Tyrant (44 page)

‘Isn’t she stupendous?’ said Leptines, jumping to the ground opposite his brother and waving a hand at the massive vessel behind him.

‘No doubt about it. But isn’t she a little . . . ostentatious?’

‘Ah, I want those bastards to crap in their pants as soon as they see her. They must understand that there’s no place to run from the steel jaws of my
Boubaris.’

Biton arrived with a dozen mercenaries and welcomed both brothers.

‘News?’ asked Dionysius as they made their way towards the governor’s residence.

‘All is calm for the moment,’ replied Biton, ‘but I’m afraid it won’t last. I know that they’re up to something in Carthage. They’re said to have hundreds of warships, three or four hundred, some say five. The admiralty’s shipyard is full of them. And I’m told that there’s an even greater number of transports.’

Leptines’s mood seemed to wane momentarily. ‘I need more quinqueremes,’ he said, ‘at least double the number I have now. How many are under construction?’

‘Ten,’ Dionysius replied curtly.

‘Ten? What am I supposed to do with ten?’

‘They’ll have to suffice. I can’t give you any more, for the time being. Where’s the rest of the fleet?’

‘At Lilybaeum,’ replied Leptines. ‘It’s a good spot to lay an ambush. As soon as those bastards show up, I’ll sink them to the bottom.’

‘Let’s hope so,’ commented Dionysius. ‘But stay on your guard. Himilco is crafty. He won’t attack until he’s sure of winning. Understand? Don’t let yourself get drawn into a trap.’

‘How are my sisters-in-law?’ asked Leptines.

‘Well. Why do you ask?’

‘No reason. The last time I saw Aristomache she seemed a little sad.’

‘Women’s affairs. No cause for worry.’

‘Little Dionysius? And the other little lad?’

‘They’re well, growing up fast.’ He changed the subject. ‘You, Biton, how are you planning to hold this place in case of attack?’

‘I’ve set up a signalling system from Lilybaeum that will warn me if there’s danger in sight. The breach has been repaired and there are enough stores in the warehouses for three months of siege.’

‘Good. This will be the greatest challenge of our lives. We cannot and must not lose. Do you both understand that well?’

‘Of course I understand,’ replied Leptines, ‘but if only you had sent me those quinqueremes I asked for . . .’

‘It’s useless to recriminate. Keep your eyes open. I must convince the native Sicans that we’re the strongest and that they had better stay on our side. So I’ll be going inland.’

They had dinner together and then, as night was falling, Dionysius returned to the mainland and Leptines returned aboard the
Boubaris
.

Himilco didn’t make a move until much later, when the summer was almost at an end. He put to sea under cover of darkness with the ships’ lights screened so they would not be seen. They sailed offshore and were effectively invisible from the coast.

He then sent out his convoy of transport vessels, and Leptines took the bait. When he saw them, slow and heavy, parading at dawn in front of cape Lilybaeum, Leptines jumped on to the
Boubaris
like a horseman on his steed. He plunged forward at great speed, dragging along all the ships whose crews were ready at that hour of the morning. He sank about fifty enemy vessels, four of them rammed by the flagship herself, and captured twenty more, but the rest of that immense convoy managed to escape to Panormus undamaged and to join up there with the combat vessels which had followed a wider route on the open sea.

When he learned about what had happened, Dionysius flew into a rage. ‘I had warned him, damnation! I told him to stay on his guard!’

The messenger from Selinus who had brought the news was struck dumb, not knowing what to reply. ‘
Hegemon
,’ he started off weakly, but Dionysius silenced him.

‘That’s enough! And where is he now?’

‘Our navarch? At Lilybaeum.’

‘Too exposed. You’ll bring him this letter, immediately.’ Dionysius dictated a message which was promptly brought to destination. He then continued inland to wrap up his campaign against the Sicans.

Himilco, who had recruited more mercenaries in the meantime, attacked by land and by sea. He took Drepanum and Eryx, where he installed, at the highest point of the mountain, a light signal that transmitted messages to Carthage at night; the signals were reflected by a couple of repeaters set up on floating platforms hingeing around the island of Cossira.

Just as Leptines was about to go out and engage the enemy fleet, he was fortunately reached by his brother’s coded message.

‘Stay in good health?’ howled Leptines when he had read it. ‘Stay in good health? How in the name of Zeus can I stay in good health! He says we’re to sneak off like cowards and let that son of a bitch win without a fight? What about Biton? We’re to leave him here in the middle of the lagoon alone, like an idiot? What the fuck am I going to tell Biton? That I have to obey orders?’

The messenger attempted to put in a word. ‘The commander told me it is essential that you carry out his orders, navarch, and—’

‘Shut up!’ shouted Leptines with such vehemence that the man didn’t dare open his mouth again. ‘And now get out!’ he yelled even louder. ‘Out of here, all of you!’

