Tyrant: King of the Bosporus

by Christian Cameron

  ‘I am the tyrant’s heir, here. And if I make love to you, I’d like it to be on a broad couch with a flask of good wine at my elbow, and not in this sarcophagus of a house.’ She shook her head. ‘I can feel their ghosts. Can’t you? They died in pain – in fear.’

  Satyrus took a deep breath and let it out slowly, clearing his head. ‘I was here, Amastris. I remember it too well to fear the ghosts.’

  She touched his lips with her fingers. ‘Sometimes you scare me, Satyrus. Your life has been – death. What scars do you carry?’

  ‘You have seen them all, I think,’ he joked.

  ‘That is not funny here. Much as I fancy you, my dear. Someone has talked. Nestor takes my side, and yours. He brought me. But he made me swear not to – well . . . not to do anything to make him a liar.’ She smiled at him, and then shook her head. ‘I’m cold,’ she said. ‘I have a letter for you – from some perfume merchant in Babylon.’ She smiled. ‘The Persian who brought it is perhaps the handsomest man I’ve ever seen.’

  Satyrus sat up. His heart stopped, and then started again – thud, thud. ‘In Babylon?’ he said.

  ‘Yes,’ she said, settling next to him again. ‘Is that important? Did you buy me some fabulous present?’

  Satyrus ran a hand up her arm – to her side and to her bare breast. ‘Perhaps,’ he said.

  She pushed him away. ‘I’m serious. But . . .’ She stood and retreated. ‘Bias seems to think you have a fleet.’

  He nodded. ‘I do.’

  She clapped her hands. ‘So you intend to try again?’

  Satyrus nodded.

  ‘Then go and do it! My uncle will have to receive you when you are the tyrant of Olbia!’ She pulled a dark cloak over her shoulders. ‘Oh, I ache for you. Get a move on!’ She grinned, and she seemed like the girl he remembered from his first visit here. ‘Just like a man, to stop to see a girl on his way to being a king.’

  ‘I’m afraid that I came for more than a kiss,’ Satyrus said. His mind was clear. ‘Is Nestor outside?’

  ‘What does Nestor have to do with it?’ she asked. Her tone was not all Satyrus would have wished, but she’d always been difficult when she found that she wasn’t the centre of attention.

  ‘I need an audience with your uncle,’ Satyrus said.

  ‘You? He’s as likely to take you as a criminal as to talk to you.’ She drew herself to her full height. ‘Talk to me instead.’

  Satyrus shook his head. The room was dark, and the gesture was probably lost. ‘Oh, my darling. I mean no – no disrespect. But I need an anchorage for my fleet. Your uncle has the best anchorage on this coast. The winds blow from here to Pantecapaeum.’

  ‘You did not come for me?’ she asked. She stepped back again.

  Satyrus spoke slowly. ‘No. Nor did you come down here to let me take you away.’

  He saw her adopt the mantle of the outraged woman. ‘I might have,’ she said.

  Satyrus took a step.

  She turned away.

  ‘Nestor!’ Satyrus called.

  She whirled. ‘What are you about?’ she asked. ‘Nestor wants no part of you!’

  ‘I need a friend here,’ Satyrus said. ‘I think Nestor is that friend.’

  ‘A moment ago I lay in your arms. But I am not that friend ?’ she spat at him.

  Satyrus always regretted the clarity of his vision, because too often he saw things he was not supposed to see. ‘You do not want to be my friend with your uncle,’ Satyrus said. ‘I hear it in your voice.’

  ‘You lie!’ she said.

  Satyrus tried to catch her hand – failed – succeeded. ‘Listen!’ he said. ‘I love you.’

  ‘You do not,’ she cried.

  ‘I do. But in this – you want me to be the secret lover, and I must play the public ally. This is the game of the world, love. I need your uncle’s harbour. Without it, I will not succeed.’ Satyrus drew a breath, but she cut in, even as he heard the ring of hobnails on flagstones.

  ‘You need my harbour more than you need me?’ she asked, and Nestor came into the dark with a torch in his hand.

  As big as Philokles had been, Nestor emerged from the dark just the way Satyrus had seen him the first time – covered in bronze from head to toe, with ornate greaves, foot-guards forged like naked feet, a magnificent muscled cuirass and arm-guards to match.

  ‘I see that Eutropios is still working,’ Satyrus said.

  Nestor clasped his hand. ‘I knew you’d come back, boy. I’m glad to find both of you dressed.’ He grinned. ‘I hadn’t expected you to call for me, boy!’

