Destroyer of Cities t-5

by Christian Cameron

  Satyrus nodded. ‘Perhaps. But for the moment, I suggest that we save the city and hope that our gods stand by us.’

  ‘There is but one God,’ Abraham said stubbornly.

  Satyrus gave his friend a steady look meant to convey a number of things — that this was not the time, that he did not happen to agree, that he loved Abraham and would take all kinds of crap from him — and Abraham smiled.

  ‘Come on,’ Satyrus said.

  The marines and many of the sailors and oarsmen — most of whom now had some armour, helmets and good weapons — gathered in the streets behind Abraham’s compound. The marines were in front, already formed in their ranks, and Neiron and Satyrus set to organising the sailors into a phalanx.

  Panther appeared with a dozen armoured men. ‘The engine-ships are just dropping their anchor stones,’ he said. ‘Ten minutes until they open fire.’

  Satyrus clapped his hands for silence. ‘Listen to me!’ he called.

  The sailors fell silent, then the marines, and then other men — Rhodians on the hidden wall, engine crews on the rooftops.

  ‘I want every man off the hidden walls and every man off the rooftops and down here in the centre,’ Satyrus shouted. ‘Into the agora, formed in your companies. Now.’

  Neiron faced the sailors about and led them through the now familiar web of alleys to the agora. He led them to the western edge, and formed them and set them to rest in the shade of the trees that fronted the ruins of the gymnasium. The marines formed in front of them and used the portico of the Merchants’ Stoa for shade.

  ‘Enjoy it,’ Satyrus said to Apollodorus. ‘It’s next on my list to quarry for stone.’

  Panther’s eyes widened. ‘You will leave us nothing to defend.’

  Satyrus shook his head. ‘Lots to defend,’ he said, thinking of Miriam. ‘Stone can be replaced. The west wall is beautiful, by the way.’

  The Rhodian ephebe company — two hundred young men, the sons of the wealthiest citizens — manned the northern end of the hidden wall, and now they formed across the northern edge of the agora. Satyrus went over to their captain, a mercenary professional from Thebes called Gorgus.

  ‘This isn’t a complex plan,’ he said.

  ‘Good,’ Gorgus said. He managed a smile.

  ‘I intend to leave them nothing to shoot at. I want to let them get their men ashore. Then I’ll feed our archers back into the buildings, and then we’ll attack. We’ll be up-slope and organised. And we’ll have the numbers.’

  Gorgus looked around. He looked at Panther. ‘It’s a risk,’ he said. ‘Letting them into the city.’

  Panther looked at Satyrus. ‘I’ve never heard of anyone doing this, Satyrus.’

  Satyrus nodded. ‘The Plataeans did it against the Spartans,’ he said. ‘Over and over. And the Spartans have done it once or twice.’ His eyes were locked to the east, where he expected to see the first volley of stones appear.

  Panther mopped his brow. ‘I’ll tell the citizen company in the south,’ he said.

  Menedemos came up, and Nicanor, who looked different in armour.

  ‘You are insane!’ Nicanor said — he said it with emphasis, but he did not shout it, so as not to dishearten the men.

  Satyrus had not had a day of light, but a day of darkness, and his spirit had been heavy with foreboding. But once he’d made a decision, it was not in him to change it.

  ‘Right or wrong, sane or insane, the knucklebones are cast,’ he said as a hail of heavy stones fell into the town with the sound of the thunder of Zeus from a clear blue sky, and a cloud of mud-brick dust rose from their impact.

  The second hail shower fell, and the third.

  Satyrus watched the stones fall. ‘Everyone out?’ he asked Abraham. In his heart, he meant Miriam.

  Abraham had his aspis against his legs, his helmet cocked back on his head, the cheekpieces open, and he had never looked more Greek. He pointed at his sister with his chin. ‘She’s appointed herself the polemarch of women,’ he said.

  Miriam was shepherding women and children into shelters on the western edge of the agora.

  Satyrus turned to Neiron. ‘You think Jubal is high enough to see what’s happening in the harbour?’ he asked.

  ‘I could see the harbour this morning,’ Neiron said.

  Satyrus nodded. ‘Charmides — go to the tower, get an eyeful of the action in the harbour and come back with a report. And tell Jubal to send me a runner when the landing ships stand in.’ To Apollodorus and the other officers he smiled, hoping that he looked confident. ‘We ought to know anyway — the engines will stop firing.’

