Force of Kings

4

Stratokles had meant to ride all the way to Hyrkania, but events conspired to ease his passage, and he arrived at the settlement at Namastae on a fishing boat that carried him, Lucius, and their horses — six of them — crammed so tight that Stratokles slept with his head on his horse’s rump.

But the wind was fair and the sea calm, and he was riding up the hill to the citadel just eleven days after fleeing Heraklea. His purse was almost empty. It would have been as flat as salt-bread if he and Lucius hadn’t had the good luck to be attacked by bandits who were richer and better mounted than they. Their horses and their darics had solved most of their travel problems.

‘You haven’t said much about what we’re doing here,’ Lucius said, as they rode up the hill to the stone citadel on the height.

‘Kineas of Olbia stormed this,’ Stratokles said. ‘Perhaps he was a god, at that. How in the name of all the gods did he storm this?’

Lucius looked up the steep slope, and shrugged. ‘Crap defenders, superb attackers — the usual story. Like most, I expect he won the fight back when he was training his legion, not here while they were fighting.’

Stratokles smiled. ‘You are not just a pretty face,’ he said.

Lucius shook his head. ‘If we could drop all this back-stabbing and fight a war, you and I might prosper,’ he said.

Stratokles nodded. ‘My thoughts exactly. The question is, which side? And the answer — let’s start our own.’

Banugul was no longer young. Unlike many beautiful women, she didn’t trouble to hide her age. She did not redden her lips or apply too much kohl or other cosmetics to smooth out the tiny wrinkles or hide the years.

In fact, despite — or even because of — the crow’s feet at the corners of her eyes and lips, the skin at the top of her chin, the infinitely slight sign of a jowl under her jaw, she was still Banugul, from the top of her fine light head to the base of her slim, arched feet; feet that wore slight golden sandals because the wearer was not afraid to emphasise rather than hide. Under her Greek matron’s chiton, her body was hard and muscled, her breasts swelled in proportion to her hips and shoulders, and when she moved, all the temple dancers in Heraklea could not have competed with her.

‘Stratokles,’ she said, rising from her carved chair to take his hand.

‘My lady,’ he said formally.

‘And who is your beautiful friend?’ she asked.

Stratokles bowed. ‘This is Lucius, a Latin from far-off Italia. He has served me for some years — indeed, he was with me when we rescued your son.’

Banugul smiled, and her smile decorated the room. Even from the side, Stratokles caught its force, but Lucius, who was the intended recipient, all but staggered.

She stepped down off her dais and caught his hands. ‘I understand that Stratokles — and you, sir — no doubt took my son for your own ends. And yet as a mother I know that your actions saved his life. Demetrios would have executed him — or Cassander would have, or Ptolemy.’ She turned the smile on Stratokles, like the beam of a lamp turned on a moth, and Stratokles found himself grinning like a fool.

‘I’ve come to talk about your son,’ Stratokles said.

‘The answer is “no”.’ She smiled a very different smile. ‘You want him for some scheme. I am done with schemes, Stratokles. Once, in this very room, Kineas of Olbia told me to be satisfied with what I had. And now have again. And you know? I have built a life here, my dear. I have killed most of my enemies and I rule a goodly piece of the coast, and the satrap and I are old friends, and Antigonus and Seleucus both court me.’

Stratokles twitched his lips.

Lucius was pinned by her gaze the way a butterfly might be pinned to a piece of parchment, as a specimen for a rich man’s collection. Or perhaps a rich woman’s.

Stratokles had noted on arrival in the mosaicked throne room that there was an eyehole behind the throne — an eyehole he’d noted on earlier visits. In former times, it had appeared to be a flaw in the black hair of a naked nymph who was enjoying, or being enjoyed by, a particularly ardent and well-endowed satyr, but the mosaics had changed with the tastes of their owner, and the eyehole was now in the dark fur of a luxuriating panther. Stratokles smiled to himself, looking for something witty to say about the change in decoration.

The slaves wore clothes, too.

But there was an eye at the eyehole, and that eye could only belong to one person.

Satyrus looked back to where Banugul was busy conquering Lucius without a word being said. He ate her with his eyes, and she merely accepted his homage without promise or denial — and spurred him to greater surrenders.

‘He is old enough to make his own decisions, is he not, your son?’ Stratokles said.

