Tyrant: King of the Bosporus (31 page)

Neiron shrugged. ‘I was saved by a good healer. And the gods, I suppose. You need to get to a doctor, just as Lady Aspasia said.’

‘What did the doctor do with you?’ Satyrus asked.

Neiron shook his head. ‘Tied me down while I pissed the poppy out. Ares, it hurt. And that was after he cut a piece from my head, so that my skull felt odd for two years. I still rub it all the time.’ He shrugged. ‘That’s what I mean, though. A bad wound changes you.’

Satyrus nodded. ‘Everything looks right,’ he said, cradling his arm. In his mind, there was a black smudge on the sky over the city.

Neiron sighed.

They went ashore beneath Satyrus’s old bedroom window, and slaves and freemen were waiting on the beach with Sappho, having seen the famous
Golden Lotus
in the bay. Sappho smiled at him from the moment she caught his eye.

‘We heard that you’d retaken the
Lotus
,’ she said, and kissed him.

‘I got him captured,’ Satyrus said. He hugged her, and she responded fiercely. ‘I’ll free him in the end.’ He looked around. ‘Where’s Melitta?’

‘This is Kineas,’ Sappho said. She held up a plump, round baby with huge blue eyes that wandered all around, as curious about the ship and the sky and the birds as about this strange man who’d taken him in his arms.

‘Melitta’s son! He’s beautiful! Hello, nephew! Goodness!’ Satyrus laughed. ‘I feel quite old.’

‘Melitta has gone to the Euxine to raise the tribes,’ Sappho said quietly. ‘I sent Coenus with her, and Eumenes when he came from Babylon.’

‘Herakles!’ Satyrus said. ‘She left her son?’

Sappho’s eyebrows made a hard line and the beauty of her face vanished in a mask. ‘She did not run away,’ Sappho said. ‘Men tried to kill her – and me. This is war, Satyrus.’

Satyrus watched his sea bag going ashore. ‘Aunt Sappho, you remember Neiron? He’s my helmsman now. He proved himself this voyage. I hope he can stay in the house.’

Neiron bowed. Sappho inclined her head. ‘Welcome to our house, Neiron.’

‘Master Satyrus needs a healer,’ Neiron said pointedly.

Sappho nodded. ‘You look – pinched. Are you drinking too much, boy?’

‘Poppy,’ Neiron said. ‘For a wound.’

‘Herakles!’ Satyrus didn’t know whether to laugh or weep. ‘I’m right here. I’m a grown man and I can see to my own needs!’

‘So I see,’ Sappho said, in a voice that suggested the opposite. She was already giving orders with her hands, and maids came running.

Nearchus read the note from Aspasia. He scratched the bridge of his nose and smiled. ‘Aspasia herself?’ he said. Then he shook his head. ‘You are in for a bad few weeks. Let me see the arm.’

He undid the bandages and the splints, and then replaced them. ‘Beautiful, of course. Aspasia wouldn’t do poor work. But she has left me the hard part. The night market is full of men who can set a bone.’ He looked at Sappho, who had insisted on being present. ‘I want him fed like an ox for sacrifice for a week. Satyrus, take what exercise you can with that arm. Because the next two weeks will be brutal.’

Satyrus shook his head. ‘So you all keep telling me,’ he said.

Nearchus scratched his nose again. ‘We aren’t kidding.’

Satyrus ate, and walked. He sacrificed at temples. On the third day he went across the city to the Aegyptian quarter, escorted by Namastis, a priest of Poseidon who had served with him at Gaza.

‘You’re sure they can forge the true steel?’ Satyrus asked.

Namastis rolled his eyes. ‘As you tell the story, a priest of Ptah made the sword in the first place. Yes?’ Namastis grinned. ‘You Greeks and your arrogance. You call us “Aigyptioi” – yes?’

Satyrus was watching the whole world of the Aegyptian quarter, and he nodded perfunctorily. It smelled different. It looked different.
The people on the street seemed younger – vibrant with energy, fast-moving, alive.

A pretty girl flashed him a smile – not a common experience in the Greek streets.

‘Do I have any of your attention?’ Namastis asked. He paused and put his hand on the girl’s head, and she accepted his blessing with a mixture of pleasure and impatience, like a child being praised by a parent.

‘We call you “Aigyptioi”,’ Satyrus said in sing-song repetition.

‘All you are saying is the “home of Ptah” or the “home of craft”.’ Namastis led him up the steps of the temple, where a very normal-looking god in robes presided – a god without the usual animal head.

The priests were immediately interested, thanks to a few words in private from Namastis, and when Satyrus unrolled the shards of his father’s sword, they gathered around like dogs with a bone, whispering and touching the steel.

Namastis took him aside. ‘They say many things. Mostly, they say that Sek-Atum made this, and he is old, but still the best. He is downriver at Memphis. How long will you be here?’

Satyrus shrugged. ‘Until I am no longer friends with the poppy,’ he said.

Namastis nodded, the import striking deep. ‘Oh, my friend,’ he said, and put a hand on Satyrus’s shoulder.

He spoke to the priests. They looked sombre. The eldest among them came and put a thumb on Satyrus’s lips, surprising him, and then looked deeply into his eyes. He nodded brusquely and stepped away, speaking quickly to Namastis.

‘They will send the hilt and shards downriver to Memphis today. They say that the breaking of the blade and your health are one – that the blade must be reforged or your health will be broken like the blade, and the poppy in your body is the flaw in the blade. They say many things – they are priests.’ Namastis shrugged. ‘They say that the blade should have gone into your father’s grave. Does this make sense to you?’

Satyrus thought of the kurgan by the Tanais River. It had a stone at the top, like every kurgan. ‘I know what they speak of, yes,’ he said. ‘But they will reforge the blade?’

