Destroyer of Cities t-5

by Christian Cameron

  But it registered — quickly enough that Satyrus doubted anyone had seen him hesitate. He opened his arms, and Abraham wrapped him in his own long arms.

  ‘King of the Bosporus!’ Abraham said. ‘Be welcome in my house.’

  ‘The Jew of Rhodes!’ Satyrus said in an equally dramatic voice. ‘Come and visit my kingdom!’

  Abraham laughed and swatted him — a not-so-gentle backhand straight from adolescence and the gymnasium of Alexandria. ‘I’m impressing my neighbours, you useless aristocrat!’

  Satyrus hugged him again, and then the gates closed behind the last files of Satyrus’ marines, and Apollodorus pulled his helmet off. He and Helios exchanged glances — Satyrus couldn’t help himself.

  ‘Trouble?’ he asked.

  Helios shrugged. ‘I apologise, Captain.’

  Apollodorus shrugged. ‘He ordered me and the marines off the ship. He’s your hypaspist — not my officer.’

  Satyrus forced a smile. ‘This is not the place or time for this.’

  Both men had the good grace to look abashed.

  Satyrus turned to his former slave. ‘Helios, for your sins, you can run an errand for me. Leon — a tablet, if your scribes can spare one?’

  Leon laughed, took a dark panel of wood from one of his people and handed it over with a bone pencil, and Satyrus wrote quickly in the hard wax. ‘Straight to Neiron, and not a word to any other man,’ he said, keeping a smile on his face.

  Helios saluted, Macedonian fashion, and trotted off, head high, with his aspis still on his shoulder.

  Satyrus turned to his host. ‘Abraham, you remember Apollodorus?’

  Abraham laughed and embraced the marine officer. ‘Too well.’

  Apollodorus laughed, too. ‘Not many men I’ve played “feed the flute girl” with, in public,’ he said.

  Satyrus passed over that remark to introduce Helios. ‘My hypaspist, Helios, is the man I just sent away.’

  ‘I remember him well,’ Abraham said.

  ‘I don’t,’ Leon said. ‘I saw him several times lurking at your shoulder. He looks like a Greek.’

  Satyrus nodded. ‘Yes, sir, he is.’

  ‘Former slave?’ Leon asked.

  ‘Citizen of Tanais!’ Satyrus proclaimed.

  ‘How does one “feed a flute girl”?’ asked a sweet voice.

  Satyrus turned his head. Behind Abraham was his sister, Miriam. Satyrus had met her once, in her father’s house in Alexandria. Their eyes met.

  She didn’t drop her eyes this time, any more than she had four years before. She had the boldest glance Satyrus had ever seen — well, with the exception of his sister, Leon’s wife Nihmu, and most of the Sakje women he knew. Her eyes were brown — deep brown, with flecks of gold in the iris. Her hair was a glorious profusion of browns with the same gold highlights as her eyes.

  All of the men were staring at their sandals.

  Satyrus laughed. ‘You have not changed,’ he said.

  Abraham cleared his throat. ‘My sister Miriam,’ he said. ‘We should go inside.’

  ‘I apologise for the soldiers,’ Satyrus said. ‘I had little choice. The crowds were. . enormous.’

  ‘And you’ll need them the whole time you are here.’ Abraham raised his arm and pointed. ‘I have towers on my courtyard, here. Archers in the towers. Barracks for fifty men, and I employ thirty full-time. I can feed your men. Besides,’ he said with something of his old humour, ‘you’re paying.’

  ‘How splendid of me!’ Satyrus allowed. The courtyard was not very decorative, it was true — heavily cobbled, but with no statues and no garden. Archways led away into warehouses — archways big enough for a wagon to clear — and into the house. Satyrus took a moment to realise that this was bigger than his palace in Tanais. Then he laughed, and followed his host through an arch.

  On the other side of the arch, he might have been in another world. They went into a rose garden with paths laid out in white marble, and small trees — apples, it appeared. The whole garden smelled like jasmine, although Satyrus couldn’t see a jasmine flower anywhere.

  The house was typically Greek, with a colonnade that ran around the rose garden. But the walls, although brightly coloured, decorated with patterns, or painted with flowers, were devoid of gods, goddesses or dancing girls.

  All very thought-provoking. Leon bowed to Abraham. ‘I have a lot of business, Abraham. Will you excuse me?’ and he was gone in a cloud of scribes, flashing Satyrus a look he couldn’t interpret.

