King of the Bosphorus

3

The west coast of the Euxine consisted of mudflats, deep bays, endless estuaries and sea marshes stretching away to the sea of grass.

They were still ten stades from the coast. They had fled out into the deep water, the 'great green' where coastal sailors never went, bailing the Falcon and fothering his bow to prevent the inrush of water from the damage left by the loss of the ram – three great holes under the waterline, each the size of a fist, where the heavy bronze retaining bolts had ripped through the planking.

Satyrus was utterly exhausted – past the point of careful decision-making, past the point of hope and fear. He merely acted. He was in the bow, naked except for his boots, strapping a tow-stuffed aspis to the outside of the hull over the holes. The stress on the bow had ripped every patch free and started the water again, and the oarsmen were rowing with the lowest rowing deck half full of water and worse to come.

Satyrus pinned the shield over the holes – it covered all three – while two Urartian deck-crewmen drew the ropes over and through it tight. Satyrus was fighting the sea and his own fatigue, and even as he pushed, a wave caught something on the shield and all the ropes slipped. His arm hurt – the salt water licked at the deep cut there and the pain was intense.

Water began to rush in once more.

'Fuck it,' Satyrus said. He didn't think he had the energy to start again, so instead, he pushed the shield back into the ropes by the simple expedient of falling on the upper rim – and then past it into the water. He grabbed hold of the naked bow timbers as the water hit him, wrenching his shoulder, and got his head above water. Now the force of the ship's passage pinned him against the shield, and the shield was held in place.

'Pull, you bastards!' Satyrus managed.

Ba'alaz, the bigger of the two, hauled his rope back until it sang.

Kariaz, the smaller, belayed it against a cross-member that had supported the weight of the ram and then hauled on the other line until Ba'alaz got to him and added his weight.

'She's home, master!' Ba'alaz said.

Satyrus was already sinking under the bow. 'Stand up and fight, boy!'

Theron stood over him on the sand of the palaestra, his hands still in the fighting stance of the pankration.

'Are you down? If you are one of mine, get up! Get up and fight!'

Theron was even larger here – and the sands stretched to an infinite horizon. Theron towered over him, his lion-skin chlamys whipping in the winds – the smell of wet cat.

'Get up and fight!'

Satyrus struggled to get a foot under his own weight – to rise on an arm. All the weight of the world seemed to press him down. He got an arm out from under his body and he pushed against the sand. The force pinning him to the ground was like the hand of the gods. He pushed.

Suddenly, the weight on his back released…

Only the will of the gods kept Satyrus alive – his foot caught in the mess of old rope and canvas that marked their first attempts to fother the bow, and he was held there, drowning, until Theron reached into the water and pulled him up by sheer strength. It took Diokles hundreds of heartbeats to revive him – or so they told him after his choking breaths had turned to steady breathing.

'You were there,' Satyrus said to Theron, catching his hand.

'So I was,' Theron agreed. He wiped his nose. One of the wounds on his thigh had opened, and watery blood ran down his leg, deeply marked where he had stripped off his greaves.

'No – I saw it. Was I dead?' Satyrus asked.

He could see on their faces that they thought his wits were wandering, so he didn't say more. 'Any sign of the other ships?' he asked.

Diokles shook his head. He'd been at the steering oar for ten hours.

'None,' he said. 'We ran west. They ran east.' He shrugged.

Theron slumped heavily. 'Zeus Soter, lad. If you'd left me, you'd be halfway to Rhodos now.'

Satyrus managed a smile. 'Sounds bleak, doesn't it? We're much better off as we are.'

Diokles stared ahead woodenly.

Satyrus made his shoulders rise off the deck. To one of the boys, he said, 'Get my satchel.' To Diokles, he said, 'We're not dead yet.'

'Close,' Diokles said.

Satyrus put raw wool on Theron's thigh, twisting the ends as Philokles had taught him, washing the wound as Sophokles – a traitor, a poisoner, an assassin, but an excellent doctor – had instructed him years before in Heraklea.

Heraklea, where Amastris would be tonight. Would she see the sunset? He looked out to the west, where the sun was setting as they edged into the low-lying swamps. There was nothing on this coast – nothing but the channels of a hundred forgotten watercourses and the swamps their passage left.

