Tyrant: Destroyer of Cities

by Christian Cameron

  But they were around. They had their sails up and the storm was under their sterns, the rising sea rolling in against the part of the ship designed to meet a Mediterranean storm.

  And dead ahead were the Antigonid ships. The badly executed turn meant that Satyrus’ ships were not a cohesive whole, but spread over several stades of sea. There was no possibility of communication or further manoeuvre, with the wind howling and screaming, the foresails blown into rock-hard bubbles of canvas in the bows, the steering oars thrumming like live things.

  ‘If we did ram . . .’ Satyrus said, and paused.

  Diokles’ eye grew wide. ‘We’d die. The bow would blow in. Lord, we’ve never moved a ship this size at this speed. We’re moving faster than a galloping horse.’

  Satyrus nodded. Perhaps. Perhaps not. At this speed, the ram might cut the enemy ship in half, breaking every strake – and they would sail on—

  Lunacy.

  Satyrus was grinning. ‘Smile, Diokles! This is going to work.’

  Diokles had to shout to be heard. ‘It is the best plan, given where we are,’ he said. ‘But it is not dark yet.’

  Satyrus got up on the rail and was soaked to the skin by the flying sea – even this far aft, spume rose off the crashing bow and soaked everyone. He missed his cloak. He couldn’t find the Antigonid ships for a moment, and then there they were – so close aboard he’d mistaken them for his own.

  Even as he looked, Neiron’s marines opened fire with their machines. Satyrus could see the bolts fly, black against the red-bronze sky, but they were far too small to see after the moment of launch.

  But the Antigonids – at least some of them – had decided to turn. Satyrus watched one of the lead penteres start its turn, oars coming out and moving, port side forward, starboard side reversed. It was well done, and the ship came about like an automaton, reversing its course with a professionalism that called for admiration.

  The second ship chose to drag oars and turn to port, and someone misunderstood the order and the port-side loom crashed in missed strokes, the whole rhythm lost as the ship lost way and wallowed in the trough of the last wave.

  The next wave, sweeping down from Africa, caught the oars first and threw them up, and men must have died as the oars were forced into the ship and off their thole pins, but it scarcely mattered because a heartbeat later the wave reached the hull and rolled it back, and someone forward let go of a corner of their brailed-up foresail – the whole sail was ripped from the hands of its crew and before Satyrus could blink, the ship was gone, turned turtle and sunk under the great wave that even now was under Oinoe’s counter. But the wreckage was still there, just under the surface, as was always true in a battle, and the first ship that had turned so bravely struck it with the whole weight of the storm behind her.

  And the Euxine squadron sailed on north, moving as fast as a herd of panicked horses on the Sea of Grass. They passed between the outstretched arms of the two Antigonid squadrons and sailed on for Cyprus.

  When Draco went to load the engine on the port side, Satyrus sent Helios to stop him. ‘Tell him that tonight we’re all sailors,’ he said.

  Draco came aft. ‘You’re too soft,’ he said. ‘One split foresail and they’re dead,’ he allowed, pointing at the nearest Antigonid trireme just a stade to port.

  ‘A thousand men just died,’ Satyrus said. ‘So far, Poseidon has preserved ours. Let’s let them go, and see if the god might let us go as well.’

  Draco nodded. ‘You’re soft,’ he said. ‘They’ll be wild to kill us in the morning.’

  Satyrus felt a gust full of sand sting his back.

  ‘Helios!’ he cried. ‘Another chlamys!’

  It was the longest night of Satyrus’ life. Or perhaps the second or third longest. Nights like that are incomparable – while you live them, they are eternal, and when they are over, there is little enough to remember but fear, blown sand, fear and wind, fear and water, fear and the sandy taste of hastily snatched wine.

  When the sun rose, it was never more than a white disc lost in flying sand. Satyrus had the presence of mind to order all the ropes on the foresail checked and replaced – the sand was wearing the lines.

  ‘Cheat west, if you feel you can steer to port at all,’ Satyrus said to the helmsman when there was light. The sand was everywhere. There were little drifts of sand in the bilges, and in his mouth. So much to worry about, and now he could add the worry that they might run right on Cyprus and he’d never know.