  Satyrus was ushered into the main room of the ground floor — like an old andron with a new mosaic floor. Satyrus laughed at the conceit; it was covered with bits of food, ends of bread, discarded bones and a sheep’s skull, all rendered lovingly in mosaic as if a feast had just been completed.

  ‘Beautiful!’ he said.

  ‘We’re Jews,’ Miriam said behind him. ‘We don’t use representations of people in our religion. But this seemed innocent. . and charming.’

  Satyrus nodded. A slave came and took his chlamys and his sword.

  Abraham brought him a cup of wine. ‘Welcome again to my house, brother.’

  Satyrus raised his cup to both of them. ‘It is a pleasure to be your guest.’ He wondered why Abraham was suddenly so very Jewish, but he decided not to mention it. He put it down to the presence of the sister. She certainly had an effect on him.

  ‘Feed the flute girl?’ she asked.

  ‘Please drop the subject, Miriam,’ Abraham said.

  She must be nineteen now, or perhaps twenty. Quite old to be unmarried. Or was that just among Greeks? Satyrus was suddenly struck with a desire to enquire, and he doubted Helios would know of whom to ask.

  Satyrus smiled wickedly at his host. ‘I could tell her,’ he said.

  ‘Only if you want to find somewhere else to stay,’ Abraham shot back.

  ‘Shall I guess, then?’ Miriam asked. ‘I think it is unfair that my brother had such a liberal education and I’m always to be left at home, wondering what Plato said and how flute girls are fed.’

  Satyrus realised that this was a game — that Miriam knew exactly how ‘feed the flute girl’ worked, that she was embarrassing her brother in public and that an astrologer might have marked this day with red ink against the possibility of social humiliations in all directions.

  ‘I have a great deal of grain to sell,’ Satyrus said. ‘I need to get down to it.’

  Abraham nodded. ‘I was going to let you get your sandals off.’ He made a motion to his sister to leave. Instead, Satyrus felt a weight settle on his kline.

  ‘Miriam!’ Abraham said.

  Satyrus turned his head. She was quite close — actually, she was at a perfectly respectable distance, one that would cause no comment among Greeks. But she was close enough for him to see the way the light played on the brown mass of her hair. He couldn’t help but smile.

  ‘I’m a widow,’ she said, and shrugged. ‘I can’t be expected to remain in hiding. Besides, Abraham, I am your hostess. Satyrus — the king — is as much my responsibility as yours. We are not in Father’s house.’

  Satyrus thought that Abraham looked ready to explode. He put out a hand and touched his friend. ‘Grain,’ he said. ‘If my ships are unloading, now is not the time to bicker.’

  Satyrus turned to Miriam. ‘I am delighted to renew acquaintance with you, Despoina. But your brother and I have business to discuss, and your teasing him will not help him dwell on the business at hand. Can the two of you suspend hostilities while I’m in the house?’

  Miriam blushed. ‘My life with my brother is none of your business,’ she said.

  Abraham looked stung. ‘Miriam!’

  Satyrus made himself smile. ‘If you are my hostess, surely I can beg you to get me a cup of wine and a little privacy for some business?’

  Miriam paused on her way to a display of temper. She looked at him for a moment, and a smile almost came to the area around her eyes. She rose to her feet and stalked away. She was very slim, Satyrus
noted. Her legs must be very long indeed. He dismissed the thought as born of long abstinence and insufficient devotion to the Foam Borne.

  It was a hard thought to dismiss as the transparent wool of her chiton outlined her hips and waist as she turned, the silken cloth hiding very little. And she smiled — not provocatively, but the smile of a person who likes another person. ‘I will see to your wine and comfort, then. And since we are speaking frankly, may I then bargain for time with both of you? I might play for you, for instance.’ She arched an eyebrow at her brother.

  He relented immediately. ‘Of course! As soon as we have settled the fate of the world, love. And please join us for dinner. You are the hostess, and this is Rhodes, not Athens.’

  After the sound of her sandals slapping the floors retreated into the peristyle, Abraham slapped his thigh. ‘If you ever retire from kingship, come and live with me and keep my sister in line. By Jehovah, Satyrus, that was well done.’ He frowned. ‘Since her husband died, there is no controlling her.’ He caught himself, with the air of a man who has said too much.

