She screamed and went down, her hands on her leg.
Clear of Phiale’s obstruction, Satyrus leaped to attack the Athenian. Their swords rang together – edge to edge – and sparks flew. Satyrus was stronger – but not faster. He almost lost fingers on the next exchange – only a clumsy, desperate parry with his cloak saved his hand.
Sword fighting without armour was merely pankration with a blade. It was something on which Satyrus prided himself. He growled and stepped forward. Stratokles changed his guard, raising his sword hand slightly, and Satyrus pounced, wrapping his cloak-clad hand around the Athenian’s sword in a carefully timed grab.
The Athenian stepped in and grabbed his sword.
Satyrus headbutted the other man, catching him under the chin and rocking him back.
At the same time, Stratokles swung back with his blow, minimizing it, and punched with his cloaked hand up between them, catching Satyrus’s shoulder and knocking him back. The Athenian fell.
Satyrus planted his feet on either side of the downed man and cut at Stratokles’ head, but despite the blow to his head, the Athenian wasn’t done yet. Their blades rang together, and Satyrus grabbed his opponent’s sword hand at the pommel – a dangerous move that Theron had made him practise a thousand times. He ripped the blade from the Athenian’s hand just at Stratokles landed a heavy left, this time to the side of his ankle, which made him stumble back. Stratokles gasped for air, grabbing at a couch and getting to his feet. Then Satyrus stepped in to finish him.
‘By Apollo! He’s unarmed!’ Abraham caught at his left hand.
Stratokles raised his hands. ‘Ho, young Herakles!’ he croaked, and stepped back again. ‘If you cut me down unarmed, even your bloody uncle can’t save you.’
The man’s grin was so offensive that Satyrus ripped himself free of Abraham’s restraint and punched the pommel of his sword into the man’s forehead, laying him flat in one blow, choking on the tiled floor.
Phiale’s cry – ‘He’s the Athenian ambassador!’ – stopped the descent of his back cut into the man’s neck.
Gorgias stood aside, and then slowly subsided on to a kline. ‘Oh, Zeus!’ he said. ‘All my guests are dead!’
‘Let’s get you out of here,’ Abraham said. ‘That was – ill-considered, my friend.’ He shrugged. ‘But spectacular to watch.’
As the soldier shook and mewled on the floor, Satyrus looked at Phiale, trying to discern if this had been – what had it been? An assassination attempt? They happened every day, in Alexandria.
She had tried to pin his arms.
‘He tried to kill me and my sister when we were children,’ Satyrus said. It sounded pretty weak, with two men bleeding on the tiles.
‘He’s the ambassador of Athens!’ Phiale said again. ‘He brought the king a message from Cassander! They are allies! Are you insane?’
Abraham had his arm. ‘Argue later,’ he said.
Xenophon already had their cloaks at the door. Fights were not uncommon at Cimon’s, but the two rich foreigners lying prostrate on the marble floor were attracting a great deal of attention.
Satyrus looked back again at Phiale, who was looking at the men on the floor and who then lifted her eyes.
What did he see there? Confusion? Or complicity?
‘Argue later,’ Abraham said again. ‘Come.’
The garden was starting to return to life – noisy, shouting life – as they hurried down the steps.
‘Let’s run,’ Abraham urged.
‘What are we running from?’ Satyrus asked. He was already moving at an easy lope.
‘I don’t know,’ Abraham said.
Satyrus ran in through the business gate, past the sailors and into the courtyard.
Uncle Leon was by the fountain, issuing unpacking orders to a phalanx of slaves and servants and retainers and some sailors who had carried his most precious cargoes up from the warehouses.
Theron had an armful of Serican silk hangings and looked as if he was afraid to move.
‘I just half-killed the new Athenian ambassador,’ Satyrus said. ‘Welcome home, Uncle Leon!’
Leon wasn’t tall, but he had piercing eyes of dark brown and his brown skin was perfectly tanned to an even leather colour. He looked like a dark-skinned god – a mature Apollo.
Abraham, coming in behind him, bowed his head respectfully to one of the city’s richest men, and Xeno looked sheepish.
‘I heard you were sacrificing for my return,’ Leon said. He took Satyrus in a hug. ‘We don’t usually sacrifice ambassadors.’ Then he caught sight of the other young men. ‘Is this serious?’ he said. ‘Every time I come home, you have something stupendous to announce, don’t you?’
‘It’s Stratokles!’ Satyrus panted. ‘Remember him? From Heraklea?’
‘Oh!’ Leon said.
‘Fuck,’ Theron said. He was still holding the silk. ‘Did you kill him?’
‘Kill who?’ Philokles asked. He pushed his way past the crowd of young men at the entrance to the garden courtyard, and Melitta came with him, ignoring Xeno’s sudden blushes of confusion as she rubbed against his back.
Satyrus filed that little scene away for further consideration.
‘The new Athenian ambassador to the court of Ptolemy is your former nemesis, Stratokles,’ Leon said, having taken in the whole sweep of the problem with his usual acuity. ‘Why didn’t anyone tell me?’ he asked, looking at his factor, Pasion.
Pasion bowed. ‘It was in the morning’s reports,’ he said sheepishly. ‘I missed the importance of the fact.’
‘Too late to unspill the wine,’ Philokles said. ‘Demetrios of Athens let that cur be his ambassador?’
‘Put a suit against him,’ Leon said. ‘I’m sure we can make a deal with him. He’s a man of business.’
Philokles pulled his himation closer. ‘I’ll do it this instant.’
‘Exactly.’ Leon nodded. ‘Go!’
Philokles, despite three years of heavy drinking and endless agora debates, could still move quickly when required. He was out of the gate before Leon was done thinking out the next step.
‘Tell us what happened,’ Leon said.
Satyrus related the incident, with some hesitant description of Phiale’s role.
‘You put two grown men down,’ Theron asked. ‘Then you let them live.’
‘Thank the gods he did!’ Leon said. He rubbed his chin and his shoulders slumped. ‘Killing an ambassador would make any political career here impossible.’
Theron stood his ground. ‘Being dead is worse. Listen, Satyrus. The next time you have an enemy under the edge of your kopis, push the blade home. Then he’s dead and your story is the only one in the law courts.’
Leon shook his head. ‘That’s evil advice to give a boy, Theron. Always leave your opponents dead.’
Melitta came and put her arms around her brother. ‘You have all the luck,’ she said. ‘I was just wishing for assassins.’
‘Careful what you wish for,’ Theron said.
‘This alliance with Cassander means a lot to our Ptolemy,’ Leon said. He tugged his short beard. ‘I think you are best out of the city, lad. Pasion, summon Peleus the helmsman to keep his crew in hand – one night on the waterfront, and on duty by sunrise in the morning. Move!’ He turned to look at Theron. ‘I have a hundred pieces of news for all our friends,’ he said. ‘I’ll try and get through it all at dinner.’
One of the many ways in which Satyrus’s ‘uncles’ differed from other men was the manner in which they lived. Leon and Diodorus were both rich men, yet they had built their houses together – so close together that they shared doors and gardens. Nihmu, Leon’s Sakje wife, and Sappho shared women’s quarters. Theron, Philokles and Coenus all lived in the same houses, and the establishment, four times the size of most houses, was run on military lines, with common meals and a certain regular discipline.
The other thing that set them apart from other men of property was that Leon, Philokles, Coenus, Satyrus, Diodorus, Theron and the women, Sappho, Melitta and Nihmu, all took dinner together with Leon’s upper servants in a manner not unlike the Spartan mess system, except that the food was superb and women ate with men. These