He could just see the land under the setting sun, and just north of the brightest part of the sun's red disc, he saw the notch of a sail. He pointed.

'Poseidon's watery dick,' Diokles said. 'Zeus Casios who conquers all the waters. Thetis of the glistening breasts.'

Satyrus could just about manage to stand erect. 'Could be Dionysius,' he said hopefully.

Diokles shook his head, spat over the side. 'That golden bastard who shaved our stern.' He looked forward. 'That rig of yours strong enough that we could rig the boatsail after dark?'

Satyrus was watching. The oarsmen were tired – so tired that the ship had little more than steerage way despite all banks rowing. 'He doesn't see us,' he said.

'We're on the dark horizon and all our masts are struck down,' Diokles said. 'But it means that we can't get in with the land. We could sink in the night, and you know it. We need to get this hulk ashore.'

'There's nothing on this shore but mud and bugs,' Satyrus said.

'A man can wade through mud, and bugs don't usually kill you,' Diokles said. 'With the ram gone, there's nothing holding that bow together but four copper bolts – hear me, sir? We will not make Tomis, or wherever you think we can get. If the wind comes up and there are cross-waves, we're gone.'

Satyrus wanted to rant that this wasn't his fault and Diokles was being unfair, but he lacked the energy. 'So?'

'So we need to land,' Diokles said. He looked at Theron.

Theron shrugged. 'You put me in command of a ship,' he said. 'I won't take one again! I grew up with the sea and still I know nothing of him. But Diokles seems to have the right of it, lad. When the wind rises towards morning, we'll open like a flower. Philokles would ask you to think of the oarsmen.'

Satyrus nodded. Despite everything, his eyelids sank, as if he was going to fall asleep, cold and wet, huddled by the rail of a sinking ship.

'As soon as dark falls,' he said, 'we raise the boatsail mast. If that holds, we raise the mainmast. We turn north and put his bow into the mud. Get every oarsmen up on deck with his sea bag and every weapon we have aboard. Serve out the dead marines' gear and all the stuff we got off the enemy. If we can run him far enough ashore, we save the drinking water.'

Diokles nodded. His lip curled in a fraction of a smile. 'I was afraid you'd decide to try and board the bastard and take him.'

Satyrus stretched warily. The idea of getting back into his armour made his body hurt all over again. 'I thought about it,' he said, by way of humour.

'That's what I'm afraid of,' Diokles said. Full dark, and half a moon – a clear, cool night with enough starlight to read a scroll. As soon as the Falcon got his boatsail up, his motion changed. Diokles got the deckhands to bring their bags on deck and then sent all of them aft except the work party for the mainmast. Satyrus stood in the bows, his hands on the lines fothering the shield. His shield.

Not that he could do much if the patch gave way, except curse, and drown.

He turned and watched the mainmast rise. A spar that big could sink them if it fell from its cradle of lines and hit the deck, but he lacked the energy to worry about such a thing. Instead, he watched the pink western horizon. The enemy vessel – if it was an enemy – was invisible, hull down and sail down. He might even have landed for the night, although few sailors would risk the mudflats on this stretch of coast.

The thought made him give a tired smile, because he was about to beach his precious Falcon on those very mudflats. And he'd never get Falcon back. His grip on the cross-brace tightened.

Before the last line on the mainmast was pulled taut, the pink was gone from the sky, and the great path of stars rolled overhead from horizon to horizon. Only a few oarsmen had the energy to look up, but those that did exclaimed – a comet, bright as the moon, was rising above the eastern sky.

She'll see that in Heraklea, Satyrus thought.

By the second watch of the night, all the oarsmen were packed in the stern, lifting the bow almost clear of the water. As long as the wind held, they'd be in with the land before dawn.

'Do I see a glow to the west?' Theron croaked. He wasn't moving much, the wounds having stiffened and his muscles strained.

Diokles nodded. 'He put ashore. You know what that tells me?'

Satyrus grunted.

'Tells me they know you're aboard this ship and there's money in it. No one would be on this coast unless there was some reward.' The man shrugged. 'With the bow out of the water like this, we're safe. I'll keep heading west until I feel the wind start to change.'

Satyrus grunted his assent.

