‘He would never betray us,’ she said. ‘He’s had a hundred chances to kill us.’
‘Nestor, why are these things happening?’ Amastris spoke in a low voice, almost husky.
‘Why, my lady?’ Nestor shrugged. ‘People play games for power. Olympias and her friend Cassander play them for the love of playing. Olympias is like a cat – she likes to hurt her prey. And they want to own us – and Sinope and the north shore, as well.’ Nestor’s mouth was a hard line. ‘The last time Olympias stretched her talons out towards the north, your father cut them off,’ he said to Satyrus. ‘Zopryon was her lover.’ He chuckled. ‘Of course, everyone at the court of Macedon was her lover at one time or another,’ he continued.
Satyrus was gazing at Amastris, who looked even more like a Nereid. She was gazing back, the pressure of her green eyes on his almost too intense to bear, like strong sunlight on a sunburn.
Satyrus wanted to touch her curls and see what kept them bound so close to each other.
She smiled at him. ‘I like your sister,’ she said, as if she had been his friend for millennia, and as if the two of them were alone in the room.
‘Me too,’ Satyrus said. He ruined the line with some weak giggles.
Nestor put a possessive hand on Amastris’s shoulder. ‘Amastris will rule here one day. Amastris, this handsome boy is a penniless exile, and you will not pay him the slightest attention. You are going to Ptolemy to find a husband – a powerful husband with a fleet.’ He said these words with the amusement of a father.
‘I know, Captain,’ she replied. She smiled at Satyrus again.
‘Look all you like, young man,’ Nestor said. ‘She is our greatest asset in this game of thieves, and she is not for you.’
‘We’re looking for a middle-aged tyrant with a good fleet. Syracusa, perhaps,’ the Nereid said. ‘I’ve been raised to it. I can name the rowing positions. I think I’d make a decent navarch.’ She laughed and turned her grass-green gaze on Melitta. ‘If your brother ever restores his fortune, you’ll be in the same boat, Melitta. He’ll marry you off to secure his coast.’
‘Not if he wants to live through the night,’ Melitta said. She reached over and ruffled her brother’s hair and met Amastris’s eyes. ‘Your father is not what he appears,’ she said.
‘If he were what he appears,’ Nestor said, ‘he’d have eaten you for dinner tonight. But he regrets that someone has the power to show him weak. You two must be gone. The choices are by ship or by caravan. It is your life, young man – which will you choose?’
‘I may be a foolish boy,’ Satyrus said, ‘but I think that if I can make it safely to my father’s friend Diodorus, I will be safe. Many of the men I grew up with are among Diodorus’s mercenaries.’ Even as he spoke, Satyrus relived the last two weeks. He pursed his lips and looked at his sister.
‘Will we ever be safe?’ she asked, speaking the same thought that bounced around in his head.
Philokles was still silent with anger, hitting his wine cup hard.
Theron put a hand on the Spartan’s shoulder. ‘I think we’re safer by land.’
Philokles shrugged. ‘All I have chosen goes wrong,’ he said. ‘I’m just a drunk.’
Melitta went and stood in front of the Spartan. ‘Is that how it is going to be, Philokles?’ she asked. ‘If you won’t think, won’t help and keep drinking wine, I’d just as soon leave you here.’
Theron shook his head violently, out of the Spartan’s sight line.
Satyrus stepped in. ‘Philokles, please help us. You saved our lives again and again the last few weeks. Get us to Diodorus.’
‘Land,’ Philokles said thickly. ‘Let us ride.’
Satyrus turned to the captain of the guard. ‘We will go by land. Now, if you will help us. We’ll need a mule litter for the slave girl.’
Nestor nodded. ‘All is ready, my lord.’ He looked at Satyrus’s leg, and meaningfully at Kallista, who was still pale and could barely eat.
‘You are, all of you, injured,’ he said. ‘If my lord allows it, I think that you should take the doctor.’
Melitta shook her head. ‘I don’t like him.’
Philokles shrugged. ‘I take your point – drunkard that I am. You think that we need his skills.’
Melitta made a noise and Philokles cut her off. ‘Doctors do not grow on trees,’ he said.
‘May you be safe!’ Amastris prayed.
‘We will be safe when we have power,’ Satyrus said.
‘That is not the lesson that Philokles would teach, if he were sober.’ Melitta struggled for composure. She looked at her new friend. ‘Pardon me, Amastris. Sometimes, I remember that I have no home.’
The other girl gave her a quick hug.
When the hasty meal was over, Nestor summoned Amastris’s maids to take her to her own wing of the palace. She hugged Melitta. ‘Write to me in Alexandria,’ she said. ‘You have adventures! I marry some old man with a fleet.’ She smiled. Then she frowned. ‘Hestia protect you, I didn’t mean that you should have adventures. Stay safe! Hestia keep you safe, and Artemis, who protects virgin girls.’ She blushed, and hugged Melitta again. She was a year older than the twins, but Melitta was a head taller, and Satyrus was taller yet.
Satyrus reached out a hand to her – the bravest act of his life – and she took it. ‘You – be safe,’ she said, stammering a little, and blushing.
‘And you, my lady,’ Satyrus said. He kissed her hand, as he had seen Theron do with Kallista.
She giggled. ‘My father would kill you,’ she said, and followed her maids.
She left something hard in Satyrus’s hand – a ring. It was quite a ring, made of gold with garnets around a big red stone carved with a tiny, perfect representation of a man with a club and a lion skin – Herakles. He looked from it to her – he’d never held anything so precious.
‘Hermes protects travellers!’ she called from the doorway. ‘But Herakles triumphs!’
PART III
QUENCHING
9
316 BC
S tratokles lay on a couch in the shade of a flame tree and watched the sun set against the towering storm clouds to the north. His mind was on a thousand things, but the beauty of the sunset infected him, and he called for a tablet and a stylus. But all that came to him were snippets of other men’s poems and tags of Menander. He laughed.
Lucius, lying on the other couch, coughed and shook his head. ‘Not much to laugh about.’
‘That’s just where you are wrong,’ Stratokles said. ‘We’re alive. Other men are dead, and we, my friend, are still alive.’
‘Can’t tell you how – how much I appreciate that you came back for me,’ Lucius said. His tone conveyed more insult than flattery – his tone told Stratokles that he never expected, once wounded, that his employer would pick him up and fight his way out.
‘What a cock-up, and no mistake,’ Stratokles said. ‘To be honest, I must be responsible, but I cannot see how. Anyway – I like you, Lucius. I’m tired of thugs. You’re a gentleman.’ He shrugged. ‘Not sure why I went back for you, myself.’
Lucius started laughing. ‘Oh, fuck, that hurts,’ he said, and wheezed. ‘So – what next?’
‘We heal up. You’ll be out a month – more, I expect. I’ll be able to hobble about in a week, but it’ll be a month before I can exercise.’ He shrugged. ‘Then back to Athens and fucking Demetrios of Phaleron, who will tell me how I could have done it all much, much better.’
‘He’s your boss?’ Lucius asked.
‘You are a fucking barbarian, anyone ever tell you that?’ Stratokles laughed and snapped his fingers for wine. A Thracian girl with flame-red hair bustled out on to the terrace, poured his wine and vanished. ‘Demetrios of Phaleron is the tyrant of Athens. A scion of Phocion. Friend of Kineas, whose children we just so notably failed to
