‘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.’