Tyrant: King of the Bosporus

by Christian Cameron

  Far off, almost to the horizon, the other ship’s masts were narrowing, coming together.

  ‘Yes,’ Satyrus said.

  A week on Rhodos and ten days to Byzantium – a meal, a hug from Abraham and from Theron, an exchange of orders and off again, leaving Sandokes and Panther of Rhodos to bring the fleet along after the interval he had commanded. He had hoped to slip by the picket at the Bosporus – indeed, he’d counted on it.

  Abraham and Theron had been successful – and that meant that he needed an anchorage in the Euxine – an anchorage to windward of Pantecapaeum. Lysimachos had contributed a mere three triremes and a hundred marines – but his alliance meant a great deal more than that. Theron had done well.

  And Demostrate, the pirate king, was still in hand – thanks to Abraham, the old man clasped hands with a wary Panther, as if he had always been a friend of Rhodos. Satyrus had left them watching each other warily.

  Manes had glowered, his eyes doing everything but glow red. But his ships had followed as well.

  Satyrus had passed the Bosporus as fast as his rowers could manage and the gods favoured him with a perfect wind, so that the moment the Lotus’s bow had passed the rocks at the exit to the channel, he had spread both his sails and turned east, the wind astern. Everything had been perfect for a fast passage – except the warship to windward.

  ‘He’ll never catch us,’ Neiron said after the sand-glass was turned.

  Satyrus shook his head. ‘He doesn’t have to catch us.’ He stamped his foot in pure annoyance. ‘Never, ever underestimate your opponent. I didn’t think Eumeles had the captains to keep the sea all winter. Listen, Neiron – we’re in the Golden Lotus. Every sailor in the Euxine knows this ship.’

  Neiron nodded. ‘In other words . . .’ Neiron said, his eyes now rising to the sky and the weather.

  ‘In other words, we have to take him,’ Satyrus said.

  An hour later, they had their pursuer dead astern, a heavy trireme or perhaps a decked penteres with extra rowers – hard to tell. Whichever warship he might be, he had a heavy crew and a deep draught for a galley, and carried his sail well.

  Golden Lotus might have had no trouble outrunning the heavier ship, if that had been his aim. Instead, Neiron had the mainsail badly brailed and the boatsail set nearly fore and aft, drawing as little wind as he could without attracting attention – and the big leather sea anchor was being dragged in the wake, which made Satyrus’s job at the helm far more difficult. The Lotus was labouring like a plough horse, and Satyrus’s arms were taking the whole weight of the struggle. He was out of shape – he was feeling the effects of weeks in bed. Wrestling sailors and eating like a bull were helping, but he’d lost muscle and he knew it.

  Astern, their pursuer had his lower oar deck manned, and they were pulling like heroes racing for a prize – which, in fact, they were. The lower deck pushed the ship just a little faster and kept her stiff and upright.

  ‘That’s a right sailor,’ Neiron said approvingly. ‘Knows his business.’

  ‘Too well,’ Satyrus said. He pointed to where a scarlet chiton could be seen standing on the enemy ship’s bow. ‘He’s looking at our wake. Stesagoras!’ Satyrus called to his new Alexandrian deck master. ‘Look alive, Stesagoras! Get ready to cut the sea anchor free. At my command, Philaeus! Prepare to go about – oars in the water.’ Philaeus was his new oar master, one of Leon’s professionals.

  Philaeus could be heard relaying the commands and adding his own – reversing the port-side benches.

  Lotus had all his benches manned, despite the fact that his sides were closed. For now.

  The pursuer was manning his upper benches. ‘He wants to surprise us when he turns away,’ Satyrus said.

  ‘He knows his business,’ Neiron said again.

  ‘Show them our oars,’ Satyrus called.

  Philaeus had a beautiful voice – deep and melodious, like a priest. ‘Open the ports! In the leather! Ready, and steady, and oars!’

  All together, like a peacock’s tail, the Golden Lotus showed her oars – all three decks at once.

  ‘Turn to port!’ Satyrus ordered.

  The port oars on all three banks were already reversed. From the first stroke, he leaned on the steering oars.

  Stesagoras severed the sea anchor himself with one shrewd blow of a fighting axe. The whole hull rang and the Lotus went from plough horse to racehorse in a single bound. Then the deck master ran down the central fighting deck. ‘Sails!’ he called. ‘Brail up tight and drop the yards. Look lively, lads!’

