Funeral Games (48 page)

Nihmu leaned over towards the younger people. ‘You wish to go as an archer, perhaps? My husband could set a new fashion!’ She smiled her enigmatic smile. As a girl, Nihmu had been an oracle among the Scythians on the sea of grass. Her oracular powers had left her a serious young woman with a head for figures, and she had married Leon after his second expedition to the east. ‘Amazon crews? Eh?’ she asked.

Nihmu, as the only other Sakje woman, was Melitta’s special friend, a bridge between the world of Alexandria and the sea of grass. Melitta laughed. ‘Why can’t I?’ she asked. ‘Once at sea, who would know?’

‘The other archers,’ Leon called from his couch. ‘Take this seriously, friends. We are at war as of now.’

Melitta stood up and raised her wine cup. ‘We were always at war, Uncle Leon. We just forgot.’

Sappho shook her head, as if denying this assertion, but Philokles, coming in with his whole midriff wrapped in linen, nodded. ‘She’s right,’ he said. ‘Life
is
war.’

‘Spare us the Heraklitus,’ Sappho said.

‘Where are we going, Uncle?’ Satyrus asked. To have kissed Amastris and be going as a navarch all in one day seemed unbearable joy, despite everything, and thoughts of revenge on his mother’s murderers slipped farther away.

‘
We
aren’t going anywhere, lad,’ Leon said. ‘You will take
Golden Lotus
up to Rhodos and drop a cargo of grain they need desperately. Then, if the helmsman agrees, you will go north around Lesvos to Methymna and across to Smyrna, drop some hides and some odds and ends and pick up a cargo of dye. And then home on the wind. Three weeks if you are quick - a month at the outside. By then, I predict that the king will be your friend again.’

Melitta was consuming broiled squid at a rate that made Satyrus dizzy. ‘We have to pack!’ she said.

‘What if he is not our friend then?’ Satyrus asked.
What if the king learns that I’ve kissed his ward?

Diodorus finished drinking a bowl of soup. He rubbed a hairy forearm across his mouth and Sappho made a gesture of resignation. ‘Then we’ll have
Hyacinth
meet you in the outer harbour and you can take her to Cyrene!’ He laughed and reached across his wife for wine. She scowled. He looked around. ‘Listen, friends. We’ve grown soft. Now we go back to being hard. We, here, have a month to do Stratokles all the harm we can. We need to destroy him and his power base in this city. That goes for every servant - every slave. If you see one of the Athenian’s slaves getting water, beat him - or her. Understand?’

The servants in the hall nodded - some looked eager, and others looked scared.

‘You make mighty free with my people and my triremes, brother,’ Leon said to Diodorus, but then he shrugged. ‘That is, of course, what we’ll do - keep the twins moving until the problem is solved, and fight Stratokles in the shadows.’ He shrugged apologetically to his wife. ‘It will be hard here. And the Macedonian party won’t just stand by.’

Satyrus ate some bread and fish sauce. ‘But Philokles will come with us,’ he said. And then he understood. ‘Won’t he?’ he added, sounding weak even to himself.

Philokles shook his head. ‘Time for you to fly on your own, lad,’ he said.

‘Theron?’ Satyrus asked.

Theron, lying with Philokles, raised his head and shook it. ‘Philokles and I are apparently raising an army to defend you, my prince,’ he said.

Satyrus recalled that earlier that day he had dreamed of commanding the
Golden Lotus
.

 

Lamplight, and Melitta standing by his bed. ‘Carlus came in!’ she said. ‘Alive - but wounded. Philokles is with him.’

Satyrus rolled to his feet with the ease of practice and followed his sister down the dark corridor and out across the courtyard between the two houses. He could sleep-walk the route to Philokles’ rooms.

Carlus took up the whole of Philokles’ oversized sleeping couch and still his lower legs dangled off the end.

‘I must have sent a dozen of them to hell,’ he said in his thick accent. ‘And they broke, but there were more, and more. Fifty.’ The big Keltoi shook his head weakly. ‘Zeus Soter, I was afraid, and then - they left me. Gone, like a herd of deer running in the woods.’

‘They weren’t paid enough to go chest to chest with you, Titan,’ Philokles said. ‘If it makes you feel better, I think we’ll be going into those neighbourhoods you wanted to clean. Soon.’

‘Uhh,’ the Keltoi grunted, and fell asleep.

‘Will he live?’ Satyrus asked.

‘Look at the muscle on that chest!’ Philokles said, shaking his head. ‘Yes - none of these dagger blows got through his muscle. Those were brave and desperate men, Satyrus. Contempt for your opponents is always a waste of time. Imagine facing Carlus in the dark. Two men got close enough to mark him. Imagine.’

