Tyrant: Destroyer of Cities (30 page)

He was so tired he didn’t even notice when he pissed over the side and it was yellow-brown rather than red. Helios did, however, and they laughed together like boys. Of such things are triumph made, when you are in your third day of a storm after a day of battle.

But they made it through the night alive, although there were oarsmen who were beginning to feel the hunger in ugly ways, and Diokles put marines at the ladders just in case.

Satyrus had the steering oars –
Oinoe
was tragically lacking in officers, having sent her best into
Atlantae
. At present, that looked like a poor decision, as they hadn’t seen another ship in three days.

But an hour later, Satyrus saw
Arete
running south with mainsail and foresail set, ten stades off their starboard side, and he yelled and men cheered.
Arete
steered close and fell in under their stern.

Just at full dark, they found
Atlantae
and
Plataea
rowing patiently into the wind. As soon as they saw who they’d found, the other two ships abandoned rowing, turned and raised their sails. The wind was dwindling to a comfortable roar, and Satyrus guessed his location, put his helm down and ordered the mainmast raised and the mainsail set.

Dawn found all four running fast, the wind dead astern. Noon revealed
Troy
dismasted, wallowing in the waves but still afloat, and Satyrus put marines into her – there had been trouble – and
Plataea
emptied her stores for yards to rig a makeshift foresail mast.

Twelve hours later, a marine killed an oarsman who attacked him to get his empty canteen.

And an hour after that, the coast of Africa rose above the bow.

14

T
hey landed on a beach a few stades west of Cyrene, a Greek city hundreds, if not thousands of stades west of Alexandria. Satyrus, usually a fine navigator, had lost his way utterly.

Neiron was no better, and after a feast of slaughtered cattle and wine and fresh-flowing water, no man on any of the four ships seemed to feel that any error had been made at all. They stood by their fires, watching the sea, looking for
Marathon
, and told each other how close they’d come to death, how narrowly they’d avoided capsizing, catastrophe – and then they hurried to expiate this sin by telling how very good a sailor Sarpax was, how unlikely he was to make a mistake.

By a curious twist of time, the battle seemed to have happened long before, so long before that it felt odd to hold funeral pyres for the dead who hadn’t been bundled over the side in the hellish moments of the storm.

Satyrus walked along the line of dead – mostly his own marines from
Arete
. Here was a man who had been at Gaza when they fought elephants. Here was a man who’d taken a wound at the Battle of Tanais. Dead, now. Dead for him.

He had gold aboard his ships and he spent it like water, for a grave stele the size of an Aegyptian monument for his sailors and marines.

There were three happy surprises – men he had counted as dead, and who lived. Charmides, the beautiful boy from Lesvos, would never be quite as beautiful, as he would always limp. But he was alive, and his smile raised Satyrus’ heart. And Anaxagoras, the musician, had taken four wounds and lived, and none had taken infection. He grinned at Satyrus.

‘It’s a miracle,’ Satyrus said, seeing the way a sword had stripped the flesh from the musician’s leg and side.

Anaxagoras managed a smile. ‘I enjoyed it too much, I fear. You always pay in the morning for a good night.’

‘I suspect it will be a while before you teach me the lyre,’ Satyrus said.

‘As we’re both alive, at least it remains possible,’ Anaxagoras answered.

And the brave young man who had covered Demetrios’ retreat was alive. Nechos had struck him with the butt of his spear, knocking him unconscious – he had recovered his wits in mid-storm, risen from the deck and helped to sheet home the foresail. Laertes, who had circles under his eyes like a debauched rich boy, came up with the man on his arm.

‘Clearchus of Crete,’ he said. ‘I promised we wouldn’t enslave him, lord. He’s been like an officer for me.’

The man bowed. ‘Lord.’

Satyrus felt no enmity for this grave man. He was past middle age, grey at his temples and in his beard. ‘Are you a mercenary?’ Satyrus asked.

‘No, lord.’ Clearchus shrugged. ‘I was a volunteer. I have served One-Eye since I was young – since just after the Great King died.’

‘You’ll want to go back to them, then,’ Satyrus said.

‘I doubt,’ the man said, and hesitated. ‘I doubt that I’m worth ransom. Lord.’

