Force of Kings

Prologue

It should have been the day of his greatest triumph.

Stratokles was dressed in his very best — a chiton with flames of Tyrian red licking up the shining white wool from the hems, themselves so thick with embroidery that the gold pins that held it together were difficult to push through the cloth. Over his shoulder hung a chlamys of pure red-purple, embroidered in gold, and on his brow sat a diadem of gold and red-purple amethysts, worth the value of a heavy penteres all by itself, without reckoning the other accoutrements he wore — gold sandals with gold buckles, gold mountings on the dagger under his armpit, gold rings on his fingers.

The extravagance of his costume was matched — or exceeded — by every other person in the temple of Hera. Despite being Herakles’ foe, Hera was well represented at Heraklea, and her temple shone with white marble columns and magnificently painted statues. The vault of the portico had inlaid panels of lapis with bands of hammered gold around every panel, so that the recessed coffers seemed to radiate light. Cunning engines — engines that Stratokles had devised himself — allowed alternating coffers to be opened or shut, allowing rays of the sun to fall straight to the temple’s polished, inlaid floor.

And standing on that floor were the guests; the wedding party of the bridegroom. They stood in shadow, carefully arranged by Stratokles with due concern for precedence. They represented a dramatic shift in policy and five tense months of desperate diplomacy; Stratokles had had to sail a stolen warship through Demetrios’s siege lines at Rhodes, and later he’d had to ride across Greece with his mistress, Amastris, Queen of Heraklea, in his arms.

But he’d pulled it off, and the reward stood at the head of the procession. Lysimachos, Satrap of Thrace. Soon to be King of Thrace. One of the leading players in the war for Alexander’s empire — a near neighbour, and a dangerous professional soldier with all the resources of the Thracian silver mines and the Thracian war-tribes at his back. And at his back, Cassander, King of Macedon, still, despite the best efforts of Antigonus and his son Demetrios, the lord of most of Greece. And just behind him, Amyntas, brother of Ptolemy of Aegypt. And behind him, resplendent in purple and gold, stood Seleucus’s brother Philip of Babylon. Together, the four men represented the alliance that faced Antigonus, lord of Asia, and his son, Demetrios the besieger. Stratokles had arranged to bring them all here, to Heraklea, to celebrate the marriage of his carefully fostered pupil, Amastris, who stood almost alone in a shaft of golden sunlight that he had carefully arranged to fall like the benison of heaven on her golden head. She looked like Aphrodite come to earth, dressed in a long chiton of shining gold embroidery over linen so fine that the sun shone straight through it. And Amastris had the body to bear the scrutiny of the most critical of men.

And the mind to use that body as she needed, to accomplish what she desired for the good of her city, and her own power.

Stratokles watched her with approval — approval and a distant tinge of desire. He’d loved her from their first meeting, but the years had mellowed his love into a kind of golden servitude. She rewarded him with trust and a thorough practice of the principles he instilled. And money. Stratokles was now a very rich man.

It should have been the day of his greatest triumph.

But the woman standing at Cassander’s elbow was not his wife, Penelope. Nor the woman most Macedonians accepted as his mistress: Euridyke of Athens. The woman on his arm was a courtesan named Phiale, and when her downcast eyes flicked up to touch Stratokles’ eyes, it was like the lightest possible cut from a razor-sharp xiphos at the start of a fight.

Stratokles had used Phiale — years before — in a failed plot to assassinate Ptolemy of Aegypt. The irony — and this wedding was full of historic irony — was that Stratokles had undertaken the assassination of Ptolemy at Cassander’s behest, to win favours for Stratokles’ beloved home city, Athens.

But the world had turned, and Cassander and Ptolemy needed each other against the power of Antigonus.

Stratokles struggled to remember how he had used Phiale and whether she had cause to hold it against him as he crossed the floor to her. He had warned her to leave Alexandria — that Leon the Numidian would certainly catch on to her eventually.

Why, then, did she look at him with such hate? Odd. But Stratokles had long since learned to attack a dangerous opponent and never leave one behind him, so he crossed the floor to her in a few strides, noting the averted glances of the courtiers around her.

‘Phiale?’ he said.

Cassander had stepped away from her to speak to Philip of Babylon and an older man by his side.

‘Stratokles the Informer,’ she breathed huskily. ‘What a pleasure to see you.’

