King of the Bosphorus t-4

by Christian Cameron

  'West and north,' Diokles said. 'Listen!'

  Satyrus listened. He could hear birds, and the gentle surf of the Euxine. 'T hanks for keeping the oars all night,' Satyrus said. 'I feel – like a fool. I'm the navarch.'

  Diokles shook his head. 'Men say things in heat,' he said. 'I'm not so proud of the way I spoke to you yesterday.'

  Satyrus put his hands on the helmsman's. 'I've got the helm,' he said. 'I'm not so proud of – anything.' He ducked under the oar-yoke. 'I've got him.'

  'You have the helm.' Diokles stood for a moment. 'Get us ashore, eh?'

  Satyrus tried to work the kink out of his neck. 'This is the last time I'll handle Falcon,' he said. 'He feels odd.'

  'He's dying,' Diokles said, curling up by the helmsman's bench. 'But he's a good lad. He'll get us ashore.'

  Satyrus found it as hard to track time in the mist as it was to see his course. Twice he caught sight of stars overhead, and once he heard surf, clear as a conversation in the theatre, just off his right shoulder – a quarter of an arc away from where it ought to be.

  Turn the ship? Steady on this heading? He peered overhead, watching the growing light and the white haze for an answer. He should have been in with the coast by now – should have felt the touch of mud under his keel.

  He looked down at Diokles and Theron, now tangled together, deeply asleep. He didn't want to wake them.

  He felt very young. He felt the way he had when he was twelve years old, standing his first real watch with the Macedonian veterans, Draco and Amyntas, in the mountains of Asia. Afraid of every noise, and doubly afraid to seem a fool.

  A seagull screeched off the bow.

  He listened so hard he felt he might strain his ears – and heard nothing. The surf noise was gone.

  'Poseidon, god of the sea, stand at my shoulder. Herakles, god of heroes, be my guide.' He muttered prayers.

  All around him, exhausted men lay huddled together, snoring.

  The ship sailed on, and the sky grew lighter.

  By now he was in danger of discovery, his raised sails probably sticking up above the fog, an easy target for wakeful sentries anywhere on the coast.

  Nothing to be done now.

  The sky lightened further still. The fog was thick, but he could see the grey-blue of the morning sky directly overhead. He forced his back to relax and realized that he'd been waiting for the crunch of sand under the bow. Where is the land? he asked himself every fifty heartbeats, and still Falcon sailed on.

  When the fog began to glow pink off the port bow, a sense of his location went through him like the voice of a god – he was sailing north of west. He leaned over the rail by the steering oars and spat in the water.

  They were moving well – he was sailing north of west at the pace of a trotting horse. He should have been ashore before first light. He shook his head, fought off panic and tapped Diokles with his bare foot.

  'Ho!' Diokles snorted. 'What?'

  'I need you,' Satyrus said quietly. The urgency in his voice carried, and the Tyrian rubbed his eyes, pulled his chlamys tight about his shoulders and settled on the steering bench.

  'We're still afloat,' he said.

  Satyrus nodded. 'We're sailing north of west and we've never even brushed a shoal. It's an hour after first light.'

  Diokles spat in the water, just as Satyrus had. Then he went forward, cursing, and returned with the 'porpoise', a lead weight attached to a rope. 'I'm sending the porpoise for a swim,' he said, and ran off forward into the fog.

  Satyrus listened for the splash of the porpoise. All around him, men were waking. The fog was burning off – above him, the boatsail shone clear. He had minutes to get the Falcon ashore before he'd be spotted – if he hadn't been spotted already.

  Diokles came trotting back with a gang of deckhands at his tail. 'Sandy bottom and shoaling slowly – but there's five tall men's worth of water under your keel.' He shook his head. 'Where the fuck are we? How can we be sailing north of west? We should be sailing on grass by now!'

  Theron was awake just forward, his eyes rimmed in red. 'Artemis, I'm too old for this,' he said.

  'Keep throwing the porpoise, helmsman,' Satyrus said.

  'Aye, lord.' Diokles gave a wry smile. 'Like that, is it?'

  More quietly, Satyrus asked him, 'What do you think?'

  Diokles stepped very close. 'The bow's leaking water. I think we have until the sun is high in the sky, and then he'll open like a whore's arse in the Piraeus. Best put him ashore before then.'

