You owe me, boy.'

  Satyrus nodded. 'I do owe you, my lord,' he said. 'On the other hand, I have not stormed your city to pay my bills,' he added.

  Dionysius laughed. 'Did I teach you to speak so?' he asked.

  'Yes,' Satyrus said. He swayed when he walked away from the symposium that followed the dinner, and Helios put a hand under his arm and helped him walk.

  'What's Amastris say?' Satyrus asked. His head was swaying as if his ship was moving under his feet.

  Helios stopped, propped him against an alley wall and reached in his script for a piece of papyrus. 'She asks if you intend to sail away without tasting her,' he said, his voice deadpan.

  'Tasting?' Satyrus asked. 'Aphrodite – how does she expect me to get to her?'

  Helios shook his head and held out the note. 'You read, lord,' he said.

  Satyrus walked along the buildings until he came to a prosperous shop with a torch in a cresset. 'Aphrodite's long and golden back,' he muttered. Do you truly intend to taste salt water before you taste me? it said.

  Helios stood still.

  Alcohol swirled in Satyrus's head. 'I needed to see this before I drank so much,' he said. He looked up at the citadel above them, and he saw that a lamp burned on one of the balconies that hung over the sea. And that the rooms beyond the balcony were lit. He shook his head and there was anger at the bottom of his love. 'She treats me unfairly,' he said.

  Helios nodded agreement.

  'To Hades with her,' Satyrus said. He began to walk down the road, towards the house that had been Kinon's, and bed. Then he stopped and looked back. 'I love her, Helios,' he said.

  'Yes, sir,' Helios agreed.

  'What would you do?' Satyrus asked.

  Helios shrugged.

  'What if I command you to speak?' Satyrus said. He was mocking the boy. Picking on a freedman because he couldn't allow himself to be angry at his love.

  'Then I will speak,' Helios said. His tone of voice suggested that he had something to say. 'Do you command me?'

  'I command you,' Satyrus said, responding to the challenge in the boy's tone.

  'Then I say that she demands you to visit to prove her power, not because her body wants yours. And I say that if you were caught, the tyrant would have you taken or killed. And that you are not a citizen of Alexandria, the city of love, but a king who goes to win his kingdom.' Helios shrugged. 'And if you need to lie in a woman's arms tonight, I can find you one who will not steal your kingdom.'

  Satyrus stumbled. 'You don't like her!' he said.

  Helios shrugged again. 'I am less than the sandals on her feet,' he said. 'My likes or dislikes are nothing to her.'

  Satyrus looked up, and saw the light on the balcony. There was someone moving there, too.

  'The fleet sails at dawn,' Helios said. 'You ordered it.'

  Satyrus nodded. He turned away from the palace. 'To bed,' he said. Dawn, and a warm breeze off the land carried the hint of rain. Diodorus, Crax and Sitalkes stood on the beach with a dozen other officers, telling off files of pikemen on to the pirate vessels and any other ship short of a full load of marines. The Rhodians were already in the water, and behind them, Satyrus's own ships were just getting their sterns off the beach.

  Horse transports were loading the cavalry chargers – thin mounts who would die if too long at sea, and would need grain and rest when they landed. Satyrus was staking it all on this throw. He was out of time. He stood on the helmsman's bench of the Golden Lotus and looked aft. 'Good to have you aboard,' he said to Draco, who stood just behind him.

  Draco laughed. 'Amyntas will be jealous that I have you all to myself,' he said.

  'Theron needs him more than I do,' Satyrus said.

  Stesagoras came up. 'Where do you see me stowing all these marines?' he asked. He was speaking to Neiron as helmsman and trierarch, but he pitched his complaint to carry to Satyrus.

 
; Satyrus watched the panorama of his fleet forming for another few heartbeats and stepped back off the bench.

  'Put the extra marines aft, with the helm,' he said. Twenty marines to a ship was too many for fine fighting, but it would give them a decisive advantage in a boarding fight.

  'We'll be low in the water,' Neiron said quietly.

  'Poseidon has sent us a fine breeze and a beautiful day,' Satyrus answered. His eyes found Helios, standing by with a gilt-bronze shield.

  'Give the signal!' he called.

  Helios found the sun with the surface of the shield – a flash that could be seen for stades – and gave three long flashes.

  Sixty-six warships. At least twenty fewer than his enemy had. And his decks were crammed with marines, which meant that he could not afford to be caught in a hit-and-run battle of seamanship.

