King of the Bosphorus

17

'He's seen us,' Neiron said. He was looking into the late winter sun, and the sparkle on the wave-tops was enough to fool most eyes. 'Coming about.'

Satyrus got a hand on the standing shroud and pulled himself up until he was standing on the rail. The speed of their passage – crisp west wind heeling them over – raised his chiton and he slapped it down.

Far off, almost to the horizon, the other ship's masts were narrowing, coming together.

'Yes,' Satyrus said.

A week on Rhodos and ten days to Byzantium – a meal, a hug from Abraham and from Theron, an exchange of orders and off again, leaving Sandokes and Panther of Rhodos to bring the fleet along after the interval he had commanded. He had hoped to slip by the picket at the Bosporus – indeed, he'd counted on it.

Abraham and Theron had been successful – and that meant that he needed an anchorage in the Euxine – an anchorage to windward of Pantecapaeum. Lysimachos had contributed a mere three triremes and a hundred marines – but his alliance meant a great deal more than that. Theron had done well.

And Demostrate, the pirate king, was still in hand – thanks to Abraham, the old man clasped hands with a wary Panther, as if he had always been a friend of Rhodos. Satyrus had left them watching each other warily.

Manes had glowered, his eyes doing everything but glow red. But his ships had followed as well.

Satyrus had passed the Bosporus as fast as his rowers could manage and the gods favoured him with a perfect wind, so that the moment the Lotus's bow had passed the rocks at the exit to the channel, he had spread both his sails and turned east, the wind astern. Everything had been perfect for a fast passage – except the warship to windward.

'He'll never catch us,' Neiron said after the sand-glass was turned.

Satyrus shook his head. 'He doesn't have to catch us.' He stamped his foot in pure annoyance. 'Never, ever underestimate your opponent. I didn't think Eumeles had the captains to keep the sea all winter. Listen, Neiron – we're in the Golden Lotus. Every sailor in the Euxine knows this ship.'

Neiron nodded. 'In other words…' Neiron said, his eyes now rising to the sky and the weather.

'In other words, we have to take him,' Satyrus said. An hour later, they had their pursuer dead astern, a heavy trireme or perhaps a decked penteres with extra rowers – hard to tell. Whichever warship he might be, he had a heavy crew and a deep draught for a galley, and carried his sail well.

Golden Lotus might have had no trouble outrunning the heavier ship, if that had been his aim. Instead, Neiron had the mainsail badly brailed and the boatsail set nearly fore and aft, drawing as little wind as he could without attracting attention – and the big leather sea anchor was being dragged in the wake, which made Satyrus's job at the helm far more difficult. The Lotus was labouring like a plough horse, and Satyrus's arms were taking the whole weight of the struggle. He was out of shape – he was feeling the effects of weeks in bed. Wrestling sailors and eating like a bull were helping, but he'd lost muscle and he knew it.

Astern, their pursuer had his lower oar deck manned, and they were pulling like heroes racing for a prize – which, in fact, they were. The lower deck pushed the ship just a little faster and kept her stiff and upright.

'That's a right sailor,' Neiron said approvingly. 'Knows his business.'

'Too well,' Satyrus said. He pointed to where a scarlet chiton could be seen standing on the enemy ship's bow. 'He's looking at our wake. Stesagoras!' Satyrus called to his new Alexandrian deck master. 'Look alive, Stesagoras! Get ready to cut the sea anchor free. At my command, Philaeus! Prepare to go about – oars in the water.' Philaeus was his new oar master, one of Leon's professionals.

Philaeus could be heard relaying the commands and adding his own – reversing the port-side benches.

Lotus had all his benches manned, despite the fact that his sides were closed. For now.

The pursuer was manning his upper benches. 'He wants to surprise us when he turns away,' Satyrus said.

'He knows his business,' Neiron said again.

'Show them our oars,' Satyrus called.

Philaeus had a beautiful voice – deep and melodious, like a priest. 'Open the ports! In the leather! Ready, and steady, and oars!'