‘A pox on you, you Athenian intriguer!’ she said, without asperity. ‘Why can’t you be entranced by my charms like other men?’

‘Despoina, I am as entranced as other men. I just look for more practical ways of finding my way into your bed.’ He smiled — she smiled. Lucius looked stunned.

Aside, Stratokles said, ‘Nothing those eyes promise is ever fulfilled, Lucius.’

‘For you, perhaps, but not for all men,’ Banugul said.

Stratokles shrugged.

The silence went on too long.

‘He’s twenty-three, is he not? Old enough to make a name for himself?’ Stratokles asked.

‘No,’ Banugul said. Her eyes flicked nervously to the wall, and Stratokles knew that his suspicions — all of them — were confirmed.

‘Herakles must be the last scion of Alexander left on the board,’ he mused. ‘I wonder if he has any of his father’s talents? The prowess? The strategic thinking?’

‘The binge drinking?’ Banugul said. ‘Can you stop this? You and I both know that he is listening. You are playing on him.’

In fact, after a pause, the young man in question emerged from the door hidden in the tapestries.

He was short, by Greek standards, but well formed, with a head slightly too big for his shoulders but with a fine shock of dark blond hair and a good face — strong chin, good nose. His carriage was not as erect as Stratokles would have liked to see — too much riding and not enough gymnasium work.

He inclined his head to Stratokles. ‘I remember both of you,’ he said. ‘You took me from Demetrios.’

Stratokles nodded. ‘So we did, lad. And now we’re back. I want to ask your mother to take you from here and put you on the board. Take you out into the world — command some troops — fight. The major players are heading towards the big fight — perhaps the last. Antigonus is old. Demetrios took a heavy defeat at Rhodos, whether he knows it or not. If you wish to make a life out in the world, now is the time. In a year or two, the board may be cleared, and then … well, the winner will only want you dead, lad. Because any fool can see that you are the image of your father.’

Herakles grinned.

‘Do not, I pray you, my son, do not fall victim to this man’s accurate and deadly flattery.’ She tried to make the comment light-hearted, but the words had an edge.

‘As you have yourself, Mother? And yet,’ Herakles shook his head, ‘I already have this man’s measure. I like him. He rescued me.’

‘For his own ends,’ Banugul said.

‘Of course!’ Herakles shook his head. ‘If I go with you, sir, will I be your lord?’

Stratokles hadn’t thought that the difficult child of ten years ago would turn into something this accomplished — for all that his shoulders slumped. He twitched his lips and rubbed the knot where a chunk had been cut out of his nose.

‘We’ll be partners,’ Stratokles said. ‘I’ll be your tutor and mentor — and sometimes, your prime minister. In time — at least three years, and perhaps a great deal more — I will serve you and call you lord.’

Herakles nodded pensively. ‘I do not like taking orders or instructions,’ he said haughtily.

‘You never did,’ Stratokles said, with a smile.

‘I’m too old to strike with your hand, now,’ the young man said.

Lucius snorted.

Herakles turned on him. ‘And you. I remember you. You spanked me!’

‘And I could again,’ Lucius said. ‘But only if you deserve it.’ His eyes were already back on Banugul.

‘I forbid it. Stratokles, you are not taking my son out of this castle. And that is my word — as queen and as a mother.’ She stared at him — dark blue eyes like lapis that could melt a man’s ethics.

Stratokles feigned to meet her eyes with indifference, as it was the only weapon a man could wield in such an unequal contest. ‘Then Lucius and I have had a long trip for nothing,’ he said.

Late that night, he lay on a couch with young Herakles, drinking wine, while Lucius shared another couch with Banugul. Stratokles had never seen Lucius so completely undone by a woman, and it amused him. It also made him feel a little sorry. Lucius’s imperturbability was his greatest asset; his sense of dignity — gravitas, he called it in his own tongue — was one of his most endearing qualities.

But it was entertaining, and would last for years as a source of teasing. Best of all, Lucius was already squirming at his own bemusement.

After dinner, Stratokles resolutely resisted the urge to talk about politics or to seduce young Herakles with anything as banal as promises of greatness. So instead, he talked about Satyrus of Tanais.

‘Kineas’s son!’ Banugul said with real pleasure. ‘His sister was here last year with a raiding party, headed back west. She got her man,’ she added, with just a tinge of wickedness.

‘She often does,’ Stratokles agreed.

