himself for remembering the right word at the right time.
‘You lost, you stupid Greek. Give me my horse!’ Demetrios became aware that he was surrounded by enemy cavalry. ‘Touch me and you are all dead.’
Diodorus caught the enemy boy’s bridle and turned his horse. ‘You’ll be worth a pretty penny,’ he said. ‘Ride for it!’
They thundered away, through the surprised Saka and across the ridge, past the gully. Satyrus didn’t start breathing until they were within the circuit of their own pickets. Not an arrow flew their way.
Demetrios was all but raving. ‘You are all dead men! You have broken your oaths! You fucking Greek mercenaries, you scum!’
His escort hadn’t pursued them past the gully.
Diodorus handed the blond’s reins to Hama. ‘I couldn’t resist. Listen, boy. We swore no oaths – you offered us no safe conduct. Your herald didn’t have a staff. And you did not win the battle. Now – speak your piece. Then – maybe – I’ll let you go back to your father.’
Demetrios didn’t lack courage. He looked around him, as if assessing the situation. ‘You’re the boy who shot past us yesterday!’ he said to Satyrus. He grinned, suddenly, and looked like the statue of a young Apollo. ‘My father offers you wages. And demands the return of any booty you have taken. And the handing over of certain people. I am not to discuss this in public.’ He looked around him.
Satyrus admired his coolness, because the golden boy was smiling as if he’d just been given a gift.
‘Dad says I’m a hothead. I’ll never live this down. You will let me go? He really will kill you. Look at the force he’s putting together!’ Demetrios pointed at the mass of cavalry already gathering on the ridge beyond the gully.
‘What people?’ Diodorus asked.
‘Eumenes’ widow and her bastard son,’ Demetrios said. ‘We will not mistreat her.’
Diodorus looked south along the valley. From the top of the ridge that had held their pickets all night, he could see that Sappho’s wagons had made fifteen stades and were still rolling.
‘The answer is no,’ Diodorus said after a moment. ‘No, we won’t take service with your father and, no, we won’t return any booty and, no, you cannot have Banugul. Although I wish you fucking had her already,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘As to being fucking Greeks, and mercenaries-’
‘I was overwrought,’ Demetrios said cheerfully. ‘I have a temper.’
‘Your father arranged with the Argyraspids to have my employer murdered, did he not?’ Diodorus was watching as more Macedonian cavalry crested the far ridge.
‘The mutinous troops killed Eumenes,’ Demetrios said. ‘What you say is a very serious accusation.’
‘Go and tell your father that if he wants us, he can try and catch us,’ Diodorus said. ‘Now get off your horse.’
‘This is my best horse,’ Demetrios said.
‘It is about to become my best horse,’ Diodorus said. ‘Think of it as the cost of a little lesson in war. You still have a great deal to learn. Next time you offer someone a truce, keep it.’
Demetrios dismounted. He turned to Satyrus. ‘Who are you?’ he asked.
‘Satyrus, son of Kineas,’ he said.
Demetrios gave him a good-natured smile, and tossed him his silver helmet. ‘You might as well have this to go with the horse. That way, I’ll know you next time!’ He grinned, turned away and started to jog across the grass to the north.
‘There goes fifty talents of gold,’ Hama said bitterly. ‘We got a horse!’
Diodorus led them back south, towards the vanishing column of dust. ‘Antigonus One-Eye would follow us to the ends of the earth to rescue his son,’ he said. ‘I hope it won’t be worth his while to pursue us otherwise.’
‘They really murdered Eumenes?’ Crax asked.
‘Someone did. I saw them grab him yesterday – Argyraspids and some cavalry officers.’ Diodorus shook his head. ‘He deserved better.’
‘Where in Hades do we go now?’ asked Eumenes the Olbian, who rode up from the head of his troop. ‘Hello, young Satyrus.’ He reached out for the silver helmet that Satyrus was still holding. ‘That’s quite a piece of kit.’
