Tyrant: Destroyer of Cities

by Christian Cameron

  Satyrus nodded. ‘We are, if anything, more desperate,’ he said. ‘Ptolemy lost the battle badly – so badly that I fear for the king himself.’

  ‘Fear not,’ said the priest. ‘Ptolemy lives, and he and his bodyguard ships are on the way – a rather circuitous way. They beached at Gaza four days ago, and the wind has been against them, and they’ve already had a skirmish with Demetrios.’

  ‘It must be nice to serve an all-knowing god,’ Satyrus said.

  ‘I wouldn’t know. I have a good intelligence service. And Old Gales and I exchange information. You should see him – he may have more recent news. Of course the public word is that the king won the battle.’

  Sappho he embraced like a lost mother, and for a moment, wrapped in her arms, he didn’t think about cordage, iron darts for his bolt throwers, leather helmets for new marines, or dried bread. Or amphorae for his water supply. He just was.

  ‘My poor boy,’ Sappho said. She was older – he was startled to see how much four years had aged her.

  And then he borrowed her enormous and well-oiled household to be the machine of his staff, and he used them to fill his ships with goods while the priests replaced his dead rowers and marines, and while he fully crewed his captured ships and the Aegyptian trireme that had mutinied.

  In the royal yard were two triremes so heavily rotted that they’d been left behind. After two days and nights of work by daylight and torchlight by Aegyptian shipwrights promised eternal redemption by their priests, the two were barely seaworthy, with scratch crews officered by retired merchants from the town. Satyrus worked like a dog, but he sent messengers everywhere, and men came to him and he issued orders as if he were king – and was obeyed. Timber from the Levant, worth its weight in spices, donated by the Jews. Clay fire pots like the one he’d used on Demetrios’ flagship – every ship carried a dozen now, and sacks of charcoal to fill them, donated by the charcoal burners. Alexandria was a city that loved itself, and while many – most – affected to despise old Ptolemy, they fought for him – the best of many evils.

  One of the first men to come to him in the yard was Dionysus – still beautiful, still given to wearing transparent wool chitons and expensive perfume. Despite which, Satyrus, covered in pitch soot from recaulking the Amon-Ra, embraced him.

  ‘I need a captain,’ he said.

  Dionysus wrinkled his nose – whether at Satyrus’ rank sweat or the condition of the Amon-Ra was difficult to determine.

  ‘Not this,’ Satyrus said. ‘One of Ptolemy’s, out at the moorings – to the right of Arete. See her?’

  ‘Smaller than Wasp.’ Dionysus allowed his lisp to slip away when talking of ships.

  ‘Same as Wasp exactly. I think they must have come out of the same yard – Ephesus or Miletus, I suspect.’ Satyrus squeezed the young fop’s hand. ‘Come on, brother. Dump your social calendar and come to sea.’

  ‘But of course!’ Dionysus said. He pulled his India-made chiton – the value of four strong slaves – over his head and tossed it to his boy. ‘Get me a working chiton,’ he said to the boy. And set to work pitching seams.

  Eight days after the defeat at Cyprian Salamis, despite the best efforts of storm and Antigonid, Satyrus got to sea with ten ships under his stern, as well crewed as could be managed. His crews were rested and his own precious hulls had enjoyed almost three full days out of the water.

  He wished for the squadron he’d led from Tanais. In his wake were only four of his own ships – Oinoe, Plataea, Tanais and Wasp. Every other ship was a capture or a replacement. He was missing some of his best ships: Thetis, Nike and Ariadne, all quadremes, with engines mounted and fully trained rowers and heavy marine crews. Poseidon only knew where they were.

  Diokles, of course, had Oinoe; Plataea and Tanais were commanded by the brothers from Syracuse, Anaxilaus and Gelon, and Wasp, the smallest trireme in his force and perhaps on the surface of the ocean, continued under her veteran commander, the oldest of the trierarchs, Sarpax. The Aegyptian ship that had murdered its navarch and marines he’d stripped and renamed Ramses to please her Aegyptian crewmen, and Dionysus had that ship and a crew of enthusiastic volunteers with very little seagoing experience. Amon-Ra and Asp he’d found rotting in the yard, and they had scratch crews of Aegyptians under untried trierarchs – Amon-Ra had her own captain of marines, with Apollodorus in command, and Asp had his oar master, Philaeus. Ephesian Artemis had survived the storm under Nikeas of Pantecapaeaum, and there could be few higher recommendations of a man’s competence. And Laertes had the mighty Atlantae by the same logic, although he now had a dozen junior officers chosen from among the best sailors on the Wasp and Oinoe.