  The wind on the sails pushed against the rowers for precious seconds, but then the yards came down – the advantage of a triemiolia was that his masts could stand even during a fight, allowing him to carry sail longer and drop it faster. The dropped yards covered the half-deck and not the oarsmen, who rowed on.

  The sailors and the deckhands laboured to get the mass of flapping linen canvas under control – but the ram was already halfway around.

  ‘Poseidon!’ Neiron shouted.

  ‘Herakles,’ Satyrus said. He picked up a wineskin that the helmsman kept under the bench and flung it over the side full, without even pulling the plug. ‘We need all the help we can get,’ he said, but he laughed and felt the power on him.

  Stesagoras waded into the mainsail, his long arms gathering material as he went, and suddenly there were ten men visible on the canvas, and then – just like that – the mainsail was half the size, a quarter, and then the heavy bundle was being lashed to the mast. The boatsail was already gone.

  Their pursuer was just starting his turn, his oars out and rowing crisply, his port-side benches reversed – but the range was short and the larger ship was having his own troubles.

  Satyrus’s archers shot a volley of arrows and received a volley in return. There were screams from forward.

  ‘Oar-rake and board,’ Satyrus said. ‘Neiron, take the helm.’

  Neiron’s hands shot out and took the steering oars. ‘I have the helm,’ he shouted over the screams from the bow.

  ‘You have the helm,’ Satyrus said again and relinquished control. Helios had his breastplate in its bag out from under the bench and he pulled it on, somewhat surprised to see that despite the weather, the breastplate gleamed like gold and the helmet was as silver as the moon. His arming cap was damp and cold, but the breastplate was colder.

  An arrow glanced off his backplate and stung his arm, scarring Helios along the thigh before vanishing over the side. He looked up from the buckles to the fight.

  ‘They’re shooting downwind,’ Neiron said. Another arrow passed so close that Helios ducked.

  ‘Archer captain’s down!’ Stesagoras passed from amidships.

  ‘Any time, Navarch!’ Neiron said.

  ‘Take him,’ Satyrus said. ‘I’m away.’ He turned to Helios, who was fully armed. ‘With me, lad,’ he said. He ran forward even as he heard Philaeus call for the ramming speed. The enemy galley, having passed from hunter to prey, was turning away towards the south coast of the Euxine, obviously intending to save himelf by beaching.

  An arrow passed so close to Satyrus’s helmet that its passing sounded like the ripping of fine linen. The ship leaped forward between his feet – he could feel the change in motion – but the enemy ship was turning, faster. And faster. Satyrus ran forward as Philaeus bellowed for the starboard-side rowers to back water – a chancy manoeuvre, but one that was faster than actually reversing benches. The deck shifted under his feet.

  Satyrus got forward and found his new archer captain dead with a Sakje shaft just over his nose and another under his arm. The archers were all down with their heads safe under the bulkheads. ‘They murdered us!’ one called.

  Satyrus counted three dead – of eight archers. As he counted, a blow rocked his helmet and he saw stars and fell flat on the deck – but his helmet turned the arrow. Helios gave him a hand and he got to his feet. Then an arrow hit the boy and stuck in his quilted corslet. Helios gave a whimper and then clampe
d down on it and crouched beneath the bulkhead, trying to get the arrow out of his side.

  ‘Son of a bitch!’ Satyrus said. He picked up a fallen bow, raised his head and shot. He had no idea where his arrow went and immediately reached for another arrow.

  He looked, shot – this time at a robed Sakje warrior just two horse-lengths away – and his breastplate turned another arrow and he sat down suddenly.

  ‘They’re too damned good!’ he joked to Apollodorus.

  The marine captain didn’t answer. He was sitting against the bulkhead, leaning forward, and Satyrus realized suddenly that he was unconscious – or dead.

  ‘Marines!’ he called, and suddenly the ship turned again, and he was thrown into the gutter at the edge of the deck. He scraped his face on Apollodorus’s scale armour and came to rest against Helios, whose eyes were as big as copper coins. Philaeus was roaring for all rowers to back oars, and Satyrus forced himself to his feet and looked aft. Neiron was leaning hard on the steering oars, and forward the stern of the big penteres was passing down their side, just a ship’s length away and getting farther – and then the enemy ship seemed to pitch both of its masts over the side as if he’d been bitten by a sea monster.

