The man bowed. ‘Lord, I am your man,’ he said.
Satyrus nodded to Charmides. ‘See to it. Install him as my butler and have him arrange for a tent and military equipage. A dozen slaves to do the work. I expect this to be a long campaign, friends. Get what you need here.’
Charmides nodded. ‘As you say, lord.’
Satyrus nodded at the young man. Charmides reminded him of someone — especially when he was grave and dignified like this. Satyrus stared at him a moment, and took a steadying breath. He was in an odd mood this morning.
Out in the street there were a dozen horses — excellent horses. Expensive Persian horses.
Achilles was mounted on one.
Satyrus put aside his emotional confusion at the look on Achilles’ face. The schooled emptiness. He went up and took his hand. ‘You don’t have to come,’ he said.
Achilles shrugged. ‘Do we have a contract, or not?’ he said, his voice dead.
Satyrus flinched at the voice, but he nodded.
Stratokles was the last officer to join them. He looked old.
‘Too much wine?’ Satyrus asked.
Stratokles swung onto his mare’s back with easy agility. ‘Or not enough,’ he said.
Outside the gates, they picked up an escort — twenty-four of Apollodorus’s marines who could ride, each with his infantry equipment hung from his back, with a pair of javelins and a spear. Satyrus, reared to the standards of the Sakje, thought they might just be the worst troop of cavalry he’d ever seen — at least one man had no notion of how to handle a trot, and when they took their first rest, forty stades from the city, most of the men slid from their horses and walked like porne after a night at a wild symposium. Nor did most of them have any sense of horse management; Satyrus had to catch a young mare himself, and then he found himself giving one of the phylarchs — Lykaeaus, from Olbia — a lesson in how to set a picket line and how to hobble a horse.
Satyrus found that his preoccupation with his escort had a positive side — he crested the ridge of the Paktyes Mountains behind Ephesus and found that he hadn’t thought about Miriam or Lysimachos in hours.
He found that he was quite angry at Melitta. Nor did he want to discuss his anger — rather, he wanted to treasure it, almost as if he enjoyed it. Upon examination, that seemed an unworthy approach.
And Miriam.
Lots to be angry at, really.
How could she refuse him? He didn’t think her feelings for him were abated by the width of a knife’s edge. So why? Because her father was dead? Because Abraham would disapprove? Because she was a Jew?
Satyrus made a note to himself to learn more about the beliefs of the Jews.
‘Cavalry in the next gully — sixty or more,’ said Lucius, trotting back. ‘Unless they’re complete ninnies, they saw us crest the ridge.’
Satyrus snapped out of his blackness. ‘I’d rather not get in a fight right now,’ he said, flicking his eyes over their escort.
Lucius grinned. ‘That’s both of us, lord.’
Satyrus glanced back at Anaxagoras, who was riding better than he usually did — but not much better. ‘My sister might at least have left us all of her Sakje,’ he called.
Anaxagoras reined in and sat back with a groan. ‘I can’t dismount. I might not ever get up again.’
‘Here come a pair of them,’ Lucius said.
Satyrus pointed at Lykaeaus, who could ride well enough, and Lucius. ‘Be careful, Lucius,’ he said. ‘They’ll be afraid and desperate.’
As Lucius trotted toward the two riders, Stratokles pulled up beside him. ‘My man,’ he said. He smiled, but his eyes were hard. ‘Mine! Hands off.’
Satyrus grinned, happy for once to have annoyed the informer. ‘Of course,’ he said, in a tone calculated to mean the opposite. ‘Although you seem free enough in giving orders to my men.’
Stratokles shrugged. ‘You have so many. I have one.’
Satyrus was watching Lucius under his hand. He was backing his horse carefully, talking and pointing, but refusing to let his mount close enough to the other two for a javelin throw.
‘He’s a good one, though,’ Satyrus said.
‘You don’t know the half,’ Stratokles said.
Satyrus laughed. ‘You know, if you don’t watch yourself, I could start liking you, too,’ he said.
Stratokles loosened the sword in his sheath. The wordplay ended as the situation worsened. ‘I don’t like this.’
Lucius whirled his horse and cantered for them, Lykaeaus at his heels.
‘Form up,’ Apollodorus ordered.
Apollodorus had drilled his men, and they surprised Satyrus by dismounting and forming on foot, with four men told off as horse holders. Bows appeared.
Satyrus nodded to Stratokles. ‘Going to stay mounted?’
Stratokles agreed with a jut of the chin. ‘If they come at us?’
Satyrus swung up to get a better view, clamping his mare’s back with his knees, and made a motion with his hand. ‘We go right.’
Lucius arrived in a local cloud of dust, and Lykaeaus dismounted and threw his reins to his horse holder.
‘Not Lysimachos’s men. Those are Antigonus’s men.’ He spat.
Apollodorus trotted over. ‘Lord?’
Satyrus regretted a number of things, and one of them was not bringing a hundred marines. He looked at Stratokles, who shrugged. ‘Yesterday, we were in contact. Today, the noose is closed.’
‘I need to see … by Herakles, I need to get through these men. Will they charge us?’ he asked.
Lucius nodded. ‘There’s fifty or more of them. They think we’re beaten.’
Satyrus turned. ‘Lykaeaus — back to Ephesus. The whole army — now. Nikephorus in command, the full phalanx — everything we have. Leave a hundred marines in the citadel.’
‘Antigonus has at least forty thousand men,’ Stratokles said.
‘And I have four thousand. I’m not planning to go down onto the plains. I’m planning to extricate Lysimachos.’ He pointed at the dust cloud in the centre of the valley, off toward Magnesia. ‘That must be him.’
‘He may surrender,’ Apollodorus said,
Stratokles looked at Satyrus, and his face showed his thoughts. ‘Lucius?’ he asked. The Latin turned his horse. They walked a few steps aside and had a hurried conversation.
Satyrus was watching the Antigonid officer. He was pointing out something to his prodromoi.
‘How many bows, Apollodorus?’ he asked.
‘Six,’ Apollodorus said.
‘No time like the present,’ Satyrus said. ‘See if you can blunt him and kill some horses.’ He turned back to Anaxagoras and Stratokles. ‘The moment is now. I should have brought the whole army. Either we extricate Lysimachos … or board the ships and leave. That’s what it comes down to. I plan to save the bastard.’
The six archers jogged forward a few horse lengths and began to shoot.
Their first arrows had no effect. As they overshot the enemy scouts, it seemed possible that the prodromoi never saw the shafts fall. But somewhere around the fourth or fifth arrow, a barbed point went deep into the rump of a horse, which immediately threw its rider, and by luck of the will of the gods, the seventh arrow fell into the shoulder of the enemy officer. He fell like a sack of sand, and suddenly his command dissolved, men trying to rescue him, a phylarch yelling for them to rally …
‘If I had a troop of real cavalry, I could end this fight right now,’ Satyrus said.
‘Since you’ve been bold enough to commit your army,’ Stratokles said, ‘I feel I must do the same. As soon as we can, Lucius and I will ride for Lysimachos. To tell him to push this way.’ He hesitated. ‘If you trust me to do it.’
Satyrus was watching the enemy. ‘I guess I have to,’ he said. His scale corselet was weighing on him and the day was hot and his horse was too small for a long fight. He rather fancied the look of the enemy commander’s horse, currently cropping grass by its prone master. He turned and gave Stratokles a smile and his hand. ‘May the gods go with you, Stratokles. If you’ve planned all this … well, you are more cunning than Athena.’