Demetrios sprang off his stool, unclipped his cheek-plates, and tossed his helmet to a slave. ‘I’m sorry, did you say dead?’
One of his strategoi was trying to get his attention. Demetrios swung his slightly mad gaze clear of the terrified hypaspist and inclined his head to Philip, son of Alexander. ‘Well fought, sir.’
The strategos flushed at the praise. ‘Thank you, lord. We have prisoners — thousands. Prepalaus’s whole army must be collapsing.’
Demetrios’s face lit with satisfaction. ‘This is it!’ he said, and thumped the other man on the back. ‘By Herakles, Philip, if Prepalaus collapses we’ve won. We push our sarissas into Asia and save Pater. By the gods — I never thought this moment would happen.’ He turned back to the phylarch. ‘Lad, you’re leaving something out. Speak. I’m in a benevolent frame of mind.’
The man stammered, mumbled. Paused.
‘We found the guard captain,’ he said, quite clearly. ‘Dead.’
Demetrios felt his guts clench. ‘And?’ he asked. It seemed to him that the gods had traded his Satyrus for this victory. What a foolish way for a hero to die. Poor Satyrus. The man deserved better, even if he chose the wrong side — perhaps because he chose the wrong side. Demetrios wanted him — as a contestant.
‘And Lord Satyrus?’ he asked patiently. As the master of Greece, he suddenly had time to be patient.
The man began to babble, and Neron smacked him.
Later, when Neron came back bearing a cup of wine, the spymaster shook his head wearily.
‘I honestly can’t tell what’s the truth and what’s fiction,’ he said. He sat on Demetrios’s ivory stool without asking permission. Neron was one of the few — very few — who had such rights.
‘Tell me all,’ Demetrios said.
‘It sounds as if Satyrus’s escape was itself a trap — an ambush to kill him.’ Neron shrugged. ‘I have one niggling thought — one cavil, if you like. That phylarch is holding something back, something he’s too scared to impart. I’m going to guess that the body he found was not Satyrus’s.’
Demetrios sat up on his kline. ‘You … by Herakles! That would be wonderful!’
Neron shook his hands, rubbed his eyes with his palms, shook his head as if trying to shake off fatigue. ‘I’m pleased for you, lord. You like him. But he’s a cunning opponent and if he has got clear, it is a master stroke.’
‘Nonsense,’ Demetrios said. ‘What can he do? We’ve the fleet, we’ve the army, Cassander’s at my mercy and I can push my pikes in Asia — tomorrow, if I want.’
‘If he’s dead …’ Neron took a deep breath. ‘If he’s dead, his sister will fight you for the Propontus.’
Demetrios was dismissive. ‘Let her. We’ll summon the Ephesian squadrons — sixty hulls there — and move our troops straight across to Asia, and bypass the Propontus. She can watch there all summer — the war will be passing her by.’
Neron nodded. ‘Your pater is hard pressed,’ he said. ‘We have to move fast. But you know all that.’
Demetrios drank off his juice. ‘I fought well today.’
Neron raised an eyebrow. ‘Time to stop that, lord. We’re this close to victory — this close.’ He held his fingers the width of a slim coin apart. ‘You take a wound — we’re done.’
Demetrios shrugged. ‘I’m going to be a god,’ he said. ‘I don’t get wounded.’
Neron sighed. ‘If you say so. My last news? I have a messenger who says that Satyrus has fifteen ships at Aegina. Right now. Fishing boat saw them in port.’
Demetrios frowned.
‘If Satyrus is alive, and free, he’ll be aboard by now.’ Neron shrugged again.
‘What can he do?’ Demetrios asked. ‘Fight my Isthmian fleet at one to four odds?’
‘Raid shipping?’ Neron said, his voice impatient. ‘Break up our troop movements? Save Prepalaus’s army by covering his flank?’
‘Not with fifteen hulls. Perhaps with fifty. If he’s alive he’ll do something. Good for him. Prepalaus was too easy. Unworthy.’
