Force of Kings

8

Three more days of dusty inaction, and Prepalaus surrendered the citadel on terms and marched the garrison away across the isthmus, headed north and west for Achaia. Satyrus didn’t see Demetrios, and on the third day, as the palace tents were packed, Satyrus’s bed was moved to a tent of his own — the tent he’d had the first day.

‘We’ll follow my lord when you are a little better,’ Apollonaris noted, measuring a dose of syrup. ‘Try this — it’s what I give men who can’t take poppy. Not as effective but not bad.’

‘What is it?’ Satyrus said. He put effort into his act — to seem worse than he was.

‘Hmm. A concoction of roots.’ Apollonaris smiled. ‘Professional secret.’

‘Odd taste,’ Satyrus allowed.

‘Your tents sound like a brothel,’ the doctor said, after some grunts had been heard through the walls.

Satyrus shrugged. ‘I think my mercenaries have gone into business.’

The doctor laughed. ‘Well, I’ll pitch my tent a little further away.’

The next morning, Satyrus got up immediately after the doctor had left him and began to exercise. Achilles came in, with Jason, and Jason oiled him and massaged him thoroughly, and he began to feel better. He tired too easily to contemplate immediate action, but he was better.

‘How many men are there out there?’ he asked.

‘Fifty hypaspists,’ Achilles said.

Jason nodded.

Satyrus kept his voice low. ‘Any idea how we can slip them?’ he asked.

Achilles shrugged. ‘Any time. Never was a group of soldiers so happy to find a bawdy house. But they’ve coin left — no need to hurry. Odysseus and me, we mean to have it all.’ He chuckled.

Jason leaned closer. ‘Your sister has declined to open the Propontus to Demetrios unless you are handed over. I have reason to believe that Neron ordered your death — in battle, at the breach. It stands to reason, lord; if you die here, apparently serving with Demetrios …’

Satyrus took in a sharp breath. ‘I’m not as smart as I think I am,’ he said.

Achilles chuckled again. ‘I am, though, lord. We have these men where we want them.’

‘What’s your plan?’ Satyrus asked.

Achilles shrugged. ‘Ask me in a day or two,’ he said.

Jason leaned in closer. ‘I missed Phiale,’ he said apologetically. ‘I needed more muscle than I had, and her killer wiped out my thugs. I came away but I won’t rest until I’ve finished her.’

‘Who’s paying her?’ Satyrus asked. ‘That’s what I want to know.’

Jason shrugged. ‘The word is it’s Cassander,’ he said. ‘But the word could be donkey shit, too.’

‘You two make my head hurt. Anything about the hostages?’ Satyrus asked.

‘He’s moved them all to Ephesus,’ Jason said. ‘More than a month ago.’

Satyrus started. He got up from the carpet, where he had been raising his legs, and he sat on the edge of his couch, winded from a very minor exercise. ‘But … that means he sent them away before I even reached here.’

Jason nodded. ‘Oh, yes. I remember the order coming to us. It was more than a week before you arrived. Perhaps two weeks.’

Satyrus cursed. ‘Then he never intended to keep the treaty.’ The rage threatened to overwhelm him. If he had stayed on Delos, he’d be free now, and he’d have learned this. He had come to Athens for nothing. And almost died for it. Truly, the gods knew all, and men were fools.

He thought of Cassander ordering his death, and Demetrios casually ordering the hostages to Ephesus.

There was no side that he wanted any part of, unless it was Ptolemy.

‘I’ve been had,’ he said.

Night, and Achilles’ travelling brothel was hard at work. Satyrus walked out of his tent, careful in case the doctor was wandering about but eager to have a breath of air, and discovered that the storage tent had a plank across two bales of sheepskins and on this makeshift table four different knucklebones games were going on. Four large pithoi of wine were half buried in the soil behind another temporary counter, and men sat on bales of sheepskins or benches, drinking, while Memnon measured wine with a ladle.

Aella appeared from the darkness. ‘Cup of wine, sir?’ she asked. ‘Oh,’ she laughed. ‘It’s you.’

Satyrus nodded. ‘I’ll take the cup of wine,’ he allowed.