‘As soon as it can be done. A donation would not be unwelcome. A mina of silver would be appropriate.’

‘I will send them a mina of gold, if they are successful.’ Satyrus hugged Namastis. ‘This means a great deal to me.’

‘It is well that you brought me. And it is good that you respect the ways of this land.’ Namastis led him by the hand down the steps of the temple of Ptah and out of the Aegyptian quarter. They shared a meal and then Namastis had to go back to his duty at the temple.

‘I will pray for you. Come and visit me!’ Namastis said.

Satyrus went straight from the Temple of Poseidon to the palace. At the palace, he made an appointment with Gabines, the steward of the lord of Aegypt. He listened to the news in the agora and spread some rumours of his own.

On the fourth day, he visited Abraham’s father, Isaac, who met him in the courtyard and had him in to drink
qua-veh
.

‘How is my scapegrace son?’ Ben Zion asked.

Satyrus drank the bitter stuff carefully. He realized that he had hoped that Miriam, Abraham’s talkative daughter, would put in an appearance, although he had come to recognize that the poppy, when present, muted all such longings, and when absent, accentuated them. Right now he was as far from his last dose as he ever got, and thus on edge.

‘He is well,’ Satyrus said carefully. ‘He sent a cargo, which I carried in the
Lotus
and sold at Rhodos. I brought alum from Rhodos – here are my bills. And that sack has the silver.’

Ben Zion waved a hand at two weeks of winter sailing. ‘I would rather have my son. He is playing pirate while he ought to be getting married.’

Satyrus had a vivid image of Abraham playing ‘feed the flute girl’ at the symposium of Aphrodite. ‘He will come back in the summer,’ Satyrus said. ‘I only came to assure you that he is well.’

‘Well? He is fornicating like a stallion amongst heathens who would murder him for his curly hair. He is playing pirate with men who would eat his heart when they cut it out – and you took him there.’ Ben Zion didn’t seem particularly angry. He said these things as simple facts.

Satyrus met his eye. ‘He is my best captain – my right hand. In a year, I will be king, or not.’

Ben Zion nodded. ‘Listen, Satyrus son of Kineas, who would be king. If you fall, my son’s head will lie beside yours. If you triumph, what value to me? What value to me if my son dies? I would rather that he came back here to his own and left your world of
adventure
. When he is dead, it will be too late for him to repent.’

Satyrus stood up. ‘He is my best friend,’ Satyrus said. ‘I am sorry you don’t value his accomplishments. He is as brave as a lion – thoughtful in council. He sees far, and he does not hesitate to do what must be done. If he were my son, I would be proud that he was accounted a great captain. They know his name in Rhodos and in Byzantium.’

‘You are a young fool, like my son, Satyrus son of Kineas. What makes you think that I am not proud? I was proud when he came home from the fight at Gaza, like a young David in his pride. Men come to me and say, “Your son took an enemy galley in a fair fight, when the battle was lost,” and again, “Your son saved his ship, and his friend.” I hear these things, and I rejoice that my son is made of such stuff.
And I still want him back here, where I can love him, and not dead with you
.’ Ben Zion held up the pot. ‘More qua-veh?’ he asked. ‘We Jews speak our minds, young Satyrus. Don’t bother to be offended. Bring him back to me.’

He walked Satyrus to the gate, and Satyrus felt better than he’d expected. He smiled at the older man, who tugged his own beard and laughed.

‘How long will you be here?’ Ben Zion asked. ‘Surely all your busy schemes need you?’

Satyrus looked up at the exedra and saw movement behind a curtain. He looked back at Ben Zion, moved somehow to simple honesty.

‘I took poppy for a wound and I’ve had too much of it. My physician is going to take it out of me. This will take more than a week.’ He smiled ruefully.

‘God be with you, then,’ Ben Zion said. ‘It is no small matter.’ The older man took his elbow. ‘You are looking for my daughter, I think.’

Satyrus nodded. ‘I liked her.’

Ben Zion shook his head. ‘She is married now. You have enough of my family already.’ He guided Satyrus out of the gate.

Miriam married. Well, he scarcely knew her really, and that only to be annoyed at her. ‘And how is the machine?’ Satyrus asked.

Ben Zion tugged his beard again. But the smile that came to his
lips was unforced. ‘Magnificent. Lord Ptolemy has been here – to my house! To see it function. He wants one for his library. The tyrant of Athens has sent me a letter about it.’ Ben Zion shook his head. ‘I am one of the greatest grain merchants in the world, and no one knows my name outside the trade. But now that I have financed this machine – now men know me. What is the Greek word I am looking for?’

‘Irony?’ Satyrus asked.

‘You have it, young man. The irony threatens to overwhelm me.’ Ben Zion nodded to himself. ‘There is a lesson there somewhere. Perhaps about the futility of human striving.’ He studied the ground and then, raising his eyes, he seemed to study Satyrus. ‘Two of the philosophers who worked on the machine are coming to Alexandria – indeed, I expect them any day. They come from Syracusa – students of Pythagoras and Archimedes. Would you like to meet such men? Or are their mathematics too academic for an adventurer such as yourself ?’

Satyrus clasped the older man’s hand. ‘I would be delighted. It will give me something I can look forward to – while I lie on a bed and curse the poppy.’

‘Good. I will send word to Leon’s house. You will rescue him?’ Ben Zion asked suddenly.

‘Yes,’ Satyrus said.

‘Good. For that, I loan you my son. Leon and I are partners – it is fitting that my son help his nephew.’ Ben Zion squeezed his arm and went back through his gate, leaving Satyrus wondering whether Ben Zion was speaking to himself or to Satyrus.

The next day, Nearchus pronounced Satyrus fit.

Satyrus lay on his bed with a bucket of scrolls.

‘Read while you can,’ Nearchus said.

And so it began.