King of the Bosphorus

PART II

Poppy juice and bone-setting got Satyrus through the days in Tomis alive, although the arm never ceased to trouble him. A gale blew against the breakwater and all hands worked to save the captured ships. Then winter closed in a sheet of rain, and then another. His arm was setting badly, but Calchus's physician put more and more water and milk into the poppy juice, gradually weaning him from the colours and the poetry. The man was an expert, and Satyrus missed only the happiness of the dreams.

His appetite returned in a rush, and they had been ten nights in Calchus's big house when he found himself reclining at a dinner, eating mashed lobsters and drinking too much and almost unable to follow the conversation in his urge to eat everything that the slaves brought him.

'By all the gods, it takes me back to see you lying there, lad,' Calchus said. He raised a cup and swigged some wine. 'Eat up! More where that came from.'

Theron ate massively as well, and Calchus watched him consume lobster with an ill-grace. 'You eat like an Olympic athlete,' Calchus said.

'I was an Olympic athlete,' Theron answered.

Silence fell, as the other guests looked at each other and smirked.

Satyrus almost choked on his food. Calchus was his guest-friend, his father's friend, and his benefactor, his host – and yet, a hard man to like. His childhood visits to Tanais had always been full of ceremony and self-importance, and Satyrus could remember the face his mother would make when she heard that the man was coming. And yet, in his sixties, he'd risen from his bed to lead the men of the town against the raiders – not once, but three times, taking wounds on each occasion. He was not a straw man – but a brash one. Just the kind to have Theron in his house ten days and never trouble to learn that the man was an Olympian.

Calchus shrugged and drank more wine. 'Satyrus, I have another problem for you,' he said. 'T hose pirates locked up all their rowers in our slave pens – mercenaries and hirelings and slaves. Thanks all the gods they weren't free men like yours, and armed, or we'd all be dead!'

Satyrus tried to roll over. Without the poppy, the break in his arm ached all the time. The old infected wound was polluting it, and Satyrus missed Alexandria, where the doctors knew about such things. He had other wounds, but they weren't so bad. But it wasn't polite to lie flat at a party, and his left hip had a bad cut, so there was just one position that suited him.

'I was going to order them all killed,' Calchus said. 'But it occurred to me that you might take them – you'd could make them row your ships as far as Rhodos, at least. And then let them go – or sell them. Or keep them – they're hirelings.'

Theron nodded. 'Better than killing four hundred innocent men,' he said.

'Innocent? Athletics doesn't teach much in the way of ethics, I suppose,' Calchus said.

'Not much beyond fair play,' Theron said.

'They came here to rape and burn,' Calchus said, mostly to the audience of his own clients on their couches across the room. 'Their lives are forfeit.'

Theron raised an eyebrow at Satyrus. Satyrus nodded. 'We'll take them. When our wounded are recovered, we'll take them away.'

'That's a load off my mind,' Calchus said. He shrugged. 'I'm a hard man – but four hundred? Where would we bury them all? The pirates were bad enough.'

Two hundred pirates – two hundred armoured men – all killed in a night of butchery, and their bodies lay unburied for too long, so that the charnel-house sweetness crept into everything, even through the poppy juice.

Satyrus couldn't be gone too soon, once he was free of the poppy.

The town and the crew of the Falcon shared the armour and weapons of the dead men, and the Falcon's crew – a little thin on the decks of the Golden Lotus – was probably the best-armoured crew in the Mediterranean, although it was all stored below in leather bags under each man's bench.

The professional rowers from the enemy ships were mustered and sent to row in their original ships, but with every man stripped and a handful of heavily armed Falcons on every deck. Satyrus, Diokles, Theron and Kalos made difficult choices, promoting men to important positions just to get the captured ships off the beach.

One of them was Kleitos. He'd failed once as an oar master – too young, and too afraid of his sudden promotion. This time, on a rain-swept beach on the Euxine, he pushed forward and asked for the job.

'Let me try again,' he said to Satyrus. He stood square. 'You was right to put me back down – but I can do it. I thought and thought about it.'

Theron didn't know the history, and raised an eyebrow. Diokles, the man who had taken over when Kleitos froze, surprised Satyrus by taking his side. 'He's ready now,' Diokles said.

Satyrus nodded. 'Very well. Give him the Hornet.'

'Oar master?' Kleitos asked.

'Oar master, helmsman, navarch – call yourself what you will. It's going to be you and Master Theron taking the Hornet all the way to Rhodos. You up to it, mister?' Diokles raised an eyebrow.

Kleitos stood straight. 'Aye!'

Diokles cast Satyrus a look that suggested he had his doubts, but-

'Thrassos of Rhodos,' Theron said, calling another man forward. He was often a boat master, and he'd been slated for command back in Alexandria.

The big, red-haired man stepped forward. He looked like a barbarian, and he was, despite his Greek name. He wore a leather chiton like a farmer and had tattoos all over his arms. 'Aye?'

'You'll have the deck with Master Satyrus,' Diokles said. 'Can you handle it?'

Thrassos smiled. 'Nah,' he said. 'Nah. Serve good, eh?' His Greek had a guttural edge to it. Slaves washed up as free men at Rhodos, because their little fleet took so many pirates and freed their slaves. Thrassos was clearly a Dacae, or even more of a stranger, a German like Carlus in the Exiles.

Satyrus clasped hands with him anyway. 'Keep me alive,' he said.

Thrassos smiled. 'Me, too.'

*

Two weeks in Tomis and the weather broke, with two days of sun drying the hulls and more promised in Satyrus's broken bone. His hip was almost healed, and he found himself trapped in endless erotic dreams, as if, having come near death, he needed to mate. It made him feel as if he was still a boy, and at Calchus's symposia he struggled to hide his instant reaction to the man's slave girls and their admittedly pitiful dances. Satyrus's opinion of the man went down again at the sight of these girls – bruised, stone-faced and too young. His mother's commands about sex with slaves seemed perfectly tailored to them, despite the urges of his sleeping mind and Calchus's broadest urgings. 'Take one? Take two – they're small!' Every night, the same joke.

'I need to get going,' Satyrus said to Theron. 'Help me! I'm too damned weak to get it done.'

Theron clasped his shoulder softly and moved around, giving the necessary orders and placating Calchus with promises of future visits.

On the beach, with a fair north wind blowing as cold as Tartarus, Satyrus embraced his host. 'T hanks for your hospitality,' he said. 'Aren't you worried about Eumeles? He'll need a reprisal.'

'Not before spring,' Calchus said. 'And we're Lysimachos's men, here. We'll get him to send us a garrison. It may even mean war.'

'How will you send him word?' Satyrus asked, chilled to the bone already.

Calchus looked uncomfortable. 'Fishing smack to Amphipolis, perhaps,' he said. 'Or a rider overland.'

'We'll take the news,' Satyrus said. Theron raised an eyebrow. Satyrus looked at his former coach. 'Actions have consequences,' he said, thinking of Penelope lying dead in a pool of her own blood, all her courage snuffed out by violence.