  Satyrus shook his head. 'I tried. I missed the shore. I don't know how I missed it.'

  Theron shook his head. 'Don't look at me, lad. I should never have offered to captain one of these. My expertise ends on the sands.'

  Before rumours of their predicament could run the length of the deck, the sun and the rising fog showed them trees and scrub – due east, a great shore running parallel to their course.

  Men gasped at the absurdity of it.

  All around the stern, men asked how this could be.

  Diokles rubbed his beard. 'I wish we had a real Euxine pilot,' he said. He pointed to one of his deckhands. 'Rufus thinks we've sailed into the netherworld. I'm going to smack him if he spreads that notion.'

  Theron, now on his feet and rubbing out his muscles with the slow care of an athlete, pointed his chin at a group of men coming up the deck. 'Best listen to yon,' he said.

  An oarsman stepped up at the head of the delegation and briefly Satyrus feared mutiny – the kind of rebellion hopeless men might make, but the leader bowed his head respectfully. 'Tisaeus, late of Athens, master. Second bank, fourth oar. I think I know where we are.'

  'Speak up, then!' Satyrus said, trying to keep the squeak out of his voice.

  'I think,' the man hesitated, apparently afraid to commit now that he had the ear of authority. Behind him stood a dozen oar-mates who had obviously pushed him to speak. They prodded him gently.

  He looked at the deck. 'Nikonion, master. You've passed through the shoals off Nikonion and we're in that monster deep bay. I used to sail on a pentekonter that coasted here for grain. Locals call it the Bay of Trout.'

  Diokles slapped the man heavily on the shoulder. 'That's a silver owl for you, mister!' He turned to Satyrus. 'He must be right. We're embayed.'

  'Poseidon! Thetis's damp and glittering breasts!' Satyrus felt as if the weight of the ship was coming off his shoulders. If they were embayed, then there was no chance that the Pantecapaeans had seen them in the morning light. 'We must have made the gods' own time yesterday.'

  Diokles looked up. 'Twenty parasangs, more or less.' He nodded. 'Maybe losing his ram made him faster.'

  'Doesn't matter now,' Satyrus said. 'We need to get him ashore as close to intact as possible. A farm with a slip would save us all. Before the sun was a red ball balanced on the rim of the world, the bow began to give way and water came in faster, so that Falcon became difficult to handle.

  'Let's get him ashore,' Diokles said.

  Satyrus wanted to save as much cargo as possible. 'Listen, helmsman,' he said. 'We're thirty long parasangs from a friendly town – we're in enemy country. Even if we can walk through the delta to Tomis, we'll need every scrap of food in this hull – and our weapons and armour. I need to beach Falcon right.'

  'And you want to save him, don't you?' Diokles said. He nodded.

  'Marker on the beach!' the lookout shouted. 'Marker and some sort of stream entrance – might be a channel.'

  Satyrus and Diokles shared a glance. Even the entrance of a small stream cutting through the sand would make a channel – allow them to beach the hull where it could be saved.

  Satyrus raced forward, leaped up the standing shrouds and made the Falcon roll as he leaned out.

  'There you go, sir!' the lookout said. Satyrus followed his out-thrust arm and saw a cairn of rocks in the rising sun, and just past it, a stream that glowed like a river of fire coming off the high bluffs beyond, and a trace of smoke on the wind.


  Satyrus nodded. 'Good eye,' he said, and slid down the stay to the deck, burning his hands and the inside of his thighs in his haste.

  'Keep calling the course,' he shouted up to the lookout.

  'Aye!' the lookout called.

  Diokles had the oar.

  'Put us ashore,' Satyrus said. 'I'll con from the bow.'

  'If that stream has a sandbar, we'll never get across it,' Diokles said.

  'Let's get the sail off him and then we'll make our throw with Tyche.' Satyrus gave the orders, and the boatsail came down with reck less efficiency. Every man aboard was aware of how close they were to disaster, even with the shore in sight.

  'Make your course due east,' Satyrus said, as the deck crew were folding the boatsail, their heads turning constantly as they watched the bow's opening seams and the looming beach.

  'Into the sun, aye,' Diokles said. 'Helios, be our guide, bright warrior.'

  'Bow-on to the creek!' the lookout shouted.

  'Shoaling fast!' came the voice of the man with the porpoise in the bow. 'I can see the bottom!'

  'Sandbar,' Diokles managed before the jolt.

