Tyrant: Destroyer of Cities

by Christian Cameron

Satyrus pushed forward and tried to hear.

  ‘I don’t want to hear about how white my hair is,’ Leon shouted, and grinned. He took Satyrus’ hand and they embraced.

  ‘It’s a little scary,’ Satyrus said. ‘Do we need all these guards?’

  ‘Wait until it’s on your head,’ Leon said. Then he laughed. ‘I thought you meant the white hair. Guards? Yes. The people here are not happy.’

  ‘White hair isn’t so bad,’ Satyrus said.

  ‘Better than none at all,’ Panther added. The top of his head glistened in the sun like a well-polished helmet.

  Satyrus waved at all the activity on the walls.

  ‘Is Rhodes in such imminent peril?’ he asked. People were pressing close, calling out to him.

  Behind him, Helios called for Apollodorus. Satyrus was forced to notice that Helios had grown powerful lungs.

  Panther shook his head. ‘This is not the place,’ he said. ‘When you have settled yourself, I’ll come.’ He looked at Satyrus’ squadron – the last ships were just clearing the northern headland, and in the distance, the masts of another pair could be seen. Or at least, Satyrus hoped they were his. The rest were being guided to moorings by Rhodian harbour officials.

  ‘You didn’t have any trouble?’ Leon asked.

  Satyrus spoke just loudly enough to be heard. ‘I took Timaea from the pirates,’ he said. ‘I took fifteen warships and destroyed as many again.’

  Panther smiled. ‘I knew you were a good ally,’ he said. He looked around, located his phylarch and spoke to the man.

  ‘Make a lane, there!’ shouted the phylarch. ‘Admiral Panther will speak! Step back, there!’

  Panther stepped up onto a bale of cloth. ‘Listen, citizens! Satyrus, King of the Bosporus, has landed with twenty warships and forty more ships laden with grain from the north. There will be no bread shortages! Further, he has defeated the pirates and taken one of their bases! I will see to it that all this news is posted in detail in the agora! Now please go back to your tasks!’

  ‘And Dekas?’ Leon asked, while Panther was speaking to the crowd.

  ‘No idea. Last intelligence – courtesy of the Tyrant of Mythymna – is that he’s waiting for me off Chios.’ Satyrus shrugged. ‘I went round. I had all my grain ships to think of.’ He looked at the people. There seemed to be more slaves and women than citizens.

  ‘You did well,’ Leon said. Panther stepped down off his bale of cloth and Leon nodded to him. ‘That should help, for a while, at least.’ Leon waved at Arete. ‘If Dekas is still at Chios,’ he said quietly, ‘we could have a go at him.’

  ‘With the whole fleet?’ Panther shook his head. ‘I can’t chance it.’ He shook his head. ‘The boule – the little assembly – is meeting. I have to be there.’

  ‘Lord Ptolemy—’

  ‘Tell me tomorrow,’ Panther said. ‘Lord Satyrus, you have done well – very well – to bring your grain fleet here. We will reward you and your captains as heroes. Until tomorrow?’

  Satyrus embraced him, and the Rhodian admiral gathered his friends, his marines and his courtiers and set off up the street, through a gate so new that the plaster over the bricks wasn’t dry, and men were sketching on it with charcoal anyway.

  ‘They are too cautious,’ Leon said. ‘And Ptolemy is too rash. I fear—’ He looked around. ‘Well, not all the news is bad. I have your friend here – young Abraham.’

  ‘His father let him come?’ Satyrus asked.

  ‘His father made him come,’ Leon said. ‘Ben Zion moved much of his business to Rhodes in the last two years. Abraham is here to – well, to run it. I leased part of his house for you.’

  Satyrus laughed. ‘I feel more like a mercenary than a king,’ he said. ‘No palace?’ He looked around at the wall of Leon’s marines – and his own. Helios had led the whole contingent off the Arete. Apollodorus frowned at him from the rear files, still tying his cheekpieces. Beyond the soldiers, the crowd was calm and orderly, but hands kept reaching out to touch him. Satyrus found this disconcerting. ‘Do we take an escort wherever we go?’

  Leon smiled. ‘You have been away from civilisation a long time, my boy,’ he said. ‘Even in Alexandria, I go nowhere without a dozen swords. May I say without offence that you are . . . so grown-up now.’

  Satyrus laughed, the mood of foreignness broken. ‘Why, thank you, uncle of my youth.’ He stopped and put an arm around Leon. ‘I had a dream about Philokles,’ he said, ‘and Ataelus. It made me cry.’

