Destroyer of Cities

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 error 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 distributed 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.’

Satyrus nodded. ‘We are, if anything, more desperate,’ he said. ‘Ptolemy lost the battle badly — so badly that I fear for the king himself.’

‘Fear not,’ said the priest. ‘Ptolemy lives, and he and his bodyguard ships are on the way — a rather circuitous way. They beached at Gaza four days ago, and the wind has been against them, and they’ve already had a skirmish with Demetrios.’

‘It must be nice to serve an all-knowing god,’ Satyrus said.

‘I wouldn’t know. I have a good intelligence service. And Old Gales and I exchange information. You should see him — he may have more recent news. Of course the public word is that the king won the battle.’

Sappho he embraced like a lost mother, and for a moment, wrapped in her arms, he didn’t think about cordage, iron darts for his bolt throwers, leather helmets for new marines, or dried bread. Or amphorae for his water supply. He just was.

‘My poor boy,’ Sappho said. She was older — he was startled to see how much four years had aged her.

And then he borrowed her enormous and well-oiled household to be the machine of his staff, and he used them to fill his ships with goods while the priests replaced his dead rowers and marines, and while he fully crewed his captured ships and the Aegyptian trireme that had mutinied.

In the royal yard were two triremes so heavily rotted that they’d been left behind. After two days and nights of work by daylight and torchlight by Aegyptian shipwrights promised eternal redemption by their priests, the two were barely seaworthy, with scratch crews officered by retired merchants from the town. Satyrus worked like a dog, but he sent messengers everywhere, and men came to him and he issued orders as if he were king — and was obeyed. Timber from the Levant, worth its weight in spices, donated by the Jews. Clay fire pots like the one he’d used on Demetrios’ flagship — every ship carried a dozen now, and sacks of charcoal to fill them, donated by the charcoal burners. Alexandria was a city that loved itself, and while many — most — affected to despise old Ptolemy, they fought for him — the best of many evils.

One of the first men to come to him in the yard was Dionysus — still beautiful, still given to wearing transparent wool chitons and expensive perfume. Despite which, Satyrus, covered in pitch soot from recaulking the Amon-Ra, embraced him.

‘I need a captain,’ he said.

Dionysus wrinkled his nose — whether at Satyrus’ rank sweat or the condition of the Amon-Ra was difficult to determine.

‘Not this,’ Satyrus said. ‘One of Ptolemy’s, out at the moorings — to the right of Arete. See her?’

‘Smaller than Wasp.’ Dionysus allowed his lisp to slip away when talking of ships.

‘Same as Wasp exactly. I think they must have come out of the same yard — Ephesus or Miletus, I suspect.’ Satyrus squeezed the young fop’s hand. ‘Come on, brother. Dump your social calendar and come to sea.’

‘But of course!’ Dionysus said. He pulled his India-made chiton — the value of four strong slaves — over his head and tossed it to his boy. ‘Get me a working chiton,’ he said to the boy. And set to work pitching seams.

Eight days after the defeat at Cyprian Salamis, despite the best efforts of storm and Antigonid, Satyrus got to sea with ten ships under his stern, as well crewed as could be managed. His crews were rested and his own precious hulls had enjoyed almost three full days out of the water.

He wished for the squadron he’d led from Tanais. In his wake were only four of his own ships — Oinoe, Plataea, Tanais and Wasp. Every other ship was a capture or a replacement. He was missing some of his best ships: Thetis, Nike and Ariadne, all quadremes, with engines mounted and fully trained rowers and heavy marine crews. Poseidon only knew where they were.

Diokles, of course, had Oinoe; Plataea and Tanais were commanded by the brothers from Syracuse, Anaxilaus and Gelon, and Wasp, the smallest trireme in his force and perhaps on the surface of the ocean, continued under her veteran commander, the oldest of the trierarchs, Sarpax. The Aegyptian ship that had murdered its navarch and marines he’d stripped and renamed Ramses to please her Aegyptian crewmen, and Dionysus had that ship and a crew of enthusiastic volunteers with very little seagoing experience. Amon-Ra and Asp he’d found rotting in the yard, and they had scratch crews of Aegyptians under untried trierarchs — Amon-Ra had her own captain of marines, with Apollodorus in command, and Asp had his oar master, Philaeus. Ephesian Artemis had survived the storm under Nikeas of Pantecapaeaum, and there could be few higher recommendations of a man’s competence. And Laertes had the mighty Atlantae by the same logic, although he now had a dozen junior officers chosen from among the best sailors on the Wasp and Oinoe.

He himself was back on the deck of Arete. With the exception of Neiron at his elbow, the officers were all new men; Arete had lost heavily in two actions and then given up still more officers to other ships. Neiron seemed untouched by the storms and battles, and the new men weren’t actually new — Satyrus had had all summer to learn their worth — or rather, eight days of constant action, which now seemed to stretch away like a full season of war.

Laertes, the bronze-lunged sailor who had replaced Stesagoras, who was himself now a trierarch, was replaced as sailing master by Jubal the African. Apollodorus chose Necho to command the marines. Andromachus of Athens was the number one oar, way forward under the bows on the starboard side, replacing Polycrates. Satyrus wasn’t sure that he knew the names of every sailor on the deck, but he knew most of them because he had stood with them by torchlight, splicing rope and hammering pegs into new decking in Leon’s yard, or he’d kept watches with them. Xherses, a Nemean, was as thick as a rock and had to be told to do everything with elaborate sign language, but he was strong and willing and the other men liked him. And Jubal — once Stesagoras’ nearly invisible third deck officer — was some form of North African or other — he had lost all of his teeth in a fight and had the habit of looking at Satyrus from under his eyes when talking, like a flirtatious flute girl. The combination of the averted glance, the missing teeth and the deep ritual scarring on his dark brown face left an indelible impression that was often mocked by the other sailors — but he had a quick wit, and he could navigate by the stars. Xiron — a big-bellied Corinthian — was the new oar master, promoted from the number one port-side position. He laughed a great deal, and made men sing, and yet was widely feared for his temper, a far cry from gentle Philaeus.

But for all the new officers, the crews themselves were no longer a collection of professionals who shared the cramped space of the black hulls. They were crews, for better and for worse. If they survived the summer, these men would sit in wine shops and brothels from Alexandria to Pantecapaeaum and nod, and say that there’s Jubal — he’s a mean son of a bitch, don’t cross him, mate. We shipped together under Satyrus, who was King of the North back then, see? And we got fucked in the arse by Demetrios — oh, but he shattered our line — but we served him out, didn’t we, mates? Aye, and burned his precious ten tiers of oars, set her afire, almost captured the sod. Our oar master — Stesagoras, and wasn’t he your uncle, young Leon? He died in that fight, roaring like a lion.

In every ship there had been the same process, so that Diokles had a better crew in Oinoe, and Sarpax in Wasp, than either had started the summer with. Every ship was different — every ship had her own personality, and some were better; Oinoe and Arete were as good or better than Rhodians, while Dionysus and his Ramses were doing well to row in a straight line. Amon Ra leaked like the proverbial sieve of Sisyphus.

And out over the horizon, north and east, was the enemy — two hundred or more ships, most of them heavier than his heaviest.

And perhaps a few of his own. Perhaps the king. Perhaps Leon.

Forward, by the mainmast, Jubal barked something and his few teeth glinted, and the men around him laughed.

‘Gaza,’ he said to Neiron.

‘Gaza,’ Neiron repeated.

And behind his right shoulder, the pillars of cloud were still simmering and brewing over the African desert like something brewed up by the God of the Jews.