Tyrant: Destroyer of Cities (28 page)

Arete
and
Atlantae
were not the only ships crewed by heroes – this was evidenced by the fact that the titanic enemy tenner had got her fires out, off to windward, and the column of smoke was carried away by the rising wind. Satyrus could imagine what it must have been like – the rowing decks an inferno, and a handful of brave men forcing themselves into the fire to pour helmets full of water on the flames. But the burning ship had covered their retreat, and the desperation of every Antigonid ship to come the aid of their stricken king had saved Ptolemy’s centre.

Satyrus, leaning exhausted between the oars of his helm, had no need to count the Ptolemy fleet to see who had won. The result was obvious. Ptolemy’s fleet was badly gored – thirty or more ships lost in the action and the rest moving sluggishly, running downwind towards Aegypt, abandoning their camp.

The worst of it was that Demetrios and Plistias were so relatively unhurt that their lighter ships were mounting a pursuit. As the storm clouds piled up to the west and the sun set in wrath and thunder, the squadron of penteres – every ship the size and weight of
Arete
– that had spent the day inactive, facing down Menelaeus and his
sixty
inactive ships, now came on, rowing powerfully in the fading light, determined to capture a dozen more of Ptolemy’s limping triremes. And from Plistias’ centre emerged another two dozen triremes, equally eager to continue the contest.

Most of Ptolemy’s ships had left all their masts and sails ashore, and now they ran downwind under the power of their exhausted oarsmen. They were slow. Only darkness would save them.

Arete
and
Atlantae
had their foresails up, and were ten stades south and east of the rest of the retreating Ptolemy fleet, already safe by the inexorable mathematics of the sea. But in late afternoon, when the last sight of Cyprus was gone, the promontory now below the horizon, and when the storm clouds were beginning to look like something supernatural to the west,
Arete
’s lookout saw sails to the east and his shouts alerted Laertes, amidships on
Atlantae
, and he ran aft to Satyrus, who was dozing at his oars.

‘Sails to the east,’ he said.

Satyrus had trouble focusing. Every part of him hurt – and from where he was slouched between the oars, he could see the marines, or at least the dozen survivors, crouched in attitudes that expressed the same weariness and pain.

‘I can take the helm,’ Laertes said.

‘Have you ever done so?’ Satyrus asked.

Laertes shook his head. ‘No, lord.’

Satyrus nodded. ‘Sail’s drawing well. Rowers are resting. All you have to do is go straight. I’m willing to give you a try, if you’ll take the responsibility.’

Laertes managed a smile. ‘I would be proud to try, lord.’

Satyrus nodded. ‘Put your hands on the oars. Now you say, “I have the helm”.’

‘I have the helm,’ Laertes said.

‘You have the helm,’ Satyrus said, and slipped under the man’s arms from between the shafts and Laertes passed him, clumsy in his eagerness to do it right. The ship seemed to skip, the stern moving the length of a man’s arm to port as Laertes tried to balance the two shafts, and then he got the pressure right – right enough – and the ship steadied on his course.

Satyrus walked to the port-side rail and watched the basket suspended from the
Arete
’s foremast. Neiron was standing at the foot of the mast, and the men in the basket were gesturing and speaking.

‘They don’t looked panicked,’ Satyrus said.

‘I don’t have the strength to panic,’ Apollodorus said. ‘Lord – it’s a pity that we lost, because that was our best fight.’

Satyrus sketched a smile. ‘Your men were like gods.’

Apollodorus nodded, and Satyrus saw that tears were flowing down his face, although he didn’t sob – his expression didn’t even change. ‘Eight dead already, and three who probably won’t make it.’

‘And Stesagoras,’ Satyrus said.

‘Yes.’ Apollodorus hung his head. Satyrus realised that the smaller man with his arrogant posturing and his endless energy – his annoying superiority, his fighting skills, his near
perfection
and his apparent contempt for his men and all those about him – was weeping inconsolably.

Satyrus put his arms around the marine captain. ‘Sometimes it’s worthwhile to remember that
we’re alive
,’ Satyrus said. ‘I was sure I was dead there – twice, I think.’ He found that he was crying, too. ‘I think that – that – that I may work a little harder on being alive. And the men that died – Zeus Sator, Apollodorus, a least we can look to see that they died
for
something.’

‘For the King of Aegypt?’ Apollodorus asked, his voice raw. ‘For
glory
?’

