Destroyer of Cities

19

DAY ONE

Satyrus was almost instantly asleep, despite the obvious disapproval of his caretakers. He was awakened by Miriam, with a cup of hot soup. The sun was high in the sky. Miriam’s dignity seemed, at first, a further reproach for his rashness of the night before, but Satyrus had spent enough time with her, asleep and awake, over the last month and a half of recovery to know her.

‘What’s the matter?’ he asked. Very unGreek. Greeks never admitted weakness.

‘You behaved like a boy last night,’ she said bitterly. ‘A rash boy. A foolish boy who must always try himself against every obstacle.’

Satyrus managed a smile. ‘I was just such a boy,’ he said.

‘Why? Why waste all the effort of so many people? Did you think your puny arm would save us all?’ She looked at him, but her eyes kept straying to the window.

Satyrus drank his soup. ‘I do not like being an invalid,’ he said.

‘Do you think it is pleasant, lying here while the town is threatened? Sending my friends to fight while I lie in bed?’ He shrugged. ‘May I tell you something, Miriam?’

Her eyes were out on the sea. ‘I have washed your body and listened to you rave. I don’t think there are any secrets that you have from me.’ She meant it to sting, and it did.

‘I might have a secret or two, yet,’ he said, trying not to rise to her. She was angry. He thought that he knew why, and he wanted to help her, but her armour was thick.

She tore her eyes away from the window, turned herself with visible effort to face him on the bed. ‘Surprise me, then.’

‘I’m a coward,’ he said.

She laughed. But that was an automatic reaction, the woman’s response to the man. It was false laughter.

‘No — it’s true. I think it is true of many men, and I’m just bitten worse than others by the snake of fear. I am afraid of so many things: death, betrayal, the loss of those close to me. But most of all, I am afraid of showing fear. Even to myself. I throw myself at things that scare me, and sometimes,’ he said with a smile, ‘they hit back.’

She narrowed her eyes. ‘Nicely put. But somehow, you have succeeded in sounding more noble rather than more like a small boy.’

He started to rise from the bed.

‘Satyrus, put those feet back in that bed this instant.’ She spoke at him, like an officer giving orders. Like a nurse giving directions to small children. ‘You must stop it, Satyrus. Neiron despairs of you. Abraham is sure you’ll die. And Satyrus, you don’t know it, but this town is already hanging by a thread. For myself, I would like to live — free, unraped, in my own house until I grow old, and you, sir, are my chief hope of surviving this — the famous soldier-king of the North. If you die in the streets fighting, your name may well be remembered for a generation, but my chances of ending my life in a brothel are greatly enhanced.’

Satyrus nodded. ‘You are afraid, Miriam.’

She narrowed her eyes. ‘Of course I’m afraid. Have you looked out there? Fine — get out of the bed. Be my guest. Look!’

While every armed man in the town stood to the walls and watched, Demetrios’ vast armada sailed unopposed past the harbour and down the coast, to land at the next curve of beach beyond the next headland — a handful of elite ships full of Argyraspides first, and then a full taxeis of pikemen who formed on the dry ground above the shingle. Psiloi splashed ashore to cover them, and then a full squadron of cavalry, the horses pushed over the sides of the horse transports to swim ashore where their equally wet riders waited, rode off into the low hills and spread out in a long line of vedettes to cover the initial landings. It was all very professional.

‘Some say a squadron of cavalry, and some a phalanx of infantry, and some a squadron of ships is the most beautiful,’ Satyrus said. He leaned against the sill of the window, warm in the Mediterranean sun.

She turned to look at him. She was suddenly very close — there was jasmine in her hair.

Both of them knew the next line of the poem perfectly well.

Satyrus made himself turn back to the window. ‘I can’t say that I’m happy to be in this town, or happy that any of my friends are here,’ he said. ‘We are Troy. Young Achilles there is determined to take us, and all of his father’s ambitions require our fall.’ He glanced at her. Her eyes were lowered — her cheeks had the faintest touch of pink, the way a new dawn brushes the grey sky at the break of day. He could feel the heat in his own face — and in other places, as well.

Miriam had none of Amastris’ sensual marvels; no one would write poems to Miriam stating that she was Aphrodite fallen to earth. Her nose had too much shape; her hair rose from her head in a cloud of red-brown curls that could never be ruled by the hand of man or woman, and she seldom dressed herself to best advantage, a thing Amastris did every day. But in the erectness of her carriage she ceded Amastris nothing, and in her chin and in her eyes was character — strength of purpose, depth of spirit. She could be stern.

All of this came at Satyrus rather like the band of Antigonid marines had the night before. He was helpless before a rush of observations, as he saw her all at once. And he felt the heat on his cheeks increase.

‘But,’ he managed, trying to keep his tone light, ‘for all that, with the gods, we’ll stand.’

She turned to him, and suddenly she was very close indeed, and he was unsure which of them had bridged the last handspan but now, without touching, he was close enough to feel the heat of her hip and her breasts and her face-

‘Good morning, lord,’ Korus said from the doorway. ‘Despoina, good morning.’

‘I have work to do,’ Miriam said. She didn’t whirl away, which Satyrus rather admired — he had flinched when Korus spoke. Instead, she looked up into his face and smiled. ‘Heal fast,’ she said. And then she smiled at Korus, who was as surprised as anyone, and left the room at her usual dignified pace.

‘I hear you went out last night and tried to fight,’ Korus said. Satyrus nodded.