All together, like a peacock's tail, the Golden Lotus showed her oars – all three decks at once.

'Turn to port!' Satyrus ordered.

The port oars on all three banks were already reversed. From the first stroke, he leaned on the steering oars.

Stesagoras severed the sea anchor himself with one shrewd blow of a fighting axe. The whole hull rang and the Lotus went from plough horse to racehorse in a single bound. Then the deck master ran down the central fighting deck. 'Sails!' he called. 'Brail up tight and drop the yards. Look lively, lads!'

The wind on the sails pushed against the rowers for precious seconds, but then the yards came down – the advantage of a triemiolia was that his masts could stand even during a fight, allowing him to carry sail longer and drop it faster. The dropped yards covered the half-deck and not the oarsmen, who rowed on.

The sailors and the deckhands laboured to get the mass of flapping linen canvas under control – but the ram was already halfway around.

'Poseidon!' Neiron shouted.

'Herakles,' Satyrus said. He picked up a wineskin that the helmsman kept under the bench and flung it over the side full, without even pulling the plug. 'We need all the help we can get,' he said, but he laughed and felt the power on him.

Stesagoras waded into the mainsail, his long arms gathering material as he went, and suddenly there were ten men visible on the canvas, and then – just like that – the mainsail was half the size, a quarter, and then the heavy bundle was being lashed to the mast. The boatsail was already gone.

Their pursuer was just starting his turn, his oars out and rowing crisply, his port-side benches reversed – but the range was short and the larger ship was having his own troubles.

Satyrus's archers shot a volley of arrows and received a volley in return. There were screams from forward.

'Oar-rake and board,' Satyrus said. 'Neiron, take the helm.'

Neiron's hands shot out and took the steering oars. 'I have the helm,' he shouted over the screams from the bow.

'You have the helm,' Satyrus said again and relinquished control. Helios had his breastplate in its bag out from under the bench and he pulled it on, somewhat surprised to see that despite the weather, the breastplate gleamed like gold and the helmet was as silver as the moon. His arming cap was damp and cold, but the breastplate was colder.

An arrow glanced off his backplate and stung his arm, scarring Helios along the thigh before vanishing over the side. He looked up from the buckles to the fight.

'They're shooting downwind,' Neiron said. Another arrow passed so close that Helios ducked.

'Archer captain's down!' Stesagoras passed from amidships.

'Any time, Navarch!' Neiron said.

'Take him,' Satyrus said. 'I'm away.' He turned to Helios, who was fully armed. 'With me, lad,' he said. He ran forward even as he heard Philaeus call for the ramming speed. The enemy galley, having passed from hunter to prey, was turning away towards the south coast of the Euxine, obviously intending to save himelf by beaching.

An arrow passed so close to Satyrus's helmet that its passing sounded like the ripping of fine linen. The ship leaped forward between his feet – he could feel the change in motion – but the enemy ship was turning, faster. And faster. Satyrus ran forward as Philaeus bellowed for the starboard-side rowers to back water – a chancy manoeuvre, but one that was faster than actually reversing benches. The deck shifted under his feet.

Satyrus got forward and found his new archer captain dead with a Sakje shaft just over his nose and another under his arm. The archers were all down with their heads safe under the bulkheads. 'They murdered us!' one called.

Satyrus counted three dead – of eight archers. As he counted, a blow rocked his helmet and he saw stars and fell flat on the deck – but his helmet turned the arrow. Helios gave him a hand and he got to his feet. Then an arrow hit the boy and stuck in his quilted corslet. Helios gave a whimper and then clamped down on it and crouched beneath the bulkhead, trying to get the arrow out of his side.

'Son of a bitch!' Satyrus said. He picked up a fallen bow, raised his head and shot. He had no idea where his arrow went and immediately reached for another arrow.

He looked, shot – this time at a robed Sakje warrior just two horse-lengths away – and his breastplate turned another arrow and he sat down suddenly.

'They're too damned good!' he joked to Apollodorus.

