Tyrant: King of the Bosporus

by Christian Cameron

  ‘Run to Nikephoros, combine the fleet and fight with the beach and our new fort at your back. With Nikephoros’s men aboard as marines, you’ll have an advantage.’ Idomenes was shocked at his own temerity, but he kept right on. ‘You may lose Pantecapaeum – for a week or a month.’

  Eumeles’ pursed lips jerked as if he’d been struck. ‘Pantecapaeum may already be lost,’ he said. ‘My not quite namesake and those treacherous curs from Olbia . . .’

  Idomenes shrugged. ‘I doubt that the Olbians can take the city, lord. But I don’t doubt that Nemesis can. Either way, when you combine your fleet, you can beat him. And then take it all back.’

  It occurred to Idomenes that he was giving bad counsel. The people of Pantecapaeum loathed Eumeles. He would never recover the city once it was lost. Even if he won a naval victory, he’d become a species of pirate.

  I could kill him, Idomenes thought, but he was not a killer.

  ‘Foolishness,’ said old Gaius, one of their Italiot mercenaries. ‘Fight now. Once you run, his men will be heartened. Fights like this are all heart, lord. None of it is skill. The harpists lie. Once his men have a taste of our fear, we’re done.’

  And Idomenes could see that there was truth in that argument, too.

  ‘Even now, my ally Upazan must be in the vale of the Tanais, reaping the peasants like wheat and sowing fear among the barbarians,’ Eumeles said. ‘We lose nothing by retreat. At the Tanais, I’ll have our new fort at my back, beaches packed with our men and Upazan to counter any landing ashore.’ He nodded at Idomenes. ‘I recognize that I have not always followed your advice. In this I will, and perhaps in future I will be slower to ignore you.’

  Idomenes couldn’t hide the smile that crossed his face. And in his head, the god said, ‘This is irony. And so hubris is punished.’

  *

  Satyrus watched his enemy’s ships flee with something akin to despair.

  At first, they’d rowed backwards, attempting to lure him into a bad deployment. But Satyrus had signalled the Bull, and his columns had deployed like the unfolding of a cloak, and that had destroyed any lingering thoughts of resistance. It occurred to Satyrus that he might have trained his men too well.

  When it was clear that there would be no engagement, both sides raised sails and suddenly his squadron and the Rhodians had all the advantage – their masts stood all the time, and their rigging was up, so their sails went up like a cloud rising from the sea and suddenly the two flanks of his formation were shooting ahead, minus their borrowed Aegyptian ships and recent captures.

  Neiron ignored his rantings and continued on his course without raising sail, because the Golden Lotus was alone in the centre of the great crescent and if he raised sail he would be alone in her pursuit.

  ‘Don’t be a tunny,’ Neiron said. ‘We’ve won. Let your boys play.’

  Eumeles lost eight ships in an hour – slower triremes, or those that usually beached to raise a mast. The Rhodians and Leon’s ships – all the triemioliai – swept in like hawks among pigeons and took what they wanted.

  Satyrus wanted to be in the thick of the fighting, but he was not. And when night fell, his fleet beached, with his own squadron fully manned and sleeping on their oars out in the roadstead. Eumeles was an hour’s row along the coast.

  At Diokles’ suggestion, they rose with the morning star, launched in the dark and rowed as if for a prize – but Eumeles had done the same. They caught a store ship, slow off the beach, and Melitta’s friend Idomeneus boarded the ship and then swam from it to the Lotus. He reported aboard dripping wet.

  ‘Full of wine,’ he said cheerfully.

  ‘Sink him,’ Neiron said, even as some sailors began to cheer. ‘Shut up, you lot.’

  Satyrus looked at his helmsman. ‘Sink him?’

  ‘Probably poisoned,’ Neiron said. ‘An old trick. We stop and get drunk . . .’

  Idomeneus shook his head. ‘And people think Cretans are evil?’ he said.

  They set fire to the wine ship and sailed on.

  *

  ‘He’ll make his stand at the Cimmerian Bosporus,’ Satyrus predicted.

  ‘He’ll run till he finds the rest of his fleet. Where do you think they are?’ Diokles asked Panther.

  Panther shrugged. ‘I have to admit this is going better than I expected,’ he said. ‘But we’re a long way from home, lad. That is, my lord. We need to get this over with.’

