Funeral Games (66 page)

Then he was back out of the precinct, and he went down the steps in a sombre mood.

‘Master Satyrus!’ called a voice, close at hand.

Satyrus felt that something was
wrong
. He felt as if the god had put a hand on his shoulder and turned him - indeed, he spun on the steps and stumbled when his right foot slipped off the marble step, and his side absorbed an impact - his ribs burned with fire. Only as the knife was withdrawn did he understand that he had been attacked.

‘Hades!’ a familiar voice cursed, and Satyrus got his hand on the attacker’s elbow. They struggled for the knife, and they exchanged blows - Satyrus took a blinding blow from the top of his opponent’s head and returned one with his fingers to his opponent’s eyes, and then the man broke his hold in exchange for the loss of the knife and bolted down the steps.

Satyrus was bleeding from his side. He put a hand to it, and it came away covered with blood, and he felt queasy.

Diokles appeared at his side. ‘I see him!’ he said.

Satyrus managed to get to his feet. ‘Follow him!’ he said. ‘See where he goes!’

Diokles hesitated. ‘But—’ he said.

‘I’ll be safe in the temple,’ Satyrus said. Suiting the action to the word, he dragged himself up the steps, leaving a trail of blood.

Diokles hesitated another moment and then raced away.

Satyrus was helped by many hands. In the end they carried him into the precinct and laid him on a bench. His side hurt, but the doctor who appeared in moments shook his head.

‘You’re a lucky lad,’ he said. ‘Skidded off your ribs. It’ll hurt for some days, but the bruise’ll be worse than the cut.’ He wrapped Satyrus in the temple’s linen, and Hama came with four files of cavalry to escort him home.

Hama was silent all the way home. Satyrus assumed that somehow he was going to be blamed, but he had drawn the wrong conclusion.

‘You’re hurt!’ Sappho said, when he came into the courtyard.

Diokles had managed to follow the would-be killer into the tannery district before he lost the man, and he stood in the middle of a dozen of Diodorus’s cavalrymen, describing the district while Eumenes of Olbia wrote his directions on a tablet.

‘I recognized his voice,’ Satyrus said. ‘Remember Sophokles?’

Philokles smiled ruefully. ‘Who could forget?’ He narrowed his eyes. ‘Really? Here?’

‘Yes,’ Satyrus said.

‘Don’t tell me!’ Sappho put a hand to her throat. ‘Where’s Melitta?’ She sent for Dorcus.

‘Speaking of armour,’ Diodorus said. He shrugged. ‘This was supposed to be a dramatic moment, but I think my thunder has been stolen somewhat.’

Dorcus returned. ‘In the bath, my lady,’ she said, grim-faced.

Sappho took a deep breath and let it out. Then another.

Diodorus embraced his wife. ‘I think we have to let Satyrus go his own way,’ he said.

Sappho raised her head. ‘Very well,’ she said. ‘How badly hurt are you, my dear? I assume that if you were dying, someone would have told me.’

Satyrus managed a smile. ‘It shocked me when it happened, but I assure you I’ve had worse in the palaestra.’

Eumenes stepped forward and saluted. ‘Strategos? With fifty men, I think I could find him.’

‘Hold that thought,’ Diodorus said. ‘Stay by me. I need to consult with Leon and with Philokles before I send a troop of cavalry into the streets, even for Stratokles.’

Satyrus hadn’t seen Eumenes in weeks, and he shook hands with the youngest of his father’s friends. ‘The gods keep you well,’ he said.

Eumenes grinned. ‘The gods need some help with you!’ he answered.

Diodorus stepped in. ‘I have a small surprise for you, Satyrus.’ He shrugged. ‘I hope that you like it.’ He led them all in from the courtyard.

In the main room there was an armour stand, and atop it was the helmet of silver that Demetrios had given Satyrus three years before. Now, under it, was a full-sized cuirass of tawed leather and alternating rows of silver and gilt-bronze scales - every scale a small disk, so that the whole looked like the scales on a fish. There was a gilt and silver vambrace for the sword arm and a pair of rich greaves.

‘I wish that Melitta had as good,’ Satyrus said. ‘Oh, that’s beautiful, Uncle. Who made it? Hephaistos?’

‘Much like,’ Diodorus agreed, pleased that his gift was so well received.