  Satyrus grinned. He took the torch and used it to light lamps. ‘You must be the last man on earth to call me “boy”,’ he said. ‘I need to see Lord Dionysius.’

  ‘Offers of marriage are not going to be acceptable just now,’ Nestor said. ‘He believes that you might have taken – liberties. At court.’ Nestor shrugged. ‘And you are known here as “that adventurer”.’

  Satyrus nodded. ‘I need the anchorage. For ten days. And the town’s field of Ares. Again, for ten days.’

  ‘Zeus Soter, boy!’ Nestor shook his head. ‘What?’

  ‘I need Dionysius’s alliance,’ he said. ‘Or at the very least, his acceptance.’

  ‘He’s mad,’ Amastris said. ‘And I thought he came for me!’

  Nestor shook his head. ‘You are mad.’

  ‘Let me see Dionysius,’ Satyrus said. He could see the knuckle bones spinning in the air.

  ‘You accept the consequences if he decides to dispense with you?’ Nestor asked.

  ‘I will if he does,’ Satyrus answered.

  Dionysius might not have moved in four years. He lay on his great bed, his massive body stretching every leather band of the mattress so that his every move was accompanied by tortured stretching noises.

  This time, no one asked Satyrus for his sword – a remarkable oversight. This time, he was not offered a chair or a couch. Instead, he stood in front of the tyrant.

  ‘What on earth are you doing here, boy?’ he asked. ‘I don’t recall inviting you back.’

  Satyrus pasted on the smile of gentle confidence that he’d practised for the last five years. ‘I came back to thank you for the lessons in politics,’ he said.

  Dionysius laughed. ‘I do remember offering you some instruction, at that.’ His chuckles creaked and wheezed the bed on which he lay, so that he seemed to be a comic chorus. Then he stopped. ‘There’s a rumour from Alexandria that you debauched my niece,’ he said.

  ‘No,’ Satyrus said. Philokles had taught him that a direct negation was a more effective denial than any amount of excuse. ‘No. But I do wish to marry her.’

  Dionysius nodded. ‘No. Anything else?’ He raised his head. ‘I do hear that you’ve become quite the warlord,’ he said. ‘You took Eumeles’ squadron on the other coast – by yourself, or so we are told. Amastris actually clapped her hands when she heard. Of course, she didn’t clap so hard when we heard that you massacred the prisoners. Yourself.’

  Satyrus shrugged, as if the massacre of prisoners was of no moment. ‘If I may not have her hand in marriage,’ Satyrus asked, ‘perhaps you would consider a treaty of alliance – offensive and defensive.’

  ‘Really?’ Dionysius said. ‘Gods below, boy – you don’t lack balls. But – no. Eumeles is no friend of mine, but your next failed expedition won’t come from here.’

  ‘I’d ask you to reconsider,’ Satyrus said. ‘Because, if you won’t, the consequences will be – severe.’

  Dionysius sat up. ‘Are you threatening me, boy?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes,’ Satyrus said. ‘Yes, I am.’ The smile remained fixed in place.

  Behind him, Amastris choked a sob. ‘What are you doing?’ she asked.

  ‘My uncle, Diodorus, is twenty days’ march away. He’ll be coming over the mountains from Phrygia. Just the opposite of the way I fled – five years back.’ Satyrus held the grin on his lips by force of will. ‘He has a thousand horse and four thousand foo
t – more than enough to maintain a siege here.’

  Nestor raised his arm, but Satyrus pushed on. ‘In five days, the whole fleet of Demostrate will come up the coast from Byzantium,’ he said, while Nestor rose to his feet. ‘You can give me an alliance and allow me to use your harbour, or take the consequence.’

  ‘I can put you to death this hour!’ Dionysius roared.

  ‘And take the consequences,’ Satyrus said. Nestor’s hand was on the collar of his cloak, and Nestor was pinning his sword expertly against his side, but Satyrus didn’t struggle. There was no point. The dice were spinning, bouncing – the moments before they stopped – is that a six? A one?

  ‘This town has never fallen to assault,’ Dionysius said, but there was hesitation in his voice.

  Satyrus kept his eyes on the tyrant. ‘And it need never. If you support me now – just with your harbour, and you can pretend that I forced your hand – I will be your loyal ally for ever. Refuse me – and you may as well kill me.’

  ‘Your naked threat is an ugly weapon,’ Dionysius said. ‘Sometimes the ugly is the beautiful,’ Satyrus said.