Her eyes, carefully controlled, stroked him. There was no message of hate now. A far different message.

Stratokles stroked his beard. ‘We were friends, once,’ he said.

She laughed and put an arm on his. ‘Oh, my dear, we are still friends. What do you hear of Satyrus of Tanais?’

He noticed that her glance sharpened back into a sword when she said the name.

‘He remains something like a force of nature. Beloved of the gods.’ He managed a smile — there was something wrong, something he couldn’t pin down, something to do with someone he had just seen and the absence of men seeking his good will. He was isolated in the middle of his own party. And Phiale knew something.

Stratokles didn’t turn his head — but he managed to glance to his left, where the guards were. Plenty of them, good men — most men he’d picked himself. He rubbed his chin, flipped his cloak over his shoulder, and turned back to Phiale as if everything was fine.

‘Although,’ he said somewhat at random, ‘Satyrus is harmless enough,’ and saw her flush.

‘Really?’ she asked. ‘Last time you and I were friends, you wanted him dead.’

‘That is the way of politics, isn’t it? And may I say how very beautiful you are?’ Stratokles smiled at her.

She returned the smile, but it didn’t touch the tiny lines at the edges of her eyes. ‘You didn’t used to be so easy about Satyrus,’ she said.

Stratokles smiled, his eyes still scanning the room over her head. What in Tartarus had happened? Running on automatic, his mind put words into his mouth.

‘He didn’t used to supply grain to Athens,’ he said. ‘This season his ships escort our ships to Athens. Hence, we are friends.’

Phiale smiled again. ‘You are selling his bride to Lysimachos and you think he’ll escort your ships to Athens?’

Stratokles smiled back. ‘I made sure he was at sea before I let the news of the wedding out,’ he said. ‘Besides — he knows. He and Amastris have been estranged for a year. I made sure of it. She doesn’t need, or want, a military master. She wants a peer.’

Phiale controlled her face. Stratokles watched her do it, and read, in the careful play of the muscles in her jaw, his own doom.

She knew something. The word peer triggered her reaction.

‘So Satyrus is on his way to Athens?’ she asked.

‘Rhodes first, and then Athens,’ Stratokles said. ‘Will you excuse me, fair lady?’

Stratokles bowed and walked across the temple portico to where his second, the Latin, Lucius, waited. Lucius was as well dressed as he, and a handsomer man. Stratokles had a magnificent physique and a strong jaw, but his face was marred by a vicious old wound that left him looking like he had a comedian’s nose rather than a human one. Lucius was handsome by any standard — but his hair was bright red and that was not accounted a mark of beauty among Greeks.

‘Something feels wrong,’ Stratokles said.

Lucius nodded. ‘No one is licking your arse, lord,’ he said.

That settled it. Crude as he could be, Lucius had hit the rivet square. On a day like this — a day that capped a generation of clever diplomacy and careful betrayal, Stratokles should have been surrounded by sycophants and flatterers and great men seeking favour.

Instead, he’d been left alone, and his involvement with the details of the costumes and the lighting and the ceremony had fooled him.

‘I’m for the axe,’ he said. ‘I can feel it.’

‘You see Phiale?’ Lucius asked.

‘Like seeing a ghost.’ Stratokles risked a glance over his shoulder. He was a realist, but his heart was pounding and he still couldn’t believe it. Why — why? Why would his beloved mistress sacrifice him? But Phiale’s controlled reactions told him an answer. His mistress was to be used, not courted. Lysimachos wanted him gone.

His glance happened to intercept that of one of the bodyguards. The man flinched — visibly. He was a man Stratokles had chosen himself — a Macedonian left behind by one of Satyrus of Tanais’s military adventures, a man who owed Stratokles his very life. And the man wouldn’t meet his eye.

‘Arse-cunt,’ Stratokles said softly. If the guards were in on it, then Amastris herself had sold him.

The wedding was heartbeats from commencement. He could see the two priestesses of Hera at the head of the procession of religious figures and Heraklean gentry, most of them awestruck to be in the presence of the leading figures of their day.

‘We need to go,’ Stratokles said.

Lucius nodded.

Phiale pressured her lover’s arm gently. ‘My lord?’

Cassander turned to her, and waved at a handsome, dark-faced man by his side. ‘My lady, the Courtesan Phiale of Athens. This is Mithridates, lord of Bithynia. A new ally against Antigonus.’

