The enemy mercenaries were hesitating.
‘Back,’ Satyrus ordered. He stepped back, and the man at his back gave ground as well.
‘We had them, gods curse on them!’ said the man on Satyrus’s left.
Now the mercenaries were preparing for a charge.
Satyrus stepped back again, and again, and now his head and shoulders were level with the outside of the breach, and he had the gritty dirt of the ramp under his sandals and between his toes. A bad position from which to fight.
But the mercenaries hesitated again.
‘Back,’ Satyrus said. The danger of falling off the ramp was very real.
Down below, a ballista fired, its bolt crashing into the right side of the breach and ricocheting crazily until it struck the front rank of enemy hoplites. It didn’t kill anyone, but in its tumble it broke a man’s ankle and knocked another unconscious.
‘Give that man a bag of darics,’ Achilles grunted.
Satyrus shared his view — the first ballista shot stopped the enemy at the back edge of the breach, and Satyrus and his little band were able to skid down the ramp unmolested — not even by javelins or arrows.
Satyrus reached the base of the ramp, and men hastened to hand him water, wine; they were chastened by their defeat, and aware that the last men off the ramp had taken greater risks and were the better men.
They weren’t his men — it wasn’t his place to berate them or demand explanations. Besides, he was bleeding in three places and the damned thorax he was wearing had cut into his waist to the extent that he could barely keep his feet. He opened the cheek-plates on his borrowed helmet, ripped it off his head, and drank air, his sides heaving.
His right leg was red to the knee.
Demetrios pushed through his cordon of guards and threw his arms around Satyrus. ‘I feared you were dead. By the gods, I’d have killed the lot of these cowards if you had fallen. Say the word, and I will.’
Satyrus didn’t know what to do with Demetrios’s embrace — he returned the pressure for a moment, and then stepped back. Another man offered a wineskin, and Satyrus took a long drink and handed it to the man who had stood at his left shoulder.
‘Satyrus of Tanais,’ he said.
‘Kleon Alexander’s son of Amphilopolis,’ the man answered, pressing his hand. ‘An honour, lord. If I live, I’ll tell my sons I stood with you in a breach.’
‘He stood? At the breach, when they carried me down the hill?’ Demetrios said. ‘You are a phylarch. Give your name to my military secretary.’
‘All these men stood,’ Satyrus said, his sense of justice piqued. ‘And if I may — they have orders to protect you at all costs, I suspect. So they did. When you exposed yourself, they assumed the worst.’
‘I saved your life!’ Demetrios said. ‘It was worth it.’ He grinned. ‘I didn’t expect to take the suburbs today.’
Satyrus shrugged. The attack had been dangerous and demanding and had come within a moment of success — the golden king was rationalising defeat, a surprisingly human thing for him to do.
‘As you say, lord,’ he said. ‘And may the gods stand by your shoulder as you stood by mine,’ he added, because it was good manners — and true enough. Satyrus wasn’t too exhausted to recall the unwavering spear point of the small man, calmly waiting his moment to kill him. That close. That man had been a killer — Satyrus had seen it in his eyes. Tyche had cheated him of his moment of glory, and saved Satyrus’s life.
He was having trouble breathing, and the world was shrinking, somehow.
Achilles put his hand on his shoulder. ‘You need to get those wounds looked at,’ he said. ‘You’re making a puddle.’
Satyrus glanced down and saw that Achilles was literally speaking truth.
The sight of so much blood shook him, and he stumbled.
Fell.
He awoke to the thought that it would have been stupid to die fighting for Demetrios, and he was a fool for taking part, and then he was awake, his eyes gummy and his throat sandy, his mouth feeling as if he’d eaten glue — or spent a long night drinking with good companions.
‘You with us?’ a strange voice asked.
Satyrus had trouble focusing his eyes for a moment, and the other man’s face swam and then steadied.
‘Sort of,’ he muttered.
‘How many fingers?’ the doctor asked.
‘Three?’ Satyrus answered.
‘Close enough,’ the doctor answered. ‘Don’t be in a hurry to raise your head. You lost blood — I had to burn your thigh, but I think you’ll be fine if you don’t pick up a contagion.’
Even as the man spoke, the pain in his thigh began to push through a hundred other scrapes and pains.
‘No poppy,’ he said.
‘You’ve already had some,’ the doctor said.
‘No more,’ Satyrus said.
‘Fair enough. You’ve had too much? Fairly common soldier’s complaint.’ He nodded again. ‘I’m Apollonaris of Tyre — I’m Demetrios’s physician.’
The world was coming into focus, and Satyrus would have thought that he was in a palace, or even a temple complex, except for the odd light filling the structure. A tent then. A tent hung in tapestries and decorated with a heavy, hanging gold lamp.
‘How long will I be on my back?’ Satyrus asked. He had a thought of Miriam — a sharp pang of longing. What am I doing here? he asked himself.
‘Two days, or perhaps three, unless your wounds infect.’ Apollonaris grinned. ‘In which case, you’ll soon be dead.’
Satyrus cursed. ‘This is how you talk to the golden king?’
Apollonaris laughed. He had a rich laugh. ‘Yes. He likes my banter. Don’t fret, lord, I won’t let you infect. Apollo and I are old friends.’
‘That sounds like hubris,’ Satyrus said.
The doctor smiled, and while Satyrus slipped away into sleep.
Each successive sleep caused him to awake better and more restless, and there was food — mutton soup, and then ever more solid things — delicious, rich foods straight from the golden king’s table, and twice Demetrios came in person.
After his third long sleep, he awoke to find Achilles at his bedside, and he grinned at the man.
‘Next time tell me when I’m bleeding — a little sooner.’ Satyrus took a deep breath, waited for the pain from his thigh. It was there, but definitely better. No fever.
Achilles smiled. ‘The rest of the boys have come in,’ he said. ‘And young Jason. Still a lot of people looking for you. Jason had a go at offing Phiale and didn’t pull it off — trying to avenge his master. He’s here for you — claims you said you’d take him on.’
Satyrus sighed. ‘So I did,’ he answered, wondering how many plots he’d be saddled with if he accepted the boy as his freedman.
‘Her people killed a lot of people in a brothel, and Jason brought a couple of survivors. I’m sure they can find work here,’ Achilles said, with a leer. ‘You planning to go into business?’
‘Too complicated for me,’ Satyrus said. ‘You run it.’
Achilles nodded. ‘I thought I might, with Memnon and the boys. That’s how you serve with an army — run a string of boys and girls, protect ’em, rake in the owls. We staying here for a week or two?’
Satyrus realised the man was serious. ‘I’m not going anywhere until I have Demetrios’s permission. And I need to be able to walk. But if you plan to stay in my service, you have to know that I’ll be out of here as soon as I recover — one way or another. Being wounded has its advantages — I’ve had time to think. This is a diversion. I have things I need to be doing.’
Achilles didn’t seem to have listened to a word after the first sentence. ‘Two weeks, you say?’ he answered. ‘That’s fine.’
When Achilles was gone, the doctor and a pair of slaves changed the bandages and salves on his arms and legs. Satyrus was amused to see how heavily bruised he was — the breastplate itself had done as much damage as enemy weapons. When he was settled, drinking iced wine and water with fruit juice, Demetrios came in. Slaves brought him an ivory folding stool and he sat, took some juice, and dismissed the slaves.