Tyrant: King of the Bosporus

by Christian Cameron

  Leon watched his Numidian mare, fetched all this way by Diodorus, make a splash as she hit the water. Leon already looked better, although Satyrus doubted he would ever carry the weight of muscle he’d had a year before. He stood with Diodorus, wearing only a simple white chiton and a bronze circlet.

  ‘I’m going with the hippeis,’ Leon said. He grinned and put his arms around his nephew. ‘You’re all but through the channels.’

  ‘It’s your fleet, Uncle,’ Satyrus said. ‘I stand on your command deck, and I speak with your voice.’

  Leon smiled and shook his head. ‘No, lad. This is your fleet. This is your hour. Go and finish Eumeles, for all of us. As for me, I want a horse between my knees when I meet Upazan.’

  Satyrus remembered then that Leon had sworn something about Upazan’s death. So he embraced his uncle. ‘May Poseidon of the ships and horses go with you,’ he said.

  Leon glanced around. ‘Be careful of my ships,’ he said, and grinned. ‘The gods are with you, lad. Go and finish Eumeles!’

  ‘That useless bastard,’ Diodorus growled. ‘To think that we have to do all this work to put him down in the sand, eh?’ He embraced Satyrus. ‘We’ll be there in two days – maybe three. Don’t fight a battle without us. And one piece of advice, eh? You need to be on the south bank of the Tanais. If you fight on the north bank, we won’t get across.’

  Satyrus nodded. ‘As you say, Uncle. But I must tell you – if I get the sea battle I want, there won’t be a land battle.’

  Several of Satyrus’s officers grinned, and Diokles smacked his fist into his palm.

  Diodorus shook his head. ‘You don’t know Upazan, lad. We’ll have a fight yet.’

  As soon as his ships could get clear of the transports, they stood on. Nonetheless, clearing the mouth of the Hypanis River took two hours, and then he had to negotiate the last of the channels and mudflats north of the mouth of the Hypanis. Twice the Lotus touched bottom, knocking men down and making his heart race with fear. Behind them in the long column, Hyacinth struck hard on a bank, but Aekes got him off before the column had passed him.

  When the Lotus cleared the last sandbar and the long bay of the Hypanis opened to the sea, Satyrus could still see the transports riding high and empty down the bay, and the dark masses of the Exiles marching inland.

  Satyrus couldn’t wait another minute to know where he stood. He stripped his chiton over his head and climbed the mainmast. He hung from the yard while he watched the waters to the north and west, and saw Eumeles’ fleet well out, heading east.

  ‘Neck and neck,’ he shouted to Diokles after he slid down the mast, recklessly scraping his arms and thighs.

  Diokles leaned over the rail of his ship. ‘Hope Eumeles doesn’t come after us now!’

  Satyrus was aware that his whole command was strung out in a long file that went back for ten stades of channels and turns, while Eumeles seemed to have his whole force on the horizon. He was tempted to make a derisive comment, but that would be hubris. ‘With the gods!’ he shouted back piously.

  They landed just one headland north of the stone pillar that marked the bay of the Hypanis. Satyrus posted sentries on every headland and a guard squadron – his recently acquired pirates, all of Manes’ former ships – because now he feared surprise more than anything else.

  He drank wine with his captains and then sent Diokles to check on the former pirates who were rowing sullenly back and forth across the beach.

  ‘I don’t want this ruined by a foolish mutiny,’ he said, and every officer on the beach nodded.

  Draco caught his arm. ‘Send us,’ he said.

  Amyntas nodded. ‘Send us. Diokles can row us out. Those are our boys out there as marines. Put me on one ship and Draco on another. I guarantee no surprises.’ He took a knife out from under his armpit and ran his thumb over the edge.

  When the two Macedonians were gone, Satyrus drank his wine with more satisfaction.

  ‘Tomorrow,’ Panther said.

  ‘I think so,’ Satyrus said. ‘I don’t think Eumeles knows how close we are. Or that we’ve shed the horse transports. So he’ll straggle.’

  Theron and Demostrate were playing knuckle bones together. Demostrate got up and stretched. ‘You have all my money, you black Corinthian thief, and now I need a battle to restore my fortunes. King of the pirates? I’m king of the paupers.’ He glanced at the sky. ‘Good day tomorrow. Sunny. Light winds.’

  ‘So?’ Neiron asked.

