Funeral Games (45 page)

‘You make love sound so - mercenary!’ Melitta complained.

‘Mistress, I’m a hetaira!’ The older woman shrugged. ‘Men started mounting me when I was eleven. There’s never been a great deal of
romance
involved.’ She stroked Melitta’s shoulders. ‘It will be different for you - I’ll see to that. A boy your own age - a beautiful boy.’

Melitta smiled. ‘Your lips to Aphrodite’s ear,’ she said. She rose to her feet, complete from her gilded sandals to the tiny touch of rouge on the tops of her ears and the long tendril of black hair that seemed to have artlessly escaped her diadem - one of Kallista’s best contrivances. ‘Mind you, dressed like this, I might as well be a hetaira!’

Obligingly, Kallista walked to her household altar - to Aphrodite of Cyprus, like most hetairai - and knelt. She fingered the ivory statue and spoke quietly to it as if the statue were the goddess herself, and then kissed it and put it back in its place.

‘Shall we?’ she said.

Melitta walked to the door.

Leon was waiting in the foyer. ‘We are expected at the palace,’ he said. Even as he spoke, Philokles came from the garden with Coenus, talking about hunting, at his side. Diodorus came in the main gate. He was in armour, and Philokles was wearing a plain white chiton and the long himation of a scholar. Coenus and Leon were dressed well, although their clothes were more befitting merchants than leading aristocrats.

Leon addressed them all together.

‘Satyrus and I have been ordered to attend the king. Melitta has been invited to visit the princess of Heraklea.’ He looked around at them. ‘After today’s events, we can’t be too careful.’

‘Surely you don’t expect that Ptolemy will do anything foolish,’ Philokles said.

Leon raised an eyebrow. ‘I wish to ensure that he does not,’ he said. ‘So I would like you gentlemen to accompany us.’

Philokles rubbed his jaw. ‘Do I need a sword?’ he asked.

‘If it comes to that, there’ll be no saving us,’ Leon said.

Diodorus nodded. ‘Let’s get this over with then,’ he said. ‘I’d like to see Sappho before the day is over. Hello there, Satyr. Lita, you look like - like a particularly seductive nymph. And to think that I watched you being born!’

Coenus rolled his eyes. ‘In my day, young lady, you would never have been allowed out like that. Aren’t you even going to cover your hair?’

Kallista muffled a squeak of outrage. Melitta put a hand on her companion’s wrist. ‘Troy has fallen, Uncle,’ she said with a smile. ‘Penelope is cold in her grave. In the modern era, young women of good family are allowed out of their houses.’

Coenus made a noise between a grunt and a laugh.

Leon waved them all out through the garden and on to the street like a dog herding sheep.

‘Goodness,’ Kallista murmured. ‘Are we going to
walk
?’

If Leon heard her, he gave no sign. He strode off and eight torch holders arranged themselves around the party. Satyrus knew them immediately - although masquerading as house slaves in simple chitons, they were all soldiers, troopers from Eumenes’ squadron.

They walked along the streets, only one such group among dozens, although Melitta and Kallista drew attention like a new vendor in the agora. Satyrus watched the crowds as they walked, annoyed that his best sandals might be stained by the rubbish in the street while simultaneously fascinated by the scenes around him, as he always was in the city. Women waited at public fountains with jars for water on their heads or hips. Men stood in the cool evening air and grumbled, heckled and bartered, or discussed the new city’s politics. Criminal factions eyed each other from opposing street corners. Couples mooned in dark corners or fought in tenements, and a late caravan of camels from the Red Sea stood in a long row on the central avenue, liberally decorating the clean sand of the street with droppings as they waited for slaves to unload the incense of the southern Arabian kingdoms.

Their torch-bearers watched everything and their eyes went everywhere. The man closest to Satyrus was the giant, Carlus, and Satyrus wondered how anyone could take him for a slave. His eyes were moving, appraising, watching. He looked up at the rooftops and down in the doorways.

‘See anything, Carlus?’ Satyrus asked by way of conversation.

The big Keltoi shrugged. ‘No,’ he said. ‘Lots of bad men, but they don’t want us.’ He glared at a beardless Aegyptian on a street corner, who stood with his arms crossed over his chest. He was small, and light, and young, but he met Carlus’s stare with cool indifference. ‘I’d love to come down here with some of the boys and clean up,’ he said. ‘Forced loans, prostitution, extortion, arson - these scum do it all.’

