Tyrant: Force of Kings

by Christian Cameron

  They growled – all except Aekes, who simply nodded.

  Satyrus looked around. ‘If for some reason, Demetrios has me killed – well, you are all released from your oaths, but I’d take it as a favour if you would do all the damage to his shipping that you possibly can.’ He grinned.

  No one grinned back. ‘Is it that bad?’ asked Apollodorus.

  Satyrus shook his head. ‘No,’ he said. ‘If not for the prophecy, I’d have no fears for myself at all. It would be the height of folly for Demetrios to attack me. But Apollo does not speak lightly to mortals.’

  Aekes shook his head. ‘Makes no sense at all,’ he said. ‘If he grabs you, you forfeit very little – and Rhodes is free to break the treaty.’

  ‘Not while he has all their hostages,’ Satyrus answered. ‘But still – I agree, Aekes. I’ve thought about it every night – I can’t get my head around it.’

  ‘Why not stay here?’ Anaxilaus asked. ‘Camp on this beach – we take the grain fleet into Athens, sell the grain, meet you here. You can wrestle with Charmides.’

  They all laughed.

  Satyrus shook his head. ‘I have private business in Athens,’ he said.

  ‘Business with long legs?’ Aekes asked, but his voice was very low. ‘Listen, lord,’ he said louder. ‘I’m not a pious man, but if the god spoke to you direct, why not just obey? Stay here? Tell us who you want to meet and we’ll bring him to you.’

  ‘Abraham is a hostage,’ Satyrus said. ‘You can’t bring him out of Athens, and I need to see him.’

  His captains looked at him with something like suspicion.

  ‘I’m going to Athens,’ he insisted.

  ‘Without your fleet?’ Sandokes asked. ‘Haven’t you got this backward, lord? If you must go, why not lead with a show of force?’

  ‘Can you go three days armed and ready to fight?’ Satyrus asked. ‘In the midst of the Athenian fleet? No. Trust me on this, friends. And obey – I pay your wages. Go to Aegina and wait.’

  Sandokes was dissatisfied and he wasn’t interested in hiding it. ‘Lord, we do obey. We’re good captains and good fighters, and most of us have been with you a few years. Long enough to earn the right to tell you when you are just plain wrong.’ He took a breath. ‘Lord, you’re wrong. Take us into Athens – ten ships full of fighting men, and no man will dare raise a finger to you. Or better yet, stay here, or you go to Aegina and we’ll sail into Athens.’

  Satyrus shrugged, angered. ‘You all feel this way?’ he asked.

  Sarpax shook his head. ‘No,’ he said. ‘Aekes and Sandokes have a point, but I’ll obey you. I don’t know exactly what your relationship with Demetrios is, and you do.’ He looked at the other captains. ‘We don’t know.’

  Sandokes shook his head. ‘I’ll obey, lord – surely I’m allowed to disagree?’

  Satyrus bit his lip. After a flash of anger passed, he chose his words carefully. ‘I appreciate that you are all trying to help. I hope that you’ll trust that I’ve thought this through as carefully as I can, and I have a more complete appreciation of the forces at work than any of you can have.’

  Sandokes didn’t back down. ‘I hope that you appreciate that we have only your best interests at heart, lord. And that we don’t want to look elsewhere for employment while your corpse cools.’ He shrugged. ‘Our oarsmen are hardening up, we have good helmsmen and good clean ships. I wager we can take any twenty ships in these waters. No one – no one with any sense – will mess with you while we’re in the harbour.’

  Satyrus managed a smile. ‘If you are right, I’ll happily allow you to tell me that you told me so,’ he said.

  Sandokes turned away. Aekes caught his shoulder.

  ‘There’s no changing my mind on this,’ Satyrus said.

  Sandokes shrugged.

  ‘We’ll sail for Aegina when you tell us,’ Aekes said.

  Satyrus had never felt such a premonition of disaster in all his life. He was ignoring the advice of a god, and all of his best fighting captains, and sailing into Athens, unprotected. But his sense – the same sense that helped him block a thrust in a fight – told him that the last thing he wanted was to provoke Demetrios.

  He explained as much to Anaxagoras as the oarsmen ran the ships into the water. Anaxagoras just shook his head.

