King of the Bosphorus

15

Herakles stood naked except for his lion skin, towering over Satyrus's supine form. At a distance, Satyrus regretted his own death, and his spirit hung over the room, watching the hero-god standing beside his body.

Thanatos entered from the floor, striding into the room as if climbing invisible steps from Hades below.

'Mine,' he said.

'No,' Herakles said.

'Mine!' Death hissed, and his voice was the voice of every creature of the underworld, and the stench of death and the flat smell of old earth accompanied him. His garments were of rotted linen, and his crown was gold so long buried as to have a patina.

Herakles stood between Death and the bed. 'No,' he said, and crossed his mighty arms.

'Ten times over!' Death hissed. 'Am I some demi-mortal, to be treated so?'

'Begone,' Herakles said.

Thanatos was no coward. 'Bah,' he spat, and sand dribbled from his mouth. 'Let me see how much of you remains mortal, little godling.'

Herakles shrugged. 'I have tried your strength, Uncle.'

Thanatos struck suddenly, with a sword shaped like a sickle, the kepesh of Aegypt. Herakles caught the wrist of the hand that held the sword and lifted the god and his sword clear of the floor and walked out of the room, on to the balcony over the sea.

'Cool your head in the kingdom of your brother, Poseidon,' Herakles said.

'I took your father in his moment of triumph, boy! And I'll do the same to you!' Thanatos said, and his dreadful eyes crossed with Satyrus's and he knew that was meant for him.

And then Herakles turned and threw the god of death over the balcony.

There was no splash.

And in the way of dreams, Herakles led him along the river many parasangs, until they came to a temple, and Herakles led him to the altar – but it was no altar, and an old man, supported by two brawny apprentices, was forging iron on an anvil, and the scene was lit in the red of the forge, and as Satyrus watched, the bent blade was quenched, and Satyrus smiled in his dream, and then he was being pulled by the hand through the tangled ways of the night market, passing whores and rag-pickers and basket-weavers, passing a baker who did his business at night for the greater profit, and a man who sold stolen goods, and a woman who claimed her mother was Moira, goddess of fate, and that she could see the future. Herakles walked past them all, and none of them saw him, except the daughter of Moira, who raised her eyes from a fraudulent fortune and drew her stole over her head in terror.

They entered a tavern, and men moved out of the way of the god of heroes without knowing that they did so, stepping aside at a movement in the corner of the eye, and Satyrus moved in his wake. He could smell the sour wine, and smell also the tang of the poppy juice that the innkeeper kept in a glass bottle – real temple glass, worth its weight in gold. He almost lost the god in his sudden flood of desire to possess that wretched stuff, to change this dream of sordid reality for the colours that spoke like gods.

He balanced between two steps, one of which would lead him, invisible and wraithlike, to the bottle, the other of which would follow his god. And then he followed Herakles through a curtain of soiled leather, and then through a wall of dry stone chinked with mud, to a filthy room that might once have been whitewashed and now stank of old wine and rotten food.

He knew the man at the table instantly. It was Sophokles, the Athenian doctor-assassin, and he had four men crouching on the dirt floor and a fifth person, a woman, standing by the door, her arms crossed over her breasts. They all turned their heads as the god stepped among them, and Sophokles stood suddenly, took a breath and looked around him.

'Something – has come,' he said. 'Damn Aegypt and her walking spirits!'

Herakles didn't speak, but pointed mutely at the woman by the door.

Satyrus knew her, and he…

Awoke. He was covered in sweat, and weak – so weak that he couldn't raise his arm to wipe the sweat from his face.

Nearchus sat by him. 'You are awake?' he asked.

Satyrus willed his arm to move, and it was as if his paralysis lifted even as he forced that first movement – and a sharp pain shot through his arm, a cramp like the ones that a poorly massaged athlete can get after pushing himself too hard. An experience that Satyrus had had many times.

Another cramp hit him and he rolled on his side and retched. Nearchus held a basin for him, but nothing came out but a thin stream of bile.

When the cramps released their hold of his muscles he relaxed and a slave wiped his chin with a cloth. He breathed in, then let the breath out, testing his gag reflex.

'Was I dead?' he asked.

Nearchus shook his head. 'Not at all. You did quite well, young man. Although, to be honest, the habit was scarcely ingrained – a mere matter of weeks. My brother, for instance…' Nearchus shook his head.

'Where is Phiale?' Satyrus asked.

'She visits often, I believe,' Nearchus said. 'Young master, I cannot imagine that you fancy her services in your current state.'

'On… contrary, doctor. Song… Phiale…' He took a breath and managed to speak clearly. 'Will do as much to restore my health as-' A cramp hit his stomach, and he rolled into a ball. When he could breathe, he continued, '… all your ministrations.' He gave a ghost of a smile. 'I… do not mean it. You – how can I bless you enough?'

Nearchus rolled his shoulders. 'I am a family retainer. I do my duty. I must allow that I have always enjoyed serving Master Leon.'

The next two days saw Satyrus recover and retch by turns, his muscles refusing their duty in the middle of the simplest actions. He spent the daylight hours lying in the pale winter sun on his balcony. Sometimes he imagined that he could see the incorporeal image of his god standing over him, and other times he shook his head at the curious effects of his illness on his mind. Nearchus had found him a boy-slave, Helios, a native of Amphipolis enslaved when his parents took him on a sea voyage, and the boy waited on him with a solicitousness seldom found in a slave.

Satyrus sat in the sun, a scroll of Herodotus in his hands. He couldn't get through the words, even the words that dealt with the stand of the Hellenes at Plataea, the climax of Herodotus's great work.

'How long have you been a slave?' Satyrus asked.

The boy considered. 'Four years,' he said. 'I was taken in the spring of the year that Cassander killed the queen.'

Satyrus smiled, because even in his current state, he knew that the boy meant Olympias, the witch-queen of Macedon. An enemy. One enemy fewer.

'Were you – ill-used?' he asked. 'By the pirates?' 'Not by the pirates,' Helios said in a matter-of-fact voice. 'But they killed my parents.'

Satyrus nodded. 'Do you know the name of the pirate who took you?' Satyrus asked.

'Oh, yes,' the boy said. 'We were taken by Demostrate. His crew killed my parents because they fought. He apologized to me.' The boy gave a steady smile.

Nearchus and Sappho were sending him a message. His brain took this in through the fog of pain and wretchedness – this boy was their vote of disapproval of his alliance with the pirate king.

'Would you care to come to sea with me, boy?' he asked.

Helios beamed like his namesake, the sun, and his Thracian-blond hair glowed in the sun. 'Oh, yes!' he said.

Satyrus lay back, exhausted by the exchange. 'If I take you to sea, and teach you to fight, will you serve me for four years?'

Helios shrugged. 'I'm a slave,' he said. But then he smiled. 'I'd love to go to sea,' he said.

Satyrus realized that he'd left the important part of the offer unsaid. He tried to formulate it in his mind, but it was slipping away. 'Never mind,' he said, and fell asleep.

The next time he was awake, Nearchus sat by his bed and fed him soup – wonderful goat stew, with spices and dumplings.

Then he threw it all up.

Helios cleaned him.

Then he threw up again.

Helios cleaned him again, patiently getting every fleck of his disgusting vomit out of his long hair, his eyelashes, his pubic hair.

Satyrus drank water and went to sleep.

Later he awoke and it was dark. He moved on his couch, and he heard an answering movement and felt the boy's body move against him. 'I'm sorry,' Helios said. 'You were shivering.'

Satyrus stretched – and was not hit by a muscle spasm. 'Helios,' he whispered, 'do you think we could try a little soup?'

