Destroyer of Cities t-5

by Christian Cameron

  Miriam looked back and forth and laughed. ‘Men are so easy,’ she said.

  Anaxagoras drank more wine.

  Miriam laughed — a dark laugh, the laugh of a maenad. ‘What woman wouldn’t envy me?’ she said to the darkness. ‘Two great heroes who love me. But when I choose one, I betray the other. Don’t bother with your denials, gentlemen — you are what you are. And who cares? Aphrodite? Who cares if I lie with you both — both at the same time, one each day, one each hour? I’m no virgin, and we will all be dead soon.’

  Miriam didn’t burst into tears. It might have been better if she had. She laughed again, her laughter like the surgeon’s scalpel — the sharp bite of truth. ‘Your Greek gods are so much more understanding of my predicament than my old patriarch,’ she sighed. She rose to her feet and kissed each of them on the lips, and then picked up her chiton skirts and ran off into the dark.

  Satyrus sat still for a moment, and then looked over at Anaxagoras.

  The musician shrugged. ‘You going to marry her?’ he asked.

  Satyrus rubbed his chin. ‘You?’

  ‘She kissed me first,’ Anaxagoras said.

  ‘Fuck you, you. . wide-arsed musician.’ Satyrus laughed, and picked up the skin of wine.

  ‘Last one alive gets her?’ Anaxagoras said. ‘Don’t hog the wine.’

  ‘I’ll share the wine,’ Satyrus said. ‘And don’t think we get to decide the terms of the contest, either.’

  Her kiss burned on his lips like a wound.

  27

  Daedelus came out of the late-summer dawn mist like Poseidon’s chariot. His ships were at ramming speed, and Demetrios’ guard ships died under their rams. The distant screams of the trapped rowers were like the sound of gulls, and Satyrus might have slept through the whole thing, but Jubal caught the fighting with his sharp eyes and woke everyone in the tower.

  Satyrus knew the Labours of Herakles instantly. He whooped like a child watching a race, laughed aloud when the fire pots began to smash into Demetrios’ beached ships. And his smile was just as broad when the man himself stepped down from the deck of his ship onto the wharf.

  ‘You bastard!’ Satyrus said, embracing the mercenary. ‘Where have you been?’

  But he couldn’t maintain any kind of fiction of anger — less so, even, when the grain ships began to enter the harbour. Six of them.

  ‘These are Phoenician ships?’ Satyrus asked.

  ‘Demetrios didn’t seem to need them,’ Daedelus laughed. ‘Have you no news?’

  Satyrus shook his head. ‘None!’

  Daedelus nodded. ‘Leon is at Syme with six thousand men and forty ships. Demetrios has made two tries at him and failed both times — he can’t spare the ships. And your sister and Nikephorus are raising the Euxine cities — we hear they have another twenty ships and all your mercenaries.’

  Satyrus laughed. He felt ten years younger.

  ‘Wait — you haven’t heard the best. Diokles is in Alexandria, refitting.’ Daedelus smiled.

  Satyrus paused a long, long time — maybe twenty heartbeats. ‘Diokles?’ he asked softly.

  ‘All those sailors you sent to Poseidon?’ Daedelus shook his head. ‘Diokles has seven heavy ships.’

  ‘Dionysus?’ Satyrus asked, hope bursting from his chest.

  Daedelus shook his head. ‘Sorry lord, no. He was lost. And every man aboard. But Oinoe, Plataea, Atlantae, Ephesian Artemis, Tanais, Troy, Black Falcon and Marathon are refitting at Leon’s yard.’

  Satyrus breathed a prayer to Poseidon.

  ‘Let’s celebrate,’ Satyrus said.

  ‘I brought wine,’ Daedelus said, ‘but Leon hits the beach with his diversion in about an hour, and I have to be ready to sail. But from now on, you’ll know we’re out there. Demetrios doesn’t have it all his own way at sea. And we hear that the Greek cities are begging his father for aid — Cassander is hitting them hard, undoing five years of their work.’

  ‘I never imagined I’d be on the same side as Cassander,’ Satyrus said.

  ‘I never thought I’d help save Rhodes,’ Daedelus said.