  He was proud of them. His head was pounding, and he was not sure he hadn’t made a terrible mistake in pulling all of his forces out of the beaten zone of the enemy artillery — it seemed so obvious, to him, that they should not be under the bombardment, but the engines were so new that the tactics to use against them were equally new, and everything had to be tried. There were fewer than five thousand armed men in the town, and he had two thousand of them in the agora.

  Under his eye, a couple of his marines were playing knucklebones in a helmet. One of them was Phillip, he thought, one of Draco’s men.

  ‘Winning or losing, Phillip?’ Satyrus asked.

  ‘Who the fuck cares?’ the man grunted. ‘And what’s it to you? Oh — lord. I’m sorry. Didn’t see you there.’

  Satyrus laughed. ‘I thought that you old sweats could smell an officer.’

  ‘Fucking stones from the sky must have covered the sound of your sandals,’ Phillip said.

  ‘Smell of all this shit covers your scented oil,’ said the other man. But he was grinning.

  ‘Caryx the Gaul,’ Satyrus said.

  ‘Got me in one, lord. Didn’t even think you knew my name.’ The man smiled.

  ‘Herakles guard you, gentlemen.’ Satyrus bowed to them and moved on, to where a dozen marines were watching a pair of sailors sewing with heavy bronze needles. They were repairing sandals — sandal straps took a beating, and men were wearing their footwear long after they would have expected to replace it in a city not so thoroughly blockaded.

  Men were pushing forward to get their sandals repaired, paying a couple of obols for the service. Satyrus pushed in behind two big marines, craning to see who the sailors were.

  ‘Think the king knows what he’s doing?’ one man asked.

  ‘Nary a fucking clue, mate,’ said the other. ‘He looks calm, and Soldier Boy looks eager, and all that’s a gods-cursed act to keep thee happy and ready to fight.’ The man laughed.

  ‘We just gave up the wall, like.’ The first marine sounded puzzled.

  ‘Well — we ain’t being crushed to death by rocks falling out of the sky, is we? We is not, mate. That we is not. So worry thee not about the king. He’s as shit-scared as thee.’

  I am lucky to have these men, Satyrus thought.

  The bombardment continued all afternoon. By the time the sun was well down in the sky, it was plain that no assault would come that day, and Satyrus dispersed the garrison troops to cook.

  The promised storm brought no more than cool winds and an hour of light rain at dusk, and the bombardment stopped as Demetrios’ ships drew back out of the harbour for the night.

  As the light began to fail, Satyrus climbed the tower again. This time he had Panther with him. They spent the whole of the end of the evening watching Demetrios’ fleet at its moorings off the town.

  ‘We could do it,’ Panther said. ‘I have nine ships left. Turn half into fire-ships and go after them.’

  ‘They have something in the water, there,’ Satyrus said, pointing. ‘Jubal? Can you see it?’

  Jubal watched for a while and shook his head. ‘I see something — it flattens the waves. Can’t make it out, though.’

  They watched a while longer, but the light was failing fast.

  ‘Tonight, do you think?’ Panther asked.

  Menedemos shook his head. ‘That storm means business. I think tomorrow. We
want to go at them just before the storm.’

  ‘Pray we survive tomorrow, then,’ Satyrus said.

  Abraham’s warehouse was gone. His slave barracks were just a mound of fired brick and mud-brick dust. But by the irony of the gods, his beautiful house, with the vulnerable war engines on the roof, was untouched.

  ‘Symposium, gentlemen?’ Abraham asked while they were all wriggling out of their armour in what remained of his garden. ‘I don’t expect the house to last another day, and I have a great deal of wine to be rid of. And I owe my God a feast.’

  Apollodorus laughed, but he looked at Satyrus.

  Satyrus shrugged. ‘Demetrios keeps city hours in this siege. I think we can drink.’

  It was a rough-and-ready symposium, with every cup of wine scented with mud brick and sewer water. But Abraham was as good as his word — when the slaves had finished clearing the courtyard and the main rooms sufficiently for the men to recline, he invited them — and all the sailors and marines — to partake of his wine.

  ‘It’s in pithoi in the basement,’ he said. ‘It’ll be gone tomorrow, anyway.’

