Funeral Games (65 page)

‘I know,’ Satyrus said. He actually smiled, like the hero in an epic, although his smile was more self-mockery than dismissal of danger.

‘No Aegyptian will help them,’ Namastis said. ‘That much I guarantee you. But the Macedonian faction intends your death. They have hired men. That is all we know.’

Satyrus favoured the hand all the way back to Leon’s villa by the sea.

No more oyster shells came, and no fights with his sister, who was gone - visiting Amastris herself, or so Dorcus claimed. Satyrus went to sleep picturing elements of the drill.

And in the morning, the ranks were full. Two thousand Aegyptians, half-castes and Hellenes stood together in the ranks. Their armour was a patchwork, and their spears and sarissas were four different lengths, and most men had neither body armour nor cloaks - but the ranks were full.

Philokles asked the priest of Osiris and the priest of Zeus to address the men. Each offered a brief prayer. And then, when the priest of Zeus had intoned the hymn to the rise of day, Philokles gestured to Abraham.

‘We have no priest of your god, son of Ben Zion,’ Philokles said. ‘Can you sing a hymn or some such? This taxeis will use every shred of divinity on offer.’

Abraham nodded. He was in the front rank, beyond Dionysius whose beauty included the kind of fitness that caused Philokles to put him in the front. He shuffled forward past Dionysius - no easy task with an aspis - and stood in front. In a deep voice he began a hymn - Hebrew, of course. Fifty voices picked it up. Some sang softly, as if embarrassed, and some carefully, as if forcing the words from their memories. But they sounded well enough, and they smiled self-consciously when finished - just as the Aegyptians and the Hellenes had done.

‘If all the gods are satisfied, we need to do a great deal of work,’ Philokles shouted.

For the first time, his words were greeted with the sort of spontaneous cheer he expected from good troops.

 

At supper, back at Leon’s, Philokles shook his head. ‘We were down,’ he said. ‘Now? I see a glimmer of that fickle creature, hope.’

Theron grunted and ate another helping of quail. ‘When do we march?’ he asked. ‘And will we carry the baggage?’

Philokles shrugged. ‘I can’t believe the delays. Ptolemy hasn’t even decided on a strategy yet - he vacillates, so I’m told, between offence and defence, and he has twelve thousand slaves rebuilding the forts along the coast. And six thousand being gathered to support the army. We won’t carry the baggage - but if we have a defensive campaign, these men will melt away, priests or no priests. And if the campaign flares into sudden battle before marching makes them hard - again, I dread it.’ But after these words, he brightened. ‘But I tell you, gentlemen - philosopher that I am, something changed today. I felt it. I, too, will go to my task with a lighter heart.’ Philokles looked at Diodorus. ‘When do we march, Strategos?’

Diodorus was lying with Sappho. He looked up. ‘When Ptolemy is ready. When the storm breaks. When the Macedonian faction makes their move.’ He spread his hands. ‘Or the day after tomorrow. Is your taxeis worthy to stand in the line?’

‘No,’ Philokles said. ‘But give me twenty days of marching, and I might speak otherwise.’

Diodorus shook his head. ‘Ptolemy has all but given up. If Leon returned, we might act. All day long, Panion and the Macedonians of his ilk pour poison in his ears. I’m not sure that we’re any better off for Stratokles being off the board.’

‘If he is off the board,’ Philokles said. ‘The attack on Satyrus—’

‘Might just have been the work of the Macedonians,’ Diodorus said.

‘Too well planned. Footpads. Stratokles.’ Philokles flexed his muscles, reassured that they were returning. ‘Trust me, Diodorus. I know what the man does. I did the same once.’

‘For my part,’ Satyrus said, ‘I’d
rather
go and fight Demetrios than be afraid of going out of this house.’

‘Ptolemy is afraid they’ll sell him,’ Diodorus said. ‘Like Eumenes.’ He finished his wine and lay on his back next to Sappho, shaking his head. ‘Macedonians.’

A slave came in and whispered to Sappho, and she rolled over.

‘Coenus sends that our guest is awake,’ she said.

It took a moment for that information to penetrate the gloom of the dining hall.

‘Gods,’ Philokles said. And headed for the door.

 

Leosthenes returned to full consciousness without transition, Apollo having granted him life, or so it seemed to Satyrus. The scarred man lay on Coenus’s spare couch and smiled at the men in the room.

‘Friends,’ he said.

Coenus held his hand. ‘How did you come to serve that scum?’

