Satyrus nodded. ‘Apollodorus?’ he asked.
‘Ready,’ he said. He had drunk too much — that was obvious.
‘Charmides, go with Apollodorus. Help him.’ He put a hand on the marine’s shoulder.
Apollodorus shrugged. ‘I’m not drunk. Just pissed off. Thought we were done.’
Satyrus stayed close to him. ‘Last time pays for all, Apollodorus. We need to see this through — to finish.’
Apollodorus met his glance, and his eyes were hard — they sparkled in the lamplight, remarkably like Miriam’s a few minutes before. ‘A lot of good men will lie face down in the sand — for ever — so that this can finish.’ He belched, and the smell of fish sauce floated across the portico. ‘If we sail away to the Bosporus, these busy gentlemen will just have their war without us. Someone will win, and someone will lose. But we — this pretty boy here, you, me, Anaxagoras, Abraham, Diokles — we’ll all be alive. Draco will father some sons. Your Olbians and your men of Tanais — what do they care? And if the winner decides to come after us? So what?’ He looked at Satyrus, and his gaze was as heavy as a branch full of leaves falling in a forest. ‘Your sister? What if she dies? Will it be worth that?’
Satyrus didn’t have an answer. ‘Apollodorus,’ he began.
‘Girl turn you down?’ Apollodorus asked. ‘Nice war to make it all better, eh?’
Satyrus had held his temper a long time, and under a variety of situations, and all of Philokles’ instructions on the subject were starting to wear thin.
‘You are-’ he began.
He had pushed forward into his friend’s face, and the smaller marine didn’t budge by the width of a finger. ‘An arse? You bet, lord. I’m not a mutineer. I’ll go. I’ll fight. I might even die. But by all the gods and heroes, and especially by the memory of your father, I have the right to tell you when you are wrong.’ He shrugged. ‘I don’t know you are wrong. But I think we’re going a campaign too far.’ He stepped back. ‘Had my say. I’ll go to the citadel. Don’t fall in love with this bastard,’ he jerked his thumb at Stratokles, ‘just because you’ve lost the girl.’
He turned to Charmides. ‘Go down to the beach and find the quarter guard. Get them up here — right here in the street, and then wake the next watch and tell them to suck it up. You take command of that watch — understand?’
Charmides snapped a salute.
Apollodorus went back inside.
Lucius laughed. ‘Damn, I like him.’
Satyrus smiled. ‘Me, too. And I reckon I might have had that coming.’
Lucius pushed past. ‘Well, I know the details — I’ll go and brief him.’ He looked pointedly at Stratokles, as if to say ‘see what I do for you?’
Stratokles waited until Lucius was gone. ‘Is your strategos there going to be a problem?’
Satyrus gave a wry smile. ‘Only if he’s right.’ He looked at the cloaked figure beside Stratokles. ‘Am I going to get an introduction?’
The cloaked man threw the folds of his chlamys back from his head. He had curly black hair and extraordinary good looks — a sort of dark-haired Charmides.
‘I am Mithridates of Bithynia,’ he said.
Satyrus looked at Stratokles.
‘He was in the citadel with the special prisoners,’ Stratokles said.
‘They were supposed to kill me,’ Mithridates said. ‘I bought some men and bought a few days — and the gods have provided.’ He smiled, and the sharp whiteness of his teeth gleamed in the light of the multi-wicked lamp.
‘Bithynia,’ Satyrus said, looking at Stratokles.
‘His uncle, another Mithridates, is on the throne. Put there by Antigonus when this young sprig was kicked off it for flirting with Lysimachos.’ Stratokles grinned. ‘He is a major playing piece to fall into our hands. If we strike fast, we can topple his uncle and put him back — and we’ll own all the passes from here to Heraklea in one political change.’
‘I am not a playing piece,’ the young man said.
Satyrus rubbed his chin. ‘Stratokles, is there any hour at which you are not plotting? At some point, aren’t your hands too full of pieces — like a man winning at poleis? You have me, and Mithridates here, and Herakles, and Banugul, and Lysimachos — if you die, does the world end?’
Stratokles looked at him, and then laughed, a sudden, spontaneous laugh. He laughed a long time.
‘I need a cup of wine,’ he said. ‘I confess you may have a point. But we can’t stop now — and if we’re going to meet Lysimachos in the morning, it’s best to have a plan.’
Satyrus smiled at the young Persian. ‘I have a plan. Much of it is the same as your plan. Let’s get some sleep.’
Stratokles nodded. ‘I could help you with the Jew,’ he said, very quietly.
‘No,’ Satyrus said firmly.
Stratokles shrugged. ‘Wine, then,’ he said.
Satyrus smiled again at the Persian, and then made a beeline for Miriam. But when he got to her room, the hampers were gone, and so was she.
He stood staring at the empty room for as long as it took his heart to slow. He took a deep breath, and then another.
Done. He took a third, tried to imagine a future where Miriam wasn’t part of his life and where he cared nothing for where she was or what she thought. In a year, he’d share some other woman’s bed — he would, he was sure of it. In two years, he’d be in love.
He took another breath. What she had done was … well, right. She had done the noble thing.
No, fuck that, Satyrus thought. I don’t want to understand. I want Miriam!
His thoughts were interrupted by light footsteps on the stair, and his heart pounded again — she’d come back, she’d changed her mind-
‘Brother,’ Melitta said. She smiled and put a hand on his arm. ‘You don’t look well.’
‘You’re drunk,’ he said.
‘Quite possibly,’ she said with a smile, her eyes glittering. ‘But I’m not in love, so I’m clearer-headed than you.’
‘I’m not in love anymore,’ he said. He didn’t try and hide his hurt.
‘Really?’ she asked. She took his hand and led him down the corridor, down the servant’s stair and onto the exedra of the woman’s quarters. Satyrus caught up an amphora of Chian wine in the kitchen, and the major-domo, quick on his feet, grabbed cups and a mixing bowl and followed them.
The exedra had folding stools, the kind men used in a military camp. Satyrus unfolded a pair of them and sat. The butler poured wine and water, mixed it, and retired.
‘I’m tempted to take him with me to run my household,’ Satyrus said. ‘That man knows his business.’
‘I assume that Demetrios executes anyone who isn’t up to his standards,’ Melitta said.
‘Do you know where she is?’ Satyrus asked.
Melitta shrugged. ‘Yes, but I’m not telling you. Although I am on your side in this, and I will not let the advantages of … a relationship fade from her thoughts.’
‘So she’s on the ships,’ Satyrus said.
‘Excuse me, brother. I would like to speak to the King of the Bosporus, just for a moment. Not the love-sick Achilles.’ Melitta took a cup of wine, lifted it towards the star called Aphrodite, and said, ‘To love.’
Satyrus poured a libation and shook his head. ‘If I could just speak to her-’
‘You already spoke to her. Now speak to me. You are determined to meet with Lysimachos?’ She leaned back, her shoulders against the railing of the exedra.
‘Yes,’ he said.
‘Why?’ she asked. ‘Why not just load the fleet and sail away? I mean, leave Stratokles and his plots and his boy-king. They can have Ephesus. And he’s got a small army — more than two thousand mercenaries he raised in Lesbos.’
‘I am determined to put Antigonus down,’ he said. ‘And Demetrios.’
‘That’s good old-fashioned hubris, brother. You’re the petty king of a few cities on the Euxine, several thousand stades from here.’ She raised an eyebrow. ‘Am I going too fast?’