  Satyrus looked at Diokles. ‘Why not make a stand at the Bosporus?’ he asked. ‘It’s so narrow where the sea runs into the Bay of Salmon that his ships will form two lines and still have a reserve.’

  ‘And then we come with bigger, better crews and better marines, plough in bow to bow and eat him alive.’ Diokles shook his head. ‘We’ve got him, lord. And we’ll get a little better every day. He’s running – his rowers are afraid. And they don’t try to keep formation as they run, so they’re not practising anything but running.’ Diokles poured wine on the sand. ‘I speak no hubris. Unless the gods take a hand, he is ours.’

  Satyrus shook his head. ‘How I wish you hadn’t said that,’ he said.

  The next day, Eumeles made no attempt to hold the straits that the Greeks called the Cimmerian Bosporus. And when the Golden Lotus appeared, leading the centre column, a swarm of small boats put off from the sandy beaches on either hand, local Maeotae fishermen at the helm.

  ‘Let a few aboard,’ Satyrus called out. ‘But don’t take the way off the ship. We’re going on. I don’t want to let Eumeles out of my sight!’

  He heard the thump as a fishing boat came alongside, but he and Theron were stripped, wrestling falls in the deck area just in front of the helm, a sacrifice for Poseidon and Herakles of their strength and sweat. They were well matched – Theron’s shoulders were still a finger broader, and Satyrus was now a touch faster – and every man off duty was gathered to watch, so that the Lotus was down a strake by the stern.

  They were locked on the deck, grappling, when Satyrus became aware of the silence. And it was clear that they were getting nowhere.

  ‘Break?’ Satyrus grunted.

  Theron slapped the deck and they both rolled to their feet.

  ‘This is how you keep my flagship?’ a familiar voice asked. ‘Sporting events at sea?’

  And then Satyrus had his uncle Leon locked in an embrace. Behind him, Nihmu looked ten years younger, and Darius had a certain glow of satisfaction. Satyrus embraced each in turn.

  Darius wrinkled his nostrils at Satyrus’s sweat. ‘I’ve been a slave for a month, my dear,’ he said. ‘I only want to smell good things.’

  Theron laughed. ‘You are too fastidious, Persian!’

  But Leon stepped in. ‘I owe him my life – at least. By all the gods, Darius, I never thought it would be your face I saw! And you should see him with a sword!’

  Nihmu nodded. ‘Kineas always said he was the best,’ she put in.

  Satyrus picked up his discarded chiton and laughed. ‘Now,’ he said. ‘Now I feel the favour of the gods.’

  In truth, Leon was shockingly thin, and he looked old. His hair was grizzled white and grey, and his sheath of muscle had vanished. His arms were like sticks.

  ‘You look like a young god,’ Leon said.

  Satyrus bowed at the compliment. ‘It is so good to have you back among us, Uncle,’ he said.

  ‘I do not look like a young god, do I?’ Leon shook his head. ‘They didn’t feed me for – some time. I wasn’t tortured, but suddenly the treatment went from ransom captivity to something worse. Later I found out that Melitta had landed and raised the Sakje, and suddenly I was a liability.’ He coughed into his hand.

  Darius put a hand on the Numidian’s shoulder. ‘We got to you as soon as we could organize,’ he said.

  Satyrus shook his head. ‘I feel guilt, Uncle. I left you at the battle, and then I left your rescue to others.’

  Leon smiled. ‘Lad, you lived, and I lived, and now . . .’ He grinned, and some of the wrinkles fell from hi
s face. ‘And now, we’ll have our revenge.’

  The story of the rescue came out over two days – how Darius recruited Persian slaves inside the palace, then insinuated himself among them, armed a dozen, massacred the guards and opened the cells.

  ‘I suspect that some truly bad men are now free,’ Darius said. ‘I can’t really bring myself to care. But I do have half a dozen Persian gentlemen who have come with me, and would expect a reward.’

  ‘Can they ride?’ Satyrus asked.

  ‘I did say they were Persians,’ Darius said.

  ‘I’ll take them,’ Diodorus said, coming out of the darkness with a wineskin over his shoulder. ‘Leon, you bastard, you made a lot of work for us!’

  Satyrus was one of them, but in a way, he was not. He sat with his knees drawn up to his chin, his back against Abraham’s back, and he listened to them – Leon and Crax, Diodorus, Nihmu, Darius and all the men who had ridden with Kineas. He listened to them tell stories far into the night.

