Tyrant: Destroyer of Cities

by Christian Cameron

  Satyrus sketched a smile. ‘Your men were like gods.’

  Apollodorus nodded, and Satyrus saw that tears were flowing down his face, although he didn’t sob – his expression didn’t even change. ‘Eight dead already, and three who probably won’t make it.’

  ‘And Stesagoras,’ Satyrus said.

  ‘Yes.’ Apollodorus hung his head. Satyrus realised that the smaller man with his arrogant posturing and his endless energy – his annoying superiority, his fighting skills, his near perfection and his apparent contempt for his men and all those about him – was weeping inconsolably.

  Satyrus put his arms around the marine captain. ‘Sometimes it’s worthwhile to remember that we’re alive,’ Satyrus said. ‘I was sure I was dead there – twice, I think.’ He found that he was crying, too. ‘I think that – that – that I may work a little harder on being alive. And the men that died – Zeus Sator, Apollodorus, a least we can look to see that they died for something.’

  ‘For the King of Aegypt?’ Apollodorus asked, his voice raw. ‘For glory?’

  ‘No idea,’ Satyrus said. He took a deep breath. Men were cheering on the other deck, and pointing east. ‘No idea. But we should find something, before we’re dead ourselves.’ He was rambling. Apollodorus didn’t seem to mind. The smaller man stood straighter.

  ‘I’m all right. Sorry, lord. Sorry. Poseidon, I didn’t know I had such weakness in me.’ Apollodorus stumbled away, caught himself on the rail and threw up into the sea.

  Satyrus walked back to the helmsman’s station, found his own canteen under the bench and poured a horn cup of wine. He looked at Laertes, who was focused on his task with heroic intensity, his whole being urging the ship to stay on course. Laertes flicked a glance at him and tried to smile. ‘Doing my best,’ he said.

  ‘Notch in your wake,’ Satyrus said. It made him smile, despite everything. ‘When you looked at me, you let up on your port oar.’

  He turned and walked back to Apollodorus. ‘Wine?’ he asked.

  Apollodorus raised his head, and his eyes were clearer. ‘Thanks.’ He drank the whole cup off. His head came up; something had caught his eye. ‘You there!’ he shouted past Satyrus’ head. ‘What in Hades do you think you’re doing, Stilicho?’

  Neiron was waving from the other deck, and Satyrus leaned out over the rail to hear. All he caught was Diokles. But when he looked again, he understood.

  Marathon was coming on from the east, under foresail and mainsail and oars, with Troy and Oinoe and half a dozen other ships in line astern. Even Satyrus could see that the third ship in line was their capture from the beach on the Asian shore, the beautiful long, low trireme of Phoenician design.

  ‘Well,’ Satyrus said. There was no one near him except the marine, Necho. Necho was younger than he had expected, and with his helmet off he didn’t look like a veteran at all. In fact, he looked pathetically young. He had two black eyes from some blow that had rocked his helmet into his forehead, and he looked terrible. Terrible, but alive, and his eyes glittered as they met Satyrus’.

  ‘Lord?’ he asked.

  ‘Well,’ Satyrus said. ‘I think we’re going to live.’

  Night, and the swell was rising, and Satyrus feared for the remnants of Ptolemy’s fleet, last seen strung out over thirty stades of water and with the enemy in sight to the north. Ptolemy’s bodyguard had hung together, managed somehow to rig foresails to rest their oarsmen and the big ships, who could better endure the coming weather, began to pull away to the south.

  In the last light, Satyrus went below on Atlantae, passing along the oar benches, talking to a rower here and another there. ‘We lived,’ was the burden of what he had to say, and they were glad to hear it.

  ‘You men don’t know me,’ he said. ‘I’m Satyrus of the Euxine, and at least for the moment, you’re my men. I’ll see you paid and fed, and no man on this ship will be a slave as long as you keep slavery away by pulling your oars. Any of you who want to leave this ship may do so – once we reach Alexandria. Until then, I need you to row!’

  He didn’t get much of a cheer, but it hadn’t been much of a speech, and he felt that, on balance, they were content enough – alive and free were powerful feelings – but he also felt that Stesagoras might have taken all the real leaders with him in his mad rush to glory. The rowers seemed remarkably unspirited. They needed reinforcements, officers, lead rowers, and his handful of utterly spent marines and sailors were not up to the job – and neither was he.