‘I have long desired to be your ally, my lord.’ Mithridates looked Persian, with a long, straight nose and perfect skin. Phiale found him attractive — she wanted to touch that skin. ‘But this wedding puts your forces on my side of the Bosporus, and makes our cooperation possible. If I can evict my uncle from the throne.’

‘It was very clever indeed of Stratokles to have seen that you could be enticed to join us.’ Cassander smiled brilliantly. ‘He outdoes himself. Sometimes I think that we are all merely his puppets. Have you seen him?’ Cassander asked.

Phiale turned her head slightly. ‘There he is, lord. Talking to the red-haired man.’

‘Herakles, how can a man live, being so ugly? You have met him, Mithridates?’ Cassander’s eyes were moving rapidly around the room. ‘What did he have to say to you, my dear?’

Mithridates bowed. ‘I have met him. My lord, I must make my introductions to Philip of Babylon. Phiale, you are the most beautiful woman in the room.’ His eyes lay on hers for a moment, and she sighed at the unexpected compliment. Mithridates stepped away into the throng, and Cassander pulled her wrist until they were beside a pillar — the closest to privacy a king could manage at the edge of a great wedding.

‘What did he say to you?’ Cassander hissed.

‘You know him, my lord?’ Phiale asked.

‘I know him, my dear. I have — hmm — made use of him in my day.’ Cassander smiled, a handsome, charming man at the height of his powers. ‘You are no friend of his, I take it?’

Phiale smiled brilliantly at Seleucus’s brother, causing the younger man to spill some wine. ‘I hate him. He used me — ill.’

‘Then you’ll be pleased to know that he’s living his last hour,’ Cassander said. He gave her a thin smile. ‘He is a dangerous man who has outlived his usefulness. He arranged this wedding, and Lysimachos wants him gone. Lysimachos wants this city and its trade and its back door into Asia to lie like a woman, ready to his will — not to have ideas of its own. Stratokles must go. He is too good.’ Cassander sighed. ‘So good that I will miss him. Even when he fails, he owns up. Few of my tools are so apt to the hand as he.’

Phiale gave Cassander a brief look. ‘And Satyrus of Tanais?’ she asked.

Cassander laughed. The Priestess of Hera was at the head of her procession, visible just across the temple portico, and the ceremony was ready. His laugh carried easily over the temple, and heads turned. ‘Lysimachos will settle him,’ Cassander said.

‘If I told you that I could rid you of him — with no repercussions?’ she asked.

Cassander kissed her. ‘Then I would love you more, if possible, than I do now.’

She smiled. ‘After the wedding, I will require a fast ship for Athens.’

‘After the wedding I had other plans for us, my dear.’ He ran a finger under her chin.

‘Does Socrates not say that the pleasures of revenge are more beautiful than the pleasures of love?’ Phiale asked.

‘Not that I’m aware of,’ Cassander said.

‘He should have,’ Phiale answered.

‘Well?’ Lucius asked. ‘Do you have a brilliant plan?’

Stratokles didn’t have the energy to laugh. He was angry, and under the anger was the start of a bleak depression. How could Amastris have betrayed him? He wanted to confront her — but that was madness. If he was wrong, she would be very angry, and if he was right, she would kill him.

‘No brilliant plan. Just start walking. Come on.’ He began to walk with a purposeful stride towards the inner temple. He was careful to keep his head down, as if he was listening attentively to Lucius.

‘They won’t just let us walk away,’ Lucius said.

‘They may,’ Stratokles opined. ‘Listen — the procession of priests is at the portico. Custom holds men rigid — better than chains. No one will interrupt the ceremony. Keep walking.’

A few steps from the inner temple — almost safe — he saw the flicker of a cloak and his peripheral vision caught a nose, an eyebrow shape.

‘Zeus Meilichios,’ Stratokles said. ‘It’s the doctor.’

Leon paused for a moment, savouring the weight of the white stones in his hand. He examined the board carefully, and then chose to make his capture rather than move. He took another white stone off the board and rattled them in his hand.

Ptolemy laughed his gruff, farmer’s laugh. ‘You know,’ he said, rolling his knucklebones, ‘I have courtiers who know enough to lose to me.’

Leon watched the king roll a four. ‘You should play with them, then,’ he said.