‘You fucked in the head? Die like that, I’m still a fucking slave. You fight when I say.’ Korus shook his head. ‘Apollodorus says you were an athlete. That true?’

Satyrus shook his head. ‘I never competed anywhere. But I had a trainer, and I fought pankration.’

Korus grunted.

‘Something wrong with pankration, trainer?’ Satyrus asked. He was lifting the jumping weights already — Korus didn’t say anything unless he executed a movement incorrectly.

‘Fought in the game myself.’ Korus nodded. ‘Time to give you heavier weights.’ He pulled open a bag and took out two iron bars. ‘Let’s go down to the garden, lord. Time you let the sun kiss your skin.’

An hour later, Satyrus was all sweat.

‘You know you’ll never be the same, lord,’ Korus said. He had the grace to sound sad.

‘I wondered, yes,’ Satyrus admitted, and what he felt in his heart was something like grief. Like the loss of a good horse, or a friend. His body — his physique — kept him alive in battle. And caused men to follow him, to look at him as something special.

‘You spent your whole life building that body,’ Korus said, handing him a rock as effortlessly as he handed over leather straps. ‘It’s gone, and now I have a few weeks to rebuild it. It won’t be the same, lord. And when we start fighting — and that’s soon — you need to learn to fight differently. I’m going to wager you was one of the strong ones — kicked the shit out of weaker men by hammering the sword home until it kills. Now you need to fight smart.’

Satyrus nodded. ‘I think you may be surprised,’ he said. ‘But I take your point.’ The rock — about four mythemnoi in weight — fell to the ground by his hip, crunching the gravel.

‘Herakles,’ Satyrus said. The muscles in his left arm had simply stopped working.

‘Don’t let that happen again, lord. When you reach the point of failure you must stop. Understand? Tell me, and I’ll take the fucking rock.’

Satyrus nodded, extended a hand and Korus pulled him to his feet. ‘Get a rub-down and a nap, lord. I’ll send you up a meal. This afternoon, we go again.’

Satyrus could barely stand his muscles were so tired, but he was as hungry as a horse — the first time he could remember in months that he’d been burning to eat.

‘I could eat a lion,’ he said.

Korus gave a fraction of a smile. ‘About time.’

Afternoon, and he ran — up and down the street. Every citizen he saw was in armour, and while many laughed to see his emaciated figure running, more called out greetings. When he stopped to lean on his thighs and pant, a dozen men with Memnon, Aspasia’s husband, came up, shook his hand and thanked him.

‘Your man, Apollodorus, he saved the town. We all know who to thank — he told us you warned him. Zeus, lord, we have few enough soldiers in this town.’ The speaker was an older man, with grey in his hair but big and well proportioned, like an athlete.

‘Damophilus,’ Memnon said. ‘I don’t think you two have met. One of our best trierarchs.’

‘A pleasure, sir,’ Satyrus said, shaking the man’s hand again. ‘As far as I can say, every man in this town and most of the metics are well-armed, well-trained soldiers. I know that my friend Abraham the Jew has served — quite gallantly — at Gaza, and elsewhere. With me.’

Damophilus nodded. ‘Abraham we know. And yes — we’ve all seen service, Satyrus. But few of us have commanded in battle on land, or even seen a siege. I suspect that every man in this city has now read Aeneas Tacticus — but what’s written down-’

‘What’s written down is better than no advice at all. And it will be some time before I can stand in a breach and fight.’ Satyrus shook his head. ‘But I am a citizen here, even if only an honorary one — and I will serve. I’ll help in any way I can.’

‘Good man,’ Damophilus said. ‘So, what’s next?’

Satyrus was as confused as if Damophilus had struck him. ‘Next?’ he panted. Korus was leaning in a doorway, watching — his disapproval obvious.

‘You guessed that they would try an escalade,’ Damophilus said.

Satyrus stood up straight. ‘Anyone could have guessed that. But you have to ask yourself — what’s the weakest point in the circuit of the walls?’

Memnon nodded — the whole group nodded. ‘The curtain by the great tower on the landward side,’ they all chorused, although in different ways.

Satyrus scratched his chin. ‘I don’t agree,’ he said.

They all looked at him as if he was mad. Memnon raised an eyebrow. ‘Flat ground, almost no ditch-’

‘And a great tower full of artillery and Cretan archers within bow-shot — a tower that renders the curtain almost superfluous.’ Satyrus shrugged. ‘I’ve been sick, gentlemen, but I do look out from my bedroom and see things. My window’s right there,’ he raised his hand. ‘I can see out over the harbour. From the second floor. Because,’ he said dramatically, ‘the sea wall is unfinished. A man can climb it in a dozen places that I can see from my window.’

‘Nicanor is an idiote,’ Memnon said. ‘He’s blocking the inner council from spending any money on the sea wall. He says we need the money for grain.’

Satyrus laughed. ‘You have to be alive to eat,’ he said. ‘Look to the sea wall.’

The men all shook his hand again. It raised Satyrus’ spirits, to be accepted as one of them. To see that they were ready to resist; to be able to contribute.

‘Some people will do anything to avoid their workout,’ Korus said.

‘You live here too,’ Satyrus said.

‘I’m a slave,’ Korus said. ‘When I’m free, it may seem different. Right now, it’s all the same to me whether the town falls or not.’

Satyrus looked at the man. ‘Korus, I understand, and better than you can imagine, coming from a king to a slave. But you are wrong. If this city falls, you’ll die. No man escapes the sack of a city like this. Slave or free.’