  He went aboard Oinoe, all but falling to the deck from the rail, his legs no longer interested in supporting him, and Diokles and Helios caught him.

  But in return, dozens of deckhands, junior officers and oarsmen went aboard Atlantae. They winched across a spare foremast from Oinoe that was to be raised as a temporary mainmast, come the dawn.

  As darkness fell, all the Euxine ships lit oil lamps and placed them in bronze storm lanterns on their sterns. All the captains preferred communications to stealth. Under close-brailed foresails in the bows, with the oar ports closed and the thranites cleared off their benches because the lowest oar deck always leaked, with men already queued on the decks to straddle the side-pumps, the squadron stood south. Oinoe fell back at dark to the centre position.

  Satyrus tried to listen to Diokles, but he couldn’t. He fell asleep.

  He awoke to a red, red dawn. The sun was rising in the east, his bronze-bright light reflected oddly all around them.

  ‘You’re awake,’ Diokles said.

  Satyrus was no longer in his armour – he was wearing a frowzy wool chiton over a heavy linen bandage that was wrapped around his middle, over and over so that he couldn’t bend at the waist, and even as he thought about his back, pain bloomed there.

  ‘So,’ Satyrus grunted. His mouth felt as if someone had painted it with rust.

  ‘You smell like blood. We let you out of our sight for a few days, and you go and try to get killed. Just as I said!’ Diokles shook his head.

  Helios was washing his feet and legs. They were covered in dried blood. ‘I was afraid to wake you,’ he said. ‘Lord.’

  Satyrus shook him off – kicked him off, more precisely – rose to his feet with heavy effort and went to the downwind rail. He hiked his chiton and pissed downwind – and felt his heart stop as he pissed red, red blood.

  ‘Oh, Apollo,’ Satyrus said weakly. His kidneys hurt like fire by the time he was finished, and the stream was as red at the end as at the start, and Satyrus felt weak.

  ‘I had a master who beat me with a stick,’ Helios said quietly. ‘I always pissed blood after he beat me.’

  Satyrus lay down on the sheepskins they’d piled up for him. He was cold, and Helios put a cloak over him. He felt better for Helios’ words. ‘I didn’t know. I’ve never pissed blood before – well, once after a fight in the palaestra, but not – not so much.’ He grunted.

  ‘You’ll heal,’ Helios said gently.

  Satyrus went back to sleep, even as the wind’s note in the stays rose an octave.

  ‘We need to beach,’ Diokles said, somewhere off in a dream of riding on a winged monster. Satyrus struggled to the surface of the dream like a man pulled under by a breaking wave on a beach, and he managed to get his head above the nightmare to get his eyes open. The light was the same as it had been before.

  ‘I guess I didn’t sleep,’ he said to Helios, before he realised that the boy was asleep himself.

  Diokles smiled. ‘You slept all day, lord. Now the sun – such as it is – is setting. And the wind is rising, and we’re in the middle of nowhere.’ He shook his head. ‘Wind is veering right round – into our faces, and the sails all have to come down, and there’s sand in the wind off of Africa. Bad night ahead.’

  ‘Where’s Aegypt?’ Satyrus asked.

  ‘A hundred stades or less off the bow,’ Diokles said, and he didn’t bother to hide his bitterness. ‘Might as well be ten thousand stades, Satyrus. It’ll be in the eye of the wind in ten minutes, and we can’
t row into this. And we haven’t had a hot meal in three days. The rowers aren’t fresh, we’re short on food and very short on drinking water, and there’s no haven short of Alexandria into the wind or back to Cyprus. Into the teeth of the enemy.’

  Somewhere in Diokles’ recitation, Satyrus came awake. He had to piss, and he was afraid to do it. Afraid of the stream of dark red urine. Somewhere in the fight off Cyprian Salamis, he had discovered that he loved life and had a great many things that he wanted to do. And now he wondered how badly he was hurt. It scared him more than all the fighting had scared him, more than the threat of a storm.

  Facing his fears, he rose to his feet, stumbled to the rail and relieved himself. The stream was as red as Tyrian dye.

  ‘Where are the enemy?’ he asked. He felt faint, but he wasn’t going to surrender to it.

  ‘Due north. If you can get up on the stern rail, you ought to be able to see them,’ Diokles said.

  ‘How much left in the day?’ Satyrus asked.

  ‘An hour, at most. Hard to guess with this odd light.’ Diokles shook his head. ‘I’m sorry I was late. Men are saying . . . it was close. We might have made the difference.’