  Satyrus took the news straight to the boule. The council was bitterly divided — many of the town’s leaders wanted to try to negotiate a surrender while they were still holding out, and it had become more and more obvious that the oligarchs intended to starve their own lower classes into forcing such a surrender — the most craven strategy Satyrus had ever seen. He wasn’t sure they were even doing it consciously.

  Nicanor seemed to fight Satyrus automatically, and he made no pretence of his contempt for the man he always referred to as ‘our young royal’.

  Despite which, news of six grain ships was received with universal acclaim. Nicanor rose and proposed that all the grain be placed in the central store immediately.

  Menedemos rose and argued that one-half of it be served out immediately as a donative, and to raise morale.

  Satyrus let them wrangle. The hardest part for him — aside from his desire simply to take command and issue orders for their own good — was that each side had excellent arguments which were perfectly sensible and yet, most of the men on each side made these arguments with a cynical lack of conviction and a devotion to their own faction that lowered them daily in his estimation. Even Menedemos — the best of them, to Satyrus’ jaundiced eye — was so devoted to his democrats that he could lose track of what was best for the survival of the city. Damophilus was a great man with a spear in his hand, but in the council he spoke only for party interests. The only man who cared solely for his city was Panther. And he was dead.

  Satyrus waited his turn to speak, and eventually he rose. ‘I neglected a point which may affect your deliberations,’ he said, and he did a poor job of hiding his contempt. ‘Daedelus and Leon will be back in two days, just after dawn, with a second load of grain and two hundred more soldiers. And they have landed a hundred more marines already.’

  ‘What time?’ Nicanor asked.

  ‘That will depend on wind and tide, I assume, Nicanor.’ Satyrus tried to sound pleasant.

  Celebrations were short-lived. Fresh grain put heart into the lower classes, and the presence of a friendly fleet — a fleet which had some of Rhodes’ own ships in it — raised everyone’s expectations.

  But two days later, they watched Daedelus’ squadron try and run a second convoy into the town, and get decisively beaten. Demetrios’ ships were waiting, manned, on the beach, and when the first trireme sail nicked the horizon, they launched, all together.

  To avoid be overwhelmed by the in-sweeping flanks, Leon had to back water, and he lost four triremes and did no damage — and all six grain ships were lost, within sight of the port.

  Morale plummeted.

  And Demetrios, as remorseless as death, or time, moved his heavy engines forward across the hard ground south of the south wall. They began to move on the sixty-fourth day, and by the sixty-seventh day, they were almost in range.

  Satyrus climbed the tower. The last light of day was shining on the besiegers, and their horde of slaves were dragging the final pair of heavy machines across the hard sand, raising a long column of dust.

  ‘Watch them,’ Jubal said.

  At the front edge of the enemy machines was a full taxeis of pikemen, fully armed, their weapons throwing long shadows. They were just three stades away, neatly formed, standing to protect the machines. Even as they stood there, Satyrus wondered how they would react if he emptied his garrison at them in one mad dash to take the engines. When they started to throw their great rocks, the town was doomed.

  Or at least, the suffering would begin again.

  Jubal had filled the top of the tower with engines, and raised canvas and wood screens to hide them. The two captured on the mole had been strengthened, lengthened and now allowed the nautical mathematician four shots in his battery. He refused to commit more engines to the tower, which he said wouldn’t last the day.

  ‘My job is to kill as many of his engines as I can,’ Jubal
said. ‘You watch.’ He pointed. ‘You see they? They’s his engineers. Look.’

  Just beyond the engines themselves, the enemy engineers were examining something on the ground. It wasn’t a complex machine. It was a large rock, deeply embedded in the sandy soil, painted bright red.

  ‘They found your aiming rock,’ Satyrus said sadly.

  Jubal smiled, and he bore a striking resemblance to a wolf. ‘They foun’ it,’ he said. ‘But they don’ know what she be.’

  He did some calculations in the last light, based on the distance the enemy engines were parked from his rock.

  Jubal opened fire when the Pleiades were high in the sky. His first cast was a rock coated in tar and set alight — using a major portion of the town’s spare tar. But it landed with a crash in the darkness and flames roared from the tar, and based on its position, Jubal began to issue orders, glancing from time to time at his wax tablet.

  The canvas and hide sides dropped away from the tower.