  Abraham laughed. ‘Is this what we’ll become?’

  Satyrus shook his head. ‘Only if we’re lucky,’ he said.

  ‘Listen to them brag!’ Abraham shot back. ‘They sound like pirates!’

  Satyrus reached over and took the wine his friend was hoarding. ‘Darius walked into Eumeles’ palace and rescued Leon. Leon survived without food for a month. Nihmu found Darius disguised as a slave and then joined him. These people are larger than mere mortals, Abraham. They are like the men of former days, or so they have always seemed to me.’

  Abraham grunted. ‘Like Philokles, then,’ he said.

  Satyrus was silent for a while. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘They are all like Philokles.’

  ‘Makes you wonder what your father was like,’ Abraham said.

  ‘Yes,’ Satyrus said. ‘Yes.’

  ‘I think I have a pretty good idea,’ Abraham said. He took a breath and got up. ‘Where do you think your father found these demi-gods?’

  Satyrus used his friend’s hand to get to his feet. ‘They find you,’ he said.

  In the morning, Diodorus asked to land the horses. ‘The Exiles can ride from here,’ he said. ‘Our horses will be fat and happy in three days. But if we sail another day, we’ll have nothing but rotting horse meat.’

  All the Exiles nodded.

  Satyrus shrugged. ‘Can you get to Tanais?’

  Diodorus scratched his head. ‘I think I can puzzle it out,’ he said.

  Crax laughed aloud.

  Diokles cut in. ‘If we get under way immediately, we might yet catch him today. Wind’s against us, now. Against Eumeles, too. So we row – and our rowers are better.’

  ‘If we don’t fight today, we’ll raise Tanais tomorrow,’ Satyrus said. ‘I dislike dividing my forces.’

  ‘Tomorrow, really?’ Diodorus asked. He looked at Crax.

  ‘Transports only slow us down,’ Diokles observed. ‘Leave ’em here and we’ll double our chances of catching that bastard.’

  ‘Try the Coracanda,’ Leon said.

  ‘That’s it!’ Satyrus said. ‘I need – one of the fishermen. Darius? Are they gone?’

  ‘Stayed for the wine. And the reward.’ Darius was chewing bread, uncharacteristically human. ‘I’ll fetch them.’

  The fishermen were delighted to receive a silver mina each for their part in the rescue.

  ‘And the same again if you’ll pilot us around the island and through the Coracanda.’ He looked at them expectantly. Leon spoke to them in Maeotian, and they shrugged.

  Phanagoreia island filled the north end of the strait. The main channel ran north and west, away from Tanais. Satyrus knew from childhood that there was a much narrower channel east around the island, a channel that ran all the way up to the mouth of the Hypanis. The enemy fleet knew these waters, too – or had pilots who would – but they’d taken the safe channel.

  ‘What’s the Coracanda?’ Diokles asked.

  The fishermen all shuffled their feet.

  ‘It’s an old channel through sandbanks. It runs east of the island and it’ll cut hours off our time.’ Satyrus was emphatic.

  Diodorus nodded. ‘It won’t save you that much time,’ he said, ‘but it’ll save us three hundred stades. We’ll be at the Hypanis by tonight.’ He’d marched and sailed here before.

  The lead fisherman scratched his beard. ‘She’s shallow, lord. Many places no deeper than a man is high, or even a child. And if a ship touches, she never comes off.’

  ‘Can you get us through? Lotus has the deepest draught.’ Satyrus spoke to the fishermen, but he sent Helios for the Rhodians and the pirates.

  The fishermen talked among themselves in their own tongue. By the time the leader spoke, Panther was there, and Demostrate.

  Satyrus was amused to see the pirate king and the Rhodian approach together, laughing. And relieved.

  He saluted both, and then the fisherman spoke. ‘I can but try, lord. I can put a fisher-boat through the gullet in the dark. But these here monsters are another thing. I can’t say. I don’t think she’s ever been done.’

  Leon shook his head. ‘I’ve done it,’ he said softly, and the other men quieted for him, even Demostrate. Leon was a man who explored, who had walked and sailed everywhere he could go. ‘I took a trireme up the gullet – ten years back. And again in the Olympic year.’ He nodded to Satyrus. ‘We can do it.’

