King of the Bosphorus t-4

by Christian Cameron

  Melitta laughed. 'Eumeles' days are numbered,' she said.

  Down on the beach, Nihmu clambered over the side and walked up the shingle until she had dirt and leaves underfoot. She waved her bow at Melitta and Melitta waved back. Then the Sakje woman fell on her knees and kissed the ground, and let forth a war cry that echoed off the ship and the walls of the temple.

  'A Sakje!' the old woman said. 'Once, they used to come here. It has been many years.' She ran a hand over Melitta's face. 'You are a mother!' she said. 'Where is your child? A boy?'

  Melitta smiled. 'Back in Alexandria,' she said. 'The milk still runs. But I had to save my brother.'

  'Let us go in and see the will of the god,' the old seeress said. 'Your brother is in his care – one hero to another. But it is good you came.' She leaned on Melitta's shoulder and gestured to an attendant, a pretty young girl. 'Lissa can get a tisane for the milk in your breasts. What else do you need? I look forward to playing my part in repaying Eumeles. He has been a hard master to the people here.'

  'Horses,' said Nihmu, who had quickly made her way up from the beach. She smiled as she said it. 'The smell here is the smell of home! I can smell the grass! Horses, reverend lady, and we will be gone.'

  The old priestess sniffed. 'You took all my best horses last time,' she said. Then she shook her head. 'Oh, the demands of the young – and the gods. I'll have horses fetched.'

  A day later, they were mounted, in Sakje clothes, their gorytoi by their sides, riding across the first blades of the sea of grass. Behind them, Coenus pulled in his stallion to wave at Sarpax, who paused in his stream of orders to unmoor the Wasp to wave back.

  'I may never go to sea again,' Nihmu said with a laugh. 'Oh, I pray that Leon is well – but I am happy to be back on the grass!'

  'Where to, Nihmu?' Coenus asked. They were at the top of a long ridge that ran east into the foothills of the Caucasus Mountains. North and east, the plains rolled away beneath their feet to the river, and again beyond the ferry. A cold wind blew from the north, rippling the grass and making them shiver.

  Melitta pulled her fur cap down over her ears. 'North?'

  Nihmu shook her head. 'North and east – to the high ground between the Tanais and the Rha.'

  'That's where the bandits live!' Melitta said.

  'That's where we will find Ataelus,' Nihmu said. 'He is the bandit now.'

  7

  NEAR TOMIS, EARLY WINTER, 311 BC

  The countryside was empty – not a man moved, no one picked the ripe apples or trampled the grapes. Word of the atrocity at Penelope's farm must have spread quickly.

  Satyrus moved warily from hayrick to byre. Twice he found other men hiding – both times he moved on with a nod. There was smoke on the air and he stayed away from the road after he saw a column of two dozen men in armour. His mind closed to thought, he slipped along the coast, south, until he crossed a rocky headland and was able to look down into the harbour. Three triremes on the beach and the Lotus anchored in twenty feet of water, moored fore and aft to the breakwater. He lay there for an hour, watching it all, and watching the soldiers in the town, his gut roiling. Then he began the trek back up the coast.

  Near nightfall, he heard dogs. He climbed over a low headland near the cursed farm and down into the icy water, and then swam around the point and on down the beach as far as he could stand before muscle spasms and chills drove him ashore. When he landed, the baying of the dogs was far behind. He set to gathering driftwood. He got together a bundle, wrapped it in his girdle and carried it with him as he walked in the surf up the beach, going north in the last light as fast as he could manage. He ran when he was cold and walked when he was tired, thankful for the stew he'd had the night before – stew he'd eaten with people now dead because of him. Like Xenophon and Philokles and all the men who'd fallen at Gaza and the girl in the meadow-

  'Stop it,' he said aloud.

  Show your gods who you really are, Philokles said at his elbow.

  Satyrus smiled, wondering how tired he was. Or fevered. There were red lines on his arm that scared him.

  But he felt better immediately.

  At full dark, Satyrus sat on the beach and set to building a fire. The dogs were two headlands behind him, their barking lost in the dark. Black Falcon would be close, unless he was going to miss his rendezvous altogether. Not worth thinking about that.

