Philokles nodded. ‘He has a point,’ he conceded.
The evening breeze whispered through the palm trees and the Mediterranean surf hissed against the gravel of the beach behind the main wing of Leon’s house, and the north wind carried the smell of the sea – rotting fish and kelp and salt, a smell that could sink to a miasma or rise to a wonderful scent of openness, blue waves and freedom.
Satyrus had a porch off his rooms that opened on the sea, and tonight he felt the need of it. He took a cup of wine from a slave and walked out into the breeze. Out here, in the dark, the sound of the sea was much louder.
‘When we first came here, I used to sit just like this and listen to the sea,’ Melitta said from a chair. ‘I used to imagine that the water coming up the beach was the same water that had passed out of the Tanais.’
Satyrus sipped some wine. ‘I still think the same thing,’ he said. ‘All the time.’
Melitta got out of her chair. ‘After the sea fight off Syria, I lay with Xenophon. It’s not his fault, it’s mine. I’m sorry. I told Sappho – I didn’t want you to hear it second-hand.’
Satyrus digested this in silence.
‘Say something!’ Melitta said.
‘Theo is dead,’ he said. ‘Killed by men sent to kill me. I left him standing in the street. I didn’t do it – I just let it happen.’
‘It’s not all about you,’ Melitta said.
‘No,’ Satyrus agreed, and drank more wine. ‘I’m learning that.’
‘I’m sorry about Theo. What did his father say?’ Melitta asked.
‘Nothing. He was frightened. Frightened! What is this city coming to?’ Satyrus took a breath and drank more wine. ‘Why Xenophon, though? I mean, he’s my best friend, you’ve spent my whole adult life teasing him and telling me about his shortcomings, and he’s enough of a gentleman to feel – things. You won’t marry him, I assume?’ Satyrus wished he sounded a little more adult.
Melitta was silent. Then she said, ‘I don’t plan to marry anyone among the Hellenes, Satyrus.’
‘Going to go to the sea of grass without me, Lita?’ Satyrus knew that he’d had too much wine.
‘If I have to,’ Melitta said. ‘I want to be a queen, not a girl.’
Satyrus shook his head. ‘That’s just where we differ, sister. I’d like very much not to be a king.’
‘You wallow a lot, you know that? It’s not all about you! You didn’t kill Theo. You didn’t kill your precious Peleus. Sometimes you make me want to punch you.’ Melitta shook her head. ‘You get everything I want – and you don’t even like it!’
‘After this campaign-’ Satyrus began, but Melitta cut in savagely.
‘After this campaign? After we sail to Rhodos? After we make war on Antigonus One-Eye? How long do I have to wait?’ Now they were shouting at each other.
Satyrus raised his hands, spilling some wine in his frustration. ‘What’s so bad?’
‘What’s so bad? How did you spend the day? Recruiting? To save the city from Demetrios and his one-eyed father? Was it frustrating? Did useless merchants turn you down? Fighting for your life against assassins? Lost a friend?’ She was shouting now. ‘I sat at home and wove some wool.’
He was silent.
‘In my spare time I worried that I was pregnant,’ she muttered. ‘I want to go and fight Demetrios. I want to ride free, or be a helmsman, or recruit young men to fight. But most of all I want the attention of the men and women worth a conversation. Tonight, I confessed my transgression to Sappho. Do you know what she said? Best not tell Satyrus until the battle is fought. Philokles treats me like a girl. Why? Because I have breasts and my body can make a baby! Why doesn’t somebody recruit me? Demetrios is going to have forty elephants and we don’t even have one, and by Apollo, I may be the best archer in this city. What are we doing about raising a corps of archers?’
‘Maiden archers?’ Satyrus said, looking to win a smile and failing utterly.
‘Is the loss of my virginity painful to you, brother? Was our family honour strapped between my thighs?’ Melitta swelled with rage.
Satyrus shook his head. ‘Stupid joke. Sorry, Lita.’ He made himself reach for her, refusing to be cowed by her anger and believe that she really aimed her darts at him, and she was in his arms, her head on his shoulder, and at the speed of their embrace they stopped being at odds.