‘No idea,’ Satyrus said. He took a deep breath. Men were cheering on the other deck, and pointing east. ‘No idea. But we should find something, before we’re dead ourselves.’ He was rambling. Apollodorus didn’t seem to mind. The smaller man stood straighter.

‘I’m all right. Sorry, lord. Sorry. Poseidon, I didn’t know I had such weakness in me.’ Apollodorus stumbled away, caught himself on the rail and threw up into the sea.

Satyrus walked back to the helmsman’s station, found his own canteen under the bench and poured a horn cup of wine. He looked at Laertes, who was focused on his task with heroic intensity, his whole being urging the ship to stay on course. Laertes flicked a glance at him and tried to smile. ‘Doing my best,’ he said.

‘Notch in your wake,’ Satyrus said. It made him smile, despite everything. ‘When you looked at me, you let up on your port oar.’

He turned and walked back to Apollodorus. ‘Wine?’ he asked.

Apollodorus raised his head, and his eyes were clearer. ‘Thanks.’ He drank the whole cup off. His head came up; something had caught his eye. ‘You there!’ he shouted past Satyrus’ head. ‘What in Hades do you think you’re doing, Stilicho?’

Neiron was waving from the other deck, and Satyrus leaned out over the rail to hear. All he caught was
Diokles
. But when he looked again, he understood.

Marathon
was coming on from the east, under foresail and mainsail and oars, with
Troy
and
Oinoe
and half a dozen other ships in line astern. Even Satyrus could see that the third ship in line was their capture from the beach on the Asian shore, the beautiful long, low trireme of Phoenician design.

‘Well,’ Satyrus said. There was no one near him except the marine, Necho. Necho was younger than he had expected, and with his helmet off he didn’t look like a veteran at all. In fact, he looked pathetically young. He had two black eyes from some blow that had rocked his helmet into his forehead, and he looked terrible. Terrible, but alive, and his eyes glittered as they met Satyrus’.

‘Lord?’ he asked.

‘Well,’ Satyrus said. ‘I think we’re going to live.’

Night, and the swell was rising, and Satyrus feared for the remnants of Ptolemy’s fleet, last seen strung out over thirty stades of water and with the enemy in sight to the north. Ptolemy’s bodyguard had hung together, managed somehow to rig foresails to rest their oarsmen and the big ships, who could better endure the coming weather, began to pull away to the south.

In the last light, Satyrus went below on
Atlantae
, passing along the oar benches, talking to a rower here and another there. ‘We lived,’ was the burden of what he had to say, and they were glad to hear it.

‘You men don’t know me,’ he said. ‘I’m Satyrus of the Euxine, and at least for the moment, you’re my men. I’ll see you paid and fed, and no man on this ship will be a slave as long as you keep slavery away by pulling your oars. Any of you who want to leave this ship may do so – once we reach Alexandria. Until then, I need you to row!’

He didn’t get much of a cheer, but it hadn’t been much of a speech, and he felt that, on balance, they were content enough –
alive
and
free
were powerful feelings – but he also felt that Stesagoras might have taken all the real leaders with him in his mad rush to glory. The rowers seemed remarkably unspirited. They needed reinforcements, officers, lead rowers, and his handful of utterly spent marines and sailors were not up to the job – and neither was he.

He went aboard
Oinoe
, all but falling to the deck from the rail, his legs no longer interested in supporting him, and Diokles and Helios caught him.

But in return, dozens of deckhands, junior officers and oarsmen went aboard
Atlantae
. They winched across a spare foremast from
Oinoe
that was to be raised as a temporary mainmast, come the dawn.

As darkness fell, all the Euxine ships lit oil lamps and placed them in bronze storm lanterns on their sterns. All the captains preferred communications to stealth. Under close-brailed foresails in the bows, with the oar ports closed and the thranites cleared off their benches because the lowest oar deck
always
leaked, with men already queued on the decks to straddle the side-pumps, the squadron stood south.
Oinoe
fell back at dark to the centre position.

Satyrus tried to listen to Diokles, but he couldn’t. He fell asleep.

He awoke to a red, red dawn. The sun was rising in the east, his bronze-bright light reflected oddly all around them.

‘You’re awake,’ Diokles said.