Lamps were lit all over the house before ten minutes had elapsed on the water clock. Nearchus came in, wearing a Persian robe. He put a hand on Satyrus's forehead, and then on his stomach. 'By Hermes and all the gods,' he said.

Helios came in from the kitchen with a bowl of soup. He sat on the bed and spooned it into his master.

Satyrus ate sparingly, although he wanted to drink the bowl and call for another, and he lay back on the bed consumed with hunger.

Half an hour passed, and the food was still in his stomach. Nearchus shrugged. 'I was off by a day,' he said. 'You'll recover quickly now.'

Helios brought a brazier and lit it to heat a copper pot with stew brought from the kitchen. Every half-hour he gave his master another twenty spoons of soup.

'Free you,' Satyrus said. 'If I – free you? And take you to sea? Four years? Need a servant,' he said.

Helios grinned. 'Of course,' he said. And more quietly, 'I knew what you meant,' he said. 'I just had to hear you say it.' He burst into tears. 'People make promises,' he said.

Satyrus found himself patting the boy's head. I hated it when Philokles did this to me, he thought.

Helios looked up. 'A man came – an Aegyptian man in the robes of a priest. He brought you a bundle.'

'Go and fetch it for me,' Satyrus said.

In moments it was unrolled, to reveal his father's sword – perhaps just a touch shorter, Satyrus thought, but it was superb, and the metal was now a bright blue, almost purple at the point, so that the blade glittered with icy malevolence.

'Run me an errand?' Satyrus said to Helios. 'Go to Sappho and get a mina of gold. Take Hama and two soldiers as an escort, and go to the Temple of Poseidon. Deliver the gold to Namastis, the priest. If he wants you to come, escort him wherever he leads you.'

Helios was staring at the sword. 'One day, I want a sword like that,' he said.

'One day, I'll get you one,' Satyrus allowed. 'Now run along.'

The next day, Nearchus sat on an iron stool in his room, grinding powders at his window. 'I use this room to make drugs when you are away,' he said. 'I hope you don't mind. You have the best light.'

Satyrus grinned. 'I'm not really in a position to resent anything you do, doctor.'

Nearchus nodded and kept grinding. 'So I assumed. Do you still want Phiale?'

Satyrus's grin fled. 'Yes,' he said grimly. 'Has anyone ever been convicted on the evidence of a dream, do you think?' he asked.

Nearchus shrugged. 'I would assume it happens,' he said. 'Dreams have power.'

Satyrus's eyes grew hard. 'I wish to investigate the course of a dream,' he said. 'Does Phiale still keep the same maidservant at her house?'

Nearchus looked up from his pestle and mortar. 'Yes,' he said.

'Same woman she had when I was – that is, when I was a client?' Satyrus asked.

Nearchus was back at his work. 'I wasn't in this household then,' he said. 'A small woman, dark hair, would be pretty if she did not look so hard?'

'Fair enough description of Alcaea,' Satyrus said. 'She's got a tattoo on her left wrist.'

Nearchus shrugged while working. 'I've never examined her wrists.'

Satyrus waved to Helios, who was sitting against the wall. 'Can you read and write, boy?' he asked.

Helios nodded. 'Well enough,' he said. 'Greek and a little of the temple script, as well.'

'Really?' Satyrus asked. 'How nice. You are full of surprises. I need you to run me an errand.'

Helios nodded. He stood.

'Go and find Alcaea. She works for the hetaira Phiale. See if you can get to know her a little. Then see if you can find out where she was, hmm, perhaps two nights ago.'

Nearchus raised an eyebrow. 'That's a tall order for a slave.'

Satyrus lay back. 'I've promised him his freedom,' he said. 'Let him earn it.'

He ate more soup, and Nearchus changed him – yet another humili ating small service the man performed for him. Satyrus thought that he himself would make a poor doctor. He hated touching people, hated the foulness of his own excrement, the bile from his stomach, the thousand details of illness. 'How do you stand it?' Satyrus asked, when he was clean.

'Hmm?' Nearchus asked. 'I'm sorry, what did you say?' He was looking out of the window.

Satyrus shook his head. 'Nothing,' he said. In the morning, he awoke with the sun and tried to get off his bed. He walked a few steps and discovered that he lacked the strength, and he tottered back to bed without hurting anything. He ate an egg for breakfast, and then another.

'You're done,' Nearchus said at noon, when the egg hadn't come up. 'I want you to be very, very hesitant to take poppy again. Even for a bad wound. The next time will be worse. In fact, you'll always have a craving for the stuff. Understand?'

'Yes,' Satyrus said.

'Good,' Nearchus answered. 'Sappho has wanted to see you for days, but you don't like to appear weak – I know your kind. And she's busy with the baby.'

'Where's Helios?' Satyrus asked.

'Haven't seen him. You have only yourself to blame – you gave him a task like the labours of Herakles.' Nearchus shrugged.

Satyrus read Herodotus while the doctor ground bone for pigment and then burned some ivory on a brazier outside.

'Phew!' he said, coming back. 'Sorry for the smell.'

Satyrus made a face. 'I've made a few smells myself, the last week,' he said.

Nearchus nodded, fanning himself. 'Let's get you dressed,' he said with a glance at the water clock. He refilled it, restarting its two-hour mechanism, and then found Satyrus a plain white chiton and got him into it and back on his couch.

'I'm sorry I sent Helios away,' Satyrus said. 'I hadn't realized you'd be stuck with his work.'

Nearchus shook his head. 'I made that decision. We have rules in this house – since the attacks when young Kineas was born. Slaves are taken on only after we check their histories. We do most work ourselves and we don't encourage visitors. There's a rumour in town that you are here – but we still haven't confirmed it. It may be you, or it may be Leon who brought the Lotus in to port. See?'

Satyrus nodded. 'I do see.'

'And Hama has contacts in the – how shall I say it? – the underworld. Among the criminals of the night market. We hear things. There are men in this town who offer money for your death.'

Satyrus smiled. 'Stratokles is dead, and his plots continue to roll along.'

Nearchus scratched his nose. 'Sophokles the Athenian is more to the point.'

Satyrus nodded. 'I know,' he said.

Even as he nodded, Sappho swept into the room with Kallista at her heels, cradling a baby.

Satyrus smiled at both of them. Sappho bent and kissed him, and so did Kallista.

'I never figured you for a nanny,' Satyrus said to Kallista. She was also an active hetaira, formerly his sister's slave and now a freedwoman and her own mistress.

'Hmm,' Kallista said, archly. 'I'm sure you are an expert on women, young master. I'm a mother now, thank you.'

'What do you think of young Helios?' Sappho asked. A maidservant placed a stool behind her and she settled into it.

Satyrus reached up and took his nephew, and cradled him to his chest. The boy was just old enough to sit up under his own power, and he blinked around at the world. 'He's excellent. I've promised him his freedom already.'

Sappho arched her eyebrows. 'Really? I thought perhaps you needed a servant.'

'I do. I'll get four years out of him – but apparently he's been promised freedom before. I thought I'd give him the bone first.' He smiled at Sappho, who nodded slowly – a nod of agreeable disagreement.

'And you know that he was taken by pirates,' she said. 'His parents killed, sold to a brothel, used like a whore for two years until an Aegyptian priest – a customer, of course – bought him to use as a scribe – and a bed-warmer.' Her voice grew harder and lower as she spoke. Like Uncle Leon, Sappho had been sold as a slave and used brutally before she was freed. It was the fate that every free Hellene dreaded – and the inevitable cost of a world that ran on slavery. But Leon and Sappho acted on their hatred. Both bought parcels of slaves, especially those who had been born free, and found them situations that would free them.

'By my ally, Demostrate,' Satyrus said.