Ptolemy moved two stones and removed one of Leon’s black stones. He hesitated a long time over his fourth move, and finally, with enormous hesitation, he advanced a single stone. ‘It’s different,’ he said.

Leon rolled his knucklebone without a moment’s hesitation. It came up a six. As the king of Aegypt groaned, he moved his forces swiftly, isolating Ptolemy’s latest, hesitant attack, capturing two white stones, and leaving the result of the game in no doubt.

Ptolemy shook his head. ‘More wine?’

Leon shook his, too. ‘No. I have all my accounts to review tomorrow, and ships in the yard to inspect.’ He rose. ‘I could tell you how to play better,’ he said.

‘Bah, you could no doubt tell me how to run my kingdom better,’ Ptolemy said. ‘I recommend you don’t.’ He took a drink of wine while slaves rushed about — some getting Leon’s sandals, others his mantle.

Leon paused for a moment. ‘Did you ever think, when you were fighting in the Kush with Alexander, that someday you’d have all this?’

Ptolemy grinned. ‘Remember when Kineas took me prisoner? I didn’t know you then — were you there?’

Leon nodded. ‘I was at the fire when Philokles brought you in.’

‘There was a fine man,’ Ptolemy said.

‘The best,’ Leon agreed.

‘I think of it often. When I was taken — after the skirmish — I was sure I was for it. The locals always tortured prisoners to death — we’d find them staked out on the roads. I thought that I was a dead man — dead for nothing, in a lost campaign, in a particularly nasty way. Then Philokles picked me up, and he was a Greek, and I knew I was going to live.’ The king took a long drink of wine. ‘But if I’d been taken by your Sakje — well, it would have been pretty ugly, eh?’

Leon shrugged. ‘Hard to tell. But yes — especially young people. They like to see what they can do.’

Ptolemy swirled the wine in his golden cup. ‘I think of it often. Because — when things look bad, I think, Thank the gods, I could be old bones at Marakanda now.’

‘Very Pythagorean of you,’ Leon said.

Ptolemy shrugged. ‘I do more thinking about … about things. Old age, I guess. How’s your nephew?’

Leon’s ‘nephew’ was Satyrus of Tanais. They weren’t related in any real way, but Leon had been part of Satyrus’s father’s household, and Leon had taken Satyrus into his own household, and all the world called them uncle and nephew.

‘Thriving, since the siege. He’s up in the Euxine, seeing to his own people.’ Leon smiled. ‘I’ll change my mind to the tune of half a cup of wine.’

Instantly, a slave placed a cup in his hand.

He tasted it — good Chian wine, but nothing fancy.

‘He’s not,’ Ptolemy said. ‘Galon told me this morning. He’s headed back to Rhodes — probably there now.’

Leon, whose intelligence service was one of the finest in the world, was surprised. ‘He’s got the grain fleet? So early? Whatever for?’

Ptolemy nodded. ‘That’s just what I’m asking you. It’s not that I distrust the boy, he’s served me as if he was a subject — more loyal than half my captains. But the last time his grain fleet sailed, he landed three thousand soldiers and seized control of the Propontus for a year. Zeus — he must have made a fortune on tolls.’

Leon smiled. ‘He did. I have reason to know.’

‘So,’ Ptolemy said. ‘What’s the game this time?’

Leon stared at his wine. ‘He hasn’t told me,’ he said, and there was anger in his voice. ‘How many ships, have you heard?’ he asked mildly.

‘Forty grain ships from Tanais and Pantecapaeaum, another ten from Olbia, and fifteen more from Heraklea. The word is that he’ll take half of his grain to Rhodes and sell the other half in Athens.’ Ptolemy sat back, having delivered his thunderbolt.

‘Athens?’ Leon asked. ‘We don’t do business there now. Demetrios holds Athens.’

‘Precisely,’ Ptolemy said. ‘He’s not … contemplating a change?’

Leon sipped his wine. Ptolemy was the best dissimulator he knew — the king had played two games merely to put him at ease for this moment.

‘Poseidon,’ Leon swore, ‘I would never believe it of him.’

Ptolemy nodded. ‘Good — good. That’s what I needed to hear. Galon had a theory — I’ll tell you as one suspicious bastard to another — that when Amastris jilted him, Satyrus had to go running to the other side. She’s marrying Lysimachos — you know that.’

