Funeral Games (58 page)

And then it came to him - the master stroke that would sweep the board. He actually stopped walking in the middle of the Posideion and stood still as the wonder of the idea filled him.

 

Stratokles beat his own ship to the piers and spent an uncomfortable ten minutes waiting around for the trireme to come alongside. He couldn’t afford to draw the attention of the guards at this point - he didn’t mind if people associated his ship with the death of the Olbian boy, but he didn’t want the link too plain. He felt the frustration of a man on the edge of a great success, who has to depend on the whims of Fate.

But the guards on the piers were busy checking bills of lading, or collecting bribes from merchants. None spared him a glance.

Finally, the Athenian trireme turned in for the pier. Her oars shot in - a beautiful manoeuvre - and she coasted along, just barely moving, so that her helmsman only had to make a single turn to spend the last of her momentum.

Stratokles didn’t know that voice. He froze. The Athenian trireme embraced the pier like an old friend with scarcely a sound. Iphicrates had never handled the ship with such - elegance. Or without a lot of swearing . . .

‘Something’s wrong,’ Stratokles said to his guards. He walked quickly to the sternward edge of the pier. ‘Iphicrates?’ he called. ‘Show yourself !’

He waited a moment as marines put a plank over the gunwale. ‘Back to your places!’ he called.

‘Best let me go first,’ Lucius said.

Stratokles shook his head. ‘No,’ he said. ‘I need to know what’s going on. If Iphicrates is hurt . . .’ He shook his head. ‘Fuck this.’ He leaped on to the plank. ‘Who’s in command here?’

Momentum carried him two steps up the stern after the shock of recognition struck him. Those were
not
his officers standing in the stern. He reached for his sword. And
that boy
—

He leaped back on to the docks, rolled without tangling his cloak and came to his feet.

‘Secure that man! Xenophon!’ the boy barked.

Stratokles owed his life to the fact that the men on his ship -
his ship!
- were as stunned as he. He gathered his guards and ran, and the marines didn’t get another sight of him.

All the way back to his house, Stratokles tried to see how this could have happened and what the ramifications were. The loss of his ship was a serious blow - that ship meant mobility and freedom and a last bolt-hole if things went spectacularly wrong.

Just short of his gate, Stratokles shook his head as if he’d been in a conversation with another man. He put his hand out and stopped his guards.

‘Lucius - wait.’ Stratokles pointed at the house. ‘We don’t know that’s safe.’ He rubbed his chin. ‘No - they can’t have got word here yet - have to move fast. Get all the slaves, all the chests and the cash. Load it on the slaves. Fast as you can. Go!’

Lucius was a man used to obeying, and he leaped into action, barking orders at the other guards, most of them Keltoi or Iberians.

In less than an hour, they stripped Stratokles’ residence of cash and belongings, made a train of his slaves and some hastily hired porters, and vanished to his bolt-hole - that is, to one of his bolt-holes.

Stratokles fought for calm acceptance, but he was angry. ‘What the fuck could have happened?’ he asked Lucius. ‘More important, what do I do now?’

Lucius shrugged. ‘Anything that got old Iphicrates . . .’ he muttered, and shrugged. ‘We’ve got horses. Let’s head out across the desert. You said yourself that most of your damage was done and that Gabines was on to you.’

Stratokles stood still in the street, breathing hard. But then he shook his head. ‘No,’ he said. ‘No - we won’t cut and run. Not yet. I’m
this close
to burying Ptolemy for ever. I’ll stand my ground, for now.’

Lucius shook his head. ‘Well, I’m with you, then,’ he said. ‘Let’s get this done.’

When he was standing in the courtyard of his safe house, a shit-hole taverna he’d purchased in the unfashionable south-east quarter, he breathed easier despite the stink of the tannery next door.

Think it through,
he said to himself.

Terrified slaves put bales of his goods down in the courtyard. Stratokles snapped his fingers, and two of his guards stepped forward.

‘Pay them well,’ Stratokles said. The expense was ruinous, but he couldn’t afford the betrayal of a slave at this point.

A young Gaulish woman with a yellow bruise that covered the left side of her face turned and bolted, fearing something in his voice and guessing incorrectly. She ran out of the courtyard, a six-year-old child at her side. Two of his best went off in pursuit.

‘Athena!’ Stratokles protested to the heavens. ‘Zeus Soter! I intended no impiety!’ He stopped imploring the heavens, as it scared the slaves. To Lucius, he said, ‘See to it we have no more runners.’