Melitta rocked back and forth for a little while, and Satyrus watched the stars behind her head blur with his own unshed tears and then return to normal.
She stepped back. ‘I know it’s not your fault. But suddenly everyone in this house is treating you like a man. Whereas I get to be a perpetual child.’
‘I can’t get you a corps of archers, maiden or not,’ Satyrus said. ‘But when Leon lands his marines, I know a ship that could easily land one more archer. But Lita – this isn’t a fair battle. We’re the trapped dogs – Demetrios has everything his way.’
Melitta raised her chin. ‘I was there when we took two pirate galleys,’ she said.
‘True enough,’ Satyrus said, and kissed the top of her head. ‘Why Xenophon? He’s so nice – he’s going to follow you like a dog for the rest of your life.’
She shrugged. ‘Hard to describe, really. He knew that I had saved his life – thanked me for it. Comrade to comrade, even though he had fought like Achilles and I was a mere girl.’ She shrugged again. ‘And I saw – things. The same things – gods, you know as well as I. I was dead when your spear put that man down. I felt dead. And then – I was alive.’ She hung her head. ‘I don’t care a fig for my virginity, brother. But I agree that actions have consequences, and I insist that Xeno should not pay the price – the bride price or any other price.’
Satyrus slugged back his wine. When they were children, they had fought – and then one big hug and it was over. Tonight, he felt the loss of that simplicity, because she was closed to him on some level, and because no, he had not really forgiven her. But his failure to forgive her weighed on him, like a failed sacrifice.
She felt his hesitation. She stared at him.
He stared back. Once, they had been eye to eye. Now he was half a head taller.
‘Will you really help me get away?’ she asked.
‘Yes,’ he said. He imagined her lying dead, trampled by an elephant as he had seen back in the great battle on the salt plains. He shook his head – too much wine. ‘Fuck it, Lita. Yes, you have as much right to lie with a man as I do to lie with a woman. I, too, have spent too much time with Hellenes.’ He smiled bitterly. ‘It’s going to be hard to talk to Xeno.’
‘Imagine how I feel,’ Melitta said. She rose on her toes and kissed his cheek. ‘Thanks,’ she said, and went back inside. She turned back and smiled. ‘I have a rendezvous for you. With Amastris. I was going to throw it in your face if you played high and mighty with me.’ She shook her head. ‘Which you didn’t. So I feel like a fool.’ She reached in her bosom and pulled out an oyster shell. ‘Tomorrow night,’ she said.
The slip of papyrus leaf had two lines from Menander, and Satyrus smiled, because the lines named the hour to anyone who had seen the play.
‘By the steps of the Temple of Poseidon,’ Melitta said. ‘Do you love her?’
Satyrus looked at his sandals. ‘Yes,’ he mumbled. And yet…
‘Don’t be foolish, brother. Don’t get caught. I don’t think – I shouldn’t say this! I don’t think you’re Amastris’s first boy, man, what have you.’ She shrugged, clearly unhappy at having said what she had said.
‘What?’ Satyrus asked. ‘But-’
‘I’m sure it is different for men,’ Melitta said. ‘Listen – don’t go. It’s not worth the risk.’
‘This from my sister who wants me to smuggle her into the archer corps to fight elephants?’ he said.
She smiled. ‘That’s a hit and no mistake, brother. Very well – go if you must. But she won’t show. Not the first time. The first time will just be a test of your devotion, I’m her friend – I know these things.’ She turned and slipped away, leaving him with an oyster shell and a feeling of confusion.
The next morning, the wind still carried the sting of the sea in its tail, and it blew hard enough to cool the sweat on two thousand backs and breasts as they drilled without shade. Panion, the commander of the Foot Companions, stood at the head of the taxeis with Philokles and Theron and half a dozen Macedonian officers.
‘They’re absurd,’ Panion said, loudly enough to carry into the first three ranks. ‘Children and slaves. One-Eye’s veterans will go through them the way his elephants will push through our cavalry.’
His Macedonian officers laughed ruefully or disdainfully, depending on their faction. Philokles said something