‘He’s passed out,’ Melitta said.

‘Poppy - he’s so full of it he should bleed poppy juice,’ Philokles said. ‘So we all made it home. That makes me feel better - there was a moment in the dark when I thought we were all going down. Ares, I’m not as young as I used to be.’

‘I wish you were coming with us,’ Melitta said.

‘Me too,’ Satyrus said. He found that he was holding his sister’s hand.

Philokles got up, wincing and favouring his left side. ‘Listen,’ he said, putting a hand on each of their shoulders. ‘Pythagoras teaches that there are four seasons to life as there are four seasons to the world - spring, when you are a child, and summer, in the full bloom of adulthood - then autumn, when a man reaches his full power and a woman’s beauty fades, and winter, when we age towards death. Yes?’

‘Yes,’ the twins chorused.

‘I pronounce that you have passed from spring into summer,’ Philokles said. ‘Melitta, you are a woman, and Satyrus, you are a man. What is the first lesson?’

Together, the twins spoke, almost one voice. ‘To your friends do good, and to your enemies, harm.’

‘That is the lesson,’ Philokles said. ‘See that you live it.’

 

It was still dark when they were rowed aboard the
Golden Lotus
, which had been brought around from the yard and stood just off the beach, her oarsmen keeping her steady against the predawn breeze. Melitta went up the side, and then Satyrus swung his leg over and dropped to the deck amidships.

Peleus the Rhodian, Leon’s helmsman, stood with his legs apart, braced against the roll of the deck. ‘Welcome aboard,
Navarch
,’ he said. He put special emphasis on the word, but it wasn’t mockery - quite.

‘Peleus!’ Satyrus said. He clasped the older man’s arm, and his clasp was returned. He stepped back. ‘This is my sister, Melitta.’

‘Despoina,’ Peleus said, and turned his back on her, grasping Satyrus by the arm. ‘Let’s get the
Lotus
clear of the land, and then we’ll have time for girls and orders and all the crap that the land brings, eh? First time out in command? Feel any butterflies, boy?’

‘Yes!’ Satyrus admitted. He looked at Melitta, who had the look of a woman withholding judgment - Peleus’s comment hadn’t escaped her. He had to make Peleus, whose dislike of women at sea was legendary, accept his sister’s presence. He had to make his sister - well, toe the line.

‘Banish the butterflies,’ Peleus said. ‘Oars, there. Do ye hear me!’

A chorus of affirmatives, and the Rhodian turned to Satyrus. ‘Ready for sea, sir,’ he said.

Satyrus had been to sea since he was nine years old, but his heart was beating as if he was in mortal combat. He took a breath, and made his voice steady. ‘Carry on,’ he said, as if it was nothing to command a warship at sea.

Like wings, the oars rose together and dipped, and suddenly they were in motion, as close to flying as Satyrus was ever likely to achieve.

 

Two stades away across the port of Alexandria, a scarred man leaned on the rail of a trireme, head swathed in bandages, watching under his hands as the familiar shape of the
Golden Lotus
gathered way as the first fingers of dawn stretched across the sky.

‘There they are,’ said Iphicrates. ‘Kineas’s brats,’ he growled.

The Latin, Lucius, shrugged. ‘Frankly, boss, I think the gods love ’em. I think we should just let ’em go and good riddance.’

‘I couldn’t agree more,’ Stratokles said. ‘Despite which, I want you to find them at sea and kill them. It is probably better this way,’ he said after a moment’s hesitation. ‘Last night was too bloody and too obvious, and sooner or later, that fat parasite Gabines will know we did it.’

‘Fucking public service,’ Lucius said. ‘The sheer number of street thugs who died last night has got to make this city a better place to live.’ He laughed.

Iphicrates shook his head. ‘We should have had them last night. And Diodorus and fucking Leon into the bargain.’

‘They were on to us from the start of the evening, gentlemen,’ Stratokles said. ‘I don’t like losing a contest any more than the next man, but it is a pleasure to be up against men of worth. You’ll have to be on your toes, Iphicrates.
Golden Lotus
is the toughest ship in these waters, or so I’m told.’

The scarred Athenian mercenary stretched and shook his head. ‘I’ve been fighting at sea since I was twelve, Stratokles. And I’ve taken a few Rhodians in my time, and they are
never
easy. But if I have a clean chance, I’ll take ’em. The new engines will give me an edge they can’t be ready for.’