  He got the fire lit with dry lichen and sparks from the pyrites in his kit and thanked Herakles that it had not rained. He couldn't have started a fire with wet wood. He lacked the practice.

  After the first fire, the second was easy. He gathered wood and poured it on, gathered more and started his third fire, made sure that they were in an even line across the beach. Now he could hear the dogs again.

  With his fires going, he sat on the dry sand and cleaned his sword and his lonche, polishing the blades carefully with the fine sand by firelight, his concentration so complete that he almost missed the looming bulk of the Falcon as he rounded the point.

  He left the fires burning, dived into the surf and swam the half-stade to his ship.

  Theron's strong arm helped him up the side. 'You look like shit,' he said.

  'Due south for Tomis,' Satyrus barked to Diokles. He met Theron's eyes in the light of the ship's lamp.

  'We're going for them in the dark?' Theron asked.

  'They have quite a force,' Satyrus said. 'Eumeles' men.'

  'We could sail past,' Theron said.

  'No.' Satyrus was rooting under the helmsman's bench for his kit. 'No, we can't. People are dying for me here, Theron. I just learned a lesson – about being a king. About even trying to be a king. Again.'

  'Those are the worst lessons, lad,' Theron agreed. 'I'm sorry-'

  'Don't be. I've grown up a little since last night. Call me boy if it suits. Neiron! Arm the crew. All officers!' Satyrus threw his blood-soaked chiton over the side and pulled on a dry one from his pack, then pinned his heavy red chlamys at his neck.

  Kallias came from amidships with Apollodorus.

  'Gentlemen, this has to be fast and sure,' Satyrus said. 'The enemy has three ships on the beach and the Lotus. I want you, Diokles, to put us right between Lotus and the breakwater – right over his mooring ropes. We board him and kill anyone aboard. Kallias, tell off every man who's served aboard Lotus and enough rowers to move and fight. We'll strip Falcon. Diokles – as soon as we're away, take Falcon out into the roadstead.'

  'And then?' Theron asked.

  'And then we're in the hands of the gods,' Satyrus said. 'Are you with me?'

  'You won't run off without us?' Theron asked. 'No pointless heroics?'

  'I'd bathe in their blood if I could,' Satyrus said. 'But I want to win.'

  Men shuffled on the deck. He made them nervous when he talked like that.

  'We're with you,' Diokles said.

  'Let's do the thing,' Kallias added. His fist hit his open palm with a meaty sound. Falcon slipped out of the dark of midnight along the path that the moon seemed to light from the open sea to the breakwater. A sentry up on the mole, or perhaps on the deck of the Golden Lotus, called out. No one answered.

  'Hey there!' he yelled the second time. Satyrus could see his white face in the moonlight. He was on the stern of the Lotus. 'Hey!' he said again.

  Falcon's bow brushed down the length of Leon's flagship, conned to perfection with Diokles' hands steady on his steering oars and his boatsail already struck.

  'Alarm!' the man on the stern called, several minutes too late.

  'Boarders away!' Satyrus roared.

  He leaped from his own rail on to the rail of the Lotus – a feat he'd done fifty times – and down into the waist.

  The ship was empty except for a handful of sailors asleep under an awning below the mainmast and the sentry. Satyrus raced for the sentry, who was slow to make the decision as to whether he should run or fight. At the last moment, he got his spear up, but Satyrus took his spear on his own shield and crashed against hi
m, shield to shield, his sword reaching around and cutting the other man's sinews even as they crushed together, and down he went. Satyrus stepped on his neck, crushing his windpipe, and thrust his sword into the man's eye.

  The sailors under the awning were spared by their very helplessness. Otherwise, Lotus was empty, and Kallias was already pushing men into their stations. The triemiolia's rig was different enough to cause chaos and similar enough that they were cleared for action before there was any reaction from the town, although dogs were barking on the beach and a voice was calling out from the shore.

  'Rowers on your benches?' Kallias shouted. When he got a growl in answer, he blew a whistle. 'Oars out! Look alive there! Give way, all!'

  Only two-thirds of the oars were manned, but they shot out and caught the water in two crisp motions, and Satyrus felt the living ship under his feet. He had the steering oars, and now he leaned heavily into the steering rig.

  'Hard to starboard!' he called.