‘Maybe I’ll just slip over the wall,’ Korus said.

Satyrus knew immediately that anger was not the right response. He ran another sprint, came back and spat. ‘Trading one kind of slavery for another,’ he said.

‘What’s that?’ Korus asked.

‘Slipping over the wall. And you’ll be building siege machines and digging trenches for Demetrios until you die, or until he takes the city. And then you’ll be sold.’

Korus smiled. It was the first smile Satyrus had seen on the man, and it wasn’t a pleasant smile. ‘You think I’m stupid,’ the man said.

‘No-’ Satyrus began, but the trainer interrupted him.

‘You think I’m stupid. You think I don’t know that Demetrios is no better — maybe worse? Fuck you, lord. I know. But when you’re a man like me, and they’ve made you a slave, you get to the point where any change is better — and when maybe seeing all the fucks who made you a slave die, in a sack, seems like a reward in itself. Lord.’ Korus stopped, and had the grace to look frightened for a moment — frightened that he had said so much.

Satyrus was too tired to argue. ‘They made you a slave? Here? What were you before — a pirate?’

Satyrus looked at the man. ‘You were a pirate, Korus? Oarsman? Marine?’

Korus spat. ‘Maybe,’ he grunted.

Korus glowered at him from under his heavy brows. ‘I’m a trainer. I was took off Sicily. I thought it was better to pull a fucking oar than to die.’ He shrugged. ‘It wasn’t a bad life.’ He shrugged again. ‘But the high-and-mighty Rhodians took us, and we was all sold as slaves.’

Satyrus felt as if his thighs and shoulders were about to refuse to support his bones. ‘And in a few weeks, you’ll be free. I need a trainer. Why not take what the gods offer? I can make you free — and comfortable. I’m a good friend to those who stand by me.’

Korus laughed. ‘Is that what they tell you?’ he said. ‘What I hear is that everyone who stands close to you dies.’

DAY TWO

When Satyrus awoke, every muscle in his body hurt. But for the first time in months, he awoke to the sun on his own time, without interruption, and he felt like rising. He threw off his blankets and rose, stretched, rubbed his shoulders and walked across to the windows that gave on to the harbour.

He could see right down the coast to the south. He could see fires flickering in the distance, towards Afandhi, and there were columns of smoke across the horizon. Satyrus walked out onto his balcony to have a better view, and then, thinking better of it, he climbed the ladder — not without pain — to the roof of his room, from which he had a panoramic view of the city.

Demetrios had already begun to fortify his camp. He was a very active commander — Satyrus already knew that, but if he’d needed more evidence, it was provided by the fact that in the first light of dawn, Demetrios’ whole cavalry force was in the field, well forward, almost within bowshot of the city, and behind them, covered by the armoured cavalry. Bands of men were cutting down every olive grove on the north end of the island, piling the trees and sending them by sledge to the camp, where other work parties were sharpening the branches and making them into a giant abatises, a sort of bramble entanglement that would surround the camp as a first line of defence. Within the abatises, as tiny as ants, more men dug into the loose soil and the rock under it with picks, and still more men wove giant baskets to hold the sand and soil, and yet more men filled those baskets with shovels, so that a line of earthworks reinforced by baskets made of olive rose over the ditch inside the felled trees.

The pace of the work, man for man, was agonisingly slow, as the soil was virtually non-existent over the rock. But taken as a whole, the pace was staggering — Demetrios must have enslaved the entire farm population of the island overnight, and his work parties would have his ships enclosed in a wall in two or three days.

But despite the activity of the men around the camp — the thousands of men around the camp — what drew Satyrus’ professional eye was the activity on the distant beach. He looked and looked, and couldn’t decide what he was seeing.

It dawned on him that he’d been on the roof for some time, and that he’d heard something-

‘Satyrus!’ came a call from below. It struck him that someone had been calling his name for a while.

‘Up here,’ he said.

Aspasia came out onto the balcony beneath him, a long Persian robe over her shoulders and her grey hair unbound on her back. ‘You frightened me, idiot boy. I thought you’d run off again.’ She motioned. ‘Come and have your medicine. Gracious gods, boy, you are naked.’

With some chagrin, Satyrus realised that he was, indeed, naked.

‘I’ve seen it all before,’ Aspasia said. ‘Come along.’

Satyrus climbed down, now painfully aware that he was climbing a ladder in the nude. Among Greeks, showing your body was allowed — welcomed, even — but only if that body was beautiful. Satyrus still felt like a bag of sticks.

‘How are you today?’ Aspasia asked. There was something in her tone that alerted him.

‘Tired. But. . solid, somehow. And I’m hungry.’ He smiled at her.

‘I’ve lowered your poppy to almost nothing,’ Aspasia said. ‘You haven’t craved it?’

Satyrus shrugged. ‘Is that why I hurt so much?’ He made a face. ‘I had thought it just fatigue — but now I remember it from before.’

‘You are doing well. You’re almost clear. I will resign you to Korus and go to my other patients: my husband, for one, will welcome my cold feet back into his bed. You are one of the greatest triumphs of my life as a doctor — and I will never understand just how you survived when I was certain that you had died. Do you remember it?’

‘No,’ he lied.

‘Well, it is a gift from the gods. Don’t squander it. I like to think you were sent back to deliver this city.’ She smiled. ‘At my age, I don’t have the fears other women do — if the city is falling, I can be gone from this body before the least indignity can be visited on me. But for the others — for my children, for girls like Miriam — they deserve to be saved.’