  Dozens of huge pithoi — cheap wine for slaves, sharp wine for sailors, Cretan wine and Lesvian wine and the deep red of Chios. Satyrus moved from couch to couch — this was not just relaxation, it was command responsibility, too. He lay beside Abraham, thanking him for the largesse.

  ‘I missed you, brother,’ he said. ‘It is almost worth being trapped in a doomed city to see you.’

  ‘The problem with you, brother,’ Abraham said, ‘is that having lost your parents, you seek constantly to create a family.’ He leered, as if he’d said something profound. Perhaps he had. He was already more drunk than Satyrus had seen him in some time.

  Satyrus rolled to the edge of the kline and poured a libation. ‘To the one God of the Jews,’ he said. ‘May he stand with us here.’

  Abraham’s eyes grew wide. ‘We do not pour libations to our God,’ he said.

  ‘And look how well you’re doing,’ Satyrus said.

  Abraham managed a smile. ‘You are incorrigible,’ he said. ‘Do you mean to marry my sister?’

  Satyrus froze. ‘I will marry Amastris of Heraklea,’ he said carefully.

  ‘No, you won’t,’ Abraham said. ‘She’s a fucking whore from hell, your Amastris. Time somebody told you so. You look at my sister. . I could be angry. Sometimes I am angry. She’s a widow, not a flute girl.’ Satyrus couldn’t believe what he was hearing. ‘Talk to me when you’re sober,’ he said curtly, and rolled off the kline.

  ‘Shit on that, brother. You can trust me to back you up in war — is that it? That’s what makes us brothers. Listen — I have brothers, brothers born of my mother. When they do things to piss me off, I tell them. When they blaspheme against our God, for instance. And I have a sister, and I am responsible for her. You look at her in a way that is fucking inappropriate. How’s that, brother?’ Abraham had come to his feet, and he was breathing hard.

  ‘Please withdraw your comments about Amastris,’ Satyrus said.

  ‘Her cunt’s as wide as the harbour entrance. She deceives you, brother. No one wants to tell you this, but she just sent Demetrios five more ships bursting with marines. Marines commanded by fucking Stratokles the Athenian. With Nestor. And she’s sitting in that camp over there, watching us die.’ Abraham shrugged, suddenly appearing both smaller and more sober. ‘I’m sorry, brother. Someone had to tell you.’

  Apollodorus appeared at Abraham’s elbow and hissed, ‘We talked about this.’

  Abraham looked at the floor, glanced up and then shrugged. The party was falling silent.

  Satyrus looked at his marine captain. ‘These are not drunken ramblings, are they?’

  Apollodorus shook his head. ‘No,’ he said. ‘Prisoner report.’

  Satyrus nodded. ‘There’s probably a reason. She’s a queen, gentlemen. She has things that she has to do — for her people, for herself, to ensure her rule. And she has Stratokles — that wide-arse wouldn’t hesitate to put a sword in me.’

  Apollodorus looked him in the eye. Satyrus realised that the smaller man seldom did — hadn’t noticed how eagle-sharp the man’s brown eyes were. ‘I think he already has,’ Apollodorus said. ‘Put a sword in you. Our prisoners say the word is that you’re dead.’

  Satyrus shrugged. ‘It was close,’ he said.

  ‘You’re not going to run off to the enemy camp to reassure her? Win her back?’ Apollodorus asked.

  Satyrus shook his head, pursed his lips. Now they were all standing around him — Neiron, Charmides, Anaxagoras, Abraham. ‘You all think I’m a fool,’ he said.

  Neiron shook his head. ‘You think — differently,’ he said.

  ‘I need more wine,’ Satyrus said.

  Outside, the moon rose. Satyrus had matched Abraham’s wine intake for two hours, and the man just kept apologising. Satyrus hugged him close and went to lie beside Anaxagoras, who raised a cup in welcome.

  ‘Charmides and I are talking of Eros,’ Anaxagoras said.

  ‘Do you two want to be alone?’ Satyrus asked with a smile.

  ‘Might ask the same of you,’ Anaxagoras asked. ‘Sorry about the queen. Never met her. Don’t know what to think.’

  ‘Are we talking about Eros?’ Satyrus asked.

  ‘Charmides says that men and women can never be friends. That the tension is too much, that they can only be lovers, competitors, or enemies.’ Anaxagoras raised the cup to the beautiful Lesvian man. ‘While I think he has a point, I find that women make good friends.’