‘She’s very beautiful, of course,’ Banugul said.

‘Not half as beautiful as you,’ Lucius said, and looked stricken.

Banugul rolled onto one hip and struck him lightly. ‘If that is the best you can do, keep it to yourself, Latin. Melitta of Tanais has the perfect skin of a maiden, eyes as fine as mine, her mother’s excellent breasts, good muscles, and a scar on her face that shows that she is no plaything.’ She smiled, stretched, rolled on her stomach and kicked her heels over her head, showing off her own excellent muscles. ‘You men think we’re all like cats — but it is not true. Worthy women admire worthy women.’

‘You sound as if you fancy her yourself, Mother,’ Herakles said.

‘I can’t hide that I would have liked to see the two of you together,’ Banugul admitted. ‘As her husband, you would have place and protection. And none of the curs who compete for Alexander’s empire have the balls to go onto the Sea of Grass.’ Wine brought out her crudity.

Stratokles liked her better that way.

‘She treated me like a child,’ Herakles said.

‘She is a queen and a warrior,’ Stratokles said. ‘She’s no friend of mine, but I’ll say this for her — if she treated you like a child, it is because that’s what you seemed to her.’

Herakles sprang off the kline, his back straight in outrage.

Stratokles shrugged. ‘You’ve never commanded an army — she has. Never fought hand to hand, have you? She’s a notorious fighter — she’s probably killed more men than her brother. Her archery is famous from one end of the steppe to another. She rules the Assagetae of the Western Door with a strong hand, but a fair one, and they love her. I couldn’t displace her with money or hired killers. You let your mother rule this small wolf-state while she is the Lady of the Sea of Grass. In her world, a man is rated by his accomplishments. What have you accomplished? Hence,’ Stratokles finished, relentless as the attack of a phalanx, ‘hence, you are like a child to her.’

Herakles held up an arm like a man trying to block a blow. His face worked, but nothing came out, and then he whirled, crashing into a slave and spilling wine everywhere, and fled from the room.

Banugul applauded. She sat up, clapping. Terrified slaves hurried to clean the floor, and still she applauded.

‘Well done, Stratokles. And don’t think that I don’t see right through you.’

Stratokles shook his head. ‘As I am making no attempt to dissimulate, you don’t have to “see” through me. I want him to come to his senses, get out of his mother’s boudoir and come out into the world.’

Banugul laughed. ‘I think you have come on too strong, my friend. He will never forgive you.’

Lucius shook his head. ‘He used to worship Stratokles. I’d watch the two of them at the camp fire when we were coming here — when was that? The year of Gaza? Yes?’ He looked into her eyes and lost the thread of his discourse.

Stratokles almost snorted wine through his nose. ‘Lucius, come back,’ he said.

Later still, Stratokles lay on a wide bed with good linen sheets, and Banugul lay in the circle of his sword arm, her head pillowed on the heavy muscles of his bicep. ‘I missed you,’ she said. ‘Why do you never come? Did that harlot at Heraklea love you better?’

Stratokles smiled at the ceiling — at the gods.

‘Amastris of Heraklea never made love to me in any way,’ he said. ‘I served her. She betrayed me, arranged for my death, and failed.’ He shrugged, a comfortable movement that caused him to appreciate her body all the more. ‘I used her as well, my dear. And I cannot serve Athens as your bed-mate. Athens cares nothing for Hyrkania.’

She lay for a little while. ‘Must I tell you again that I missed you?’ she said.

He kissed her — not passionately, as he had a few moments before, but lightly, with friendship. ‘As I missed you — not every day, but deeply, at times.’

‘And other times you forgot I existed? And you the ugliest man in creation?’ she spat, but there was no real malevolence in her words — going through the motions than aiming to cut.

He laughed. ‘How often have you thought of me?’

‘At least once a year. And whenever I see a particularly ugly old goat.’ She laughed into his chest.

And then they were kissing, slowly at first, exploring forgotten territory, and then faster and deeper as they discovered more things they had forgotten, or only laid aside — the taste of the inside of his mouth and the sharpness of his teeth, the warm heaviness of her breasts and the texture of her nipples …

Stratokles ceased to plot, or even to plan, and the couch became, for a while, the circle of the world, her hair the edge of the universe.

‘If you take him away,’ she said, much later, after they’d surprised themselves by making love twice, like youths, ‘if you take him away, I’ll have nothing.’ She didn’t sob, or seduce. Her words had a chilling truth to them.

