I further wish that our mutual friend might understand that our partner in Pantecapaeum and our friend in Thrace may not be friends for ever. I wish to have a free hand to decide where we may turn in such an event, but I will await advice. In the meantime, shipments of grain from Pantecapaeum, Heraklea and Sinope should all be arriving at the Piraeus in the next moon. Think of me as they send their cargoes ashore.
I sit under a beautiful moon, after a sunset of such splendour that I could wish for your stylus and your muse-led wits rather than my own. Write and tell me of what passes under the gaze of grey-eyed Athena.
He read through the tablet, struck out a bad phrase here and there, and rewrote his work twice. Then he took ink and papyrus and began to copy fair. He was so intent on his task that he didn’t notice when Lucius came up behind him in the dark room.
‘Mars, brother! You’ll lose your sight.’ Lucius’s voice made Stratokles twitch, but his hand was steady, and his writing was beautiful.
The Latin bent over the table. ‘You’re either a scribe or a fucking aristo, Stratokles.’
Stratokles sat back and rolled his shoulders to loosen the muscle. ‘Guess which.’
Lucius sat on a folding stool and handed the Athenian a cup of wine. ‘Is that the Menander? The playwright? Mars and Venus, brother, you are the friend I’ve always wanted. Look at this fucking house! Ours for the asking. You know Menander?’ He winked. ‘I could learn to like this.’
Stratokles couldn’t help himself. ‘We grew up together,’ he said with a shrug, and put a finger to the injury on his nose. ‘Hermes, my face hurts.’ He laughed. ‘I used to be accounted a handsome man.’
‘Bah,’ Lucius said. ‘Now you look like a hero. Or a villain. A man of action. Not a Greek aristocratic pansy.’ He was reading over Stratokles’ shoulder. ‘You didn’t like Heron any more than I did, eh?’
Stratokles shook his head. ‘I don’t like people reading over my shoulder.’
‘Pardon!’ Lucius backed away.
Stratokles shook his head. ‘No. no. Just as a matter of course. Much of what I write is – secret. I expect that eventually I’ll share it all with you. But I’m not there yet.’ He smiled to take the sting out. ‘If you choose to stay with me. Anyway, no, I thought Heron was a brilliant fool – more of a danger to us than an ally. I want Demetrios of Phaleron to tell Cassander to ditch him.’ He touched his nose again and winced.
‘Are we giving up on putting the two children down, then?’ Lucius asked. He was naked, and he smelled of lavender oil and cloves – a real improvement, Stratokles thought.
Stratokles shook his head. ‘No. It’s a foolish order, and probably an ignoble one – but I’ve done worse for Athens and I will again. We need Heron’s grain. The children must die. I have other resources in place. I’ve already mobilized several.’
‘They don’t call you Greeks wily for nothing,’ Lucius said. ‘You have so many spies that you keep some just lying around for emergencies?’
Stratokles sighed. ‘Yes.’
Lucius laughed. ‘You need to get your sausage wet, friend. And get drunk. And live a little. I’ll send you the redhead. She’s open-minded.’
Stratokles shook his head. ‘I’m not really so far gone that I need a barbarian to get me laid,’ he said.
Lucius laughed, a full-chested roar that shook the tablets on the table. ‘Mars and Venus, friend. You’re a cool one, and no mistake.’ He got up. ‘If you don’t want her-’ He hobbled across the room, his wounded leg barely able to support his weight. But he stopped at the stairs. ‘What you said – about secrets – you’ll keep me on?’
‘Absolutely,’ Stratokles said.
‘I’m yours,’ Lucius said.
I know, Stratokles thought. But he didn’t say it out loud. He just took a sip of wine and ran his eyes over his letter one more time.
10
They rode through the night and all through the next day, changing horses every hour and changing the mules on the litter twice. Nestor sent them with guides and a pair of soldiers – Philip and Draco, and Sophokles, the physician. He was a poor rider and a constant drain on their spirits, complaining at every turn of the road.
They crossed the plain south of the city, riding through long rows of farms kept by Mariandynoi helots. The farmers watched them from their fields, and once a woman sitting on a bench in front of her hovel spat as they rode by. Their guides were Mariandynoi. Satyrus wondered if either of the pair – Glaucus or Locris – felt the same way.
They crossed the Kales River around noon and immediately they were climbing into the mountains of Bithynia. The guides were stunned at their speed and began to join in complaints about the pace from Sophokles and Kallista. By the time the sun had begun to set, even the soldiers were complaining.
Melitta teased them. ‘You conquered Persia?’ she asked, riding up close. ‘You must have walked.’
That kept them going another hour. They camped on a feeder stream of the Kales, with the whole valley of the river at their feet and the sea just on the edge of the horizon in the distance.
Philokles made the entire ride in silence. He dismounted without a word, took out an amphora of wine with some ceremony and emptied it while Theron glowered at him. Then he fell asleep.
The twins watched, hurt but unable to express themselves. After a while, ignored by the soldiers, they made up a bed, put Kallista into it and fell asleep themselves.
The next morning they were a mass of stiffness, aches and pains. Kallista was awake, and complaining, but Theron got them all in the saddle an hour after sunrise.
‘Do you understand that if we’re caught, we’ll all be killed?’ he said. ‘Everyone get that through your skull – or your hangover,’ he added with a glare for Philokles.
‘No one could keep that pace you set yesterday,’ Draco grumbled. ‘Give us a rest.’
‘Stay behind if you need rest,’ Theron shot back. ‘Leave the litter and ride. We have to move faster!’
They rode an hour before Kallista began puking. She lost her breakfast and proclaimed that she couldn’t ride another stade. ‘My thighs are bleeding!’ she cried.
Theron rode up to her and pulled her off her horse. He put her across his saddle. ‘Ride!’ he ordered.
At the noontime halt, Draco offered Satyrus a bite of garlic sausage. ‘Your tutor intends to ride at this pace all the way to Eumenes?’ he asked.
Satyrus gave the Macedonian a tired grin, happy that the man had decided not to stay mad. ‘My sister and I can keep this up for days. This is how we ride, on the sea of grass.’
Philip shook his head. ‘I’d rather die,’ he said. He shrugged. ‘But I won’t. Just you watch. I won’t die.’
Kallista lay on the patchy mountain grass and sobbed. At the end of the halt, Theron picked her up like a sack of grain and put her across his lap to ride.
‘Fucking hills is full of thieves,’ Draco said, watching the hillsides around them as they rode.
‘We’re going too fast for thieves,’ Philip said. He nodded at Theron. ‘Athlete knows his business. At this speed, any bandit what sees us gets left in our dust.’
‘We need a watch tonight,’ Draco said. He drew his knees together, favouring his thighs and trying to sit back on his horse’s haunches. ‘Prince, you willing to take a trick? I hear how you’re a swordsman.’
Satyrus looked away, unsure – as he always was with these men – whether he was being mocked or praised. ‘I’ll take a watch,’ he said.
Draco pushed his gelding up next to Theron. ‘Three watches? You and the Spartan, me and the boy, and Philip and the guides?’ He looked at the Athenian doctor with thinly disguised contempt. ‘And you, Sophokles? Can you fight?’
‘I’d rather not,’ the doctor said.
‘That’s fucking helpful. You helots – what about you?’