  Neiron had the helm. Up forward, Philaeus began to call the stroke.

  'I'm impressed,' Draco said.

  'You'd be more impressed if you were with Eumeles,' Satyrus said.

  Draco grunted. 'No, lad. I'm impressed with you. But I'll bite – how many ships does he have?'

  Neiron didn't take his eyes off the bow. 'Eighty-five. And perhaps more if the Athenian ships serve with him.'

  Draco nodded. 'Aye, that's what the lads are saying.'

  Satyrus was always impressed with the accuracy of soldiers' gossip. 'And what do they say our chances are?' he asked.

  Draco laughed. 'Oh, the odds don't make no never mind, lad. Everyone knows you're Tyche's darling. Fortune's favourite, eh? Luck's better than numbers any day.'

  Satyrus's stomach told a different tale. 'Luck can slip away,' he said.

  Draco nodded, pursing his lips in approval. 'Aye. That it can, and no mistake.' He smiled. 'But anyone can see you still have yours.'

  Satyrus had to admit that it was hard to remain worried when you could watch the four solid columns of triremes form up and sail away on a favourable breeze with stripped merchantmen as horse transports in between the columns.

  Draco watched the coast and the citadel of Heraklea. 'But I'd swear we're going east,' he said.

  'You may make a sailor yet.' Neiron grinned.

  'Pantecapaeum is north!' Draco said.

  'Too much of a risk. More than a thousand stades. With a wind like this, we might make it in a day – but more likely we'd spend the night at sea.' Neiron was the navarch's helmsman. He'd made the course.

  Draco shrugged. 'So? We spend a night at sea.'

  Satyrus cut in, 'Draco, a night at sea is no laughing matter. First, storms come up on the Euxine without any warning. A storm almost killed my father when he first came here, and we could get our fleet scattered in an hour – could lose half our ships. We only need to lose about ten and we've lost.'

  Neiron nodded. 'Aye – and we can't cook at sea.'

  Draco grinned. 'Of course. I'm a fool.'

  'Most Macedonians are,' Neiron said, but his smile took the sting out. 'Tonight we'll be on the beach at Sinope. That's the end of any surprise we ever had – and the dog among the chickens, too. I'll wager a gold daric against a silver owl that every merchant in the port runs when they see us coming.'

  Draco shrugged. 'So?'

  Satyrus cut in again. 'Until we land at Sinope, we're fairly secret. Heraklea and Pantecapaeum aren't exactly friends. We don't think Eumeles knows how many ships we have, or their power.' He rolled his hand back and forth. 'Once we touch at Sinope, everyone knows what we have and we have to go for the jugular.'

  'Sinope to the entrance to the Bay of Salmon is eight hundred stades,' Neiron said. 'One good day's sail. If the weather holds – we'll land by the Bay of Salmon, rest the night, and eat.'

  'And the day after tomorrow, we'll row up towards Pantecapaeum with full bellies,' Satyrus said. His hands shook just saying the words.

  Draco looked back and forth between them. 'Two days?' he asked.

  'At the soonest,' Satyrus said.

  Draco sat down on the helmsman's bench and started to unbuckle his thorax. 'I'll just catch a nap, then,' he said. The sun was still high in the sky when they raised Sinope. Satyrus watched the sea-marks come up and then he turned to Helios. 'Get the shield,' he said.

  Neiron was stretching his right leg. He'd wrestled two falls with Draco and done better than Satyrus had expected, and now the two men were talking while they stretched in the late-afternoon light. 'What do you have in mind, Navarch?' he called.

  Satyrus walked to Stesagoras, who had the helm. 'I'm going to order battle formation,' he said.

  Stesagoras nodded. 'Philaeus!' he called. 'Look alive! Get your brutes in their harness.'

  There was the thunder of bare feet on smooth wood as the oarsmen, who had been enjoying a day of relative peace, sailing calmly along the south coast of the Euxine, were ordered to their stations.

  'Signal "Man your benches".' Satyrus waved at Diokles, who had Black Falcon just astern.

  Helios got up on the stern bench and took the cover off his shield. He flashed it.

  Satyrus clambered up next to him. 'Gods, we need work,' he said. 'Send it again.'

  Three more repetitions got the benches manned, although Satyrus assumed that most of the pirates had accomplished this by emulating the ships closest to them rather than by reading the signals. In addition, it became clear that some of the pirates were well out of formation.