  ‘What in the name of Hades?’ Satyrus rolled to his feet and ran to the command platform. The arrows had stopped coming.

  Stesagoras had an arrow through his bicep. ‘Poseidon’s mercy, your honour. She was a monster and no mistake.’ One of his mates broke the arrow and the Alexandrian forced the shaft out of the entry wound and fell in a faint.

  Satyrus looked over the side – and understood. The enemy ship was already breaking up, having run full tilt on to a rock in the shallow bay that their captain had taken for a beach. There was no beach – just a row of breakers and a cliff ten times the height of a man.

  ‘There he goes,’ Neiron said. ‘Poseidon, and all the sea nymphs.’ He waved. ‘The Thinyas rocks. Almost ran on ’em myself.’ He made the peasant sign to avert ill-fortune.

  Satyrus looked at the sky and then astern. ‘Can we save their people?’ he asked.

  Neiron grinned. ‘Now you’re talking.’ Then he sobered. ‘Mind you, they galled us hard.’

  Satyrus shrugged. ‘Once they’re wet, a rower is a rower,’ he said, quoting an old proverb about the brotherhood of the sea. There were some men – Phoenicians, for the most part – who believed in letting drowning seamen die, to propitiate the sea. But Greeks tended to rescue men if it could be done.

  ‘Shall I put about, then?’ Neiron asked.

  ‘Marines!’ Satyrus yelled. He nodded. ‘On me!’

  They rescued half a hundred men. Helios, in addition to his other talents, could swim, and he fearlessly leaped into the freezing sea and dragged men out – first a ship’s boy and then a small, wiry man.

  After Satyrus watched him pull the second man to the side, Neiron got his attention and pointed at the shore. Satyrus saw twenty more men make it to shore and vanish over the cliff at the water’s edge.

  ‘Shall we hunt them down?’ one of his marines asked.

  Satyrus shook his head. ‘I wonder how long they’ll take to get home?’ he mused.

  They spent the night on an open beach, a hundred stades short of Heraklea. The night gave Satyrus time to daydream about his lady love, whom he hadn’t seen in almost a year. Amastris of Heraklea was beautiful – as well as being intelligent, rich and the only niece of the Euxine’s second most powerful man, Dionysius of Heraklea.

  Satyrus sat alone on a lion skin – a present from Gabines when they sailed, straight from old Ptolemy, or so he said. He had a big black mug of soup and he was wrapped in his two warmest cloaks, and still the wind cut at him.

  Neiron clambered up the rocks to him. ‘I’m too old to go looking for a sprite like you,’ he said.

  ‘That was a first-rate ship,’ Satyrus said. He took a swig of scalding soup. Down on the beach, the survivors of the Winged Dolphin – for so he proved to be named – huddled around a fire. ‘If all of Eumeles’ ships are that good, we’re in for a fight.’

  ‘Captain was from Samos. He got away. The rest was good sailors. All pirates.’ Neiron shrugged. ‘You need to eat. And, if I may say so, you need to walk around the men.’

  Satyrus nodded. He got to his feet and drank more soup. ‘Tomorrow I roll the dice. I’m scared.’

  Neiron said nothing.

  ‘Stesagoras and Philaeus are good men,’ Satyrus said. ‘So are you, Neiron.’ He held out his hand.

  Neiron seemed surprised. But he clasped hands. ‘Why – thank you, Navarch.’

  ‘Call me Satyrus,’ he said.

  Neiron smiled. ‘Well – never thought I’d see the day.’ He laughed. More soberly, he said, ‘We’ll need more marines, a new marine officer and a peck of archers. Those Sakje raped us.’

  ‘They hurt us off Olbia, too.’ Satyrus shook his head and finished his soup. ‘My people,’ he said bitterly. ‘Apollodorus deserves a proper burial.’

  ‘Aye.’ Neiron looked away. He and the marine had never exactly been friends. ‘At Heraklea?’

  ‘Have to be.’ Satyrus nodded. ‘T hanks. I feel better.’

  ‘Talking often has that effect, sir – Satyrus,’ the helmsman said.

  The harbourmaster at Heraklea stepped aboard and his eyes widened. ‘Satyrus of Tanais?’ he asked.

  Satyrus remembered him. It had only been four years – he remembered the man from the heady days of intrigue and assassination at the court of Heraklea. The months just after his mother had been murdered.