‘I imagine everyone in the Mediterranean knows that now,’ Leon said. ‘But he — that is, my nephew — has known that she has other interests — well, for a year. Perhaps more. Before the siege, anyway.’ He paused. ‘You know that by the terms of the truce after the siege, my nephew cannot engage in open war against Demetrios for one full year.’

‘Of course,’ said Ptolemy. ‘My brother helped negotiate it. But at the end of the year, I need him — at my side, in spirit if not in the flesh.’ The king clapped him on the shoulder. ‘With Satyrus’s fleet, the fleet of Rhodos, and my fleet, we can keep Antigonus and Demetrios at arm’s length.’ He nodded. ‘If Satyrus were to go over to Demetrios …’

Leon rose to his feet. ‘I’ll get you a firm answer, lord. But don’t accept gossip. Satyrus has never given you cause. You allow your captains to openly court Cassander and Antigonus — you allow companies of mercenaries to cross the lines when their contracts expire. By Artemis, you let your own brother flirt with Demetrios.’

‘My brother doesn’t have twenty brand-new triremes and a squadron of penteres building right here in my own port,’ the king said. ‘I’d be a lot more careful of him if he had the money and the power that young Satyrus controls now. And the name. Since the siege, your nephew has a name.’

Leon nodded.

‘I’m not voicing these suspicions anywhere but this room. Herakles, Leon! I don’t want to distrust the boy. But these are bad times. I have to raise taxes this year. Seleucus and Lysimachos want me to invade Syria. The bastards want me to take the brunt of Antigonus’s forces while they whittle down his provinces. Cassander just wants us all to die. Sometimes I wonder if I’m on the wrong side. Am I the only king who doesn’t want anything more? I want to rule Aegypt. No one could rule the whole world — not me, not Antigonus, and not Alexander.’ The king combed his beard with his fingers and a slave poured him another cup of wine.

Leon finished his wine and rose. ‘The fellahin can’t take much more taxation,’ he said. ‘Invading Syria would be a mistake. Although something might be done with the Jews. They love you — and hate Antigonus.’

Ptolemy nodded. ‘I don’t want Syria. I don’t want to raise taxes. Do you know how much the expenses of war have climbed since Alexander died?’ He looked at Leon for a long moment and then laughed. ‘Of course you do.’

Leon turned his cup over. ‘I’ll see what’s going on with Satyrus. I’m sure it is innocent.’

Ptolemy nodded. ‘I pray it is. But who takes thirty warships to do something innocent? I dread one of those lightning strokes that changes the game. Satyrus wouldn’t see himself as a third side, would he?’

Leon sighed. ‘I hope not,’ he said.

‘The doctor,’ Lucius said, drawing his blade. Two rows of columns hid them from the wedding, but the first sound of combat would break the spell, turn every head.

Sophokles of Athens, a man who studied medicine at the Lyceum, a man who accepted money to kill — quite possibly the most dangerous man in the Hellenic world. He came to a stop and leaned against a pillar, his long, festive cloak covering him — and any weapons he bore — from head to foot.

‘Stratokles,’ he said.

‘Sophokles,’ the informer nodded. ‘The blessings of Lady Hera on you and your doings this day.’

The doctor nodded. ‘And yours, my dear. Cassander has given you up — traded you like a prime slave to Lysimachos. Who has given me a good purse of gold to remove you from the game.’

Lucius had already seen the men coming up the steps.

Stratokles shrugged. ‘I won’t pretend that the whole matter doesn’t make me angry,’ he said. ‘On balance, I’ve served well.’

Sophokles nodded. He looked at Lucius. ‘Steady on, there, sir. If you threaten them, we could have trouble. Put that blade away.’ To Stratokles, he said, ‘Cassander’s decision to dispense with you threatens all of us. On the other hand, I owe you for Alexandria. You abandoned me.’

Stratokles shrugged. ‘You were in place, close to the king, and undetected. I had no way of knowing that Phiale would sell you to Satyrus and Leon. Besides, sir — this is ancient history. If you will kill me, then get it done.’

‘I don’t think that Phiale actually sold me,’ the doctor said. ‘But I wanted to hear your denial. I tried for Melitta — the girl. Satyrus of Tanais’s sister. I failed, but it was close. The very gods protect that pair.’