Satyrus nodded. ‘Well, sometimes excellence must be its own reward – yours and ours. We’ll be going straight back to war, Clearchus – against your Demetrios, who even now must be recovering from the storm. So; walk up the beach and turn left. In a few stades you’ll come to Cyrene. You can find a merchant to take you to your people.’

Clearchus bowed and stammered his thanks. Common soldiers were seldom rescued or released. They were usually sold as slaves – or slaughtered.

Satyrus shook his head. ‘Wait.’ With Helios’ help, he sat and wrote a long note to Demetrios, who he addressed as ‘My Noble Adversary’. He praised the Cretan and said that he thought that, but for the man’s reckless bravery and loyalty, he, Demetrios, would have ended the action as a prisoner, or dead.
That will anger him
, Satyrus thought, but he didn’t see Demetrios the Golden as the kind of man who punished messengers.

‘Here’s a letter for Demetrios, and here’s a gold daric to see to it that you get there,’ Satyrus said. ‘Keep your arms.’

Clearchus surprised him by bowing like a Persian and kissing his hand. ‘You are the deserving son of a godlike father,’ Clearchus said. At his throat, a blue bead gleamed – the same bead that Apollodorus wore.

Satyrus was no longer sure that he loved the increasing deification of his father. But he smiled at the man until he turned with a salute and walked off up the beach.

‘That was a good act,’ Diokles said.

‘You’re too soft to live,’ Draco said.

‘You’re both right, more than likely,’ Satyrus said. ‘Now, before we make this a debate, let me issue some orders. I’ve paid the merchants here for six days’ provisions and we’re almost full on water. Are we ready for sea?’

‘When?’ Diokles asked.

‘At the rising of the sun,’ Satyrus said. ‘Even now, Demetrios and his admiral are just where we are – watching the sea for survivors, trying to get to sea. The first one to sea—’

Diokles shook his head. ‘You’re mad!’ he said.

Neiron appeared, back from a swim. A slave brought him a towel, and he dried himself at the fire while he drank wine. ‘He
is
mad, but he’s right, too.’

Satyrus ran his fingers through his beard. ‘If Demetrios gets uncontested to the coast of Aegypt, Ptolemy is done.’

Diokles shook his head. ‘Who gives a shit?’

Satyrus wasn’t angry. It was odd how the last few days had focused him, but he wasn’t mad at Diokles’ usual intemperate disobedience, nor anything else. He could
see
what needed to be done, and he was going to do it.

Satyrus finished the wine in his cup. ‘Diokles, I value your opinion, and when you find yourself king, you may do as you wish. Right now I intend to risk all of your lives to keep Aegypt independent of Antigonus One-Eye. Why? Is it for some magnificent end reason? Some moral that old Aristotle might admire? No, gentlemen. We are going to fight – and perhaps die – so that grain prices in the Euxine remain stable. So that foreign soldiers don’t come to
our
shores. Because we have an ally, and if he falls, we’re next.’ Satyrus gazed around at them in satisfaction. ‘I wouldn’t do it with any other team. You, gentlemen, are my team – even Gelon the fop and Apollodorus the martinet.’ The last named pair had just walked out of the approaching darkness. ‘I can well understand why a man might hesitate to give his life for the stability of Euxine grain prices, but friends – that’s what we’re fighting for. And if you don’t want to – well, Cyrene is right over there. In the morning, I’ll take this squadron and any other ships I can rally, and I’ll have a go at harrying Demetrios while he tries to support his father’s attack on Aegypt.’

Diokles laughed. ‘Damn. That was well said, lord.’ He raised his cup. ‘For Euxine grain prices!’

Gelon, the Syracusan, laughed. ‘To the grain!’ he said, and drank.

The sun rose over a light chop and a brisk wind, and the orb itself was a red ball on the eastern horizon, but Satyrus already had all his ships on the water sailing downwind, due east, in line and abreast spread wide apart, sweeping for friends, for enemies, for news.

The first ship they found was a friend,
Ephesian Artemis
, the Phoenician-built capture that
Black Falcon
had made north of Cyprus. Satyrus barely knew the man who had the command – Nikeas son of Draco of Pantecapaeaum, who had started the campaign as the assistant sailing master of the
Black Falcon
and now had his own command. According to him, neither
Black Falcon
nor
Marathon
nor
Troy
had been damaged in the fight at Cyprian Salamis, which was welcome news. The four ships had attempted to stay together in the rout, but Ptolemy’s fleeing navy had made any formation impossible.