The next thing he knew, he was waking up. The sky was lighter – the false dawn – and he was damp from the morning mist. 'Diokles?' he asked.

Diokles grunted.

'Let me have the helm,' Satyrus said, forcing himself to stand. His knee joints burned like fire.

'Breeze is dying. We passed their fire two hours ago. We can't be more than a stade offshore, but this cursed fog-' Diokles kept his voice low.

'What's our heading?' Satyrus couldn't see a thing.

'West and north,' Diokles said. 'Listen!'

Satyrus listened. He could hear birds, and the gentle surf of the Euxine. 'T hanks for keeping the oars all night,' Satyrus said. 'I feel – like a fool. I'm the navarch.'

Diokles shook his head. 'Men say things in heat,' he said. 'I'm not so proud of the way I spoke to you yesterday.'

Satyrus put his hands on the helmsman's. 'I've got the helm,' he said. 'I'm not so proud of – anything.' He ducked under the oar-yoke. 'I've got him.'

'You have the helm.' Diokles stood for a moment. 'Get us ashore, eh?'

Satyrus tried to work the kink out of his neck. 'This is the last time I'll handle Falcon,' he said. 'He feels odd.'

'He's dying,' Diokles said, curling up by the helmsman's bench. 'But he's a good lad. He'll get us ashore.'

Satyrus found it as hard to track time in the mist as it was to see his course. Twice he caught sight of stars overhead, and once he heard surf, clear as a conversation in the theatre, just off his right shoulder – a quarter of an arc away from where it ought to be.

Turn the ship? Steady on this heading? He peered overhead, watching the growing light and the white haze for an answer. He should have been in with the coast by now – should have felt the touch of mud under his keel.

He looked down at Diokles and Theron, now tangled together, deeply asleep. He didn't want to wake them.

He felt very young. He felt the way he had when he was twelve years old, standing his first real watch with the Macedonian veterans, Draco and Amyntas, in the mountains of Asia. Afraid of every noise, and doubly afraid to seem a fool.

A seagull screeched off the bow.

He listened so hard he felt he might strain his ears – and heard nothing. The surf noise was gone.

'Poseidon, god of the sea, stand at my shoulder. Herakles, god of heroes, be my guide.' He muttered prayers.

All around him, exhausted men lay huddled together, snoring.

The ship sailed on, and the sky grew lighter.

By now he was in danger of discovery, his raised sails probably sticking up above the fog, an easy target for wakeful sentries anywhere on the coast.

Nothing to be done now.

The sky lightened further still. The fog was thick, but he could see the grey-blue of the morning sky directly overhead. He forced his back to relax and realized that he'd been waiting for the crunch of sand under the bow. Where is the land? he asked himself every fifty heartbeats, and still Falcon sailed on.

When the fog began to glow pink off the port bow, a sense of his location went through him like the voice of a god – he was sailing north of west. He leaned over the rail by the steering oars and spat in the water.

They were moving well – he was sailing north of west at the pace of a trotting horse. He should have been ashore before first light. He shook his head, fought off panic and tapped Diokles with his bare foot.

'Ho!' Diokles snorted. 'What?'

'I need you,' Satyrus said quietly. The urgency in his voice carried, and the Tyrian rubbed his eyes, pulled his chlamys tight about his shoulders and settled on the steering bench.

'We're still afloat,' he said.

Satyrus nodded. 'We're sailing north of west and we've never even brushed a shoal. It's an hour after first light.'

Diokles spat in the water, just as Satyrus had. Then he went forward, cursing, and returned with the 'porpoise', a lead weight attached to a rope. 'I'm sending the porpoise for a swim,' he said, and ran off forward into the fog.

Satyrus listened for the splash of the porpoise. All around him, men were waking. The fog was burning off – above him, the boatsail shone clear. He had minutes to get the Falcon ashore before he'd be spotted – if he hadn't been spotted already.

Diokles came trotting back with a gang of deckhands at his tail. 'Sandy bottom and shoaling slowly – but there's five tall men's worth of water under your keel.' He shook his head. 'Where the fuck are we? How can we be sailing north of west? We should be sailing on grass by now!'

Theron was awake just forward, his eyes rimmed in red. 'Artemis, I'm too old for this,' he said.

'Keep throwing the porpoise, helmsman,' Satyrus said.

