he held his opinions close.
'Goodbye, guest-friend,' Satyrus said. He waved to the other towns-men on the beach – a thin crowd, because many of the freemen's ranks were empty.
They ran the ships into the surf and got under way quickly, fearing a turn in the weather. The weather held for three days, and they sailed south and east without touching an oar. But just before beaching on the third evening, Theron's ship suddenly turned into the wind, the signal for trouble, and Satyrus got the Lotus alongside as fast as he could. Apollodorus led the marines aboard at a run, and then ran down the central deck, scattering mutineers. Ten men were killed, and Theron shook his head.
'I tried to reason with them,' he said thickly. 'They knocked me on the head.'
Kleitos had put the ship into the wind and held the stern for several long minutes, alone.
Satyrus clasped his hand. 'Well done!'
The man looked stunned. 'Didn't even know what I was doing!' he muttered. 'One against so many.'
Apollodorus came back with a dozen oarsmen under guard. 'Taken in arms,' he said. 'No question. Kill 'em?'
Satyrus shook his head. 'Exchange them for a dozen of our rowers in the Lotus.'
They made a poor job of landing the ships for dinner, and the officers gathered in a worried knot by a fire.
'My arm says we're in for a weather change,' Satyrus said. 'Nothing good there.'
'Somebody's spreading the word that we're going to have 'em all killed,' Kleitos said. He looked bashful and surprised that he'd spoken out, but he stood his ground. 'I heard it when they were getting ready to rush me. They asked me to join 'em.'
'You know them?' Satyrus asked.
Diokles laughed bitterly. 'We all know somebody over there. Professional seamen and rowers? Small world, Navarch.'
Satyrus rubbed his beard – he hadn't shaved since he took his wound. 'Seems to me we should talk to them,' he said.
Theron snorted. 'My head still hurts,' he said.
'Promise them wages and a fair landing at Rhodos,' Satyrus said.
'Rhodos is death for some of 'em,' Diokles said. He handed Satyrus a cup of warm wine and honey. 'That's why they're antsy.'
'Lysimachos could use them,' Satyrus said, considering the words even as he said them.
'That'd turn some heads,' Theron said. 'T hose men are as good as pirates. Leon is the enemy of every pirate on the seas.'
Satyrus shrugged. 'It isn't right to kill them, but it isn't right to release them where they'll serve pirates? Is that it, Master Theron? I hear Philokles in your voice, sir.'
Theron shook his head. 'My head's too thick to argue moral philosophy, lad. And I see your point.'
'I need Lysimachos,' Satyrus said. 'He's supposedly our ally – he's Ptolemy's ally, but Alexandria is far away and Lysimachos is close.'
'Lysimachos might take these men – and the ships they crew – and tell us that we're lucky to be alive.' Theron looked around at the other men in the firelight, but the sailors were quiet. Most of them were lower-class freemen, and they weren't about to intrude on a political argument between two gentlemen.
Satyrus looked pointedly at Diokles. The Tyrian nodded slowly. 'So? I mean, begging your pardon, but if he does that, he's no good ally, and we're still richer by the Golden Lotus and our lives. And frankly, gents – you can't build a fleet on these hulls. We captured a few old triremes. Only Hornet is worth a crap. There's worm in the other two.'
Theron nodded. He slapped Diokles on the shoulder. 'That'll teach me to talk about things I don't really know,' he said. 'In future, don't hold your tongue.'
The dark-haired Tyrian's earrings twinkled in the firelight. 'So?'
'So – let's muster the lot of them – our oarsmen too. We'll tell it to them straight.' Satyrus was nodding as he spoke. 'And, Apollodorus, marines, full armour. So they see the other choice.'
Apollodorus nodded. 'Just for the poets, Navarch – I'd rather you executed a couple first. That's a message the rest will understand.'
Theron looked away in distaste, but Diokles nodded. 'I agree. Kill a couple of the louts who were caught with weapons today.'
'In cold blood?' Satyrus asked.
'I wasn't planning to give 'em swords,' Apollodorus said. 'Don't worry, Navarch. I'll do it.'
'No,' Satyrus said. He swallowed, feeling trapped. Feeling as if some thing was moving on the dark beach. Furies. Curses. His oath to avenge his mother. He shook his head. He thought of Teax. Of the consequences of being a king.
'Muster the men,' he said.
It took only minutes – the captured rowers had their own fires, watched by tired oarsmen in captured armour.
'At least they're all fed,' Satyrus said to Diokles.
'Your friend did us proud,' Diokles said. He was chewing on a pork bone.
'Do these men have to die?' Satyrus asked.
'Zeus Soter, Navarch! They rose in mutiny against you, tried to kill Theron and tried to take one of our ships.' Diokles looked at Satyrus from under his black eyebrows and spat gristle in the sand. 'You plan to be a king? I'm no tutor, like your Spartan, nor an athlete, like Theron. Bless 'em both – fine men. Good men. But – if you plan to be a king, people are going to die. And you are going to kill 'em. Get me? Maybe you need to lesson yourself on it. Or maybe…' The Tyrian didn't meet Satyrus's eye. 'Maybe you oughtn't to do it. At all.'
Satyrus stopped walking and stared at his helmsman. 'Philokles told me once that he thought that good men – truly good men – neither made war nor took life.' He sighed. 'And then he said that it looked different from the front rank of the phalanx – both good and evil.'
'Aye,' Diokles said, nodding. 'I hear that.' He gave a pained smile and took another bite of pork.
'We'd have done the same to them,' Satyrus said. 'If we were taken, we'd do our best to fight back.'
'And I'd not squirm when the sword bit my neck, eh, Navarch?' Diokles shrugged. The contempt in his voice wasn't strong, but it was there. 'Let Apollodorus do it, if you have to.'
Satyrus shook his head, watching Theron, wondering how much of the man's good opinion he was going to forfeit. 'No,' he said. He loosened his sword in the scabbard and walked forward, where the marines had dragged the prisoner oarsmen to kneel in the sand.
He felt as if his feet were loud on the sand. He could feel the Furies gather.
Satyrus walked up their ranks. Several were boys. The rest were long-armed, hunch-backed rowing professionals, with massive necks and heavy muscle. A few raised their heads to look at him. None of them looked like evil come to earth, or like servants of dark gods, or any comforting, easy, evil thing he could name. They looked like beaten men, cold and empty of hope, kneeling on a beach, waiting to die.
The whole beach was silent, as the fires crackled, dry oak and beech and birch driftwood from the north. Satyrus could smell the birch, the smell of his childhood fires.
If it was not just one Penelope, but a generation of them? Not just one Teax, but a thousand?
A few steps from the end of the line of prisoners, he drew and killed one like a sacrifice, an older man with a cut on his forearm, and then the younger man next to him, blade sweeping across his throat on the back stroke from the first cut so that the two dead men fell almost together. Satyrus stepped clear of the flow of blood. He cleaned his sword on a scrap of linen from his doros and continued to walk towards the crowd of enemy sailors.
'Don't be fools,' he said. They were so quiet that he didn't need to raise his voice. 'I am taking these ships to Lysimachos, just around the horn of the Propontis – Amphipolis in Thrace. I'll leave you all ashore there. No Rhodian navy to try you. No one else has to die.'
There was a buzz, and he raised his voice. 'The men at Tomis wanted to butcher the lot of you. I could still do it.' His voice was hard, as hard as a man who has just killed in cold blood – who might do it again, just for the pleasure of the power. 'Row me round to Lysimachos and I'll put you ashore with silver in your hands. Trifle with me
