‘Would it change their view?’ Theron asked. ‘They’re the ones who are dead.’
Satyrus nodded. ‘I know. Remember the girl by the Tanais? The one I gut-shot?’
Theron shook his head. ‘Can’t say I do – but you’ve spoken of her before.’
Satyrus nodded. ‘I put her down, like a wounded horse. Except that she wasn’t a horse.’ He shuddered. ‘I think the road to kingship started there, in that meadow. The beach the other night was merely a signpost.’ He squared his shoulders. ‘Fine. I’m ready. If I have to wade in blood, as you said, then I must simply work harder to put something on the other side of the balance.’
‘And Demostrate? The end justifies him?’ Theron leaned forward. ‘You feel guilt for killing two men – two criminals.’ He shook his head. ‘A complex act – but hardly a vicious one. But if you get into bed with this pirate, you share the responsibility for every slave he takes, every home he burns, every merchant he ruins, every man he kills.’
Satyrus nodded. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Yes, I do.’ He stared off into space, reviewing his dead. ‘So be it.’
‘Bah – your youth is speaking!’ Theron made a motion of disgust.
‘Perhaps.’ Satyrus didn’t feel particularly young. His arm hurt, his whole body ached and he wanted to sleep for a day or two. But other things pressed on him. He sipped hot wine. ‘Listen, Theron – my sister must think me dead. Sappho – Diodorus – all of them.’
Theron rubbed his chin, his anger deflated. ‘You’re right, of course.’
‘I should sail down to Alexandria as soon as I make my bargain with Demostrate. If I can get him to agree.’
Abraham came back in. ‘Am I welcome back?’ he asked from the beaded doorway.
Satyrus nodded. ‘Yes,’ he said.
‘Are you two still friends?’ Abraham asked, looking from one to the other.
‘Yes,’ Theron said. A small smile started at his lips, and spread like the rise of the sun to his face and eyes. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘we are.’
‘Good,’ Abraham said. ‘Because if our moral philosophy hour is over, there are officers waiting for instructions and an invitation from Demostrate to the public dinner. Work to be done.’
Satyrus turned to his friend. ‘Care to travel home?’
Abraham raised an eyebrow, and his dark-brown eyes sparkled. ‘No, thanks.’ He smiled. ‘Once home, I may never actually be allowed to leave again.’ He shrugged, a particularly Hellenic gesture. ‘I like it here.’
Satyrus nodded, seeing his friend in a different light. Abraham was suddenly
not
the conservative Hebrew businessman of his adolescence. War had changed him. Satyrus noted that Abraham had earrings and a thumb ring and was wearing a sword – in his own house.
Eventually, that might merit comment. For the moment, Satyrus confined himself to saying ‘I understand’ with a quick smile. He turned to his former coach. ‘Theron?’
Theron rubbed his chin. ‘I’m of a mind to be your envoy to Lysimachos,’ he said. ‘If you’ll have me.’ He looked up and met Satyrus’s eye. ‘But we need to rescue Leon,’ he said. ‘Much as I want to go to Lysimachos, I’m the man you can spare to effect a rescue.’
Satyrus shook his head. ‘No, Theron. You are not a spy or a scout. You are a famous athlete and a known associate of Lord Ptolemy.’
Theron looked away. ‘You know that we are – sworn?’
Satyrus nodded. ‘I know that all of you are Pythagoreans,’ he said.
Theron took a deep breath. ‘Do you know what the first principle of Pythagoras is?’ he asked.
‘I feel as if I’m back in school. Yes, Theron. I know. You swear friendship – and the first principle is that each will lay down his life for his friend.’ Satyrus leaned forward, speaking forcefully. ‘I’m telling you that this is not the moment and that Leon would not expect you, his most famous friend, to attempt to rescue him single-handedly.’
Theron sighed. ‘So what will we do?’
Satyrus put his forehead in his hands. ‘I don’t know. I don’t think there’s a prisoner in the world important enough that Eumeles would
trade him. But it may be that Sappho or Nihmu have already received a ransom demand, and until we have been to Alexandria, I don’t wish to jump the wrong way.’
Theron rested his heavy arms on the table. ‘I have no interest in going to Alexandria,’ he said.
‘Nor I,’ Abraham said. ‘Must you go?’
