He missed her shoulders in the dark and his right hand brushed her waist. She turned towards him, just the way an opponent would turn to get inside the reach of his long arms. He felt her hands on his upper arms, the press of her breasts against his chest. His own breath rasped in and out and his heart pummelled the inside of his ribcage like a dangerous opponent trying to fight its way out. As he lowered his mouth on hers – her hands locked behind his neck like a triumphant wrestler; her mouth, her lips, soft as lotus flowers and yet tough and pliant; his lips on her teeth, and their tentative opening, like the gates of a garden, and the ecstasy of the softness of her tongue – the dispassionate part of his mind noted that his composure was far more affected than it had been while fighting Stratokles. His heart was going like a galloping horse.
Then he stopped thinking, and lost himself in her.
‘Satyrus!’ Leon said in a voice of command. ‘Find him!’
Amastris was out of his embrace before his heart could beat again, her fingers brushing down his arm as she fled, and then she was gone into the dark.
‘Here, sir,’ Satyrus called, emerging from the darkness of the colonnade.
‘Kissing a slave girl!’ Carlus growled approvingly. ‘I saw her!’ The torch-bearers were coming up out of the darkness.
‘Satyrus!’ Leon said. ‘We have enough troubles without you assaulting palace slave girls. By all the gods – keep that thing under your chiton.’
Diodorus laughed.
Melitta came to the door and embraced another girl – Satyrus strained to see if it was Amastris – and came outside. ‘Uncle, I was to spend the night!’ she said, in a tone that came close to a whine.
‘Come, my dear,’ Philokles said, putting an arm around her. ‘We’re sorry-’
‘Oh, Hades and Persephone, it’s true, then! Satyrus is to be exiled!’ Melitta looked around for him and then drew him into a hug. She whirled on Leon, who was arranging the torch-bearers. ‘I’m going with him!’
‘Yes, you are,’ Leon said.
That left Melitta speechless. While she stood staring, Kallista emerged from the women’s quarters and threw her chlamys over her head. The torch-bearers closed around them and they walked for the main gate. Gabines, Ptolemy’s steward, met them on the way.
‘Sometimes a man has to take sides,’ Gabines said without preamble. ‘You are all in danger. Now. Tonight. Men – I will not say who – informed Stratokles as soon as you were summoned. Understand? And there’s a faction – you know them as well as I – of Macedonians here who would love to see you all dead.’ He looked around. ‘I think you are all the king’s friends. I’ve doubled the king’s guard and I’m sending three groups out of the gates to confuse them. Now go!’
Philokles stepped out of the group and took Gabines by the arm. They spoke in private, rapidly, the way commanders speak on a battlefield. Then both of them nodded sharply, in obvious agreement even in the torchlight, and Gabines hurried away.
The guard was being changed, and they took several minutes to get clear of the construction platforms and the smell of masonry, minutes that Coenus, Diodorus and Leon spent in whispered consultation with Philokles, who then took a weapon from one of the torch-bearers and walked off into the night, and another pair of torch-bearers doused their lights and ran off into the night with instructions from Diodorus. The gate guards watched this with some alarm, and Satyrus noted that one of them also left the guard post at a run.
Diodorus barked an order and they were out on the darkened streets.
They were well out on the Posideion when Philokles reappeared at a run, his chlamys wrapped around him. He made a gesture and Carlus raised his torch and swung it through a broad arc. ‘We are being followed, ’ Philokles said, breathing hard. There was a line of blood on his hip. ‘Be ready.’ He looked at Satyrus and shook his head. ‘I’m old and fat, boy!’
Melitta didn’t turn her head. ‘Carlus,’ she said to the man behind her, ‘I’m unarmed.’
The big barbarian – scarcely a barbarian after fifteen years speaking Greek, but his size still stood out – reached under his armpit and produced a blade as long as a man’s foot. The blade sparkled in the torchlight. ‘One of my favourites,’ he said.
Melitta took the blade and slipped it under her cloak.
They turned suddenly off the Posideion into an alley that ran behind the great houses and temples, and the whole group moved faster – and then Diodorus had Satyrus by the shoulder and turned him south, away from their route. Carlus had Melitta right behind them, and the rest of the torch-bearers continued on as if nothing had happened. The twins were swept along by the big Keltoi and Diodorus, down the narrow gap between two courtyard walls and into a back gate. Satyrus had a dim recollection of having visited this house by daylight – buying spices with Leon – and he saw an Arab man standing in the courtyard, wearing a white wool robe.
‘Thanks, Pica,’ Diodorus said.
‘I see nothing, friend,’ the Nabataean replied. He laughed.
Then they went out of the front gate and found themselves down by the docks. They were almost opposite Leon’s private wharf.
‘Now we need some luck,’ Diodorus said. They ran from warehouse to warehouse along the waterfront.
‘This is living!’ Melitta crowed.
Satyrus saw men moving just one alley to the north, and a shrill whistle sounded.
‘Hermes,’ Diodorus said. ‘He’s hired every cut-throat in the city.’
‘Uhh,’ Carlus grunted. ‘I could go and thin the herd.’
‘Do it. We’re going for the Lotus – Leon says there ought to be six boat-keepers aboard.’
‘Uhh,’ Carlus said. ‘I find my own way.’ And then he was gone.
They dashed across the open road to the gate of Leon’s wharf. ‘Open up!’ Diodorus called.
Nothing.
Running feet behind them and a whistle like the cry of a falcon.
‘Open up! In Leon’s name!’ Diodorus cried. He had his sword in his hand – a wicked kopis with a long, heavy blade. He banged the backbone of the weapon on the gate, and started to look up along the wall, searching for a place to climb. Satyrus was several seconds ahead of him, up and over the wall and then drawing his own weapon.
The rush of feet grew louder – bare feet, mostly. And then there was a sound like an axe hitting soft wood, or like an oar slapping water in the hands of an inexperienced oarsman – and another, the same. And then a third, and this time the sound was accompanied by a shrill scream that cut across the night like fabric being ripped asunder.
Satyrus got the gate open and looked out past Diodorus as the man pushed in. Carlus – no one else was that big – was killing men silently. The victims were not so silent, but there were more whistles after the scream.
‘Sorry, lord,’ said a voice at his elbow, the house porter. ‘It sounds like murder!’
‘Get the gate shut. Help me.’ Melitta and Satyrus helped the porter shove the gate, and it made a clang as it latched. They were in Leon’s precinct.
‘Is there a boat party on the Lotus?’ Diodorus asked.
‘No – that is, yes, lord.’ The man got the beam back across the gate. ‘Alarm, lord?’
Diodorus nodded. ‘Better have it,’ he said.
The man at the gate was short, broad and had the slightly stooped look of the professional oarsman. He picked up a billet of wood and started to hit an iron bell. ‘Alarm!’ he called.
Diodorus took the twins by the shoulders.
Melitta was still facing the gate, unwilling to be dragged towards the ship. ‘What about Kallista? Or Carlus? By Athena, Diodorus!’
‘They are in a great deal less danger for not being with you, my dear. Well, not Carlus. I think he has sacrificed himself. Be brave, girl. This is the real thing.’ Diodorus paused to tighten his sandals. ‘Stupid things. Never wear anything you can’t fight in.’
‘I don’t want to run,’ she said.
‘Then you’ll die.’ Diodorus had no more patience. ‘Listen to me, girl. In a minute, a dozen paid thugs are going to come over that wall on ropes. They’ll kill everyone here. We’re getting on a boat and getting out. Understand? The moment to stand and fight will come another day.’