Philokles came in, still in armour, and glanced at the display. ‘Goodness, Achilles is going to fight right next to me. Young man, see that you don’t blind me.’ He turned to Diodorus and Eumenes. ‘So?’

‘Leon’s man followed the assassin,’ Diodorus said.

‘I think I can find him,’ Eumenes said. ‘I need fifty men.’

Philokles shook his head. ‘This whole city is right on the edge of a violent explosion,’ he said. ‘The news isn’t public, but two of our senior officers have fled to Demetrios - this morning. And just now, Ptolemy announced that he will march. We’ll set off tomorrow - the Phalanx of Aegypt at the rear.’ He smiled grimly. ‘If we send ten files of cavalry into the market, the war will start right here.’

Diodorus nodded. ‘I agree. What do we do?’

Philokles looked at Satyrus. ‘We ask our Aegyptian friends to find them for us. The tannery district is almost entirely native. The native populace is so disaffected with the Macedonians tonight that they may rise against Ptolemy himself - foolish as that would be, that’s where they are. Satyrus? Any ideas?’

Satyrus was looking longingly at his new armour. ‘Namastis - the priest of Poseidon. He’ll help. I wish I knew where to find him, but the temple is the place to start.’

Accompanied by Diokles and a dozen cavalry troopers whose military gear was inadequately disguised by borrowed civilian cloaks, Satyrus went to the Temple of Poseidon.

Namastis greeted him from the top of the steps, as if they’d made an appointment. ‘I heard what happened!’ the Aegyptian said.

‘That’s what I’m hoping you’ll help with,’ Satyrus said. ‘Listen - my uncles say our city is on the edge of civil war - Aegyptians against Macedonians.’

Namastis’s face closed. ‘I wouldn’t know anything about that, lord.’

‘Satyrus! Call me Satyrus, by the gods! By Poseidon Earth-shaker, priest, this is about our city! Your city and my city! Men are manipulating the thetes. Alexandria cannot stand without Lord Ptolemy. He is
not
the enemy. The enemy is Antigonus One-Eye and his army - if they come here, they will
sack the city
no matter what promises he makes.’

Namastis nodded. ‘I know that. But desperate men make poor choices.’

Satyrus shook his head. ‘These men who attacked me—’

‘Who are they? And why? No man of Aegypt would do it. I have let it be known - that is to say, it is known that you are a friend.’ Namastis looked deeply disturbed by his slip.

Satyrus ignored it. ‘They serve One-Eye. Understand?’

The priest shook his head. ‘No, I do not understand. Explain it to me.’

Satyrus had to smile. ‘To be honest, I’m not positive that I understand myself. One-Eye is enemies with Cassander, the regent of Macedon - yes? But it appears that they have a secret agreement - to give Aegypt to One-Eye.’

‘Yes - that’s a common enough rumour. Why kill you?’ Namastis asked.

Satyrus shrugged. ‘I’m an old enemy,’ he said. ‘My father and mother left me a claim to be king of the Bosporus.’

‘The king of the grain trade!’ Namastis nodded. ‘Ahh! But then, you are no more an Alexandrian than the Macedonians!’

‘What - do I seem to you to be an ingrate? A barbarian? I am a
citizen
. No matter what my birth. Don’t be as bad as the Macedonians, priest. So what if I was born somewhere else?’

Namastis grinned - the first honest display of emotion that Satyrus had seen him show. ‘So,’ he said. ‘And so. How can this poor and unworthy priest help you, King of the Grain Trade?’

Satyrus explained it to him. The priest listened carefully, and then nodded.

‘There are men who stand close to you all day,’ he said. ‘And you don’t know their names, or where they live. But they will spend the night searching on your behalf. Does that tell you something?’

‘It tells me that I should learn their names,’ Satyrus said.

Namastis grunted. ‘That would be a start,’ he said. He produced an oyster shell from under his robes. ‘I’m not sure that I should give you this, given what you have told me. Except that now I understand why the lady of Heraklea has to do with an upstart Alexandrian gentle man.’

Satyrus snatched the oyster shell, the conflicting emotions of the last one banished.

‘I am to say,
tonight
.’ Namastis raised an eyebrow. ‘I won’t ask if you will go.’

Satyrus took a deep breath. ‘That’s right, friend,’ he said. ‘Don’t ask.’

At the base of the steps he looked out over the sea wall and thought about his sister.
Why can’t you be like this all the time?
she’d asked at sea. He nodded and made the sign of Poseidon.