Stratokles managed a smile, despite the circumstances. ‘The blood and gold I’ve wasted on them — Herakles holds them in the palm of his hand.’ He shook his head. ‘Satyrus is quite likeable.’

‘There remains an enormous price on his head,’ the doctor said.

‘Surely not? Eumeles is dead and rotted. At Satyrus’s hand, I believe.’ Stratokles was trying to calculate — did the doctor mean to kill him? This was a curiously long conversation, and even he would hesitate to kill him inside the sacred precincts.

‘Eumeles is not the customer. He was, but the contract now is far larger. I wondered if you would join me in taking it up.’ The doctor bowed his head, one peer to another. ‘You have resources that I lack. People will deal with you who will not deal with me.’

‘That’s a sad comment on one of us, doctor,’ Stratokles said. ‘I don’t suppose you’d like to give me time to consider?’

The doctor glanced at the wedding. ‘No,’ he said.

Stratokles nodded, more to himself than to the doctor. ‘Does your contract include young Lucius here?’ he asked.

Sophokles nodded. ‘I’m afraid so.’

Lucius looked around. ‘I’m right here, and I’m pretty sure I can do the lot of these rabble.’

The doctor looked at Stratokles. ‘I’d really rather not have a demonstration either way.’

Stratokles had made some terrible errors in the last weeks — he must have missed a thousand clues of the coming betrayal — but just at that moment he didn’t care. A life of dissimulation had brought him to this — death on the steps of a temple, at the hand of a former ally, at the behest of his own master.

He shrugged, and mostly he was tired. ‘You know,’ he said, ‘I’d like to save Lucius. He’s been very loyal, and he is no part of our little ways — he’s a Latin. Let him go.’

The doctor looked him over. ‘I’m proposing that we let you both go, and you join us,’ he said.

Stratokles shook his head. It was impulsive, but by all the furies, he was done with that kind of life. ‘No,’ he said. ‘I don’t want to kill young Satyrus for money.’

The doctor nodded. ‘I could see you heading there,’ he said, ‘but I wouldn’t have believed it. You’ve lost your edge.’

‘So much so that I will stand here and let you kill me,’ Stratokles said, with a smile that he hoped was noble. ‘I’ll even walk down and cross over the boundary into those trees, without a struggle — if you let Lucius go. No impiety for you. No religious impurity over your heads.’

The doctor looked him over. ‘You are a surprising man,’ he said. He glanced at Lucius. ‘Go,’ he said. ‘He has bought your life. Don’t indulge in some petty fake nobility. Run.’

Lucius’s only farewell to his master of ten years was a raised eyebrow. Then he turned and walked away.

Stratokles didn’t know what he felt. Relief, at having accomplished something good? Or complete failure — he was to die. Die. Right now. It made his knees tremble, and he forced himself to think of all the other times he’d cheated death. Really, for a man of his profession, he’d done rather well. He squared his shoulders. ‘Let’s take a walk, doctor,’ he said.

They strolled together, down the steps and across the open ground where all two hundred of the visiting dignitaries could watch them. The sight caused many different reactions that Stratokles couldn’t see — Phiale smiled in a way that made her ugly, and Amastris turned her face away, the joy of her day of triumph clouded, and a number of men Stratokles had made felt the churn of the stomach that tells a man he has done very, very wrong. But no one stirred a foot to save him.

He crossed the boundary wall, and vanished.

Miriam pulled the cloak tighter around her shoulders and raised an eyebrow at her brother. ‘Where in God’s name are we?’ she asked.

They were looking out through a ruined rower’s port in the side of a damaged penteres that was moving slowly. They’d been put in a locked cabin, almost like a cage, too small for them to stand or sit, in the stern of the lowest rowing deck — really just a set of heavy boards nailed across the tiny space, sometimes called the aft-tabernacle. The helmsman’s feet were just over their heads.

Abraham put his eye to the small opening again. ‘Asia, I’m sure of it. I don’t know the headland, but we’re close to Cos, or I’m a gentile — don’t ask me how I know, dear sister. I know.’

Miriam was afraid — terrified, really — but she had long practice in not showing terror. ‘Are we to be sold as slaves?’ she asked.

Abraham put an arm around her. ‘I don’t think so, Miriam. We’re citizens of Rhodes — and hostages. Killing us would be … well, it would be insane.’

