Apollodorus nodded. ‘I’ll fight for that. About the only thing left I’ll fight for — except my friends.’
Satyrus looked around. ‘You’ll know where the wounded are,’ he said.
Apollodorus nodded, knocked back another cup of wine. ‘That’s right. Let’s go.’
The three of them made their way through the late afternoon sun, that threatened to grill them through their light wool chitons like herrings or anchovies fresh-caught and seared on an iron skillet.
They climbed to the temple centre. The wounded were in the Asklepion. Satyrus walked among them, trying to cast off the bone-deep fatigue. He let a pair of doctors look at the injury under his arm, and he clasped hands with fifty wounded men. And at last he found Achilles, sitting with Odysseus.
The smaller man had a heavy bandage wrapped around his abdomen and his eyes were the blank eyes of a man with a great deal of opium in him.
Achilles looked up. ‘King,’ he said.
‘Achilles,’ Satyrus said. ‘I’m sorry. I chose to open the gate.’
Achilles nodded — one short nod, with a variety of meanings. ‘Memnon’s dead,’ he said. ‘Ajax hasn’t come to. Might be dead, might be fine — no fucking clue. And Odysseus here … I saw his guts, and I ain’t never seen a man recover from that.’ He didn’t meet Satyrus’s eyes.
Apollodorus put a hand on the mercenary’s shoulder. ‘You don’t know me,’ he said. ‘I’m Apollodorus of Olbia. I’m a priest of the Hero Kineas. Let me help.’
‘There was just the four of us,’ Achilles said, as if it explained everything.
Apollodorus looked at Satyrus, and his look told Satyrus to walk away.
‘You and Memnon and Odysseus and Ajax — you saved us,’ Satyrus said.
Apollodorus nodded, as if to say, That’s good, now go away.
‘Who’s this Kineas, anyway?’ Achilles asked.
‘Kineas said that the nobility of the warrior lay in offering to do an ugly job so that other men would not have to,’ Apollodorus began. ‘He also said that in the eyes of the gods, he who does more is of more worth.’ He didn’t sound drunk now — his eyes were steady, and he had both of Achilles’ shoulders. ‘Your friends were men of worth.’
Achilles began to weep.
Satyrus walked away into the evening.
‘Don’t do something you’ll regret,’ Anaxagoras said behind him.
‘I liked those men, and they’re dead.’ Satyrus walked to the edge of the restraining wall. Above him was the Temple of Artemis, and the city of Ephesus fell away below his sandals.
‘They were professional soldiers,’ Anaxagoras said. ‘You told us the odds when you laid out who went where. They elected to come with you — for money.’
Satyrus shrugged. ‘At least one is dead, now.’
Anaxagoras looked out at the first stars. ‘I think you are more injured by Apollodorus than by their deaths,’ he said.
Satyrus turned and looked at the man. ‘You know, I don’t always need the whole fucking truth poured on me. Yes, watching Apollodorus drink himself to courage hurts me, and yes, hearing him be a priest of my father frightens me. But I don’t really need to talk about it.’ He looked out at the night. ‘They died so that I could have what I wanted — Miriam. What if that’s for nothing?’
‘Make it for something. Save Lysimachos, defeat Antigonus, end the war.’ Anaxagoras shrugged.
‘You make it sound simple,’ Satyrus said.
‘You know where we’re standing?’ Anaxagoras said. ‘The portico of the old Temple of Artemis. Where Heraklitus taught. “War is the king and father of all — some men become kings, and others are made slaves. All of creation is an exchange — fire for earth, and earth for fire.”’
Satyrus smiled. ‘You are a fucking pedant, anyone ever tell you that?’
Anaxagoras met his smile. ‘I’ll go a step further and say that if Abraham had guaranteed you your marriage, neither Achilles nor Apollodorus would have hurt you. I tell you this as your friend — she loves you. You love her. It will happen.’