Satyrus took his medicines, emptying the clay vials one after another.

‘What are the odds, Satyrus?’ she asked.

‘Pretty bad,’ Satyrus said. He drank off the bitterest — a taste so strong he’d almost come to like it. ‘Demetrios is no fool. He’s very professional, and he can hire the best engineers and soldiers. He won’t make many mistakes.’ He made a face at the taste. ‘And I can’t save you. You can only save yourselves.’

‘Ourselves?’ Aspasia asked. ‘Does this look to you like a world women have made? Men made this — war and slavery and death as far as the eye can see.’

‘Women are no different,’ Satyrus said.

‘Women nurture. Men destroy,’ Aspasia said.

Satyrus laughed. ‘You really must meet my sister. Who I miss, and whose ungentle hand of destruction would stand this city in good stead. I don’t know if you are right or not, doctor. But I have seldom taken war to those who hadn’t already visited it on me. You want me — and men like me — to stand between you and the destruction of this town.’

‘Oh, you think I’m attacking you. And I am not, young king. It is my own husband — and many other men here — who I blame. We only reap the results of our own policies. Why make war on pirates who do not prey on us? Why support Ptolemy against Antigonus, instead of merely trading with both? So many decisions. . and now, here we are.’ She shrugged.

‘It is always thus, Despoina.’ Satyrus heard Korus’ heavy tread — he had to wonder if the man thought him a lewd satyr and now made a noise every time he approached. ‘War comes when men have made mistakes — or when men are so foolish as to want it, like inviting the Tyrant to rule your city.’

Aspasia nodded. ‘Do your best for us. That’s all I can ask. And. . Satyrus. I have eyes. Miriam-’

Satyrus made the same face he had made with the bitter medicine. ‘Miriam is not for me,’ he said.

‘Praise to the Cyprian that you know that. I thought that you did. How can you be so wise and so foolish?’ She asked.

Satyrus laughed. He kissed her hand. ‘Human, I think.’

Korus cleared his throat and came in. ‘Time to eat, then train,’ he said.

Noon, and a rest. Satyrus sent Helios to assemble all of his officers, and Abraham agreed to be present.

‘Starting tomorrow, we exercise at the gymnasium,’ Korus announced after he had run.

Satyrus raised an eyebrow. ‘For as long as there is a gymnasium,’ he said.

Korus pulled out a coarse linen towel and started to rub him down. ‘What the fuck you mean by that? Lord?’

Satyrus was face down on a kline by then. ‘I mean that the gymnasium will be one of the first buildings pulled down,’ he said. ‘This town will need building materials — ready-made. Dressed stone. Garden walls will only go so far.’

‘Ares,’ grunted Korus. ‘My livelihood.’

‘Come and work for me,’ Satyrus said.

‘Hunh,’ Korus grunted. ‘Getting some meat on your bones. Good for you. I’m that much closer to freedom.’

Exhausted, dressed like a gentleman for the first time in five months, Satyrus sat on a woman’s chair while Neiron, Abraham, Anaxagoras and Helios as well as Draco and Amyntas, last seen boarding the captured grain ships so long ago it seemed like a different lifetime, and Charmides, came in, led by Abraham’s slaves, embraced him and settled onto couches. There were other men, as well — men it lifted his heart to see. Sandakes, the handsome Ionian, all but glistened with oil. He commanded Marathon, last seen vanishing into the storm wrack off Cyprian Salamis, the night of the lost battle. And Daedelus of Halicanarssus was there. He was not, strictly speaking, one of Satyrus’ men, but a mercenary captain with his own ship, the big penteres Glory of Demeter. Satyrus embraced them both. With them were three of his other captains — men he knew well enough; Sator, son of Nestor of Olbia who had Thetis, one of his best quadremes; Xiphos the Younger, also of Olbia, a former slave who had fought his way up to the position of trierarch — a crude man and hard to like, tall, stooped and scarred, but a dependable captain, commanding Nike; and Aristos the Lame, another Athenian gentleman fallen on hard times. His wooden foot and leg gave him his name, and the constant pain they brought him fuelled his infamously bad temper. He had Ariadne.

‘I can’t tell you how heartened I am to see all of you,’ Satyrus said.

Neiron gave him a hard smile. ‘Good to know we have a few ships left,’ he said.

Satyrus refused to be bowed. ‘Yes, it is. Daedelus — what in Tartarus are you doing here?’

‘Heard you were hiring. I picked up some prizes, brought them here to sell — I was cruising the pirates — independently, you might say.’ He smiled. It wasn’t a pleasant smile. ‘The storms caught me here in autumn, and the blockade sealed me in.’

Satyrus smiled at Sandakes. ‘I missed you. We had a few fights off Aegypt.’

Sandakes returned his smile. ‘I heard that it might have been best for me and my crew that we missed the second storm — the first blew us west of Sicily, lord. It took us a month to beat back — I went all the way down to Africa because the rumour is that Athens is actively supporting Demetrios, and her fleet is on the sea.’ He shrugged. ‘We came in here after you — you were already flat on your back, and Neiron ordered me to stay.’

Satyrus looked at his other captains, all three of whom had been missing since the fight with the pirates off Cos. They all shrugged. ‘Lord, we went to the rendezvous and then the storms caught us.’ Xiphos was more belligerent. ‘You suggesting we’ve done something wrong? Eh?’