  Dionysius laughed. He laughed so hard that his bed-frame shook. Nestor let go of Satyrus’s cloak and stepped away.

  The fat man laughed, and laughed, and then he drank some wine. ‘I lay here, on this very couch, and listened to you announce that you would make yourself king,’ he said. ‘And Eumeles is a threat to me and to every city on the south coast. Do you actually have Demostrate?’

  ‘I do, my lord.’ Satyrus nodded.

  Dionysius nodded, his chins still quivering. ‘You have wit, lad. But I’m not sure I believe that you have an army.’

  Satyrus had nothing to lose. ‘Amastris? You said you had a letter for me?’

  Amastris stepped past Nestor. ‘You will help him?’ she asked her uncle. She sat on his couch and ruffled his hair – an oddly ugly gesture. Then she sent a slave for the letter. Time passed slowly. Satyrus had time to review all the other options he had had. And then the local helot came running back down the hall, her bare feet a whisper on the stone floors. She bowed to the tyrant, who waved his hand.

  And she handed Dionysius the tablets.

  The tyrant opened them – a two-fold tablet, with wax inserts on each side, four pages in all. The wax was inscribed, and he cast his eyes over it. ‘“Amion, merchant of Babylon, sends word to Satyrus, merchant of Alexandria, that he will send the Lady Amastris the required perfumes, and further stipulates against future payment . . .”’ Dionysius looked up. ‘I fear you will insist that this is a code.’

  Satyrus shook his head. ‘No,’ he said. ‘If you will permit me?’ He reached out, and Nestor took the tablets from his master and put them in Satyrus’s hand. Satyrus got a twinge from the bruise where one of the arrows had struck his breastplate. Then he had the tablets. He flexed the light wood between his hands, and popped the wax pages, one by one, from their frames.

  And there was writing, small writing, covering the revealed wood. Satyrus sighed, and it seemed as if every muscle in his body relaxed. He handed the waxless boards back to Nestor, who passed them to the tyrant.

  ‘You are full of surprises,’ Dionysius said. He nodded. ‘“Diodorus to Satyrus, greetings. Ares and Athena bless your enterprise – I received your message today, less than a week after Seleucus paid us off for the winter. As soon as the men are sober, I will march. I will come up the royal road as far as I may, and then by the old road to Heraklea. Expect me as soon as the passes are clear. Sitalkes and Crax and all our friends speak of nothing now but our return from exile, and all of the omens are favourable.”’ Dionysius raised his eyes. ‘Of course, you might have planted this.’

  Satyrus nodded. ‘I might, at that.’

  ‘Bah – I cannot bear to execute him. And as he says himself, that is the only other choice.’ Dionysius nodded. ‘Nice trick with the boards, young man. From Herodotus, I believe. But – very well. I don’t care to face a siege from the age’s finest captain. I will be your ally. But – if you fail, boy – don’t come back here.’

  Satyrus bowed again. He thought of the state of his treasury and the thin balance of good will in his fleet. ‘If I fail,’ he said, and the mask finally slipped, and his voice trembled, ‘if I fail, lord, I will feed the fishes.’

  Dionysius pursed his lips and drank some wine. ‘Good,’ he said. ‘So we understand each other.’

  18

  Melitta put her little army in motion while the steppe was still frozen. The winter wind continued to blow, although it was becoming warmer every day and the sun shone longer, and the shadows along the riverbanks grew shorter and smaller. Deer began to move. It was a matter of a week or two until the ground became a sea of mud.

  It was her second great gamble, and her second demand that her captains trust her. This time, after one brief speech, they obeyed. It was that easy.

  The Grass Cats and the Cruel Hands came in by the hundred, led by the best armoured knights, the richest clan warriors, some owning three or four hundred animals, and their wagons rolled along at the tail of their columns. Young women, bundled in furs to the eyes, rode on the flanks, eyes alert for wolves, because the horses were thin and slow after a long winter on the sea of grass – now the sea of snow.

  ‘There will be grain aplenty in the valley of the Tanais,’ Melitta said. ‘And when Upazan’s riders come, we’ll meet them horse to horse.’

  Eumenes shook his head. ‘I can possibly have the Olbians together to march before the feast of Athena,’ he said. ‘Even then, I’d be taking farmers away from their planting.’