The rest of the slaves huddled together, as if by closeness they could achieve protection against the swords, like the sheep in the tannery. Lucius’s men herded them into their new quarters and put a bar across their door.

Before the shadows grew longer, the smaller of his guards returned from the chase with a smug look on his face and a head in a sack - a head with blond braids.

‘And the child?’ Stratokles asked.

The man looked around. ‘Never saw a child,’ he said.

Stratokles shook his head. ‘She had a child.’

The man blinked. ‘Never saw a child,’ he said. ‘Maybe Dolgu saw the brat.’

Stratokles stifled his annoyance. ‘Fine. Send Dolgu to me when he returns. In the meantime, go and buy me two new slaves in the market and get this courtyard cleaned. And arrange to send this note to the doctor. The usual way.’ The doctor was comfortably ensconced at the palace, and would only communicate via codes.

He had a new plan - it lacked the endless vistas of beauty of the former plan, but it would serve. Its simplicity was its beauty.

He would continue to foment the mutiny. That was too easy. Cassander wanted the Macedonians in Macedon, and they all wanted to go home. No need for deep planning there. The new wrinkle was that he would use his tools to kill
Ptolemy
. And then, when Antigonus strolled into the ensuing chaos, Stratokles would use him to free Athens.

‘You want me to take the boys and have a go at Leon’s men?’ Lucius asked. The big Italian was eating an apple.

‘No,’ Stratokles said. ‘No, Leon’s a sideshow. The children are a sideshow. If the doctor can get them, well and good, but I’m done with such stuff. We work the Macedonians, and then we decamp.’

Lucius finished his apple, right down to the seeds. ‘For what it’s worth, I agree. We can’t fight everyone.’

‘That’s just what I think,’ Stratokles said.

‘Y
ou have a prisoner?’ Leon said. ‘Where?’

‘Welcome home,’ Nihmu said. She smiled sleepily.

Diodorus came through the adjoining house door with a sword in his hand. ‘In the name of all the gods,’ he said, and then he lowered the sword.

Coenus was right behind him. ‘Satyrus!’ He grinned. Then, carefully, like a man who fears to speak a bad thing lest it become true, ‘Is my - is everyone well?’

‘Xenophon is standing in the courtyard with a file of marines. And one of Stratokles’ people, wrapped in a rug.’ Satyrus grinned. He couldn’t help it. Then, sobered, he nodded to Leon. ‘Peleus is dead.’

Leon threw a chlamys over his naked shoulders while Sappho ordered torches and lamps lit. ‘I don’t suppose you could have warned us you were coming? And you’re still under exile, young man.’ He gave Satyrus a hug. ‘So - you’ve taken a ship on the sea and lost me the best helmsman on Poseidon’s blue waters. I assume there’s a story?’

Philokles appeared from the darkness of the doorway. ‘Coenus, your son is outside with a rug on his shoulder,’ he said.

Satyrus smiled at Philokles and then looked at the man again. The change was profound, for having been gone just a month. The Spartan had lost weight. He moved differently. He stepped up and put his arms around Satyrus. ‘I missed you, boy,’ he said.

Theron came in from Diodorus’s house, pulling a chiton over his head. ‘I should have known that it was you,’ he said by way of greeting. ‘Do you know what hour it is?’ But he, too, had to give Satyrus a crushing hug.

All together, they went out into Leon’s broad courtyard, where six marines stood easily with their shields resting on the ground and their spears planted, butt-spike first, in the gravel. When they saw Leon they all stood straighter.

Xenophon put his burden carefully on the ground and bowed. ‘Sir?’ he said.

Leon crossed his arms. ‘Let’s hear the story,’ he said.

Satyrus started telling it. Servants brought wine while he talked, and he was on his second cup by the time he got to the fight off Syria and the long night of the storm. ‘The next morning, Demetrios could have had us with ten children and a sling,’ he said. He shrugged and handed the wine cup to Xenophon, who took a slug and gave a belch. ‘We slept late and all the guards went to sleep - three hundred of us in a cave, with the ships out on the beach like a signal.’ He shrugged. ‘But the gods protected us, or Demetrios is a fool.’ He motioned at the rug. ‘None of the prisoners know much - they worked for this Athenian mercenary; they had orders to find us and take us. This one seemed to be in command. Kalos hit him hard, and he’s been comatose for days. He needs a doctor.’