‘He needs to be in the world.’ Stratokles sighed.

‘No!’ she said, and rolled on top of him. ‘Aphrodite, I’ll be sore in the morning, and my cheeks are rubbed raw from your beard. But no — he does not need to be in the world. You need him in the world. You need him as a pawn in your revenge.’

Stratokles watched her in the lamplight — the kindest light to all women, young and old — and she was magnificent, and again he silently thanked the gods for this, for this woman, for a rest from his endless life of struggle. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘It’s true. I want to spring him on Cassander and watch him sweat.’

She lay back down. ‘That’s better.’ She stretched languorously. ‘If we could manage a third time, I would feel quite young, I think.’

He rubbed a knowledgeable thumb around her nipple and licked the side of her ear. ‘You’ll be the one doing all the work,’ he said. ‘The last time I made love three times in a night, I was here. And ten years younger.’

She laughed — and her laugh alone took him halfway to arousal. ‘I do believe that was the nicest compliment you’ve ever paid me.’

‘What, better than “she’s not half as beautiful as you”?’ Stratokles laughed into her neck, and they wrestled for a moment, he seeking to pin her with his legs and she seeking to roll atop him — and then he lay still as she began to stroke him with her hands, bit his shoulder.

‘Well, well,’ he said quietly into the storm cloud of her hair.

‘Why didn’t you tell me she was your woman!’ Lucius said bitterly. They were exercising in the yard. Stratokles showed the marks of his night, nor had he any interest in hiding them. In fact, he felt twenty years younger.

Stratokles blocked the wooden sword with his cloaked arm, stepped to the left, and rocked back, ready to kick. Lucius changed his guard. They sparred together so often that most of what they did was to show each other their guards — they’d long since run out of surprises, like an old married couple with their fights.

‘She is not my woman. She is very much her own woman,’ Stratokles said. ‘And if she had wanted it, she would have been in your bed last night, nor would I have been allowed to protest in the slightest.’

‘She is a harlot?’ Lucius asked.

‘She is the queen of this little country. She is the daughter of a great Persian nobleman — she was Alexander’s mistress, and perhaps Antigonus’s as well. She has survived when all about her, her family and friends have died. Her son is the last get of Alexander on the circle of the world, and he is only alive because she and I are both brilliant plotters — and because Antigonus thinks the boy is no threat.’ Stratokles shrugged. ‘Besides, I thought you knew that we … were friends.’

‘Damn me, you are a close one, Athenian.’ Lucius shrugged. ‘She is remarkable. Like a great lady in my country — very like them. You are not jealous?’

‘Who could be jealous of sharing the sun?’ Stratokles said. ‘The heat warms us both, and cares as much for our desires.’

‘Well put!’ Banugul said. She clapped. ‘You are both so elegant naked.’

Lucius made a face, and whirled, but when he caught her eye he was hers, and no amount of discomfort could hide his feelings. Still, his flush went from the middle of his stomach to his hair.

Stratokles feinted and tapped his man on the head. ‘Pay attention, Lucius,’ he said.

‘Fuck you,’ Lucius said, quietly. But then he stepped back and saluted. ‘I’m getting old,’ he said. ‘And you’ve found some sort of youth potion.’

‘Perhaps,’ Stratokles agreed, with a grin. And hit him again.

A week later, Stratokles rode west, with ten men-at-arms furnished by the queen, all Macedonians, as well as Lucius and Herakles. The young man rode out with armour on his back, a fine sword at his side, a beautiful gilt helmet with a pair of eagle wings at his saddle bow, and four servants to attend him. Behind him, his mother waved once from the gate, saw his raised hand in answer, and then went calmly inside to see to the business of her little kingdom. She was too proud to cry in public.

Stratokles didn’t try to kiss her in public, but they’d already exchanged words. She was angry, and he understood, but took her son anyway.

But cry she did, night after night. Nor was she weeping for the loss of her lover. He did this — he rode away to conquer the world, and came back when he was beaten, and rode away again. What she loved best in him was that she could heal him.

But her feelings for her son were fifty times as strong, or a hundred times. And after her fifth night of sleepless tears, she dragged herself to her shrine to Aphrodite, and threw herself on the floor — a full prokinesis — and swore to the goddess.