The marine captain didn't answer. He was sitting against the bulkhead, leaning forward, and Satyrus realized suddenly that he was unconscious – or dead.

'Marines!' he called, and suddenly the ship turned again, and he was thrown into the gutter at the edge of the deck. He scraped his face on Apollodorus's scale armour and came to rest against Helios, whose eyes were as big as copper coins. Philaeus was roaring for all rowers to back oars, and Satyrus forced himself to his feet and looked aft. Neiron was leaning hard on the steering oars, and forward the stern of the big penteres was passing down their side, just a ship's length away and getting farther – and then the enemy ship seemed to pitch both of its masts over the side as if he'd been bitten by a sea monster.

'What in the name of Hades?' Satyrus rolled to his feet and ran to the command platform. The arrows had stopped coming.

Stesagoras had an arrow through his bicep. 'Poseidon's mercy, your honour. She was a monster and no mistake.' One of his mates broke the arrow and the Alexandrian forced the shaft out of the entry wound and fell in a faint.

Satyrus looked over the side – and understood. The enemy ship was already breaking up, having run full tilt on to a rock in the shallow bay that their captain had taken for a beach. There was no beach – just a row of breakers and a cliff ten times the height of a man.

'There he goes,' Neiron said. 'Poseidon, and all the sea nymphs.' He waved. 'The Thinyas rocks. Almost ran on 'em myself.' He made the peasant sign to avert ill-fortune.

Satyrus looked at the sky and then astern. 'Can we save their people?' he asked.

Neiron grinned. 'Now you're talking.' Then he sobered. 'Mind you, they galled us hard.'

Satyrus shrugged. 'Once they're wet, a rower is a rower,' he said, quoting an old proverb about the brotherhood of the sea. There were some men – Phoenicians, for the most part – who believed in letting drowning seamen die, to propitiate the sea. But Greeks tended to rescue men if it could be done.

'Shall I put about, then?' Neiron asked.

'Marines!' Satyrus yelled. He nodded. 'On me!'

They rescued half a hundred men. Helios, in addition to his other talents, could swim, and he fearlessly leaped into the freezing sea and dragged men out – first a ship's boy and then a small, wiry man.

After Satyrus watched him pull the second man to the side, Neiron got his attention and pointed at the shore. Satyrus saw twenty more men make it to shore and vanish over the cliff at the water's edge.

'Shall we hunt them down?' one of his marines asked.

Satyrus shook his head. 'I wonder how long they'll take to get home?' he mused. They spent the night on an open beach, a hundred stades short of Heraklea. The night gave Satyrus time to daydream about his lady love, whom he hadn't seen in almost a year. Amastris of Heraklea was beautiful – as well as being intelligent, rich and the only niece of the Euxine's second most powerful man, Dionysius of Heraklea.

Satyrus sat alone on a lion skin – a present from Gabines when they sailed, straight from old Ptolemy, or so he said. He had a big black mug of soup and he was wrapped in his two warmest cloaks, and still the wind cut at him.

Neiron clambered up the rocks to him. 'I'm too old to go looking for a sprite like you,' he said.

'That was a first-rate ship,' Satyrus said. He took a swig of scalding soup. Down on the beach, the survivors of the Winged Dolphin – for so he proved to be named – huddled around a fire. 'If all of Eumeles' ships are that good, we're in for a fight.'

'Captain was from Samos. He got away. The rest was good sailors. All pirates.' Neiron shrugged. 'You need to eat. And, if I may say so, you need to walk around the men.'

Satyrus nodded. He got to his feet and drank more soup. 'Tomorrow I roll the dice. I'm scared.'

Neiron said nothing.

'Stesagoras and Philaeus are good men,' Satyrus said. 'So are you, Neiron.' He held out his hand.

Neiron seemed surprised. But he clasped hands. 'Why – thank you, Navarch.'

'Call me Satyrus,' he said.

Neiron smiled. 'Well – never thought I'd see the day.' He laughed. More soberly, he said, 'We'll need more marines, a new marine officer and a peck of archers. Those Sakje raped us.'