Satyrus was watching the fire on the hearth. ‘I must. In fact, everything springs from Alexandria. First of all, money. If I raise a fleet, I will start spending money at a rate that will threaten even Uncle Leon’s treasure. Second, Melitta. Third, the rescue of Leon. Fourth, or perhaps first, Diodorus and the Exiles. If I have a fleet, I need them ready.’
Theron nodded. ‘We can write to Diodorus from here,’ he said.
Satyrus sat up. ‘Now that’s a good idea. I can send the letter myself and it will be with him in three weeks.’
Theron nodded. ‘And he won’t know yet that Leon is taken.’
Abraham nodded. ‘He can take your soldiers to Alexandria and wait for the fleet.’
Satyrus was looking into the fire. Suddenly, he felt as if the god was at his shoulder, warming his hands at the fire, whispering in his ear – for in between two licks of flame, he saw his campaign unfold. ‘No,’ he said. His voice trembled.
‘No, what?’ Abraham asked.
‘No. He won’t march to Alexandria. That’s the wrong way.’ Satyrus sat up. ‘He’ll march to Heraklea. I’ve got it. I have most of it. Theron, trust me, I’ll find a way to rescue Leon. He was taken
for me
. I won’t forget.’
‘But you still need to go to Alexandria?’ Theron asked.
‘For all the reasons. I’ll go as soon as I’ve got Demostrate’s word on alliance.’ He nodded. He still felt the god at his shoulder. Despite his arm, he felt almost greater than human.
‘Pay my regards to my father,’ Abraham said. ‘I won’t be going home soon. As I say, he wouldn’t let me go again.’
‘I’m proposing a trip to the most exotic city in all the seas, our home and native land, or at least our collective adoptive polis, and you two plan to while away the winter in a town full of pirates,’ Satyrus said.
Abraham smiled, and his earrings twinkled. ‘Wait until you attend their parties.’
Satyrus met his smile. ‘I can imagine.’
Abraham shook his head. ‘No. No, you can’t.’
As soon as the officers were gathered, Satyrus composed his letter to Diodorus. He wrote it out on papyrus, and then he took a wax tablet and melted the wax from the frames. On the bare wood, he wrote his message.
Dear Uncle
Our scout of the Euxine ended in disaster. Uncle Leon was taken and we lost twelve ships. I have made a plan to win the Euxine back, and I will need you and every man you have – if Seleucus will spare you. I plan to be at Heraklea at the spring equinox. I ask – nay, Uncle, I beg – that you meet me there with all your force. I will have a fleet to transport you.
Uncle Leon is in the hands of Eumeles. I have prevented Theron from going to his rescue by promising that we will all bend our every effort that way in the spring. I rely on you to support us in this.
I will proceed immediately to Alexandria to speak to Melitta and to your lady wife concerning our plans. Please respond to me there, or at the Temple of Poseidon at Rhodos, or to Amastris, Princess of Heraklea, who I believe would be a reliable letter box.
At the thought of Amastris, Satyrus smiled. Passionate, headstrong and perhaps a bit fickle – a mistress who could never be taken for granted. Satyrus loved her, even the fickle and the self-centred. She was a prize worth winning, and he meant to win her. And she would love to receive a secret letter.
A symposium in a pirate town was a riotous affair, with twenty couches in a huge circle and women on half of them with their men, loud songs and louder laughter. A symposium in honour of the feast of Cypriot Aphrodite was several degrees further down a scale which ran from salacious to riot, and worse.
‘This is
not
like home,’ Abraham commented, as they walked through the streets of Byzantium. Every house had a goddess out front, most decorated with saffron, some with real gold. ‘These parties
are scarier than battles.’ He waved at an Aphrodite who was obviously using her hands to pleasure herself. ‘This is
not
Alexandria.’
Satyrus, his left arm wrapped tightly by a physician and a few drops of poppy in his veins, felt capable of anything. ‘Like Kinon’s at home?’
Abraham shook his head. ‘No. Not at all like Kinon’s. Like – well, like what my father
thinks
goes on at Kinon’s. They play games . . .’
Satyrus hugged his friend with his good arm. Abraham had always been something of a prude, by Hellenic standards. ‘I’m here to make a deal with Demostrate,’ he said. ‘I’ll survive some games.’