  The sandbar hit them like a strong man landing a glancing blow on a shield – it rocked them but they kept their feet, and they heard the bar whisper along the length of the hull, the ship's momentum driving him over, probably digging a furrow in the old mud as they drove on, the bow now flooding too fast to be saved.

  'He's going,' Diokles said through clenched teeth.

  'No, he'll last the race,' Satyrus said. 'Every man aft! Now!' Satyrus had been waiting until the stern gave the anticipated dip of coming off that sandbar, and he felt it, like a rider feels the weight change in a horse about to jump. 'Aft! For your lives!'

  The deck crew pounded aft and the rest of the crew followed, somewhere between discipline and panic, and the bow rose out of the water – not by much, but up he came, the ugly scars of the lost ram and the heavy beam ends showing wet, like the bones from an amputation.

  Diokles grinned at him. 'That was slick. You're a quick learner and no mistake,' he said.

  Bow up, stern down, they glided another ship's length into the mouth of the creek, and then another, and then with a sigh, the keel grated, slid and stuck. The cessation of movement was so gradual that not a man lost his footing.

  'Zeus Soter!' Satyrus shouted, and every oarsman and sailor gave the cry.

  The deck crew scrambled ashore with ropes and they got the oarsmen off, straight over the side and on to the beach where the stream cut it, men kneeling to kiss the ground and making prayers to the gods as they touched, other men making sure of their equipment.

  It took them half an hour to get everyone on the beach, to set up a hasty encampment. Theron took a pair of marines and set off up the beach to see if the smell of smoke would reveal a farmhouse.

  Satyrus watched the Falcon settle in four feet of water with mixed feelings. On the one hand, he was savable – he could have him clear of the water in two days' work. But the feeling of failure – of defeat – from the day before continued to linger, alongside the pressure of the knowledge that enemy warships would be hunting him in the dawn.

  'Get the oarsmen armed and build us a wall – stakes, anything,' Satyrus said to Diokles.

  Diokles shook his head. 'With all respect, lord, there's not ten trees in fifty stades. That there's the sea of grass, or so I've been told. You grew up there, eh?'

  Satyrus nodded miserably. 'Too true, my friend. But digging trenches in the beach seems foolish.'

  'Here's Theron and a farmer,' Diokles said.

  The farmer, an old man with a straight back, met Satyrus's eye without flinching. 'Alexander,' he said, offering his hand to clasp. 'Gentleman here says you are the son of Kineas of Athens. You have the look.'

  Satyrus had to smile. 'You knew my father?'

  'Only two days,' the farmer said with a nod. 'That was enough to know him well. Are you the same stock? Or are you some reiver come to pillage my house?'

  Satyrus stood straight. 'I am my father's son,' he said. 'We fought Eumeles of Pantecapaeum yesterday and had the worst of it. My ship lost his ram. I need to refit the Falcon and not fall afoul of Eumeles' jackals.'

  Alexander the farmer rubbed his bearded chin. 'See that cairn?' he said.

  Satyrus nodded. 'I see it.'

  Alexander nodded back. 'That's one of your father's men, died in a skirmish here – must have been twenty years ago.'

  Satyrus shook his head in wonder. 'I know who you are! You sold my father grain! That's the grave of Graccus!'

  'Graccus, aye, that's the name.' Alexander nodded. 'If you will come and swear on his grave and in your father's name to do me no harm – why, then, I'll open my barns to your men.'

  'And if not?' Diokles asked.

  Alexander smiled. 'Always best to know both sides of a bargain, eh? If not, I light my signal fire, and my friends come off the sea of grass to see why I need help.'

  Satyrus laughed. 'Assagatje!' he said. Suddenly the day was lighter.

  Diokles shook his head but Theron came forward. 'His mother's people. Cruel Hands Assagatje.'

  Satyrus took Alexander by the hand. 'Let's go and swear on the grave of my father's friend,' he said.

  4

  ALEXANDRIA, 311 BC

  Men – at least, the kind of men who kept their women in cloisters and forbade them education and company – might have been surprised by the speed with which Sappho, Nihmu and Melitta planned the overthrow of Eumeles.

  Phiale's news was less than an hour old before they had the outlines of their plan made.

  'The old gods of Chaos are waiting in the wings,' Sappho said, her lips smeared with ink. She was writing lists. 'We leave a great deal to chance.'