‘Blessed Lady of the Cyprian Shore, foam born, goddess of lovers — may my son live, and thrive, out there in the world! And if Stratokles the Athenian leads him out to his death, may he, in turn, die, and all those who caused his death — my curse on them, and him! And if he lives, may he go from glory to glory — but first, Lady, let him live!’ She wept, and crawled to the foot of the goddess’s statue. ‘Let him live! Let him have his glory and live!’

She lay there, until she felt that she had received an answer.

Artaxata, in Media Atropatene, eight days south and west of Hyrkania, travelling more than ten parasanges a day. Artaxata, where Stratokles’ route finally cut the old Royal Road, and they could make better time.

‘When do we rest?’ Herakles whined. ‘By the gods, Stratokles, give me a rest!’

‘Rest when you are king of the western world,’ Stratokles said. ‘We’ve been slowed by mountains, fog and bad luck, and now I want to move. With a little luck, we can be on the coast and raising mercenaries before any word of us gets out.’

Lucius shook his head. ‘Even for you, this is a desperate throw. This boy is not ready to play Alexander for you.’

Stratokles shook his head. ‘I can feel it. Come!’ he said, and they galloped off up the Royal Road.

Antigonus and Seleucus sparred constantly for the possession of the northern satrapies, so the posting houses were not all in order — but many of them were, and for as long as they were, Stratokles squandered money on horses and speed. His beautiful clothes from the wedding — his diadem and jewelled belt — vanished like spring mist under a summer sun.

Every evening, no matter how tired their prince claimed to be, Lucius and Stratokles took turns teaching him — swordsmanship and pankration, mostly. He was unwilling, even defiant, at first. Later, simply truculent, until Lucius punched him hard enough to knock him down.

‘Good looks and good birth will not overcome a single enemy,’ Lucius said to the angry young man, ‘and if you burst into tears in front of your Macedonians, you can count on their deserting you. There’s no amount of gold darics that will make a Macedonian stand for a cry-baby. In that, at least, they are like Romans.’

If he wept, he did it in secret.

And after ten days on the road, his back was straighter, and he had ceased to whine.

On the eleventh day, he was almost killed. He was bursting to try his newly learned combat arts, and when a wrangler spat on him — haughty airs win no friends on the Royal Road — he whirled, drew his sword, and cut at the man. Lucius had to admit later that he had drawn and cut with skill.

But Herakles had the bad luck to choose a Persian nobleman fallen on hard times — an older man who had been fighting for thirty years — who sprang back, his whip shooting out and disarming the eager prince, and then his sword was free.

Herakles froze.

Luckily, Lucius had seen the whole thing coming. He was behind the Persian — armlock, disarm, trip — and he had his sword against the other man’s neck.

Stratokles stood aloof, shaking his head. He’d come within a few heartbeats of losing his new master. And the boy tried to hide it, but he wept in mortification at being disarmed. They were a quiet party as they rode away.

East of Sardis, Stratokles heard a rumour that Antigonus was marching, and that Demetrios was at the point of taking Corinth.

He shook his head that night, over the camp fire. ‘If Ptolemy and Seleucus don’t act soon, Cassander’s going to be caught between the hammer and anvil.’

Lucius laughed. ‘You sound unhappy. You want Cassander dead.’

Stratokles frowned. ‘I’d like him punished, but only at my own hand. I’ve miscalculated — I thought that after the failure of the siege of Rhodos, Demetrios would fold like a house of cards, but he’s rebuilt himself.’

‘Lysimachos?’ asked Lucius.

‘The best of the lot, even if he’s the one who sold me down the river — or demanded my head. I should have seen that coming. He’s wily and he’s a good diplomat, but he hasn’t the generalship to stop Antigonus — nor does he have the troops. He’ll be besieged in Heraklea before the year is out. Trapped, unless something can end the truce Demetrios has with Rhodes and bring the Rhodians back into the war.’

‘So what are we doing?’ asked Herakles. He had recovered — the best thing you could say about him is that he didn’t stay beaten long.

Stratokles shook his head and rubbed his nose. ‘I don’t know yet. Ask me at Sardis.’

Sardis — and all memory of the comforts of Banugul’s bed were lost in the dust of twenty-five days on the road.

