Miriam, angered, lifted the bow, took a deep breath, relaxed, made herself move the bow a finger’s breadth with her wrist and released. Her shot was weak, and flew short – but the string did not bite her arm.
Melitta smiled. ‘There you go. You need to strengthen your arms and shoulders – I don’t have a bow light enough for you, so you’ll have to get stronger.’ She nodded. ‘Sakje maidens lift rocks and throw them. And shoot constantly.’
Miriam smiled. ‘I’d be delighted to have shoulders like yours,’ she said.
Melitta smiled back. ‘No – I’m all muscle. You have the beautiful curves. I look like a boy.’
Miriam laughed. ‘No. Not at all like a boy. But you do
walk
like a boy. Fierce – determined. And always ready to fight.’
Melitta nodded. ‘I
am
always ready to fight.’ She wiped her bow, retrieved her arrows.
‘You like him? Anaxagoras?’ Miriam asked.
‘He’s pretty and brave,’ Miriam said. ‘He looks at me the way I like to be looked at.’
Miriam nodded. The silence lengthened.
‘You can’t have both of them,’ Melitta said.
Miriam fiddled with her hair. She was blushing. ‘I can’t have
either
of them,’ she said.
Melitta frowned. ‘Why not?’ she asked.
Miriam met her eyes. ‘It’s fine for you – it always has been.’ She looked away, bit her lip and said no more.
‘What do you mean, Miriam? I’m no different to you. We grew up together!’ Melitta felt as if she were suddenly talking to a stranger.
‘You … you don’t play by the rules. How many lovers have you had, Melitta?’ Miriam blushed when she asked.
Melitta laughed out loud. ‘Far fewer than you might think. Three. Just three. And the cost is … high.’
Miriam’s hand went to her mouth. ‘Oh – I’m so sorry! I assumed—’ She blushed again.
Melitta laughed. ‘Honey, if I weren’t the Lady of the Assagetae, I’d no doubt run up the score you think I have.’ She got to her feet. ‘I’m not offended, Miriam. Everyone thinks it – I hear what men say. I have a baby. I live out in the field with men. But men are fools, and if I seek to lead them, I cannot go from bed to bed. The petty jealousies alone would destroy my people.’ She stretched.
‘Oh,’ Miriam said.
‘On the other hand,’ Melitta went on, ‘since everyone already thinks you’re sleeping with both of them – why don’t you? You’ll never convince people you’re an innocent widow. And,’ she smiled, the same smile she made when she licked her knife, ‘it’d be good for you. Your marriage was unhappy?’
Miriam looked away. ‘Nothing that’s worth a story.’
‘I’m not in a hurry,’ Melitta said. She sat back down on a sun-warmed stone.
Miriam stared out to sea. ‘Do you think we’ll win, Melitta? I mean, here. In the end.’
Melitta looked at the other woman. ‘Yes, of course. Why do you ask?’
Miriam smiled – a surprisingly bitter smile, for her. ‘If we were all going to die, I’d pick one. And love him every night and every day and to
hell
with what people say. Except that something tells me that if I choose one, the other will die, and I could not abide that. It must be easy to die out there – a moment’s inattention. And when they compete for me, am I insane, or does it help keep them alive – give them an edge?’
Melitta nodded. ‘I wondered if you were thinking that. And yes – oh, yes. I suppose someone might argue that they’ll be reckless – but I use my lovely eyes on warriors all the time. The aspiring lover is the deadliest of men. And has something to live for.’
Miriam hugged her. ‘I have never said that out loud – even to myself. I feel like such a trull. And then, at the symposium, I watched that red-haired girl and I thought – oh, I thought things. So I went to bed. Before—’
Melitta smiled, somewhere between a true smile and a sneer. ‘I tried to get Anaxagoras between my legs after you went to bed, but he isn’t there yet. Will you be angry when I win him?’
Miriam took a deep breath. ‘Do girls really talk like this?’ she asked.
Melitta shrugged. ‘I don’t usually have much time for women, aside from my spear-maidens,’ she said. ‘All the girls I know talk like this. Sakje girls wager on men.’
‘I want to be a Sakje,’ Miriam said.
Melitta nodded. ‘Fine. When your shoulders are stronger. But only if I can have the musician.’
Satyrus could hear his sister laughing with Miriam, and he assumed that no good would come of it. And it made him uncomfortable, so he finished his repairs, gathered an escort and walked down to the harbour.