  ‘Were they trying to tell you something?’ Leon asked.

  ‘I think so,’ Satyrus said. But he couldn’t remember what it was. ‘Is Nihmu here?’ he asked.

  ‘Alexandria,’ Leon said. Something unpleasant passed over his face.

  If I am grown-up now, you are feeling old, Satyrus thought.

  8

  Leon’s encroaching old age wasn’t visible as he sprang up the streets of the city. He walked fast, talking all the time – scribes followed him, copying letters as they walked on tablets of wood and wax suspended from their necks.

  No, Satyrus noted – not as they walked, but whenever they stopped. And talking to Leon was quite frustrating, because whenever a scribe finished a document, Leon took it and read it.

  ‘Your big penteres is magnificent. And you have six of the new engines aboard!’ Leon nodded approvingly, then went back to a bill of lading. ‘Have you decided on a price for your grain?’ he asked.

  ‘We haven’t practised with them—’ Satyrus began.

  But Leon’s attention was on a letter quickly thrust into his hands – the scribe flashed Satyrus an apologetic smile, as if to say you may be a king, but if I don’t do this he’ll have my head. The letter was on a wax tablet, which Leon held close to his eyes to read. ‘Paideuo is a bad verb to use when we speak of instructing a peer, Epiktetos. Paideuo means, ‘I will teach you as if you were a child’. Leon winked at Satyrus. ‘Which in fact is the case, but let’s not say so out loud. Perhaps didasko.’ Leon paused, watched his scribe until he saw the stylus scratch away the old word and replace it with the new in the wax, and then looked back at Satyrus. ‘You haven’t trained with the new weapons?’

  ‘We’ve been a little busy,’ Satyrus said. Leon made him feel like a child, sometimes, without meaning to.

  ‘You stung Dekas, and that’s something.’ Leon’s dark eyes caught his. ‘Have you set a price for your grain?’ he repeated.

  Satyrus nodded. ‘I know what my farmers need,’ he said, a little more sharply than he had intended.

  Leon nodded, eyes on another tablet. ‘They’ll take your grain if you aren’t careful. That’s what I came down to warn you of. They’re desperate – far more desperate than the situation requires.’

  Satyrus found the press of people threatening. ‘This is worse than being a popular kithara player in Alexandria,’ he said.

  Leon nodded. ‘You are a famous man. I am a famous man. You just brought this city ninety days of grain. Maybe twice that. All in all, you are cause for celebration, and the two of us together are enough for a riot of celebrity. Ah – here we are.’ He paused. ‘Send a runner to your ships and tell your captains to moor and keep their crews aboard,’ he said.

  His escort began to pass into a walled courtyard through a high gate. To the right was a synagogue – Satyrus knew the signs over the door in Aramaic and Greek.

  Abraham was just inside the gate. Satyrus’ eyes passed over him for a moment because he expected a tall, athletic navarch, and what he saw was a heavily bearded Jew dressed in long robes.

  But it registered – quickly enough that Satyrus doubted anyone had seen him hesitate. He opened his arms, and Abraham wrapped him in his own long arms.

  ‘King of the Bosporus!’ Abraham said. ‘Be welcome in my house.’

  ‘The Jew of Rhodes!’ Satyrus said in an equally dramatic voice. ‘Come and visit my kingdom!’

  Abraham laughed and swatted him – a not-so-gentle backhand straight from adolescence and the gymnas
ium of Alexandria. ‘I’m impressing my neighbours, you useless aristocrat!’

  Satyrus hugged him again, and then the gates closed behind the last files of Satyrus’ marines, and Apollodorus pulled his helmet off. He and Helios exchanged glances – Satyrus couldn’t help himself.

  ‘Trouble?’ he asked.

  Helios shrugged. ‘I apologise, Captain.’

  Apollodorus shrugged. ‘He ordered me and the marines off the ship. He’s your hypaspist – not my officer.’

  Satyrus forced a smile. ‘This is not the place or time for this.’

  Both men had the good grace to look abashed.

  Satyrus turned to his former slave. ‘Helios, for your sins, you can run an errand for me. Leon – a tablet, if your scribes can spare one?’

  Leon laughed, took a dark panel of wood from one of his people and handed it over with a bone pencil, and Satyrus wrote quickly in the hard wax. ‘Straight to Neiron, and not a word to any other man,’ he said, keeping a smile on his face.

