Tyrant: Destroyer of Cities

by Christian Cameron

She nodded. ‘Beautiful,’ she said.

  That made him smile.

  ‘Scopasis, am I doing the right thing?’ she asked, suddenly.

  He sat behind her and his gelding snorted, sniffing her mare with a sort of vague interest. Her mare sidled away.

  ‘You ask me these things,’ he said, when they had both reined in their mounts. ‘But the truth is, I’m no king. I can’t answer. And I only sound like a fool when I try. You must ask Thyrsis or Listra. They are lords. I was an outlaw, and now I command your guard. I can make a good rabbit stew, and I will match any other man arrow for arrow, but in truth,’ and he managed a smile, ‘in truth, I’m not able to advise you.’

  ‘You lay out a good camp, too,’ she said.

  ‘I have much experience,’ he allowed.

  ‘You could learn to be a clan leader,’ she said. ‘As good as Sindispharnax, or better.’

  He shrugged. ‘Perhaps. Yes – if I rode hard this campaign, and started speaking to the young men and the old outlaws of my youth who still live in the high ground.’ He shrugged. ‘I could be that man, I suppose. But—’ He looked around, struggling for words. ‘But that man might not be me. I don’t know.’ He looked at her. ‘If I became a clan leader, would I then be worthy of you?’

  She shook her head. ‘No – or no more than you already are. I’m sorry, Scopasis. Have I treated you badly? I think I have.’

  He grunted. ‘I find it hard to know what you want.’

  She nodded. ‘Dinner,’ she said. And rode away, before she threw her arms around him and started all over again.

  4

  Ten days until he sailed, and Satyrus was meeting with the farmers of his southern shore about taxes.

  They were a special case in a kingdom burdened with more special cases than uniform taxes and laws. All of the other citizens of the Kingdom of the Bosporus (as it said on the coins, of which he was very proud) were really citizens of Greek city states whose loose alliance he headed – Pantecapaeum, Olbia, Tanais – while to the far west, near the border with Lysimachos’ Kingdom of Thrace, and to the far east, near the wild lands of Hyrkania, his ‘kingdom’ possessed ‘citizens’ who had no intermediary. They had no city to which to report or to pay taxes, no easy place for refuge or law courts.

  The westerners were a special case within a special case, as most of them were controlled – ruled – by Sakje overlords who owed their allegiance to his sister, Melitta. And the fact that the King of the Bosporus and the Queen of the Sea of Grass were brother and sister – twins, in fact – was convenient, but it did not represent a union of the crowns in any way, except in special cases.

  But in the east, his Maeotae and Sindi farmers along the Hypanis River had no horse-nomad overlords, no archons, no tyrants. And they were wealthy men – or wealthy enough, with good stone houses, barns heavy with grain, slaves, horses and cattle – men of property who deserved his consideration. More than his consideration.

  He looked at Gardan, who had fought for his father at the Ford of the River God and had raised a tagma of archers for the campaign that ended at the Battle of the Tanais River. Gardan was, in his quiet way, an important man in his kingdom. A man who had saved him, and his sister, when they were penniless, hunted exiles.

  ‘A fortification on the Hypanis River would appear to Sinope to be a provocation,’ Satyrus said to the group. They were not well dressed, by Greek standards – large, dark men with furry wool cloaks and homespun chitons. Many of them wore trousers, like the Sakje. ‘And your farms are under no threat.’

  ‘Three summers ago, Sauromatae raiders burned my house,’ Gardan said. ‘Lord, you can’t tell us it couldn’t happen again.’

  ‘The western Sauromatae are settling our lands,’ Satyrus said. ‘In a generation they will be neighbours.’

  ‘Raiders attacked out east. I heard it from a trader when the river opened.’ Scarlad Longshanks was another veteran of their campaigns. He shook his head. ‘Lord, we don’t have a city. Give us a fort.’

  ‘Does this fortification need soldiers?’ Satyrus asked.

  ‘Wouldn’t be much use without them,’ Gardan said. ‘Lord – we pay taxes, and we fought for you.’

  Satyrus heard them out, because one of the tricks of ruling that he’d already learned was that listening cost him nothing and often went a long way to satisfying dissent. He listened, he talked of the new plough and showed it to them, and then he met with Coenus and Nikephorus, formerly an enemy and now the commander of his infantry.

  Coenus just shook his head. ‘It’d be the last straw for Heraklea and Sinope,’ he said. ‘They already think we’re out to take them.’