  He himself was back on the deck of Arete. With the exception of Neiron at his elbow, the officers were all new men; Arete had lost heavily in two actions and then given up still more officers to other ships. Neiron seemed untouched by the storms and battles, and the new men weren’t actually new – Satyrus had had all summer to learn their worth – or rather, eight days of constant action, which now seemed to stretch away like a full season of war.

  Laertes, the bronze-lunged sailor who had replaced Stesagoras, who was himself now a trierarch, was replaced as sailing master by Jubal the African. Apollodorus chose Necho to command the marines. Andromachus of Athens was the number one oar, way forward under the bows on the starboard side, replacing Polycrates. Satyrus wasn’t sure that he knew the names of every sailor on the deck, but he knew most of them because he had stood with them by torchlight, splicing rope and hammering pegs into new decking in Leon’s yard, or he’d kept watches with them. Xherses, a Nemean, was as thick as a rock and had to be told to do everything with elaborate sign language, but he was strong and willing and the other men liked him. And Jubal – once Stesagoras’ nearly invisible third deck officer – was some form of North African or other – he had lost all of his teeth in a fight and had the habit of looking at Satyrus from under his eyes when talking, like a flirtatious flute girl. The combination of the averted glance, the missing teeth and the deep ritual scarring on his dark brown face left an indelible impression that was often mocked by the other sailors – but he had a quick wit, and he could navigate by the stars. Xiron – a big-bellied Corinthian – was the new oar master, promoted from the number one port-side position. He laughed a great deal, and made men sing, and yet was widely feared for his temper, a far cry from gentle Philaeus.

  But for all the new officers, the crews themselves were no longer a collection of professionals who shared the cramped space of the black hulls. They were crews, for better and for worse. If they survived the summer, these men would sit in wine shops and brothels from Alexandria to Pantecapaeaum and nod, and say that there’s Jubal – he’s a mean son of a bitch, don’t cross him, mate. We shipped together under Satyrus, who was King of the North back then, see? And we got fucked in the arse by Demetrios – oh, but he shattered our line – but we served him out, didn’t we, mates? Aye, and burned his precious ten tiers of oars, set her afire, almost captured the sod. Our oar master – Stesagoras, and wasn’t he your uncle, young Leon? He died in that fight, roaring like a lion.

  In every ship there had been the same process, so that Diokles had a better crew in Oinoe, and Sarpax in Wasp, than either had started the summer with. Every ship was different – every ship had her own personality, and some were better; Oinoe and Arete were as good or better than Rhodians, while Dionysus and his Ramses were doing well to row in a straight line. Amon Ra leaked like the proverbial sieve of Sisyphus.

  And out over the horizon, north and east, was the enemy – two hundred or more ships, most of them heavier than his heaviest.

  And perhaps a few of his own. Perhaps the king. Perhaps Leon.

  Forward, by the mainmast, Jubal barked something and his few teeth glinted, and the men around him laughed.

  ‘Gaza,’ he said to Neiron.

  ‘Gaza,’ Neiron repeated.

  And behind his right shoulder, the pillars of cloud were still sim
mering and brewing over the African desert like something brewed up by the God of the Jews.

  15

  Last light off Gaza, and the beach was crawling with men – Antigonids – and there were almost a hundred ships beached there. Satyrus approached from the setting sun, all masts down, his ships in a close column behind him, under oars.

  ‘Must be Antigonus himself,’ Neiron said. He spat over the side, perhaps indicating what he thought of his king’s plan.

  ‘Seventy-five, seventy-six, seventy-seven,’ Satyrus counted.

  ‘Look at the grain ships,’ Jubal said.

  ‘Shut up and let me count,’ Satyrus said. He was standing on the forward marine tower. ‘Eighty-three, eighty-four. I make it eightyfour. And no ship larger than a trireme.’

  Neiron shrugged. ‘Just odds of eight to one, then. Easy as eating fish. Let’s get ’em.’

  Satyrus nodded. ‘Exactly.’