Satyrus looked at the Aegyptian as he passed him. The young man didn’t even raise an eyebrow. ‘Are you sure?’ he asked.

Carlus grunted.

Leon’s villa was comparatively close to the new library and the palace precincts, and it dawned on Satyrus that Leon was parading his group through the most public thoroughfares for a reason. After half an hour’s walk they climbed the low hill that led to the palace gates, still under construction. As far as Satyrus could see, the palace was in a permanent state of construction.

Bored Macedonians greeted Leon, gave perfunctory salutes to Diodorus and ogled Melitta and Kallista, their comments loud enough that Satyrus became offended on his sister’s behalf.

‘Soldiers,’ Leon said, putting a hand on Satyrus’s shoulder. ‘Calm yourself.’

Slaves led them from the gate to the main hall, and female slaves came and took Melitta and Kallista away. Greek women might walk the streets and even sometimes attend a party, but at the palace many of the old ways were preserved, and women were received in women’s rooms. Satyrus kissed his sister on the cheek while Amastris’s personal attendant waited patiently, her shawl over her head. He had a sudden premonition - as if an icy hand had rubbed his back.

‘Watch yourself, sister,’ he whispered.

She looked back at him and squeezed his hand. ‘And you, brother.’

Then the women were gone and they were walking up the steps of the central
megaron
. Ptolemy’s Greek steward was waiting for them, and he bowed. ‘Lord Ptolemy wishes to greet you in private,’ he said. ‘Please follow me. Your torch-bearers can wait.’ He snapped his fingers and a pair of slaves emerged from the portico and gestured to the torch-bearers.

‘I understood that we were to have an audience,’ Leon said.

‘Lord Ptolemy wishes to speak to you in private,’ the steward insisted.

Leon looked around and then nodded. ‘Very well,’ he said. He turned to follow the steward. The Greek shook his head. ‘Just you and Master Satyrus,’ he said. ‘My regrets to these gentlemen.’

Philokles snorted. ‘Gabines, take us to Ptolemy, and stop pontificating. ’

The Greek steward looked more closely at Philokles. He gave a short and rather discontented bow. ‘Master Philokles. I didn’t see you. Philosophers are always welcome in our lord’s presence.’

Diodorus and Coenus pressed closer in the gathering gloom. ‘Perhaps you shouldn’t have been so quick to send the torches away, Gabines. Now, take us to the king,’ Diodorus said.

Gabines looked around, as if expecting help.

Satyrus checked to make sure that he had his knife. It was absurd to feel physically threatened in the palace, but he was on edge, walking as if he expected ambush, and he noted that Diodorus and Coenus were the same, starting at shadows. Philokles, on the other hand, pulled his chlamys back over his head and walked with the calm of a priest.

They walked down the back of the megaron and across the central courtyard to the royal residence. Reliefs of Alexander’s victories decorated every surface on the exterior, meticulously painted so that the horses seemed to ride out from the walls, and on the peristyle were ships under oars. Satyrus stared and stared - even Leon’s villa had nothing like this for sheer display.

Leon wasn’t looking at art, but at the guards. He motioned with his chin where more Macedonian guards waited on the portico, and yet more inside.

‘He’s got half of the Foot Companions on duty,’ Diodorus said. ‘Something is wrong.’

Leon shrugged. ‘We already knew that something was wrong,’ he said. He climbed the steps, nodded at the guards and entered.

Satyrus followed him up the steps. He noticed that the colonnade was full of men, and he saw the white glimmerings of the new quilted linen armour that the guards wore. His shoulders prickled as he passed them, and then he was in the residence, directly under the fresco of Herakles that filled the entryway arch. Up on the ceiling the gods sparkled, their faces adorned with real jewels as they seemed to watch both living men and the deeds of the demi-god. The floor was five colours of marble inlaid in a complex pattern that baffled the eye. At the centre of the arch, Herakles was carried by chariot into the heavens to become a god.

‘Your majesty? Master Leon of Tanais, his nephew Prince Satyrus, Master Philokles the Spartan and Strategos Diodorus, as well as Phylarch Coenus of Olbia to see you.’ The steward gave a deep and very un-Greek bow and, as he said their names, led them into the main hall, a sort of roofed garden in the middle of the building. Up on the ceiling, gods disported. A burly Apollo forced his favours on a not very unwilling nymph, while smiling over her shoulder at - Athena?