'They hurt us off Olbia, too.' Satyrus shook his head and finished his soup. 'My people,' he said bitterly. 'Apollodorus deserves a proper burial.'

'Aye.' Neiron looked away. He and the marine had never exactly been friends. 'At Heraklea?'

'Have to be.' Satyrus nodded. 'T hanks. I feel better.'

'Talking often has that effect, sir – Satyrus,' the helmsman said. The harbourmaster at Heraklea stepped aboard and his eyes widened. 'Satyrus of Tanais?' he asked.

Satyrus remembered him. It had only been four years – he remembered the man from the heady days of intrigue and assassination at the court of Heraklea. The months just after his mother had been murdered.

'Bias?' he said, and offered his hand.

'Lord!' Bias responded. In Heraklea, they had had tyrants and aristocrats for so long that Greek men might bend the knee like barbarians, to a man of better blood.

'Is Nestor still the tyrant's right hand?' Satyrus asked.

'Isn't he my son-in-law?' Bias asked, and laughed. 'Pretty bold, just sailing in here, lord. The tyrant is no friend of yours these days. There's a rumour in the agora that you – um-hmm – have spent too much time with his niece. And the tyrant of Pantecapaeum wants you dead. We have peace with them.'

Satyrus nodded. 'I need to see Nestor,' he said. 'And then I will make it right. And Bias – I love Amastris. I would never trifle with her.' He felt a little odd as the lie rolled out of his mouth. But it had been her – or so he told himself. And there had never been any trifling about it.

Bias didn't even bother to look at the bill of lading. 'If you want to see Nestor,' he said, 'come ashore in my boat.'

Satyrus considered the possibility that he would be taken, alone, and killed to satisfy the obligations of statecraft. Then he shrugged. 'Neiron, take command,' he said. 'If I don't return by nightfall, take the ship out of the harbour. You know what to do then.'

Neiron nodded.

As they rowed ashore, Bias leaned forward. 'What is your helmsman to do if you don't return, lord?' he asked.

Satyrus watched the rowers. He flashed the older man a smile. 'Fetch my fleet,' he said. 'And burn the town to ash.'

Bias sat down on his thwart.

'Just so that we understand each other, Bias. I love Amastris – not Heraklea.' Satyrus shrugged. 'I mean no ill. But – if I am taken, there will be a consequence.'

'Where is your fleet?' Bias asked. He tried to sound offhand.

Satyrus waved a hand vaguely. 'Close enough,' he said.

They landed by the customs wharf and Satyrus was left alone. There was some discussion in whispers around him, and he began to regret the boldness of his arrival. He wished he was surrounded by marines.

After an hour, a strange man, obviously a slave and terrified, came and ushered him into a very comfortable house, largely empty of furnishings, near the wharves. Satyrus was sufficiently scared that it took him some minutes to realize that it was Kinon's house. Kinon had been Leon's factor in Heraklea, and had died in a night of blood and terror, when Eumeles' paid assassins came for the twins. Satyrus had to fight the temptation to look for bloodstains on the flagstones.

He waited an hour, by the old water clock in the garden. The rose bushes were dead. Satyrus got wine from the terrified slave and loosed the sword in his scabbard, increasingly convinced that he'd made a mistake. Better to have come with the fleet at his tail and no negotiations.

But he'd promised himself – and his aunt – to try other ways. And Amastris – how could he use force against her city?

More time passed. The old slave brought him more wine – excellent wine, for all that the house was drab.

'Is this still Master Leon's house?' Satyrus asked.

'Yes, lord,' the old man said.

Satyrus considered that this might have been courtesy, not entrapment.

Satyrus had time to consider quite a number of things. The sun set and the stars rose, cold and clear, with a promise of colder weather – but good sailing.

'Would my lord like dinner?' the old slave asked.

'What do you have?' Satyrus asked.

'I brought lobster,' said a soft voice from the direction of the garden. 'I remember that you liked it, in Alexandria.'