Satyrus hugged him.
Eumenes eyed the helmet. ‘Well, I’d be careful where I wore it,’ he said, laughing. ‘Young Apollo over there will probably want it back.’
‘He said something of the sort,’ Satyrus admitted.
Diodorus looked around. ‘Has this outfit lost any semblance of discipline? You people have troops to command, I believe?’
‘Where are we going?’ Crax asked. ‘Tanais is gone, and Eumenes the Cardian is dead. We’re out of employers!’
Diodorus gave them a tight smile. ‘Aegypt,’ he said. ‘Down the hills to the Euphrates, up the Euphrates until we can cut across the desert to the Jordan, and down the Jordan to Alexandria.’
Crax shook his head. ‘That’s five thousand stades!’ he said. ‘By Hermes, Strategos, we don’t have remounts, we don’t have food, and we’re surrounded by enemies. We don’t have a bronze obol amongst us!’
‘Twenty days should see us to Ptolemy’s outposts,’ Diodorus said. ‘We’ll buy remounts – or take them. Look, I have the first one under my hand.’
‘We couldn’t buy a donkey,’ Crax said.
‘Remember how One-Eye was asking for our loot back?’ Diodorus asked, smirking at Eumenes.
Crax grinned. ‘That was a good one. What loot?’
‘The loot I got,’ Eumenes said. ‘While you folks were gallivanting around the battlefield, I lifted One-Eye’s treasury.’ He shrugged at Crax’s disbelieving look. ‘All Tyche, brother. I got lost in the salt haze, and I tripped over these packhorses.’
They all laughed, and Satyrus, now one of them, laughed too.
When they rejoined the column, they found Banugul sitting on a white Nisaean with her son on a black mare. She looked like a queen, her pale-skinned beauty scarcely aged. She wore a considerable amount of carefully applied cosmetics, more than Satyrus had ever seen on a free woman, and she had a cloth-of-gold scarf tied over her hair. Her purple-blue eyes sparkled under the shawl, and she was obviously angry.
Herakles looked deeply unhappy.
Diodorus rode up in a swirl of dust and embraced his Sappho. ‘Beautiful job,’ he said.
She gave him a lopsided grin. ‘Men,’ she said. ‘Birth a baby and they’ve nothing to say. But get a column moving-’
‘I wish to go to One-Eye,’ Banugul said.
Diodorus gawked at her. ‘What? He tried to kill you yesterday.’
She shook her head. ‘I am not going to Aegypt with a column of mercenaries,’ she said. Her tone softened. ‘There are many men here with no reason to love me, or Alexander’s son, either, Diodorus. I will never forget that Philokles saved me, nor that Kineas’s daughter saved my son. But I am the satrap of Hyrkania, and Antigonus One- Eye is now my lord. I will go and make obeisance to him.’
Sappho laughed.
Banugul glared at her.
Diodorus rubbed his chin. ‘He asked for you and the boy, right enough,’ the strategos said. ‘He might just kill you.’
Banugul smiled. It was an easy smile, a light smile, and it undid fifteen years of ageing and rendered her Aphrodite-like. ‘He will not kill me. He needs my father, and my brothers, and my son will give him legitimacy.’
‘I want to be a king,’ Herakles said suddenly. ‘Not a pawn.’
‘Your father started as a pawn,’ Banugul said. And then, in a kinder way, she said, ‘Your turn will come.’
‘I want to stay with Satyrus and Melitta,’ he said.
Satyrus rode over to the boy and clasped his hand, as men do. ‘We will be friends,’ he said.
Diodorus looked at Sappho, and then at Eumenes. The young Olbian gave a slight nod. So did Sappho.
‘You’d be doing us a favour, and no mistake, lady,’ Diodorus acknowledged. ‘If you were to – to go to him, One-Eye might just let us go.’ He looked at the northern horizon. ‘But we’ve got Hades’ own jump on the bastard. I think we can outrun him.’