Philokles motioned to Xenophon. ‘Rolling an injured man in a rug is not actually a way to heal him. Let’s see him.’

Xeno placed his burden on the ground. ‘He was a fine fighter. I’d like him to live.’ Together with Philokles, he unrolled the rug.

Philokles gazed at the unconscious man in the torchlight for a long moment. ‘Well, well,’ he said.

Diodorus stooped over the man and then stood up. ‘Look what the cat dragged in,’ he said.

‘I thought he was dead,’ Coenus added. ‘Hera protect us all. Put him in my room.’

‘We need a doctor,’ Philokles said. ‘This is beyond me.’

Leon looked puzzled. ‘I don’t know him.’ He turned to his steward. ‘Fetch us—’

Diodorus shook his head. ‘Wait. Clear the courtyard.’ He turned around. ‘Trust me. Get everyone out of here. Marines - to the kitchens. Get yourself some wine.’ He looked back at Leon and made a sign. ‘
Friends only
,’ he said.

‘Xeno can stay,’ Coenus said.

‘And the twins,’ Sappho said.

Satyrus thought that he was on the edge of some great secret. All his life he’d seen them act like this - as if some sacred bond called them all together.

‘Demetrios is in Nabataea,’ Melitta said, out of the air, ‘and none of his ship commanders had the balls to come out after us.’ She reached out and took the wine cup from Xenophon. They glanced at each other for a moment - too long a moment, as far as Satyrus was concerned.
What in Hades?
Then she looked at Diodorus. ‘Who is he?’

‘Nabataea?’ Leon asked. He was standing like a man about to run a race. ‘Let me make sure I understand this. Demetrios son of One-Eye is on the beaches of Syria with two hundred ships, and his army is in Nabataea - and you can prove these things?’

Melitta was being embraced by all of her uncles, and she was in Sappho’s embrace when she said, ‘Prove it? We have two hundred witnesses, if Leon’s oarsmen can be trusted.’

Leon and Philokles could be seen to exchange a long look.

Philokles shook his head in answer to some unvoiced question from Leon. ‘We need to go to Ptolemy right
now
. Every heartbeat counts.’

‘What about the Athenian?’ Leon asked. He was rubbing his beard. ‘Who is he?’

‘He’s Leosthenes,’ Philokles replied in a low voice. ‘He led the revolt of the mercenaries against Alexander. And helped beat Antipater in the Lamian War.’

‘He’s dead!’ Leon said. Then, in a whisper, ‘Is he one of us?’

Philokles shook his head.

Diodorus disagreed. ‘He was too political to take the oath - but he was a friend of Kineas. A fickle man - I heard that he survived the Lamian War and changed his name, but I’m still surprised.’

‘What the hell was he doing working for
Stratokles
?’ Coenus asked.

Diodorus shook his head. ‘I can only guess that when Cassander took Athens five years back, Leosthenes went with what he thought was the lesser of the evils. Say what you like about Stratokles, gentlemen - he’s a loyal Athenian.’

‘We chose Ptolemy,’ Coenus said, nodding.

Sappho bent over the prone man. ‘We could ask him when he recovers. In the meantime, leaving him to lie on the stones of our courtyard is unlikely to save him.’

‘We almost had Stratokles on the docks,’ Satyrus said. He didn’t really understand who the unconscious man was, but he thought that they needed to know the whole story.

That took more explanation.

When they were done barking questions at him, Philokles rubbed his chin. ‘Stratokles will bolt,’ he said.

‘Into a hole,’ Diodorus said.

‘Regardless, this is the moment to crush his influence at court and sting the Macedonian faction into action,’ Leon said.

‘Except that we could be fighting Demetrios any moment,’ Coenus said.

‘Where’s the
Lotus
, lad?’ Leon asked Satyrus.

‘South coast of Crete. She ought to be homeward bound by now,’ Satyrus said. ‘I thought that I could surprise - well, everyone - if I came in the prize. And Peleus’s last wish was that the Rhodians be informed.’

Leon nodded. ‘Fair enough. I’ll order that Athenian trireme into the yards - not a bad hull, if a little knocked about - and get to sea myself in
Hyacinth
. I’m for the coast of Syria.’

‘I’ll come with you!’ Satyrus said.

Philokles shook his head. ‘No,’ he said. ‘I have work for you here.’