She nodded. ‘And there’s the games, of course — are you a gambling gent? And Alex and me have got some boys and girls — local talent, really.’

‘How old are you, Aella?’ Satyrus asked.

She swayed, gave him a hard look, her eyes cold as ice. ‘Seventeen, I think.’

‘Is this the life you want?’ he asked.

She met his eye easily. ‘No. This is the life I have. If you pay me what you said you would, I’ll never play another flute as long as I live.’ She shrugged. ‘Otherwise, this is my trade until my purse fills with a baby.’ She stalked away.

Alex sat down with him on the bench. ‘She’s just angry. We know you don’t have any money right now.’ He shrugged. ‘Besides, this is way better than Athens. Achilles put us in charge. I’m keeping more’n half of what I make.’ He nodded at a young boy. ‘And a quarter what they make.’

Satyrus swallowed bile. ‘Send Achilles here,’ he said.

The wine was not very good. Satyrus shook his head in disgust. He’d been wrong, he’d been taken, and now he was the master of a travelling brothel.

The weight of the bench shifted, and Satyrus made room for Achilles.

The man sitting next to him was not Achilles.

‘Stratokles,’ he breathed.

‘Satyrus,’ said his old enemy. He raised his empty hands so that Satyrus could see them in the firelight. ‘I’m here for your sister.’

Satyrus started. ‘What?’

Stratokles laughed. ‘It’s odd for all of us. But Melitta sent me, and I’ve brought several of your friends. It’s been the deuce of a time finding you, and there’s men out to kill you even now. Remember the doctor? Sophokles?’ Stratokles was watching the hypaspists.

‘I’m unlikely to forget him,’ Satyrus said.

‘He’s close,’ Stratokles said. ‘I saw him in Athens. He’s after you.’

Satyrus took a deep breath.

‘Apollodorus has the cream of your fleet at Aegina,’ he said. ‘And I have Anaxagoras and Charmides with me.’

Suddenly Stratokles straightened.

There was a sword at his throat.

‘Best explain yourself,’ Achilles said.

It took an hour to explain it all, and another hour to make their plans.

Another day, and the brothel closed up, counted its profits and paid off its staff. The Macedonians watched them go with mixed emotions — most of them had lost every obol they had to one vice or another.

The golden king’s doctor had pronounced Satyrus fit, and Satyrus agreed to go by palanquin to rejoin Demetrios at Achaea. He paused at the moment of departure to borrow cash — half a talent — from the doctor, and he used the money to pay off his four bodyguards, who added the money to their takings from four days of fleecing the Macedonians. Then, after a last visit to the tree line to relieve himself, Satyrus was seen to climb into the palanquin, his Tyrian purple chlamys visible through the silk curtains on the travelling kline.

The four mercenaries and a handful of former brothel employees watched the strong guard march away with the King of the Bosporus as their prisoner. When they had climbed the hill behind the Acrocorinth on the road to Achaea, Achilles shook his head.

‘That was too easy,’ he said.

‘Mmm,’ Memnon said. ‘Guard captain owed me more than a talent of silver.’ He shrugged. ‘He won’t be with ’em in the morning, either.’

Stratokles looked over the four. ‘Gentlemen, I consider myself among the wiliest men in the world today, and I profess myself to be a mere student before your mastery.’

Odysseus laughed. ‘Aye, like enough, there’s always someone to put one over on ye, no matter how swift ye may be,’ he said.

Satyrus rubbed his chin. ‘I still fear for Jason,’ he said. ‘The Theban boy was wearing his clothes. When they find out …’

‘That’s the beauty of it,’ Achilles laughed. ‘When the guard captain deserts tonight, he’ll take Jason with him. And those fuck heads will chase him.’ The mercenary laughed. ‘Never you fret for Jason, lord. He was playing this game when he was in nappies.’

A day’s ride over the mountains brought them to Megara, where Charmides and Anaxagoras waited. They were delighted — and so was Satyrus, who feared he might weep, he was so happy to see his friends.

‘Practised your lyre?’ Anaxagoras asked.

‘Not as much as I should have, no doubt,’ Satyrus said. He was choked with emotion.

Anaxagoras embraced him hard. ‘Let me be the first to tell you: I told you so, you fool.’