  'Starboard oars! All banks! Back oars!' Kallias ordered.

  Behind them, as they started their turn, Falcon began to pull away into the darkness, his oarsmen cheering thinly, only a quarter of the benches manned, but the rowers were scenting victory.

  'Blood in the water and silver in our hands,' Satyrus muttered. He was daring himself to shout it aloud – Peleus's war cry, a piratical phrase that gave him goose pimples in the midst of action.

  He raised his voice and shouted it. 'Blood in the water!' he cried, and the rowers cheered. 'And silver in our hands!' they chanted back at him, and they were moving faster, Kalos thumping the mainmast to keep the time.

  Eumeles' troops were pouring out of the town, and some of them had lit fires on the beach – fires that served only to illuminate their helpless ships.

  'Half-speed,' Satyrus called to Kalos, who slowed the rowers. They were moving well.

  'Prepare to reverse your benches,' Satyrus called. He waved to Apollodorus. 'Get into the bow and ready to throw the grapples.'

  'Aye,' Apollodorus called.

  'Back water!' Satyrus yelled. Too fast. He had bitten off too much…

  The oars dug into the star-speckled water, churning it to a black froth, and the Lotus slowed. Satyrus pointed his ram just to starboard of the northernmost beached trireme and then steadied the steering oars while the rowers continued to back, cursing him – he could hear the mutters – but the ship slowed, slowed…

  Thump. His bow brushed the enemy's stern, clearly backlit by the fires on the beach, and he caught the flicker of the grapples sailing through the clear, dark air.

  'Reverse your benches!' Kalos roared over the sounds of combat from the bow. Enemy marines were trying desperately to fend off the Lotus.

  'Grapples home!' from the bow.

  'Give way, all!' Kalos called, and Satyrus had nothing to do but steer steady as the Lotus slipped away from the beach stern first. There was a jerk as the ropes on the grapples caught and tugged – the whole weight of the enemy ship on the oarsmen – but they knew they were rowing for the value of the prize and they pulled, short, powerful strokes at Kalos's command, and the enemy ship slid into the water and followed them as meekly as a lamb following a girl to market, coasting along behind them with his marines still struggling, now fighting for their lives. A stade off the beach they lost heart and tried to surrender, but Apollodorus had his orders, and he drove them into their own stern and then over the side, to drown.

  Panting with exertion and speaking too quickly and too loudly, Apollodorus came to the cockpit with a shield and a helmet, the tangible signs of their victory. 'Ours, by the gods!' he said. 'I didn't lose a man – once they felt their keel grate on the sand, they panicked and we reaped them like ripe wheat.'

  Satyrus smacked him on his backplate. 'Well done. But they've left the fires burning and we need every hull. Let's take another.'

  Apollodorus nodded, put his hands on his knees and crouched, breathing hard. 'Let me get my breath!'

  Satyrus nodded. 'Kalos!' he called.

  His acting oar master ran aft. 'Aye?'

  'I intend to empty Falcon and take every man.' Satyrus said. 'Push 'em all forward with arms to help the marines. You run the oars and have Diokles at the helm.'

  'Done,' Kalos pointed at the looming mast of the Falcon. 'Mind your helm, sir!' he shouted, and Satyrus had to steer hard to avoid putting the stern of his uncle's flagship right on the bow of his own ship. So much to watch, all the time – he leaned on the oars and prayed while Kalos bellowed for the oars to come inboard.

  But he got them alongside – backing was easier, in many ways – and they lashed the captured trireme to the Falcon.

  'Let's get everyone aboard Lotus,' Satyrus called across to Theron, who waved a torch in reply. In the time it took to swear an oath, the skeleton crew of the Falcon was across, all armed with spears or javelins. They left the other two ships floating free, lashed together.

  'They're still lighting new fires on the beach,' Diokles said. 'They've never fought at night, that's for sure.'

  'The southernmost boat looks to be a little bigger,' Theron said. 'Maybe just a trick of the firelight.'

  They were already inbound, Diokles at the helm, and the southernmost boat did look bigger.

  'Someone's fighting on the beach,' Theron said. He went forward, still favouring his left hip but moving fast despite his full armour.