  Satyrus suspected that there was more going on than an uncontrollable girl — and he knew his own sister would not let the word ‘controlling’ go by without comment. But he had grain to sell.

  He shrugged. ‘I’ve always liked her, and my sister valued her company,’ he said. ‘And given my sister’s views on sequestered women, you will have to allow me to take her side.’

  Abraham grinned his old, open grin. ‘She’s a widow, now. And rich enough. And to be honest, I’ve been tempted to ship her off to your sister to learn to ride and shoot. She’s far too intelligent to waste — she could run my warehouses without me, and no mistake.’ He shrugged. ‘If we weren’t Jews I’d buy her a temple post, and she could be high priestess of Artemis or Athena. Then she’d have some sort of life.’ He shrugged. ‘But she is a Jew — more a Jew, I think, than I. Shall we talk grain? How much do you have?’

  ‘I don’t know the exact count of my grain,’ Satyrus said. ‘More than ten thousand mythemnoi, anyway. What’s a mythemna of grain worth on the dock?’

  Abraham raised an eyebrow. ‘Six drachma and some change.’

  Satyrus grinned and his spirits soared, almost as if he’d won a victory. Perhaps he had. ‘I’m going to make a lot of farmers happy!’

  Abraham nodded. ‘I’d like to buy the lot.’ He raised an eyebrow. ‘If my credit is good. I don’t keep that kind of cash here. This city may fall — or may be called on to provide exceptional fines to buy off Antigonus.’ He shrugged. ‘This is poor bargaining. I’ll take your entire cargo at six drachma and three obols per mythemna, Athenian weights.’

  ‘Is Alexandria safer?’ Satyrus asked. He shrugged. ‘I’d be happy to sell to you, anyway.’

  Abraham shook his head. ‘Nowhere is safe, so we divide our silver and gold among all our houses.’

  Satyrus nodded. ‘Pay Leon in Alexandria, then. But take your fee for my ships and my men; and I have a list of things I’d like to buy here.’

  Abraham looked interested. ‘What can I find for you?’

  Satyrus made a face. ‘It’s a long list, brother — I live at the edge of civilisation. Spices, metal and skilled labour. Mostly smiths and tanners. I’d like to buy a whole industry’s worth of both. I can promise freedom and employment to every slave I buy — they have to be free in Tanais.’

  Abraham whistled. ‘Skilled labour is cheap these days — Antigonus takes so many cities and sells so many into slavery. I’ll see what I can find you.’

  ‘Helios has the whole list,’ Satyrus said. He remembered his promise to the god. ‘I’d like a musician — a music teacher. For myself.’

  ‘Kithara or lyre? Very well — get me the list. I’ll get him to pass it to my factor. Anything else?’ Abraham smiled. ‘You are doing me a powerful favour. I’ll see to it you get the best music teacher ever taken in war.’

  Satyrus nodded. ‘Good.’ He laughed aloud. ‘I’ve dreaded this moment for a month, and now it’s over. Oh — my farmers are saved.’

  Abraham shook his head. ‘We’re not finished. First, I should only take about half. That way, I keep all my competitors as friends. Besides, if all your ships come in, we’re talking. . what did you say? Ten thousand mythemnoi?’

  Satyrus nodded.

  Abraham nodded back. ‘In any other year, you’d merely make money. This year, you can make a killing. You and me both, of course.’

  A slave entered silently, spoke into Abraham’s ear and slipped out.

  ‘We have a visitor,’ Abraham said. ‘Nicanor is the Archon Basileus of Rhodes. Have you met him?’

  ‘Briefly. He was on the council of fifty when Rhodes approved the loan of a squadron to me in the last Olympic year.’ Satyrus stood up.

  Nicanor son of Euripides was a small man with a slightly damp hand clasp. He tossed his chlamys to the slave. ‘You came with all your grain!’ he said as soon as he’d been given a cup of wine. ‘You don’t know what that means to us!’

  Satyrus smiled. ‘You loaned me a squadron when I was an almost penniless adventurer,’ he said.

  Nicanor frowned. ‘Yes, yes. It really is too bad — but I must tell you that the boule has just voted to take all of your grain at four drachma per mythemna. We passed a law.’

  Abraham sat still for a moment, and then he took a deep breath. ‘I’m sorry, you passed a law to forbid Satyrus of the Bosporus to sell his own grain?’

  Nicanor nodded. ‘Yes. We — that is, the city — are buying all of it. At a perfectly fair price: four drachma per mythemna. Nothing to fear there.’