Clown-voice killed Penelope, and I kill him to settle the score, and Eumeles sends a fleet to Tomis to settle that score. Or perhaps I sail to attack Eumeles, and he forces me to flee, and clown-voice pursues me, and thus kills Penelope – on and on, to the first principle of causality. Satyrus was lost in thought until Theron nudged him.

'We'll pass the news to Lysimachos,' Satyrus said.

'You have our eternal thanks already, benefactor!' Calchus said. 'Your father was the best of men and you follow him.'

Satyrus was tempted to say that the best of men would not have caused Penelope's death, nor Teax's. But he held his opinions close.

'Goodbye, guest-friend,' Satyrus said. He waved to the other towns-men on the beach – a thin crowd, because many of the freemen's ranks were empty.

They ran the ships into the surf and got under way quickly, fearing a turn in the weather. The weather held for three days, and they sailed south and east without touching an oar. But just before beaching on the third evening, Theron's ship suddenly turned into the wind, the signal for trouble, and Satyrus got the Lotus alongside as fast as he could. Apollodorus led the marines aboard at a run, and then ran down the central deck, scattering mutineers. Ten men were killed, and Theron shook his head.

'I tried to reason with them,' he said thickly. 'They knocked me on the head.'

Kleitos had put the ship into the wind and held the stern for several long minutes, alone.

Satyrus clasped his hand. 'Well done!'

The man looked stunned. 'Didn't even know what I was doing!' he muttered. 'One against so many.'

Apollodorus came back with a dozen oarsmen under guard. 'Taken in arms,' he said. 'No question. Kill 'em?'

Satyrus shook his head. 'Exchange them for a dozen of our rowers in the Lotus.'

They made a poor job of landing the ships for dinner, and the officers gathered in a worried knot by a fire.

'My arm says we're in for a weather change,' Satyrus said. 'Nothing good there.'

'Somebody's spreading the word that we're going to have 'em all killed,' Kleitos said. He looked bashful and surprised that he'd spoken out, but he stood his ground. 'I heard it when they were getting ready to rush me. They asked me to join 'em.'

'You know them?' Satyrus asked.

Diokles laughed bitterly. 'We all know somebody over there. Professional seamen and rowers? Small world, Navarch.'

Satyrus rubbed his beard – he hadn't shaved since he took his wound. 'Seems to me we should talk to them,' he said.

Theron snorted. 'My head still hurts,' he said.

'Promise them wages and a fair landing at Rhodos,' Satyrus said.

'Rhodos is death for some of 'em,' Diokles said. He handed Satyrus a cup of warm wine and honey. 'That's why they're antsy.'

'Lysimachos could use them,' Satyrus said, considering the words even as he said them.

'That'd turn some heads,' Theron said. 'T hose men are as good as pirates. Leon is the enemy of every pirate on the seas.'

Satyrus shrugged. 'It isn't right to kill them, but it isn't right to release them where they'll serve pirates? Is that it, Master Theron? I hear Philokles in your voice, sir.'

Theron shook his head. 'My head's too thick to argue moral philosophy, lad. And I see your point.'

'I need Lysimachos,' Satyrus said. 'He's supposedly our ally – he's Ptolemy's ally, but Alexandria is far away and Lysimachos is close.'

'Lysimachos might take these men – and the ships they crew – and tell us that we're lucky to be alive.' Theron looked around at the other men in the firelight, but the sailors were quiet. Most of them were lower-class freemen, and they weren't about to intrude on a political argument between two gentlemen.

Satyrus looked pointedly at Diokles. The Tyrian nodded slowly. 'So? I mean, begging your pardon, but if he does that, he's no good ally, and we're still richer by the Golden Lotus and our lives. And frankly, gents – you can't build a fleet on these hulls. We captured a few old triremes. Only Hornet is worth a crap. There's worm in the other two.'

Theron nodded. He slapped Diokles on the shoulder. 'That'll teach me to talk about things I don't really know,' he said. 'In future, don't hold your tongue.'

The dark-haired Tyrian's earrings twinkled in the firelight. 'So?'

'So – let's muster the lot of them – our oarsmen too. We'll tell it to them straight.' Satyrus was nodding as he spoke. 'And, Apollodorus, marines, full armour. So they see the other choice.'

Apollodorus nodded. 'Just for the poets, Navarch – I'd rather you executed a couple first. That's a message the rest will understand.'

Theron looked away in distaste, but Diokles nodded. 'I agree. Kill a couple of the louts who were caught with weapons today.'

'In cold blood?' Satyrus asked.

'I wasn't planning to give 'em swords,' Apollodorus said. 'Don't worry, Navarch. I'll do it.'

'No,' Satyrus said. He swallowed, feeling trapped. Feeling as if some thing was moving on the dark beach. Furies. Curses. His oath to avenge his mother. He shook his head. He thought of Teax. Of the consequences of being a king.

'Muster the men,' he said.

It took only minutes – the captured rowers had their own fires, watched by tired oarsmen in captured armour.

'At least they're all fed,' Satyrus said to Diokles.

'Your friend did us proud,' Diokles said. He was chewing on a pork bone.

'Do these men have to die?' Satyrus asked.

'Zeus Soter, Navarch! They rose in mutiny against you, tried to kill Theron and tried to take one of our ships.' Diokles looked at Satyrus from under his black eyebrows and spat gristle in the sand. 'You plan to be a king? I'm no tutor, like your Spartan, nor an athlete, like Theron. Bless 'em both – fine men. Good men. But – if you plan to be a king, people are going to die. And you are going to kill 'em. Get me? Maybe you need to lesson yourself on it. Or maybe…' The Tyrian didn't meet Satyrus's eye. 'Maybe you oughtn't to do it. At all.'

Satyrus stopped walking and stared at his helmsman. 'Philokles told me once that he thought that good men – truly good men – neither made war nor took life.' He sighed. 'And then he said that it looked different from the front rank of the phalanx – both good and evil.'

'Aye,' Diokles said, nodding. 'I hear that.' He gave a pained smile and took another bite of pork.

'We'd have done the same to them,' Satyrus said. 'If we were taken, we'd do our best to fight back.'

'And I'd not squirm when the sword bit my neck, eh, Navarch?' Diokles shrugged. The contempt in his voice wasn't strong, but it was there. 'Let Apollodorus do it, if you have to.'

Satyrus shook his head, watching Theron, wondering how much of the man's good opinion he was going to forfeit. 'No,' he said. He loosened his sword in the scabbard and walked forward, where the marines had dragged the prisoner oarsmen to kneel in the sand.

He felt as if his feet were loud on the sand. He could feel the Furies gather.

Satyrus walked up their ranks. Several were boys. The rest were long-armed, hunch-backed rowing professionals, with massive necks and heavy muscle. A few raised their heads to look at him. None of them looked like evil come to earth, or like servants of dark gods, or any comforting, easy, evil thing he could name. They looked like beaten men, cold and empty of hope, kneeling on a beach, waiting to die.

The whole beach was silent, as the fires crackled, dry oak and beech and birch driftwood from the north. Satyrus could smell the birch, the smell of his childhood fires.

