Lysimachos shook his head. ‘If the Bithynians put an army across our path,’ he muttered, ‘we’re done.’
In fact, Scopasis had already located the nucleus of a local army — six hundred cavalry and some peltasts — forming on the banks of the great lake to the east, near the town Eumenes had founded at Niceas, just three hundred stades away.
‘I’m on it, I said,’ Stratokles insisted.
The army marched east, right into the Bithynian trap.
Mithridates the elder, uncle of the younger man who Demetrios had captured and lost, sat on a camp stool, listening to his scouts report on the army of Lysimachos, who was marching straight into his hands. Not that that was altogether good — his own small army would have the fight of its life, even in the constricted terrain on the banks of the lake with the mountains towering above them, and he’d pay dearly.
Could Antigonus be trusted to make it worth his while?
He sat and wondered why Lysimachos hadn’t at least made him an offer.
So he was unsurprised when his guards told him that there was a messenger from Lysimachos. With a woman.
That was more like it.
They were brought in; the messenger had been roughly handled, and stripped of weapons. He was bleeding from his mouth, and his eyes — he had the eyes of a killer, and just for a moment, Mithridates wasn’t amused.
‘You’re no herald,’ he said.
‘If I was,’ the man said, ‘you’d be guilty of impiety.’
‘Heralds,’ Mithridates said. ‘Do I look like a fucking Greek? Anyway, you have no staff. I can order you killed. I should.’
The man shrugged. ‘I’d like to live,’ he said through his split lip. ‘I’m here to tell you that Satyrus of Tanais is behind you with four thousand Sakje, and to offer you terms.’
No commander likes to have his subordinates hear about failure — especially one whose hold on power was as poor as Mithridates III of Bithynia. ‘Clear the tent,’ he said, glancing at his most dangerous rivals — the Lord of Niceas and the Lord of Apollonis, former mercenaries under Alexander, now petty tyrants in Asia. ‘Hold your tongue,’ he said to the man with the split lip.
He kept two guards and four slaves.
‘Now tell your story,’ he said. He’d had a moment to think about it, and while Satyrus might have got by him — by ship to Heraklea — Mithridates couldn’t see how he’d got four thousand Sakje. It didn’t hold water.
The man shrugged. ‘I’m here to offer you terms.’
‘You have a curious accent,’ Mithridates said. ‘Why the woman?’ he asked. He turned to look at her, and got a dagger point in the eye.
Lucius breathed out, a long exhalation like a sigh of despair. Both of the guards were dead, and the slaves had fled, and Mithridates IV was sitting on the stool. ‘That was not my best work,’ he admitted.
The young man on the ivory stool raised an eyebrow and rocked his head back and forth slightly, more like a handsome philosopher than a warlord. ‘Luckily, he was a fool,’ he said.
‘Should we be worried about the rest of the nobles?’ Lucius asked.
Mithridates sighed. ‘If we’re not dead in fifty heartbeats, I’ll be king for a while,’ he said.
‘Ares — that’s your plan?’ Lucius asked. He ran his thumb idly down his sword’s edge.
The Lord of Niceas pushed his head into the tent. His eyes widened — once at the blood, and again to see the young man on the stool. The Lord of Niceas was grey-haired, Greco-Persian, tall and hawk-nosed.
‘Come in, my lord, and swear fealty,’ Mithridates said.
‘Lord?’ the man said. Then he stepped in. He seemed unsure of himself. A dozen more local warlords came in behind him — too many for Lucius to kill all of them.
‘We are now allies of Lysimachos and Satyrus of Tanais,’ Mithridates said. ‘I will be receiving a small subsidy in gold. You will all receive a share.’ The handsome young man smiled.
They all smiled back. No one likes a battle, when the alternative is a subsidy.
They began to kneel and swear.
Lucius found that he felt light-headed. I need to get out of this business, he thought.
Antigonus found his enemies waiting on the shores of Lake Askania, and it became clear that his shaved knucklebone, the Bithynians, had betrayed him.
He sat on his horse and watched the enemy form opposite him. Their three big phalanxes filled the shores of the lake, and they had plenty of cavalry. He outnumbered them two to one, but they had started entrenching the narrow slice of farmland between the hills and the water.
‘Fucking Bithynians,’ he spat.
His numbers were still great enough to push through. He was sure his Macedonian veterans could rout whatever levies they used. But things happened in battles, and suddenly he was in hostile country, and if he lost here … well, he could forget conquering the world. He would be lucky to get buried.
Antigonus had been fighting wars since he was fifteen, and he was eighty-one. He had not arrived at this age by making rash decisions. So he halted his army on the banks of the lake and ordered his engineers forward. And he ordered his cavalry to start rounding up the population of the countryside. If their leaders chose to oppose him, the people would serve as slaves.
Besides, his son was ferrying his army over from Europe, in Lysimachos’s rear. He didn’t need to fight here.
Unless he could win. And one thing the fucking Bithynians wouldn’t do well was sit and wait while he raped their land.
Satyrus watched as the Antigonids began to lay out a fortified camp behind the heavy screen of cavalry and light infantry — thousands of men. Behind them, two full taxeis — almost as many pikemen as all of Lysimachos’s army — stood to, their pikes upright in the sun.
Anaxagoras, Stratokles and Mithridates watched with him. Slightly to the rear, Lucius and Herakles and Charmides played at dice. Herakles had begun to adopt Charmides as his role model — or his erastes. It was early days yet. Satyrus watched them with a reserve he hadn’t had on earlier campaigns. His sister was right. The joy was gone from the thing. No longer did he watch with fascination as war cemented the bonds of honour and friendship between warriors. Now he watched from a distance, expecting the best of them to die.
‘Why so glum?’ Anaxagoras asked. ‘He’s doing exactly what you said he would do.’
Satyrus shrugged. ‘That doesn’t make it any better. He can bleed us white, once his access to food and water is secure.’
Mithridates rubbed his beard. ‘You Greeks are the barbarians. He’s enslaving virtually the whole population of northern Mysia to build that camp.’
Anaxagoras barked a laugh. ‘Mithridates, you will be a great king but you are a poor historian. The Assyrians did the same, and the Babylonians, and the Persians, your ancestors. No people have a monopoly on barbarism. It is a human trait. All humans share it.’
Mithridates sighed. ‘I believe that is a cold comfort for my people over there.’ He looked at Satyrus, who was chewing an apple — a new apple, too green for eating, but the taste was delicious. ‘Can we do anything?’
Satyrus nodded. ‘We need wood and iron and bronze for war machines. Jubal is gathering them with the cavalry. When that is done, I will send my little band around the lake. Antigonus will do it as well. It would be best if you sent some of your noble cavalry and their retainers as far as you can — all the way into Mysia, if possible — to harry his patrols and his efforts at collecting wood. And slaves.’
Mithridates shook his head. ‘If I release my nobles, they will never come back,’ he said. ‘Most of them are already prepared to change sides, for certain assurances.’
Satyrus nodded once, briskly. ‘As I expected. Very well. Let’s find Lysimachos.’
Stratokles looked interested. ‘Why? I mean, from fear? Or because they already hate you?’
Mithridates laughed. ‘They hate anyone greater than themselves. It is our way. And they say — with some justice — that Antigonus has done nothing to them but enslave some peasants.’