Stratokles laughed aloud.

‘We have a boat for Aegina,’ Charmides said.

At the pier, Aella paused. ‘Lord?’ she asked in a small voice.

‘Despoina?’ Satyrus asked her.

‘What happens now?’ she asked.

Satyrus scratched his chin under his new beard. ‘For you?’

She nodded. ‘Me and Alex.’

‘You can’t stay here. So you come with us, and I pay you each a talent of gold, and then you settle down — in Tanais, or Olbia.’

She nodded. ‘I don’t believe it,’ she said. ‘You’ll just cut our throats and dump us.’

Alex shook his head. ‘No, no he won’t.’

Aella was trembling. ‘We’re not even human to the likes of him. Here, give me something now, and I’m away. You, too, if you have any sense.’ She looked at Alex.

‘You cannot go back to Athens,’ Satyrus said. ‘Phiale will kill you.’

‘So you say,’ she spat. ‘I am not sailing away on that ship — away from-’

Satyrus narrowed his eyes, suddenly angry. ‘Listen to me, young lady. Away from Athens? Where you can sell your body until you get pregnant — and if you are lucky, keep a quarter of the proceeds? What will you have left of yourself in five years? Eh?’

‘As if you care,’ she said.

‘I do care. You two saved my life. I pay my debts.’ Satyrus regretted the words as soon as they were out.

She turned. ‘Fuck you and your debts,’ she said.

She crumpled to the ground when Memnon clipped her on the head. ‘For her own good,’ he said apologetically. ‘She’s got it for you bad, lord.’

‘Huh?’ Satyrus said, and felt foolish.

‘Let’s get to sea,’ Charmides suggested. He smiled.

As he jumped into the longboat, Achilles grunted. ‘Where to now?’ he asked.

Satyrus was still chewing over his encounter with Aella. But he managed a smile.

‘Ephesus,’ he said.

A hundred stades away, the captain of the guards who were supposed to be escorting Satyrus back to Demetrios cut open the back of the tent where Jason was waiting, wide eyed. The two of them slipped out through the slit in the tent wall and sprinted for the waiting horses.

‘Better get a good wage out of this,’ the Macedonian said.

They got on their horses and walked them carefully, quietly, clear of the ring of sentries, and then back across the hills towards Corinth.

Sophokles watched his target escape the dense ring of guards with well-concealed delight, and led his group of hired men to the south, up across the old pass with its deep chariot ruts in the rock and back down above the main Achaean-Corinthian road just as the sun was rising. The men at his back were Thessalian mercenaries — good horsemen, and tough as old leather. They got to the top of the pass long before their quarry.

Satyrus and his saviour rode into the trap without any god intervening to save them, and Sophokles had the immense pleasure of seeing his own black-fletched arrow finally go into Satyrus’s throat under the cowl of his chlamys. The King of the Bosporus fell from his horse and did not move, and the guard captain died a moment later with a pair of javelins in his back.

‘Phiale won’t like that you killed him,’ Isokles said.

Sophokles couldn’t stand the man, so he didn’t bother to respond.

‘Phiale won’t like that you killed him,’ the man said again in his annoying voice.

‘I don’t work for Phiale,’ Sophokles said.

‘But you said-’ the man began.

‘I lied,’ Sophokles said. He made a gesture, and his men emerged from their ambush positions.

Isokles went to the corpses, but Sophokles stopped him with a gesture.

‘No. Leave them for the ravens. No spoils. Let Demetrios wonder. And this way, Cassander can blame Demetrios — look how he was shot trying to escape? Perfect. I couldn’t have planned it better myself, and I must give thanks to the gods, who have played some odd tricks on me with this man and his sister. At last it is my turn.’

‘I don’t like you,’ Isokles said in his odd voice.

‘Alas. But I shall learn to bear it. Get on your horse, eh? There’s a good fellow.’

‘You ain’t as smart as you think,’ Isokles said. ‘And Phiale-’

‘No one is as smart as I think I am, young man. And Phiale isn’t even on the board.’ Sophokles reined in his horse and looked down at the King of the Bosporus. ‘How I shall enjoy telling this story,’ he said, and rode away.