  Midday – he guessed – and the rain hit. It hit them like a fist, and a squall tore overhead, ripping the foresail clear off the pole and out into the sea, heeling them over so far that men fell off their benches.

  But Poseidon accepted their sacrifices and let them go, and they got the ship righted and wrestled another scrap of canvas onto the foremast and sailed on at the same nightmare pace into a second night. They were so short on water now that Diokles was sending wine around instead. That wouldn’t last long, and the sand made it worse. They got some water from the rain and drank it all, men laying their chitons out on deck, standing naked in the rain and dark, wringing the clothes nearly dry into their mouths, drinking three-day-old sweat, blood, urine and salt as well as water.

  The second dawn: for most of them, their fourth at sea without a rest, and this for rowers who were used to beaching every night to cook their food. The oarsmen were so hungry they could barely speak, and so dry that when they did open their mouths very little came out.

  Noon on the second day, and the wind began to develop fits and flaws and Satyrus thought it might be blowing itself out. The sand was gone from the air – blessed relief – and men emerged from their head wrappings to stare at the sun on a windblown sea. But the sea wasn’t finished with them yet, and in late afternoon the wind changed direction, turning back from south to north, grew colder and Satyrus put the oarsmen to their oars and turned the ship about again, guessing that he was three hundred stades south-south-west of Rhodes – which was now in the eye of the wind. It might have been funny if he hadn’t been so tired.

  He was so tired he didn’t even notice when he pissed over the side and it was yellow-brown rather than red. Helios did, however, and they laughed together like boys. Of such things are triumph made, when you are in your third day of a storm after a day of battle.

  But they made it through the night alive, although there were oarsmen who were beginning to feel the hunger in ugly ways, and Diokles put marines at the ladders just in case.

  Satyrus had the steering oars – Oinoe was tragically lacking in officers, having sent her best into Atlantae. At present, that looked like a poor decision, as they hadn’t seen another ship in three days.

  But an hour later, Satyrus saw Arete running south with mainsail and foresail set, ten stades off their starboard side, and he yelled and men cheered. Arete steered close and fell in under their stern.

  Just at full dark, they found Atlantae and Plataea rowing patiently into the wind. As soon as they saw who they’d found, the other two ships abandoned rowing, turned and raised their sails. The wind was dwindling to a comfortable roar, and Satyrus guessed his location, put his helm down and ordered the mainmast raised and the mainsail set.

  Dawn found all four running fast, the wind dead astern. Noon revealed Troy dismasted, wallowing in the waves but still afloat, and Satyrus put marines into her – there had been trouble – and Plataea emptied her stores for yards to rig a makeshift foresail mast.

  Twelve hours later, a marine killed an oarsman who attacked him to get his empty canteen.

  And an hour after that, the coast of Africa rose above the bow.

  14

  They landed on a beach a few stades west of Cyrene, a Greek city hundreds, if not thousands of stades west of Alexandria. Satyrus, usually a fine navigator, had lost his way utterly.

  Neiron was no better, and after a feast of slaughtered cattle and wine and fresh-flowing water, no man on any of the four ships seemed to feel that any er
ror had been made at all. They stood by their fires, watching the sea, looking for Marathon, and told each other how close they’d come to death, how narrowly they’d avoided capsizing, catastrophe – and then they hurried to expiate this sin by telling how very good a sailor Sarpax was, how unlikely he was to make a mistake.

  By a curious twist of time, the battle seemed to have happened long before, so long before that it felt odd to hold funeral pyres for the dead who hadn’t been bundled over the side in the hellish moments of the storm.

  Satyrus walked along the line of dead – mostly his own marines from Arete. Here was a man who had been at Gaza when they fought elephants. Here was a man who’d taken a wound at the Battle of Tanais. Dead, now. Dead for him.

  He had gold aboard his ships and he spent it like water, for a grave stele the size of an Aegyptian monument for his sailors and marines.

  There were three happy surprises – men he had counted as dead, and who lived. Charmides, the beautiful boy from Lesvos, would never be quite as beautiful, as he would always limp. But he was alive, and his smile raised Satyrus’ heart. And Anaxagoras, the musician, had taken four wounds and lived, and none had taken infection. He grinned at Satyrus.