  Abraham stood silent — stunned.

  Satyrus saw the ground crumbling under his feet. ‘Except that the grain is worth far more, and you know it. And if you do this, Nicanor, no man will ship grain here during the siege — if it comes to a siege. No one. You cannot do this.’

  ‘We have to prevent a panic and a run on bread prices,’ Nicanor said. ‘The safety of the city is at stake. Antiochus and his worthless son have agents operating in the city — among the slaves, among the lower classes. Agitators. There was almost a riot on the docks when you arrived.’

  Abraham let out another sigh. ‘You forced every lower-class man in the city to work on the walls for a fixed price, but didn’t fix the price of bread,’ he said. ‘No one needs outside agitators to make trouble when you do that.’

  ‘If they don’t like working for us, they can leave,’ Nicanor said.

  Satyrus shrugged. ‘I’ll sell you half my grain at seven drachma,’ he said. ‘The other half I’ll sell at a price that seems best to me, and to whomever I choose to sell it, including Leon’s factor in Alexandria. And if you mess me around, sir, I’ll take my warships and my as yet unloaded grain and sail away.’

  The silent slave slipped in again and whispered to his master.

  Nicanor rose to his feet to protest. ‘We need that grain. We have benefited you in the past, young man. You are, I believe, an honorary citizen of this city. You have obligations-’

  Panther appeared at the door. ‘Nicanor, are you an idiot?’ he bellowed as soon as he entered.

  ‘We are stabilising the grain price!’ Nicanor said.

  ‘You are destabilising the city!’ Panther said.

  Satyrus looked back and forth as they sparred — an argument of long duration and ancient antecedents, as far as he could tell. Interesting; Rhodes had always seemed like the most unified and powerful of cities. But now, with the threat of siege imminent and the enemy at the gates, the lines of fragmentation weren’t just obvious — they were dangerous.

  As the two politicians argued, Abraham commented quietly. ‘They’re really all oligarchs, here. No democratic party to speak of, although with every generation, students import some democracy from Athens. But Nicanor’s people want direct control — really, polis-wide ownership of everything. Very Platonic. Mind you, they also want to limit the franchise to about two thousand men — the richest two thousand.’ Abraham
sipped wine and gave a nasty laugh. ‘They’re foolish enough to believe that they can use the threat of siege to deprive the lower-class citizens of their rights. Everyone knows exactly what they have in mind. It’s ugly.’ He lay back. Nicanor paused to take a breath and Panther shouted him down. Abraham smiled. ‘If lungs are the weapons of oratory, Panther’s storm voice will win every time. Panther isn’t really in a party. He’s a sailor and a military man. But he understands trade. And the navy doesn’t want the oligarchs to do anything that will jeopardise trade. The navy needs free rowers with an interest in rowing well — in other words, an enfranchised lower class.’

  Satyrus swirled the wine in his cup. ‘I think I should go back to my ship,’ he said. He felt the anger of a man who’d been at the point of an important victory and had it taken from him.

  Abraham nodded. ‘I’m sorry. Very sorry; I had so looked forward to seeing you — but yes. You’ll strengthen your own hand by being on board.’ He shrugged. ‘Sorry for your farmers, too.’ He smiled a bitter smile. ‘And my sister, who, quite frankly, looked forward to your visit to relieve the tedium of her life. She has created errands for herself for a week.’

  Satyrus nodded back. ‘If you’d summon my marines? And I’d like to see Leon.’

  Abraham growled. ‘Leon was kind enough to leave us together so that we could renew old friendship. And I’m just a foreign metic here — I can’t even intervene in this argument. But I guarantee you that if Nicanor has his way, you’ll lose your grain — and his friends will sell it at a profit.’

  ‘I could always go and join Antigonus,’ Satyrus said.

  Abraham swatted him. ‘Don’t even say that,’ he said.

  Nicanor turned away from Panther. ‘You cannot bargain with the council, king or no king.’

  ‘On the contrary,’ Satyrus said. ‘I’m about to return to my ship and leave. I won’t bargain at all — you are quite correct.’

  ‘There will be a riot! I forbid it.’ Nicanor pulled his chiton up on his shoulder. ‘If the little people see all that grain leave us-’

  Leon came in from the garden. This time, he didn’t have any scribes with him. ‘Nicanor, have you lost your wits?’ he asked.