  Satyrus went with him, having no immediate duty. He stepped up into the Lotus's ram-box. It was packed with marines and sailors, and Satyrus stepped up on the rail and used the boatsail-mast shrouds to walk around the rail to the bow. Theron was right on his heels.

  There were sounds of fighting from the beach – shouts and the clash of bronze and iron and a man bellowing in rage or fear – or both.

  'I will burn this town and every arse-cunt in it!' sang that voice – the clown voice.

  Satyrus realized that all his muscles had clenched together, and he made himself relax. 'The town has risen against the raiders,' he said.

  'Easier pickings for us,' a marine said. 'They can't cover the beach and the boats at the same time.'

  Satyrus shouted orders as he climbed around Theron and then ran along the rail, heedless of the fall to the water and instant death for a man in armour. 'Apollodorus – I'm going to put us ashore. Empty the boat – you take the marines, Theron, Kalos – take the sailors.'

  'What?' Theron asked, but Satyrus had moved on. He jumped down to the deck and ran along the gangway, repeated his orders to Kalos and the deck crew, and then ran aft to Diokles.

  'Past the southernmost boat – turn us around and beach us stern first. Everyone over the side – everyone.' Satyrus was bouncing on his toes, scared by his own decision but committed to it. The local men were dying on the beach, facing professional soldiers and paying the price, fighting in the dark. He was not going to leave them to it.

  Diokles shook his head, his teeth gleaming in the distant firelight. 'You're mad, you know that? Didn't your friend Theron say something about not running off in mad heroics?' He drew himself up and shouted, 'Starboard rowers – reverse benches!' He grinned at Satyrus. 'I'm mad too. We'll have them all – or die trying.'

  Satyrus wasn't even thinking of the potential prizes – only of the fact that Calchus, his father's guest-friend, was almost certainly fighting on the beach against the men who had killed Penelope – raped Teax. People he barely knew.

  Perhaps he was mad.

  'Ready about ship!' Diokles called. To Satyrus, he said, 'I have the ship. Go and organize your landing.'

  Satyrus saluted him and ran forward, his greaves already chafing at his ankles, his shield banging against the shoulder-plate of his cuirass. 'As soon as the stern bites the sand,' he called, 'marines and deck crew over the side. Don't pull Lotus up the beach – just form as you practised with Theron – marines in the front, sailors in the next ranks, oarsmen behind. Understand?'

  Theron was shaking his head, but he didn't say anything.

/>   'Straight up the beach and into the enemy,' Satyrus said.

  'We ought to be behind them,' Apollodorus agreed.

  'Don't stop to throw a javelin or any of that crap,' Satyrus said. 'They're formed up – I saw it in the firelight. Get right into them. Stay together – don't kill each other in the dark.'

  'Beach!' several men called. Satyrus saw that his time for planning was past – they were so close to the southernmost enemy trireme that their oars almost brushed his beak, and then Kalos shouted 'Oars in!' and they rammed the beach so hard that every man on deck fell flat.

  'Over the side,' Satyrus yelled, getting to his feet. He jammed his helmet on his head and jumped into the water, found it deeper than he expected – almost to his chest – and started pushing ashore, the cold water like a reminder of mortality. 'Form up! Form up!' he yelled, over and over again, and Kalos was ahead of him on the strand, yelling the same, and Apollodorus had the marines in a gaggle, then the gaggle began to spread out and became a line.

  'Sailors!' Satyrus yelled. Sailors – and oarsmen – were coming up, taking posts behind the thin line of armoured men. Half a stade down the beach, other men were shouting by the fires. Closer, an archer shot and the arrow plucked at the crest on Satyrus's helmet. Another arrow hit his ankle hard and he looked, expecting to see the shaft pinning his leg to the beach, but the arrow was gone, and his ankle bone hurt as if he'd been kicked by a horse.

  No idea what had been happening here, except that there were bodies by the stern of the middle boat and no defenders. Battle madness raged with common sense.

  'Diokles!' Satyrus called. 'Take twenty men and get these hulls afloat!'

  A roar of approval from his own oarsmen – floating the enemy hulls insured against defeat, meant there would be no pursuit.

  Apollodorus waved his spear. Theron was standing next to him, a tower of bronze in the firelight.