  Satyrus managed a bitter laugh. ‘Five ships? Diokles, don’t be so self-important. We lost by sixty ships. Menelaeus stayed in port and let us die. We were never in that fight, my friend, and all you would have done was die.’

  ‘And yet you took a ship – a beautiful ship,’ Diokles said.

  ‘I’m a clever bastard and my father is halfway to a god,’ Satyrus said, intending humour. He climbed the rail, balancing on the slippery wood and clinging to the arching wood of the ship’s stern that rose over the helmsman’s station.

  He could see them, just helm up in the failing light. He counted fifteen before he grew confused. He slipped back to the deck, feeling clumsy and light-headed.

  ‘Get us alongside Arete,’ he said. ‘Have you ever seen weather like this?’

  Diokles shrugged. ‘No. But one of the Aegyptian marines says he’s seen it upriver, and it means a sandstorm.’

  Their eyes met. Satyrus had seen small sandstorms to the east, in the Sinai. ‘That’s where I’ve seen the copper sky,’ he said.

  Diokles shrugged. ‘Sure, if you have. Any ideas?’

  ‘Yes,’ Satyrus said. ‘My idea is that we should ask Neiron.’

  Draco, who had been one of Satyrus’ companions from childhood – who had once mistaken the King of the Bosporus for a child prostitute in the Macedonian barracks at Heraklea – came up and embraced him. ‘I hear that was one fine fight,’ he said. ‘Young Necho seems to think that you and Apollodorus are gods.’

  ‘Gods don’t get wounded as often as I do,’ Satyrus complained.

  ‘That’s pretty much what I said. Here, have some warm wine. Always good for you when you take a wound. Boys say you’re pissing blood.’ Draco, as always, was the very king of straight talk.

  ‘I am,’ Satyrus mumbled.

  ‘Yeah, well, stop acting as if this is the end.’ Draco laughed. ‘How has a big bastard like you got through as many fights as you have and never pissed blood?’ He laughed again, a little cruel in his attitude. ‘I – I thought I was going to die, the first time. And it went on for days. Days!’ He laughed a third time.

  Diokles pointed at the Arete, now under their lee. ‘Lord?’ he said.

  ‘Thanks,’ Satyrus replied. He leaned out, cupped his hands and called, ‘Neiron!’ so loud that his back and kidneys hurt all over again.

  Neiron appeared and waved.

  ‘Sandstorm?’ Satyrus called. He pantomimed puzzlement like a tragic actor.

  Neiron nodded agreement and waved. ‘Yes!’ he roared back, his deep-sea voice carrying like the voice of Poseidon.

  The problem was that Satyrus had to have this conversation out loud, where every man on the deck and most of the rowers could hear him. Their confidence in their king was not going to be increased by the process.

  ‘What do you suggest?’ Satyrus called.

  Neiron looked blank.

  ‘What do we do?’ Satyrus asked.

  Neiron put his hands to his mouth. ‘Pray!’ he called.

  ‘Oh, that’s fucking helpful,’ Diokles muttered at Satyrus’ side.

  ‘Should we run north?’ Satyrus called. He hoped – he prayed – that Neiron could read into his suggestion: north, so that their sails would keep them moving, keep the seas astern, keep the deadly sand at their backs. But right into the enemy squadron.

  Neiron looked surprised – even stunned.

  The wind howled, and the first gustful of sand stung them, and everyone scrambled for spare cloaks and light wool chitons to wrap round their heads.

  Satyrus stayed at the rail, watching his senior navarch, a man with ten times his own sea-keeping experience. Neiron talked to someone at the helm – the man between the oars.

  ‘YES!’ he roared back.

  Suddenly Satyrus felt his pulse quicken and his gorge rise. All very well when it was just a bold idea. Now it was real, taking six ships and their exhausted crews into the teeth of a larger enemy force. But dark was close.

  ‘Head of the line, if you please, Diokles,’ Satyrus said. No point in waiting. ‘Get the foresail laid to by the mast and have every sailor you’ve got hold it down. Ready to raise, on the yard. Understood?’

  Diokles laughed. ‘I taught you this trick.’

  Satyrus grinned back. ‘So you did. I want the other ships to see you doing it and get the message.’

  Diokles nodded. He gave orders – a series of rapid orders that sent men running in every direction.

