Helios flung himself on the scroll. He unrolled it, and Satyrus saw him mouth the words of the scroll as he read. He read it twice.
'I still have to present myself to the chief priest,' he said.
'Better hurry.' Satyrus nodded. 'About an hour before…' He laughed aloud, because he was speaking to an empty room. 'You need Nearchus as a witness!' he called after the boy.
Nearchus came in after half an hour, looking flustered. 'I've been kissed by that beautiful boy in public,' he said. 'Believe me, it's quite an experience.' Nearchus raised an eyebrow. 'You've made him very happy. But – won't he wander off? He's free.'
'I can tell you've never been a slave,' Satyrus said. 'I'll spend four years teaching him to be free. If he wanders off, he'll be a slave again in a week. And he knows it. Where will he work? At a brothel? As a free man?'
Nearchus nodded. 'I see.' He scratched his beard. 'He could go to the temples and sign as an apprentice. Perhaps as a doctor.'
'He'll be the handsomest oar master in Leon's fleet in four years,' Satyrus said. 'Or dead.' He gave Nearchus half a smile. 'I think he fancies revenge, and I don't mind handing him the means and the opportunity.'
Nearchus stopped grinding his powders. He turned his head. 'You would betray your ally?'
'Betray?' Satyrus asked. He laughed. 'Really, Nearchus, what a sheltered life you've lived.' Then he changed his tone. He picked up a barley roll – one of the cook's best – and ate it, staring at his scroll. 'Can you take a letter for me, Nearchus?'
'I'm a doctor, not a scribe. And Helios has a nice clear hand.' Nearchus's pestle continued to scrape.
'I'm already fond of the boy, but I can't trust him with a letter for Diodorus,' Satyrus said.
Nearchus nodded sharply. 'I understand,' he said. 'You're a lot of work, you know that?' he asked with a mock frown.
The letter took most of the afternoon. At some point, Sappho became involved, adding her own instructions and best wishes for her husband, and adding news that he might use, far away in Babylon with Seleucus – news that Satyrus wanted as well. Kallista sat with the two babies, a slave-nurse taking them in turn, and Satyrus was quick enough to realize that Sappho was passing him news as she wrote, without having to speak it aloud. They were writing in black ink on the boards of a wax tablet, where all the wax had been stripped away. She wrote in her firm, square hand: Ptolemy is preparing for a naval campaign against Cyprus. Antigonus is in Syria, firming up his support with the coastal cities, while his son Demetrios rebuilds his power base in Palestine after last year's defeat. Cassander is trying to gain control of young Herakles, the last son of Alexander – whether to make him king of Macedonia or to murder him, no one can say. And Lysimachos works to build his own city, to rival Alexandria and Antioch. Every one of the Diadochoi seems to need to have his own city. And Satyrus wrote: I hope you have had my first letter by now. I will have need of the Exiles and our phalanx in the spring. If Seleucus can spare you, I will await you at Heraklea on the Euxine by the spring feast of Athena. Please send my regards to Crax and Sitalkes, and also to Amyntas and Draco, and tell them that Melitta has gone east to raise the Sakje.
She read what he wrote. 'You are that sure,' she said.
He nodded. 'No,' he said. 'My sister may already be dead. Or my naval alliance may fail. Or Dionysius of Heraklea may refuse to let me use his town to base my army – or we may just lose.' He shrugged. 'So many things can go wrong – the word 'sure' never enters my mind.'
He took the ink and wrote carefully: Please send me a reply as soon as you receive this. If you can spare the time, send a duplicate to Sappho and another care of Lady Amastris, Heraklea, and a third care of Eumenes, the archon of Olbia (if you can believe such a thing). A fourth via Panther, navarch of Rhodos, at the Temple of Poseidon, would give me the widest possible notice of your reply, as I will be a bird on the wing.
'Have you ever thought that if you succeed, my husband will lose his command? The Exiles will no longer be exiles.' Sappho laughed. 'I don't mean it. But – if Tanais is restored – what will we all do?'
Satyrus shook his head. 'No idea, Auntie,' he said. 'But I'd be delighted to find out.'
