Tyrant: Force of Kings (44 page)

The younger Seleucid nodded. ‘Stratokles of Athens, it is my brother’s intention to march west with his elephants and his cavalry. But if Cassander will not come …’

‘I am the King of Macedon,’ Cassander said again. ‘I am the head of this alliance.’

Lysimachos took the man by the elbow. Stratokles saw the King of Macedon wince in pain at the touch.

Lysimachos spoke quickly, his voice low, and when Phiale attempted to step in close to her lord, Lysimachos straight-armed her away – almost a blow. She turned on her heel and walked away down the steps of the temple.

If only I had thought to have assassins waiting for her.
Stratokles watched her, and then looked back at Cassander, who was nodding. He looked at Lucius, and Lucius gave the smallest nod towards Phiale, and Stratokles blinked once. That was all. Lucius was gone in the swirl of his chlamys, away down the steps, apparently in the opposite direction from Phiale.

The King of Macedon brushed his cloak, bowed to the priestess of Hera, and walked carefully to Stratokles.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I’m in pain in the mornings, and I get pettish. We all know’ – the words seemed to come out of him like gallstones from a surgeon’s patient – ‘how much you’ve done for the alliance.’

Damn, that was good
, Stratokles thought.
I could die now.

Cassander lowered his voice. ‘I will not forget this,’ he said.

Stratokles met his eyes. ‘You mean, you will not forget that despite your best attempts to have me killed, I continue to serve your interests? I forget nothing, sir. I would have to offend you for
years
before I would hold myself avenged. But,’ he said mildly, ‘I am not master in this house. The object of this alliance is the destruction of Antigonus. Are we agreed?’

It took four days. But it turned out, in the end, that they had this in common – they hated Antigonus more than they hated each other.

Phiale broke every cup in her borrowed house. She went to the slave quarters and started on their pottery.

‘Satyrus isn’t even here!’ she roared.

Isokles shrugged. ‘He’ll have to come. Then I kill him.’

‘He isn’t coming!’ Phiale said. ‘Aphrodite, he must be guided by the gods. Or you have a spy in this house.’

Isokles crossed his arms. ‘Despoina, shut up. Listen. This is the heart of the alliance. This port receives their soldiers – this is their supply base. Ares’ rock-hard dick, he will come here in time, and I’ll have him. I have people in every warehouse, every pier, on the beaches, gate guards … this town is mine.’ He grinned. ‘He will sail in here, or march in here, and I’ll have him.’

Phiale threw another pot – a heavy water jug. The smash was satisfying.

‘What if he never comes here?’ she asked.

The Latin returned with a cut on his arm. ‘It’s like kicking a beehive,’ he said. ‘The killer she hired in Athens? I saw him. He’s got twenty soldiers and some local thugs.’

Stratokles made the same face that an armourer makes when looking at another craftsman’s shoddy work. ‘Amastris is getting sloppy,’ he said.

That evening he had a long talk with Banugul, one professional to another.

‘I need you to befriend Amastris,’ he said. ‘As one queen to another. She could be a useful ally, and she’s been infiltrated. Cassander – or Phiale – or maybe even Demetrios’s Neron. I’m not sure who they’re all working for but this town is full of bribes and traitors. And we
need
this town.’

Banugul smiled. ‘I admire your version of love talk.’ She nodded. ‘Heraklea would make me a good ally. Will you introduce us?’

Stratokles grinned. ‘Best she not know that we share … anything.’

‘I still think you were her lover.’ Banugul flicked a finger into his side and made him jump.

‘She’s too young for me, and besides, not every woman can see through my ugliness to the worthy philosopher inside.’ He laughed.

She tickled him. ‘You are a fool.’

‘Would you marry me, if we live through the year?’ Stratokles asked.

Sophokles knew that Satyrus of Tanais was on Rhodes as soon as he landed. It wasn’t exactly a secret, but the news was new enough not to have made it across the straits to Miletus.

He had gone to Alexandria on her orders and found no quarry at all. Her information was wrong. Sophokles, released from the spell of her presence, had a profound and abiding temptation to ride away into Asia and be shot of the whole thing. He had no interest whatsoever in killing the Jewish girl. No challenge – and as like as not, Phiale was wrong about the whole thing. She was – he allowed himself to think it – cursed. Perhaps mad.

