when his hands were steady, he said, ‘I will serve.’
‘Fuck, I’ll serve too,’ Amyntas said, and stood by his couch.
Dionysius, the handsomest young man in Alexandria, and one of the richest, smiled – and stood. ‘If I’m willing to put my body between Demetrios and this city,’ he said, ‘then the rest of you should be with me.’ He smiled wickedly. ‘You all have so much less to lose.’
Dionysius was the deciding vote, if it had been an assembly. Suddenly all the young men were standing, and the older ones – most of them already soldiers, looked around, muttering. Some applauded, but others looked angry. Satyrus did a quick count and found that he had eighty-six adherents.
He took them as a mob to the parade ground, the keener boys attempting to march and failing utterly. He handed them over to Philokles, who kept a straight face and made the Spartan salute.
‘I need Theo and Dio and Abraham,’ he said. ‘For recruiting.’
‘Carry on,’ said the voice of Ares. Then Philokles grabbed his shoulder. ‘I take it that every patron of Cimon’s saw you?’
‘Yes,’ Satyrus said, defiantly. ‘I told you I was going there.’
‘You are a man now, and not a boy. But if they saw you, they will start adding things together. Understand?’
Satyrus nodded. ‘I understand. I’m at risk.’
‘Good lad. Watch yourself. Your uncles are probably all starting at shadows.’
21
T heo knew the richest boys. Dio knew the handsomest boys and the athletes and musicians. Abraham knew the Jews, and some of the Nabataean metics and other Arabs. They went as a group of four from door to door, portico to portico, palace to warehouse.
They gathered a hundred and forty more young men, one and two at a time. It took days, precious days, and every armourer in Alexandria had orders for the finest armour, the lightest corslets with the best iron and bronze scales.
It was curious work that left Satyrus exhausted at the end of the day, full of minor triumphs and equally minor snubs and rebuffs – doors closed to him that he’d always imagined opened, a share of curses, but worst of all, the bored refusal of the rich – men who mocked him for his recruiting campaign, and men who questioned his sanity.
Croseus the Megaran, for instance, waited only to be told the magnitude of the threat before ordering his best things packed and taking one of his own ships for Corinth. ‘I owe this city nothing,’ he said. ‘Neither do you. Stop being foolish – you will not get my son to stand in the ranks. That’s for slaves and fools – poor men who have to do such things. Men like us don’t fight. Leon won’t be in your precious phalanx, I’ll wager.’
‘No, sir,’ Satyrus said.
‘See? Childhood fantasies. Myths. Like thinking that Alexander was actually a god.’ Croseus shook his head.
‘Master Leon will serve with the cavalry,’ Satyrus said.
‘Take your foolery and your rudeness and get out of my warehouse,’ Croseus said.
Again, he found his Macedonian friends vanishing like startled gazelles in a hunt down the Delta. Not all of them – Theo’s father was delighted to see his son in the ranks – but others spoke, quietly or openly, with derision, of the city and of Ptolemy. It was one of these meetings that showed that the war of the factions had reached explosive proportions.
Sitalkes was a young man that Satyrus knew from pankration. His father was an officer in the Foot Companions, a captain of ten files, who shared the name Alexander with most of the Macedonian men of his generation. Sitalkes stood in his own courtyard, enthusiastically nodding as Dionysius and Satyrus gave him the whole recruiting speech – and then his father came through the courtyard gates.
‘Well, well,’ he drawled. ‘Boy, are these your friends? Please introduce me, unless we don’t use such polite conventions any more.’
Sitalkes bowed. ‘Pater, this is Abraham, son of Isaac Ben Zion. This is Satyrus, son of Kineas of Athens. Dionysius, son of Eteocles; Theo, son of Apollion. All of them-’
Whatever all of them did together was not something in which his father took much interest.
‘You’re Satyrus? The famous Satyrus?’ The Macedonian officer nodded. He made a motion. Then he stopped and swallowed. ‘Well!’ He looked around his courtyard. ‘Hold on a minute, boys. I’m eager to hear Satyrus’s proposals, as is every citizen, I’m sure.’ The man’s heavy teasing had the same smell as his breath – red wine and garlic. He snapped his fingers and wine was brought, and he sent the wine slave away, but Satyrus noticed that the slave went and spoke to one of the Macedonian soldiers who loitered around the gate. The soldier put his shield against the wall and sprinted off down the street.
‘Wine?’ the officer asked.
Sitalkes appeared stricken. He tried to speak and then shook his head.
‘No wine? Perhaps you are too young to have a head for it. I hear you are a pankrationist. Go inside, boy,’ Alexander ordered his son.
‘No wine, thank you,’ Satyrus said. ‘I’m trying to convince Sitalkes to join the Phalanx of Aegypt.’
Alexander smiled – a false smile that made Satyrus’s guts roll over. ‘We’ll consider it,’ he said.
Abraham was already by the gate. Theo was on his feet, having caught on that something was not right. Dionysius sneered. ‘Macedonian debates must be like Macedonian flirting.’
‘Come away, Dio,’ Satyrus said.
‘No, stay,’ the officer said. ‘I love punishing unruly children.’ And when Satyrus dragged Dionysius away, the officer roared, ‘Close the gate!’
Abraham was ahead of the Macedonian gate guard all the way – he got his back against the gate, and he was bigger. And when the man went to grapple, Abraham gave him an elbow in the temple and down he went.
The officer thrust Dionysius from behind. ‘Go, then,’ he said. ‘Get your foreign arse out of my house and don’t come here again.’ Then he laughed, and even the laugh was surly. ‘I imagine you’ll get all the chastisement you have coming to you, Greek.’
Satyrus swept up the Macedonian shield by the gate and got it on his arm. ‘Run!’ he shouted.
Cyrus, his slave, needed no further admonition. Theo bolted through the gate, and Dionysius, seeing the gate guard put his hand on his sword, hesitated, and Abraham shoved him.
The gate guard tried to knock Theo down and Satyrus caught the man’s shoulder on the shield and turned it, then kicked out under the shield and knocked the man sprawling, and he was out of the gate.
‘What in all Tartarus does that madman think he’s doing?’ Dionysius asked when they stopped at the next corner.
‘He sent a man,’ Abraham said between gulps of air. They began to walk as they all gasped for breath and then Theo laughed. ‘What an idiot!’ he said. ‘Our fathers will bury him in court.’
Abraham shook his head. ‘He didn’t seem very worried about court. Listen – he sent a man!’
‘I saw it,’ Satyrus said. He was trying to think ahead. ‘We should go home by a different route, then we-’
‘My father will order him arrested,’ Dionysius insisted.
‘I don’t think…’ Abraham said, and then Cyrus, who was walking next to Satyrus, leaned forward to point at something on a roof and took an arrow in the neck. The boy dropped like a sack of flour, the main artery in his neck severed, his blood splashing like a badly sacrificed bull’s.
Satyrus looked around. ‘Cover,’ he yelled, and jumped under the overhang of the exedra of the nearest building.
Abraham copied him and Dionysius had the reactions of an athlete, but Theo had never been in real danger before and he froze in the middle of the street. There was the rush of feet behind them, and Theo cried out and went down. Satyrus saw the man who killed him – a mangy footpad who carefully put his sword in Theo’s eye as the boy thrashed on the ground.