At the end of the siege of Rhodos, Demetrios had insisted on a hundred hostages, and he had chosen them from among Satyrus’s closest friends. He had demanded the payment of a tribute and, most importantly, the hostages were to guarantee that neither Rhodes nor the Euxine cities took an active role against him in the field or at sea.

The two of them had been ‘held’ in a very pleasant captivity at Athens — in the house of a Jewish metic, Belshazzar, until just two weeks before, when they had been hurried aboard a heavy warship. Even then, they’d been used with dignity, even deference — until the night before last, when they’d been imprisoned in this box by marines in full armour.

There were other ships out there — merchantmen all, as far as he could see. Some were very large, and others quite small — a convoy. His angle of vision was limited, but a suspicion began to form in his mind — he pushed so hard against the view-hole that he ground his ocular bone against the wood.

Just at the edge of his vision, a heavy warship was approaching fast from behind them — he was pretty sure the warship was coming from the north. A triemiola — a Rhodian, then, or-

The heavy bronze lock on their small cage grated, and a marine appeared in full armour. He put his spear to Miriam’s throat.

Stratokles climbed up the precinct wall, took a last look at the world, and jumped down into the olive grove on the far side like a small boy on an olive raid, intent on eating his fill. He’d be dead in heartbeats, now. Even the air tasted wonderful. The olive grove was the most beautiful he’d ever seen.

I expected more of a farewell from Lucius, I guess.

He looked back to where Sophokles was jumping down from the precinct walls. Then he walked deeper into the grove. The doctor’s retinue of killers followed him, oddly ill-assorted types in finery that they weren’t used to wearing.

The doctor caught up with him and they walked side by side in silence until they were midway into the grove, well hidden from the temple.

‘Care to close your eyes?’ the doctor asked.

Stratokles shook his head. ‘Not particularly,’ he said.

‘I really would like you to reconsider. What is this Satyrus to you?’ The doctor cocked his head a little, like a curious cat.

Stratokles managed a smile. ‘Nothing. I’m not fond of him, and he’s not fond of me. But I’m done, Sophokles. I don’t want to play. I don’t want to hide, I don’t want to run about. I liked serving Amastris. This city is the better for my hand at the tiller, and men eat grain in Athens because I tended these fields.’ He shrugged. ‘After that, killing for money — well, it has very little appeal.’

Sophokles nodded. ‘You are not my first victim to refuse an offer. Nor my first brave victim.’ He drew his sword, a particularly fine Chalkidian blade, a xiphos with a heavy central ridge.

‘Throat or guts?’ he asked.

One of the doctor’s thugs grunted. ‘Just fucking do it!’ he said.

‘No need to be in a hurry, Laertes,’ the doctor said. His voice carried a sibilant warning, and the man — Laertes — flinched. It was the first sign Stratokles had seen that the doctor was still the monster he’d always been.

‘Just go watch the temple,’ the doctor said quietly.

‘Yes, sir,’ Laertes answered.

‘I appreciate the professional courtesy, but I’m going to shit myself soon. Just get it done.’ Stratokles stood straight, pulled his light chlamys off his shoulders and swirled it over his head.

The doctor had stepped back two steps.

‘Not going to fight back,’ Stratokles said with satisfaction. He’d made the man flinch. He dropped the chlamys.

The doctor nodded. ‘Somehow I feel that killing you will only weaken me. He’s going to kill me eventually, too.’

Stratokles nodded. ‘So he is. Isn’t that my line — when I plead for my life? I tell you that you’re next? You do it anyway? Let me make a different suggestion. Take the money for killing me and run. Babylon — no one there has ever heard of you. Live out your life.’

Now the doctor smiled. ‘Would you? What would you do if I let you walk away?’

Stratokles shrugged. ‘You are a cruel bastard, Sophokles. You haven’t the least intention of letting me walk away.’

‘I’m giving you another minute of life, ingrate. Humour me.’ The doctor gestured with his sword.

‘Remember Banugul?’ Stratokles said.

‘I’ve heard of her.’ Sophokles shrugged, looked around at some fancied noise.

‘I have her. Or rather, I know where she is, and her son. Her son by Alexander.’ He laughed.

‘This sounds like a way of buying your life, doesn’t it?’ Sophokles nodded. ‘I know this tune. You offer me something of great value. And I confess: a son of Alexander, even a bastard, is of great value.’