‘Engines?’ Lucius asked. He had quite a bit of intellect, but most of it was reserved for war.

‘Like big bows, with ratchets to hold ’em cocked. Shoot a bolt the size of a sarissa. Goes right through a trireme’s hull.’

‘Despite which,’ Stratokles added, ‘your first duty to me is information. I need to know what One-Eye is up to on the coast of Syria - and Cyprus. And what Rhodos is doing.
Golden Lotus
is bound for Rhodos. Need I say more?’

‘No, sir,’ Iphicrates said.

‘Go get them then,’ Stratokles said, and slapped the mercenary on the back. ‘I’ll take care of business here. I’ve fomented a fair amount of treason,’ he said. ‘Macedonians are the most perfidious race on the face of Gaia. And they call Greeks treacherous.’ He laughed. Then he turned back to Iphicrates and put a hand on his arm. ‘Don’t loiter out there. I know you have piracy in your blood, but I need your reports - and I need to know I have a way out of here. When Gabines starts to follow up on the tags I’ve left - I can’t help it! He’s going to be after me like a pig on slops. And Leon will strike back after last night - count on it.’

‘Hurry out, take the
Lotus
, check Rhodos and Syria, hurry back. Anything else?’ Iphicrates shook his head. ‘Tall order and no mistake.’

‘That’s why I’m sending the best,’ Stratokles said.

T
wo hundred miles north-north-east of Alexandria, and the helmsman, Peleus, had made a perfect landfall at Salamis of Cyprus, the island’s beaches just a heat shimmer while the headland temple to Aphrodite Lophos shone in the sun.

‘Peleus, you are the very prince of navigators,’ Satyrus said. He had the steering oar under his arm.

Peleus was not looking ahead at all, but watching the wake. The
Golden Lotus
was a
triemiolia
, a three-and-a-half-er that carried an extra half bank of oars and a permanent sail deck and the crew to manage her sails even in a fight. Pirates loved the smaller version, the
hemiolia
and so did the Rhodians, the best sailors in the world.
Golden Lotus
was Rhodian-built, and Peleus was Rhodian-born, a seaman from the age of six. His current age was unknown, but his beard was white and every sailor in Alexandria treated him with respect.

‘When you talk, there’s a notch in the wake,’ the helmsman said.

With the grim determination of youth, Satyrus gripped the steering oar.

‘Never had a boy your age train to be a helmsman,’ Peleus said. But he had half a smile when he said it, and the curl of his lips suggested that maybe - just maybe - Satyrus
was
the exception. ‘If I tell you to steer north by east, what’s the first headland you’ll see?’

Satyrus looked back at the wake. ‘Open sea until we see Mount Olympus of Cyprus rising on the port oar bank,’ he said.

Peleus nodded. ‘Maybe,’ he said. ‘It’s the right answer. But what’s wrong with the order?’

Satyrus hated questions like this. He stared out at the blinding white of the distant temple. ‘I don’t know,’ he said after a gut-wrenching interval.

‘That’s a fair-enough answer and no mistake,’ Peleus answered. ‘It’s true, boy - you don’t know, and you can’t. Here’s the answer - we’re too far in with the land to keep the sea breeze, so our lads would have to row every inch of the way.’ He was watching the land. ‘I aim to make for Thronoi for the night - the beach there is soft white sand and the villagers will bring us food for a little cash. I used to have a boy there.’ He gave a smile that creased the long scar down his face.

‘What happened?’ Satyrus asked. He was in love, and so wanted to hear about the loves of others.

‘He grew up and got married to some girl,’ Peleus said gruffly. ‘Mind your helm, boy. There’s a notch in the wake.’ He looked behind him, across the water and almost straight into the sun. ‘We have companions. ’

Satyrus looked back until he saw the dark smudges, right on the edge of the horizon and almost invisible in the sun dazzle. ‘I see them,’ he said.

Peleus grunted.

 

Thronoi stood well back from the sea - no unwalled village could afford to be too close to the water - and the first men to approach carried spears and javelins, but they knew
Golden Lotus
and they knew Peleus, and before the sun became a red ball in the west, the crew was cooking goats and lobsters on the beach, drinking local wine and discussing their chances with the navarch’s beautiful sister, who excited comment even wrapped from head to toe in a chlamys big enough for Philokles. She had pleaded to be allowed to ship as an archer, but Peleus had put his foot down, and she was merely a Greek lady of means with her maid. The oarsmen couldn’t see her as anything but a beautiful mascot. They competed for her glance, and Peleus had told Satyrus that he’d never seen such powerful rowing in all his days at sea.