‘Swordsmith in the agora says Satyrus of Tanais was murdered in Athens by Demetrios,’ Lucius reported after a scouting trip inside the gates. They’d been on the road long enough now that Stratokles was taking every precaution — including watching his young prince’s bodyguards for defection.

‘Satyrus has been reported dead more times than a porne plays flutes at a symposium,’ Stratokles quipped, pushing a sausage down on a stick. ‘But if Demetrios attacked him — kidnapped him? Whichever — he’s made a bad mistake.’ He hunkered down and started to cook the sausage, and Lucius handed him a wineskin full of drinkable wine. ‘I hate it when the big players make stupid mistakes,’ Stratokles complained. ‘I can’t plan for other men to behave like children.’

‘I don’t understand,’ Herakles said. He didn’t whine when he said it, though.

‘Nor should you, lad. Satyrus of Tanais helped break the siege of Rhodos. He’s part of the truce that came out of the end of the siege — he swore to the gods not to attack Demetrios. And he has a powerful fleet. If Demetrios killed him, he’s voided the truce, and Melitta will go for his jugular.’ Stratokles shook his head. ‘If she acts quickly, she’ll retake the Bosporus, or simply allow Lysimachos and Cassander to move freely. Why on earth would Demetrios do such a fool thing?’ He rubbed the bridge of his nose.

Herakles pursed his lips. ‘Perhaps,’ he said slowly, clearly afraid to be ridiculed, ‘perhaps it wasn’t Demetrios who did it?’

He flushed with pleasure — his fair skin showed the flush even by firelight — when Lucius and Stratokles both looked at him with new attention.

‘Ahh!’ said Stratokles. He sat back on his haunches, and took a bite of sausage. Then a drink of wine. He passed the wineskin to Herakles, who took it with pleasure. ‘Not bad, young man.’

Lucius smiled. ‘The wine, or the notion?’

Stratokles nodded. ‘Either. Both. If Cassander arranged it — ah, master-stroke. Revenge for an old failure, all suspicion on Demetrios, and Melitta coming over to his side even though my Amastris just jilted her brother.’ He rubbed his nose, belched, and held out a hand for the wineskin. ‘I wonder if a word of it is true, though.’

Five days to the coast. They came down to Miletus, no longer a major port since her roadstead began to silt up, but the citadel was still strong, and the commander, an Antigonid captain of forty years’ experience, was an old friend — or at least, an occasional ally. Miletus was the third largest entrepôt for the hiring of mercenaries. Antigonus allowed it because it was better than having them go somewhere else.

Stratokles was preparing to introduce his charge when the older man, yet another Philip (Philip, son of Alexander), raised an eyebrow. ‘You planning to stay long?’

‘I was planning to see what I could hire here,’ Stratokles said vaguely.

‘Not much right now. You heard that Satyrus of Tanais was taken by Demetrios?’ Philip asked.

‘I heard he was dead,’ Stratokles said.

‘Aye, taken or dead, or soon to be dead.’ Philip shrugged. ‘Odd — I thought young Demetrios and Satyrus were friends — they looked it last year, believe me. But his navarch has the young king’s fleet right across the water — Lesbos. Mytilene. He’s hiring all the men. Above my pay grade, but if Golden Boy did this, he’ll rue it. That Apollodorus is no fool. With a few thousand of the best and twenty ships, he can make a lot of trouble.’

‘Why don’t you stop him?’ Stratokles asked. ‘You are one of One-Eye’s men, aren’t you?’

The older Macedonian gave him a level stare. ‘Antigonus won’t last the winter. You know it as well as I. And his son — well, he’s brave. But he’s not much for the likes of me. There’s a rumour that Lysimachos is across the Euxine with some men — not many — but that he’s marching this way.’ He let the rest dangle.

It was almost comic. Two months before, Stratokles would have bought this man’s loyalty on the spot — for Lysimachos. You fool, he thought. But he hadn’t suspected how rotten the inside of Antigonus’s system really was.

‘Well,’ he said. ‘If the mercenaries are all in Mytilene, I guess that’s where I’m bound.’

Mytilene was the same small city he remembered — a pleasant town with beautiful women, handsome men, and good wine. Superb olives. ‘I could retire here,’ Stratokles said.

‘You’ll retire with two feet of steel in your thorax,’ Lucius said.

‘Hah! Too true,’ Stratokles said. ‘But until then, I can daydream.’