Abraham coughed politely into his fist.
Before the sun was fully set, Satyrus lay between Daedalus of Halicarnassus, living proof of how thin was the line between piracy and mercenary service, and Abraham, the eldest son of a Jewish merchant in Alexandria and yet already accepted in this world as a man of worth. The men were well dressed, oiled and in some cases perfumed like the gentry of any town of Hellenes, although they came in more skin colours than were normal in Athens or Miletus. Their common livelihood crossed the barriers of race or riches, in the form of scars and a certain complexion that could only be earned by years at sea, and gave the skin the look of old leather, whether that skin was ink-black or milk white. And every man present wore a sword strapped to his side, even on a kline at a symposium.
Beyond Daedalus was Aeschinades, one of the most famous captains in the Aegean, and he lay with a beautiful woman with dark tan skin, her breasts under his hands, her back to him and her face towards Satyrus. Satyrus wasn’t sure whether he was actually copulating with her or not, but he didn’t look too closely. Her face was curiously blank – Satyrus looked twice, almost involuntarily, wondering why the woman did not even simulate pleasure.
On the other side, beyond Abraham, lay Manes, the terror of the coast of Phrygia, a man who had gobbled up more shipping than Poseidon, or so he claimed with open hubris. He shared his couch with a veritable Ganymede, a boy so attractive and so openly, brazenly sexual that
his
expression made Satyrus uncomfortable, as if he sought by his antics to make up for the lack of emotion on the dark woman’s face.
‘I warned you,’ Abraham said from beside him.
‘I didn’t pay enough attention,’ Satyrus conceded. ‘I’ve never seen this kind of behaviour, even at Kinon’s. I confess my error.’
Abraham grinned. ‘Wait until the wine goes around and the flute girls come out. Ever played “feed the flute girl”?’
Satyrus felt himself blush. ‘I’ve heard—’
‘That’s what I mean. You won’t “hear”. I’ve been here four weeks – I’m used to it. To them.’ Abraham held out his cup for wine. ‘I have to admit, I like the bastards. They say what they mean, and they are afraid of nothing.’ He shook his head. ‘Actually, most of them are afraid of Demostrate, and of Manes. Other than that . . .’ He grinned. ‘But you are either with them or you aren’t.’
‘You fed a flute girl?’ Satyrus asked.
‘Yes,’ Abraham said. He blushed. ‘And I will again.’
‘They prey on the weak for money,’ Satyrus said. ‘All these women are chattel slaves.’
‘So do the Diadochoi,’ Abraham said. ‘And I say again – either you are with them or not. They will ask you to play – and if you will not, they will never deal with you.’
Satyrus watched one of the captains further around the circle strike a slave sharply, a casual blow that knocked the slave flat. He breathed in and out slowly, as if preparing for combat.
Abraham leaned over. ‘Many of these men have
been
slaves,’ he said. ‘This is not our world.’
Dinner was excellent – young kid with saffron, a simple rabbit stew with beans that was nonetheless delicious, and oysters, thousands of them, brought in with a nude Aphrodite on a giant shell, and the whole carried by four big men.
The captains began to stamp and cheer, even as they poured oysters down their throats.
She was a beauty – not in the first blush of youth, but tall, strong and well-breasted. Her hair was dyed almost white-blonde, like the goddess, and her nipples were gilded. She held herself like a goddess, not a slave.
The oysters went down noisily, and Satyrus found that Aphrodite intended to share his couch. ‘I come from Demostrate,’ she said in a deep, clear voice. Her Greek had no more accent than she had raiment.
‘Take her, lad!’ Demostrate shouted. ‘I’m too damn old!’
‘Feast of Aphrodite!’ Manes shouted. He waved his cup. ‘Do her honour!’
The other men shouted and the calls became louder. The singer gestured to her musicians and began to sing in a stronger voice – a hymn to Aphrodite. Sappho, in fact – a piece that Satyrus knew.
Abraham touched his shoulder while the rest of them shouted. ‘I warned you,’ he said.
Satyrus rolled back, and Aphrodite ran her hand up under his chiton, grabbed his penis and pulled it sharply. Satyrus was amazed to find that her fingers cut straight through the poppy in his blood and the pain in his arm.