  ‘Muster when the morning star rises,’ Satyrus said, watching Panther to see if his orders were well received. ‘Put to sea at first light and form up by columns off the beach.’

  Panther nodded.

  Theron lay back on the sand. ‘What if Eumeles refuses to play?’ he asked. ‘I mean, see it through his eyes. He’s running for his other squadron, isn’t he? So why won’t he just keep running?’

  Panther looked at Satyrus. Satyrus shook his head. ‘Our ships are faster, now that we’re rid of the transports,’ he said. ‘Remember last time? Our fastest laid waste to his slowest, and we were losing light. Tomorrow we’ll have a whole day, if we’re as close as we think.’

  Satyrus nodded. ‘And – and he’s got to stop rowing when he reaches Tanais. But if we’re right up with him, there’s not really time for his other squadron to man and launch.’

  ‘Unless they’re waiting for us,’ Demostrate said quietly.

  Satyrus had never been the commander of a force this large. When Leon joined them, it had been as if a great stone had been lifted from his shoulders, and when Leon left, riding away with the old hippeis, the stone had settled back on his neck.

  But Satyrus had been around professional soldiers and sailors all his life, and he knew what was required of him, although it made his stomach hurt with anticipation just to think of the morrow and everything he had riding on it. He took Abraham, whom everyone loved, and Diokles, and they left the fire where the commanders drank wine, and the three of them went from fire to fire down the beach. Satyrus shared a sip of wine and a libation at every fire he joined – at some, he was greeted like a demi-god, and at others, usually the fires of the pirate crews, he was feared like a leper. He watched their reactions, and tried not to show his own feelings.

  Between two fires of pirate oarsmen, Satyrus made a face, spat in the sand and stopped. ‘Some of them hate me,’ he said.

  ‘And you want them to love you?’ Abraham nodded. ‘You make them fight. Not all of them want to. Not all are brave, and very few are good. You expect to be cheered as a hero by your rowers? Sufficient that you are prepared to pay them.’

  Satyrus looked at his friend. ‘When did you become such a sophist?’ he asked.

  Diokles tugged his beard. ‘They won’t love you, lord. Best be used to it. The Macedonians probably cursed bloody Alexander, and he was half a god.’ He jutted a thumb at Abraham. ‘He’s got more sense.’

  Abraham shrugged. ‘I learned a great deal in Byzantium,’ he said.

  ‘Your father wanted me to send you home. And yet – he’s very proud of you.’ Satyrus had meant to say this earlier, but there was never time. That was the greatest lesson of command – there was never either privacy or time.

  Diokles gave a little wave and walked away a few steps, granting the two of them the illusion of privacy.

  ‘Really?’ Abraham grinned, his teeth glinting in the fire-lit dark. ‘You’re not just fashioning words to please me?’

  ‘I swear by Herakles,’ Satyrus said.

  ‘I’ll go home when this is over,’ Abraham said. ‘Unless I’m dead.’

  ‘Don’t even say such a thing,’ Satyrus said, making a peasant sign of aversion.

  Abraham laughed, and it was a grim laugh. ‘Not all of us are born the darling of a god, to restore a kingdom and shine with the light of battle. I was born to count coins and raise my family fortunes.’ He looked away. ‘If I die tomorrow, I’ll curse the pain of it – but by my god, it will have been worthwhile. To be lord and to
have command – to live at the break of the wave.’ He laughed. ‘I’m a fool. Or I’ve tasted too much wine. Listen, Satyrus – I sound like some awful stock character in a play. But I love this life. Every instant, I have to pinch myself to see if I’m awake – walking on the beach with you, waiting for the day of battle, with my own ship, my armour, my sword by my side!’ Abraham laughed, and now it was a genuine laugh. ‘My jealous old god will probably take my life tomorrow, if only to show me who’s boss.’ He walked over to Diokles and slapped him on the back. ‘You sailors have better manners than most of the merchants I know, but I don’t need privacy. To hell with that!’ He pulled his wineskin over his shoulder, took a drink and handed it to Diokles.

  ‘Night before a battle, a man should drink,’ Diokles said.

  Abraham took the skin back and held it expertly, so that a dark stream curved, glinting in the distant firelight, and fell into the open darkness of his mouth. ‘Oh, I’ve learned all kinds of things in my year at sea,’ he said.

  Diokles shook his head in mock sorrow. ‘And never a flute girl around when you need one,’ he mourned.