  Nihmu was packing, quickly and quietly, slipping in and out of the room to stack bags against a wall. She paused, comparing two bows and choosing one. 'There is always something for chance,' she said.

  Sappho chewed on her pen. 'Where will you land?' she asked.

  Nihmu stopped as if this hadn't occurred to her before. 'Where we can get horses immediately,' she said.

  Melitta was struggling with the idea that she was going to leave her precious baby with a wet-nurse and sail away. The indecision was like agony – the thrill of the adventure she had craved for so long, balanced exactly against the pain of leaving the small body that had grown to fill her life in just two months. 'We could land at the Temple of Herakles,' she said. 'Remember, Coenus?'

  Coenus nodded. 'She's right, by all the gods, and the more fool I for forgetting. The old priestess – gods send she still holds sway, but I suspect she's gone across the river by now – she hates Eumeles. Gorgippia, for sure. We can buy a dozen horses and be gone into the Maeotae country before Eumeles has any word of us.'

  Sappho wrote a note. 'I wish we had time to distract him with something on the west coast of the Euxine before you go,' she said.

  'You truly think that the three of you can raise all the east?'

  Nihmu nodded. 'Yes,' she said. 'Listen – it is simple. We find Ataelus, who is still up-country. We find him and we spread word to all the people.'

  Sappho nodded, the nod of someone not quite convinced. 'Ataelus has been fighting the Sauromatae for ten years,' she said. 'What makes you think that in one summer he can raise all the Assagatje?'

  Nihmu shrugged. 'When I was a prophet, I said that Marthax would hold sway on the plains until the eagles flew,' she said. 'Now is the time. Satyrus tried to go like a Greek – with a fleet to open the way for an army. Melitta will do this like a Sakje. She will raise the people, and the people will give her the sea of grass.' Nihmu leaned over and kissed the baby. 'But she must go in person. The Sakje will follow a person, not a name. If Melitta stays here, I cannot do it. Ataelus cannot. But you can, honey bee.'

  Coenus bit his lip. 'You'll still need an army,' he said. 'Eumeles has four thousand foot and more peltasts and Thrake than he ought. He can hold a set of walls for ever,
and much as I respect the Sakje, they can't take a city. And a city can support a fleet, and that fleet will still need to be beaten before we can land our army.'

  Nihmu nodded. 'That is all Greek thinking,' she said. 'It is good. I am not so foolish that I spurn it. But I am Sakje. Melitta and I will go and put the grass under our hooves, and Eumeles will feel the thunder.' She smiled. 'When Melitta is queen of all the Assagatje, then it will be time to send for a fleet and an army.'

  Sappho nodded. 'I agree. I am writing to Diodorus to tell him to stay in the field – with Leon gone, we'll need the income.' Diodorus had the hippeis of Tanais – a mercenary cavalry unit that men called the Exiles, and he also had a taxeis of Macedonian foot raised from the prisoners taken after the Battle of Gaza, where Ptolemy had smashed Demetrios the Golden's army.

  Melitta leaned over Sappho's letter. 'Once we have the support of the Sakje,' she said, 'we can have any port we want. Perhaps the Sakje can't take Pantecapaeum, but Olbia will declare for us as soon as we have a force in the field.' Seeing Coenus's face, she shook her head. 'That's what Satyrus and Diodorus both said!'

  'Clearly, Olbia did not rise,' Coenus said. 'And there are rumours of – murders. Of friends of ours, killed in public.'

  'They had too few ships,' Sappho said. 'Leon was afraid of it before he sailed, but he was hurried. This has to be done while Antigonus is hurt, while his son licks his wounds, or Eumeles will have Macedonians manning his walls and we'll never take him.'

  Coenus shook his head. 'Leon sent a boy to do a man's job,' he said. 'Either he took too many ships for a reconnaissance, or too few for an invasion.'

  Melitta found them both frustrating. 'Uncle Leon did the best with what he had!' she said. 'Listen to me. Whatever the truth of Olbia may be, the Sakje can take any of the smaller ports. Once we have the sea of grass, Eumeles' days are numbered – he can scarcely lead an army on to the plains to relieve a port!'

  Coenus put a hand on her shoulder. 'Beware the lesson of Sparta,' he said. 'As long as Eumeles holds the sea, he can send reinforcements to any town he likes. Leon knew this.'