Satyrus felt dirty — bitter, angry and dirty. And he knew that Anaxagoras was right. He took his friend’s hand. ‘Did I mention that you’re an annoying pedant?’ he said. He embraced him, and then, unseen by the army and his own increasing horde of sycophants, he slipped into the temple, made sacrifice to Artemis and to Herakles, to Athena and to Aphrodite, and then went down the hill, to the army, to his friends, to the war he had started.
Satyrus slipped into the house virtually unseen, by the simple expedient of walking confidently through his own guards and in through the slave’s quarters. The andron was full of officers — Charmides, holding forth on pleasure as a good unto itself, and Diokles, quietly enjoying a cup of wine, Scopasis, his eyes heavy on Melitta, and the queen of the Sakje herself, apparently unaware of how her presence in the andron might affect others, holding forth on naval tactics. At a glance, Satyrus took in that she was a little drunk, and bored — hectoring her audience rather than informing.
He kept going.
He didn’t know the house, but all Hellenic houses had a logic of their own, and somewhere behind the andron and near the kitchen would be a broad set of stairs going up to the women’s quarters. There was a stone tower, visible from outside — remnant of a pre-Hellenic past, perhaps.
The slaves in the kitchen were surprised at his arrival, but unlike the people in the andron, had no real idea who he was. They were, in the main, off duty. A tall, balding man rose from a cup of wine to bow.
‘Lord?’ he said, in Syriac-Greek. His accent wasn’t heavy, sounded educated.
Satyrus raised a hand in benison and managed a smile. ‘I think that the party in the andron needs more wine. Send a man, not a woman, eh?’ He smiled to show he was on their side.
The balding man nodded seriously. ‘There is a woman there, lord. I do not think she is lewd.’
Satyrus didn’t have to push the laugh that came to his throat. ‘Not lewd at all, sir,’ he said. ‘That’s the queen of the Assagetae.’ He laughed at the picture of what his sister would do to a man who thought she was a flute girl.
‘May I have a cup of wine?’ he asked; a young girl sprang to fetch one for him. Of course, he’d interrupted their late dinner — and the looks on every slave’s face showed him what a day they’d had. The city taken; for slaves, that could be a horror beyond the worst imaginings of a free person. The fact that horror hadn’t come to their house had yet to be … proven.
Satyrus took the time to sit with the balding man, who he had picked out as the major domo. ‘You are in charge of the house, I think,’ he said.
‘Yes, lord.’ He inclined his head. ‘I am Phoibos.’
‘Phoibos, I am Satyrus of Tanais. I will see to it that your oikia suffers no harm.’ He accepted a wooden cup of wine.
Phoibos eyed him hesitantly. ‘Yes, lord,’ he said, but his words suggested anything but certainty.
‘Whose house is this, Phoibos?’ he asked.
‘We serve the great Demetrios, son of Antigonus,’ Phoibos said with a certain pride.
Satyrus grinned. ‘Tell him, when you next see him, that I insisted that all his possessions be preserved. If anyone offends against you or any of your people, please inform me yourself. Demetrios and I …’ Satyrus struggled to name their relationship. ‘We are … hetairoi.’
Phoibos gave a sharp nod. ‘Of course, lord.’ He sounded as if he didn’t believe a word.
Satyrus got up. ‘Do you know where the Lady Miriam is?’ he asked. There was no keeping things from slaves, at any time.
Phoibos nodded. ‘She is in her room. Ash, is the Lady Miriam asleep?’
Another young woman came in. She shook her head. ‘Packing,’ she said. ‘In the middle of the sodding night- Oh … your pardon, lord.’ She bobbed a hasty bow.
Satyrus smiled as agreeably as he could manage to the room at large. ‘Please — eat your food. I have a few words to say to Lady Miriam.’
Carrying his wooden cup and led up the stairs by young Ash — Ashniburnipal? Ashlar? Ashnabul? It was a common enough Syria name-prefix — he sipped his wine and went to stand outside her door. His hands were shaking.