And later, much later that night, Helios came in. He smelled of a discreet perfume.
'Well?' Satyrus asked. 'Did you spend a pleasant evening?'
'Not particularly,' the boy said. His voice was set, his face carefully blank. 'She's as dumb as a post, for all her hard-arse ways. She offered me a hundred gold darics to kill you.' The boy dropped a purse on the sideboard, so heavy that the cedar creaked. 'I told her a sad tale of your misuse of me, and she told me I was soft.' Helios looked at the floor. 'But after I pleasured her, she sang another tune, and there's the proof. And yes – she's out most nights. She has a taste for boys, like most women of her type.' His own self-loathing was obvious, but so was his dislike of her. 'She thinks she owns me!' he spat.
Satyrus shivered. 'I – thought that you were too young. To – I'm sorry, Helios. I've put you in a position…' Satyrus thought that killing the innocent was hardly the only price of kingship.
Helios blinked his long blond lashes and shrugged. 'I haven't been too young – never mind. It's nothing I haven't done before, and in worse causes.'
Satyrus kept his voice neutral. 'Where'd the money come from? She can't have a hundred gold darics on her own?'
'No,' Helios said. 'And I don't know myself. Is her mistress in the game? I don't know. She's coming tomorrow, by the way. To sing to you.'
Satyrus nodded. 'We leave in three days. You should get yourself a blade, a helmet and a light cuirass. Have you ever worn armour?'
Helios blinked. 'No,' he said.
'Go to Isaac Ben Zion and ask his steward to sell you armour. How old are you, really?' Satyrus asked.
'I think I'm fourteen,' the boy answered. 'I lost some time – in the brothel.' He looked at the floor.
Satyrus put a hand under his chin and raised his head. 'Didn't anyone tell you the rule of Leon's house?' he asked. 'No man need regret what he did before he came here – only what he does here. You are free. Free yourself.'
Helios gazed at him with uncomfortable admiration.
Satyrus looked away. 'If you are fourteen,' he said, 'get the Aegyptian linen armour. You'll grow too fast to be worth bronze or scale.' He pointed at the gold darics. 'You can use those, if you like. But only after Phiale visits.'
'What will you do to her?' Helios asked.
'To her?' Satyrus said, and his voice was hard. He was surprised at the feeling in his heart – more like hate than he had expected. 'Nothing,' he said. 'I will do nothing to her.' Phiale came in just behind her scent – a touch of mint and jasmine that clutched at his heart. She whirled her fine wool stole over her head and tossed it to her maidservant, who caught it in the air and stepped over to the wall.
Satyrus watched the maidservant exchange a glance with Helios, who was already standing against the wall. Then he allowed himself to kiss her on the cheek. Her breath on his face ought to have excited him – the subtlety with which she used her body was the height of her powers, and she felt his control immediately.
She stepped back and crossed her arms. 'You are angry with me?'
Hama came to the door with Carlus, the biggest man among the Exiles, a giant German with scars that mixed with the tattoos on his face. He entered the room, drew a short sword and stood with it balanced across his hands.
'Where is Sophokles, Phiale?' Satyrus asked.
Her hand went to her throat. 'I am a free woman. You may not restrain me.' Her eyes reproached him.
'Take the slave,' Satyrus said. 'Do not touch the mistress.'
Carlus closed his hand on Alcaea's hair. Her hand came up with a knife, and he slammed her against the wall. She dropped the knife.
'I accuse your slave of plotting against my life.' Satyrus waved at Helios. 'Freeman Helios will testify that your slave offered one hundred gold darics to kill me.'
Phiale shrunk back into a corner. 'Sappho!' she screamed. 'Satyrus has lost his wits!'
'Listen to me, Phiale. Stratokles and Sophokles bought you. But I cannot prove it, and besides – you are for sale. Who could blame you for being bought?' Satyrus struggled to keep the bitterness from his voice, and he thought how much amusement his sister would draw from the situation. She had never liked the hetaira, and had warned him repeatedly about engaging his feelings with her – she had mocked him, in fact.