  Helios saluted, Macedonian fashion, and trotted off, head high, with his aspis still on his shoulder.

  Satyrus turned to his host. ‘Abraham, you remember Apollodorus?’

  Abraham laughed and embraced the marine officer. ‘Too well.’

  Apollodorus laughed, too. ‘Not many men I’ve played “feed the flute girl” with, in public,’ he said.

  Satyrus passed over that remark to introduce Helios. ‘My hypaspist, Helios, is the man I just sent away.’

  ‘I remember him well,’ Abraham said.

  ‘I don’t,’ Leon said. ‘I saw him several times lurking at your shoulder. He looks like a Greek.’

  Satyrus nodded. ‘Yes, sir, he is.’

  ‘Former slave?’ Leon asked.

  ‘Citizen of Tanais!’ Satyrus proclaimed.

  ‘How does one “feed a flute girl”?’ asked a sweet voice.

  Satyrus turned his head. Behind Abraham was his sister, Miriam. Satyrus had met her once, in her father’s house in Alexandria. Their eyes met.

  She didn’t drop her eyes this time, any more than she had four years before. She had the boldest glance Satyrus had ever seen – well, with the exception of his sister, Leon’s wife Nihmu, and most of the Sakje women he knew. Her eyes were brown – deep brown, with flecks of gold in the iris. Her hair was a glorious profusion of browns with the same gold highlights as her eyes.

  All of the men were staring at their sandals.

  Satyrus laughed. ‘You have not changed,’ he said.

  Abraham cleared his throat. ‘My sister Miriam,’ he said. ‘We should go inside.’

  ‘I apologise for the soldiers,’ Satyrus said. ‘I had little choice. The crowds were . . . enormous.’

  ‘And you’ll need them the whole time you are here.’ Abraham raised his arm and pointed. ‘I have towers on my courtyard, here. Archers in the towers. Barracks for fifty men, and I employ thirty full-time. I can feed your men. Besides,’ he said with something of his old humour, ‘you’re paying.’

  ‘How splendid of me!’ Satyrus allowed. The courtyard was not very decorative, it was true – heavily cobbled, but with no statues and no garden. Archways led away into warehouses – archways big enough for a wagon to clear – and into the house. Satyrus took a moment to realise that this was bigger than his palace in Tanais. Then he laughed, and followed his host through an arch.

  On the other side of the arch, he might have been in another world. They went into a rose garden with paths laid out in white marble, and small trees – apples, it appeared. The whole garden smelled like jasmine, although Satyrus couldn’t see a jasmine flower anywhere.

  The house was typically Greek, with a colonnade that ran around the rose garden. But the walls, although brightly coloured, decorated with patterns, or painted with flowers, were devoid of gods, goddesses or dancing girls.

  All very thought-provoking. Leon bowed to Abraham. ‘I have a lot of business, Abraham. Will you excuse me?’ and he was gone in a cloud of scribes, flashing Satyrus a look he couldn’t interpret.

  Satyrus was ushered into the main room of the ground floor – like an old andron with a new mosaic floor. Satyrus laughed at the conceit; it was covered with bits of food, ends of bread, discarded bones and a sheep’s skull, all rendered lovingly in mosaic as if a feast had just been completed.

  ‘Beautiful!’ he said.

  ‘We’re Jews,’ Miriam said behind him. ‘We don’t use representations of people in our religion. But this seemed innocent . . . and charming.’

  Satyrus nodded. A slave came and took his chlamys and his sword.

  Abraham brought him a cup of wine. ‘Welcome again to my house, brother.’

  Satyrus raised his cup to both of them. ‘It is a pleasure to be your guest.’ He wondered why Abraham was suddenly so very Jewish, but he decided not to mention it. He put it down to the presence of the sister. She certainly had an effect on him.

  ‘Feed the flute girl?’ she asked.

  ‘Please drop the subject, Miriam,’ Abraham said.

  She must be nineteen now, or perhaps twenty. Quite old to be unmarried. Or was that just among Greeks? Satyrus was suddenly struck with a desire to enquire, and he doubted Helios would know of whom to ask.

  Satyrus smiled wickedly at his host. ‘I could tell her,’ he said.

  ‘Only if you want to find somewhere else to stay,’ Abraham shot back.

  ‘Shall I guess, then?’ Miriam asked. ‘I think it is unfair that my brother had such a liberal education and I’m always to be left at home, wondering what Plato said and how flute girls are fed.’