  Panther sent a long signal. The whole signals system was Rhodian, and Satyrus had enough trouble understanding a long signal to pity the captains who'd never seen such a thing.

  Helios had no such issues. '"Better than I expected,"' he translated. 'Letter for letter,' he added.

  'Signal "Form Bull",' Satyrus said, and Helios flashed the order.

  It was just as well that Eumeles' fleet was not waiting in ambush off the coast of Sinope. The sun was well down in the west and it seemed possible that the rowers were going to miss their meals when Satyrus gave up, cancelled the order to form the Bull and sent the ships into the beach. Every merchant ship had long since fled, many of them heading north.

  'The dog is among the chickens,' Neiron said when they had a fire lit and food in their bellies. 'The eagles have flown at the pigeons. Chaos is come again.' He laughed. 'That was the worst manoeuvre I've ever seen.'

  'Wasn't totally wasted,' Satyrus said.

  'How so, lord?' asked Panther, who had come up with his captains.

  'None of the pirates chased the merchant ships,' Satyrus said.

  Panther looked at him with new respect. 'Navarch, you have a point. What's for tomorrow?'

  Satyrus raised his hand to forestall Neiron. 'Along the coast east, under oars,' he said.

  Neiron shook his head. 'The weather's perfect,' he said. 'We can be off Pantecapaeum in two days.'

  Demostrate was there, too. 'Yes, but should we? I'm with you, lad. Let's row along the coast and get the lard off their backs.'

  Satyrus smiled. 'Next one of you who calls me lad will have the privilege of a little pankration, man to man.' He made himself grin. 'That display out there was so pitiful that I have to expect that Eumeles will hear about it in roughly twelve hours and make his adjustments accordingly.' He walked a few steps and turned. 'The playing-off of pirates and Rhodians is over now. You are all my captains, and I expect you to spend the next week learning the signal book and the tactics we'll use when we find Eumeles at sea.'

  Demostrate shook his head. 'That's not for my boys, lad-' He stopped.

  Satyrus walked over. 'Strip,' he said.

  Demostrate narrowed his eyes. 'If I sail away, you have no fleet,' he said.

  'I have no fleet anyway,' Satyrus said. 'Your precious pirates proved it just now, when they couldn't form a line of battle. Strip.'

  Demostrate shook his head. 'I'll apologize,' he said softly. 'But if you make me fight, you'll have to kill me. Lord.'

  Satyrus nodded curtly. 'Apologize then.'

  Demostrate nodded. 'I apologize, lord,' he said. 'I'll not slip again.
'

  'Fuck him,' Manes said. 'Fuck him and fuck all this pansy shit. I say we kill the Rhodians and sack Sinope and stop playing at kings.'

  Satyrus had been so busy plotting the rise of his kingship that he had all but forgotten Manes.

  A foolish mistake. The sort of mistake that could cost you your kingdom.

  Time to correct that right now. He took a deep breath, crossed the circle of officers as fast as the ripple of comments spread and stood in front of Manes.

  'Get a sword and a shield. We fight. Now. And when you are dead, I claim all your ships and men as mine.' Satyrus was so angry he had no trouble meeting the bestial glare. 'You heard me – or are you the same chicken-shit who ducked fighting me in Byzantium?'

  Manes bellowed.

  Satyrus turned his back and walked towards Helios – watching his squire for a sign. Helios gave him his aspis and his sword. Satyrus fitted the shield snugly on his arm, gripped the antilabe in his left hand and drew his father's long kopis so that the blue blade glittered in the last sunlight. Then he turned.

  'Ready?' he asked and began walking across the now silent circle of officers towards Manes.

  Manes turned to Ganymede, who handed him his shield. His sword was immense – longer and broader than a Keltoi cavalry sword.

  Crax stepped in front of Satyrus, with Carlus at his shoulder. 'Let one of us do this,' he said. 'Carlus could put him down in a heartbeat.'

  Satyrus shook his head. 'This is for me, friend. I need the pirates to fight. I need them to drill and cooperate. When I kill him,' he pointed the tip of the kopis at Manes, 'they're mine.'

  'And if you die?' Crax asked quietly.

  'Then kill him, take the fleet and make Melitta queen of the Bosporus.'

  Crax shook his head and stepped back.

  Manes stepped out from the circle.

  Satyrus lowered his shield and charged him.