Satyrus sat up and straightened his chiton at the neck. 'I didn't really dare hope that you would come,' he said.

She was always more beautiful than he remembered. He stood up, and she swept in under his arm and kissed him. Her mouth touched his neck, his chin – and then he bent to her lips and forgot all his busy plans.

'Stop!' she said, after the lamps had begun to gutter. The slave had not come back to fill the oil.

He had no idea how much time had passed, and his hand was on her naked hip, her Ionian chiton hiked up to her bare stomach. She smiled in the near-dark and her eyes sparkled. 'Stop!' she said again.

Satyrus stopped, although he pressed a kiss to the place where her shoulder met her neck. She turned and bit his thumb, rolled off his lap and pulled her chiton sharply down over her knees. He feared her anger for a moment, but she was smiling.

'I am the tyrant's heir, here. And if I make love to you, I'd like it to be on a broad couch with a flask of good wine at my elbow, and not in this sarcophagus of a house.' She shook her head. 'I can feel their ghosts. Can't you? They died in pain – in fear.'

Satyrus took a deep breath and let it out slowly, clearing his head. 'I was here, Amastris. I remember it too well to fear the ghosts.'

She touched his lips with her fingers. 'Sometimes you scare me, Satyrus. Your life has been – death. What scars do you carry?'

'You have seen them all, I think,' he joked.

'That is not funny here. Much as I fancy you, my dear. Someone has talked. Nestor takes my side, and yours. He brought me. But he made me swear not to – well… not to do anything to make him a liar.' She smiled at him, and then shook her head. 'I'm cold,' she said. 'I have a letter for you – from some perfume merchant in Babylon.' She smiled. 'The Persian who brought it is perhaps the handsomest man I've ever seen.'

Satyrus sat up. His heart stopped, and then started again – thud, thud. 'In Babylon?' he said.

'Yes,' she said, settling next to him again. 'Is that important? Did you buy me some fabulous present?'

Satyrus ran a hand up her arm – to her side and to her bare breast. 'Perhaps,' he said.

She pushed him away. 'I'm serious. But…' She stood and retreated. 'Bias seems to think you have a fleet.'

He nodded. 'I do.'

She clapped her hands. 'So you intend to try again?'

Satyrus nodded.

'Then go and do it! My uncle will have to receive you when you are the tyrant of Olbia!' She pulled a dark cloak over her shoulders. 'Oh, I ache for you. Get a move on!' She grinned, and she seemed like the girl he remembered from his first visit here. 'Just like a man, to stop to see a girl on his way to being a king.'

'I'm afraid that I came for more than a kiss,' Satyrus said. His mind was clear. 'Is Nestor outside?'

'What does Nestor have to do with it?' she asked. Her tone was not all Satyrus would have wished, but she'd always been difficult when she found that she wasn't the centre of attention.

'I need an audience with your uncle,' Satyrus said.

'You? He's as likely to take you as a criminal as to talk to you.' She drew herself to her full height. 'Talk to me instead.'

Satyrus shook his head. The room was dark, and the gesture was probably lost. 'Oh, my darling. I mean no – no disrespect. But I need an anchorage for my fleet. Your uncle has the best anchorage on this coast. The winds blow from here to Pantecapaeum.'

'You did not come for me?' she asked. She stepped back again.

Satyrus spoke slowly. 'No. Nor did you come down here to let me take you away.'

He saw her adopt the mantle of the outraged woman. 'I might have,' she said.

Satyrus took a step.

She turned away.

'Nestor!' Satyrus called.

She whirled. 'What are you about?' she asked. 'Nestor wants no part of you!'

'I need a friend here,' Satyrus said. 'I think Nestor is that friend.'

'A moment ago I lay in your arms. But I am not that friend?' she spat at him.

Satyrus always regretted the clarity of his vision, because too often he saw things he was not supposed to see. 'You do not want to be my friend with your uncle,' Satyrus said. 'I hear it in your voice.'

'You lie!' she said.

Satyrus tried to catch her hand – failed – succeeded. 'Listen!' he said. 'I love you.'