  Diokles made a face. ‘Is it needful?’

  Satyrus nodded. ‘I need those horses. One day of bad weather and they’d be dead.’

  Diokles looked at the sky and the sun, and was silent.

  An hour later, the Lotus turned out of her column, heading east up a channel that seemed from a distance to be narrower than the hull of the ship. And behind them, all sixty-five ships sorted themselves into a single column with the horse transports in the lead, each one reinforced with oarsmen from the lighter ships.

  Neiron shook his head. ‘You put the heaviest draughts in front? They’ll ground and plug the channel.’

  ‘Then we push the horses over the side and float them,’ Satyrus said. ‘Leon is the greatest sailor I have ever known. Let him lead.’

  Before the sun was a hand’s breadth up in the sky, the line was threading its way through the channel. Satyrus looked back and there were ships as far as his eyes could see – a single line, like dancers at a festival, each ship copying the motions of the Lotus in the lead.

  ‘This is – mad,’ Neiron complained.

  Satyrus felt the wind change on his cheek, a gentle breeze that ruffled his hair and breathed on their sterns.

  ‘I don’t believe it,’ Neiron said.

  The fisherman coughed in his hand and spat over the side for luck.

  Helios came up behind his master. ‘Why are they so happy?’ he asked.

  Satyrus grinned. ‘The gods send us a wind,’ he said, pouring a libation over the side. ‘It is against our enemy, who must go north and west. And it is gentle, so that we can use it as we coast east.’ He laughed. ‘May it blow all day.’

  Helios made a sign, and the fleet stood on.

  22

  Upazan followed them down the Tanais, and every step of his advance was contested, and men died.

  Archers shot from woods and from barns. The woods were burned, the barns stormed. And men died.

  By the river, in the fields, in the woods and on the high ridges, men fought – a slash of bronze or iron, a flight of arrows with deadly tips. The Sakje used poison, and the farmers never surrendered. There were skirmishes in every open space. Bands of Sakje harried bands of Sauromatae, who harried the refugees, killing the weak. Women died, and children.

  Ravens feasted until they were glutted, and corpses lay on the roads and no animal mauled them, because there were so many.

  This was not war the way Melitta had seen it in Aegypt. This was the war of all against all. The farmers fought to avoid annihilation, and the Sauromatae fought to exterminate them.

  On the evening of the third day, Ataelus sat
with Temerix and Melitta on a low hill, watching their exhausted rearguard retreat in a soft rain that favoured the enemy with every drop, rendering the strong bows of the Sakje almost useless.

  Ataelus shrugged. ‘We kill two or three of Upazan’s for every farmer, and ten for every Sakje.’

  ‘And yet we will run out of men first,’ Temerix said.

  Melitta looked back and forth between them. ‘What are you telling me?’ she asked.

  Ataelus looked away, across the great river, where an eagle rose on an updraught. His face was blank, all the wild energy of the ambush drained from him by four days of heavy fighting and constant losses.

  Temerix said, ‘The men on the ships are killing us.’

  Melitta nodded. She knew that the ships coming up the river to harry the farmers from the water had been an ugly surprise. Nikephoros had returned, just as Coenus had said, and established a fortified camp across the river from her fort on the bluff. Using it as a base, his men sailed up and down the river, disrupting her defences.

  ‘If Upazan’s men actually cooperated with the tyrant’s soldiers, we would be the ones taking the losses,’ Temerix said.

  Ataelus sighed. ‘It was a good plan,’ he said, ‘but it isn’t working. Upazan is too strong – he must have had fifteen or even twenty thousand riders. And where are the other clans?’ He sounded bitter.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Melitta said.

  ‘We must give up the valley,’ Ataelus said. ‘Send the farmers into the fort, and the Sakje ride away on to the sea of grass.’

  Temerix shook his head. ‘No, brother. You will not do that.’

  Ataelus raised an eyebrow. In Sakje, he asked, ‘Why not?’

  Temerix met him, eye to eye. The two had been friends and war companions for twenty years and more. But this was conflict. ‘If you ride away, you will not come back. And we will die. And I will not allow that.’

  It was the longest speech Melitta had ever heard from Temerix. She met his eye. ‘Listen, Temerix. My brother is coming. He has a fleet. I built that fort to buy time. If we ride away, we will come back.’