If it was not just one Penelope, but a generation of them? Not just one Teax, but a thousand?

A few steps from the end of the line of prisoners, he drew and killed one like a sacrifice, an older man with a cut on his forearm, and then the younger man next to him, blade sweeping across his throat on the back stroke from the first cut so that the two dead men fell almost together. Satyrus stepped clear of the flow of blood. He cleaned his sword on a scrap of linen from his doros and continued to walk towards the crowd of enemy sailors.

'Don't be fools,' he said. They were so quiet that he didn't need to raise his voice. 'I am taking these ships to Lysimachos, just around the horn of the Propontis – Amphipolis in Thrace. I'll leave you all ashore there. No Rhodian navy to try you. No one else has to die.'

There was a buzz, and he raised his voice. 'The men at Tomis wanted to butcher the lot of you. I could still do it.' His voice was hard, as hard as a man who has just killed in cold blood – who might do it again, just for the pleasure of the power. 'Row me round to Lysimachos and I'll put you ashore with silver in your hands. Trifle with me again…' He paused, took a deep breath and raised his voice to a storm-roar, 'And I'll kill the lot of you and burn the bodies in the extra ships. Clear?'

The utter silence that followed his last words was its own testament.

'Excellent,' Satyrus said. He walked off into the darkness.

Theron held his hair while he threw up. The big Corinthian didn't say anything. And Satyrus put it away, with Teax and Penelope and the dead girl by the Tanais River. Now he had a name for it.

The price of kingship.

That night, he took a dose of poppy juice in secret, and he felt better.

*

The next day, they raised the Thracian Bosporus with dark clouds gathering in the north. Far off, they saw the nick of a white sail on the horizon, and as the Golden Lotus entered the still waters of the Bosporus itself, they passed close to a fifty-oared pentekonter hull, turtled in the water and covered in weed – weeks old.

'Pirates?' Satyrus asked.

'Poseidon,' muttered the harsh voice of his helmsman.

They swept south. Now the oarsmen had to labour, the wind veering around in minutes so that it pushed right in their faces and the sea rising behind them, even with the narrow channel and protected water.

Lotus had a third of her benches empty and more only half-filled, and her crew had to struggle to keep the big ship head up to the growing wind and moving steadily down the channel.

The other ships had captured oarsmen but nearly full crews, and whatever the men had taken from Satyrus's brutal display, they rowed well, so that the squadron moved in a crisp line-ahead, Lotus followed by Falcon followed by Hornet and then the two smaller triremes.

Stades passed, and the oarsmen of the Lotus laboured on. Satyrus walked amidships.

'Friends,' he called, 'we've a storm behind us and forty stades into Byzantium and safe harbour. I'll row with you, but row we must – all the way down the gullet.'

He sat on a half-manned bench and took the oar as it came over the top. Thrassos sat opposite him and did the same.

Good rowers – and Uncle Leon took only the best – have their own rhythm, and don't need a timoneer unless they lose the stroke. Satyrus rowed until his palms bled, and then he rowed further – penance, at the very least. But the men on the benches around smiled at him, and the great loom of the Golden Lotus's oars wove on and on and the stades flowed by. Above, the deck crew took every scrap of canvas off the masts – the wind was head-on. And then the deck crew joined the rowers.

Satyrus's left arm throbbed, and then it burned, and then he sobbed with pain. He took a nip of the poppy juice from his little perfume flask and was instantly better. The pain still filled his head, but he floated on it instead of swimming in it. He wasn't actually doing much rowing any more; mostly his hands just went around with the oar. The three-week-old break was too raw, and the pain too much, for his muscles to have much purchase, but he kept the oar going.

One of the deck-crewmen – Delos, a snub-nosed man who had a reputation for impudence – came and lifted him away from his oar. 'Need you to steer,' the man said. He gave Satyrus a tired smile that was worth all the courtly courtesy in the world. Then he sank on to the bench where Satyrus had been and took the oar at the top of its swing.

Satyrus stood at the rail and heaved for some time. When the red haze left his vision, he was looking at the walls of a city rising over the bow of his ship.

'Herakles and Poseidon and all the gods,' he breathed. He picked up the wineskin that sat under the helmsman's bench in the stern and poured all the contents over the side into the sea.

The oarsmen cheered, and even after thirty stades into the wind, their cheer carried and they came down the last of the channel in fine shape, the bow cutting into the wind as they began to round the harbour point.

Satyrus turned the ship with the steering oar, his left arm throbbing so that he choked, and only then did he see that the beach was packed with ships – fifty warships, and ten more anchored out.

'Poseidon,' he said. He slumped.

But right at the edge of the beach, he could see Labours of Herakles drawn up, his bronze prow gleaming in the winter rain.

He looked at the rest of the fleet for ten laboured breaths, and then his heart beat again. He didn't know them. Except for Herakles and a penteres that might be the Fennel Stalk, they were someone else's ships.

He didn't know them. Whoever's fleet that was, it wasn't the fleet of Eumeles of Pantecapaeum.

'Hard to find a place to drop our anchor,' Satyrus managed to quip. He hoped that he sounded confident.

He needn't have worried. Sailors swarmed out of the town to help his men anchor out – there wasn't a spot on the beach, but the tavern emptied to help, and his ships were moored fore and aft, often moored right against the other ships, so that their anchors shared the load. It was only as the first gusts of hail-tipped storm wind bit into them that Satyrus raised his voice to ask where all these ships were from.

'Hah!' laughed a big black sailor in a fancy chiton and wearing a one-hundred-drachma sword. 'We serve no man!'

Satyrus sat down on his steering bench and laughed. He had moored to a pirate fleet. The first man to meet him ashore was Abraham, lean and bronzed, his long hair in wet ringlets. The man threw his arms around Satyrus and they embraced for a long time – long enough for sailors to call and make salacious comments.

'I thought you were dead,' Abraham said. 'But I hoped – and prayed. And I decided to wait here. Daedalus gave me hope – he came in a week after me and swore he'd seen you get free of the enemy line. But Dionysius said that he saw you sink.'

'We sank another boat. Easy mistake to make.' Satyrus let his friend lead him by the hand to a harbourfront wine shop – the kind of place that no Athenian gentleman would ever enter. The doorway was the stern gallery of a trireme, and the benches inside, worn smooth by a thousand thousand patrons, were oar benches, and the walls were covered in bits of wood, nailed to the wall with heavy copper nails. Satyrus slumped on to a bench and looked around.

'I need you to meet someone,' Abraham said quickly. 'Then you can rest.'

The place was quiet, yet packed with men – two hundred in a place meant for thirty. 'Zeus Soter!' he said, looking around. 'Is this a tribunal?'

'We don't swear by Zeus,' a burly old man said. 'Only Poseidon.' He sat on the bench opposite Satyrus. His face was scarred and he'd lost an eye so long before that the pit of his lost eye was smooth, as if filled with wax. He wore his hair long, in iron-grey ringlets, as if he was a young aristocrat in the agora of Athens. His linen chiton was purple-edged, like a tyrant's, and he wore a diadem of gold, studded with five magnificent jewels.