'Your "ally" is a very titan of Tartarus,' she spat.

Satyrus shrugged. 'Auntie,' he said, 'I have learned in the last year that if I intend to be king, sometimes I will have to do things that are, in and of themselves, despicable.'

Sappho remained stone-faced, but behind her, Kallista nodded.

Satyrus held out his finger and young Kineas latched on to it, pulled it, tried to swallow it. 'I can't win you over,' he said. 'So I have to ask you to trust me. I know what I'm doing.'

'Your mother made a pact with Alexander,' Sappho said. 'I never forgave her. I never could. It is one of the reasons we settled in Alexandria. And now you – you who are virtually my child – will sell yourself the same way.'

'My mother dealt with anyone who would deal with her, for peace. For security. Even Alexander.' Satyrus had no idea that there was bad blood between his mother and Sappho, but he kissed his nephew and then shook his head. 'I'm sorry. Really sorry. I feel dirty whenever I spend time with him. But he was my father's admiral. My father used him, and I'll do the same.'

'He wasn't covered in the blood of his victims then,' Sappho said.

Satyrus lay back. 'Hello, little man,' he said. 'Don't be in a hurry to grow up.'

Kineas made some gurgling sounds and stretched out his arms for Kallista. Kallista came and took him with the air of a woman who distrusts that any man can entertain a baby.

'Does he have a wet-nurse?' Satyrus asked.

'Me,' Kallista answered.

'You?' Satyrus asked.

She laughed, a low laugh, the seductive laugh that brought customers to her at five and ten minae a night, and sometimes twenty times as much. 'I think you know how babies are made,' she said.

Satyrus decided it would be indelicate to ask who the father might be. But the question must have shown on his face, for Kallista laughed aloud, not an iota of seduction to it.

'Not a client,' she said. 'A friend.' She put the child to her breast. 'They can grow up together,' she said.

Later that afternoon, Helios came in with a clean blanket and wrapped Satyrus up.

'Any luck on your mission?' Satyrus asked.

'I found her.' Helios nodded. 'I'm meeting her again tonight. She goes out at night – often. She's very trusted in that house – almost the steward. She's the sort of slave that scares other slaves. Hard to tell which side she's on, if you take my meaning.'

'I do,' Satyrus said. 'Need money?'

Helios nodded. 'I'd like a few darics,' he said. 'I'd like to appear a trusted slave myself.'

'You are no longer a trusted slave,' Satyrus said. He picked up a scroll that Nearchus had brought him. 'There you are,' he said. 'A free man. Not a citizen – although I'll see to that when the four years are up.'

Helios flung himself on the scroll. He unrolled it, and Satyrus saw him mouth the words of the scroll as he read. He read it twice.

'I still have to present myself to the chief priest,' he said.

'Better hurry.' Satyrus nodded. 'About an hour before…' He laughed aloud, because he was speaking to an empty room. 'You need Nearchus as a witness!' he called after the boy.

Nearchus came in after half an hour, looking flustered. 'I've been kissed by that beautiful boy in public,' he said. 'Believe me, it's quite an experience.' Nearchus raised an eyebrow. 'You've made him very happy. But – won't he wander off? He's free.'

'I can tell you've never been a slave,' Satyrus said. 'I'll spend four years teaching him to be free. If he wanders off, he'll be a slave again in a week. And he knows it. Where will he work? At a brothel? As a free man?'

Nearchus nodded. 'I see.' He scratched his beard. 'He could go to the temples and sign as an apprentice. Perhaps as a doctor.'

'He'll be the handsomest oar master in Leon's fleet in four years,' Satyrus said. 'Or dead.' He gave Nearchus half a smile. 'I think he fancies revenge, and I don't mind handing him the means and the opportunity.'

Nearchus stopped grinding his powders. He turned his head. 'You would betray your ally?'

'Betray?' Satyrus asked. He laughed. 'Really, Nearchus, what a sheltered life you've lived.' Then he changed his tone. He picked up a barley roll – one of the cook's best – and ate it, staring at his scroll. 'Can you take a letter for me, Nearchus?'

'I'm a doctor, not a scribe. And Helios has a nice clear hand.' Nearchus's pestle continued to scrape.

'I'm already fond of the boy, but I can't trust him with a letter for Diodorus,' Satyrus said.

Nearchus nodded sharply. 'I understand,' he said. 'You're a lot of work, you know that?' he asked with a mock frown.

The letter took most of the afternoon. At some point, Sappho became involved, adding her own instructions and best wishes for her husband, and adding news that he might use, far away in Babylon with Seleucus – news that Satyrus wanted as well. Kallista sat with the two babies, a slave-nurse taking them in turn, and Satyrus was quick enough to realize that Sappho was passing him news as she wrote, without having to speak it aloud. They were writing in black ink on the boards of a wax tablet, where all the wax had been stripped away. She wrote in her firm, square hand: Ptolemy is preparing for a naval campaign against Cyprus. Antigonus is in Syria, firming up his support with the coastal cities, while his son Demetrios rebuilds his power base in Palestine after last year's defeat. Cassander is trying to gain control of young Herakles, the last son of Alexander – whether to make him king of Macedonia or to murder him, no one can say. And Lysimachos works to build his own city, to rival Alexandria and Antioch. Every one of the Diadochoi seems to need to have his own city. And Satyrus wrote: I hope you have had my first letter by now. I will have need of the Exiles and our phalanx in the spring. If Seleucus can spare you, I will await you at Heraklea on the Euxine by the spring feast of Athena. Please send my regards to Crax and Sitalkes, and also to Amyntas and Draco, and tell them that Melitta has gone east to raise the Sakje.

She read what he wrote. 'You are that sure,' she said.

He nodded. 'No,' he said. 'My sister may already be dead. Or my naval alliance may fail. Or Dionysius of Heraklea may refuse to let me use his town to base my army – or we may just lose.' He shrugged. 'So many things can go wrong – the word "sure" never enters my mind.'

He took the ink and wrote carefully: Please send me a reply as soon as you receive this. If you can spare the time, send a duplicate to Sappho and another care of Lady Amastris, Heraklea, and a third care of Eumenes, the archon of Olbia (if you can believe such a thing). A fourth via Panther, navarch of Rhodos, at the Temple of Poseidon, would give me the widest possible notice of your reply, as I will be a bird on the wing.

'Have you ever thought that if you succeed, my husband will lose his command? The Exiles will no longer be exiles.' Sappho laughed. 'I don't mean it. But – if Tanais is restored – what will we all do?'

Satyrus shook his head. 'No idea, Auntie,' he said. 'But I'd be delighted to find out.'

And later, much later that night, Helios came in. He smelled of a discreet perfume.

'Well?' Satyrus asked. 'Did you spend a pleasant evening?'

'Not particularly,' the boy said. His voice was set, his face carefully blank. 'She's as dumb as a post, for all her hard-arse ways. She offered me a hundred gold darics to kill you.' The boy dropped a purse on the sideboard, so heavy that the cedar creaked. 'I told her a sad tale of your misuse of me, and she told me I was soft.' Helios looked at the floor. 'But after I pleasured her, she sang another tune, and there's the proof. And yes – she's out most nights. She has a taste for boys, like most women of her type.' His own self-loathing was obvious, but so was his dislike of her. 'She thinks she owns me!' he spat.

Satyrus shivered. 'I – thought that you were too young. To – I'm sorry, Helios. I've put you in a position…' Satyrus thought that killing the innocent was hardly the only price of kingship.

Helios blinked his long blond lashes and shrugged. 'I haven't been too young – never mind. It's nothing I haven't done before, and in worse causes.'

Satyrus kept his voice neutral. 'Where'd the money come from? She can't have a hundred gold darics on her own?'