Satyrus was no longer in his armour – he was wearing a frowzy wool chiton over a heavy linen bandage that was wrapped around his middle, over and over so that he couldn’t bend at the waist, and even as he thought about his back, pain bloomed there.

‘So,’ Satyrus grunted. His mouth felt as if someone had painted it with rust.

‘You smell like blood. We let you out of our sight for a few days, and you go and try to get killed. Just as I said!’ Diokles shook his head.

Helios was washing his feet and legs. They were covered in dried blood. ‘I was afraid to wake you,’ he said. ‘Lord.’

Satyrus shook him off – kicked him off, more precisely – rose to his feet with heavy effort and went to the downwind rail. He hiked his chiton and pissed downwind – and felt his heart stop as he pissed red, red blood.

‘Oh, Apollo,’ Satyrus said weakly. His kidneys hurt like fire by the time he was finished, and the stream was as red at the end as at the start, and Satyrus felt weak.

‘I had a master who beat me with a stick,’ Helios said quietly. ‘I always pissed blood after he beat me.’

Satyrus lay down on the sheepskins they’d piled up for him. He was cold, and Helios put a cloak over him. He felt better for Helios’ words. ‘I didn’t know. I’ve never pissed blood before – well, once after a fight in the palaestra, but not – not so much.’ He grunted.

‘You’ll heal,’ Helios said gently.

Satyrus went back to sleep, even as the wind’s note in the stays rose an octave.

‘We need to beach,’ Diokles said, somewhere off in a dream of riding on a winged monster. Satyrus struggled to the surface of the dream like a man pulled under by a breaking wave on a beach, and he managed to get his head above the nightmare to get his eyes open. The light was the same as it had been before.

‘I guess I didn’t sleep,’ he said to Helios, before he realised that the boy was asleep himself.

Diokles smiled. ‘You slept all day, lord. Now the sun – such as it is – is setting. And the wind is rising, and we’re in the middle of nowhere.’ He shook his head. ‘Wind is veering right round – into our faces, and the sails all have to come down, and there’s sand in the wind off of Africa. Bad night ahead.’

‘Where’s Aegypt?’ Satyrus asked.

‘A hundred stades or less off the bow,’ Diokles said, and he didn’t bother to hide his bitterness. ‘Might as well be ten thousand stades, Satyrus. It’ll be in the eye of the wind in ten minutes, and we can’t row into this. And we haven’t had a hot meal in three days. The rowers aren’t fresh, we’re short on food and very short on drinking water, and there’s no haven short of Alexandria into the wind or back to Cyprus. Into the teeth of the enemy.’

Somewhere in Diokles’ recitation, Satyrus came awake. He had to piss, and he was afraid to do it. Afraid of the stream of dark red urine. Somewhere in the fight off Cyprian Salamis, he had discovered that he loved life and had a great many things that he wanted to do. And now he wondered how badly he was hurt. It scared him more than all the fighting had scared him, more than the threat of a storm.

Facing his fears, he rose to his feet, stumbled to the rail and relieved himself. The stream was as red as Tyrian dye.

‘Where are the enemy?’ he asked. He felt faint, but he wasn’t going to surrender to it.

‘Due north. If you can get up on the stern rail, you ought to be able to see them,’ Diokles said.

‘How much left in the day?’ Satyrus asked.

‘An hour, at most. Hard to guess with this odd light.’ Diokles shook his head. ‘I’m sorry I was late. Men are saying … it was close. We might have made the difference.’

Satyrus managed a bitter laugh. ‘Five ships? Diokles, don’t be so self-important. We lost by
sixty ships
. Menelaeus stayed in port and let us die. We were never in that fight, my friend, and all you would have done was die.’

‘And yet you took a ship – a beautiful ship,’ Diokles said.

‘I’m a clever bastard and my father is halfway to a god,’ Satyrus said, intending humour. He climbed the rail, balancing on the slippery wood and clinging to the arching wood of the ship’s stern that rose over the helmsman’s station.

He could see them, just helm up in the failing light. He counted fifteen before he grew confused. He slipped back to the deck, feeling clumsy and light-headed.

‘Get us alongside
Arete
,’ he said. ‘Have you ever seen weather like this?’

Diokles shrugged. ‘No. But one of the Aegyptian marines says he’s seen it upriver, and it means a sandstorm.’

Their eyes met. Satyrus had seen small sandstorms to the east, in the Sinai. ‘That’s where I’ve seen the copper sky,’ he said.