Satyrus wasn’t offended — far from it; the sight of them made him feel better than he had in days. The sound of Xiphos’ hard voice made him feel better than he had in weeks.

‘Not at all. I’m delighted that you have preserved your commands — it raises my hopes that some other ships might have been saved.’ He glared at Neiron, who glared back. Then he swept them all with his eyes.

‘Korus!’ Charmides called out into the silence, and then blushed. He clearly hadn’t meant to be heard.

‘How’s the leg?’ The trainer asked.

‘The better for your work. I’d like to do more. Do you have time?’ he asked.

Satyrus smiled. ‘I seem to own all of his time, Charmides. But if you’ll share, I will.’

‘He’s wonderful,’ Charmides proclaimed with the enthusiasm of youth. ‘Saved the muscle of my leg after the wound.’

‘He’s certainly effective,’ Satyrus said. ‘Gentlemen, allow me to call you to order. Ship states — Neiron?’

Neiron had a wax slate in his hands. ‘I could have given you all this,’ he said.

‘I’m sure you could — I’m sure you are an excellent navarch. I want to do it this way. Humour me.’

Neiron exhaled strongly. ‘Arete is in most respects ready for sea. We’re twenty-four oarsmen short. Full load of water in the jars, full load of oil. Can’t say the Rhodians haven’t been gracious. Bolts for the artillery. I’d like to make up the oarsmen and the deck crew, and you know as well as I that we’re very short on officers.’

Satyrus nodded. He went around the room. ‘Daedelus? You with us?’

The mercenary smiled. ‘You paying?’ he asked. Satyrus grimaced. ‘Yes.’

Daedelus nodded. ‘Then I’m yours.’

In general, their reports were the same — they’d had the winter to refit, at least before the blockade tightened, and aside from manning, all of them were fully supplied, fully armed — in most cases, in better shape than when they’d left the Euxine almost a year before.

‘Apollodorus, how many marines do we have?’ Satyrus asked.

Apollodorus indicated Draco, who stood. ‘One hundred and fifty-eight of our own, lord. Lord Daedelus had been kind enough to train his men with ours this winter — another thirty-eight. Given the rumours of the coming siege, and the town offering, we’ve acquired a great deal of new armour, and have practised fighting in it — leg armour, bronze-plate cuirasses. And lots of practice on the engines.’ He nodded. ‘With the officers in armour, I can put two hundred armoured men on the walls.’

‘What’s the garrison?’ Satyrus asked. ‘How many hoplites can the citizens provide?’

Apollodorus winced and looked at Abraham.

Abraham shrugged expansively. ‘Fewer than six thousand, with every metic and every thetes in the town armoured and standing on the wall. The town is offering many of us citizenship — I’ve accepted. Memnon and Panther are asking the boule to free the able-bodied slaves, arm them and make them hoplites.’

Satyrus nodded. Other cities did the same. The casualties would open huge holes in the male population. ‘And?’ he asked.

Abraham made a face. ‘Things aren’t bad enough yet. The oligarchs believe we’ll negotiate a settlement — they don’t want to make unnecessary changes.’ Abraham all but spat as he said the words.

Apollodorus shook his head. ‘We’re fucking doomed,’ he said.

Daedelus smiled. ‘Can I withdraw from our contract, lord? We haven’t been paid yet.’

Xiphos rose to his feet. ‘Fuck that. Lord — I’m your man, hilt and blade. But we have five. . six good ships. Give us a dark night and a fair wind and we’re gone, and none of Demetrios’ lubberly captains can stop us. Why die here, like a fox trapped in her earth? Let’s get back to Tanais — to Olbia.’

Satyrus looked around. Sandakes kept his council — he was an aristocrat born and bred, and he had the training to keep his thoughts hidden — but it was plain that he agreed. Neiron looked away. Draco grinned and looked at his lover, Amyntas. Amyntas shrugged.

‘Famous fight,’ Amyntas said. ‘Men say it’s the biggest siege since Troy.’ He grinned at Draco — an impudent, boyish grin that looked odd on a fifty-year-old man. ‘I’d like the glory — one more time.’

‘You’re mad,’ Draco said. ‘Sieges aren’t glorious — it’s all dirt and dust and choking smoke and disease.’

Satyrus nodded. ‘Let’s put the discussion on cutting and running on hold,’ he said. ‘I’m not against discussing it, but I want all the news first. I’ve missed five months of my life — I didn’t even realise that half of you were here. Abraham — you’re the merchant prince. You collect news. How strong is Demetrios? And what of the rest of the world — Athens? Tanais? Alexandria?’

Abraham gestured and Miriam entered, dressed beautifully in the Greek fashion, her long legs barely covered by transparent wool. Behind her were twenty slaves, paired males and females, with platters of barley bread, spiced chicken in the African manner and wine — quite a bit of wine. She stood among them, moving from couch to couch, making every man feel at home. Satyrus noticed how Amyntas, who disliked women as a matter of manliness, smiled at a joke she was telling him. Draco had a rough chivalry that she employed to shift a table. Xiphos she disarmed — Satyrus couldn’t see what she said, but the brutal fighter grinned like a boy and blushed. Anaxagoras rose to help her, stood by her elbow as she gave the slaves orders like a general, and then went to a corner of the room to sit in a chair and take up his kithara. Then she went and sat by him, almost at his feet, and Satyrus suddenly saw that they were close — quite close. The way they sat showed a long intimacy — of course, they were both musicians, and they had been together five months.