'No,' Helios said. 'And I don't know myself. Is her mistress in the game? I don't know. She's coming tomorrow, by the way. To sing to you.'

Satyrus nodded. 'We leave in three days. You should get yourself a blade, a helmet and a light cuirass. Have you ever worn armour?'

Helios blinked. 'No,' he said.

'Go to Isaac Ben Zion and ask his steward to sell you armour. How old are you, really?' Satyrus asked.

'I think I'm fourteen,' the boy answered. 'I lost some time – in the brothel.' He looked at the floor.

Satyrus put a hand under his chin and raised his head. 'Didn't anyone tell you the rule of Leon's house?' he asked. 'No man need regret what he did before he came here – only what he does here. You are free. Free yourself.'

Helios gazed at him with uncomfortable admiration.

Satyrus looked away. 'If you are fourteen,' he said, 'get the Aegyptian linen armour. You'll grow too fast to be worth bronze or scale.' He pointed at the gold darics. 'You can use those, if you like. But only after Phiale visits.'

'What will you do to her?' Helios asked.

'To her?' Satyrus said, and his voice was hard. He was surprised at the feeling in his heart – more like hate than he had expected. 'Nothing,' he said. 'I will do nothing to her.' Phiale came in just behind her scent – a touch of mint and jasmine that clutched at his heart. She whirled her fine wool stole over her head and tossed it to her maidservant, who caught it in the air and stepped over to the wall.

Satyrus watched the maidservant exchange a glance with Helios, who was already standing against the wall. Then he allowed himself to kiss her on the cheek. Her breath on his face ought to have excited him – the subtlety with which she used her body was the height of her powers, and she felt his control immediately.

She stepped back and crossed her arms. 'You are angry with me?'

Hama came to the door with Carlus, the biggest man among the Exiles, a giant German with scars that mixed with the tattoos on his face. He entered the room, drew a short sword and stood with it balanced across his hands.

'Where is Sophokles, Phiale?' Satyrus asked.

Her hand went to her throat. 'I am a free woman. You may not restrain me.' Her eyes reproached him.

'Take the slave,' Satyrus said. 'Do not touch the mistress.'

Carlus closed his hand on Alcaea's hair. Her hand came up with a knife, and he slammed her against the wall. She dropped the knife.

'I accuse your slave of plotting against my life.' Satyrus waved at Helios. 'Freeman Helios will testify that your slave offered one hundred gold darics to kill me.'

Phiale shrunk back into a corner. 'Sappho!' she screamed. 'Satyrus has lost his wits!'

'Listen to me, Phiale. Stratokles and Sophokles bought you. But I cannot prove it, and besides – you are for sale. Who could blame you for being bought?' Satyrus struggled to keep the bitterness from his voice, and he thought how much amusement his sister would draw from the situation. She had never liked the hetaira, and had warned him repeatedly about engaging his feelings with her – she had mocked him, in fact.

'You are insane. The drug has addled your wits. Let me go.' She stood straight. 'I came to sing for you!' she said.

'If I ordered you stripped, what interesting vials would I find? A quill full of poison, perhaps?' Satyrus shook his head.

'I demand-' she began. Satyrus rose to his feet and she was silent.

'You mistake me for a much nicer boy you once knew. There will be no demands, Phiale. Today – this very hour – you will board a ship for Athens, after you reveal every iota of your plots. You will go there and you will never return to Alexandria. And you will write a letter for me, to your master.'

Phiale was white now. But she held his gaze. 'You are delusional.'

'Entirely possible,' Satyrus said. 'But not in this.'

Sappho came in, with Nearchus behind her. 'You have her!' she said.

Phiale's eye widened. 'We are friends!' she said.

'You have spied on my house for the last time,' Sappho returned.

'Hypocrite!' Phiale spat.

'Not, perhaps, your best defence.' Satyrus walked over to Alcaea.

'Why would I go to Athens?' Phiale asked.

'You lodge all of your earnings with Isaac Ben Zion, do you not?' Satyrus asked. 'I think that when I tell him you betrayed his business partner into captivity, he will perhaps seize your fortune.' Satyrus smiled. 'It was – short-sighted, shall I say? To leave your money where it could be used against you. By tomorrow, every obol will be locked in my aunt's coffers. If you ever want it again, you'll have to obey us. Go to Athens. Stay there. Hate us if you will – but hate us from a distance. And if we ever, ever catch you acting against our interests again – spying, muttering, gossiping – some men like Carlus will appear at your house, seize you and carry you off. And they will take you to Delos – and sell you into slavery. Am I clear? You are not young any more. I do not think you could earn your way free again.'

Phiale began to sob. She went straight from imperious to broken without passing through another emotion. 'It is not fair! You are not fair! You, who were my lover – who has defamed me like this? You would exile me on the word of a slave?'

Alcaea spoke up. 'What of me, lord?' she asked.

Satyrus nodded. 'Death, unless you tell me everything. And I already know a great deal. So much that I have little reason to offer you leniency unless you tell me things that I don't know. Let me offer you a beginning. You meet with Sophokles in the night market, behind the false wall of a certain tavern-'

Phiale's hand went back to her throat, and Alcaea threw herself on the ground. 'I am a slave, master! What else can I do but obey her?'

Sappho crouched on the floor next to the abject slave. 'Obey who, my dear?' she asked.

'My mistress!' Alcaea wailed.

'She will say anything to be saved,' Phiale said.

'I have her notes to the doctor,' Alcaea said, clasping Satyrus's knees in supplication. 'She wrote to him – every week, reporting on your household.'

Satyrus nodded. 'And who have you suborned in this household?' he asked.

Sappho started, and Satyrus put a hand on her shoulder. 'Who provides you with information from within this household?' Satyrus asked.

'I don't know,' Alcaea answered. Seeing Sappho's face, she wailed, 'I don't know! There's a wax tablet left under the rain barrel at our house every week. It's almost always there.'

Satyrus nodded. 'That, I did not know. It is possible you will live. Hama? Would you care to question her?'

Hama nodded. 'At your service, lord.'

Satyrus turned to Phiale. 'Will you go to Athens, despoina? Or shall I take another action?'

She shrugged. 'I will not go.'

'Really?' Satyrus asked. 'I am not sure that my eudaimonia would survive killing you. But please don't mistake me, despoina. I will kill you if I must. I will be king in the Euxine. I will not be stopped by a provincial hetaira and a hired killer. Where do I find Sophokles?'

She shook her head. 'I don't know,' she said. 'I deny your charges. You have no evidence. I will go to Athens and hate you from there.'

'Choose,' Satyrus said. 'Tell me everything, and live. Where do I find him? If you tell the truth, you are off to a new life in Athens.'

'I deny your charge. I don't know anyone named Sophokles. Stratokles hired me as a courtesan and you, apparently, have a mad resentment about it. How could I know? I am a hetaira!' Phiale stood tall.

'I have her notes to him,' Alcaea spat.

'You lie!' Phiale said. 'How could you?'

'You ordered me to burn them,' Alcaea said. 'I kept them against such a day as this.'

'Bah – she could write them herself,' Phiale said. 'She does all my writing for me anyway.'

Satyrus shook his head. 'I don't think you are taking me seriously,' he said.

Phiale crossed her arms over her chest. 'I will not be tricked into condemning myself.'

Hama spoke regretfully. 'I can have her speaking about anything in an hour,' he said.

Nearchus stepped forward. 'I will not be party to torture,' he said.