'Aye, lord.' Diokles gave a wry smile. 'Like that, is it?'

More quietly, Satyrus asked him, 'What do you think?'

Diokles stepped very close. 'The bow's leaking water. I think we have until the sun is high in the sky, and then he'll open like a whore's arse in the Piraeus. Best put him ashore before then.'

Satyrus shook his head. 'I tried. I missed the shore. I don't know how I missed it.'

Theron shook his head. 'Don't look at me, lad. I should never have offered to captain one of these. My expertise ends on the sands.'

Before rumours of their predicament could run the length of the deck, the sun and the rising fog showed them trees and scrub – due east, a great shore running parallel to their course.

Men gasped at the absurdity of it.

All around the stern, men asked how this could be.

Diokles rubbed his beard. 'I wish we had a real Euxine pilot,' he said. He pointed to one of his deckhands. 'Rufus thinks we've sailed into the netherworld. I'm going to smack him if he spreads that notion.'

Theron, now on his feet and rubbing out his muscles with the slow care of an athlete, pointed his chin at a group of men coming up the deck. 'Best listen to yon,' he said.

An oarsman stepped up at the head of the delegation and briefly Satyrus feared mutiny – the kind of rebellion hopeless men might make, but the leader bowed his head respectfully. 'Tisaeus, late of Athens, master. Second bank, fourth oar. I think I know where we are.'

'Speak up, then!' Satyrus said, trying to keep the squeak out of his voice.

'I think,' the man hesitated, apparently afraid to commit now that he had the ear of authority. Behind him stood a dozen oar-mates who had obviously pushed him to speak. They prodded him gently.

He looked at the deck. 'Nikonion, master. You've passed through the shoals off Nikonion and we're in that monster deep bay. I used to sail on a pentekonter that coasted here for grain. Locals call it the Bay of Trout.'

Diokles slapped the man heavily on the shoulder. 'That's a silver owl for you, mister!' He turned to Satyrus. 'He must be right. We're embayed.'

'Poseidon! Thetis's damp and glittering breasts!' Satyrus felt as if the weight of the ship was coming off his shoulders. If they were embayed, then there was no chance that the Pantecapaeans had seen them in the morning light. 'We must have made the gods' own time yesterday.'

Diokles looked up. 'Twenty parasangs, more or less.' He nodded. 'Maybe losing his ram made him faster.'

'Doesn't matter now,' Satyrus said. 'We need to get him ashore as close to intact as possible. A farm with a slip would save us all. Before the sun was a red ball balanced on the rim of the world, the bow began to give way and water came in faster, so that Falcon became difficult to handle.

'Let's get him ashore,' Diokles said.

Satyrus wanted to save as much cargo as possible. 'Listen, helmsman,' he said. 'We're thirty long parasangs from a friendly town – we're in enemy country. Even if we can walk through the delta to Tomis, we'll need every scrap of food in this hull – and our weapons and armour. I need to beach Falcon right.'

'And you want to save him, don't you?' Diokles said. He nodded.

'Marker on the beach!' the lookout shouted. 'Marker and some sort of stream entrance – might be a channel.'

Satyrus and Diokles shared a glance. Even the entrance of a small stream cutting through the sand would make a channel – allow them to beach the hull where it could be saved.

Satyrus raced forward, leaped up the standing shrouds and made the Falcon roll as he leaned out.

'There you go, sir!' the lookout said. Satyrus followed his out-thrust arm and saw a cairn of rocks in the rising sun, and just past it, a stream that glowed like a river of fire coming off the high bluffs beyond, and a trace of smoke on the wind.

Satyrus nodded. 'Good eye,' he said, and slid down the stay to the deck, burning his hands and the inside of his thighs in his haste.

'Keep calling the course,' he shouted up to the lookout.

'Aye!' the lookout called.

Diokles had the oar.

'Put us ashore,' Satyrus said. 'I'll con from the bow.'

'If that stream has a sandbar, we'll never get across it,' Diokles said.

'Let's get the sail off him and then we'll make our throw with Tyche.' Satyrus gave the orders, and the boatsail came down with reck less efficiency. Every man aboard was aware of how close they were to disaster, even with the shore in sight.