He was overcome with unaccustomed jealousy — a feeling he scarcely recognised and immediately loathed. Anaxagoras was a gentleman of means, an honourable man, unwed, a legitimate match for the sister of a citizen of Alexandria and Rhodes, a rich man with twenty ships.

They began to play, and the sound of music changed the gathering. Xiphos might have made a comment — he spurned what he called the ‘fake graces’ of the gentlemen captains — but Miriam had disarmed him already, and instead he listened, caught in the web the two instruments spun, and he was not alone. Daedelus played — Satyrus remembered it from beaches across the Ionian sea — and his fingers moved in sympathy, as if he desired to play himself, and certainly Sandakes felt the same.

They drank wine, ate their spiced chicken and their barley rolls, and the music died away to laughter and applause.

‘Soon enough we’ll have neither barley nor chicken,’ Neiron said.

‘You are the very life of the party, aren’t you, Neiron,’ Satyrus said.

‘I think-’ Neiron began.

‘Shut up,’ Satyrus said. He was human enough to allow the bile created by his jealousy to flow out over Neiron, and he regretted it, but on another level, the man had it coming. ‘Either you are one of my captains, or you are not. I am absolutely sure you did a fine job commanding in my absence. You think me ungrateful? You do me another disservice. I am not. But by the gods, Neiron, I made the decision I had to make — as I have in the past. I am deeply sorry men died. Men I loved. Dionysus!’ For a moment, Satyrus choked on his emotion and he was ashamed of the outburst, but hardly anyone was listening except Neiron, who looked as if he’d been struck by lightning, white-faced on his couch, and Miriam, who happened to be pouring him wine. ‘Zeus Sator! Herakles, my ancestor — you think I am careless? I am not. But now I am in command. These men — and this town — need heart. Soul. Passion. Belief. Not carping and short answers.’

Neiron stirred — and Miriam vanished, fully aware she should not have heard any of this.

‘I think that you were wrong to take us to sea in the second storm,’ he said. But then he shook his head. ‘But you are king, not I. I apologise for my attitude, lord.’

Satyrus took a deep breath. ‘Thank the gods, Neiron. I couldn’t win here without you. But I need you willing, and not doubting my every thought because I’m rash.’

Satyrus smiled at the other men — they’d mostly noticed that something was happening, but Anaxagoras had intercepted their stares with a bawdy story that made Miriam blush as she arranged her slaves, and caused Aristos to roar and shake with laughter.

‘Finish up,’ Satyrus said. ‘We need to hear from Abraham.’

The men settled down. The double file of slaves swept in again, collected everything — down to the last crumb — with an efficiency that bespoke good training and some elan, rare in slaves, and swept out again.

Abraham cleared his throat. ‘You play beautifully, Anaxagoras. I have seldom heard the like.’

Other men joined him in praise.

The musician bowed. ‘All praise is sweet. Your sister has a unique talent — few women are so accomplished.’

‘Few receive the training. My father said it was the best way to shut her up. She has quite a mind.’ Abraham smiled, and Anaxagoras smiled back.

It is all arranged, Satyrus thought. I should be pleased. Why am I not pleased?

‘At any rate,’ Abraham went on, ‘let us look at the world.’ He went to stand alone in the centre of the circle of couches. ‘Of Tanais, Pantecapaeaum and Olbia I know little — but the little I hear is not bad. Your sister is not returned to Tanais — not yet returned from her journey east. So much I heard from Leon’s factor in Alexandria.’ He glanced around and shrugged. ‘This news is no better. Dionysus of Heraklea is dead — he died just four weeks ago.’ That got everyone’s attention: small news in the big world, but mighty news for the men from the Euxine. ‘Amastris is now queen.’

Satyrus felt a qualm. ‘And I am here.’

‘So you are,’ Abraham said. ‘Amastris has sent five ships to support Demetrios.’

Satyrus nodded. ‘She has to. Her father had a treaty.’

Abraham raised an eyebrow and moved on. ‘Ptolemy is alive. He retains control of Aegypt. I had a bird today from the mainland — and may the messenger still be alive who sent it. Ptolemy is preparing an armament, to come here. And Leon is alive, and at Alexandria.’

‘Praise the gods,’ Satyrus said, and many of the officers echoed him.

‘I only received as much news as would fit on a piece of papyrus as small as Miriam’s hand,’ Abraham said. ‘But it is less bad than it might have been. If we can hold — even for a few months — Ptolemy will come.’

‘Ptolemy has never won a naval battle with Demetrios,’ Neiron said.

‘Ptolemy has never fought supported by Rhodes,’ Sandakes added.

Satyrus ran his fingers through his beard. ‘Well. Since you are so well informed, how stands Demetrios?’

Abraham laughed. ‘Forty thousand soldiers, twenty thousand slaves, two hundred thousand oarsmen.’ He made a wry face and provided them with an elaborate shrug like a Greek mime in the theatre.

‘Can he feed them?’ Xiphos asked.

‘Has to be his weakest point,’ Satyrus said.

Aristos winced — everything hurt the man — and put his wooden foot down on the floor with a thump. ‘We’re better at sea,’ he said.

Satyrus nodded at Abraham, who sat, and Satyrus stood up.