  ‘Helios – gold aspis into the stern. Fast as you can.’ Satyrus went to the helmsman’s station. Helios, awake for a few minutes, managed to get the great gold-finished shield out of its cover and stood by him.

  ‘Raise it so they know there’s a signal coming,’ Satyrus said.

  ‘Foresail laid to. Ready to come about – oars are warned.’ Diokles nodded. ‘You’d best do it – it’s going to be hard to get the heavier ships around already with the wind. We’ve barely headway with the rowers going full on.’

  Satyrus turned to Helios. ‘Signal – READY.’

  Four of the five ships sent a return flash. The fifth, Atlantae, probably didn’t even have a signalling shield.

  ‘Signal “SHIPS TO COME ABOUT IN SUCCESSION”.’ Satyrus raised an eyebrow at Diokles, who shrugged.

  ‘We’ve practised it fifty times,’ he said.

  Helios had brought Satyrus his best cloak when the sandstorm started – a glorious Tyrian purple with embroidered eagles, ravens and stars. It was warm and thick at his throat, pinned with the family raven done in gold by Temerix the smith, a gift for his mother. He held it around himself for a long moment. He could remember his mother wearing the raven pin at her throat when she gave justice at Tanais when he was a boy. The memory pierced him like the pain in his kidneys. Then he ripped the cloak off over his head, stood on the stern rail and offered the cloak to the sea.

  ‘Poseidon, Lord of Horses, take this as a token of the hecatomb I will send thee, and spare my ships!’ he called into the wind, and let the cloak go. It caught the wind and swirled – up, then down, spreading flat on the sea as if a sea nymph intended to spread a picnic on it – and then it was gone, as if plucked down by some invisible hand.

  ‘Signal COME ABOUT,’ Satyrus said.

  Oinoe, temporarily the lead ship, was ready, and port-side rowers dragged their oars while the starboard men continued to row forward, and the ship turned so fast that Satyrus barely had time to fear for his stability as the full force of the south wind out of Africa caught her broadside, but the rowers were pulling for their lives, and the bow came round – round fast, and before Satyrus could even frame the words, Diokles ordered that the foresail be set, and the whole deck crew and all the marines raised the yard, sail and all, and the wind caught it, even brailed tight, and suddenly the ship’s motion was altogether different, smoother,
less choppy.

  Arete was next in line, and she followed Oinoe around in fine style, although her port side leaned so close to the surface in the turn that all decks must have taken water. Aboard Oinoe, the bulkhead pumps were manned already, and water flew high into the wind from all three pumps as men raised and lowered the handles – brave men, men who had to stand on the rail to work the wooden pumps.

  ‘Rowers stand down and close the oar ports,’ Satyrus said to Diokles, without taking his eyes from the ships following him.

  ‘We’re going to fight under sail,’ Diokles asked.

  ‘I don’t have a lot of fighting in mind, my friend,’ Satyrus answered. ‘I intend to run right down between their squadrons, and if you want to fire your engines, be my guest. But look, Diokles – what choice have they? Turn broadside to this wind to try and move to stop us?’

  They were passing Atlantae. Her inexperienced officers had made a mistake, and were turning on the spot rather than playing ‘follow the leader’ and turning in succession. The rowers were tired, and the volley of strange and unexpected orders had caught them out, and oars were flailing out of time. The ship crept around, took a big wave square on the flank and the whole ship shuddered.

  Someone up forward had climbed the foresail mast and cut the lashings on the sail – it spread with a crack that carried like lightning, and the ropes attached held. One blew out, but the rest merely strained and suddenly the head of the stricken ship came round like a restless horse turning under her rider.

  For whatever reason, Troy duplicated Atlantae’s movements and further confused the manoeuvre by turning to starboard rather than to port, so that she just missed falling foul of Atlantae, her bow shaving past Atlantae’s stern and her oars, by the luck of the gods, pulling in just at the point of closest approach.

  Diokles walked to the rail and threw his sword over the side, gold hilt, scabbard and all, the fruit of a whole season of fighting in the year that Satyrus and his sister had won their kingdoms. ‘Poseidon be with us!’ he called to the restless, red-hued sea.

  But they were around, all six of them. By the will of the gods, they were in two sloppy columns, with Oinoe and Arete following Plataea, while Troy was well to the west and slightly behind Atlantae and Marathon far astern, her confused navarch having tried to compromise between the two styles of turn. Now he was six stades behind.