‘He’s got half of the Foot Companions on duty,’ Diodorus said. ‘Something is wrong.’
Leon shrugged. ‘We already knew that something was wrong,’ he said. He climbed the steps, nodded at the guards and entered.
Satyrus followed him up the steps. He noticed that the colonnade was full of men, and he saw the white glimmerings of the new quilted linen armour that the guards wore. His shoulders prickled as he passed them, and then he was in the residence, directly under the fresco of Herakles that filled the entryway arch. Up on the ceiling the gods sparkled, their faces adorned with real jewels as they seemed to watch both living men and the deeds of the demi-god. The floor was five colours of marble inlaid in a complex pattern that baffled the eye. At the centre of the arch, Herakles was carried by chariot into the heavens to become a god.
‘Your majesty? Master Leon of Tanais, his nephew Prince Satyrus, Master Philokles the Spartan and Strategos Diodorus, as well as Phylarch Coenus of Olbia to see you.’ The steward gave a deep and very un-Greek bow and, as he said their names, led them into the main hall, a sort of roofed garden in the middle of the building. Up on the ceiling, gods disported. A burly Apollo forced his favours on a not very unwilling nymph, while smiling over her shoulder at – Athena?
It looked blasphemous to Satyrus. And very beautiful.
‘Leon? You brought an army to visit me?’ Ptolemy was running to fat, and his high forehead and straight nose made him so ugly he was almost handsome. He rose from a heavy chair of lemonwood and ivory to clasp the Numidian’s hand.
It was not the tone of a king about to murder one of his richest subjects. Satyrus felt the blood retreat from his face, and his pulse slowed.
‘We all thought it wisest to come together,’ Diodorus said.
‘Meaning that you feared my reaction to this young scapegrace’s attack on the Athenian ambassador. And well you might. Boy, what in Hades or Earth or the Heavens above moved you to attack the Athenian ambassador?’
Satyrus looked at Leon and received a nod of approbation. So he told the truth. ‘He has tried to murder me before – and my sister. I want to kill him. Despite this, Lord Ptolemy, I took no action against him. His man attacked me, and I dealt with him.’ He bowed his head. ‘I am conscious of the religious obligations of a man towards a herald or an ambassador.’
Ptolemy smiled. His wide eyes appeared guileless when he smiled, giving him that look of pleased surprise that had earned him the nickname Farm Boy. Those who knew him well knew that the look was utterly deceptive.
‘In other words, you are the outraged innocent and he is a viper at my breast?’ the king asked.
Leon stepped in front of his nephew. ‘Yes, lord. That is exactly so.’
Ptolemy fingered his chin and sat back down in his chair. ‘Seats and wine for my guests. I’m not some fucking Persian, to keep them all standing for awe of me. Boy, you’ve put me in a spot and no mistake. I need Cassander. I need Athens. Stratokles is the price I pay for it, and he brought me news. I need him!’ He glared at Leon. ‘You and this Athenian have a history. Don’t deny it – Gabines is a competent spymaster and I know things.’
Leon remained closest to the king when stools were brought. ‘Is it nothing to you, Lord Ptolemy, that I have finished my summer cruise, and that I, too, have news?’
‘Credit me with a little sense, Leon. I invited you here. No one has been arrested.’ Ptolemy pointed at a side table with a wine cooler on it and closed his fist. At the signal, a squad of slaves appeared and began to pour wine.
Leon took a phiale from the side table and poured a libation. ‘To Hermes, god of merchants and wayfarers and thieves,’ he said. It was a curious gesture – the host usually poured the libation. Satyrus thought that his uncle was telling the king something. He just didn’t know what it was.
‘Since you are all three of them,’ the king said with a smile.
Leon shrugged. ‘Heraklea is buzzing with rumours of war,’ he said. ‘Antigonus is planning a campaign against Cassander and he’s put his son in charge of an expedition – somewhere. No one knows where the golden boy is going. He had already marched when I left the coast.’ He looked around. ‘And his fleet is at sea, and we don’t know where it is going. Rumour is he’s going to lay siege to Rhodos.’
