Demostrate immediately agreed to hunt down the Macedonian triremes. ‘He’ll get more as the summer wears on, mark my words,’ said the fat man. ‘I’d just as soon wreck those he’s got as soon as they come under my hand.’
‘Go with the gods,’ Kineas said. ‘The tide’s on the make. I won’t hold you.’
‘Good to meet a general who knows the sea. Is it true you’re a citizen? Will you stay? You’ve become quite the famous figure in Pantecapaeum.’
Kineas shrugged. ‘I think I’m here to stay,’ he said.
‘That’s good to hear. Hard to trust a mercenary — no offence intended. ’
Kineas stood up on the oar rail and leaped to the wharf. ‘Send me word if you have an action.’
Demostrate waved. ‘I’ve played this game before. I can get three more hulls in the water by midsummer — if I get them, and I’ve cleared his squadron, I may just cruise the Bosporus.’ He leered. ‘My lads would love to take a few merchant men.’
Kineas turned to Nicomedes, who had accompanied him down to make an introduction. ‘He looks more like a pirate than a merchant.’
Nicomedes laughed. ‘He was a pirate. Pantecapaeum made him navarch to stop his predatory ways.’ He laughed.
Kineas realized that he had been expected to know as much — that the fat man had been making fun of both of them with his comment about mercenaries. ‘I assume he’s as competent as he appears?’
Nicomedes nodded. ‘He’s a terror. He used to prey on my ships.’
‘How’d you stop him?’ Kineas asked.
Nicomedes made a moue and winked. ‘It would be indelicate to relate,’ he said. Then his voice changed — all business. ‘I’m off with my squadron tomorrow. I want to voice a concern — a real concern. Come to my house.’
Kineas followed him up the hill from the port. Nicomedes was an important man, and walking to his house involved running a gauntlet of requests, factors, beggars of various degrees and stations — it took an hour he could ill spare.
Once seated in a room full of beautiful, if salacious, mosaic and marble, Kineas lay on a couch with a cup of excellent wine. He kept his patience — Nicomedes was not just one of his officers, but, next to the archon and perhaps Cleitus, the city’s most powerful man. Probably as rich as any man in Athens.
‘What’s on your mind?’ Kineas asked.
Nicomedes was admiring the goldwork on Kineas’s sword. ‘This is superb! You’ll pardon me if I say I had not expected to envy you the ownership of an object — although I had heard of the wonders of the blade.’ Nicomedes shrugged, made a wry face. ‘Swords don’t move me much — I like one that’s sharp and stays in my hand. But the hilt — masterwork. From Athens?’
Kineas shook his head. ‘An Athenian master — living with the Sakje.’
‘The style — like great Athenian work, but all these outre animals — and the Medusa! Or is that Medea?’
Kineas smiled. ‘I suspect it to be Medea.’
‘Medea? She killed her children, didn’t she?’ Nicomedes raised an eyebrow. ‘That face — I can imagine her killing a few children. Beautiful — but fierce. Why Medea?’
Kineas shook his head. ‘Private joke, I think. What’s on your mind?’ he asked again.
Nicomedes continued to admire the sword. Then he straightened. ‘Cleomenes has reappeared,’ he said.
‘Zeus, lord of all,’ Kineas swore. ‘Heraclea?’
‘Worse. Tomis. He’s gone over to the Macedonians. I found out this morning. The Archon won’t know yet.’
Kineas rubbed his jaw. Cleomenes, for all his party enmity, knew all of their plans — every nuance. He’d attended every meeting of the city’s magnates — he was, after all, one of the leading men. ‘That could be a heavy blow,’ he said.
Nicomedes nodded. ‘I respect your command — but you are sending every leader in the assembly out of the city. There will be no one left with the balls to contest the archon — or Cleomenes, if he comes here. And he will.’
Kineas rubbed his beard and made a face. He took a deep breath and then said, ‘You’re right.’
‘He could murder some of the popular leaders among the people, and close the gates.’ Nicomedes drank his wine. ‘The archon has spent five years improving the defences — I’d hate to try and take this place.’
Kineas shook his head. ‘We’d have it in our hands in three days.’
Nicomedes looked surprised — not an expression his smooth features often wore. ‘How?’
Kineas raised an eyebrow to indicate that he wanted Nicomedes to guess.
‘Treason?’ asked Nicomedes, but as soon as he said it, he laughed. ‘Of course. We’re the army. All our people are in the city.’
Kineas nodded. ‘I like to think of it as an exercise in military democracy. Well-governed cities can stand a siege for ever, unless they are unlucky. But an unpopular government will only last until someone opens a gate. Not usually a long wait. Tyrannies…’ Kineas smiled a wolfish smile. ‘They fall easily.’
Nicomedes leaned forward on his couch. ‘By the gods, you are tempting him.’
Kineas shook his head. ‘I don’t play those games. I need the soldiers in the field — if for no other reason, to show the Sakje that we are with them. But if the archon is tempted to be foolish, and he acts,’ Kineas shrugged, ‘I am not responsible for the evil actions of other men. My tutor taught me that.’
Nicomedes nodded, his eyes alight — but then he shook his head. ‘He could still damage our property. He might attack families — he might even hand the citadel to Macedon, if he thought it was his only hope of survival.’
Kineas nodded. ‘I believe that he is a rational man, despite his burst of temper. You think worse of him.’
‘He is more stable with you and Memnon than he was last year. I fear that when you are gone — I fear many things.’
Kineas rubbed his beard. ‘What do you want me to do?’
‘Leave my squadron here.’ Nicomedes shrugged. ‘I can watch the archon. And I can deal with Cleomenes.’ His voice hardened.
Kineas shook his head. ‘Ah, Nicomedes — you have worked yourself too hard. Yours is the best of the four squadrons. On the day of battle, I need you.’
Nicomedes shrugged. ‘I thought you’d say that. Very well, then — leave Cleitus here.’
Kineas rubbed his cheeks thoughtfully. ‘The older men — the worst riders, but on the best horses and with the best equipment.’
Nicomedes leaned across the space between the couches, handing Kineas back his sword, hilt first. ‘Most of them are old for a real campaign — but young enough to wear armour and stare down a tyrant.’
‘You and Cleitus are rivals,’ Kineas said carefully.
Nicomedes got up from his couch and walked to the table where a dozen scrolls were open. ‘Not in this. I’d rather it was me — Cleitus has a lingering respect for the archon, and he’s clay in Cleomenes’s hands — but he’ll hold the line.’
‘All the more reason for it to be him. The archon remains my employer. He is autocratic, but as far as I can tell, he has acted within the laws of the city. You empowered him. He’s your monster.’ Kineas rubbed his beard. ‘And I fear that you and Cleomenes — that it’s too personal.’
Nicomedes looked bitter. ‘It is. I’ll kill him when I can.’
Kineas stood up. ‘When the Athenian assembly voted for war with Macedon, many were against it, and some of them lie dead at Chaeronea. That’s democracy.’
Nicomedes came and walked Kineas to his door. ‘You’ll do it, though — leave Cleitus’s squadron?’
Kineas nodded sharply. ‘Yes.’
Nicomedes smiled, and Kineas wondered if he’d just been outmanoeuvred. ‘Good. It would kill Ajax to stay. And I’ve never seen war on land. It looks very safe compared to war at sea.’
Kineas didn’t know whether this was humour or not. It was always hard to tell with Nicomedes. So he clasped the man’s hand in his doorway, amidst a crowd of hangers-on, and went back to the barracks.
The third day, Nicomedes’ squadron rode forth with more baggage and more slaves then the other two
