Neiron was getting the rowers to their benches. He waved.
Kalos had the telltale sails down. An observer on the beach would have only bare poles to look for against the sunset now. He came aft, pausing to curse a deckhand who was sloppy in his folding of the precious sail.
Apollodorus, another survivor of Gaza, came forward from the bow. Unarmoured, he was magnificently muscled, though short. A very tough man, indeed. With Abraham gone, he was the phylarch of their marines.
Satyrus pointed at the harbour. 'Leon might have come here,' he said.
'Can't be Leon,' Theron said. 'He had ten ships around him when we escaped. He was taken.'
'We escaped,' Satyrus said.
'He didn't,' Theron insisted.
'No chance at all?' Satyrus asked, which quieted them. 'Tomis is a friendly port. If those are Eumeles' ships, he's an idiot, or his navarch is. And we have a hull packed with oarsmen trained to fight. But – if that's Leon, we'll look like fools and possibly kill some of our friends. We need to know.'
Kalos shrugged. 'Sail in, lay alongside and put our knives to their throats. If it's friends, we say we're sorry and let them buy us some wine.'
'That's why you're not a navarch,' Neiron said, rubbing the back of his head. 'I agree with the master. We need to know.'
Theron nodded slowly. 'I agree.'
Satyrus nodded. 'Good. I'll go.'
Theron shook his head. 'Don't be foolish, lad.'
Satyrus turned and looked at his former athletics coach. 'I am not a lad, and I am not foolish, Theron. We'll talk of this another time.' He spoke carefully, without anger as best he could manage. Time to stake out some new ground with all of them, he decided. 'I have guest-friendships here. I am young, and I can swim, and I'm mostly unwounded.'
'Let Diokles go, or one of the boys,' Theron said. He was clearly stung by his former student's rebuke. 'Your arm is bad.'
'I've had worse,' Satyrus said.
'Bullshit, boy.' Theron stepped forward.
'Watch yourself, sir. I am not your pupil here. I am your commander. And I am not boy to you. Understand?' He turned.
'Very well, sir.' Theron was angry. 'Send Diokles!'
'Diokles is my first officer, but he lacks the social distinctions that will protect me,' Satyrus said.
'Which is a nice way of saying that they could just pick me up and make me row, if they was hostile,' Diokles said.
'If they capture you, you won't live an hour,' Theron said.
'The price of glory,' Satyrus said. 'I'm going. Diokles, lay me ashore just north of the headland. Go up the coast, get a meal in the oarsmen and come back for me tomorrow night. Off and on until the moon rises. If you see three fires on the beach, come in and fetch me off. If there are just two fires, I'm taken and it's a trap. No fires – well, I'm not there. Clear?'
Theron shook his head. 'I'm against it.'
Theron was a gentleman and a famous athlete, and the rest of them were plain sailormen. None of them spoke up, either way. Satyrus looked at his former coach. 'Your reservations are noted,' Satyrus said, a phrase of Leon's that leaped to his mind and sounded much more adult than fuck off.
Theron's face darkened, but over his shoulder, Diokles grinned and then turned away to hide it. The water was cold – winter was less than two feasts away and the Euxine was already more like the Styx than seemed quite right. Satyrus went over the side less than a stade from the shore, his leather bag and sword belt and all his clothing inside a pig's bladder, which he tried to keep over his head as he swam with a spear in his left hand. The distance was short, but the first shock took the breath from his lungs, and he was labouring by the time his feet brushed the gravel of the beach, his arm burning like fire from the salt and the exertion. He lay on the shingle, panting, for a minute before he got up, brushed the sea-wrack off his body and got dressed. Water had penetrated the bladder and his wool chiton was wet, and so was his chlamys – but they were good wool, and he was warmer by the time he pulled the sword belt over his head, set his bag on his shoulder, picked up his hunting spear and loped over the dune and on to the road.
There were farms on either hand, their vines along the road and their barley fields stretching away in autumnal desolation, interspersed with scraggly olive trees and heavy apple trees. Even as Satyrus watched the fields, he saw a slave propping a branch that was heavy with fruit.
Satyrus jogged along the road behind the dune until he came even with the slave. The man was quite old.
'Good evening!' Satyrus called out.
The slave turned, looked at him and went back to cutting a prop.
'How far to Tomis?' Satyrus asked.
The old man looked up, clearly annoyed. He pointed down the road. 'Not far enough,' he said.
Satyrus had to laugh at that. He set off again, running a couple of stades to where the road turned as it rounded a low headland and the farms fell away because the soil was so poor. Olive trees on terraces climbed beside the road, and just past the turn, a big rabbit perused a selection of wild fennel in the sunset. Satyrus put his spear through the animal and gutted it on the spot, and he ran on with a prayer to Artemis on his lips and the rabbit dangling from his lonche.
A few stades further on, he found an apple orchard full of men and women picking in the last light. Satyrus smiled at two women who were sharing a water bottle by the road, and they lowered their eyes and retreated towards the trees.
'How far into Tomis?' he called.
The younger maiden shook her head and kept backing up. The elder stopped well out of his reach and shrugged. 'Around the headland, you see her,' she said in Bastarnae-accented Greek.
A man came up from the apple trees, holding a spear. 'Greetings, stranger,' he called from a good distance.
Satyrus bowed. 'I am Satyrus,' he said.
'Talkes,' the man said. He was wary, but he eyed the rabbit greedily. 'You were hunting, sir?'
'I was lucky,' Satyrus said. 'I'm looking for friends. Where can I find Calchus the Athenian? Or Isokles, son of Isocrates?'
'You are in luck,' the man said. 'My pardon, sir. My mistress is Penelope, daughter of Isokles.'
'Does she reside on this farm?' Satyrus asked. He vaguely remembered that Isokles had a daughter. She'd be twice his age. Married – to Calchus's son Leander. Or so he seemed to recall.
'Not safe in town just now,' the man said quietly. 'If you hadn't come up so quiet, we'd have been gone ourselves – we're supposed to flee armed men. She'll be at the farmhouse. If you tell me your errand, I'll approach her.'
'I'd rather tell her myself,' Satyrus said.
Talkes shook his head. 'No, sir. These are hard times round here. No one is getting near my mistress 'less she says.' Talkes held a spear like a man who regarded the weapon as an old friend, the partner of many a day in the field. A dangerous man.
Satyrus nodded. 'Very well. Tell your mistress that I am Satyrus, and my father was Kineas, and I am a guest-friend of her father's, and I crave her hospitality.' Satyrus sighed for the foolishness of it – if any of these slaves talked, he could be taken very easily. 'Do you know who has those boats on the beach in town?'
'They're the king's. Not our satrap – not old Lysimachos. They belong to the new king. Eumeles.' Talkes shook his head. 'Killed some men from the militia yesterday morning in a fight on the beach. Killed mistress's father, too. Burned some farms. Thought you might be one of them. Still not sure, mind. Teax, get back to the house, now. Tell mistress about the stranger. I'll wait here.' The man looked at him, tilting his head. 'You are Satyrus, then? The one the soldiers are looking for?' Talkes turned. 'Run, girl!'
The woman so addressed – the younger one – vanished like a foal from a spring hunt, pulling her heavy wool chiton up her legs and running as fast as an athlete.
'I have some wine I could share,' Satyrus offered.