  Nikephorus shrugged. ‘That’s as may be. It’d be nice to have a couple of garrisons where we were welcome, and where the lads could have their own places. Billets on the populace make trouble in the end – always.’

  Satyrus sat with his chin in his hand, picking at his beard. ‘I hadn’t expected to keep you all sitting around so long,’ he admitted. In the aftermath of his victory at Tanais River, he’d had two thousand of his own mercenary foot, mostly Macedonian veterans, and he’d captured Nikephorus and his equally good Greek mercenary foot – another two thousand. He’d expected further campaigns – at least in the east – but the complete collapse of the Sauromatae Confederacy with the death of Upazan left him with no external enemies unless he chose to invade his neighbours. No external enemies, and five thousand veteran soldiers (12,500 drachma per day, plus officers and bonus payments, food and equipage). He used them as marines, and he loaned a thousand of them to Heraklea during a slave revolt, but day to day they were the second largest expense in the kingdom, after the fleet.

  Coenus raised an eyebrow. ‘But?’

  Satyrus sat up straight and spread his hands. ‘It seems foolish, but the whole world is at war and the cost of the fleet and the army seems to me to be an insurance. We’re strong enough to discourage any attempt that any of the main players could make. With the city militias and the Assagetae, we could defeat anything they could roll at us.’

  Coenus smiled, and his eyes narrowed. ‘In fact, we have.’

  Satyrus nodded. ‘So I’m no better than the farmers. I want to keep the army and the fleet together just in case. And we can afford it. Stability is the key to the future. Good walls and a strong army.’

  Nikephorus grinned. ‘Glad you gentlemen intend to continue our employment. That being the case, how about farms for the veterans? You have the land – the top of the eastern valleys has some good land, or so I’m assured, and much of it is still empty.’

  Satyrus looked at Coenus. Coenus shook his head. ‘The Macedonian farm boys will make farmers, but will the Tyrian guttersnipes? They won’t know how to hold a plough.’

  Nikephorus shook his head. ‘Then they can buy a factor or a couple of slaves to work the ground.’

  ‘I didn’t like that report of a raid in the Tanais high ground,’ Coenus said.

  Satyrus took a sip of wine. ‘Nor I.’

  Coenus nodded. ‘If I take a patrol – Tamais Hippeis and some of your men on ponies – we could take a look at the ground for settlement. I want to go back and see to the restoration of the Temple of Artemis, anyway – I’ve arranged for a priestess from Samos to come and train some of our girls, and I was rather hoping that you would fund it.’

  Satyrus was not in the position to refuse his principal councillor and the architect of his kingship the cost of restoring a small temple on the Tanais River. ‘Of course,’ he said.

  Coenus smiled. ‘I think I’m as anxious to get out of town as you are.’

  ‘You said you’d come to Pantecapaeaum with me,’ Satyrus pointed out.

  Coenus shook his head. ‘Lord, you are on your own. Take Theron. He likes cities.’

  Nike of Salamis swept into Tanais’ harbour, her oars perfectly controlled, her helmsman kissing the long pier by the mole with the practised efficiency of the Middle Sea’s fastest courier ship. Her navarch, Sarpax of Alexandria
, was across the prow before the oarsmen had moved off their cushions. He moved quickly across the wharf, and Satyrus watched him with some alarm from his own window in the citadel.

  ‘That’s Sarpax,’ Satyrus said to Theron. ‘In a hurry,’ he added. Helios was pinning him into a new chiton – a huge piece of superfine wool meant to be worn under armour.

  Theron was munching his way through an apple. He stood in the window for several minutes. ‘Can’t be good news,’ he said. ‘No one hurries like that to tell you anything good.’

  Helios stepped back. ‘Done,’ he said.

  Satyrus shrugged his shoulders and motioned with his arms as if he was making overarm cuts with a sword. ‘Feels good. Wonderful cloth.’

  ‘Sarpax of Alexandria to see you, lord,’ Nearchus said from the doorway.

  ‘Lord – your uncle Leon sends his regards, and would you please get to sea immediately?’ Sarpax accepted a cup of wine, but his face was red with exertion and he carried with him an aura of urgency. ‘Demostrate has been dead almost three weeks. The word at Rhodes is that he was murdered by Dekas – Manes’ former catamite, as you’ll remember.’

  Theron rubbed his beard. ‘Will Dekas take command of the pirates?’