Ephesian Artemis
had lost the others as soon as the sand began to blow. Her crew had rowed and rowed – rowed to total exhaustion, and then on for a few strokes more. They had spent a day almost in sight of Cyrene, but without enough strength left to row ashore. However, when they landed they’d eaten and drunk, and they’d just put to sea to look for friends. Such a coincidence was clearly heaven sent, and by nightfall every man was ready to make sacrifice.

Of
Black Falcon
,
Marathon
, or
Troy
, on the other hand, there was no sign.

In the second dawn they picked up a Ptolemy trireme. All marines and officers were dead, killed by the rowers, and some evil acts had been done aboard. Apollodorus crossed over with all of his marines, hanged a pair of men from the yard of the foremast, and Satyrus took all the rowers out of the ship and distributed them among his own ships and had
Arete
take the ship in tow.

To the south, over Africa, there was another storm simmering. Satyrus beached for the night, exhorted all the rowers to redouble their efforts and the next day they reached Alexandria.

As he expected and feared, the Royal Harbour was empty. He sent a boat ashore at Diodorus’ house, to tell Sappho that he would use the yard and to ask for news of Leon. Then he led his squadron into the moorings between the warehouses that he knew so well – the home of his adolescence, of his first love, of his first war. Just the smell of Alexandria was the smell of home.

Leon’s harbour facilities were the finest on the ocean, because he was a rich man with a fine merchant fleet and he could afford the best. His factor was Nicodemus, and Satyrus embraced the man as an old friend.

‘Two fights and a storm,’ he said, by way of greeting. ‘I need a refit from stem to masthead, every ship – scraped clean, dried a day at least – the hulls are so heavy that the rowers would be hard put to make ramming speed if they were fresh.’

Nicodemus bowed. ‘We are at your service,’ he said. ‘The more so as you are a paying customer.’

Satyrus took the opportunity to unload the chests of gold and silver from Rhodes into the guarded basements below the Temple of Poseidon. He embraced the half-Aegyptian high priest, who had served with him in the first Antigonid war at Gaza.

‘Brother, I need men,’ he said. ‘I need everything – rowers, soldiers, officers. Ships, if your people have any hidden away.’

‘Alas,’ said the high priest of Poseidon. ‘Alas, we have no ships, or we might throw you Greeks into the sea and be a free people,’ he grimaced. ‘But in the meantime, you and Ptolemy are a far cry better than Antigonus. Rowers and marines I’ll find you; men who served with us at Gaza.’

Satyrus nodded. ‘We are, if anything, more desperate,’ he said. ‘Ptolemy lost the battle badly – so badly that I fear for the king himself.’

‘Fear not,’ said the priest. ‘Ptolemy lives, and he and his bodyguard ships are on the way – a rather circuitous way. They beached at Gaza four days ago, and the wind has been against them, and they’ve already had a skirmish with Demetrios.’

‘It must be nice to serve an all-knowing god,’ Satyrus said.

‘I wouldn’t know. I have a good intelligence service. And Old Gales and I exchange information. You should see him – he may have more recent news. Of course the public word is that the king won the battle.’

Sappho he embraced like a lost mother, and for a moment, wrapped in her arms, he didn’t think about cordage, iron darts for his bolt throwers, leather helmets for new marines, or dried bread. Or amphorae for his water supply. He just
was
.

‘My poor boy,’ Sappho said. She was older – he was startled to see how much four years had aged her.

And then he borrowed her enormous and well-oiled household to be the machine of his staff, and he used them to fill his ships with goods while the priests replaced his dead rowers and marines, and while he fully crewed his captured ships and the Aegyptian trireme that had mutinied.

In the royal yard were two triremes so heavily rotted that they’d been left behind. After two days and nights of work by daylight and torchlight by Aegyptian shipwrights promised eternal redemption by their priests, the two were barely seaworthy, with scratch crews officered by retired merchants from the town. Satyrus worked like a dog, but he sent messengers everywhere, and men came to him and he issued orders as if he were king – and was obeyed. Timber from the Levant, worth its weight in spices, donated by the Jews. Clay fire pots like the one he’d used on Demetrios’ flagship – every ship carried a dozen now, and sacks of charcoal to fill them, donated by the charcoal burners. Alexandria was a city that loved itself, and while many – most – affected to despise old Ptolemy, they fought for him – the best of many evils.