  Satyrus shook his head, squeezed their hands and led them on to the next fire. ‘We’ll win tomorrow,’ he said. And he meant it.

  They rose with the last watch and the rowers filed aboard before the bronze shield rim of the sun ascended above the edge of the world. And as fast as the ships came off the beach, bow first, dragging their sterns clear of the sand and mud and rowing shallow so that the gentle surf was turned to muddy froth, they formed in columns and turned north, so that they were in formation while the scent of their cooking fires was still wafting over the sea. Wood smoke and sea-wrack.

  But Aulus, Eumeles’ navarch, was no fool, and he had not served thirty years at sea to be caught in the morning. His men must have risen just as early, whether or not they knew how close Satyrus was. The smoke of their fires still rose to the heavens just twenty stades north of the bay where Satyrus had camped, but the ships were gone.

  It was noon by the time they raised the masts and sails of Eumeles’ squadron, but the moment the lookout screamed that he could see the top yards of ten sail, the mood of the Lotus’s command platform changed.

  ‘Fifteen!’ the lookout shouted. ‘Dead on the bow!’

  Satyrus looked at the sky and at the sun. ‘Is it too late?’

  Theron ran his hand though his hair. ‘Don’t mistake me for a sailor, lad. But no. Now we find out if the gods love you, or whether they’ve lured you to madness.’

  Satyrus grinned. They were overhauling the enemy squadrons so quickly that he could already see nicks in the horizon. His eyes met Neiron’s. Neiron nodded, and he had a smile like a death’s head.

  ‘Now or never,’ Neiron said.

  ‘Helios!’ Satyrus shouted, and the boy came running, already pulling the cover off his gilt-bronze shield.

  ‘Signal “General chase”,’ Satyrus called.

  Helios flashed the signal – one, two, three, four.

  And the rowers roared back from every ship.

  Satyrus’s heart began to beat so fast that it seemed to interfere with his speech. Carefully, he said, ‘Don’t push them so hard that we can’t fight.’

  Neiron shook his head. ‘All or nothing now. You made that call. Now let it happen.’

  Amidships, Philaeus called the new stroke – the fastest sustainable stroke – and he began to beat the tempo on the deck with his staff.

  The rowers growled and the ship sounded like a live thing. Satyrus felt the increase in speed in his legs and hips. The thumping of the oar master’s staff seemed to be the living heart of the ship, pumping blood like the heart of an Olympic runner.

  Satyrus tried not to watch the horizon. Even now, Eumeles’ captains would be ordering an increase in speed. It all came down to fitness and training – a long stern chase, rower against rower into a gentle wind so close to bow-on that no one could raise a sail. Man to man.

  His carefully ordered columns shredded immediately, as the fastest ships passed the slowest and the whole fleet raced. Golden Lotus was in the forefront, neck and neck with Panther’s Rose and Aekes’ Hyacinth. Behind them came the pirates, lighter, lower vessels with heavy crews who might be slow to manoeuvre but whose crews lived for this very function – to chase down a fleeing vessel and catch him.

  An hour, by the sun, and the coast of the Euxine was racing by to the right, stade after stade, and they didn’t seem to gain a finger’s breadth on the enemy. Some of his least-trained vessels – the half-squadron provided by Lysimachos, for instance – began to lose ground, and they were left behind, as were two of the Aegyptian ships, Troy and Marathon. Throughout the fleet, the slowest ships struggled.

  Satyrus watched helplessly as his fleet began to disintegrate.

  ‘Keep your wits,’ Neiron said.

  ‘Too late to change your mind,’ Theron said. ‘You went for the hold. Keep your arm at his throat until you black out.’

  Satyrus nodded. He knew they were right. But it hurt to watch ships fall out of the columns, their rowers already spent, or just too slow – ill-built or trailing weed.

  If Eumeles has his second squadron at Tanais – if they are oared up and ready . . .

  The second hour of afternoon crawled by. Satyrus took a turn at an oar, as did Theron. Neiron clung to the steering oar. Men were taking turns – sailors, even the most willing of the marines. On the Lotus, they had practised this, and even at such a fast pull, a man knew he’d get a break.

  Satyrus rowed a full hour by the sand-glass. The men around him smiled at him, and he loved every one of them for their eagerness.

  ‘We’ll catch the bastard, right enow!’ called his mate across the aisle, as they lulled together. ‘Never you moind, sir. Never you moind it.’