‘I’ve had some months to do little but think,’ he said. That got a chuckle. ‘I want the option to cut and run — I won’t fool you gentlemen. I’m King of the Bosporus, not the King of Rhodes, and behind closed doors, I don’t intend to die here. I agree with what I see on all of your faces — we can vanish on any moonless night. I’ll be cocky — we don’t even need a moonless night to vanish, do we? I suspect we could beat anything they could chase us with.’ He looked around. ‘But if we can help save this town, we will. First, because I’m a rash bastard and I promised.’ He grinned at Neiron, who winced. ‘Second, because all of us — even me — serve the people of the Euxine. All our grain comes through this city, and much of it is sold through the very merchants we’re trying to defend. The loss of Rhodes would make us much poorer, gentlemen. And when Aegypt falls, Antigonus will turn his piggy eyes north.’

They were nodding. He had a headache — his fatigue had reached the state where his stomach felt like a vat of acid — but he had them.

‘With Panther’s permission, I want to send you to sea — tomorrow night, if we can do it. Commence raiding. Don’t bother to fight Demetrios’ warships. Just take the grain ships — and, of course, bring them here.’ He looked around. ‘Let me predict the future for you, friends. In a week, maybe more, Demetrios will make a grab at the harbour wall. I don’t want my ships to be here because, win or lose, that harbour is going up in flames.’

He looked around. ‘And finally, Apollodorus, I’ll be keeping half the marines. The best. You choose them and stay with them.’ He looked at the small man. ‘How’s the digging?’ he asked.

Apollodorus nodded. ‘Nowhere near complete.’

‘Well, it was just a thought. We’ll rotate oarsmen through it when ships are in port. I’ll send to Panther and tell him what we intend. Any comments?’

Daedelus raised a hand. ‘Easy to get out — once. I agree. Getting in? Not as easy.’

Satyrus nodded. ‘Point taken. That’s why you get paid so much.’

‘And the second time will be harder, and the third time harder still. Surely Demetrios will try to build a close blockade.’ Daedelus gave a sweep of his hand to indicate the harbour.

Satyrus smiled. ‘It’s one of the biggest problems facing him,’ Satyrus said after a pause. ‘The harbour is huge — a double harbour, two different entrances, the mole, the wharf and the northern sea gate on the open beach — he has to cover three wind directions and twenty stades of sea wall, and I don’t think he can do it — not if Leon and Ptolemy start threatening him so that he has to put a squadron to sea to cover them. There’s no obvious way to stopper up Rhodes. He can’t just sink ships across the entrance. There’s no really good upwind port like Alexander had at Tyre. At any rate, gentlemen, let’s show the Rhodians how to run the blockade. And every ship you take is grain out of their mouths, and into ours. He has a lot more mouths to feed than we have. And Apollo’s deadly shafts fall on besiegers and besieged alike. Dysentery, plague, the fever I got in Aegypt — one epidemic and Demetrios is finished. Pray for luck. Pray to Apollo. And get us some food.’

‘It’s about the grain,’ Charmides laughed. ‘That line should be in Homer.’

DAY THREE

Exercise. Eat. Plan. Sleep. Eat. Plan. Exercise.

Another day.

Night on the great wharf — and no torches.

‘We need to build the harbour walls so tall that no one can see in,’ Panther muttered. ‘For moments like this one.’

Five Rhodian warships were going to sea with Satyrus’ ships. One by one his captains — men he’d been so happy to have back — shook his hand and boarded their ships. Neiron was last, and Satyrus embraced him, hugging him close. Tried to tell him with an embrace how much he valued the old mariner.

Neiron had the most difficult mission of all, because he was viewed as having the best ship. At dawn, he would sweep down the beach past Demetrios, risking interception and capture to have a look at what was going on behind the enemy’s new camp walls. Arete was the mightiest of the ships in the port, and fast — the most likely to survive a dawn patrol along the enemy beach. Charmides was going with the ship — his mission, just as difficult and dangerous — was to re-enter the city from the south, disguised as a slave, with the report.

And then, when the moon set, they slipped away, only a handful of oarsmen rowing until they were near the harbour mouth, and then the oars would go, all together, unfolding like the wings of swift swallows, shining against the night, and they were away.

All ten ships slipped away into the darkness, and there were no answering shouts from the enemy sentries.

The harbour seemed empty in the not-so-dark darkness.

And then Satyrus went to sleep.

He was awakened by Helios. Dawn was pale outside — Helios looked like a ghost.

‘Time, lord. Neiron will be making his run at the beach.’ Helios had an oil lamp in his hand, and hot oil spilled on Satyrus’ shoulder. He yelped.

‘Watch yourself, youngster!’ he said. ‘Do I look like Eros?’

Helios laughed and helped his lord into a simple chiton, and then they climbed the tower together.

Satyrus could see the line of dawn, but not much else, and not a sail nicked the horizon that he could see.

Noise below — first in the courtyard, then on his balcony, and then Abraham appeared, followed by Anaxagoras and Miriam. She looked very beautiful in the first flush of dawn.

‘You all right?’ Anaxagoras asked him. He was a social man, and he could tell that something was amiss.

‘I’d rather be doing it than watching,’ Satyrus said. He was quite proud of his answer, because it was a perfect dissimulation. He was telling the truth — just not the truth about why, suddenly, he was cold to the music teacher.

Abraham put a hand on his shoulder.

Miriam smiled. ‘May I stay?’ she asked.

Satyrus couldn’t muster even a shred of coldness. ‘Of course,’ he said. She sat close to him — between him and Anaxagoras, in fact. It was chilly.

You are in a bad way, Satyrus thought to himself. You need to go and offer sacrifice to Aphrodite — and perhaps find a nice pliable slave-girl, too. Neiron is about to risk your ship, your crew and your friends — and you are angered by where this girl sits.