  His engines began to fire. The first four rocks elicited screams and crashes, and then the night was full of pandemonium and fire, and Satyrus released his sortie — just twenty men. They ran out of the postern, crept as close as they dared and began to shoot arrows at any man who was silhouetted against the flames.

  After that, the tower engines fired as fast as they could, but they didn’t seem to add to the chaos in the dark.

  Satyrus went down out of the tower to Anaxagoras and Apollodorus, waiting with blackened faces and armour on in the open ground behind the postern gate. All his elite marines were there, reinforced by the men brought by Daedelus — almost three hundred ready to rescue the archers if they got into trouble.

  Idomeneus came back in through the postern, shouting the counter-sign.

  ‘The king?’ he asked.

  ‘Here,’ Satyrus answered.

  Idomeneus was panting so hard he couldn’t speak. ‘They’ve run — abandoned the engines.’

  Satyrus and the marines were out of the gate as soon as they had fire. He almost forgot to tell Jubal to cease fire.

  Fifteen engines were destroyed by fire or by bombardment: two weeks’ work by every slave in Demetrios’ camp. The next day they saw the great man survey the carnage on horseback. He issued orders, and his men raised a deep cheer.

  No hesitation in that camp.

  Satyrus saw Amastris riding at his side. He spat.

  Neiron raised an eyebrow. ‘Sure she’s not just doing what a monarch has to do?’ he asked.

  Satyrus shook his head.

  When Demetrios’ engines came out again, two weeks later, they rolled forward under cover of night. Jubal sprayed them with fire — he sent burning wads of straw and pitch, he sent rocks, he threw hails of stones. Men died.

  But in the morning, sixteen engines stood where thirty had been. And as soon as they could see, their rocks began to hit the tower.

  Jubal’s men were already out. He’d loaded and aimed all four engines, and he waited, alone, adjusting aim — he wouldn’t take a chance. Then, one by one, his four engines let loose, and each shot hit — one ploughed a red furrow through the slaves, one crushed a dozen veterans like a boy crushes ants, and two crushed engines.

  And then he swung down on a rope and watched as the remaining enemy engines pounded his precious tower. It took them all day, and another day — and then with a rumble, the tower fell.

  The people of Rhodes saw it as a defeat. Jubal just laughed.

  For nine days the machines crushed the south wall under their rocks, and on the tenth day, when there wasn’t a house standing around the wall, the taxeis came forward.

  The archers emerged from cover and bled them for a while, and then withdrew. The pikemen pressed forward, unopposed, but by now they knew what to expect, and they went up the breaches with their heads bowed and into the rubble of the town, and when they found the hidden wall just beyond the range of the engines, they simply fled. Many dropped their pikes.

  Satyrus watched them run from some archers, and smiled. His smile wasn’t very different from Jubal’s.

  The next day, the enemy machines pressed forward until their missiles could fall on the new wall.

  Well behind the new wall, free men were already excavating the next wall. And the enemy machines were just forward of an old barn, a huge stone building that served as a cover for men wounded in the endless archery sniping.

  The marines needed a rest, and Satyrus took the ephebes. Nicanor tried to forbid him to use them, and Satyrus took him aside in the boule.

  ‘I have a tunnel,’ he said. ‘It runs from just under the wall at the west gate out into the hardpan just past the gully. From there, the ephebes will be able to run straight into Demetrios’ camp.’

  Nicanor nodded. ‘I see.’

  Satyrus got his men. And he nodded to Helios as he emerged from the boule, where his hypaspist stood with Miriam. Both of them nodded back.

  Then he went to the agora, found the ephebes and led them to the house he’d ordered to be purchased five months before.

  Jubal was ready with fire and pitch — every support was coated. The moment the sortie returned — or was beaten — the tunnel was to be destroyed.

  Then Satyrus briefed the ephebes on their mission, and briefed Idomeneus and three of his best scouts on their mission.

  It took them too long to crawl down the tunnel, which was as narrow as a man’s waist in too many places. Satyrus went in after Idomeneus and his scouts. The tunnels scared him — they were dark, cold, like the land of the dead, and when his cuirass scraped along the walls, he felt as if it would all fall on his head. But Anaxagoras was the man behind him.