'I'm Demostrate,' he said. He nodded at Abraham. 'This young reprobate told me that you're Kineas's son. And that you might be dead. But this afternoon, it turns out you're alive. Eh?'

Satyrus tried not to nurse his arm. He waved at Diokles, who was pushing to get in. 'That's my helmsman. Get him a place,' Satyrus said. His voice snapped with energy, despite his fatigue. He thought that he had the measure of the place. 'Demostrate. The pirate king.' He looked at Abraham.

Abraham shrugged. 'Not all merchants can afford a squadron of warships to escort their cargoes. My father pays his tenth to Demostrate.'

Satyrus shrugged, although it hurt his arm. 'My uncle does not.' He looked at Demostrate. 'What can I do for you?'

Demostrate's chin moved up and down – either with silent laughter or in silent affirmation. Perhaps both. 'You have your father in you, and that's for certain-sure. I gather you just got your arse handed to you by Eumeles' shiny new fleet.'

Satyrus rubbed his new beard and managed a smile. 'Well – they did outnumber us three to one.'

Demostrate nodded. 'See, I thought that if Leon and Eumeles fought, I'd just sit and rub my hands in glee.'

Satyrus nodded, wondering if he was a prisoner now. It seemed to be a situation that called for some bluff. Satyrus didn't feel as if he had any bluff in him. He looked around at the hundreds of eyes watching him in near perfect silence. The place reeked – tallow candles, oil lamps, hundreds of unwashed bodies and old, stale wine and beer. 'But?' Satyrus prompted.

'But it turns out that I hate fucking Eumeles worse than I hate Leon. Leon's just a man with goods I covet. He's put some mates of mine under the waves, and I'll repay him in time. But Eumeles used to be a creepy lad named Heron, and he had me exiled.'

Satyrus grinned and shot to his feet. 'Zeus's – that is, Poseidon's balls! You're Demostrate of Pantecapaeum!'

'Aye, lad, that I am!' the old man said. He had a pleasant voice, not at all the gravelly rasp that his face would lead a man to expect.

'You were my father's admiral!' Satyrus said. His smile filled his face as he saw the possibilities – and the dangers. For this was a truly dangerous man – a man who'd refused alliance with any of the parties in the struggle of the Diadochoi, who preyed on all comers.

He sat down, his right hand automatically loosening his sword in its sheath, and rested his shoulders against the wall. His right hand cradled his injured left arm.

'Not really.' The old man shrugged. 'Nah. Nothing so fancy. I covered the coast for him one summer while he made war on the Macedonians. And the next year I guarded his merchantmen while they moved his army. To be honest, lad, it was dull, dull work for a sailorman, and damn little plunder.' He shrugged, and the gold beads in his locks winked. He had heavy amber earrings. 'So – how'd you come to get beaten?'

Satyrus was suddenly struck by the fitness of it – that Demostrate was talking to him – his father's ally. Who hated Eumeles for his exile. Of course, Leon would never stomach alliance with the man who controlled the entrance to the Propontis and preyed on every merchant who didn't buy his favour.

Clearly time to start thinking like a king.

'Sheer folly,' Satyrus said. As he spoke, Diokles shouldered a man aside and sat heavily next to Satyrus on the bench. 'And bad intelligence.'

'Tell it,' Demostrate said. He motioned for a man to bring wine. 'The lads like a good sea-fight story. What do you drink?'

'Wine,' Satyrus said, and got a ripple of chuckles and smiles from the hard men packed around him. 'I've had a long eight weeks.' He looked around. 'Where should I start? We heard that Eumeles had two dozen ships, and we headed north with twenty – not to fight him, but simply to land at Olbia.'

'Aye, where yer father was archon. Olbia would be yours just by landing there. I understand that.' Demostrate nodded.

'Eumeles knew we were coming,' Satyrus said. 'He was in the mouth of the Borysthenes with eighty ships. When we retreated, he followed and forced us to battle against the coast, eighty ships to twenty.'

Mutters, whispers and a catcall from the men around him. Demostrate merely turned his head and the silence returned. 'The battle story I've heard – from Daedalus of Halicarnassus. He says you fought well. Care to tell it?'

Satyrus shrugged. 'Not well enough to win, or to rescue my uncle.'

Demostrate nodded. A boy came up with a heavy bronze wine krater and cups. He put them on the table and served the wine. Demostrate poured a full cup on the floor. 'Not in the sea!' he said as he poured his libation.

Dozens of voices echoed his prayer.

Satyrus took a cup and drank, and it was good Chian wine – as good as anything on a dandy's table in Alexandria. 'Welcome to my town, Satyrus son of Kineas,' Demostrate said, still standing.

'Care to buy a pair of small triremes?' Satyrus asked. 'They have a little worm, but nothing a pirate king can't fix with his arsenal.'

Men laughed, but Demostrate sat and laughed louder. 'They're mine now, don't you think?'

Satyrus shrugged. 'By that logic, your life is mine now, don't you think?' Without shifting his weight, his right hand, which had been cradling his left arm, reached over it and he drew the short sword from under his arm in the motion practised a thousand times – the blade out, the tip precisely at the bridge of the pirate's nose.

Demostrate didn't move. 'Now that's a point of what people call philosophy, don't you think? I can possess myself of your ships, but you can only take my life. You can't keep it.' The old man grinned. 'And thankless as these scum are, I don't think you'd live long to brag of it.'

Satyrus was proud that, despite the last eight weeks and everything he'd been through, the point of his sword wavered less than a finger's width. 'The thing is that if you take my ships, I have absolutely nothing to lose.'

'You'd be killing the young Jew here and your helmsman, too. Maybe every man in your crews.' Demostrate still didn't move.

'That's a risk I'm willing to take,' Satyrus said. 'The last eight weeks have taught me quite a bit about the price of kingship.'

'So you'd sacrifice your own friends and your whole life for the gratification of instant revenge,' the pirate said.

Satyrus shrugged but his sword point did not. 'No. I'd wager my own life and that of my friends that you are a reasonable man. With the full knowledge that if my bluff was called, I'd have to pay the wager. Revenge,' and here, Satyrus shrugged again, and his point twitched as his hand tired, 'is a luxury I can't yet afford.'

'I won't bargain while you threaten me, lad. It'll look bad for the scum.' Demostrate met his eye and winked.

Satyrus sheathed his sword with the same economy of movement he'd used to draw it. 'Replace the ram on my Black Falcon and you can have both ships and all the men that rowed them,' Satyrus said. There it was. The knuckle bones were rolled.

The silence was as thick as the smell. Satyrus had time to think of how much his arm hurt, and to wonder if he was about to be relieved of the pain – for ever.

'Find us a base in the Euxine and we'll rip Eumeles a new arsehole together,' Demostrate said. 'Every city on the Euxine is closed to me.' He shrugged, rose to his feet. 'I like him. What of you lot?'

The two hundred laughed and muttered – no roars of acclaim, but few hoots of derision, either.