  The Alexandrian squadron manoeuvred from line ahead to line abreast with the elegance of a Nile hippo walking out of the river mud. Ramses responded late and turned the wrong way, and Satyrus could hear Dionysus’ rampage across the water; Amon Ra was so slow that he didn’t appear to be in line at all.

  It didn’t matter, because no one was watching. Plistias’ fleet thought that they had the seas off Gaza and Palestine to themselves, and they were still recovering from the worst sea storm in nautical memory. So when Satyrus’ ragged line swept in and began to grapple the empty hulls, the crews took long, long minutes to believe what they were seeing, and to react, and by the time armed men were at the shingle and archers were fitting arrows to their bows – mostly dry – the Alexandrians were away to sea, towing behind them a capture apiece, except Amon Ra, who’d come so late to the beach that he’d had to reverse oars and row away empty-handed.

  Satyrus’ squadron rowed into the darkness, laughing.

  ‘We have to burn them,’ Satyrus concluded after he’d examined every one of the captured hulls the following dawn.

  Neiron agreed. ‘It kills me,’ he admitted. ‘But if we have to crew them, we’ll be making men who were thranites on Arete in the spring into trierarchs. And we’ll all be equal – equally bad.’ He shrugged. ‘Even as it is, I think the quality’s spread too thin, lord.’

  Apollodorus nodded. ‘We’re like a slaves’ breakfast, lord – too little olive oil, too much dry bread.’

  Satyrus scratched his beard. ‘These two are particularly fine – these two long ships. Let’s call them Amon Ra and Wasp and burn the worn-out hulks you’ve rowed the last week.’

  Dionysus shook his head. ‘All that wasted work makes me want to cry.’

  ‘What waste?’ Satyrus said, relentlessly cheerful. ‘They got us here. Now we have better hulls. Get it done, gentlemen.’

  Followed by as much confusion as if they were under attack, hundreds of oarsmen moving their cushions and gear along the beach: fire pots, food, amphorae of wine, all the flotsam and jetsam of life at sea. But Wasp launched with the dawn and patrolled off the beach, and they made the transfer unmolested and got their sterns off, the shore party left behind to burn the ships that couldn’t be crewed swimming out, leaving nine columns of smoke rising to the heavens like funeral pyres for the heroes in the Iliad.

  Neiron was looking at Africa under his hand while Satyrus watched the last swimmers come up the side.

  ‘Poseidon’s throbbing member, I think we’re for it again,’ Neiron said.

  Jubal spat between his teeth. ‘Sand,’ he said. ‘I hate sand.’ Without his front teeth, his S’s sounded like th’s, and he said thand.

  Satyrus looked at Africa and then at Asia. ‘Are you sure?’ he asked.

  Neiron shrugged. ‘Nope,’ he said.

  ‘Very helpful,’ Satyrus murmured, and Jubal laughed.

  They sailed due west, towards Alexandria, until they’d sunk the land and were safely out in the day’s haze, a red-hot African breeze against their port sides, and then Satyrus ordered the sails up and turned to line abreast, the ships six stades apart so that his line covered an enormous distance. The sea was a muddy, shiny blue under a deadly white sky, and the sun beat down like a merciless foe, the heat like a living enemy – but the African wind filled their mainsails and kept them dead astern, sweeping the sea north along the coast so that Arete, the ship closest to Asia, could see land at the top of the swell, and Oinoe, seventy stades to the west, could see the towering pillars of cloud over the Nile Delta.

  They sailed north for an hour over a sea empty even of fishing boats. Alexandria’s fishing fleet was keel up on the beaches of Pharos, her fishermen pulling oars for Satyrus.

  It was almost noon when the lookouts shouted.

  ‘Amon Ra just made the signal – something to the east. She’s turning that way,’ came the shout. They had very simple signals – four manoeuvres and two sightings.

  Satyrus had just formed the words Let’s go and see what they’ve found in his mind when the lookout reported again.

  ‘Sail to landward.’

  The opposite direction, of course, and all his ships were now running down to look at the something to the east. If he went west – towards the enemy – he’d be alone.

  He clambered up onto the rail – the wound on his back had scarred over, but it still shouted its presence whenever he went to climb anything – and then he began to pull himself up the main brace, hand over hand, feet braced against the rope – slow, by sailor standards, but steady. At home, he’d have been on the sand of the palaestra three hours a day. Here, he climbed the rigging.