  ‘Bias?’ he said, and offered his hand.

  ‘Lord!’ Bias responded. In Heraklea, they had had tyrants and aristocrats for so long that Greek men might bend the knee like barbarians, to a man of better blood.

  ‘Is Nestor still the tyrant’s right hand?’ Satyrus asked.

  ‘Isn’t he my son-in-law?’ Bias asked, and laughed. ‘Pretty bold, just sailing in here, lord. The tyrant is no friend of yours these days. There’s a rumour in the agora that you – um-hmm – have spent too much time with his niece. And the tyrant of Pantecapaeum wants you dead. We have peace with them.’

  Satyrus nodded. ‘I need to see Nestor,’ he said. ‘And then I will make it right. And Bias – I love Amastris. I would never trifle with her.’ He felt a little odd as the lie rolled out of his mouth. But it had been her – or so he told himself. And there had never been any trifling about it.

  Bias didn’t even bother to look at the bill of lading. ‘If you want to see Nestor,’ he said, ‘come ashore in my boat.’

  Satyrus considered the possibility that he would be taken, alone, and killed to satisfy the obligations of statecraft. Then he shrugged. ‘Neiron, take command,’ he said. ‘If I don’t return by nightfall, take the ship out of the harbour. You know what to do then.’

  Neiron nodded.

  As they rowed ashore, Bias leaned forward. ‘What is your helmsman to do if you don’t return, lord?’ he asked.

  Satyrus watched the rowers. He flashed the older man a smile. ‘Fetch my fleet,’ he said. ‘And burn the town to ash.’

  Bias sat down on his thwart.

  ‘Just so that we understand each other, Bias. I love Amastris – not Heraklea.’ Satyrus shrugged. ‘I mean no ill. But – if I am taken, there will be a consequence.’

  ‘Where is your fleet?’ Bias asked. He tried to sound offhand.

  Satyrus waved a hand vaguely. ‘Close enough,’ he said.

  They landed by the customs wharf and Satyrus was left alone. There was some discussion in whispers around him, and he began to regret the boldness of his arrival. He wished he was surrounded by marines.

  After an hour, a strange man, obviously a slave and terrified, came and ushered him into a very comfortable house, largely empty of furnishings, near the wharves. Satyrus was sufficiently scared that it took him some minutes to realize that it was Kinon’s house. Kinon had been Leon’s factor in Heraklea, and had died in a night of blood and terror, when Eumeles
’ paid assassins came for the twins. Satyrus had to fight the temptation to look for bloodstains on the flagstones.

  He waited an hour, by the old water clock in the garden. The rose bushes were dead. Satyrus got wine from the terrified slave and loosed the sword in his scabbard, increasingly convinced that he’d made a mistake. Better to have come with the fleet at his tail and no negotiations.

  But he’d promised himself – and his aunt – to try other ways. And Amastris – how could he use force against her city?

  More time passed. The old slave brought him more wine – excellent wine, for all that the house was drab.

  ‘Is this still Master Leon’s house?’ Satyrus asked.

  ‘Yes, lord,’ the old man said.

  Satyrus considered that this might have been courtesy, not entrapment.

  Satyrus had time to consider quite a number of things. The sun set and the stars rose, cold and clear, with a promise of colder weather – but good sailing.

  ‘Would my lord like dinner?’ the old slave asked.

  ‘What do you have?’ Satyrus asked.

  ‘I brought lobster,’ said a soft voice from the direction of the garden. ‘I remember that you liked it, in Alexandria.’

  Satyrus sat up and straightened his chiton at the neck. ‘I didn’t really dare hope that you would come,’ he said.

  She was always more beautiful than he remembered. He stood up, and she swept in under his arm and kissed him. Her mouth touched his neck, his chin – and then he bent to her lips and forgot all his busy plans.

  ‘Stop!’ she said, after the lamps had begun to gutter. The slave had not come back to fill the oil.

  He had no idea how much time had passed, and his hand was on her naked hip, her Ionian chiton hiked up to her bare stomach. She smiled in the near-dark and her eyes sparkled. ‘Stop!’ she said again.

  Satyrus stopped, although he pressed a kiss to the place where her shoulder met her neck. She turned and bit his thumb, rolled off his lap and pulled her chiton sharply down over her knees. He feared her anger for a moment, but she was smiling.