The old man leaned down. 'Finish the wine and my compliments, lad. You've all winter to get a new ram – and I'm quite happy to have a new pair of light triremes, although I have the better of the deal. But I have thirty ships that can stand in the line of battle with you, and maybe I know where there's more. Right now, you need to sleep.'

Satyrus nodded heavily. 'T hanks,' he said.

Most of the two hundred men followed Demostrate out of the arched door, and Satyrus was left in a dockside tavern with Diokles, Abraham and Theron, who had lurked at the edge of the door.

'Leon hates him,' Theron said.

Satyrus gulped wine. What he needed was water, and the wine went straight to his head.

'Where are our men?' Satyrus asked.

'Drunk as lords, somewhere dry,' Diokles said. 'I promised a muster for pay tomorrow. Do you have coin?'

'Not a silver owl,' Satyrus said. 'However much Leon hates this man, I suspect his credit is good here.'

Abraham leaned forward. 'I'm made of money. I have silver to hand and I can get more.' He raised an eyebrow. 'Even though you just wagered my life.'

Diokles shook his head. 'Demostrate! I thought we'd all be gutted on the spot.'

'We may yet,' Satyrus said. 'I liked him.'

Theron sighed. 'He's a hard man, Satyrus. You think you're hard?'

'I suspect he'll keep a deal when he makes one,' Satyrus said.

'He left Lysimachos high and dry two years back, you'll recall,' Theron shot back. 'Bought and paid for, he deserted – and took this town. From Lysimachos. Who hates him. Whose alliance you crave. And Amastris? Her father Dionysius, whose alliance you desire, hates this pirate for closing his trade.'

Satyrus nodded. He was drunk on two cups of wine. His arm throbbed, and he was high on the adrenaline of having drawn on the greatest pirate in the world – and lived. 'Tomorrow,' he said unsteadily. 'Abraham, do you have a bed for me?'

Abraham put an arm around his shoulders. 'You poor bastard. I didn't think he'd come the moment you landed.'

Theron finished his wine. 'He wanted to find you weak. To see what you are made of. Satyrus, it's the law of the wild, here. It's like living with lions. If you bind yourself to these men, you are outside the laws of men.'

Satyrus waved his hand. 'Tell me tomorrow,' he said. He stumbled out into the dark with Abraham's arms around his shoulders.

'You look like shit,' Abraham said as they walked through the rain.

'I'm drunk,' Satyrus said.

'No, worse than that,' Abraham said.

'I'm drunk, and I got some people killed, and then I killed some more people all by myself,' Satyrus said. 'Other than that, I'm fine.' Then he stopped against a building and threw up all the wine and everything else he'd eaten for a day.

Abraham held his head and said nothing. Abraham had made his father's factor's house into a headquarters for his crew, and he had cleared the warehouse for his wounded when he came in. What Isaac Ben Zion would make of the loss of profits was another matter.

It was a two-storey house with an enclosed yard and an attached warehouse, common across the Hellenic world, but it was comfortable in a way that Calchus's house never had been. The slaves were sleek and well fed, and the yard was full of sailors and oarsmen at all hours – noisy, singing, sometimes vicious but never dull. The house itself held all the officers of two ships, and with Satyrus's arrival, it held the officers of four ships.

On his first morning there, Satyrus awoke to hot, heavily spiced wine and barley gruel, which on later days he would eat while listening to reports from his officers in the biggest room on the ground floor, a room utterly devoid of the decorations that Greeks preferred – scenes of the gods, heroes, slaughter. Instead, there were carefully painted designs along the borders, and blank walls in bright colours.

On the first morning, Satyrus sat drinking hot wine and looking at the blue wall. 'You need a scene painter.'

'I'm a Jew,' Abraham said. 'Remember? No nymphs will be raped on my walls.'

'Can't you have Jahveh – I don't know – smiting his enemies?' Satyrus wasn't trying to mock, but it sounded that way.

Abraham made a peasant sign to avert ill-luck. 'No,' he said firmly. 'No, we don't.' Then he grinned. 'Listen – with blank walls, you can imagine any scene you want!'

Satyrus watched the walls and sipped more wine, and he felt the mirth drain out of him. 'Listen,' he said. 'When I stare at these walls, right now I just see people being killed. Killed by me – one way or another.'

'You're the one ready to make an alliance with a pirate,' Theron said, coming in. He had fresh oil on his skin. 'Mind you, the pirate has a gymnasium and a palaestra.'

Satyrus looked up in irritation. 'I was speaking to Abraham.'

Theron sat and poured himself hot wine. 'Exercise cleared my head. I have things I want to say to you.'

Abraham rose. 'I'll leave the two of you.'

Satyrus frowned. 'No.'

Theron shrugged, and Abraham sat.

'I was appalled when you killed those men,' Theron said. 'But I was appalled when you marched the phalanx away and left Philokles bleeding on the sand.'

Abraham looked from one to the other. 'Killed what men?' he asked.

'I executed two mutineers,' Satyrus said. 'Myself.'

Abraham nodded, his face closed.

'I think you are what you have been trained to be. I think that I helped to train you.' Theron shrugged.

Satyrus nodded. 'Hardly a day passes when I don't think of it,' he said. He leaned back on the armrest of his kline and put his feet up. 'The day my world changed. I still wonder about Phiale, too.'

'You let the doctor live,' Theron continued. 'And he repaid you badly.'

'Yes,' Satyrus said.

Theron said, 'I love you. I hope that when I have a son, he's like you. I remain yours, and I'll stay by your side, if you'll have me. But – Satyrus, please listen.'

Satyrus was staring at the fire on the hearth. 'I'm basking in the first compliments you've ever paid me, pighead. I'm listening!' He turned and smiled at Theron.

Theron smiled back. But after a moment, his smile faded. 'But I want you to ask yourself if this is really the path you want. Kingship? Will you really wade in blood all the way to the ivory stool? And who will you be when you get there?'

Satyrus felt the tears well up in his eyes. He rolled over to hide them. 'Abraham, do you think you could find me a physician to reset this arm?' he asked.

Abraham rose, looked at both of them silently and left the room.

When he was gone, Satyrus sat up. 'You were right, Theron. This is between us. He is a different kind of confidant.' He looked at his right hand, as if searching it for bloodstains. Was there blood under the nails? Did it show?

'Your father refused the stool and the diadem,' Theron said. 'I didn't know him – but I know that of him. He refused.'

Satyrus sat looking at his hand, and then he raised his face. 'I'm sorry, Teacher. But that die is cast. I made that decision on the beach, two nights back. Or perhaps when I watched a house burn at Tomis. My world is changed. It is not the world my father lived in.' He spoke slowly, as if he was a magistrate reading a sentence. 'Philokles told me to examine myself. It's like a curse. Does Demostrate ever examine himself? I doubt it.'

Theron shook his head. 'I don't judge other men,' he said. 'Not that way.'

