Coenus drained his wine and handed the cup to a slave. ‘Do I look like an informer, Ptolemy? Eh?’ Satyrus thought that the gentleman-trooper had to be one of just a handful of men who called Lord Ptolemy by name all the time. Then the Megaran’s face changed, softened, and he shook his head. ‘No, but listen. They don’t hate you – some still love you. But the word in the ranks is that any contest with Antigonus is a foregone conclusion. I’ve heard men in the Foot Companions say that the phalangites won’t fight – they’ll just stand ten yards apart and watch.’ Coenus shook his head again. ‘Of the officers – there’s rot there, but you know it as well as I.’
Ptolemy drained a cup of wine. ‘Gabines?’
The steward hurried forward from behind the throne. ‘It is much as he says, lord.’ Gabines looked apologetic. ‘I could bring you wit nesses.’
‘I have all the witnesses I need standing in front of me. Leon, listen to me – you and a dozen like you are the pillars that support this city. Understand me – and tell your friends, the Nabataeans and the Jews and all the other merchants. We cannot afford to fight. I know my army has rot all the way to the officer cadre. I know it! And that means that I have to rely on guile to keep Cassander and Antigonus off me.’
Philokles raised an eyebrow. He raised a hand to speak, opened his mouth and fell silent – his lips moving like a fish. It was rare for Philokles to behave so, but such was his power at court that the king waited, and on the second attempt, Philokles managed to speak.
‘It seems to me that it is time to try an alternate source of manpower,’ Philokles said.
Ptolemy nodded. ‘What do you suggest? Spartans?’
Philokles frowned. ‘Aegyptians. A citizen levy, like the hoplites of any Greek city.’
Ptolemy scratched under his chin, eyes on his guards, some of whom couldn’t stop themselves from mutters as the idea was broached. ‘They make awful soldiers,’ he said.
‘They once conquered the world, or so I understand,’ Philokles said. ‘Besides, I rather intended to suggest the citizens of this city – Greeks and Hellenes. And Nabataeans and Jews and native Aegyptians and the whole polyglot crew. You have been generous in granting citizenship – now is the time to see if these people are citizens in fact or only in name.’
‘By the gods, Philokles, listening to you is like having an ephor of my very own. Who will command this mongrel mob?’ Ptolemy asked.
Silence fell over the room. Ptolemy’s eyes met Satyrus’s, and the young man couldn’t look away. It was odd, to have the eye of the ruler and want to be out from under it. Why is he looking at me?
‘The Macedonian army has a nice tradition,’ Ptolemy said. ‘The author of a “great idea” is considered to have volunteered to lead. Why don’t you raise this city levy, Spartan? I know you are the hoplomachos of all spear-fighters in the city. You can train them to be Spartans!’
Philokles got red in the face. ‘You mock me,’ he said.
‘Careful there, Spartan. You Pythagoreans are supposed to avoid anger.’ Ptolemy grinned. ‘But I do not mock you. It’s a fine idea – and I can afford it. Money we have. Find me a taxeis of locals and I’ll arm them. If nothing else, it offers me-’ He hesitated, and then smiled. ‘Options.’ Lord Ptolemy didn’t describe what his options might be.
Philokles nodded and pursed his lips. Satyrus knew him so well that he could feel the oncoming rebuke. The skin over the Spartan’s nostrils grew white, and the philosopher’s grip on the staff he usually carried grew white-knuckled. And then his face softened, and he gave a faint smile.
‘Very well,’ Philokles said. ‘I accept.’
‘Good. Gentlemen, for all that you are the very foundation of my rule in Aegypt, it is late, and I have had too much wine.’ Ptolemy rose.
Leon and Satyrus bowed gracefully. Diodorus, Philokles and Coenus nodded and clasped Ptolemy’s hands like the old friends they were, whatever his power.
‘My chair is always filled for any of you. Even the boy. Listen, boy – I saw you fight Theron today. I liked what I saw. Go away for a while and I’ll have you back in style. Here’s my hand on it.’ Satyrus took the king’s hand. Then Ptolemy smiled around at all of them like a conspirator and vanished into a screen of soldiers, and they withdrew.
‘It seems to me that for all your complaints, you got exactly what you wanted,’ Philokles said quietly to Leon.
‘You’re the dangerous one,’ Leon said. ‘A taxeis of locals? Suddenly you’re going to have political power. And enemies. Welcome to my world.’
‘I expect I will,’ Philokles said. ‘Should that deter me from an action that will help to balance the disaffection of the Macedonians and will render all of us safer? Stratokles is here, Leon. In this city. We need to gather our friends.’
Outside in the darkness, they all gulped lungfuls of smoky Alexandrian air. Satyrus was old enough to realize that they had all been as scared as he.
‘Where will we go?’ Satyrus asked. ‘Rhodos, really?’
‘We?’ Leon asked. ‘You will take the cargo as my navarch. You’ll have excellent officers who you will listen to as if they were your uncles. You can sell a cargo and buy one, I hope?’
Satyrus’s heart swelled to fill his chest. ‘I’ll be navarch myself ?’ he asked.
Diodorus slapped him on the shoulder. ‘You keep telling us you’re a man,’ he said.
A slave approached from the shadow of the megaron, guiding a woman with a shawl over her head. ‘Lord Satyrus,’ she called quietly.
Before his uncles could restrain him, Satyrus responded, ‘Here!’
The young woman took his hand. ‘Your sister intends to stay the night,’ she said in a whisper, ‘and requests that you visit her for a moment before you go.’
Leon shook his head. ‘I’m afraid that I cannot allow my niece to spend the night in the palace,’ he said. ‘She has urgent duties to which she must attend.’
The young woman’s face was white as tawed leather under the shawl. ‘Oh – oh dear!’ she said. ‘Then you must come with me, lords.’
She led the way to the women’s quarters.
‘Where are my torch-bearers?’ Leon asked the palace slave.
‘I don’t know, lord. I’ll find them and meet you on the portico of the women’s wing.’ The slave turned and ran.
The women’s palace was well lit, and sounds of laughter and music carried out into the night. A kithara was being played – two kitharas. And Melitta was singing with Kallista. Satyrus grinned.
‘This wasn’t supposed to happen this way!’ said the young woman at his side. She caught at his hand. ‘Come with me,’ she said.
Her hand was remarkably smooth and soft for a slave. He looked at her, and in the increased light of the portico, he realized that she was Amastris – the princess of Heraklea. His Nereid. He had seen her dozens of times at court. They had shared long glances. But he hadn’t touched her hand since – well, since he was a supplicant at her uncle’s court.
‘Amastris!’ he said.
‘Shh!’ she said. ‘My beautiful plan is in ruins. I wanted to see you.’ She smiled, her lips red in the torchlight. She glanced past him, where Leon was sending a slave in to fetch Melitta. ‘I thought that your sister would stay for a few days. I’ve been on a ship for three weeks and trapped in my father’s politics for the summer.’
‘You wanted to see me?’ Satyrus breathed. He leaned a little closer.
‘There’s a rumour in the women’s quarters that you are to be exiled.’ Amastris was standing very close to him, in the darkness of the columns. ‘Oh, I feel like a fool.’
Satyrus knew with his usual sense of doom that in three days or so he’d think of the words he should have said.
‘I have to go in,’ Amastris said. ‘I’m sorry that…’
Satyrus felt his breath catch and cursed his cowardice – his knees were weak. His elbows felt weak. But he reached out anyway and caught her to him. Amazed that years of training in pankration should have prepared him so badly for this vital grasp.