  ‘The word is that he has already done so, and that he’s taking them over to Antigonus – as a fleet.’ Sarpax took a deep breath. ‘I’m to get you to arm and put to sea, and to accompany you south. Leon will have his squadron at Rhodes.’

  Satyrus knew that the defection of the Euxine pirates would have a profound effect on the naval balance of power. They had been allies – unreliable, morally dangerous allies. Now they would be enemies, and they would prey on his shipping.

  ‘I guess this is why we keep a fleet,’ Satyrus said. ‘What did you see as you came through the straits?’

  Sarpax drank off his wine. ‘Twenty sail at Timaea. Byzantium was empty. At Rhodes, they say Dekas has defeated a force sent by Lysimachos, and the King of Thrace has already lost part of his spring grain fleet. The Tyrant of Heraklea is holding all his ships in port.’

  ‘Stratokles knew what was coming, then,’ Satyrus said. ‘Tell Leon that I was going to sea in five days as it was. With a little effort, I can sail tomorrow. Theron, you will have to go and be my vicar in Pantecapaeaum.’

  Theron made a face. ‘While you play navarch? The unfairness of the world.’

  ‘You don’t like the sea,’ Satyrus said. ‘Twenty hulls in Timaea? That’s a third of Demostrate’s fleet.’ He turned to Helios. ‘Run down to the docks and get Diokles to sound All Captains. Tell them I intend to go to sea tomorrow morning. Tell them why.’

  Sarpax handed a servant his wine cup. ‘I’ll be gone, then.’

  Satyrus allowed his surprise to show. ‘Stay the night – rest your rowers.’

  ‘Leon thinks that Antigonus is going to have a go for either Rhodes or Aegypt,’ Sarpax reported. ‘Every day counts. Rhodes is recalling their cruisers. Ptolemy has half his army on Cyprus.’

  Satyrus narrowed his eyes. ‘That makes him vulnerable. Where is the fleet? The Aegyptian fleet?

  ‘Alexandria, or it was three weeks ago. It’s probably off Cyprus by now.’ Sarpax paused in the doorway. ‘Demetrios is on Cyprus, fighting Ptolemy.’

  Satyrus exchanged a look with Theron. ‘Tell Leon that we’ll be at Rhodes in ten days.’

  Neiron had the helm, and Tanais was a smudge on the northern horizon.

  The whole of Satyrus’ fleet formed a long, trailing arrowhead that covered forty merchants, ranging in size from the enormous high-sided, Athenian-built grain ships, each capable of hauling several hundred tons of wheat, to the smaller ships – local merchantmen, oversized fishing smacks and former warships, as well as a dozen small vessels under sail. Altogether they represented sixteen thousand tons of grain, or a little more than a third of his kingdom’s entire autumn harvest.

  ‘What if fucking Ganymede commits his whole fleet to taking us on? Sixty ships?’ Neiron asked.

  Satyrus shrugged. He couldn’t help it – a grin covered his face from ear to ear. ‘So what?’ he asked.

  Neiron shrugged. ‘I’m just saying. We could have sent to Athens for ships – we could still stop at Heraklea.’

  Satyrus nodded. ‘I expect that the straightforward approach would be to stop at Sinope and Heraklea, gather their warships and their merchants and take this great armada of grain slowly through the horn and across the Ionian to Rhodes.’

  Neiron sounded resigned. ‘But we’re not going to do that,’ he said.

  ‘No,’ Satyrus laughed. ‘No, we’re not.’ The grin that split his face made him look years younger. He felt years younger. He was going to risk his grain fleet and perhaps his life, but that was fine. He was at sea. And the sea was clean, neat, wild and much, much simpler than the land.

  5

  Fifteen days’ travel over the steppes, and her war party emerged from the Sea of Grass into the high ground north of Tanais, with its stands of trees, high hills and beautiful, fertile valleys. It was more her brother’s ground than hers, but they had yet to quarrel about such things. They ruled together, two lords of the different peoples who occupied the same land.

  Thyrsis rode up, his golden bow case throwing brilliant ripples of reflected light in the early-morning sunlight. ‘Riders,’ he said. ‘Scouts say more than fifty men with a hundred horses, moving slowly on the river road.’

  Melitta was troubled. ‘They shouldn’t be my brother’s men,’ she said. ‘I’ve only been gone three weeks, and there was no—’ she trailed off. ‘Look them over and make contact,’ she said, pointing downriver with her riding whip.