  ‘It’s a miracle,’ Satyrus said, seeing the way a sword had stripped the flesh from the musician’s leg and side.

  Anaxagoras managed a smile. ‘I enjoyed it too much, I fear. You always pay in the morning for a good night.’

  ‘I suspect it will be a while before you teach me the lyre,’ Satyrus said.

  ‘As we’re both alive, at least it remains possible,’ Anaxagoras answered.

  And the brave young man who had covered Demetrios’ retreat was alive. Nechos had struck him with the butt of his spear, knocking him unconscious – he had recovered his wits in mid-storm, risen from the deck and helped to sheet home the foresail. Laertes, who had circles under his eyes like a debauched rich boy, came up with the man on his arm.

  ‘Clearchus of Crete,’ he said. ‘I promised we wouldn’t enslave him, lord. He’s been like an officer for me.’

  The man bowed. ‘Lord.’

  Satyrus felt no enmity for this grave man. He was past middle age, grey at his temples and in his beard. ‘Are you a mercenary?’ Satyrus asked.

  ‘No, lord.’ Clearchus shrugged. ‘I was a volunteer. I have served One-Eye since I was young – since just after the Great King died.’

  ‘You’ll want to go back to them, then,’ Satyrus said.

  ‘I doubt,’ the man said, and hesitated. ‘I doubt that I’m worth ransom. Lord.’

  Satyrus nodded. ‘Well, sometimes excellence must be its own reward – yours and ours. We’ll be going straight back to war, Clearchus – against your Demetrios, who even now must be recovering from the storm. So; walk up the beach and turn left. In a few stades you’ll come to Cyrene. You can find a merchant to take you to your people.’

  Clearchus bowed and stammered his thanks. Common soldiers were seldom rescued or released. They were usually sold as slaves – or slaughtered.

  Satyrus shook his head. ‘Wait.’ With Helios’ help, he sat and wrote a long note to Demetrios, who he addressed as ‘My Noble Adversary’. He praised the Cretan and said that he thought that, but for the man’s reckless bravery and loyalty, he, Demetrios, would have ended the action as a prisoner, or dead. That will anger him, Satyrus thought, but he didn’t see Demetrios the Golden as the kind of man who punished messengers.

  ‘Here’s a letter for Demetrios, and here’s a gold daric to see to it that you get there,’ Satyrus said. ‘Keep your arms.’

  Clearchus surprised him by bowing like a Persian and kissing his hand. ‘You are the deserving son of a godlike father,’ Clearchus said. At his throat, a blue bead gleamed – the same bead that Apollodorus wore.

  Satyrus was no longer sure that he loved the increasing deification of his father. But he smiled at the man until he turned with a salute and walked off up the beach.

  ‘That was a good act,’ Diokles said.

  ‘You’re too soft to live,’ Draco said.

  ‘You’re both right, more than likely,’ Satyrus said. ‘Now, before we make this a debate, let me issue some orders. I’ve paid the merchants here for six days’ provisions and we’re almost full on water. Are we ready for sea?’

  ‘When?’ Diokles asked.

  ‘At the rising of the sun,’ Satyrus said. ‘Even now, Demetrios and his admiral are just where we are – watching the sea for survivors, trying to get to sea. The first one to sea—’

  Diokles shook his head. ‘You’re mad!’ he said.

  Neiron appeared, back from a swim. A slave brought him a towel, and he dried himself at the fire while he drank wine. ‘He is mad, but he’s right, too.’

  Satyrus ran his fingers through his beard. ‘If Demetrios gets uncontested to the coast of Aegypt, Ptolemy is done.’

  Diokles shook his head. ‘Who gives a shit?’

  Satyrus wasn’t angry. It was odd how the last few days had focused him, but he wasn’t mad at Diokles’ usual intemperate disobedience, nor anything else. He could see what needed to be done, and he was going to do it.