  They emerged in the dead ground by the walled enclosure near the old barn. Idomeneus and his three men vanished — first up the ladder — into the darkness.

  Satyrus was next. He got up the short ladder and lay down. Anaxagoras lay next to him, and then the ephebes began to emerge. Satyrus could feel his nerve fraying away — it was all taking too long.

  About half his men were out of the tunnel when the slaves tripped over Anaxagoras.

  ‘What the f-’ one muttered.

  Satyrus rose to his feet as quickly and silently as he could and beheaded the man who had spoken.

  ‘Zeus S-’ the second man started to shout, and he got Satyrus’ backswing.

  Silence.

  But there was a third slave, and he screamed.

  ‘Now,’ Satyrus yelled. ‘Go for the engines!’

  The ephebes rose and ran out of the yard. They were fifty men against an army — but a sleeping army that had no idea the ephebes could be so close.

  ‘Now what?’ Anaxagoras asked. They were virtually alone, except for two boys who’d come up out of the tunnel after the ephebes rushed off to burn the engines.

  ‘Gather the next fifty and go and rescue those boys.’ Satyrus tried to sound calm.

  They could hear men shouting for other men to rally.

  Satyrus’ patience held out to the tune of thirty-five more ephebes. He could hear fighting everywhere, and he needed to get moving. ‘Follow me,’ he said, and led the young men into the dark.

  He paused at the gate to the enclosure. ‘Anaxagoras — go back. Tell the rest of them to turn around and go back, and then tell Jubal to fire the supports.’

  ‘No,’ Anaxagoras said. ‘Send one of these boys. Where you go, I go.’

  Satyrus laughed. ‘You are insubordinate, sir.’

  ‘You’re right. No way am I going back to Miriam and saying, “He nobly sent me back, and meek as a lamb, I went”.’ Satyrus saw the flash of his teeth.

  ‘Right.’ Satyrus turned to one of the many young men — all thinner and harder than they had been half a year before. He searched for a name, and found it. ‘Plestias? You’re my messenger. Turn ’em round, all back to the start, and fire the supports.’ He touched his helmet to the young man’s and saw the hesitation, the desire and the pleasure at being saved and the disappointment all at war i
n his eyes by the light of the first engine to burst into flames.

  Then he led the rest of them into the darkness.

  They didn’t do as much damage as he hoped. The engines were hard to light — Demetrios’ men fought hard. But Satyrus got most of his boys away cleanly, leaving five engines afire. The white chalk on their helmets showed up well enough, and when he blew Neiron’s sea whistle, they turned and fled north, all the way to the new postern gate.

  He lost six men.

  Jubal pointed at the fire raging at the edge of the wall, and they all heard the rumble as the tunnels collapsed under their feet.

  Idomeneus came up out of the darkness from the west gate, saluted and raised an eyebrow. ‘Exactly as you said,’ he grinned. ‘You have some sort of spell that allows you to see into Demetrios’ tent? There was a taxeis of pikemen waiting just where you said.’

  Satyrus shook his head. ‘The opposite. He’s had a look into ours. When the gate opened. When Daedelus made his second try at the harbour.’ He motioned to the archer. ‘Come with me.’

  And then he gathered fifty ephebes and fifty of his own marines and set off at the double.

  Helios met him near the Temple of Poseidon. ‘Lord?’

  ‘I missed you, but I’m alive. We only got five engines.’ Satyrus kissed his hypaspist on the cheek. It always pleased him to see how much the young man loved him.

  ‘The lady and I had an adventure as well. And Mistress Aspasia — the lady invited her to join us.’

  ‘Because she’s not a nasty foreign Jew,’ Miriam said, dropping down off the remnants of a wall. Like most citizen women under fifty, she’d taken to wearing a man’s chitoniskos, Artemis-like. The moon glowed on her legs.

  She is very like my sister, Satyrus thought, and found the thought uncomfortable.

  ‘No one would doubt your word, Despoina,’ Helios said.

  ‘That’s what you think,’ Satyrus agreed. ‘Aspasia?’

  ‘You look better,’ the priestess growled. ‘Heavier. Meaner. Yes, we saw it all. He sent a pigeon.’

  ‘Not a slave?’ Satyrus asked.

  ‘A bird. All the merchants have them.’ Aspasia shrugged.