Satyrus raised an eyebrow. 'You judge me,' he said. 'Because I'm young, and you helped shape me. And right now, I think you'd like me either to give up my desire to be king, or to tell you why I should be king. But I can't. I can't even be sure that I will be a better king than Eumeles.' He leaned forward, and put his good right hand on Theron's. 'But what I can tell you, Teacher, is that I will examine myself, day by day, and judge myself by the standards Philokles taught. And Eumeles will not examine himself. He will simply act, and act. As empty of worth as an actor pretending to be a hero.'

Theron took a deep breath. 'Who gave you so much wisdom?' he asked.

'You,' Satyrus said. 'You and Philokles. And Sappho and Diodorus and Leon and Nihmu and Coenus and Hama. And perhaps Abraham, as well.'

Theron drank the rest of his wine, clearly overcome by emotion. 'So – the end justifies the means?'

Satyrus shrugged. 'I don't know. I think about it every hour. Are all lives of equal worth? I doubt it. Did those two men deserve to die in the sand under my blade? Yes – and no. Would it change your view if I said that they did not die in vain?'

'Would it change their view?' Theron asked. 'They're the ones who are dead.'

Satyrus nodded. 'I know. Remember the girl by the Tanais? The one I gut-shot?'

Theron shook his head. 'Can't say I do – but you've spoken of her before.'

Satyrus nodded. 'I put her down, like a wounded horse. Except that she wasn't a horse.' He shuddered. 'I think the road to kingship started there, in that meadow. The beach the other night was merely a signpost.' He squared his shoulders. 'Fine. I'm ready. If I have to wade in blood, as you said, then I must simply work harder to put something on the other side of the balance.'

'And Demostrate? The end justifies him?' Theron leaned forward. 'You feel guilt for killing two men – two criminals.' He shook his head. 'A complex act – but hardly a vicious one. But if you get into bed with this pirate, you share the responsibility for every slave he takes, every home he burns, every merchant he ruins, every man he kills.'

Satyrus nodded. 'Yes,' he said. 'Yes, I do.' He stared off into space, reviewing his dead. 'So be it.'

'Bah – your youth is speaking!' Theron made a motion of disgust.

'Perhaps.' Satyrus didn't feel particularly young. His arm hurt, his whole body ached and he wanted to sleep for a day or two. But other things pressed on him. He sipped hot wine. 'Listen, Theron – my sister must think me dead. Sappho – Diodorus – all of them.'

Theron rubbed his chin, his anger deflated. 'You're right, of course.'

'I should sail down to Alexandria as soon as I make my bargain with Demostrate. If I can get him to agree.'

Abraham came back in. 'Am I welcome back?' he asked from the beaded doorway.

Satyrus nodded. 'Yes,' he said.

'Are you two still friends?' Abraham asked, looking from one to the other.

'Yes,' Theron said. A small smile started at his lips, and spread like the rise of the sun to his face and eyes. 'Yes,' he said, 'we are.'

'Good,' Abraham said. 'Because if our moral philosophy hour is over, there are officers waiting for instructions and an invitation from Demostrate to the public dinner. Work to be done.'

Satyrus turned to his friend. 'Care to travel home?'

Abraham raised an eyebrow, and his dark-brown eyes sparkled. 'No, thanks.' He smiled. 'Once home, I may never actually be allowed to leave again.' He shrugged, a particularly Hellenic gesture. 'I like it here.'

Satyrus nodded, seeing his friend in a different light. Abraham was suddenly not the conservative Hebrew businessman of his adolescence. War had changed him. Satyrus noted that Abraham had earrings and a thumb ring and was wearing a sword – in his own house.

Eventually, that might merit comment. For the moment, Satyrus confined himself to saying 'I understand' with a quick smile. He turned to his former coach. 'Theron?'

Theron rubbed his chin. 'I'm of a mind to be your envoy to Lysimachos,' he said. 'If you'll have me.' He looked up and met Satyrus's eye. 'But we need to rescue Leon,' he said. 'Much as I want to go to Lysimachos, I'm the man you can spare to effect a rescue.'

Satyrus shook his head. 'No, Theron. You are not a spy or a scout. You are a famous athlete and a known associate of Lord Ptolemy.'

Theron looked away. 'You know that we are – sworn?'

Satyrus nodded. 'I know that all of you are Pythagoreans,' he said.

Theron took a deep breath. 'Do you know what the first principle of Pythagoras is?' he asked.

'I feel as if I'm back in school. Yes, Theron. I know. You swear friendship – and the first principle is that each will lay down his life for his friend.' Satyrus leaned forward, speaking forcefully. 'I'm telling you that this is not the moment and that Leon would not expect you, his most famous friend, to attempt to rescue him single-handedly.'

Theron sighed. 'So what will we do?'

Satyrus put his forehead in his hands. 'I don't know. I don't think there's a prisoner in the world important enough that Eumeles would trade him. But it may be that Sappho or Nihmu have already received a ransom demand, and until we have been to Alexandria, I don't wish to jump the wrong way.'

Theron rested his heavy arms on the table. 'I have no interest in going to Alexandria,' he said.

'Nor I,' Abraham said. 'Must you go?'

Satyrus was watching the fire on the hearth. 'I must. In fact, everything springs from Alexandria. First of all, money. If I raise a fleet, I will start spending money at a rate that will threaten even Uncle Leon's treasure. Second, Melitta. Third, the rescue of Leon. Fourth, or perhaps first, Diodorus and the Exiles. If I have a fleet, I need them ready.'

Theron nodded. 'We can write to Diodorus from here,' he said.

Satyrus sat up. 'Now that's a good idea. I can send the letter myself and it will be with him in three weeks.'

Theron nodded. 'And he won't know yet that Leon is taken.'

Abraham nodded. 'He can take your soldiers to Alexandria and wait for the fleet.'

Satyrus was looking into the fire. Suddenly, he felt as if the god was at his shoulder, warming his hands at the fire, whispering in his ear – for in between two licks of flame, he saw his campaign unfold. 'No,' he said. His voice trembled.

'No, what?' Abraham asked.

'No. He won't march to Alexandria. That's the wrong way.' Satyrus sat up. 'He'll march to Heraklea. I've got it. I have most of it. Theron, trust me, I'll find a way to rescue Leon. He was taken for me. I won't forget.'

'But you still need to go to Alexandria?' Theron asked.

'For all the reasons. I'll go as soon as I've got Demostrate's word on alliance.' He nodded. He still felt the god at his shoulder. Despite his arm, he felt almost greater than human.

'Pay my regards to my father,' Abraham said. 'I won't be going home soon. As I say, he wouldn't let me go again.'

'I'm proposing a trip to the most exotic city in all the seas, our home and native land, or at least our collective adoptive polis, and you two plan to while away the winter in a town full of pirates,' Satyrus said.

Abraham smiled, and his earrings twinkled. 'Wait until you attend their parties.'

Satyrus met his smile. 'I can imagine.'

Abraham shook his head. 'No. No, you can't.' As soon as the officers were gathered, Satyrus composed his letter to Diodorus. He wrote it out on papyrus, and then he took a wax tablet and melted the wax from the frames. On the bare wood, he wrote his message. Dear Uncle Our scout of the Euxine ended in disaster. Uncle Leon was taken and we lost twelve ships. I have made a plan to win the Euxine back, and I will need you and every man you have – if Seleucus will spare you. I plan to be at Heraklea at the spring equinox. I ask – nay, Uncle, I beg – that you meet me there with all your force. I will have a fleet to transport you.