  Satyrus finished the wine in his cup. ‘Diokles, I value your opinion, and when you find yourself king, you may do as you wish. Right now I intend to risk all of your lives to keep Aegypt independent of Antigonus One-Eye. Why? Is it for some magnificent end reason? Some moral that old Aristotle might admire? No, gentlemen. We are going to fight – and perhaps die – so that grain prices in the Euxine remain stable. So that foreign soldiers don’t come to our shores. Because we have an ally, and if he falls, we’re next.’ Satyrus gazed around at them in satisfaction. ‘I wouldn’t do it with any other team. You, gentlemen, are my team – even Gelon the fop and Apollodorus the martinet.’ The last named pair had just walked out of the approaching darkness. ‘I can well understand why a man might hesitate to give his life for the stability of Euxine grain prices, but friends – that’s what we’re fighting for. And if you don’t want to – well, Cyrene is right over there. In the morning, I’ll take this squadron and any other ships I can rally, and I’ll have a go at harrying Demetrios while he tries to support his father’s attack on Aegypt.’

  Diokles laughed. ‘Damn. That was well said, lord.’ He raised his cup. ‘For Euxine grain prices!’

  Gelon, the Syracusan, laughed. ‘To the grain!’ he said, and drank.

  The sun rose over a light chop and a brisk wind, and the orb itself was a red ball on the eastern horizon, but Satyrus already had all his ships on the water sailing downwind, due east, in line and abreast spread wide apart, sweeping for friends, for enemies, for news.

  The first ship they found was a friend, Ephesian Artemis, the Phoenician-built capture that Black Falcon had made north of Cyprus. Satyrus barely knew the man who had the command – Nikeas son of Draco of Pantecapaeaum, who had started the campaign as the assistant sailing master of the Black Falcon and now had his own command. According to him, neither Black Falcon nor Marathon nor Troy had been damaged in the fight at Cyprian Salamis, which was welcome news. The four ships had attempted to stay together in the rout, but Ptolemy’s fleeing navy had made any formation impossible.

  Ephesian Artemis had lost the others as soon as the sand began to blow. Her crew had rowed and rowed – rowed to total exhaustion, and then on for a few strokes more. They had spent a day almost in sight of Cyrene, but without enough strength left to row ashore. However, when they landed they’d eaten and drunk, and they’d just put to sea to look for friends. Such a coincidence was clearly heaven sent, and by nightfall every man was ready to make sacrifice.

  Of Black Falcon, Marathon, or Troy, on the other hand, there was no sign.

  In the second dawn they picked up a Ptolemy trireme. All marines and officers were dead, killed by the rowers, and some evil acts had been done aboard. Apollodorus crossed over with all of his marines, hanged a pair of men from the yard of the foremast, and Satyrus took all the rowers out of the ship and d
istributed them among his own ships and had Arete take the ship in tow.

  To the south, over Africa, there was another storm simmering. Satyrus beached for the night, exhorted all the rowers to redouble their efforts and the next day they reached Alexandria.

  As he expected and feared, the Royal Harbour was empty. He sent a boat ashore at Diodorus’ house, to tell Sappho that he would use the yard and to ask for news of Leon. Then he led his squadron into the moorings between the warehouses that he knew so well – the home of his adolescence, of his first love, of his first war. Just the smell of Alexandria was the smell of home.

  Leon’s harbour facilities were the finest on the ocean, because he was a rich man with a fine merchant fleet and he could afford the best. His factor was Nicodemus, and Satyrus embraced the man as an old friend.

  ‘Two fights and a storm,’ he said, by way of greeting. ‘I need a refit from stem to masthead, every ship – scraped clean, dried a day at least – the hulls are so heavy that the rowers would be hard put to make ramming speed if they were fresh.’

  Nicodemus bowed. ‘We are at your service,’ he said. ‘The more so as you are a paying customer.’

  Satyrus took the opportunity to unload the chests of gold and silver from Rhodes into the guarded basements below the Temple of Poseidon. He embraced the half-Aegyptian high priest, who had served with him in the first Antigonid war at Gaza.

  ‘Brother, I need men,’ he said. ‘I need everything – rowers, soldiers, officers. Ships, if your people have any hidden away.’

  ‘Alas,’ said the high priest of Poseidon. ‘Alas, we have no ships, or we might throw you Greeks into the sea and be a free people,’ he grimaced. ‘But in the meantime, you and Ptolemy are a far cry better than Antigonus. Rowers and marines I’ll find you; men who served with us at Gaza.’