  ‘I feel like a fool,’ Satyrus said. ‘But I won’t change my mind.’

  Anaxagoras sighed.

  ‘When we’re off Piraeus, I’ll go off in Miranda or one of the other grain ships. I want you to stay with the fleet,’ Satyrus said. ‘Just in case.’

  Anaxagoras picked up the leather bag with his armour and the heavy wool bag with his sea clothes and his lyre. ‘Very well,’ he said crisply.

  ‘You think I’m a fool,’ Satyrus said.

  ‘I think you are risking your life and your kingdom to see Miriam, and you know perfectly well you don’t have to. She loves you. She’ll wait. So yes, I think you are being a fool.’

  Satyrus narrowed his eyes.

  ‘You asked,’ Anaxagoras said sweetly, and walked away.

  3

  Attika appeared first out of the sea haze; a haze so fine and so thin that a landsman would not even have noticed how restricted was his visibility. Satyrus saw the mountains, but the coast was still lost.

  ‘I have a favour to ask,’ Polycrates murmured, suddenly at his side.

  Satyrus was standing at the rail. His helmsman, Thrassos, had the steering oars, the length of a sword thrust away.

  He turned to the Athenian priest. ‘We are guest friends,’ Satyrus said. ‘Whatever I can do for you, I will.’

  Polycrates flushed. ‘I am in your debt, then. I need you to land my slave at the Temple of Poseidon. At Sounion. It is a religious matter – the matter that took me to Delos. And he is … very good at running messages.’

  Satyrus had barely noticed the young man, a gangly youth with a face full of spots and pimples. He was, now that Satyrus looked at him, well-muscled for such slim bones. His hair was black. He was older than he seemed at first glance.

  ‘He looks like a Greek,’ Satyrus said. He nodded to the man. He liked the look of him, despite the pimples.

  ‘Theban mother and father.’ Polycrates took his turn to look out over the rail. ‘Friends of mine, really. What Alexander did there – brutal. Horrible. Jason is not really a slave, but I protect him. And he serves me.’ Polycrates looked around. ‘He serves me in political ways. If you take my meaning.’

  Satyrus thought that it was remarkable how little information the man had just conveyed, given that he had lowered his voice to a pitch that was virtually inaudible.

  He smiled at the young man – Charmides’ age or a little younger, he stood straight, but with that indefinable air of slavery about him. His demeanour caused Satyrus to look at Polycrates in a new way.

  You can judge a man by his dogs. Or his slaves. Satyrus hoped that none of his own slaves ever looked like this young man. I am looking for reasons to dislike Polycrates, he thought. Because he can beat me at my best game.

  ‘It will be our pleasure to land him at Sounion.’ Satyrus turned to Thrassos. ‘Tell me when you can see the Temple of Poseidon clear,’ he said.

  Thrassos raised an eyebrow. Satyrus wanted to ask the gods why all helmsmen were self-important argumentative arrogant pricks – but he knew the answer. ‘Mind your wake,’ he said, with no justice.

  I am surly this morning, he thought.

  Satyrus had his Medea lead the way into the cove below the temple. He flashed his shield at the other ships, raised and showed a red flag at the stern, and hoped that they understood; his war captains knew most of the signals, but not as well as the men who’d served in the seas off Aegypt the year before, like Aekes – and the merchant captains didn’t know them well at all.

  Medea raced in towards the beach under oars, an
d Polycrates was in the bow with young Jason, whispering to him urgently.

  ‘He’s a fucking spy,’ Thrassos said, pointing with his chin at Polycrates.

  Charmides nodded agreement. ‘He is not a good man, for all his skill at pankration.’

  ‘Spoken by the very paragon of Greek manhood,’ Satyrus said.

  Charmides blushed and looked away.

  ‘Fucking spy,’ Thrassos said again.

  ‘Apollo himself told me to make him my guest friend,’ Satyrus said.

  ‘Never been a big follower of the Lord of Light, myself,’ Thrassos put in. ‘Not exactly a god for men.’

  Anaxagoras was just completing his exercises. He executed a snap kick – a shin attack – with his left foot, punched with his right, and turned his head slightly.

  ‘Who’s not a god for men, Thrassos? And who healed you when you had a certain, hmm, complaint?’ he asked.