Uncle Leon is in the hands of Eumeles. I have prevented Theron from going to his rescue by promising that we will all bend our every effort that way in the spring. I rely on you to support us in this.

I will proceed immediately to Alexandria to speak to Melitta and to your lady wife concerning our plans. Please respond to me there, or at the Temple of Poseidon at Rhodos, or to Amastris, Princess of Heraklea, who I believe would be a reliable letter box. At the thought of Amastris, Satyrus smiled. Passionate, headstrong and perhaps a bit fickle – a mistress who could never be taken for granted. Satyrus loved her, even the fickle and the self-centred. She was a prize worth winning, and he meant to win her. And she would love to receive a secret letter. A symposium in a pirate town was a riotous affair, with twenty couches in a huge circle and women on half of them with their men, loud songs and louder laughter. A symposium in honour of the feast of Cypriot Aphrodite was several degrees further down a scale which ran from salacious to riot, and worse.

'This is not like home,' Abraham commented, as they walked through the streets of Byzantium. Every house had a goddess out front, most decorated with saffron, some with real gold. 'These parties are scarier than battles.' He waved at an Aphrodite who was obviously using her hands to pleasure herself. 'This is not Alexandria.'

Satyrus, his left arm wrapped tightly by a physician and a few drops of poppy in his veins, felt capable of anything. 'Like Kinon's at home?'

Abraham shook his head. 'No. Not at all like Kinon's. Like – well, like what my father thinks goes on at Kinon's. They play games…'

Satyrus hugged his friend with his good arm. Abraham had always been something of a prude, by Hellenic standards. 'I'm here to make a deal with Demostrate,' he said. 'I'll survive some games.'

Abraham coughed politely into his fist.

Before the sun was fully set, Satyrus lay between Daedalus of Halicarnassus, living proof of how thin was the line between piracy and mercenary service, and Abraham, the eldest son of a Jewish merchant in Alexandria and yet already accepted in this world as a man of worth. The men were well dressed, oiled and in some cases perfumed like the gentry of any town of Hellenes, although they came in more skin colours than were normal in Athens or Miletus. Their common livelihood crossed the barriers of race or riches, in the form of scars and a certain complexion that could only be earned by years at sea, and gave the skin the look of old leather, whether that skin was ink-black or milk white. And every man present wore a sword strapped to his side, even on a kline at a symposium.

Beyond Daedalus was Aeschinades, one of the most famous captains in the Aegean, and he lay with a beautiful woman with dark tan skin, her breasts under his hands, her back to him and her face towards Satyrus. Satyrus wasn't sure whether he was actually copulating with her or not, but he didn't look too closely. Her face was curiously blank – Satyrus looked twice, almost involuntarily, wondering why the woman did not even simulate pleasure.

On the other side, beyond Abraham, lay Manes, the terror of the coast of Phrygia, a man who had gobbled up more shipping than Poseidon, or so he claimed with open hubris. He shared his couch with a veritable Ganymede, a boy so attractive and so openly, brazenly sexual that his expression made Satyrus uncomfortable, as if he sought by his antics to make up for the lack of emotion on the dark woman's face.

'I warned you,' Abraham said from beside him.

'I didn't pay enough attention,' Satyrus conceded. 'I've never seen this kind of behaviour, even at Kinon's. I confess my error.'

Abraham grinned. 'Wait until the wine goes around and the flute girls come out. Ever played "feed the flute girl"?'

Satyrus felt himself blush. 'I've heard-'

'That's what I mean. You won't "hear". I've been here four weeks – I'm used to it. To them.' Abraham held out his cup for wine. 'I have to admit, I like the bastards. They say what they mean, and they are afraid of nothing.' He shook his head. 'Actually, most of them are afraid of Demostrate, and of Manes. Other than that…' He grinned. 'But you are either with them or you aren't.'

'You fed a flute girl?' Satyrus asked.

'Yes,' Abraham said. He blushed. 'And I will again.'

'They prey on the weak for money,' Satyrus said. 'All these women are chattel slaves.'

'So do the Diadochoi,' Abraham said. 'And I say again – either you are with them or not. They will ask you to play – and if you will not, they will never deal with you.'

Satyrus watched one of the captains further around the circle strike a slave sharply, a casual blow that knocked the slave flat. He breathed in and out slowly, as if preparing for combat.

Abraham leaned over. 'Many of these men have been slaves,' he said. 'This is not our world.'

Dinner was excellent – young kid with saffron, a simple rabbit stew with beans that was nonetheless delicious, and oysters, thousands of them, brought in with a nude Aphrodite on a giant shell, and the whole carried by four big men.

The captains began to stamp and cheer, even as they poured oysters down their throats.

She was a beauty – not in the first blush of youth, but tall, strong and well-breasted. Her hair was dyed almost white-blonde, like the goddess, and her nipples were gilded. She held herself like a goddess, not a slave.

The oysters went down noisily, and Satyrus found that Aphrodite intended to share his couch. 'I come from Demostrate,' she said in a deep, clear voice. Her Greek had no more accent than she had raiment.

'Take her, lad!' Demostrate shouted. 'I'm too damn old!'

'Feast of Aphrodite!' Manes shouted. He waved his cup. 'Do her honour!'

The other men shouted and the calls became louder. The singer gestured to her musicians and began to sing in a stronger voice – a hymn to Aphrodite. Sappho, in fact – a piece that Satyrus knew.

Abraham touched his shoulder while the rest of them shouted. 'I warned you,' he said.

Satyrus rolled back, and Aphrodite ran her hand up under his chiton, grabbed his penis and pulled it sharply. Satyrus was amazed to find that her fingers cut straight through the poppy in his blood and the pain in his arm.

'They mean for you to – copulate. With her. Now.' Abraham's face was carefully neutral. 'I warned you!'

Aphrodite flicked her thumb across the tip of his manhood and he was hard. Just like that.

'Relax,' she said. 'Would you prefer me on top or beneath you?' she asked, her right hand working his penis like raw dough.

Simple courtesy came to Satyrus's rescue. 'The goddess must be on top,' he said, and rolled under her. 'Please mind my arm.'

The other men roared to see her straddle him. She squatted and impaled herself on him, and then lay along his length. 'The longer this takes,' she said, 'the better they will like you, and the more luck you bring us.' She moved slowly up and down, and then bent her head so that her white-gold dyed hair covered his face. He could hear the roar of the captains, but he couldn't see them – he felt his response quicken.

He noted that her gilded nipples left traces of gold across his chiton.

'Unpin my chiton,' he said up into her hair. 'I don't stand a chance of lasting-'

She pressed a hand on his left arm, and pain welled up like water from a spring. 'If you let me, I can make you last a long time,' she said in his ear, her breasts moving along his chest.

Outside the tent of her hair, they were pounding their couches, singing the hymn to Aphrodite, and Satyrus could hear Demostrate's voice raised the loudest. The man was a fine singer.