Ptolemy nodded. ‘Exactly what Stratokles says.’ He cocked his head to one side. ‘Cassander has asked me to send him an army.’
‘Don’t do it, lord,’ Diodorus said.
Ptolemy glanced at the red-haired man. ‘Wily Odysseus, why not?’
‘Call me what you will, lord. Cassander has the whole of Macedon to recruit. If we send him our best, he’ll buy them as well – with farms at home, if nothing else – and we’ll never have them back. We’re far from the source of manpower, and he’s close. Let him raise his own levies. And perhaps send us some!’ He looked around. ‘We’re recruiting infantry from the Aegean and Asia and soon we’ll be reduced to Aegyptians.’
Ptolemy nodded. ‘I may send him some ships,’ he said. ‘But I regret to say that I have summoned you to forbid your expedition into the Euxine, Leon.’
Leon nodded slowly. ‘I had your promise, lord.’ He glanced at Satyrus.
Satyrus held himself still. No one had told him anything directly, but he had felt the expedition must be close – Philokles had dropped hints.
He wasn’t sure whether he was angry or relieved.
Ptolemy put his chin in his hand and nodded. ‘Circumstances change. Eumeles and his kingdom are allies of Cassander. I can’t afford to have you making trouble there just now. I need to know that Antigonus and his army are going to Europe and not coming here. Then I’ll let you go – with my blessing, which will have a very tangible effect. You and your nephew ruling the northern grain trade would be of the utmost value to us – to Aegypt and to our allies in Rhodos. But not this year.’
Leon gave a faint shrug. ‘Very well, lord.’
‘I’m sorry, Leon, I need better than that. Your oath, and your nephew’s, that you will obey me in this.’ Ptolemy’s voice hardened for the first time, and suddenly he wasn’t a genial old duffer. He was absolute ruler of Aegypt, even if he didn’t call himself pharaoh yet. Yet.
Diodorus – one of Ptolemy’s most valued men – nodded, the closest to a sign of submission that an Athenian aristocrat ever made to anyone. He glanced at the guards. ‘Lord, you know us,’ he said.
Ptolemy nodded.
‘You know that we – Coenus, me, Leon, Philokles and a few others – follow the Pythagorean code.’ He spoke forcefully, if quietly. Satyrus leaned forward, because all his life he had heard from his tutor about Pythagoreans, and it had never occurred to him that his tutor and his mentors were all initiates.
Ptolemy gave a half-smile. ‘I know it.’
‘We do not lightly take oaths, lord. In fact, we avoid them, as binding man too close to the gods. But if you require our oath, we will keep it. For ever. Is that what you want?’ Satyrus had never heard Diodorus sound so passionate.
‘Yes,’ Ptolemy said. ‘Get on with it.’
Leon took a deep breath. ‘Very well, lord. I swear by Hermes, and by Poseidon, Lord of Horses, by Zeus, father of the gods, and all the gods, to obey you in this. My hand will not fall on Eumeles this year – though he betrayed my friendship and murdered Satyrus’s mother, though his hands are stained in innocent blood to the wrists, though the Furies rip at me every night until he is put in the earth-’
‘Enough!’ the king cried, rising from his seat. ‘Enough. I know that you have reason to hate him. I have reason to demand your oath. And you, boy?’
Satyrus stepped forward. ‘I have sworn to the gods to kill every man and woman who ordered the death of my mother,’ he said. ‘The laws of the gods protect Stratokles, and now you, my king, order me to preserve Eumeles. Can you order me to break my oath to the gods?’
Ptolemy nodded. ‘I carry the burden of every oath I ask my subjects to carry,’ he said. ‘Obey!’
Satyrus took a deep breath. ‘By Zeus the Saviour and Athena, grey-eyed goddess of wisdom, I swear to wait one year in my vengeance against Heron, who calls himself Eumeles,’ he said. ‘By Herakles my patron, I swear not to take the life of Stratokles for one year.’
Ptolemy raised an eyebrow at Leon. ‘One year? Is the boy attempting to bargain with his lord?’
Satyrus made himself meet Ptolemy’s heavy gaze. ‘Lord, yesterday I didn’t even know that there was to be