'Make your course due east,' Satyrus said, as the deck crew were folding the boatsail, their heads turning constantly as they watched the bow's opening seams and the looming beach.

'Into the sun, aye,' Diokles said. 'Helios, be our guide, bright warrior.'

'Bow-on to the creek!' the lookout shouted.

'Shoaling fast!' came the voice of the man with the porpoise in the bow. 'I can see the bottom!'

'Sandbar,' Diokles managed before the jolt.

The sandbar hit them like a strong man landing a glancing blow on a shield – it rocked them but they kept their feet, and they heard the bar whisper along the length of the hull, the ship's momentum driving him over, probably digging a furrow in the old mud as they drove on, the bow now flooding too fast to be saved.

'He's going,' Diokles said through clenched teeth.

'No, he'll last the race,' Satyrus said. 'Every man aft! Now!' Satyrus had been waiting until the stern gave the anticipated dip of coming off that sandbar, and he felt it, like a rider feels the weight change in a horse about to jump. 'Aft! For your lives!'

The deck crew pounded aft and the rest of the crew followed, somewhere between discipline and panic, and the bow rose out of the water – not by much, but up he came, the ugly scars of the lost ram and the heavy beam ends showing wet, like the bones from an amputation.

Diokles grinned at him. 'That was slick. You're a quick learner and no mistake,' he said.

Bow up, stern down, they glided another ship's length into the mouth of the creek, and then another, and then with a sigh, the keel grated, slid and stuck. The cessation of movement was so gradual that not a man lost his footing.

'Zeus Soter!' Satyrus shouted, and every oarsman and sailor gave the cry.

The deck crew scrambled ashore with ropes and they got the oarsmen off, straight over the side and on to the beach where the stream cut it, men kneeling to kiss the ground and making prayers to the gods as they touched, other men making sure of their equipment.

It took them half an hour to get everyone on the beach, to set up a hasty encampment. Theron took a pair of marines and set off up the beach to see if the smell of smoke would reveal a farmhouse.

Satyrus watched the Falcon settle in four feet of water with mixed feelings. On the one hand, he was savable – he could have him clear of the water in two days' work. But the feeling of failure – of defeat – from the day before continued to linger, alongside the pressure of the knowledge that enemy warships would be hunting him in the dawn.

'Get the oarsmen armed and build us a wall – stakes, anything,' Satyrus said to Diokles.

Diokles shook his head. 'With all respect, lord, there's not ten trees in fifty stades. That there's the sea of grass, or so I've been told. You grew up there, eh?'

Satyrus nodded miserably. 'Too true, my friend. But digging trenches in the beach seems foolish.'

'Here's Theron and a farmer,' Diokles said.

The farmer, an old man with a straight back, met Satyrus's eye without flinching. 'Alexander,' he said, offering his hand to clasp. 'Gentleman here says you are the son of Kineas of Athens. You have the look.'

Satyrus had to smile. 'You knew my father?'

'Only two days,' the farmer said with a nod. 'That was enough to know him well. Are you the same stock? Or are you some reiver come to pillage my house?'

Satyrus stood straight. 'I am my father's son,' he said. 'We fought Eumeles of Pantecapaeum yesterday and had the worst of it. My ship lost his ram. I need to refit the Falcon and not fall afoul of Eumeles' jackals.'

Alexander the farmer rubbed his bearded chin. 'See that cairn?' he said.

Satyrus nodded. 'I see it.'

Alexander nodded back. 'That's one of your father's men, died in a skirmish here – must have been twenty years ago.'

Satyrus shook his head in wonder. 'I know who you are! You sold my father grain! That's the grave of Graccus!'

'Graccus, aye, that's the name.' Alexander nodded. 'If you will come and swear on his grave and in your father's name to do me no harm – why, then, I'll open my barns to your men.'

'And if not?' Diokles asked.

Alexander smiled. 'Always best to know both sides of a bargain, eh? If not, I light my signal fire, and my friends come off the sea of grass to see why I need help.'

Satyrus laughed. 'Assagatje!' he said. Suddenly the day was lighter.

Diokles shook his head but Theron came forward. 'His mother's people. Cruel Hands Assagatje.'

Satyrus took Alexander by the hand. 'Let's go and swear on the grave of my father's friend,' he said.