It looked blasphemous to Satyrus. And very beautiful.

‘Leon? You brought an army to visit me?’ Ptolemy was running to fat, and his high forehead and straight nose made him so ugly he was almost handsome. He rose from a heavy chair of lemonwood and ivory to clasp the Numidian’s hand.

It was not the tone of a king about to murder one of his richest subjects. Satyrus felt the blood retreat from his face, and his pulse slowed.

‘We all thought it wisest to come together,’ Diodorus said.

‘Meaning that you feared my reaction to this young scapegrace’s attack on the Athenian ambassador. And well you might. Boy, what in Hades or Earth or the Heavens above moved you to attack the Athenian ambassador?’

Satyrus looked at Leon and received a nod of approbation. So he told the truth. ‘He has tried to murder me before - and my sister. I want to kill him. Despite this, Lord Ptolemy, I took no action against him. His man attacked me, and I dealt with him.’ He bowed his head. ‘I am conscious of the religious obligations of a man towards a herald or an ambassador.’

Ptolemy smiled. His wide eyes appeared guileless when he smiled, giving him that look of pleased surprise that had earned him the nickname Farm Boy. Those who knew him well knew that the look was utterly deceptive.

‘In other words, you are the outraged innocent and he is a viper at my breast?’ the king asked.

Leon stepped in front of his nephew. ‘Yes, lord. That is exactly so.’

Ptolemy fingered his chin and sat back down in his chair. ‘Seats and wine for my guests. I’m not some fucking Persian, to keep them all standing for awe of me. Boy, you’ve put me in a spot and no mistake. I
need
Cassander. I
need
Athens. Stratokles is the price I pay for it, and he brought me news. I need him!’ He glared at Leon. ‘You and this Athenian have a history. Don’t deny it - Gabines is a competent spymaster and I know things.’

Leon remained closest to the king when stools were brought. ‘Is it nothing to you, Lord Ptolemy, that I have finished my summer cruise, and that I, too, have news?’

‘Credit me with a little sense, Leon. I invited you here. No one has been arrested.’ Ptolemy pointed at a side table with a wine cooler on it and closed his fist. At the signal, a squad of slaves appeared and began to pour wine.

Leon took a
phiale
from the side table and poured a libation. ‘To Hermes, god of merchants and wayfarers and thieves,’ he said. It was a curious gesture - the host usually poured the libation. Satyrus thought that his uncle was telling the king something. He just didn’t know what it was.

‘Since you are all three of them,’ the king said with a smile.

Leon shrugged. ‘Heraklea is buzzing with rumours of war,’ he said. ‘Antigonus is planning a campaign against Cassander and he’s put his son in charge of an expedition - somewhere. No one knows where the golden boy is going. He had already marched when I left the coast.’ He looked around. ‘And his fleet is at sea, and we don’t know where it is going. Rumour is he’s going to lay siege to Rhodos.’

Ptolemy nodded. ‘Exactly what Stratokles says.’ He cocked his head to one side. ‘Cassander has asked me to send him an army.’

‘Don’t do it, lord,’ Diodorus said.

Ptolemy glanced at the red-haired man. ‘Wily Odysseus, why not?’

‘Call me what you will, lord. Cassander has the whole of Macedon to recruit. If we send him our best, he’ll buy them as well - with farms at home, if nothing else - and we’ll never have them back. We’re far from the source of manpower, and he’s close. Let him raise his own levies. And perhaps send us some!’ He looked around. ‘We’re recruiting infantry from the Aegean and Asia and soon we’ll be reduced to Aegyptians.’

Ptolemy nodded. ‘I may send him some ships,’ he said. ‘But I regret to say that I have summoned you to forbid your expedition into the Euxine, Leon.’

Leon nodded slowly. ‘I had your promise, lord.’ He glanced at Satyrus.

Satyrus held himself still. No one had told him anything directly, but he had felt the expedition must be close - Philokles had dropped hints.

He wasn’t sure whether he was angry or relieved.

Ptolemy put his chin in his hand and nodded. ‘Circumstances change. Eumeles and his kingdom are allies of Cassander. I can’t afford to have you making trouble there just now. I need to know that Antigonus and his army are going to Europe and not coming here. Then I’ll let you go - with my blessing, which will have a very tangible effect. You and your nephew ruling the northern grain trade would be of the utmost value to us - to Aegypt and to our allies in Rhodos. But not this year.’