Tyrant: Destroyer of Cities by Christian Cameron Page B

Theron, you will have to go and be my vicar in Pantecapaeaum.’
    Theron made a face. ‘While you play navarch? The unfairness of the world.’
    ‘You don’t like the sea,’ Satyrus said. ‘Twenty hulls in Timaea? That’s a third of Demostrate’s fleet.’ He turned to Helios. ‘Run down to the docks and get Diokles to sound All Captains. Tell them I intend to go to sea tomorrow morning. Tell them why.’
    Sarpax handed a servant his wine cup. ‘I’ll be gone, then.’
    Satyrus allowed his surprise to show. ‘Stay the night – rest your rowers.’
    ‘Leon thinks that Antigonus is going to have a go for either Rhodes or Aegypt,’ Sarpax reported. ‘Every day counts. Rhodes is recalling their cruisers. Ptolemy has half his army on Cyprus.’
    Satyrus narrowed his eyes. ‘That makes him vulnerable. Where is the fleet? The Aegyptian fleet?
    ‘Alexandria, or it was three weeks ago. It’s probably off Cyprus by now.’ Sarpax paused in the doorway. ‘Demetrios is on Cyprus, fighting Ptolemy.’
    Satyrus exchanged a look with Theron. ‘Tell Leon that we’ll be at Rhodes in ten days.’
    Neiron had the helm, and Tanais was a smudge on the northern horizon.
    The whole of Satyrus’ fleet formed a long, trailing arrowhead that covered forty merchants, ranging in size from the enormous high-sided, Athenian-built grain ships, each capable of hauling several hundred tons of wheat, to the smaller ships – local merchantmen, oversized fishing smacks and former warships, as well as a dozen small vessels under sail. Altogether they represented sixteen thousand tons of grain, or a little more than a third of his kingdom’s entire autumn harvest.
    ‘What if fucking Ganymede commits his whole fleet to taking us on? Sixty ships?’ Neiron asked.
    Satyrus shrugged. He couldn’t help it – a grin covered his face from ear to ear. ‘So what?’ he asked.
    Neiron shrugged. ‘I’m just saying. We could have sent to Athens for ships – we could still stop at Heraklea.’
    Satyrus nodded. ‘I expect that the straightforward approach would be to stop at Sinope and Heraklea, gather their warships and their merchants and take this great armada of grain slowly through the horn and across the Ionian to Rhodes.’
    Neiron sounded resigned. ‘But we’re not going to do that,’ he said.
    ‘No,’ Satyrus laughed. ‘No, we’re not.’ The grin that split his face made him look years younger. He felt years younger. He was going to risk his grain fleet and perhaps his life, but that was fine. He was at sea. And the sea was clean, neat, wild and much, much simpler than the land.

 
     
     
     
    5
     
     
     
     
    F ifteen days’ travel over the steppes, and her war party emerged from the Sea of Grass into the high ground north of Tanais, with its stands of trees, high hills and beautiful, fertile valleys. It was more her brother’s ground than hers, but they had yet to quarrel about such things. They ruled together, two lords of the different peoples who occupied the same land.
    Thyrsis rode up, his golden bow case throwing brilliant ripples of reflected light in the early-morning sunlight. ‘Riders,’ he said. ‘Scouts say more than fifty men with a hundred horses, moving slowly on the river road.’
    Melitta was troubled. ‘They shouldn’t be my brother’s men,’ she said. ‘I’ve only been gone three weeks, and there was no—’ she trailed off. ‘Look them over and make contact,’ she said, pointing downriver with her riding whip.
    Scopasis pressed his horse closer to hers. ‘Now what?’ he asked.
    She shrugged. ‘If I’ve heard about raids in the east, Satyrus probably has as well. Let’s ride.’
    She was delighted to find Coenus, although less enthusiastic to find Nikephorus, a man whose talent she admired and of whose motivations she remained suspicious. But the two of them were riding together. They had a strong troop of farmers’ sons on ponies and two dozen of Nikephorus’ men, armed as cavalry