  He grinned back, his heart raised by this pronouncement by a man who had to know far less about the chances of the day than he did himself, and then he went forward, the fear sweated out.

  By now half of his own fleet was gone behind him, lost over the edge of the world.

  ‘Two hours to the Tanais at this rate,’ Neiron said. He was nodding, as if he could hear music. The staff still thumped the deck, a fast but steady heartbeat. ‘Still six hours of light.’

  Satyrus made himself look forward.

  Eumeles’ fleet was suddenly close.

  ‘When did that happen?’ he said, and his voice broke.

  Neiron grinned, and so did every other man on the command deck. ‘We got all the officers to row,’ he said. ‘Must have made a difference.’ Then Neiron pointed. ‘We broke their hearts,’ he said.

  Theron nodded. ‘We are the better men,’ he said.

  It was a race while it had contestants. Now it was just predator and prey.

  Panther’s Hyacinth drew the first blood, smashing his beak into the oar bank of a heavy trireme whose rowers were so tired that they didn’t even attempt to turn their ship and fight. Panther crippled the enemy ship expertly and rowed on, barely losing way.

  As Lotus swept past the cripple, his archers shot down into the helpless crew, and they surrendered, the captain kneeling on his deck and begging for mercy.

  Eumeles’ ships lost their nerve completely as soon as they saw the loss of the first ship, and they began to scatter. In the rearward ships, more than a dozen raised sail and tried to sail clear, going west across the wind as best they could. A few made it; most were caught, helpless, and smashed. The Rhodians, who could raise sail faster, ate their wind and killed them.

  The afternoon was old and the Lotus’s mast was casting a long shadow when Eumeles’ navarch decided to turn and fight. The Tanais headland was well in sight, with a beacon burning clearly on the height of the bluff. Satyrus didn’t know what the signal was or for whom it was meant, but that was the site of his mother’s city.

  The mouth of the river was only twenty more stades along the coast, hidden by the multiple headlands, but Satyrus knew the seamarks here as well as any ca
ptain. The enemy ships had to fight, or run upriver – and the river was shallow in midsummer. They turned, and their tired rowers formed a ragged line. Just one ship stood on, racing for the mouth of the Tanais.

  Satyrus looked around and realized that, by the irony of the gods, he would face Eumeles outnumbered, because his ships had chased off to the west after the stragglers or stopped to loot the defeated. He had his own ships, and one Rhodian, and the Glory of Demeter formed next to him. Daedalus leaned over the rail and waved his fist. Satyrus waved back as Helios put his aspis on his arm.

  ‘Twenty to ten,’ Satyrus said.

  Neiron wrinkled his lip and spat in the water. ‘They’re spent,’ he said. He pointed his bearded chin at the rowers without taking his eyes off the enemy line. ‘Ours are just scenting victory. And this is the moment for revenge, Satyrus.’

  Satyrus smiled. ‘In other words, I should tell them so,’ he said.

  Neiron nodded.

  Satyrus ran forward and leaned over into the oar deck. ‘Eumeles has just formed a sloppy-arse line and he’s going to fight. His rowers are finished. Are you finished?’

  They didn’t roar. But they growled, a low sound that made the ship tremble.

  ‘Ten minutes,’ Satyrus shouted, his voice rising. ‘Ten minutes of your best, and they are ours. Blood in the water and silver in our hands!’

  The growl rose. Like a wind rising, the growl came up as the whole oar bank cocked back, the oars at the top of their motion, and as the oars bit, every voice on the Lotus spoke and the ship seemed to leap forward with its own spirit.

  His ships formed up on him so that they were in a loose arrowhead. Two of the slower ships, scenting a fight, came up from behind, rowing for all they had, close enough now to engage as a second line.

  ‘Not the battle I’d planned,’ Satyrus said.

  No one said anything.

  ‘But I’ll take it,’ Satyrus said. He looked at the enemy line, now less than a stade away. ‘Diekplous against their admiral,’ he said, pointing out the blue-hulled ship in the centre of the line.

  Satyrus’s ships were moving much faster than their opponents – indeed, the enemy squadron was oar-tip to oar-tip, in close order, but many of their ships were partly turned or still manoeuvring to close gaps, and they had very little forward motion. The Golden Lotus was a whole ship’s length ahead of her line, but the Troy was now so close behind that she was in line with the Glory of Demeter and they were all moving at the speed of a galloping horse, the wind of their passage like a song of speed and madness.