The Rhodians had worked night and day since the truce was declared, and they had eighteen triemiolas ready for sea, stores and water aboard down in the sand by the keel – minimum stores, as the city had little food to spare. The oars and running tackle were aboard, and the waterfront was full of oarsmen – men who had been serving as light-armed troops for months. Only Satyrus’ oarsmen from the wrecked
Arete
had armour.
Menedemos meant to take the Rhodian ships to sea himself. The town was running short on leaders.
Satyrus walked among the Rhodian oarsmen, wishing them luck and Poseidon’s speed. They wouldn’t sail until the truce had expired. Satyrus kept glancing beyond the ruined harbour tower, looking for Demetrios to challenge the ships going to sea, but there wasn’t a sign.
Menedemos saw him looking. ‘I don’t think he cares,’ the Rhodian said. ‘I think he wants us gone – fewer troops to man the walls.’
Satyrus sighed. ‘And more cases of fever this morning – as if a moment’s relaxation makes more people fall sick. I worry you will take the contagion to Leon’s squadrons.’
Menedemos nodded. ‘I’ll go to Samos first and spend a day or two there,’ he said. ‘I’ll know who’s sick by then.’ He looked around. ‘I’m more worried that you won’t have enough men to hold the walls.’
Satyrus raised an eyebrow. ‘Diokles brought us more men than you are taking away – and none of the new troops is sick. Get out there and win, Menedemos. We can’t win here – we can only survive. Just make damn sure that you tell Leon, and Ptolemy. We’re out of space to give up. The new south wall – the “bow” – is the last. Now we have to fight every sortie, every assault.’ He turned and met the Rhodian’s eyes. ‘They don’t have to be skilful, just lucky. Or Demetrios can throw everything at us.’
Menedemos nodded. ‘I know. How long? Two weeks?’
Satyrus shrugged. He raised his hands as if praying. ‘By Herakles my ancestor, we might last months – or fall tomorrow. But my best guess? And you’ve heard this before: Demetrios will come at the third wall as soon as the truce lifts. We’ll move back and he’ll occupy the ground – four days. Then we unleash the trap and retake the third wall. For a day or a week. And he’ll have to spend time rebuilding – call it another week.’ Satyrus shrugged again. ‘And then? We live from hour to hour.’
‘We’d best get to sea, then,’ Menedemos said.
‘May Poseidon guard you,’ Satyrus said.
‘And Apollo withhold his contagion from you,’ Menedemos said.
The truce expired with the sounding of trumpets in both camps, and the Rhodian squadrons put to sea unopposed. The sea was rough, ideal for the better sailors, and Plistias, Demetrios’ admiral, seemed content to let them go.
But Demetrios’ army didn’t stir. There was no hail of stones, no grand assault into the third wall.
Satyrus stood with Jubal on the third wall, just at twilight.
‘He smell the rat?’ Satyrus asked.
Jubal’s eyes widened and he scratched the top of his head. ‘Who know?’ he asked. ‘God, maybe.’ He paused. ‘Duck,’ he said, and dropped flat on the top of the wall.
Satyrus had the sense to emulate him.
With a wicked hiss, a par of shafts whistled over them to shatter below.
‘Somethin’ new,’ Jubal said, hurrying down the inside of the wall. Small parties of Rhodians – the ephebes were on duty – were active in the trench behind the wall, and Cretan archers shot over the wall from time to time. It was vital to Satyrus that the enemy not know how eager he was to abandon the third wall.
Jubal picked up an arrow – the oddest arrow Satyrus had seen. It was solid, like the bolts thrown by ballistae, but short – much shorter than the engines on a ship threw, for instance.
Jubal walked back, poked his head up over the ramparts and fell back instantly, his face bleeding from a dozen cuts.
He lay on his back and screamed. Ephebes came running and got water on his face – he had two bad cuts where another bolt had hit a rock, inches from his face and split, the shattered shaft flaying his skin.
Satyrus helped other men carry him back to his tent, and Aspasia gave him poppy.
He found Melitta and gave her one of the bolts. ‘Tell your archers to beware,’ he said. ‘They have an engine – a small one, I assume. Very powerful.’
By the next day, one of her maiden archers was dead, shot through the head as she rose to shoot, and another had her bow hand broken by a tumbling shaft that had hit a stone. Others were hit, as well – two ephebes shot dead; a citizen hoplite screaming his guts out in the makeshift hospital.
Satyrus ordered a makeshift tower raised just south of the agora, on the foundations of the
boule
’s
tholos
. Idomeneus and Melitta used the tower to watch the enemy lines as soon as it went up.
Idomeneus came down almost immediately. ‘Troops massing behind their engines,’ he said.