  Thrassos turned bright red – a flame of colour from the middle of his chest to his fire-red hair, making his dark tattoos stand out like brands. ‘Meant no disrespect,’ he said. ‘Just not my favourite.’

  Anaxagoras raised an eyebrow. ‘You, my barbarian friend, worship a storm god who isn’t even included in most civilised pantheons and you believe that the amulet around your neck will protect you from drowning better than learning to swim would protect you. Eh? Have some respect for our gods.’

  ‘Someone’s in a mood today,’ Thrassos muttered.

  ‘You weren’t exactly respectful of his beliefs,’ Satyrus said. In the bow, Jason had received his instructions.

  ‘We won’t run up the beach,’ Satyrus said. ‘We’ll heave to as soon as you can see the sand under the water.’

  ‘Aye, aye. Sand line it is.’ Thrassos sent a boy forward to call the depth under the ram-bow.

  Polycrates came aft. ‘May I thank you again for this, my lord? Your whole fleet delayed – this is guest friendship, indeed. But my boy can swim. He’s ready.’

  Satyrus saw that the young man was naked in the bow, all his clothes in a leather bag. He gave a salute, like an athlete beginning a contest – a gesture that raised him in Satyrus’s estimation – and leapt into the water, straight off the rail of the marine box, vanishing under the water for a long time, a truly surprising amount of time, enough time that Satyrus began to scan the sea, wondering where the dark head had come up, and then began to fear for the boy.

  ‘He’s a wonderful swimmer,’ Polycrates said. ‘And a good fighter. A good man in every respect. I really couldn’t live without him.’ He sighed.

  The young man surfaced way in, further than Satyrus would have thought to look, halfway to the beach.

  ‘Ready about,’ Satyrus said.

  Thrassos grinned. They had already started their turn.

  ‘Fine, know-it-all. Lay me alongside Miranda.’ To Polycrates, he said, ‘Your Jason reminds me that I meant to buy a body slave on Delos.’

  ‘I’ll be happy to loan you one from my house,’ Polycrates said. ‘If you fancy him, you can buy him. What kind of body do you fancy?’

  Satyrus laughed. ‘Not that kind of body slave, friend. I mean a servant – a man to watch my clothes and braid my hair and clean my weapons and stand at my shoulder in a fight.’

  Polycrates shook his head. ‘A slave? In a fight?’

  ‘Oh, I’d free him if he suited me.’ Satyrus found that some acerbity had crept into his tone.

  That seemed to silence Polycrates, which was unfortunate, as they had some hours of sailing left. The rowers were hard at work today, and Satyrus walked down the waist of the Medea, talking to his upper deck men, making sure that they knew he’d be away – and that he was going to be back.

  He felt the change as the ship came out of a tight turn, and he was up the forward ladder from the thranites deck in no time. He picked up his sea bag from under the helmsman’s bench, embraced Thrassos, and waved to Anaxagoras and Charmides.

  ‘Don’t get yourself killed,’ Anaxagoras said. ‘And take your lyre. Nothing like a spot of time in a cell to practise.’

  ‘Fuck off,’ Satyrus said, but he took the lyre and he embraced this man – this outspoken bastard who had become his friend. Then he embraced Charmides and Apollodorus.

  ‘I think you should have me with you,’ Apollodorus said. ‘Me, at the very least.’

  ‘You are all laying far too much emphasis on this,’ Satyrus said. ‘And Apollodorus, you are my designated commander. I need you with the fleet.’

  He embraced the smaller man, picked up his bags, and made the leap from the rail of the Medea up onto the waist of the much higher-sided Miranda. Polycrates followed him, and then Philaeus, his oar master, threw Polycrates’ bags aboard, his muscles powering the bags high into the air before they came down with a smack on the smooth planks of the merchant ship.

  And then his friends were just a ship length away for another two hours as they ran up the coast of Attika, Anaxagoras clearly visible as he played his lyre in the bow, and then his kithara, and then sang for the rowers. During the entire time he made music, the oars worked flawlessly – the timing was precise, and Anaxagoras’s emphasis on rhythm and meter in playing had a visible effect on the working of the oars. And he heard Charmides singing – taking lessons from Anaxagoras. And Thrassos laugh, and Apollodorus’s voice, punishing a marine for what he called ‘wilfulness’, a crime that could be manipulated by Apollodorus to suit any occasion.