Satyrus looked around at all of them. 'Once, when I did not kill Stratokles, you all advised me to strike first in the future. Aunt Sappho, this woman is a viper who will hurt us any way she can. Even now, an assassin – her ally – stalks us. He tried to kill Lita, and you took a dagger in the chest to save her. This woman provided the information that prompted that attack, and the information that led to Leon's capture – and she has perhaps done as much against Lord Ptolemy and Diodorus. This is not the time to be soft.'

Nearchus looked at Phiale. Her eyes implored him. 'I am innocent,' she said to him. 'Satyrus is mad.'

Nearchus turned back to Satyrus. He shook his head and turned to Phiale. 'I will not see you tortured,' he said. 'But you, not Satyrus, are mad.'

'I know where you can find Sophokles the physician,' Alcaea said from her position of supplication on the floor.

'As do I,' Satyrus said. He did not want to kill Phiale. But he didn't see much choice. It was the situation on the beach again – more deaths to haunt him. But Satyrus had begun to understand people. If he didn't break her, the hetaira would come back for him.

And then he thought, What would Philokles do? And he saw it. Philokles would never kill her. Philokles would simply draw her fangs and leave her. The moral act.

'Bring her,' he said. They missed Sophokles by the thickness of a door. The Athenian physician vanished into the tunnels behind the tavern even as Satyrus's men broke down the false wall. Hama had his sword at the innkeeper's throat and they flooded the streets with soldiers, but they still missed him. Carlus dragged Phiale wherever they went, on every search, so that every denizen of the night market saw the hetaira's presence with the Exiles.

Later, over hot wine, Satyrus shook his head. 'I was precipitate,' he said. 'I allowed my need to get back to sea to drive my actions. I should have let her develop her plot and taken her in commission. And the same with the doctor. I see that now.'

Hama, sitting by the hearth with his Thracian boots up on the hearth's lip, grinned. 'But every thief, pimp and whore in the market thinks she gave us the doctor, eh?' he said to Neiron, who laughed grimly. His oarsmen had swept the streets with Hama's soldiers.

Satyrus nodded. 'That part went well,' he said.

Sappho came in with cheese and olives, which she set by the men. 'What of the maidservant?' she asked.

'I leave Alcaea to you, Aunt. Kill her, torture her, sell her – her utility to us is done.' Satyrus shrugged.

Sappho looked at him. 'She is a person, Satyrus. She has an existence beyond her utility.'

Satyrus shook his head. 'Perhaps,' he allowed.

'If you propose to become Eumeles, I see no reason to support you,' Sappho said.

'Aunt! I have acted only to save this family! To protect you!' Satyrus was stung – the more so as his aunt said things that he wondered about himself. The Stoics said that no insult hurt you unless you already believed it.

Sappho came and stood before him. 'You are working on making yourself a monster,' she said. 'You were preparing to kill Phiale in cold blood, like a tyrant. I saw it in your eyes. Had you done so – despite her evil actions, despite everything – many of us would not have forgiven you. Theron is far away, and Philokles is dead, and my husband is off fighting. It is left to me to discipline you – and I am not any softer than you, nephew. You are working on making yourself a monster. Wake up!' she said.

Satyrus tried to swallow his wine, and it stuck in his throat. Hama looked elsewhere. Nearchus nodded at every word, and Neiron looked like a man who wanted to hide under his seat.

'Hama?' Satyrus asked. 'Do you think I did wrong?'

The Gallic officer looked at his boots. He shrugged. 'In war, men do hard things,' he said. 'Such things are – uglier – in peace.'

Satyrus stood up, suddenly angry. 'We are at war!' he said.

Sappho shook her head. 'No, we are not. You choose to make war on Eumeles. My husband and Leon support you because of their love for your parents – and for you. And such a war will take lives, nephew. People will die. If you are no better than Eumeles – a selfish, grasping man, but a competent administrator – if you are another of the same, who sees his own interest as the height of all law, who kills women to make sure that his path to power is secure – then all those people die for nothing.' She slumped. 'She is despicable. But her bad actions would never excuse yours. I saw your eyes – you were that close to killing her.'

'She might have killed us all!' Satyrus yelled.

'Eumeles could say the same of your mother!' Sappho shouted back. 'He killed her because he feared her!' She came and took his hands. 'Do you honestly fear Phiale?'

Satyrus stood with his hands on the back of his chair, clenched as if his ship was in a storm and he was clutching the rail to keep from being swept overboard. His eyes flicked from man to man to woman around the hearth, and his rage soared – and then sank away, like flames on damp wood. He loosed his grip on the chair. 'What would you have me do?' he asked.

Nearchus shrugged. 'Send her to Athens,' he said. 'And wash your hands of her.'

Sappho shook her head. 'Leave her here,' she said, 'and I will watch her. With Alcaea.' Sappho raised a manicured eyebrow. 'I will purchase Alcaea's interest, and put her back with her former mistress as our spy.'

'And Phiale will kill her, or avoid her,' Satyrus said.

'I doubt it,' Sappho said. 'And I think that you should let me try.'

Satyrus looked at Hama. 'Well?' he asked.

Hama shook his head. 'Lord, don't involve me in this. I obey. I would kill her for you, if you asked. And yet – I agree with the lady, too. About what a chief can become. I have seen a good chief become a bad chief, but I have never seen a bad lord become a good one.' He shrugged. 'For me, I wish we had caught the doctor.'

Satyrus flicked his eyes to his helmsman. 'And you, Neiron?'

Neiron shook his head. 'Land has problems that don't exist at sea. I prefer the sea. But I'll say this. When we go to sea – no enemy here will be a danger to us unless they have a faster ship and a better crew. We'll be gone with the tide. By the time this woman has power and money again,' the old seaman shrugged, 'we'll feed the fishes – or you'll be king.'

Satyrus nodded. 'Good advice.' He looked at his aunt. 'From all of you,' he said. And sighed. 'I do not want to be a monster.'

'Good,' Sappho said.

Satyrus took a deep breath. 'But – word of our sailing must not leave the city when we go. Hama, Sappho – can you keep Phiale from sending a letter? A tablet? A scroll? One slave, slipping out on a merchanter? And Sophokles-'

Neiron put a hand on his navarch's shoulder. 'They can't. But they can try – and they can, by the gods, make it harder.'

Satyrus shook his head. 'We need time. If Eumeles is warned…' He shook his head. 'Life is risk.' He managed a smile. 'I'm twenty, and I'm losing my nerve. Very well, Auntie. You have her.'

'Thank you.' She touched his cheek. 'Hama and I will do our best.' In the morning, Satyrus presented himself to Gabines, Ptolemy's steward, for his appointment. He expected to wait – in Aegypt, no one was ever granted his first request to meet the lord of the land.

To his own surprise, he found himself ushered immediately to the lord of Aegypt's presence. Ptolemy sat under the magnificent fresco of the gods and heroes, on a carved ivory stool, as if he was just the archon of the city and not its uncrowned king.

'Satyrus!' he said, rising from his stool to clasp Satyrus's hands. 'We feared the worst. And we still miss your uncle.'

Satyrus bowed his head. 'My lord, I am working to remedy my uncle's absence. And I am preparing a spring campaign to topple his captor.'

Ptolemy settled and Gabines motioned at the slaves for wine. 'See to it that your planning is better than the last time!' Ptolemy said.

Satyrus flushed. 'We had a spy in our midst,' he said.

Gabines, the lord of Aegypt's spymaster, leaned forward. 'Do tell, young man.'

Satyrus took his wine, tasted it appreciatively and nodded.

'A stool for the prince of the Euxine,' Gabines ordered.

Satyrus had to smile.

'And we hear that you won yourself several victories,' Ptolemy said. 'After your initial defeat. Eumeles is reported to be beside himself.'

Gabines raised a hand. 'My lord, I would like to hear of this spy,' he said.