Herakles looked at Mytilene as if he’d arrived in paradise. Miletus had been too big for a man who’d grown to adulthood in a town with four thousand inhabitants including slaves. But Mytilene was ideal.

Besides, Stratokles was allowing him to ride abroad, well dressed. If they were going to make this work, it was going to start here.

They brought horses across — always a good investment, taking horses to Lesbos, especially big, well-bred warhorses from Persia. So they rode up from the port, looking like a prince and his retinue.

Herakles was in his element, and he positively sparkled — like his mother — when it became clear to all of them that the mercenaries could see a resemblance. Heads turned, all the way from the beach.

Stratokles arranged lodgings with a guest friend — the Athenian proxenos, in fact. But before he could try the wine or the olives, much less the women, he received a summons, from a source he chose not to ignore.

‘So,’ Apollodorus said. ‘Are you a raven come to pick the bones, or an ally?’

Stratokles rolled the wine around in his cup. ‘We’ve been adversaries more times than allies,’ he said.

Apollodorus nodded. ‘True enough.’

Stratokles took a deep breath. ‘I came to hire men for another purpose,’ he said. ‘But …’

‘But you could be tempted to help me?’ Apollodorus said.

‘If you’ll help me,’ Stratokles answered. ‘And I have to warn you that Leon and I have never been friends.’

The Numidian came in from behind a tapestry. ‘Well shot, snake. I told him as much. But I’m the one who sent to bring you here.’

‘Sent?’ Stratokles asked. ‘Where?’

‘Why, Heraklea, of course. Although I wondered at first if you had done this yourself.’ Leon shook his head. His hair was almost all white. It made Stratokles feel old.

Stratokles shook his head. ‘Amastris-’

Leon smiled. ‘Cut you loose.’

‘Tried to have me killed, actually.’ He shrugged.

Leon smiled again. ‘I understand the feeling,’ he said.

‘She failed. I went east for a while.’ He raised an eyebrow.

Leon took a deep breath. ‘You mean you are not here at my invitation?’ he asked.

Stratokles shook his head. ‘I gather that’s the wrong answer,’ he said. ‘Too bad, because I think I’m willing to help.’ He looked around. ‘Surely the Lady Melitta is here, as well?’

‘She’s got the rest of the fleet,’ Leon said. Apollodorus was shaking his head. Leon drank some wine, leaned forward, and said, ‘I think he can help. So do you. Why not tell him?’

‘Because everything we say to him will go straight to Demetrios,’ Apollodorus said. ‘Now that he’s sitting here, I remember how much I hate the bastard.’

Stratokles laid both of his hands on the table. ‘Apollodorus, if Leon and I can do business, I don’t think you have any right to pretend your rivalry is older and deeper. I don’t think we’ve even crossed blades. In fact, I think we’ve been comrades — at Tanais.’

‘I almost gutted you at Rhodos,’ Apollodorus said.

‘Bah — we’re all professionals. Leon, tell me what you want from me. I swear to you — by any gods you wish — that I have no employer just now and that I won’t sell what you tell me for one month from today.’ He stood up.

Leon took him at his word. ‘Bring the image of Herakles,’ he said. ‘Swear on Lord Herakles and the heroic dead of Marathon, where Athens proved her greatness, may their shades come to haunt you if you break your oath, that you will keep anything we tell you here to yourself for one full lunar month from today.’

Stratokles met Leon’s eye. ‘I swear on Lord Herakles and the heroic dead of Marathon, where Athens proved her greatness, may their shades come to haunt me if I break my oath, that I will keep anything you tell me here to myself and my lieutenant Lucius, who will be bound by the same oath, for one full lunar month from today.’

Apollodorus leapt from his chair. ‘You heard him change the oath!’ he said.

Leon nodded. ‘He meant us to hear that he’s a truthful man. If he helps us, he has to explain to his henchmen.’ He nodded.

Stratokles thought it was unfair how handsome Leon remained. It lent him a dignity that Stratokles was never likely to have.

‘So?’ he said. ‘I’ve sworn.’

Leon passed him a cup of wine. ‘Here. It’s a long story.’

Later, the two men shocked each other by clasping hands.

That night, Stratokles wrote a long letter to Hyrkania, and sent two of Herakles’ Macedonians and six recently hired mercenaries to carry it over land. And then he sat down to a symposium with Lucius and all of Satyrus’s captains and, odd as it felt, he enjoyed himself.