  Scopasis pressed his horse closer to hers. ‘Now what?’ he asked.

  She shrugged. ‘If I’ve heard about raids in the east, Satyrus probably has as well. Let’s ride.’

  She was delighted to find Coenus, although less enthusiastic to find Nikephorus, a man whose talent she admired and of whose motivations she remained suspicious. But the two of them were riding together. They had a strong troop of farmers’ sons on ponies and two dozen of Nikephorus’ men, armed as cavalry and mounted on steppe horses.

  ‘Well met, Coenus son of Xenophon!’ she called, as she got her best charger up the far bank of the Tanais. It was still chilly enough that swimming the river, even this far north, was a damp and uncomfortable business.

  Coenus came forward to embrace her. His men had already set their camp, and had fires started, and he led her to one of them while Scopasis dealt with settling the rest of her little army. But the Sakje knew every pasture and every natural meadow in the Tanais high ground – Melitta had fought a war here, and Coenus had lived here for ten years.

  ‘You look happy,’ he said.

  ‘How’s my son?’ she asked. ‘Your grandson,’ she put in.

  ‘Happy and healthy when I saw him, less than a week ago,’ he replied. ‘The image of his mother – and his father.’ Coenus didn’t flinch to say it, although the boy’s father was his son Xeno, dead at Gaza. Her first lover. She flinched more at the memory than Coenus did. He looked at her. ‘Shouldn’t you be dispensing law to the clans, away west?’

  She shrugged. ‘It was a slow winter for crime, Coenus,’ she said. ‘I have reports of raiding in the east. I felt that I should look into them. And I have some restless clan leaders, and I thought I should take them for a ride.’

  ‘That’s my girl,’ Coenus allowed. He scooped up a horn cup full of warm wine and passed it to her, and she inhaled the fragrance deeply before drinking it off. ‘We’re looking at land for settling our veterans,’ he said. ‘But I’ve five reports of these raiders – all from last autumn.’

  ‘I have a survivor in my train,’ Melitta said. ‘Taken two autumns ago. So the first raids were a year after the battle.’

  Coenus nodded. ‘I think I – that is, we,’ he looked at Nikephorus, ‘would like to interview her.’

  ‘What do your reports say?’ Melitta asked.

  ‘Not Sauromat
ae and not Assagetae,’ Coenus said.

  ‘My victim says they are a people called Parni.’ Melitta shrugged. ‘It’s a Sakje-sounding name, but I’ve never heard it.’

  Coenus made a face. ‘Sounds damned familiar,’ he said. ‘Why do I know that name?’ He shook his head. ‘No matter – that’s quite a little army you have there. You planning on a raid?’

  Melitta was happy to have Coenus around. He was level-headed and good at giving her advice. When she was a girl, she’d called him ‘uncle’. Now, as he was the father of the father of her child, he had status among the Assagetae as a sort of stepfather for her.

  ‘Perhaps,’ she said. ‘I’m going east, to Hyrkania. That’s where my survivor says the Parni wintered. I may find them and talk. I may raid their wagons. It depends on what they have to say for themselves’ She looked pensive. ‘Most of my clan leaders felt that we needed to be strong and act decisively to prevent . . . another Upazan.’

  Coenus nodded and drank some of the warm wine. The last of the Sakje wagons had crossed the river down at the ford, and they were being drawn up in a loose circle, the horses picketed, the sentries set.

  Coenus had trained Scopasis, and he watched the former outlaw with something like parental pride. ‘Still sleeping with him?’ Coenus asked. There was some judgement in his tone, and it made her angry, even as she realised that he was probably judging her just as she judged herself.

  ‘No,’ she said.

  He nodded. ‘Sorry, honeybee. You’re not fifteen any more.’ He stretched. ‘And I’m not forty any more. Zeus Sator, do you know Antigonus is nearly eighty? I don’t want to be riding and killing when I’m eighty. I’m feeling tired and old now.’

  She shook her head. ‘You’re not old!’ she said.

  Coenus grinned. ‘The blessing of Artemis upon you, lass.’

  ‘Will you come east with me, Coenus?’ she asked.

  ‘I was afraid you’d ask that,’ Coenus said. He motioned to Nikephorus, who was lying with his head propped on an aspis, looking up at the sky, allowing them their privacy with the ease of a man who’d spent his entire adult life in the field.