The worst of it was that he knew — knew very well, in his heart — that he wasn’t training like a madman for the noble purpose of saving Rhodes, but for a much simpler reason.

When Miriam and Anaxagoras were comfortably distant — say, downstairs — he could see how much they suited one another. And he was going to marry Amastris — any day. Amastris was her own mistress now, Queen of Heraklea, and together, they would rule the Euxine. He could remember the swell of her breasts; the line of hair that ran up her thigh into her groin, the smell of the nape of her neck-

So different from the woman next to him.

‘There he is!’ Helios said.

They all stood up together, like spectators at a horse race.

Satyrus hadn’t even been looking in the right place. Neiron had used the night brilliantly. He was approaching from the south, sails down, masts down, moving quite fast, right along the beach.

Even on the rooftop overlooking the harbour of Rhodes, the enemy camp was less than six stades away — close enough to hear the sudden hum of activity, hear the screams — and see the tongue of fire that shot out of the dead ground invisible to them.

And then nothing: except that they could see Demetrios’ army stand to. Men poured from tents, not even ants at this distance, more of an impression of men than palpable men, and they mounted the new walls and poured into the fields.

Ships were launching, all along the beach.

In the enemy camp, something went up with a whoosh, as if a god had taken a deep breath and coughed. A column of flame reached to the clouds.

Nothing. Just waiting.

More waiting, except that men were shouting all along the enemy camp. The enemy cavalry emerged, and cantered out into the scrub to the south.

‘Gods send that they are not already tracking Charmides,’ Satyrus said.

Now the camp seemed to descend into chaos, and more ships were launching — indeed, it seemed as if the entire enemy line of ships was moving, and then Arete emerged from the smoke, the flames and the dead ground, still moving at a racing pace right along the beach, and she was suddenly close, less than two stades distant, and even as they watched, all her port-side machines fired together and a hail of lethal iron flew into a half-formed infantry unit standing by the beach, and their screams carried the most clearly of all as they were flayed off the beach the way fat is flayed off a stretched hide when the tanner starts his work.

Now there were Rhodians on every wall and tower, and they were cheering the way people cheer for a great runner as he nears the finish, and Arete passed the sea tower at speed, already dragging his oars on the port side, and suddenly the great ship turned like a dancer turns as the music doubles the tempo — turned and darted into the harbour.

‘That wasn’t the plan,’ Helios said, with the inexperience of youth.

Anaxagoras caught Satyrus’ eye — no longer a rival, just a staff officer. ‘Shall I go, lord?’ he asked.

Satyrus shook his head.

‘I can only expect he saw something too important to leave to

Charmides,’ he said. ‘Let’s run — he’ll want to be away.’

They ran to the port — even Miriam, running on her long legs like a maiden runs in the Artemisian Games — but it was too late. By the time they reached the port, there were fifty triremes just outside, and two floating upside down where they had dared to test the range of the sea tower’s artillery and been destroyed.

Arete entered the harbour at racing speed and slowed on his oars, the men putting their backs into holding the water, and the great ship slowed, Neiron piloting him brilliantly — he made the turn under the Temple of Poseidon and brought the great ship close in to the beach, almost at Satyrus’ feet.

He jumped straight from the helm to the wharf. ‘Too important to leave to Charmides,’ he said.

Panther came running up, with Memnon, Damophilus and thirty other leading Rhodians. Nicanor was there, already proclaiming that they were provoking Demetrios.

‘Wait — tell us all at once,’ Satyrus said. Miriam was leaning against him — very slightly, but the pressure was real. Anaxagoras was already aboard Arete.

Satyrus smiled.

When most of the boule was assembled, Neiron looked out of the harbour. ‘He’s built a dozen double ships,’ he said. ‘Two big hulls — they look like penteres to me, lord, as big as our Arete. Decked between the hulls, with massive engines — Zeus, I’ve never seen anything like this.’

‘How big are the bolts, do you think?’ Memnon asked.

‘No bolts,’ Charmides said. ‘Baskets. They aren’t bolt-throwers like ours. Different design entirely. Here, I drew it.’ He handed round a sketch, and the waiting men shook their heads.

Anaxagoras was back. He looked over Charmides’ shoulder. ‘Counter-weight.’

Sandakes agreed. ‘Lord, you’ve never been to Sicily. The old tyrant there loved the things. They can throw a stone — a thirty-mina stone. Even a talent. Even five talents, although not very far.’

‘By Hephaestos!’ Panther declared. ‘Ten double hulls, each the size of a penteres, carrying one of these great engines?’

Charmides shook his head, curls flying in all directions. ‘Five engines on every platform.’ He grinned. ‘But only nine platforms.’

Neiron allowed himself a satisfied smile. ‘We put fire into one. And there was something on their wharf — they have built a wharf.’ His smile widened. ‘They won’t store oil there any more.’ He grinned. ‘And the wharf itself is gone.’

Panther raised his arms. ‘That was a great deed — under the eyes of every man in the city.’

‘A deed which will only provoke King Demetrios further,’ Nicanor said.

Ignoring him, Panther went on, ‘But despite your best efforts, you tell us that he has forty-five engines that can throw a talent each — on ships.’

That silenced everyone.

‘They’re coming for the sea wall,’ Satyrus said. ‘Short and sweet — bombardment, and then a rush. Demetrios means to take the city in one attack. As befits a god.’