Sophokles also suspected that she was working for Neron, Demetrios’s spymaster. A double or even triple agent. And that made her tasks too dangerous even to contemplate, because he wouldn’t know the consequences.

But Satyrus of Tanais – that was a worthy target. Beloved of the gods, or so men said. And as Phiale, Cassander, and Antigonus all offered substantial rewards for his death, he was the most valuable contract Sophokles had ever had. That
anyone
had ever had.

Balanced against that, Sophokles had only failed a dozen times in his life, and most of them had involved Satyrus to one extent or another.

The memory of the twelve-year-old boy’s searing contempt was burned into his head.

Sophokles took rooms in a house that rented to merchants, and began to make his plans. He had four men, and he used them carefully – the agora, the warehouses. It took him three days to establish for a fact that Satyrus was living with Abraham the Jew. Was surrounded by well-armed friends. Was deeply in love with the Jew’s sister – no secret here on Rhodes.

‘Miriam?’ Satyrus came into the garden with three big men – big even by the standards of a tall woman with a tall warrior brother.

She rose, and they touched hands. They had reached a stage where they couldn’t help but touch each other in public – the tension was a delight and a temptation and a deep frustration. Satyrus suspected that the slaves were laughing at them. He knew Anaxagoras was laughing.

‘These are friends of yours?’ Miriam asked. They were a frightful trio – like Titans come to life. Easily the grimmest men Miriam had ever been confronted with.

‘These three are Achilles, Odysseus and Ajax,’ Satyrus said, and grinned.

Miriam smiled. ‘I can believe it,’ she said.

‘They have served me well. And deserve better than being dragged through a war.’ Satyrus shook his head – just being with her clouded his wits.

Achilles laughed. ‘You two’re a picture, you know that, eh?’ He stuck out a great hand to Miriam. ‘Satyrus wants us to be your guards.’

She looked at them. ‘I will be the envy of every matron in Rhodes.’

Odysseus leered at her. ‘Yep,’ he said.

Ajax stroked his beard, looking at the house. ‘I could learn to like it here.’

Achilles looked at Satyrus. ‘No strings? This is it – look after this woman?’ He nodded. ‘I’d think you’d done right by us, and more.’

‘Until the horde of barbarians attacks,’ Ajax said.

Miriam put her hands on her hips. ‘You know what I see? Three agora toughs who are going to make all my slaves pregnant and drink all my wine. Why do I need guards?’

Anaxagoras came in with her brother. He saluted her on the cheek, clasped hands with Achilles. ‘Ask that again, despoina?’

‘Why do I need guards?’ Miriam asked.

‘Satyrus is here because we convinced him that there were so many different people trying to kill him that he should evade the net, do something unexpected, and vanish.’ Anaxagoras put a hand on Satyrus’s shoulder. ‘Satyrus thinks that everyone in the world knows … well, that you and he are close.’

Miriam flushed.

Abraham raised an eyebrow. ‘Everyone on Rhodes, anyway.’

Anaxagoras nodded. ‘My point exactly. So Satyrus has brought these three fine men, ‘ he aimed a little bow at Achilles, who grinned, ‘to protect you.’

Miriam raised an eyebrow. ‘And you? Are leaving?’ The slightest tremor touched her voice.

Satyrus shook his head. ‘I’m a fool, Miriam. I should have started with this. Yes – I won’t wait for Leon, much as I want to see him. I’m going by sea to Aigai, then overland to Seleucus. I have the plan of the summer campaign. And I’ll deliver it in person. It seems unlikely to me that anyone will manage to assassinate me on the Euphrates – indeed, no one will even know who I am.’ He took a breath. ‘But you will be a target. And if you are not then these three n’er-do-wells will have a place to have a well-earned rest.’

‘Well,’ Miriam said. ‘I see. No need for me to complain, then.’

Satyrus, it turned out, was a hero of epic proportions to the Rhodians.

Sophokles hadn’t lived so long in his business by being a fool. No murder on Rhodes – an island – would be survivable. The Rhodians would torture the man who killed their hero. He could see ways to make the kill and escape but the risk was enormous.

Worse, the Jew girl suddenly had three very dangerous-looking bodyguards – huge, showy men who had the eyes of the real thing. Sophokles saw those eyes in the mirror. He knew the type.

His men were scared of the new bodyguards.

Best, he thought, to bide his time.