  Melitta nodded. ‘I wish I knew where my brother was,’ she said. ‘And what he planned. But in this, my heart tells me that speed is everything.’ She tried not to admit, even to herself, that she held Gardan and Methene in her heart – and all the farmers.

  Coenus, at least, was solidly behind her. ‘With your permission,’ he said, ‘I’ll take a few of Ataelus’s scouts and ride ahead. I fancy that I can find Temerix. And I think we need him.’

  Ataelus nodded. ‘Better I go too,’ he said. He shrugged. ‘Temerix and I for friends – for fighting Upazan, many years. Eh?’

  Coenus grinned. ‘Like old times.’

  ‘Raise your hoplites in the spring, when the seed is in the ground,’ Melitta said.

  ‘The campaign may be over by then,’ Eumenes said.

  Urvara hugged him. ‘You are still a young man in your heart, my love. Listen – if we go east, fast as the wind, we will still have to fight Upazan – and then Eumeles. Yes?’

  Eumenes nodded.

  Coenus rubbed his chin. ‘Eumenes – how powerful is Olbia these days?’

  Eumenes spread his hands. ‘I’ve been archon for a winter,’ he said. ‘I imagine we can marshal three thousand hoplites and as many psiloi.’

  ‘And for ships?’ Coenus asked.

  ‘Eumeles has forbidden us to have a fleet,’ Eumenes said. ‘So – nothing but a dozen merchant triremes that could be refitted for war.’

  Coenus nodded. ‘Let me put an idea in your ear,’ he said. ‘We both know that Satyrus will not sit idle. He’ll raise a fleet.’

  Nihmu agreed. ‘He loves the sea.’

  Parshtaevalt made a motion of disgust. ‘But it is true,’ he said. ‘My daughter and her war party found him far down the Bay of Trout, with a ship.’ He smiled. ‘He made a spear-girl pregnant.’

  Melitta blushed for her brother. ‘Yes, he loves the sea,’ she said. ‘Coenus, what is on your mind?’

  Coenus laughed. ‘Listen to me, the great strategos. Nonetheless – as soon as Eumeles hears of Satyrus’s fleet, he’ll have to go and face it.’

  Urvara nodded. ‘Fleets are like armies that way,’ she said.

  Coenus shrugged. ‘So you take every man in Olbia and make a grab for Pantecapaeum,’ he said.

  Urvara gasped at the boldness, and Eumenes clasped his former phylarch’s hand. ‘You are a great man, and when Melitta makes you the strate
gos of all her armies, I hope you remember the little people.’ He laughed. ‘The risk would be immense,’ he said. ‘But the gain . . .’

  ‘By all the gods,’ Ataelus said in Greek. He laughed. ‘Imagine Eumeles for waking up – for finding no kingdom he is having?’ The Sakje chief roared. ‘Maybe I’m for staying here, sailing on a ship for Pantecapaeum.’ His face grew still. In Sakje, he said. ‘But no – I will go where I may find the man himself.’

  ‘Eumeles?’ Melitta asked.

  ‘I will kill him,’ Ataelus said. ‘I was there when he betrayed your mother.’

  ‘I know,’ Melitta said. ‘But your arrow will have to race mine.’

  The first two days away from the Borysthenes were the worst, because the weather away from the great river was colder and harsher, and the animals suffered. After the second night, she rode out with Scopasis in the morning and saw rows of dead horses, older beasts who had perished at their pickets in the freezing rain, and others too sluggish to move with them.

  The people were pragmatists. They butchered the dying horses and carried the meat, steaming, on the rumps of their horses. Then they moved on, at times riding with their heads down, directly into the ferocious winds of the central plains.

  ‘Fucking wind comes from Hyrkania!’ Parshtaevalt yelled.

  ‘Bactria!’ Nihmu called back.

  Melitta felt dwarfed by the size of her responsibilities – and by the stature of her ‘subjects’. Every one of her chiefs had served her mother and father – had ridden east to fight Iskander, had ridden at the Ford of the River God. And she – half their age, veteran of one great battle – was expected to lead them.

  On the third day, Marthax’s war leaders joined them. She had left them at his camp, with a promise of future obedience, but she had never expected them to come so swiftly. Graethe, now chief of the Standing Horses, rode to her and made the sign of submission, and she took his hands between hers – warm hands – and he swore by the three great Sakje gods to be her man.

  ‘The baqca says that you ride straight to war,’ he said. His beard was full of snow, but under the snow there was as much white as black. She could remember him as Marthax’s emissary to her mother – a loud young man, capable of violence.