He ate no food nor took a drop of wine that entire day. Then, after dark, he called an orderly. ‘Have the dinghy prepared. We’re going out.’

‘Going out? At this hour?’

‘Move. I don’t have much patience.’

The man obeyed and, soon after, a hooded Leptines entered the dinghy and had the helmsman point the bow north.

He landed at Motya in the middle of the night and got Biton out of bed.

His friend came to receive him wrapped in the sheet he had been sleeping in. ‘You’re mad to go out so late at night in that walnut shell! You’d make a tasty morsel for a Carthaginian scout ship. What a lucky strike it would be to catch such a big fish in their net!’

‘The fact is that there’s something I have to tell you in person. I hate people who send messengers when they don’t have the guts to say something to someone’s face.’

‘What on earth are you on about?’ Biton took a jug from the table, with two ceramic cups. ‘Drop of wine?’

Leptines shook his head. ‘I don’t want anything.’

‘Well then, what’s the matter? Who are these people who hide behind messages?’

‘Him.’

‘Dionysius?’

Leptines nodded.

‘What has he said?’

‘He’s ordered me to retreat, to abandon Lilybaeum. He said the fleet is too much at risk here. He wants me to take it to Selinus, but in doing so . . .’

‘You’ll leave me completely alone. Is that why you’ve come here in the middle of the night?’

Leptines nodded again. ‘He hasn’t said anything to you?’

Biton shook his head.

‘See? He hasn’t even bothered to warn you. This is too much. It’s absolutely unjustifiable!’

Biton tried to calm him. ‘My message will be getting here tomorrow, or the day after. Communications are always precarious in time of war, you know that.’

‘That may be, but it doesn’t change matters any.’

‘What’s his reason?’

‘He says we’re outnumbered three to one.’

‘That’s a good reason.’

‘And for this reason I should leave my friend with no one covering his arse?’

‘You have no choice, Leptines. We are officers of the Syracusan army before we are friends, and Dionysius is our supreme commander.’

‘In the Company, we’ve always covered each other, and helped each other in every way. When we were lads and one of us was attacked by one of the other gangs, we’d run to help, at the price of having our faces bashed in. This has always been our rule, and I’ve never forgotten it.’

Biton sipped a little wine, then put the cup on the table and leaned back into his chair. ‘Those were the days, my friend,’ he sighed. ‘We’ve come a long way since then. We’ve enjoyed many privileges at Dionysius’s side: beautiful women, beautiful houses, beautiful clothes, the best food and drink, power, respect . . . Now he’s asking us to do our part for the successful outcome of this war and we must obey him. He’s right. If you stayed here, you’d only be massacred. You must save the fleet, save it for another more favourable circumstance. It’s only right. We’re soldiers, by Heracles!’

‘But why doesn’t that bastard have you leave as well?’

‘Because it took so much money and so much blood to conquer this island that giving it up without a fight would be an admission of complete ineptitude. Dionysius can’t afford that. Motya will fall, but after heroic resistance. We can do no worse than her own inhabitants; we defeated them, didn’t we?’

Leptines couldn’t say a word; he was biting his lip.

‘Go now. It will be light soon, and you’ve got to set sail as soon as you can. The sooner you leave, the better.

Leptines hesitated, as if he just couldn’t make up his mind to go.

‘Clear out, admiral,’ Biton encouraged him. ‘And let me sleep another couple of hours. I have a lot to do tomorrow.’

Leptines got to his feet. ‘Good luck,’ he said, and left.

Himilco showed up at Motya seven days later with one hundred and fifty battleships and thirty thousand men. Biton had only twelve ships and two thousand men. They were overwhelmed after four days of strenuous resistance. His body was impaled on the causeway.

Dionysius, who risked being cut off from Syracuse, had no choice but to withdraw from his inland campaign. He reached the city after fourteen days of forced marches and found the fleet already at anchor in the Great Harbour. Leptines, who had arrived some time before, remained aboard the
Boubaris
and would not come to shore.

An explicit order from Dionysius finally summoned him to the Ortygia fortress.

‘I’ve been told that in my absence you’ve visited Aristomache. Is that true?’

‘Not only. I visited your son as well.’

‘Is it true or isn’t it?’

‘Yes, it is,’ admitted Leptines. ‘You don’t trust me?’

‘I don’t trust anybody.’

‘No, you don’t, do you? Not even Biton, right? You couldn’t even trust him. But he stayed behind in that stinking hole to guard Motya for you and to die for you. They impaled him, did you know that? They left him there to rot until the crows and the gulls had picked his bones clean. You didn’t trust him, did you? Answer me, by Heracles! Answer me, blast you!’