Sophokles liked Rhodes, and he was in no hurry. He felt as if he was at the hub of the world. He lay on his hard linen mattress and listened to the world turn. All news came to Rhodes; that Seleucus had marched from Babylon, that Antigonus was marching to meet him. That the allies had signed a compact at Heraklea, and that Stratokles had directed it. Sophokles raised a cup of wine to his former … comrade? Co-contractor? The man had turned the tables on Cassander – widely held the wiliest of the Diadochoi.

Demetrios had an army and a fleet in the Dardanelles, and was marching east to oppose Lysimachos. His fleet was waiting at Abydos to face the combined fleets of Rhodes, Aegypt, and Cassander.

And Satyrus of Tanais was lying on a couch on Rhodes, apparently taking no part.

Sophokles took a week to develop his informants. Abraham’s house was virtually impossible to penetrate, he found; instead of slaves, the man had Jews, and they were immune to bribes. Or rather, as Sophokles found to his cost, they took the bribes and reported them.

The next thing he knew, one of his local thugs was bleeding to death in the street, and one of the big bodyguards was pounding on the door of his rooming house, and the other two were watching the back of the building.

Sophokles had not stayed alive by being a fool. He was off across the roofs in a moment. In an hour, he was back on a ship for Miletus, a step ahead of the men who had started watching
him
.

He was sitting in a wine shop on the old harbour in Miletus, watching fish rise to his breadcrumbs and considering, once again, the possibility of giving up the whole thing and riding away, when he saw a triakonter come into the harbour like a racing boat – oars flowing like the legs on a water bug, flashing in the watery spring sun. And then the boat turned end for end, slowed in the chops of its own turn, and backed stern first onto the beach, almost at Sophokles’ feet. The men took a meal, and hired a pilot for the Cilician coast. And Satyrus of Tanais leaped into the shallow surf. Several of his friends leaped after him, calling for wine.

Satyrus of Tanais was ashore in enemy-held Asia, with a handful of friends and no escort.

Sophokles was so tempted by the immediacy of it that he strung his bow and put an arrow to it before he reconsidered. He couldn’t guarantee a kill at this range.

He followed them as they purchased food – always expensive on Rhodes – and two slave rowers, who they freed on the spot. Sophokles watched them all night, but they were in among the wealthy men of the town and Sophokles had abandoned his men and had no henchmen.

And in the morning, the lithe triakonter sped away south, towards the distant shores of Cilicia and Aigai, their destination. That much, Sophokles had gleaned.

Sophokles gathered new men, waited a day, chartered a boat, and followed. He was excited enough that he had trouble sleeping. The gods were handing him his prey.

Ten days later, they landed at Aigai, and Sophokles was a day behind them. He landed up the coast, rode in disguised as a Jew – the irony was not lost on him – in time to hear them buying horses – good horses, at an exorbitant rate in the agora. They weren’t quiet men, and the two most handsome bickered constantly, and bragged to the horse-wrangler that they were going to ride ‘clear across Asia’.

All the time in the world, then. Sophokles brought in his men, purchased a pair of thugs who passed as caravan guards to bulk up his force, and tried to decide whether it was better to sell Satyrus to the highest bidder, or just kill him.

17

‘This is the safer option,’ Satyrus said.

He was lying in the light of a small campfire, with Anaxagoras’s travelling lyre in his hands. He’d played his best piece, and no one was very impressed.

‘Safer than what? Suicide?’ Anaxagoras asked.

‘We can’t sail back through the Dardanelles,’ Satyrus said.

‘Agreed,’ Apollodorus said. ‘Lunatic to try the first time.’

Jubal nodded, took a bite of apple, and winked.

‘It will be two months before Lysimachos gets the army down to Sardis,’ Satyrus said.

‘So, naturally, we should ride to meet Seleucus,’ Charmides added.

They all laughed.

Charmides’ light young voice rose over the laughter. ‘It’s like one of Plato’s arguments; where only one side is properly argued.’

‘We know the terrain and he doesn’t,’ Satyrus said, insistently. ‘If Antigonus goes for him he’ll be isolated in the mountains east of Magnesia.’

‘Admit it – Miriam dared you,’ Anaxagoras said.

They all laughed until Satyrus picked up a handful of sand and threw it across the fire at Anaxagoras.

Apollodorus finished the wineskin, rose, and wandered off. ‘I have to find a rock that needs a libation,’ he said.