Leosthenes shook his head. ‘Stratokles? For all his failings, he is a patriot for Athens. I am an Athenian.’

Philokles shook his head. ‘No wonder the Macedonians own us all, Leosthenes, if a man like you will serve a man like Stratokles because he is a
patriot
. He is a traitor twenty times over. And he’s trying to kill Satyrus - that’s
Kineas’s son
.’

‘Save your breath,’ Leosthenes said. ‘I will not defend him or Cassander either. I’m glad I have been taken by friends. And I tried to kill Kineas once myself - don’t try that argument on me. Nor will I betray the men who served with me, either.’ He managed a thin smile and shook his head. ‘Stratokles thinks he’s the smartest man in the world.’

Leosthenes was sinking again. Diodorus went and bent over him. ‘Listen, Leosthenes - your precious Stratokles is getting ready to betray Cassander, I can smell it. What does that make him? We need to know where he is!’

Leosthenes shook his head. ‘Glad to be taken by friends,’ he said, and subsided into unconsciousness.

‘Apollo!’ Diodorus swore. ‘Of all the useless fools to follow - and a man like Leosthenes, too!’

‘It is because men like Stratokles can attract men like Leosthenes that they are dangerous. Coenus, he must be watched. We cannot have him go back to Stratokles now.’ Philokles took a deep breath and met Diodorus’s eye.

‘If he went back, we could follow him,’ Diodorus said.

Philokles shook his head. ‘There are limits to the duplicity a man can practise and not be tainted,’ he said. ‘I have been past those limits and I will never go past them again.’

Diodorus nodded. ‘I thought you’d say something like that. Athena send we march before long - the sooner we’re out of this city and doing some honest fighting, the better for everyone.’

 

In the morning, Leon was back, and the house was full of sailors, and Satyrus found that despite his sister’s problems, he had no trouble embracing Xeno like a long-lost brother.

‘Demetrios has his army in Syria,’ Leon said. ‘He’s building up supplies in Palestine and then he’ll come for us. If he hadn’t had his cavalry beaten up in Nabataea, he’d be here now and we’d be wrecked. As it is, we’ve hope.’

In whispers, Xeno related how the
Lotus
had ghosted up the Palestinian coast and seized a message boat.

‘I’m off for the palace,’ Leon said. ‘Diodorus?’

The hipparch drank off his morning beer. ‘I’m with you, brother. Listen - I take it he’s coming by land?’

‘Best I can tell,’ Leon affirmed. ‘How’s Ptolemy?’

‘Panicking,’ Diodorus said, and then their voices vanished into the courtyard.

One hundred professional marines had a profound effect on the Phalanx of Aegypt, as they provided file-closers for every file and the drill smartened up immediately. And forty sailors joined them, most of them upper-deck professionals who owned some armour.

One of the sailors was Diokles. He attached himself to Satyrus as soon as he came on the parade square, displacing the Greek boy who stood in the second rank behind Satyrus with a polite nod and a gruff ‘On your way, then.’ The Greek, who’d been a little too shy of pushing forward for Satyrus, seemed happy to be moved to a place that was slightly less exposed.

Satyrus rammed his butt-spike into the sand and turned. ‘Good to see you, by all the gods!’ he said. He was surprised by the warmth of his own reaction.

So was Diokles, but he was visibly pleased. His hand clasp was firm. ‘Thought I’d try my hand at being a gent,’ he said with a smile. ‘Your uncle Leon asked me to look after you,’ he said.

‘Really!’ Satyrus said.

‘Fighting-wise,’ Diokles said. ‘What did you think?’

‘Shut up and listen!’ Philokles bellowed, and they were back to drill. They faced to their spear side and they faced to their shield side, they changed grips on their spears and raised and lowered their shields, they marched to the sound of pipes and halted to the shrill blasts of a whistle. In the afternoon, a man was killed when they practised a full-out charge and he got a butt-spike in the face from an incorrectly lowered pike. Anyone who was not sobered by that death was affected when the Spartan stood them in ranks in the setting sun and marched them past the corpse.

Even Satyrus, whose body was at the peak of training, was ready to drop.

‘We march the day after tomorrow!’ Philokles roared. His voice carried easily - one of the reasons men trained in the arts of rhetoric. ‘Phylarchs will attend me for instructions on what kit your men need to have. Water bottles! Hide or clay or bronze, I don’t give a shit, but every man
must
have a water bottle. A spare cloak! Understand? The Macedonians will have shield-bearers to carry their kit. Most of us
won’t
. That means we have to march light. Again - phylarchs will attend me. Very well - fall out by ranks and stack your sarissas. Carry on!’

