Lithra leaned over. 'For you losing if not coming back, Satrax. Lithra rides ten days and never tires, five arrows in the mark before turning, ten men killing in the hills.' She leaned down, her face lit by the late sunset. 'Come back. I for liking you.'
Satyrus loved it when she called him Satrax. He caught her hands, rolled her under him and their mock struggle filled the air with straw, the dust rising in a cloud like smoke in the setting sun until they were coughing and laughing, despite the pus on his arm wound and the now permanent ache in his thigh.
'I'll be back,' Satyrus said, wondering if he was lying or telling the truth.
She smiled and stayed in his blankets one more night, but in the morning she was mounted with her warriors, and they rode away. She waved once, and was gone over the first range of hills, and Satyrus couldn't decide which of his actions deserved the biggest share of the guilt he felt. Guilt from inside and shame from the taunting of his elders, until he shunned them to work on the bow himself, adzing the timbers with the best of the sailors and the farmer's grandsons, who had more experience of woodworking than any of the sailors.
He worked until he slept, and slept only to rise and work again, and on the fifth day the last plank was fitted into its mate, the long pieces carefully edged and fitted to each other with wafers of flexible poplar between them to keep them together, and the bow was rebuilt heavily in stacked oak beams. The mainmast was fixed back into the deck a little farther aft, and so was the boatsail mast, so that the Falcon had something of the look of a triemiolia, and they gave him a broader central deck, a cataphract that would add weight and make him stiffer under sail – or so they hoped. And protect the rowers, in a fight.
Theron had all the men not engaged in work out in the countryside all day, hunting or practising with their weapons, so that by the time the bow was ready to ship, they were, to quote Theron, the most dangerous crew of oarsmen in the Euxine. 'Some of them can even throw a javelin,' he said with a smile.
'You look better, master,' Satyrus said. 'Perhaps we could fight a fall or two.'
Theron shook his head. 'Your hip is still bad, and I can smell that arm from here. You need to get that looked at. It's still weeping pus. And I'm not willing to be the target of your anger,' he said.
'I'm not angry,' Satyrus said. But no sooner were the words out of his mouth than he knew that he was.
Diokles came up with a pair of spears over his shoulder. 'Well, if we have to, we could board,' he said. 'No one expects the oar benches to clear in the first moments of a fight.'
He was probably joking, but Satyrus nodded. 'We should practise,' he said. 'Tomorrow, while we take him out in the bay with the deck crew, you should see how fast we can get them off the benches.'
'By Ares, he's serious,' Theron said.
'He's a serious man,' Diokles said, 'when his dick's dry.'
Satyrus decided it would be bad for discipline if he said what was on his mind, so he forced a false smile and walked away to supervise the final fitting of the bow timbers and the new rails. He understood in his head that he'd done a bad thing by taking a lover – that he'd had something that the other men didn't have, which made him the target of a lot of teasing. He knew this in his head, but in his gut he was angry at them for being so petty.
In the first of the sun, they were afloat off the creek, the lower hull full of rocks from the beach to stand him up. He wasn't the Falcon – or rather, he was the Falcon some moments, and then, in a heartbeat, he was another ship altogether – stiffer, better under sail, harder to row and down by the stern, sloppy in a turn. The bow leaked. Satyrus spent much of the day crouched over the new bow timbers, feeling the water and worrying.
'You need to relax,' Diokles said. 'They'll swell.'
'You need to shut up and do your work by yourself,' Satyrus spat. 'You're a good helmsman – but I can replace you. I promoted you from the oar bench. My personal life is not part of your deck, and neither is my head. Walk away.'
Diokles turned on his heel and headed to the stern.
Satyrus cursed his temper and his foolish words – but he did not retract them.
They didn't exchange a word while they loaded, making every effort to bring his bow down in the water. They stood well apart while Satyrus was embracing Alexander and all his sons at the edge of the beach.