She had his chiton unpinned, and he used his right arm to strip it over his head – more distraction, and more pain in his left arm, and more cheering.

'Second time!' Demostrate shouted, and the hymn began again.

'You are very beautiful,' Satyrus said. 'Are you a slave?'

Aphrodite breathed out suddenly, raising her face from his. Her lips were so precisely formed that they looked as if they were sharp. 'I am yours,' she said. 'Demostrate has given me to you.' She sank along his length, rose up and gave a shout – simulated ecstasy, Satyrus suspected, having seen Phiale do the same – but brilliantly simulated. The room roared and the hymn rolled on.

'Third time!' Demostrate shouted, and the hymn began again.

'Hurt me again,' Satyrus said into her hair. The hair was saving him – he could see neither the lush provocation of her skin nor the leering faces of his dinner companions, and he kept it that way, confining himself to the privacy she made him.

She rubbed her thumb with deadly accuracy along the line of the break on his forearm, and then her other hand rubbed up between his legs as the pain rolled through his body, compensating – what kind of a life gave a woman this sort of skill? Satyrus was no longer fully in the symposium, instead hovering in a separate world, a place that smelled of spice and perfume and sex, where wine and poppy filled his head, pain and pleasure ran together – he had no control over his body, and it made him afraid, more than battle, so that his manhood began to wilt, and she writhed against him and hissed, and his hips rolled in response to her, and he grabbed her head and his mouth closed on hers. She gasped, as if being kissed shocked her, and he reached down and ran his hand between them, and she gasped again into his kiss.

'Fifth time!' Demostrate yelled, and the room cheered as if they had just won a fight. Satyrus wondered where the fourth time had gone and suddenly passed the point of control and finished, his body arching into hers, his hands clenched in her flesh, and she shouted again, and this time he neither knew nor cared whether her pleasure was simulated.

She moved to roll away, but his right arm crushed her to him. 'Don't move,' he said.

She rode him for part of another verse, laughing softly against him, and then he pulled his chiton – his best – from the floor and wiped both of them clean while the other guests hooted and cheered and the woman who had sung the hymn looked away in distaste. Satyrus got up, naked, and walked over to Demostrate, his member still tumescent, usually a social gaffe at a symposium.

'That may have been the best gift of my life,' Satyrus said. 'But you still owe me a ram for Black Falcon.'

Demostrate laughed. 'Was that five times, or six?' he asked. 'Good luck either way. You are a cunning one, lad. I saw you!' He laughed and pulled Satyrus down on to his couch. In a whisper, he said, 'You think we're fucking barbarians, lad. And maybe you're right. But now we all know that you are, too.' He sat up. 'Can you get us a port on the Euxine?' he asked. Sitting on the edge of his kline, he took a heavy silver mastos cup two hundred years old, dipped it in a krater held by two slaves and drank it off.

'Yes,' Satyrus said.

Demostrate handed him the cup.

Satyrus drank all of it, every drop, and turned it, licked the nipple and rattled the bead, and men cheered him.

'Then let's go and fuck Eumeles as hard as you fucked the goddess, lad. I think the boys fancy you.'

Satyrus couldn't stop the bitter smile that crossed his lips. 'The feeling is not mutual,' Satyrus said.

Demostrate had his diadem on his head, the jewels winking in the firelight. He grabbed Satyrus and pulled him close, so that their naked shoulders rubbed against each other. The pirate king's skin was a loom of scars, a far cry from the cream and doeskin of Aphrodite, and an odd contrast to Satyrus, whose mind was running too fast. The old man thrust his face into Satyrus's face.

'Good,' Demostrate said. 'They're scum. Never forget it – they're all circling, ready for me to die.' He laughed. 'And not one of them could keep all this together.' His breath wasn't foul. It smelled of cloves and wine. 'You could command them, in a few years.'

Satyrus shook his head. 'No,' he said.

Demostrate leaned close. 'When you have a chance, kill Manes.'

Satyrus looked at the old pirate, as shocked as when the goddess's thumb had flicked his penis. The effect of his words was physical.

Demostrate laughed. 'Welcome to Tartarus, lad. If you want us to fight for you, you'll have to do more than make love at a symposium. Manes needs to die, lad. And if you kill him, the others – well, many of them are sheep, for all they're the terror of the seas.' He laughed.

'Now go back to your own couch before the others decide that you have to die.'

Satyrus rose. Demostrate kissed him – a man's kiss, no different from any kiss that any guest would get at a symposium, but it chilled Satyrus. And as he began to walk back across the tiled floor, he happened to look at Manes, where he lay entwined with his seductive Ganymede. The man looked back at him like a beast in a cage. Satyrus looked away – made himself look around, as if amused at the whole scene, and then back into Manes' animal eyes.

He had no trouble seeing why all these hard men feared Manes.

He walked back to his couch. Aphrodite rolled off, but he grabbed her hand. 'Honour my couch, Goddess,' he said.

She smiled. 'If you ask,' she said. 'My, you have nice manners.'

'I'm from Alexandria,' he said. Then he set himself to talk to her, because her tent of hair had kept him sane.

Hours later he walked home naked under his chlamys, cold and damp, and halfway home he stripped the cloak over his head and stood in the marketplace with the icy rain running over his skin.

Abraham stood by him, and when he felt that he had punished himself sufficiently, he followed Abraham, and they walked home together, with Aphrodite following them, her belongings balanced on her head. She followed Satyrus into the house.

Theron was surprised by his nudity, but not for long. 'Looks like quite the party,' he said. He looked at Aphrodite. 'You were a party favour?' Theron asked. 'Wish I'd been invited.'

Satyrus threw himself into one of Abraham's comfortable chairs – heavy wooden ones, like the Nabataeans used. 'You're free. And you have my thanks. You played your role beautifully.'

Aphrodite smiled. 'Free? Are you serious?'

Satyrus couldn't help but smile at her joy – so much more real than her gasps in his arms. 'Who would tease a slave that way? Yes, of course.'

She stood, her eyes downcast. She was as old as Satyrus – perhaps nineteen. Quite old, for a sex slave. Her body was superb, muscled, fit and well-kept, but her face was showing signs of her profession.

Theron raised her chin. 'You are Corinthian!' he said.

She smiled. 'Yes,' she said.

He laughed. 'You actually are a priestess of Aphrodite,' he said.

'Yes,' she said. 'I was. I ran away. The goddess followed me.' She looked down again, her cheeks red.

Satyrus wanted to be sick. 'You are free. And if I can do anything for you – passage, perhaps? Or a place in a household?'

Abraham put a hand under her elbow. 'Let me find you a place you can sleep,' he said. 'I have a friend upstairs who will be happy to meet you.'

Satyrus had had no idea that Abraham had a friend. He put his head in his hands as soon as she was gone. 'Oh, gods,' he said.

Theron said nothing.

After a while, Satyrus looked up. 'We need an allied port on the Euxine,' he said.

Theron sighed, and said nothing.

After a while, Satyrus went to bed.