Satyrus nodded and sat on the stool that was brought for him. 'You know Phiale, the hetaira?' he asked.

'Not as well as I would like,' answered the lord of Aegypt. He laughed loudly, showing all his teeth.

Satyrus frowned. 'She spied for Eumeles, with Sophokles, the Athenian physician.'

Gabines nodded. 'Sophokles is gone,' he said. 'I had him at a certain location, but now he has fled. My informant puts him on a ship to Sicily.'

Satyrus's head snapped around. 'You knew he was in the night market?' Satyrus asked.

'Yes!' Gabines said. 'And if your uncle had been here, he'd have had enough sense to ask me before he acted.'

Ptolemy nodded. 'You are not king, here, lad. You were precipitate.'

It is not easy to keep your temper when you are young, and everyone older than you seems to be in a conspiracy to put you in the wrong. Satyrus flushed, and he felt the heat on his cheeks. He covered the onset of anger by sipping more wine.

Gabines shook his head. 'Next time, you'll know better, lad. Can you prove the involvement of Phiale?'

Satyrus nodded. 'I think so, although Philokles would say that it depends on what you require as a standard of proof. Her slave attempted to suborn mine. We have this slave, and she has writings of her mistress – writings which Phiale says are forged.'

'Circumstances are against the woman,' Gabines said, scratching his beard. He glanced at his master. 'I don't recommend that you get to know her any better, my lord.' He looked at Satyrus. 'What do you propose to do to her, young man?'

Satyrus sat back and smiled. 'Nothing.'

The lord of Aegypt and his steward exchanged smiles. 'Really?' Gabines asked.

Satyrus nodded. 'My aunt his given her word that Phiale will cause me no more… discontent.' He savoured his wine. 'Can you tell me of Eumeles?'

Gabines was silent for a long moment. Satyrus noticed that he could hear the slave behind him, breathing. It was that quiet.

'Eumeles is incensed that you destroyed his squadron at Tomis. And he has had word of you from Byzantium, and from Rhodos. And from here.' Gabines raised his eyes. 'But he is far more afraid of your sister. We hear that he is hiring mercenaries already.'

'Where is my sister?' Satyrus asked.

'We don't know,' Ptolemy put in. 'Somewhere in the back-country. There's a song in Pantecapaeum, or so my agent there tells me – a song about her killing seven men in single combat.' Ptolemy shook his head. 'I remember her as such a nice quiet girl.'

Satyrus couldn't help but grin. 'That's Lita.' He nodded to Gabines. 'By spring she'll have an army. When the ground is hard, she'll have a go at Marthax – the king of the Assagatje. By high summer, if all goes well, she'll be ready to face Eumeles.'

'If Eumeles doesn't make an alliance with this Marthax,' Gabines said. He shrugged.

'And you, lad?' Ptolemy asked.

'I have asked Diodorus to meet me at Heraklea on the Euxine,' Satyrus said. 'I intend to raise a fleet and go over to the attack when the weather changes.'

'Just like that? Raise a fleet?' Ptolemy asked.

'I have an agreement with Demostrate, the pirate king.' Satyrus sipped his excellent wine. 'And with Rhodos.'

'Pirates and Rhodos don't mix, lad!' Ptolemy said.

'And I'm hoping to add Lysimachos.' Satyrus leaned forward. 'He has few ships, but I need his good will – and I can clear Eumeles off his part of the seaboard. And move the pirates off his lines of communication. He needs me.'

Gabines nodded. 'We need him as well. Without his little satrapy, Antigonus One-Eye can move freely between Asia and Europe – and Cassander is doomed.'

'Yet Cassander supports Eumeles,' Satyrus said.

Ptolemy shrugged. 'We're allies, not brothers. Eumeles is no friend of Aegypt's – as you well know.'

'You have the lord's blessing to take the Euxine – if you can,' Gabines said. His eyes flicked to the slaves. 'But our hand cannot be seen in it. We cannot spare you any ships.'

'Really?' Satyrus asked. 'I thought that you might lend me-'

Gabines shook his head. 'Lord Ptolemy needs every oar in the water for his expedition to Cyprus,' he said.

Satyrus looked at Ptolemy, not his steward. 'Is this true, lord? I had counted on ten or fifteen triremes from here.'

Ptolemy leaned forward. 'You failed,' he said bluntly. 'You had a go at Eumeles, and failed. He captured two of my ships and the repercussions were annoying. I can't afford to go through that again – with Cassander.'

Satyrus nodded. 'I need ships,' he said. Then he shrugged. 'Very well,' he said. 'But I have your permission to proceed?'

Ptolemy shook his head. 'I give no permission,' he said. He shrugged as broadly as an actor. 'I can't control you!'

Satyrus couldnt help but laugh. 'My lord, it seems to me that if I succeed, you'll claim to have been my benefactor, and if I fail, you'll disown me and show how you offered me no aid.'

Gabines nodded. 'Precisely, young man. What we will do,' Gabines said, 'is to cover your back. We were,' he cleared his throat, 'embarrassed by the attacks on your sister. Nothing like that will happen again.'

Ptolemy nodded.

Gabines leaned forward like a conspirator. 'But I will keep a man on this Sophokles. And I will ensure that no agent of Eumeles can communicate from here – for ten days after you sail.'

Satyrus nodded. 'That is worth some ships,' he said. 'May I ask how you can do that?'

Gabines shrugged. 'We are ready to send our first scouts to look at the coast of Cyprus – and a diversion up the coast of Syria. We will stop all shipping for ten days.'

Satyrus whistled and shook his head. 'The blessings of my patron, Herakles, attend you in every endeavour,' he said.

Ptolemy grinned. 'My patron as well, lad.'

Satyrus nodded. 'I still need the ships. I believe that my uncle Leon would say that promises are easy.'

'When you are a king, you'll quickly get the hang of this posturing,' Ptolemy said. He rose and clasped hands with Satyrus like an equal. Then he leaned forward and whispered into Satyrus's ear. 'May Tyche bless you,' he whispered. 'I have two ships – good ships, quadriremes with heavy hulls – going at auction later today. And a pair of triremes that my architects have condemned as too small for modern war.' He stepped back and winked. 'They will all four be sold at salvage rates.' He held Satyrus's hand in his. 'It's the best I can do.'

Satyrus grinned. 'Bless you, lord,' he said.

Ships sold for their wood are rarely auctioned off with all their rigging and oars – nor do their crews ordinarily stand by the auction, waiting to be hired by the new owners – yet these things happened. Satyrus and Isaac Ben Zion were the only buyers at the auction.

'Don't bid against me on the big quadrireme with the engine in the bow,' Ben Zion said. 'It's for Abraham.'

Satyrus stripped Leon's establishment of officers without hesitation, taking the cream of his merchant captains, helmsmen and oar masters for the new ships. He was delighted to find a captured trireme, the Wasp, lying on the beach.

'How'd he come here?' Satyrus asked, and sailors scrambled to tell him how Sarpax had taken him with a pentekonter at the mouth of the Euxine. Satyrus tracked Sarpax to a brothel and recruited him to command the Wasp for the summer, against Eumeles.

'Can you shoot as well as your sister?' Sarpax asked. He laughed, and the pearl in his ear glowed. 'Will it bring Master Leon back?'

'Yes,' Satyrus said, and they clasped hands, and the thing was done.

Satyrus also took the Hyacinth, sister ship to the Golden Lotus, another triemiolia out of Rhodos, the flag of Leon's Massalia squadron, bringing his squadron to seven.

He had dinner with his officers – all men he knew from Sappho's table. 'Oinoe? Plataea?' Sappho asked from her couch. 'T hose are the names of nymphs.'