'Your father's friend – the hero. He's brought me nothing but luck. Glad I could help you.' Alexander had given them a farewell dinner, a big fish from the bay and wine for all hands that must have cost the man a small fortune.
'When I am king, you will never pay a day's tax,' Satyrus promised.
'That's right, I won't!' the farmer responded. 'Don't now, neither. Good luck, lad. You're the image of your dad – a little longer, I think, but a good man. Go and put the bronze to that bastard in Pantecapaeum for all the other farmers.'
The old man embraced Theron, who had spent time with his grandsons, and Diokles, who bore it stiffly, and then they were away, tearing up the bay on a fresh breeze.
'If the wind holds, there's no cruiser in the Euxine can take him on this reach,' Diokles said, to no one in particular. He nodded to Theron. 'Quit wrestling and become a shipwright.'
Theron gave a half-smile. 'I suppose something of my father rubbed off on me,' he said, watching Satyrus.
Satyrus knew that Diokles meant his little speech as a peace offering, but he couldn't bring himself to answer, or apologize, and that made him feel like a fool. His arm was becoming heavy and swollen and he felt light-headed. If there was an enemy ship off the bay, they never saw him, flying along with the wind astern as soon as they turned south, so that the farm seemed a dream. Satyrus spent the morning watching his precious bow like a mother cat with her first kittens, but the leakage was no more than any dry ship gives in his first hours at sea, and by noon he was dry, as the wood swelled to close the gaps in the new construction. Satyrus wiped his hand against the fresh-cut timbers, smiled in satisfaction and walked up the new cataphract deck to the stern.
'Straight on for the Great Bosporus?' Diokles asked. It was the closest to direct communication that the two of them had tried in two days. 'We might make it if we sailed the deep green. Tomorrow night, with a good landfall and the will of the gods.'
'Tomis,' Satyrus said, and regretted his terse answer immediately. Diokles was trying to apologize. Satyrus had the ready wit to know that this flow of conversation wasn't really about their course. Was and wasn't. He tried the same in return. 'Tomis is in Lysimachos's satrapy. Should be friendly. Besides, we have friends there – my father's guest-friends and others. At this rate, we'll be there before nightfall. We'll weather the strait in daylight, day after tomorrow.'
'Tomis?' Diokles said. 'I could get a new ship there.'
'Don't be an ass, Diokles,' Satyrus said. He braced himself. 'I need you,' he said, with the same effort he'd use in a fight.
'Huh,' Diokles said, with the air of a man with more to say. They'd coasted all day, never losing sight of the Ister delta and her thousands of islands and broad fan of silt, and then followed the coast as it turned due south, the land visibly civilized, with Greek farms as far as the eye could see and the loom of the Celaletae Hills in the west.
'Tomis breakwater!' the lookout called.
'High time,' Neiron said. He'd had an easy day, with the wind just right for sailing.
'Ships on the beach,' the lookout called.
Satyrus nodded to his officers. 'I'll go.'
None of them seemed inclined to argue. He pulled his chiton over his head and dropped it on the deck and raced aloft up the boatsail mast. The lookout was Thron, the youngest and lightest of the ship's boys.
'Look at that, sir!' he said, pointing at the sweep of the beach beyond the breakwater. Tomis boasted two galley beaches, one each side of a rocky headland. They could only see the northern beach.
There were three triremes on the beach and a fourth warship floated at a mooring in the broad curve of the bay. He was the Golden Lotus.
'Kalos! Get the sails off him! Now!' Satyrus called from the lookout.
'Aye, sir!' Kalos called back, and bare feet slapped the decks as the deck crew ran to their stations.
'Good eye, boy,' Satyrus said. He pointed at the deck. 'A silver owl for you when your watch is over.'
'For me?' Thron beamed.
Satyrus ignored his hero-worship and dropped to the deck.
Diokles was already turning them out to sea. 'What's up?' he asked.
'Golden Lotus is in the roadstead,' Satyrus said. He looked around. 'All officers!' he called.