  Satyrus realised that this was a game – that Miriam knew exactly how ‘feed the flute girl’ worked, that she was embarrassing her brother in public and that an astrologer might have marked this day with red ink against the possibility of social humiliations in all directions.

  ‘I have a great deal of grain to sell,’ Satyrus said. ‘I need to get down to it.’

  Abraham nodded. ‘I was going to let you get your sandals off.’ He made a motion to his sister to leave. Instead, Satyrus felt a weight settle on his kline.

  ‘Miriam!’ Abraham said.

  Satyrus turned his head. She was quite close – actually, she was at a perfectly respectable distance, one that would cause no comment among Greeks. But she was close enough for him to see the way the light played on the brown mass of her hair. He couldn’t help but smile.

  ‘I’m a widow,’ she said, and shrugged. ‘I can’t be expected to remain in hiding. Besides, Abraham, I am your hostess. Satyrus – the king – is as much my responsibility as yours. We are not in Father’s house.’

  Satyrus thought that Abraham looked ready to explode. He put out a hand and touched his friend. ‘Grain,’ he said. ‘If my ships are unloading, now is not the time to bicker.’

  Satyrus turned to Miriam. ‘I am delighted to renew acquaintance with you, Despoina. But your brother and I have business to discuss, and your teasing him will not help him dwell on the business at hand. Can the two of you suspend hostilities while I’m in the house?’

  Miriam blushed. ‘My life with my brother is none of your business,’ she said.

  Abraham looked stung. ‘Miriam!’

  Satyrus made himself smile. ‘If you are my hostess, surely I can beg you to get me a cup of wine and a little privacy for some business?’

  Miriam paused on her way to a display of temper. She looked at him for a moment, and a smile almost came to the area around her eyes. She rose to her feet and stalked away. She was very slim, Satyrus noted. Her legs must be very long indeed. He dismissed the thought as born of long abstinence and insufficient devotion to the Foam Borne.

  It was a hard thought to dismiss as the transparent wool of her chiton outlined her hips and waist as she turned, the silken cloth hiding very little. And she smiled – not provocatively, but the smile of a person who likes another person. ‘I will see to your wine and comfort, then. And since we are speaking frankly, may I then bargain
for time with both of you? I might play for you, for instance.’ She arched an eyebrow at her brother.

  He relented immediately. ‘Of course! As soon as we have settled the fate of the world, love. And please join us for dinner. You are the hostess, and this is Rhodes, not Athens.’

  After the sound of her sandals slapping the floors retreated into the peristyle, Abraham slapped his thigh. ‘If you ever retire from kingship, come and live with me and keep my sister in line. By Jehovah, Satyrus, that was well done.’ He frowned. ‘Since her husband died, there is no controlling her.’ He caught himself, with the air of a man who has said too much.

  Satyrus suspected that there was more going on than an uncontrollable girl – and he knew his own sister would not let the word ‘controlling’ go by without comment. But he had grain to sell.

  He shrugged. ‘I’ve always liked her, and my sister valued her company,’ he said. ‘And given my sister’s views on sequestered women, you will have to allow me to take her side.’

  Abraham grinned his old, open grin. ‘She’s a widow, now. And rich enough. And to be honest, I’ve been tempted to ship her off to your sister to learn to ride and shoot. She’s far too intelligent to waste – she could run my warehouses without me, and no mistake.’ He shrugged. ‘If we weren’t Jews I’d buy her a temple post, and she could be high priestess of Artemis or Athena. Then she’d have some sort of life.’ He shrugged. ‘But she is a Jew – more a Jew, I think, than I. Shall we talk grain? How much do you have?’

  ‘I don’t know the exact count of my grain,’ Satyrus said. ‘More than ten thousand mythemnoi, anyway. What’s a mythemna of grain worth on the dock?’

  Abraham raised an eyebrow. ‘Six drachma and some change.’

  Satyrus grinned and his spirits soared, almost as if he’d won a victory. Perhaps he had. ‘I’m going to make a lot of farmers happy!’

  Abraham nodded. ‘I’d like to buy the lot.’ He raised an eyebrow. ‘If my credit is good. I don’t keep that kind of cash here. This city may fall – or may be called on to provide exceptional fines to buy off Antigonus.’ He shrugged. ‘This is poor bargaining. I’ll take your entire cargo at six drachma and three obols per mythemna, Athenian weights.’