Satyrus sounded the alarm and the town’s whole garrison stood to – manning every inch of wall, with the marines and town hoplites in reserve in the city’s agora. They stood to all night, men sleeping on their feet in their armour.
And nothing happened.
The next day, Jubal was back, the wounds on his face livid, giving him an angry look that ill suited his open nature. He climbed the tower, came back down and shook his head.
‘You know why I don’ buil’ no tower?’ he asked Satyrus.
Satyrus shook his head. ‘No – I guess I assumed that you hadn’t thought of it.’
His makeshift siege engineer spat. ‘Don’ wan’ them,’ Jubal pointed at Demetrios’ camp, ‘to buil’ no tower. Buil’ they a tower, see over our wall, see my lil’ surprise.’
Two stades away, Lucius looked under his hand at the distant city. ‘Arse-cunts built a tower,’ he said to Stratokles. ‘Now they can see everything Golden Boy does – so much for the surprise assault.’ He laughed. ‘Now, why didn’t
we
think of building a tower?’
Stratokles took a healthy swig of wine and spat it out after rinsing his mouth – just in case he had to fight.
‘Because so many of our slaves are sick with the fever that we can’t repair our engines
and
build a tower,’ he said. ‘Plistias wants a tower. So does King Demetrios. But we’re a little short on manpower right now.’
Lucius barked a laugh. ‘Make the useless phalangites do the work. They’re not worth a crap in an assault – they ought to dig.’
Stratokles cuffed his man. ‘Don’t let anyone hear you say that,’ he said.
Lucius was uncowed. ‘If I had half this number of Latins, I’d show them how to dig. And fight.’
Two more days of inaction. Tense, desperate inaction.
And the fevers began to creep into the ranks of the ephebes
.
First one, then ten men went down, puking their guts out, skin sallow.
Satyrus ran into Miriam and Aspasia at the northern edge of the agora, where the slaves lived, arms full of blankets. Miriam looked as if she was forty. Or fifty. Her eyes were hollow, red as if from weeping.
Satyrus hadn’t spent five minutes in her presence since he had kissed her. He went to salute her.
‘Stay away, polemarch!’ Aspasia commanded. She’d been a priestess and a physician all her life, and her voice carried commands as effectively as Satyrus’ own. He stepped back. He smiled at Miriam, eager to establish some contact, and she looked at him the way a veteran looks as a green stripling.
‘What do they need?’ Satyrus asked the two women. ‘More blankets? Greater food supplies?’
‘Hope,’ Miriam said.
‘I think Demetrios has the fever in his camp,’ Damophilus said. ‘It’s the only explanation Jubal and I can arrive at for his hesitation. His engines still aren’t firing – at least, fewer than half of them.’
‘I’m sure you can all see the irony,’ Satyrus said. ‘Demetrios is held back by the sickness of his slaves – and so our trap is going to fail.’ He shook his head. ‘Zeus Sator, we need a little luck.’
Neiron nodded. All the men of the
boule
– now meeting in the open air, as the stones of their elegant meeting place now formed the centre of the hidden wall, Jubal’s ‘bow’ – nodded. Their eyes were hollow, and their bellies, as well. The squadrons had sailed, and nothing had come back, and the granaries were reaching desperate levels.
‘We have to cut the grain ration,’ Hellenos said. He made a face and raised his hands. ‘Don’t kill the messenger!’
Memnon shook his head. ‘If we cut the grain ration, someone will surrender the city,’ he said. ‘That’s how I see it.’
Neiron grunted. ‘There’s more than one irony at work here. What you’re saying is that
inaction
allows people to think of how desperate they are.’
Satyrus nodded. ‘I saw that days ago, Old Neiron. Demetrios does us more damage waiting than striking.’
Damophilus raised an eyebrow. ‘Then what – attack him? Before all our hoplites are sick?’
Satyrus shook his head. ‘Suicide. His entrenchments are sound – in fact, in
yet another
irony, we’ve taught him to build better entrenchments by our constant raids.’
Jubal nodded. ‘An’ they heavy blows’s killin’ us.’
Two days of further observation showed that the enemy had a mechanical bow. Old soldiers like Draco knew them as soon as they saw them – Alexander had favoured the weapon for sieges – the
gastraphetes
. The crossbow.
‘It’s not that it outranges the Sakje, or even my lads,’ Idomeneus said. ‘It’s that they can shoot it from cover. No need to pull it – no need to kneel or stand. And once they cock it, they can watch for a whole cycle of the sun for a man to show his head.’