Noon, and they passed the headland at Posideion, and every man threw a handful of barley into the sea if he had any grain. The squadron behind them was just a series of nicks on the horizon, and even those sightings were occasional. No one had a mast raised on a day like this, with the wind blowing more north than anything else, and all the rowers cursed their lot at every stroke of the oars.
In early afternoon, the wind shifted back to the east, blowing off the land, and the pursuing squadron began to gain ground, their fresher rowers and more recent food beginning to tell.
Satyrus watched as they drew closer. He stood in the stern and watched the pennants of the mast as they fluttered back and forth, showing every wind-change. 'Neiron?' he called.
'Sir?' Neiron woke up fully alert. He had the oar master at the helm and he himself was asleep on the helmsman's bench.
'I intend to turn west, put the wind at our sterns and sail for Cyprus,' he said. 'What do you think?'
Neiron licked his fingers and raised them, and then looked at the clouds. 'Risky,' he said.
Satyrus pointed astern, and Neiron's eyes followed until he saw the pursuit. 'They may not be after us,' he said, stroking his beard.
Satyrus nodded. 'They are persistent, though. There's another blow coming up, and these gentlemen are still at sea.'
'And they do look like warships.' Neiron looked under his hand. 'Six hours to the first sighting of the Temple of Aphrodite Kleides.' He shook his head. 'If the wind changes, we're in the open sea at night with a storm rising behind us.'
Satyrus nodded.
Neiron shook his head. 'Do it,' he said.
Satyrus took the helm himself. Neiron went forward and ordered the deck crew and the sailors to raise the mainsail, and as soon as it was laid to the mast, Satyrus gave the orders and the Lotus, still under oars, turned from north to west in his own length. Satyrus was pleased to see that the next ship in line, the Oinoe, was prepared, and although he took longer to get his mast up, he made the turn in good order. Behind him, Plataea redeemed himself from an earlier poor performance and made the run with alacrity, and the two light triremes turned like acrobats and raised their masts even as they turned.
Hyacinth was late in his turn, and lost ground as he rowed slowly north, his helmsman apparently asleep at his oars.
But however slow the Hyacinth was, the pursuers were slower. They continued north so long that Satyrus began to wonder if he was fleeing from shadows. Only when they had cut Satyrus off completely from the coast did they turn their bows out to sea – but they didn't raise their sails.
'I count ten,' Neiron said. 'Heavy bastards. Everyone's building bigger and bigger – is that a hepteres? A seven?'
The largest pursuer towered over the others, with three decks of oars and a wide, heavy hull that nonetheless seemed to sail with speed.
'That's Demetrios, or his admiral,' Satyrus said. He shook his head. 'He must think we're the long-awaited raid out of Aegypt.'
'So he's kept us off his coast,' Neiron said. 'And now he leaves us to Poseidon's mercy.'
'I wish you hadn't said that,' Satyrus said.
They drove on, into rising seas, with the wind howling behind them.
But they had good ships and good officers, and before the last pink rays of the winter sun set behind the mountains of Cyprus, the Lotus had his stern on the black sand west of Ourannia, with a promontory between them and the east wind's might. Cypriot peasants came down to the beach with baskets of dried fish and fresh crabs, and Satyrus paid cash for a feast even as the wind rose and the rain began to fall.
For three days they crawled along the coast of Cyprus, with their bow pushing straight into a fresh westerly that followed the storm, and they continued along the coast all the way to the beach at Likkia – a beach Satyrus had used before. He provisioned his ships there, paying on credit with his uncle's name, which was good for anything here. He waited for two days for an east wind, and when it rose, he made sacrifice on the beach and launched his ships.
'Straight west for Rhodos,' he said.
Neiron shook his head. 'Why risk it?' he asked.
'I can feel the time slipping away from me,' Satyrus said. 'Any day, word of our departure will get out of Alexandria.'
'Anyone going north has to go the way we've gone,' Neiron said.
'And I've done it before,' he said.
Neiron nodded. 'So I've heard,' he answered. 'Isn't once enough?' Most ships stayed on the coast, sailing from the point of Cyprus north to the coast of Asia Minor and then crawling west from haven to haven.
'If this wind holds for twelve hours, we'll raise Rhodos before the stars show in the sky,' Satyrus said.
'If the wind drops, we'll be adrift on the great green and praying for Poseidon's mercy.' Neiron shrugged. 'But you are the navarch. I just hope that when Tyche deserts you, I'm already dead.'
Satyrus smiled, but his hands remained clenched and his stomach did back-flips until he made his landfall that evening. The crew cheered when the lookout sighted the promontory at Panos, and again when they glided down the mirror-flat water of the city's inner harbour, past the Temple of Poseidon. Satyrus didn't hide the libation he offered to the waters of the harbour.
'All that to save a day?' Neiron asked.
Satyrus finished pouring the wine into the sea and stood up. 'My gut tells me that every day matters,' he said.
'Do you think they'll accept your offer?' Neiron asked.
Satyrus pointed at the beach under the temple, where a full dozen Rhodian triemioliai lay on the beach. 'Can you think of any other reason they'd prepare a squadron in midwinter?' he asked.
Neiron smiled. 'The gods love you,' he said. He nodded grimly. 'Use it while it lasts.'
PART III
16
'And how is our august prisoner?' Eumeles was in rare good humour. He sat on his iron stool and looked out over the battlements of his citadel at the Euxine sparkling in the late winter sun. Or was it the early spring? The weather was mild, and the sun shone.
Idomenes had a list of important issues, and Leon, the prisoner, was not one of them. 'He's alive. Do you really need to know more?'
Eumeles shrugged. 'I wonder how young Melitta will feel if I send her a hand or an eye?'
Idomenes shut his eyes for a moment and then opened them slowly. 'I wouldn't recommend it, lord. She has our farmers in her hands already.'
'If that fool Marthax had come to me…' Eumeles shook his head. 'But she has no fleet, and the only infantry she'll get are those mutinous dogs from Olbia. Our army will eat her – and while we're at it, we'll make Olbia loyal. Once and for all.' Eumeles smiled. 'That's a campaign I really look forward to. No more two steps forward and three steps back. When Olbia is crushed, I will actually be king.'
Idomenes nodded. 'Yes, lord,' he said automatically. 'In the meantime, the Athenians want their grain quotas filled or they threaten to withdraw our loans.'