‘Well, he’s not for you. The management that would be required to propel that young man into the arena — to bring him to the moment where he could unseat Cassander — I don’t know if it could be done.’ Stratokles shrugged. ‘I’m not even sure that I want to do it. He and his mother live far away — off the stage, out of the game. For all I know, the boy’s dead, or deformed.’

‘He must be, what, twenty-three? Twenty-four?’ Sophokles looked over his shoulder. ‘Are you by any chance double-dealing me, Stratokles?’

Stratokles frowned. ‘I’m standing here ready to die, you’re the one talking — and you think I’m betraying you?’

‘Laertes?’ the doctor asked.

‘Dead as a fucking sacrificial lamb,’ Lucius said, emerging from the trees. His sword was red in his left hand, and he had a javelin in his right hand, cocked and ready on the throwing cord. His gaze flicked over Stratokles. ‘Thanks for saving my life. But I don’t run. I ran once — that was enough for my whole life.’

‘You killed my whole group?’ the doctor asked. ‘I’m very impressed.’

Lucius spat. ‘Don’t be. They weren’t worth sheep-shit.’

The doctor nodded. ‘They were more for colour than for muscle, anyway.’

Stratokles felt the tension draining from his shoulders.

‘Walk away, Sophokles,’ he said. The doctor was getting ready to spring; his feet were angled oddly, his limbs formed in a crouch. ‘If you come for me, we all fight. People die — most likely you and me both.’

The doctor didn’t slacken his physical stance. ‘I’m listening.’

‘We all back away. A step at a time.’ Sophokles risked a look at Lucius.

‘He has a distance weapon and I do not,’ the doctor said. ‘Distance only aids you, and taking you as a hostage is my only viable response.’

Stratokles took a deep breath. ‘You didn’t want to kill me anyway, Sophokles. I guarantee your life. You have my oath on it before the furies. Walk away, and consider this a fair return for my error of judgment in Alexandria.’

No one could call Sophokles of Athens indecisive. ‘I accept,’ he said, and stood up straight. He turned his back and walked away. He took a dozen steps, then sheathed his sword after a small flourish at Lucius, who spat again. He bowed to Stratokles. Then he turned and sprinted away.

Stratokles watched him until he was out of sight.

‘Well,’ said Stratokles. He turned away and struggled with the urge to vomit. It was all he could do to speak.

Lucius waited for him and held out a canteen of wine. ‘I thought I was too late,’ he said.

‘He didn’t want to do it. He’s a strange man.’ Stratokles shook his head.

‘You offered your life to save me,’ Lucius said. ‘I never would have expected that.’

‘I’m getting old,’ Stratokles said.

‘Where to?’ Lucius said. ‘I have a pair of horses — and we should get moving.’

Stratokles spat the sour wine. ‘Hyrkania. We can be there in ten days.’

Lucius raised an eyebrow.

Stratokles shrugged. ‘I’m going to throw another piece on the game board. If I accomplish nothing but to give fucking Cassander some bad nights — that will be enough for me.’

The blade rested, cool as a stone in her father’s cellar, against Miriam’s throat.

‘Not a word, now,’ the marine said. His voice was steady, almost apologetic. ‘Trierarch says, if you say anything, I’m to off the pair of you. Sorry, despoina. Orders.’

Abraham lay perfectly still, and Miriam lay next to him. Over the silence, they could hear gulls, the rush of feet on the catwalk of the main oar deck, and the helmsman over their heads. The steering oars creaked, and then creaked again. The navarch spoke — the decking muffled his words.

‘… right there,’ the helmsman said.

‘Like they own the whole world,’ the navarch said. ‘Wave like we’re friends.’

Miriam tried to keep from shaking — tried to keep her mind from racing off into the abyss.

‘Ten days out of Athens!’ roared the helmsman over their heads. He was shouting to another ship — that much penetrated her terror and her anger.

‘Where bound?’ carried to her from the other ship, clear as a new day. The sound of the voice went through her like hot soup on a cold day. She felt her brother’s hand close on hers like a vice, saw the marine’s eyes glitter.

‘Ephesus!’ the helmsman replied.

‘Safe voyage, then!’ called Satyrus of Tanais from his own command deck.

And helpless in their cage, Abraham and Miriam held each other and lay in silence as they were rowed further and further away.