 

Eloping wasn’t as difficult as it might have been for another girl. First, Melitta wasn’t afraid of the world outside Sappho’s women’s quarters. She knew the streets and she had clothes in which she did
not
look like a rich Greek girl. Second, she had weapons and a strong desire to use them. Third, she had somewhere to go. Xeno had offered to meet her and be her escort, but that’s not what she wanted.

She dropped off her balcony on to the beach and froze as she heard movement to her left. Barefoot in the sand, she moved slowly and carefully back into the shadow of the house, at the same time drawing her Sakje akinakes.

She saw her brother drop to the sand from his own balcony and she almost laughed aloud - but she couldn’t be
sure
that they were on the same side when it came to her running away. She wondered where he was going, and then she caught a glint of gold. He was well dressed.
Amastris
.

She gave the superior smile of the sister, crouched down on her haunches and waited for him to vanish up the beach. When he was gone, his footsteps lost in the noise of drunken sailors, she picked up her armour and the leather wallet that held the rest of her boy’s clothes, and ran off along the strand, past the beached squadrons of Ptolemy’s fleet until she reached some lower and thus less opulent houses, where she cut inland. She leaned against a stable to clean her feet before pushing them into Thracian boots. Other expeditions in boy’s clothes had taught her that her hands and feet gave her away more than her breasts - carefully bound and now almost flat under her Sakje jacket.

Just short of the northern agora, she stopped, straightened her clothes and began to walk purposefully, like a man in a hurry. Not like a girl running away.

The agora was busy, despite the darkness, and she wanted to linger. There were torches everywhere and the heady odour of burning pitch filled the air along with the reek of patchouli and the smell of burning garlic and unwashed people. She wanted to be part of
everything
.

The night market was a strange world where the thieves and the pornai and the beggars ruled, where soldiers were customers and slaves paid to be entertained. In some ways, it was the daytime world stood on its head, as Menander had so rightly observed. Menander was sometimes a denizen of the night market himself, and his plays were full of night-market expressions.

She bought a skewer of meat - probably rats or mice - from a girl no older than five, who took the money with the concentration a young child gives to an adult task, while her mother serviced a noisy soldier in the booth behind her.

‘I couldn’t - I had to come,’ Xeno said beside her, and she looked up into his eyes.

‘You found me in the night market? You must be part dog!’ she said. She ought to have been angry, but instead she squeezed his hand.

They wandered from stall to stall, paid a blind singer with a kithara for his songs and watched a troupe of slave acrobats perform for free what their master charged heavily for them to perform at a symposium or a private house.

‘The archer-captain is sitting over there with his mates, drinking wine and telling lies,’ Xeno said with a smile. ‘I told him a bit about you - not about you being a girl, of course. About how you were small and you can shoot.’

She kissed him on the nose, as she had seen boys do with their men, even in public. ‘I take back all those things I say about you behind your back,’ she said.

Xeno winced. There was some fear in him, some hesitation, and it annoyed her.

‘Let’s go and meet this captain,’ she said.

They wandered across the agora, avoiding a deadly brawl so sudden and explosive that Xeno was splattered in blood and Melitta found that she had her akinakes in her fist before she thought to draw it.

‘This your little archer, Master Xenophon?’ asked a deep voice, while Xeno was still wiping the blood off his face. He was looking at the body as if he’d recognize the victim any moment, but he turned.

‘Captain Idomeneus!’ he said. ‘My friend—’

‘Bion,’ Melitta said, offering her hand to clasp the archer’s. He was a Cretan by his accent, and he looked like a caricature of Hephaestos - his face was handsome enough, but he was short and wide, with powerful arms and short legs. Indeed, he only topped her by a couple of fingers.

She must have looked at him too long, because he gave a fierce grin. ‘Like what you see, boy? My dick is short and broad, too. Hah!’ He had a mastos cup in his hand, and he drank wine from it. ‘No offence, boy. You can shoot?’

‘Anything,’ Melitta said. ‘I’ve been shooting since I was four years old. I can hit a target seven times out of ten at half a stade. I can—’

‘You can string a bow? Avoid bragging, boy, it’s too fucking easy for me to test you tomorrow. What kind of bow do you have? Let me see it.’ He didn’t seem drunk, but a whole life spent with Philokles had taught her that some men could operate efficiently through a haze of wine.