'No – battles at which Athens did well.' Satyrus raised a cup of wine. 'Here's to the Painted Stoa, friends. And to Philokles' friend Zeno. He gave me the idea for the names. Oinoe and Plataea are the fours. Marathon and Troy are the threes.'

Sandokes, the new navarch of the Oinoe, was an Ionian from Samothrace. He had beautifully curled black hair, a pair of gold chariots hung from his ears, and his body showed the muscles of a man who took special care at the gymnasium – despite which, he was one of Leon's favourite captains, a man who had made the run to Massalia four times and had once taken a merchanter outside the Pillars of Herakles. He knew Sarpax of old, and the two shared a couch.

Aekes, who also had the reputation of being Sandokes' friend, was of an opposite temperament. He had salt-washed hair and wore a simple leather chiton made of two deer skins sewn together, like a farmer. He was clean enough, and his arms and legs showed the muscle of a working seaman, but no earrings graced his ears, nor did he appear to have any special clothes to wear to a symposium. What he did have was a long Celtic sword in a bronze scabbard that rested against his couch, and a reputation as a successful pirate-hunter. He commanded the Hyacinth. He was said to have been born a Spartan helot, but no one ever questioned him about it. Satyrus knew that he had been close to Philokles, and had donated a hefty sum for the Spartan's statue in the library – as yet uncast.

Dionysius – one of dozens of men in Alexandria to bear that name, or perhaps hundreds – was one of Satyrus's childhood friends. He lay near Sandokes, whom he idolized. He was taking the Marathon. Satyrus had hesitated to take him again – Dionysius had almost lost his ship at the battle off Olbia, and he'd spread the rumour of Satyrus's death. But Dionysius had paid the cost of the ship and the rowers from his father's fortune, in hard cash – and the truth was that Satyrus's fleet was beginning to cost so much that he could see the bottom of Uncle Leon's coffers.

Anaxilaus was a scientific captain, a friend of many of the philosophers at the library, a man of education who nonetheless followed the sea. He had red hair, which alone enabled him to stand out among guests, and his excellent manners betrayed his Sicilian origins. His father and grandfather had both been tyrants in Italy, and Anaxilaus often joked that he'd gone to sea because it was safer than staying at home. He had Troy. His younger and much handsomer brother Gelon would have the Plataea until he got him to Byzantium for Abraham. He'd been promised a trireme there. He lay opposite Apollodorus, who fancied himself a gentleman and insisted on naming his pedigree to the Sicilians – in detail.

They were social men – sailors are social by nature – and if the conversation was loud and nautical, it was also well-bred. Sappho was still smiling at Anaxilaus's gallantry as she escorted the last of the guests to the door. 'Sicilians have the very best manners,' she said, as her steward closed the garden door.

'I think Philokles would have argued that Spartans have the very best manners,' Satyrus said. They walked back to the main room together and lay on adjacent couches.

'Are you still angry with me?' she asked.

'No,' Satyrus said. 'No. You were right, of course. I miss Philokles. He used to say that it is sometimes easy to mistake the hard thing for the easy thing.' Satyrus could feel the wine in his brain. His aunt was really quite beautiful – not the first time he'd noticed. He banished the thought as unworthy. 'It is easy to kill, and difficult to find another way – but it is difficult to make myself kill, and that clouds the issue.' Satyrus took a long drink of wine. 'I think I killed two men in the Euxine to show myself that I could.'

Sappho rolled on to her stomach – not the posture of a well-bred woman of Thebes, but of a hetaira. 'Dear nephew, we all do things we regret – often merely to prove things to ourselves. May I say that I think you are lucky in your captains?'

Satyrus smiled and tried to dispel the heaviness in his brain – and his heart. 'I agree. Fine men – and a good party, too.'

Sappho smiled into her cup. 'As the veteran of a few parties, my dear, I can tell you that good men are what make a good party – not the quality of the lobsters or the antics of the flute girls.'

Satyrus smiled at her. 'Philokles might have said the same.'

Sappho nodded. Her laugh was self-mocking, and Satyrus didn't know what to make of it, so he tried to change the subject. 'You are satisfied that you can restrain Phiale?' he asked.

She nodded. 'Gabines sent me a note,' she said. 'We will watch Phiale. And Sophokles has gone to Sicily. He won't return unless you do. I am not a worthy target.'

Satyrus snorted. 'That just shows what a fool he is. You command me and my sister. You direct the finances of the Exiles and as far as I can discern, it was you, not Coenus, who dispatched my sister to take the leadership of the Sakje.'

Sappho raised her wine. 'Flatterer!' she said.

'Men are strange,' Satyrus said. 'Greek men pretend that women are inferior, when it seems to me that you, who are the daughter and former wife of boeotarchs, wife now of a strategos, are the match for any man in a contest of wits.'

'I have had a triumph or two,' Sappho said. She drank again. 'All flattery gratefully accepted. I've passed the age when men will be stopped in the street by my looks.'

He got up unsteadily, having had too much wine for a man so close to his recovery. 'You are wrong, Aunt! Men still praise your beauty.' He walked towards her unsteadily. She had seldom been so beautiful.

Sappho rose from her couch and straightened her chiton. 'You are the image of your father, Satyrus. Right down to his clumsy, but welcome, flattery. Your feelings for Phiale have left you vulnerable. Be wary.' She embraced him, and he felt her warmth, the press of her breasts against his chest – and then she stepped away.

He flushed, because as usual, his aunt was dead on the mark. 'Will I ever grow up?' he asked.

Sappho laughed, her eyes sparkling, until he laughed, too. 'A good party brings out the lechery in all of us,' she said. 'Go and conquer the Euxine,' she added. 'And get your sister to come back for her son, before I decide to keep him.'

'You said you wanted no more children,' Satyrus said. 'I remember you saying it to us.'

She shook her head and turned away. 'I have seen men who have a will of iron where women are concerned – until one takes them by the hand, and at the first touch, they become clay in her hand.' She shrugged. 'Women can be that way about children.'

'But-' he began.

'Shush, nephew,' she said. 'Go and conquer the Euxine. I'll see to the child.' In the morning, his squadron came off the beach all together. Leon's officers – Satyrus's officers now – were all professionals, better officers, man for man, than Ptolemy's navy had available to them. Satyrus lounged against the rail of the Lotus and listened to their orders, watched the rowers and the deck crews race to get the ships down the beach and into the water. The two light triremes were easy, but the heavy quadriremes with their bow catapults and their heavy crews were slower to launch, and Diomedes, the new helmsman of the Plataea, could be heard from a stade away.

But their hulls were newly cleaned. The Lotus had been scraped and dried while Satyrus lay in his bed shouting at visions in his head, and the rowers pulled him north along the coast of Palestine at a fair clip.

Satyrus watched the coast go by, his eyes always flicking to the empty horizons to the west, where Cyprus lurked out of sight. But winter – high winter – was not the time to risk a heavy blow on the open sea south of Cyprus.

They beached at Ake, the northernmost outpost of Ptolemy's power, and rested a day and a night before racing north with a rare favourable breeze. They passed Tyre in the full light of day, and saw the inner harbour crammed with military shipping, but all their masts were down and most of the hulls were stacked out of the water. And three hours later, they blew past Sidon, their sails still full of their good north wind. The helmsmen and the trierarchs all offered libations to Poseidon, and they stood on. If a pursuit was launched, they never saw it.

'I thought Ptolemy had a squadron moving up this coast as a feint,' Neiron said. 'We should have seen it.'

'I have a growing suspicion that we are Ptolemy's feint,' Satyrus answered. He looked at the land in the ruddy light of a winter evening. 'We might not get weather this good again for ten days. It is too good to stop for the night.' He looked at Neiron. 'I'm of a mind to try to get north of Laodikea before we look for a beach.'