'You do not,' she cried.

'I do. But in this – you want me to be the secret lover, and I must play the public ally. This is the game of the world, love. I need your uncle's harbour. Without it, I will not succeed.' Satyrus drew a breath, but she cut in, even as he heard the ring of hobnails on flagstones.

'You need my harbour more than you need me?' she asked, and Nestor came into the dark with a torch in his hand.

As big as Philokles had been, Nestor emerged from the dark just the way Satyrus had seen him the first time – covered in bronze from head to toe, with ornate greaves, foot-guards forged like naked feet, a magnificent muscled cuirass and arm-guards to match.

'I see that Eutropios is still working,' Satyrus said.

Nestor clasped his hand. 'I knew you'd come back, boy. I'm glad to find both of you dressed.' He grinned. 'I hadn't expected you to call for me, boy!'

Satyrus grinned. He took the torch and used it to light lamps. 'You must be the last man on earth to call me "boy",' he said. 'I need to see Lord Dionysius.'

'Offers of marriage are not going to be acceptable just now,' Nestor said. 'He believes that you might have taken – liberties. At court.' Nestor shrugged. 'And you are known here as "that adventurer".'

Satyrus nodded. 'I need the anchorage. For ten days. And the town's field of Ares. Again, for ten days.'

'Zeus Soter, boy!' Nestor shook his head. 'What?'

'I need Dionysius's alliance,' he said. 'Or at the very least, his acceptance.'

'He's mad,' Amastris said. 'And I thought he came for me!'

Nestor shook his head. 'You are mad.'

'Let me see Dionysius,' Satyrus said. He could see the knuckle bones spinning in the air.

'You accept the consequences if he decides to dispense with you?' Nestor asked.

'I will if he does,' Satyrus answered. Dionysius might not have moved in four years. He lay on his great bed, his massive body stretching every leather band of the mattress so that his every move was accompanied by tortured stretching noises.

This time, no one asked Satyrus for his sword – a remarkable oversight. This time, he was not offered a chair or a couch. Instead, he stood in front of the tyrant.

'What on earth are you doing here, boy?' he asked. 'I don't recall inviting you back.'

Satyrus pasted on the smile of gentle confidence that he'd practised for the last five years. 'I came back to thank you for the lessons in politics,' he said.

Dionysius laughed. 'I do remember offering you some instruction, at that.' His chuckles creaked and wheezed the bed on which he lay, so that he seemed to be a comic chorus. Then he stopped. 'There's a rumour from Alexandria that you debauched my niece,' he said.

'No,' Satyrus said. Philokles had taught him that a direct negation was a more effective denial than any amount of excuse. 'No. But I do wish to marry her.'

Dionysius nodded. 'No. Anything else?' He raised his head. 'I do hear that you've become quite the warlord,' he said. 'You took Eumeles' squadron on the other coast – by yourself, or so we are told. Amastris actually clapped her hands when she heard. Of course, she didn't clap so hard when we heard that you massacred the prisoners. Yourself.'

Satyrus shrugged, as if the massacre of prisoners was of no moment. 'If I may not have her hand in marriage,' Satyrus asked, 'perhaps you would consider a treaty of alliance – offensive and defensive.'

'Really?' Dionysius said. 'Gods below, boy – you don't lack balls. But – no. Eumeles is no friend of mine, but your next failed expedition won't come from here.'

'I'd ask you to reconsider,' Satyrus said. 'Because, if you won't, the consequences will be – severe.'

Dionysius sat up. 'Are you threatening me, boy?' he asked.

'Yes,' Satyrus said. 'Yes, I am.' The smile remained fixed in place.

Behind him, Amastris choked a sob. 'What are you doing?' she asked.

'My uncle, Diodorus, is twenty days' march away. He'll be coming over the mountains from Phrygia. Just the opposite of the way I fled – five years back.' Satyrus held the grin on his lips by force of will. 'He has a thousand horse and four thousand foot – more than enough to maintain a siege here.'