Neron’s voice became hard, critical. ‘Don’t go that way, lord. If Prepalaus had been any tougher, we’d be desperate now.’
Demetrios smiled. ‘Lighten up. But yes, point taken. Here, have some wine.’
Neron sighed. ‘I will.’ He raised his cup. ‘If Satyrus lives, may he sail home.’
Demetrios shook his head. ‘Avert! If he lives, may I find him at the end of my sword.’
‘I got him,’ Sophokles said. He was offered wine by a slave, and he took it.
Cassander let go a long sigh. He was still a handsome man, but age was beginning to tell — age, and fifteen years and more of constant campaigning, betrayal, revenge. ‘The only good news of the week,’ he said.
The doctor nodded. ‘I heard. And whatever reports you received, it’s worse than they told you.’
Cassander raised a weary eyebrow and toyed with his sandals.
‘I was there — off the flank of Demetrios’s cavalry when the rout began. I couldn’t help it — there’s only so many ways out of Achaea. Your cavalry deserted, he broke your infantry, and now most of them have gone over — Demetrios must have doubled his numbers.’
Cassander’s eyes were bloodshot. He snarled. ‘You’re right. No one told me it was that bad.’
The doctor pretended to finish his wine. In fact, he hadn’t tasted it — he’d poured the whole cup into a chamber pot while Cassander was looking at his sandals. But he appeared to appreciate it. ‘Prepalaus has ceased to exist as a fighting force. Demetrios will either come after you or go to the aid of his father. Either way, he’s won here. What will you do?’
He ducked as the heavy gold cup that Cassander had been using flew by his head.
The doctor smiled, picked up his heavy satchel, and withdrew.
‘Everyone blames the messenger,’ he said.
Phiale emerged from the antechamber tent. ‘That’s that evil bastard done with,’ she said with savage satisfaction.
‘Done with?’ Cassander asked.
‘I poisoned his wine,’ Phiale said. ‘He killed Satyrus, and I killed him. It seems … balanced.’
‘I’m not done with him!’ Cassander said. ‘I need … an act of the gods. I need Demetrios to die. Or Antigonus.’ He took a deep breath, and he was an old man — a pale, shaken old man. ‘I need some luck.’
‘Touch me for luck,’ Phiale said, curling an arm around his head. ‘And I’ll see if I can take care of Demetrios.’
‘He was in armour! Serving against Cassander! With bloody Demetrios as his butt-boy!’ Ptolemy raged. ‘My spymaster says that they spent days and nights together at Corinth!’
Leon sighed. His own spies said the same. Said that Satyrus of Tanais had taken a wound in Demetrios’s service, and was recuperating in the palace tent.
‘What am I to think?’ Ptolemy raged. ‘Cassander is falling apart and Satyrus is helping it happen! Zeus Soter, Leon!’ The lord of Aegypt was also in armour — sitting on the edge of a hard bench in his sleeping tent. Outside, the long, Syrian twilight was giving way to true night, and the sound of insects competed with the steady, rhythmic chomping of thousands of horses eating the good grass of the Bekaa Valley.
The Nubian merchant had come cross-country from Tyre, where his own ships waited with Ptolemy’s fleet, guarding its flank from the increasingly confident and aggressive squadrons of Antigonus and Demetrios, up the coast at Ephesus.
‘As far as we can tell; Cassander tried to have him killed,’ Leon said. He ran his fingers though his beard. ‘If he knows that then he may, indeed, have elected to serve Demetrios.’ He shook his head. ‘But I doubt it.’
Ptolemy sounded bone weary. His cautious invasion of Palestine and lower Syria was a war of careful manoeuvre and local siege, with Antigonus’s local forces responding with vigour. Just three months before, they had seemed on the verge of collapse, but now — now Antigonus seemed to have found his youth.
‘How could he be so stupid?’ Ptolemy asked.
‘Satyrus?’ Leon asked.
‘Cassander. The useless fucker. He tried to kill me, remember? And now Satyrus. What for?’ Ptolemy shook his head. ‘If we had his fleet, we’d still be in the game.’