Neiron nodded. 'Ask me to solve your land quarrels and I'm all at sea,' Neiron said. He nodded and scratched under his beard. 'Here, I'm happy to give advice. We'll have this wind until at least the rising of the morning star. The sky is clear and the men are still fresh – no one's touched an oar all day.' He frowned. 'Besides – you want them ready for anything by the time we enter the Euxine. Some small risks now will give us better crews.'

They passed Laodikea in the dark, its position marked only by the dull glow of a town at night – and even then, most of the light came from the Temple of Poseidon's eternal fire on the height behind the town.

The morning star was rising when they passed the headland at Gigarta and Neiron indicated the darkness of the open ocean. 'There's a set of islands north and west of Tripolis,' he said. 'If I line up the Kalamus headland with the North Star, we should be on a beach in an hour.'

The wind was dropping, and the sails flapped every few minutes as the wind backed and spat.

Satyrus nodded. 'Weather change?' he asked.

'Like enough,' Neiron answered.

'Do it,' Satyrus ordered, and an hour later he was eating hot stew on a beach just big enough for seven warships and their crews. And he noticed a certain regard among the helmsmen and trierarchs. Night sailing was not for the weak of heart.

In the morning, they rowed away north, with the wind blowing from off the land. The triemiolia could sail on a broad reach, but the triremes and quadriremes couldn't, and their rowers got plenty of practice.

Noon saw them north of the old pirate haven at Arados, and they ate their evening meal on the beach at Gabala on the coast of Syria.

In fact, they spent three days on the beach at Gabala, lashed by winds and heavy rain that made launching the light triremes impossible, and Satyrus was forced to use his manpower to pull the ships clear of the water, high up on the beaches. And he had a thousand rowers to feed, so that his men were roaming the countryside for food before the winter storm ended, every scrap of provision consumed.

On the fourth day, he got them under way with empty bellies and some empty benches where men didn't return. The Plataea made heavy going of the launch, and laboured in the waves, because his upper-tier rowers had eaten something bad and dysentery was rife.

They'd been at sea less than an hour before Satyrus saw the squadron astern. He pointed, and Neiron swore. 'Poseidon's stade-long member,' he said. 'Where'd they come from?'

Satyrus shook his head. 'Tyre? Sidon? I always knew there was a risk, coming up this coast. We're sailing right through Demetrios's fleet.' He shook his head. 'Ptolemy has a lot to answer for.'

Noon, and they passed the headland at Posideion, and every man threw a handful of barley into the sea if he had any grain. The squadron behind them was just a series of nicks on the horizon, and even those sightings were occasional. No one had a mast raised on a day like this, with the wind blowing more north than anything else, and all the rowers cursed their lot at every stroke of the oars.

In early afternoon, the wind shifted back to the east, blowing off the land, and the pursuing squadron began to gain ground, their fresher rowers and more recent food beginning to tell.

Satyrus watched as they drew closer. He stood in the stern and watched the pennants of the mast as they fluttered back and forth, showing every wind-change. 'Neiron?' he called.

'Sir?' Neiron woke up fully alert. He had the oar master at the helm and he himself was asleep on the helmsman's bench.

'I intend to turn west, put the wind at our sterns and sail for Cyprus,' he said. 'What do you think?'

Neiron licked his fingers and raised them, and then looked at the clouds. 'Risky,' he said.

Satyrus pointed astern, and Neiron's eyes followed until he saw the pursuit. 'They may not be after us,' he said, stroking his beard.

Satyrus nodded. 'They are persistent, though. There's another blow coming up, and these gentlemen are still at sea.'

'And they do look like warships.' Neiron looked under his hand. 'Six hours to the first sighting of the Temple of Aphrodite Kleides.' He shook his head. 'If the wind changes, we're in the open sea at night with a storm rising behind us.'

Satyrus nodded.

Neiron shook his head. 'Do it,' he said.

Satyrus took the helm himself. Neiron went forward and ordered the deck crew and the sailors to raise the mainsail, and as soon as it was laid to the mast, Satyrus gave the orders and the Lotus, still under oars, turned from north to west in his own length. Satyrus was pleased to see that the next ship in line, the Oinoe, was prepared, and although he took longer to get his mast up, he made the turn in good order. Behind him, Plataea redeemed himself from an earlier poor performance and made the run with alacrity, and the two light triremes turned like acrobats and raised their masts even as they turned.

Hyacinth was late in his turn, and lost ground as he rowed slowly north, his helmsman apparently asleep at his oars.

But however slow the Hyacinth was, the pursuers were slower. They continued north so long that Satyrus began to wonder if he was fleeing from shadows. Only when they had cut Satyrus off completely from the coast did they turn their bows out to sea – but they didn't raise their sails.

'I count ten,' Neiron said. 'Heavy bastards. Everyone's building bigger and bigger – is that a hepteres? A seven?'

The largest pursuer towered over the others, with three decks of oars and a wide, heavy hull that nonetheless seemed to sail with speed.

'That's Demetrios, or his admiral,' Satyrus said. He shook his head. 'He must think we're the long-awaited raid out of Aegypt.'

'So he's kept us off his coast,' Neiron said. 'And now he leaves us to Poseidon's mercy.'

'I wish you hadn't said that,' Satyrus said.

They drove on, into rising seas, with the wind howling behind them.

But they had good ships and good officers, and before the last pink rays of the winter sun set behind the mountains of Cyprus, the Lotus had his stern on the black sand west of Ourannia, with a promontory between them and the east wind's might. Cypriot peasants came down to the beach with baskets of dried fish and fresh crabs, and Satyrus paid cash for a feast even as the wind rose and the rain began to fall.

For three days they crawled along the coast of Cyprus, with their bow pushing straight into a fresh westerly that followed the storm, and they continued along the coast all the way to the beach at Likkia – a beach Satyrus had used before. He provisioned his ships there, paying on credit with his uncle's name, which was good for anything here. He waited for two days for an east wind, and when it rose, he made sacrifice on the beach and launched his ships.

'Straight west for Rhodos,' he said.

Neiron shook his head. 'Why risk it?' he asked.

'I can feel the time slipping away from me,' Satyrus said. 'Any day, word of our departure will get out of Alexandria.'

'Anyone going north has to go the way we've gone,' Neiron said.

'And I've done it before,' he said.

Neiron nodded. 'So I've heard,' he answered. 'Isn't once enough?' Most ships stayed on the coast, sailing from the point of Cyprus north to the coast of Asia Minor and then crawling west from haven to haven.

'If this wind holds for twelve hours, we'll raise Rhodos before the stars show in the sky,' Satyrus said.

'If the wind drops, we'll be adrift on the great green and praying for Poseidon's mercy.' Neiron shrugged. 'But you are the navarch. I just hope that when Tyche deserts you, I'm already dead.'

Satyrus smiled, but his hands remained clenched and his stomach did back-flips until he made his landfall that evening. The crew cheered when the lookout sighted the promontory at Panos, and again when they glided down the mirror-flat water of the city's inner harbour, past the Temple of Poseidon. Satyrus didn't hide the libation he offered to the waters of the harbour.

'All that to save a day?' Neiron asked.

Satyrus finished pouring the wine into the sea and stood up. 'My gut tells me that every day matters,' he said.

'Do you think they'll accept your offer?' Neiron asked.

Satyrus pointed at the beach under the temple, where a full dozen Rhodian triemioliai lay on the beach. 'Can you think of any other reason they'd prepare a squadron in midwinter?' he asked.

Neiron smiled. 'The gods love you,' he said. He nodded grimly. 'Use it while it lasts.'