  Satyrus honoured their attempt to have a real symposium with good talk by participating. ‘You are a musician, Anaxagoras. And Charmides is, if you’ll pardon me, young. So as a musician, Anaxagoras, you have something to share with women. You can perform together. You can honour the god together. It is like standing in the battle line — yes? I get that much from my lessons — if we play and play well, together, we have shared something real. Yes?’

  ‘Ahh!’ said Anaxagoras, delighted. ‘You are not just a pretty face.’

  ‘While Charmides — pardon me, lad — is beautiful, rich and young. Women want him in their beds, especially in the marriage bed. Am I right? And you hold them in contempt when they fawn — and when they behave ill to each other, in competition. And seeing this, you think, they cannot even be friends with each other.’ Satyrus lay back, satisfied that he had contributed to the conversation like a proper guest.

  Charmides waited while the kylix was refilled. ‘My lord, you speak well, and I am chagrined to admit that you have a point.’

  ‘Women are quite worthy, when men allow them to be,’ Satyrus said. ‘And when they behave like children, you will usually find that men have forced them to act like that.’

  ‘Who made you so wise?’ Anaxagoras asked.

  ‘His sister,’ Miriam said. She sat so that her back pressed against Satyrus’ back — her sudden warmth against him caused an instant physical reaction that he had to hide. If she noticed, she didn’t hesitate. ‘His sister is a magnificent woman — the sort of woman other women either admire or despise. She is brave and strong, and she lives almost entirely the way a Greek man thinks men live.’

  Charmides had eyes as big as wine bowls. ‘I meant no disrespect,’ he said.

  ‘I took none. Women are like men in this — that every one is a kingdom to herself, and no one should ever be judged by another.’ She rose to her feet, and now Satyrus could see her. ‘But I do appreciate when one of you rises to defend us,’ she said, and her mocking smile was briefly serious as she looked at Satyrus.

  He watched her as she moved away. Then he looked at Anaxagoras, who shot him a wry smile.

  ‘That’s one to you,’ he said.

  ‘This isn’t a competition,’ Satyrus said hurriedly.

  ‘No?’ Anaxagoras asked. ‘Could have fooled me.’

  24

  DAY TWENTY-SIX

  There were some hard heads in the morning, and Abraham made m
en stand at his well and drink water until they vomited it. Satyrus felt better — much better — than he had in days, and he took exercise with Anaxagoras, Apollodorus and Helios in the agora while the men sat in the shade. He wrestled briefly with Helios — a boy who would not, a year ago, have offered him anything like a match — and he lifted jumping weights and rocks under Korus’ harsh eye until he’d sweated out the last of the wine.

  The stones fell and fell. The men of the town had to watch the methodical destruction of their waterfront temples, which had been the city’s pride for a hundred years. They were dismembered stone by stone, and when the roof of the Temple of Poseidon crashed to the ground, the answering cheer from the Antigonids sounded just as loud.

  Satyrus was chewing a dried apple. ‘That was our counter-attack route,’ he said to Neiron.

  ‘Best do something, then,’ Neiron said. And the day ended, and Abraham’s house still stood, by a miracle. Satyrus arranged through Panther for the town slaves to clear him six routes through the temple rubble.

  The naval sortie wasn’t ready. So they all went to bed, and woke in the morning to a red sunrise and another promise of a storm on the eastern horizon. Satyrus woke and found Korus asleep in the courtyard.

  ‘Exercise me now,’ he said. ‘They will attack today.’

  When Panther appeared, Satyrus briefed him on the use of the town slaves even as he exercised, and he asked Apollodorus to get the men into position and drill them at passing through the gaps built by the slaves and reforming the phalanx in the clear ground east of the destroyed temples. He wanted it done before the engines were in position, and quickly, while it was still barely light, unobserved by the enemy.

  Another hour, and a breakfast the size of a dinner, and Satyrus donned his light armour with more ease than he had in weeks.

  ‘I might consider wearing bronze,’ he said.

  Korus nodded. ‘You have some muscles, but I’m not finished yet,’ he said.

  Then out to the agora, to their now accustomed places, and the fall of the shot, the rising columns of clay dust, and fires — the enemy was throwing fire into the rubble. Or into the ships in the harbour — what remained of the ships. A pang hit Satyrus again — that his beloved Arete was dead, her charred keel supporting the tunnel under the walls.