Satyrus waved his hand. 'Tell me tomorrow,' he said. He stumbled out into the dark with Abraham's arms around his shoulders.
'You look like shit,' Abraham said as they walked through the rain.
'I'm drunk,' Satyrus said.
'No, worse than that,' Abraham said.
'I'm drunk, and I got some people killed, and then I killed some more people all by myself,' Satyrus said. 'Other than that, I'm fine.' Then he stopped against a building and threw up all the wine and everything else he'd eaten for a day.
Abraham held his head and said nothing. Abraham had made his father's factor's house into a headquarters for his crew, and he had cleared the warehouse for his wounded when he came in. What Isaac Ben Zion would make of the loss of profits was another matter.
It was a two-storey house with an enclosed yard and an attached warehouse, common across the Hellenic world, but it was comfortable in a way that Calchus's house never had been. The slaves were sleek and well fed, and the yard was full of sailors and oarsmen at all hours – noisy, singing, sometimes vicious but never dull. The house itself held all the officers of two ships, and with Satyrus's arrival, it held the officers of four ships.
On his first morning there, Satyrus awoke to hot, heavily spiced wine and barley gruel, which on later days he would eat while listening to reports from his officers in the biggest room on the ground floor, a room utterly devoid of the decorations that Greeks preferred – scenes of the gods, heroes, slaughter. Instead, there were carefully painted designs along the borders, and blank walls in bright colours.
On the first morning, Satyrus sat drinking hot wine and looking at the blue wall. 'You need a scene painter.'
'I'm a Jew,' Abraham said. 'Remember? No nymphs will be raped on my walls.'
'Can't you have Jahveh – I don't know – smiting his enemies?' Satyrus wasn't trying to mock, but it sounded that way.
Abraham made a peasant sign to avert ill-luck. 'No,' he said firmly. 'No, we don't.' Then he grinned. 'Listen – with blank walls, you can imagine any scene you want!'
Satyrus watched the walls and sipped more wine, and he felt the mirth drain out of him. 'Listen,' he said. 'When I stare at these walls, right now I just see people being killed. Killed by me – one way or another.'
'You're the one ready to make an alliance with a pirate,' Theron said, coming in. He had fresh oil on his skin. 'Mind you, the pirate has a gymnasium and a palaestra.'
Satyrus looked up in irritation. 'I was speaking to Abraham.'
Theron sat and poured himself hot wine. 'Exercise cleared my head. I have things I want to say to you.'
Abraham rose. 'I'll leave the two of you.'
Satyrus frowned. 'No.'
Theron shrugged, and Abraham sat.
'I was appalled when you killed those men,' Theron said. 'But I was appalled when you marched the phalanx away and left Philokles bleeding on the sand.'
Abraham looked from one to the other. 'Killed what men?' he asked.
'I executed two mutineers,' Satyrus said. 'Myself.'
Abraham nodded, his face closed.
'I think you are what you have been trained to be. I think that I helped to train you.' Theron shrugged.
Satyrus nodded. 'Hardly a day passes when I don't think of it,' he said. He leaned back on the armrest of his kline and put his feet up. 'The day my world changed. I still wonder about Phiale, too.'
'You let the doctor live,' Theron continued. 'And he repaid you badly.'
'Yes,' Satyrus said.
Theron said, 'I love you. I hope that when I have a son, he's like you. I remain yours, and I'll stay by your side, if you'll have me. But – Satyrus, please listen.'
Satyrus was staring at the fire on the hearth. 'I'm basking in the first compliments you've ever paid me, pighead. I'm listening!' He turned and smiled at Theron.
Theron smiled back. But after a moment, his smile faded. 'But I want you to ask yourself if this is really the path you want. Kingship? Will you really wade in blood all the way to the ivory stool? And who will you be when you get there?'
Satyrus felt the tears well up in his eyes. He rolled over to hide them. 'Abraham, do you think you could find me a physician to reset this arm?' he asked.
Abraham rose, looked at both of them silently and left the room.
When he was gone, Satyrus sat up. 'You were right, Theron. This is between us. He is a different kind of confidant.' He looked at his right hand, as if searching it for bloodstains. Was there blood under the nails? Did it show?
'Your father refused the stool and the diadem,' Theron said. 'I didn't know him – but I know that of him. He refused.'
Satyrus sat looking at his hand, and then he raised his face. 'I'm sorry, Teacher. But that die is cast. I made that decision on the beach, two nights back. Or perhaps when I watched a house burn at Tomis. My world is changed. It is not the world my father lived in.' He spoke slowly, as if he was a magistrate reading a sentence. 'Philokles told me to examine myself. It's like a curse. Does Demostrate ever examine himself? I doubt it.'
Theron shook his head. 'I don't judge other men,' he said. 'Not that way.'
Satyrus raised an eyebrow. 'You judge me,' he said. 'Because I'm young, and you helped shape me. And right now, I think you'd like me either to give up my desire to be king, or to tell you why I should be king. But I can't. I can't even be sure that I will be a better king than Eumeles.' He leaned forward, and put his good right hand on Theron's. 'But what I can tell you, Teacher, is that I will examine myself, day by day, and judge myself by the standards Philokles taught. And Eumeles will not examine himself. He will simply act, and act. As empty of worth as an actor pretending to be a hero.'
Theron took a deep breath. 'Who gave you so much wisdom?' he asked.
'You,' Satyrus said. 'You and Philokles. And Sappho and Diodorus and Leon and Nihmu and Coenus and Hama. And perhaps Abraham, as well.'
Theron drank the rest of his wine, clearly overcome by emotion. 'So – the end justifies the means?'
Satyrus shrugged. 'I don't know. I think about it every hour. Are all lives of equal worth? I doubt it. Did those two men deserve to die in the sand under my blade? Yes – and no. Would it change your view if I said that they did not die in vain?'
'Would it change their view?' Theron asked. 'They're the ones who are dead.'
Satyrus nodded. 'I know. Remember the girl by the Tanais? The one I gut-shot?'
Theron shook his head. 'Can't say I do – but you've spoken of her before.'
Satyrus nodded. 'I put her down, like a wounded horse. Except that she wasn't a horse.' He shuddered. 'I think the road to kingship started there, in that meadow. The beach the other night was merely a signpost.' He squared his shoulders. 'Fine. I'm ready. If I have to wade in blood, as you said, then I must simply work harder to put something on the other side of the balance.'
'And Demostrate? The end justifies him?' Theron leaned forward. 'You feel guilt for killing two men – two criminals.' He shook his head. 'A complex act – but hardly a vicious one. But if you get into bed with this pirate, you share the responsibility for every slave he takes, every home he burns, every merchant he ruins, every man he kills.'
Satyrus nodded. 'Yes,' he said. 'Yes, I do.' He stared off into space, reviewing his dead. 'So be it.'
'Bah – your youth is speaking!' Theron made a motion of disgust.
'Perhaps.' Satyrus didn't feel particularly young. His arm hurt, his whole body ached and he wanted to sleep for a day or two. But other things pressed on him. He sipped hot wine. 'Listen, Theron – my sister must think me dead. Sappho – Diodorus – all of them.'
Theron rubbed his chin, his anger deflated. 'You're right, of course.'
'I should sail down to Alexandria as soon as I make my bargain with Demostrate. If I can get him to agree.'
Abraham came back in. 'Am I welcome back?' he asked from the beaded doorway.
Satyrus nodded. 'Yes,' he said.