Nestor raised his arm, but Satyrus pushed on. 'In five days, the whole fleet of Demostrate will come up the coast from Byzantium,' he said, while Nestor rose to his feet. 'You can give me an alliance and allow me to use your harbour, or take the consequence.'

'I can put you to death this hour!' Dionysius roared.

'And take the consequences,' Satyrus said. Nestor's hand was on the collar of his cloak, and Nestor was pinning his sword expertly against his side, but Satyrus didn't struggle. There was no point. The dice were spinning, bouncing – the moments before they stopped – is that a six? A one?

'This town has never fallen to assault,' Dionysius said, but there was hesitation in his voice.

Satyrus kept his eyes on the tyrant. 'And it need never. If you support me now – just with your harbour, and you can pretend that I forced your hand – I will be your loyal ally for ever. Refuse me – and you may as well kill me.'

'Your naked threat is an ugly weapon,' Dionysius said. 'Sometimes the ugly is the beautiful,' Satyrus said.

Dionysius laughed. He laughed so hard that his bed-frame shook. Nestor let go of Satyrus's cloak and stepped away.

The fat man laughed, and laughed, and then he drank some wine. 'I lay here, on this very couch, and listened to you announce that you would make yourself king,' he said. 'And Eumeles is a threat to me and to every city on the south coast. Do you actually have Demostrate?'

'I do, my lord.' Satyrus nodded.

Dionysius nodded, his chins still quivering. 'You have wit, lad. But I'm not sure I believe that you have an army.'

Satyrus had nothing to lose. 'Amastris? You said you had a letter for me?'

Amastris stepped past Nestor. 'You will help him?' she asked her uncle. She sat on his couch and ruffled his hair – an oddly ugly gesture. Then she sent a slave for the letter. Time passed slowly. Satyrus had time to review all the other options he had had. And then the local helot came running back down the hall, her bare feet a whisper on the stone floors. She bowed to the tyrant, who waved his hand.

And she handed Dionysius the tablets.

The tyrant opened them – a two-fold tablet, with wax inserts on each side, four pages in all. The wax was inscribed, and he cast his eyes over it. '"Amion, merchant of Babylon, sends word to Satyrus, merchant of Alexandria, that he will send the Lady Amastris the required perfumes, and further stipulates against future payment…"' Dionysius looked up. 'I fear you will insist that this is a code.'

Satyrus shook his head. 'No,' he said. 'If you will permit me?' He reached out, and Nestor took the tablets from his master and put them in Satyrus's hand. Satyrus got a twinge from the bruise where one of the arrows had struck his breastplate. Then he had the tablets. He flexed the light wood between his hands, and popped the wax pages, one by one, from their frames.

And there was writing, small writing, covering the revealed wood. Satyrus sighed, and it seemed as if every muscle in his body relaxed. He handed the waxless boards back to Nestor, who passed them to the tyrant.

'You are full of surprises,' Dionysius said. He nodded. '"Diodorus to Satyrus, greetings. Ares and Athena bless your enterprise – I received your message today, less than a week after Seleucus paid us off for the winter. As soon as the men are sober, I will march. I will come up the royal road as far as I may, and then by the old road to Heraklea. Expect me as soon as the passes are clear. Sitalkes and Crax and all our friends speak of nothing now but our return from exile, and all of the omens are favourable."' Dionysius raised his eyes. 'Of course, you might have planted this.'

Satyrus nodded. 'I might, at that.'

'Bah – I cannot bear to execute him. And as he says himself, that is the only other choice.' Dionysius nodded. 'Nice trick with the boards, young man. From Herodotus, I believe. But – very well. I don't care to face a siege from the age's finest captain. I will be your ally. But – if you fail, boy – don't come back here.'

Satyrus bowed again. He thought of the state of his treasury and the thin balance of good will in his fleet. 'If I fail,' he said, and the mask finally slipped, and his voice trembled, 'if I fail, lord, I will feed the fishes.'

Dionysius pursed his lips and drank some wine. 'Good,' he said. 'So we understand each other.'