  ‘I don’t usually find it suits – freeing slaves,’ Polycrates said, eventually. ‘But I can tell that you are of the opposite view, and I am not seeking a quarrel.’

  Satyrus found the working of the merchant ship interesting enough. They had twenty oars in the water, but they also manipulated the big, square mainsail on the standing mast with a good deal more delicacy – the mast came out of a bigger hull, and had many more brail ropes to it, allowing it to be brailed up to many different points, and allowing the massive yard which held it to be rotated through half a circle. No individual item of tackle was very different from its equivalent on a warship, but the total was easier to manipulate and allowed a slightly broader set of angles of sailing. Satyrus was attempting to measure just how a warship might be rigged the same way when Polycrates interrupted his thoughts.

  ‘Hmm?’ he asked.

  ‘You think that I should free Jason,’ Polycrates said.

  Satyrus made a face. ‘Not my business,’ he said.

  ‘It was plain enough. And your helmsman took the time to inform me that you free almost all the slaves you buy.’ The Athenian had his shoulders square like a man preparing for a fight.

  ‘I do, at that. When we were children, my sister and I swore to have as few slaves as ever we might. I’m aware that no society can live without them but it seems like a piece of arete to improve their lot if I may.’ Satyrus could see Aegina now, clear on the port bow. He turned his head – indeed, Medea was already signalling, and the line of warships was reacting. It was prettily done – the column of ships all turned together, and suddenly they were a fighting line, their oars flashing in the sun.

  ‘Apollodorus is giving us a demonstration,’ Satyrus said.

  ‘Your men fear you’ll be taken in Athens.’ It wasn’t a question.

  Satyrus shrugged. ‘Yes,’ he answered.

  Polycrates shook his head. ‘I can’t imagine it,’ he said. ‘Demetrios thinks as highly of you as he does of any man in the circle of the world.’

  Satyrus smiled. ‘I can’t tell you how much you put me at my ease,’ he said. In his heart he wondered, suddenly, if this was all a put-up job – the priest, Delos, the whole prepared to lure him …

  Foolishness. No one but the gods knew he was going to Delos. And as he was headed for Athens either way – as in his heart he knew that it was Miriam, and only Miriam, that brought him in person to Athens – no plot could have b
een laid. He needed no lure. And no one could know the power of his attraction to Miriam, unless …

  ‘Why don’t you stay with me, guest friend?’ Polycrates asked. ‘You need have no fears in my house – I have guards and men and all that, and besides, everyone knows me.’

  ‘I’d be delighted,’ Satyrus said. ‘But I am a citizen – I have my own house.’

  Polycrates nodded, a distant look in his eye. ‘I had forgotten. But I must add – you are welcome. Perhaps until you can settle in, engage staff ?’

  Satyrus laughed. ‘I only plan to be here for three days – and now that I consider it, it would be foolish to sleep in a musty farmhouse outside the walls when I could be snug in a well-appointed house of a friend. So yes – I’ll accept your offer.’

  ‘You have business beyond merely landing your grain? I’m sure that King Demetrios would be delighted if you would visit him but I suspect that he is off at Corinth. He has the Acrocorinth under siege.’

  Satyrus hadn’t known that. The most impregnable place in Greece. You didn’t take Rhodos, so you’re having a go here. Rather the way I had to win with the sword what I lost at pankration.

  ‘I don’t think I have time this trip,’ he said. ‘Besides – my allies would probably not take the message correctly if I were to pay Demetrios a social call.’

  Polycrates nodded. ‘I had wondered.’

  ‘Wondered?’ Satyrus asked.

  ‘Hmm.’ Polycrates gave a small smile. ‘All this about having business in Athens. I had wondered what you were about.’ The Athenian raised his hand. ‘Please – I’m not asking for your secrets. But people will talk.’

  Satyrus shook his head. ‘Personal business. My friend Abraham Ben Zion – a citizen of Rhodes – is here as a hostage. I need to see him.’

  Polycrates’ smile remained in place. ‘Of course,’ he said, in a tone of voice that suggested that he didn’t believe a word.