Theron, who acted as Philokles’ second, began falling out the ranks. This process prevented the men from tangling the long pikes and becoming injured while being dismissed - a real difficulty. Philokles gathered the three hundred men who led files, closed files or led half-files - sixteen men to the file - and read off for them a list of basic equipment every man had to have: wool stockings, heavy sandals, a water bottle, a spare cloak, net bags for forage and a scrip or pack for gear, and other things.

Satyrus and Abraham and many of the other phylarchs carried hinged wax tablets for notes, and they pulled out their styluses and copied the lists, but not all the phylarchs could write.

‘I’ll post it at the temples,’ Satyrus said.

Theron, who had overseen the dismissal of the phalanx, shot him a grateful smile. ‘That’ll save a lot of crap, Satyrus, and no mistake. Make sure the priests know it, too - then men can ask for it.’

Abraham nodded. ‘I’ll take a copy for my father. He can see to it that a dozen copies go around the market.’

‘Some men in my file may be too poor to afford all this,’ one of the marines commented. ‘They seem like good lads, but half of them don’t even have sandals.’

Philokles shrugged. ‘I have to try,’ he said.

Abraham raised his hand. ‘Sir, I think that many of the merchants would help equip men - from pride - if they were asked.’

Philokles laughed. ‘Well, lad, you seem to have volunteered. Figure out a way to discover which men can’t pay, and get them kit. Pick four men to help you.’

Abraham shook his head at Satyrus. ‘Me and my big mouth,’ he said, but he looked more happy than chagrinned. ‘Busy?’

‘I have to cover the temples,’ Satyrus said.

Dionysius raised his hands in mock resignation. Then he smiled wickedly. ‘Cimon’s should donate!’ he said. ‘Perhaps we could have the words “House of a thousand blow jobs” embroidered on our armour.’

Abraham put a casual elbow in Dio’s side and then caught him. ‘That’s enough from you. You
can
write, I assume? You’re not just a pretty face?’

Dio made a moue. ‘All I ever
wanted
was to be a pretty face,’ he said. In fact, his face was red from sun and had the strange burn of a man who had been on parade all day in a helmet.

 

Satyrus took Diokles because the man was to hand and seemed determined to shadow him anyway. ‘Can you write?’ he asked.

Diokles nodded. ‘Sure - hey, maybe not my place, but Hades - ain’t we supposed to go straight back to your uncle’s?’

Satyrus shook his head. ‘Yes and no. Yes, we are - but this has to be done. Look, it’s just a run to the temples.’ He undid the wire that bound his tablets and handed a copy to Diokles. ‘Take this to every temple on the south side. Make sure it is copied fair and that you find some priest who has read it.’

‘You sound like a navarch I knew once,’ Diokles said. He looked at the Alexandrion suspiciously, but it was late afternoon and the streets were full of men and women of every stratum - hardly a threatening crowd. ‘All right, sir. Give it here. Where do I find you?’

‘Temple of Poseidon, last one before the sea wall. On the steps.’ Satyrus wanted to be off the street as much as Diokles wanted him off, so he put his head down and hurried through the errand, passing the list at every temple and watching as a clerk or an under-priest or an acolyte copied the list, bouncing up and down as he waited, watching the crowds from the relative invulnerability of many-stepped porticos.

The Temple of Poseidon was last, and he didn’t see Namastis, which made sense as the young priest had drilled all day. But the priest who copied the list was thorough and interested, able to memorize without effort, and Satyrus found himself standing on the steps watching the crowds. There was no sign of Diokles - and then he saw the man, well down the street, crossing from the Temple of Athena to the Temple of Demeter.

The shrine of Herakles beckoned to him from across the avenue. He had the time.

Satyrus crossed the street as quickly as possible and went up the steps, ignoring some acquaintance who called his name. He gave his list to an acolyte to be copied and then stepped into the precinct of the temple, searched his bag for a silver coin and found one, and made a hasty but exact sacrifice under the gilt statue of the master pankrationist, left arm stretched forward, right arm back and holding a sword, the lion skin of shining gold covering his back. He felt nothing untoward, except that the eyes of the statue seemed to be upon him, and he dedicated his sacrifice to the dead boy, Cyrus - Theo would have his own sacrifices. Satyrus thought of the young man’s eagerness to learn to sacrifice - it seemed as if that was so long ago, and he found that tears were running down his face.