  Aloft, at the top of the foremast, he locked his legs around the trunk of the mast, rested his arms over the edge of the archer’s basket and looked across the sparkling sea, west, out of the eye of the sun.

  Two sails – big, square sails. Grain ships.

  ‘Keep an eye out for more. Tell me when you see sails – tell me whether they’re triangles or squares. Understood?’ Satyrus was pleased to find that he wasn’t even breathing hard.

  ‘Yes, lord,’ said the man in the basket.

  Satyrus got down the rope without burning his hands. The pitch and resin on the standing rigging was sticky in the blazing sun, and he had a line of sticky black like bad honey on his legs.

  Helios laughed aloud. ‘King of the Zebras!’ he proclaimed. He and Charmides laughed, and Satyrus decided that he could afford to be the butt of some humour. But to Neiron he said, ‘Grain ships for Antigonus. Take north by east – we’ll have them in an hour.’

  Like the men on the beach the day before, the crews of the two tall grain ships – round-hulled, high-sided cargo ships with eyes painted under their bows, both Athenians – were mortified to find that they had enemies in these waters.

  ‘We had an escort,’ said one captain bitterly. ‘He lost us last night.’

  Satyrus took the captains as hostages and sent the ships – with a dozen trusted marines in each, led by Draco and Amyntas, because he was out of other trusted men – sailing north by west for Rhodes. By this time he was all but in the surf of Antigonus’ beach at Gaza – and again, the men on the beach ignored him as if he weren’t there.

  Arete had to row into the wind to get back to the coast of Africa, and since the heat was so vicious, Satyrus ordered that they row soft and slow, creeping upwind with steerage way and no more.

  Late afternoon, and the lookout sighted something in the water ahead, and an hour’s rowing took them to a capsized trireme, floating upside down just at the surface of the water. Gulls were picking at corpses.

  ‘Not one of ours,’ Charmides said from the bow with the ruthlessness of a veteran. He limped back to the sternward edge of the marine tower. ‘Just happened – there’s sharks still feeding.’

  On and on, into the blazing sun and dead into the wind. Satyrus had sweated through his lightest chiton during his turn at the steering oars. He couldn’t imagine what the thranites were going through, so he descended into the choking depths of his ship.

&nbs
p; The air was so close and hot in the bottom range that it was like coriander soup – except that it smelled much worse. Sweat and urine and faeces and old cheese.

  ‘Everyone here still alive?’ Satyrus asked.

  ‘Neh, we’s all dead men!’ called one old sweat.

  ‘Wish we’s dead,’ said another.

  ‘Is we there yet, Pater?’ called a third.

  Satyrus had to smile despite the stench. If the thranites were in such spirits, then he was in good shape.

  An hour later, and the clouds over Africa were unmistakable. Neiron pointed them out to Satyrus, who was standing with Idomeneus, the archer-captain. The Cretan didn’t know it, but he was slated as the next prize master. Satyrus was testing him on his navigation.

  ‘And Cyprus to Rhodes?’ Satyrus asked.

  ‘I’m from Gortyn!’ Idomeneus said with a rich chuckle. ‘I was at sea when I was born. Cyprus to Asia and due west along the coast – west by south to weather the cape at Cos, and then across the strait to Rhodes. A child could do it.’

  ‘If we take any more ships, Charmides will have a command,’ Satyrus said. ‘And that’s as close to a child as this ship holds.’

  Neiron pointed at the bronze sky to the south. ‘Wind’s growing stronger,’ he said. ‘Just like before.’

  ‘We should get on the beach,’ Jubal said.

  The edge of darkness, and they saw fires to the west along the coast, and Satyrus breathed a sigh of relief when he recognised Wasp and Ramses beached stern first. And Diokles was waiting – the whole squadron had already fed, and he lined them up on the beach, got ropes aboard the Arete in the rising surf and pulled the big ship right up the beach until the heavy bronze bow was on dry sand. Every ship in the squadron rested on the sand.

  ‘I count twelve,’ Satyrus said, when he had his back against a chest and a golden cup of wine in his fist.

  ‘Sank two, took one,’ Diokles said. ‘Ugliest action you ever saw – if you like to see a plan. But our ships kept coming up, and finally we swamped them. Your young Dionysus did very well – his men backed water almost like real oarsmen.’