The marines needed a rest, and Satyrus took the ephebes. Nicanor tried to forbid him to use them, and Satyrus took him aside in the boule.
‘I have a tunnel,’ he said. ‘It runs from just under the wall at the west gate out into the hardpan just past the gully. From there, the ephebes will be able to run straight into Demetrios’ camp.’
Nicanor nodded. ‘I see.’
Satyrus got his men. And he nodded to Helios as he emerged from the boule, where his hypaspist stood with Miriam. Both of them nodded back.
Then he went to the agora, found the ephebes and led them to the house he’d ordered to be purchased five months before.
Jubal was ready with fire and pitch — every support was coated. The moment the sortie returned — or was beaten — the tunnel was to be destroyed.
Then Satyrus briefed the ephebes on their mission, and briefed Idomeneus and three of his best scouts on their mission.
It took them too long to crawl down the tunnel, which was as narrow as a man’s waist in too many places. Satyrus went in after Idomeneus and his scouts. The tunnels scared him — they were dark, cold, like the land of the dead, and when his cuirass scraped along the walls, he felt as if it would all fall on his head. But Anaxagoras was the man behind him.
They emerged in the dead ground by the walled enclosure near the old barn. Idomeneus and his three men vanished — first up the ladder — into the darkness.
Satyrus was next. He got up the short ladder and lay down. Anaxagoras lay next to him, and then the ephebes began to emerge. Satyrus could feel his nerve fraying away — it was all taking too long.
About half his men were out of the tunnel when the slaves tripped over Anaxagoras.
‘What the f-’ one muttered.
Satyrus rose to his feet as quickly and silently as he could and beheaded the man who had spoken.
‘Zeus S-’ the second man started to shout, and he got Satyrus’ backswing.
Silence.
But there was a third slave, and he screamed.
‘Now,’ Satyrus yelled. ‘Go for the engines!’
The ephebes rose and ran out of the yard. They were fifty men against an army — but a sleeping army that had no idea the ephebes could be so close.
‘Now what?’ Anaxagoras asked. They were virtually alone, except for two boys who’d come up out of the tunnel after the ephebes rushed off to burn the engines.
‘Gather the next fifty and go and rescue those boys.’ Satyrus tried to sound calm.
They could hear men shouting for other men to rally.
Satyrus’ patience held out to the tune of thirty-five more ephebes. He could hear fighting everywhere, and he needed to get moving. ‘Follow me,’ he said, and led the young men into the dark.
He paused at the gate to the enclosure. ‘Anaxagoras — go back. Tell the rest of them to turn around and go back, and then tell Jubal to fire the supports.’
‘No,’ Anaxagoras said. ‘Send one of these boys. Where you go, I go.’
Satyrus laughed. ‘You are insubordinate, sir.’
‘You’re right. No way am I going back to Miriam and saying, “He nobly sent me back, and meek as a lamb, I went”.’ Satyrus saw the flash of his teeth.
‘Right.’ Satyrus turned to one of the many young men — all thinner and harder than they had been half a year before. He searched for a name, and found it. ‘Plestias? You’re my messenger. Turn ’em round, all back to the start, and fire the supports.’ He touched his helmet to the young man’s and saw the hesitation, the desire and the pleasure at being saved and the disappointment all at war in his eyes by the light of the first engine to burst into flames.
Then he led the rest of them into the darkness.
They didn’t do as much damage as he hoped. The engines were hard to light — Demetrios’ men fought hard. But Satyrus got most of his boys away cleanly, leaving five engines afire. The white chalk on their helmets showed up well enough, and when he blew Neiron’s sea whistle, they turned and fled north, all the way to the new postern gate.
He lost six men.
Jubal pointed at the fire raging at the edge of the wall, and they all heard the rumble as the tunnels collapsed under their feet.
Idomeneus came up out of the darkness from the west gate, saluted and raised an eyebrow. ‘Exactly as you said,’ he grinned. ‘You have some sort of spell that allows you to see into Demetrios’ tent? There was a taxeis of pikemen waiting just where you said.’
Satyrus shook his head. ‘The opposite. He’s had a look into ours. When the gate opened. When Daedelus made his second try at the harbour.’ He motioned to the archer. ‘Come with me.’
And then he gathered fifty ephebes and fifty of his own marines and set off at the double.
Helios met him near the Temple of Poseidon. ‘Lord?’
‘I missed you, but I’m alive. We only got five engines.’ Satyrus kissed his hypaspist on the cheek. It always pleased him to see how much the young man loved him.
‘The lady and I had an adventure as well. And Mistress Aspasia — the lady invited her to join us.’
‘Because she’s not a nasty foreign Jew,’ Miriam said, dropping down off the remnants of a wall. Like most citizen women under fifty, she’d taken to wearing a man’s chitoniskos, Artemis-like. The moon glowed on her legs.
She is very like my sister, Satyrus thought, and found the thought uncomfortable.
‘No one would doubt your word, Despoina,’ Helios said.
‘That’s what you think,’ Satyrus agreed. ‘Aspasia?’
‘You look better,’ the priestess growled. ‘Heavier. Meaner. Yes, we saw it all. He sent a pigeon.’
‘Not a slave?’ Satyrus asked.
‘A bird. All the merchants have them.’ Aspasia shrugged.
At his back, Neiron spat. ‘What in Tartarus are we about, here?’
Abraham pushed forward, too. He’d spent the watch on alert with the citizen hoplites — the full-grown men — and he was angry. ‘What is my sister doing out — Miriam, that manner of dress is shocking!’
Miriam kissed him. ‘No, dear brother. A month ago it might have been. In another month we’ll make love in the streets. Listen to Satyrus, now.’
Other men were coming up — there was Memnon, no more pleased to find his wife in the streets than Abraham had been — and Damophilus and Menedemos and Socrates.
Satyrus took Damophilus’ arm. ‘How many of the boule are here? Round them up.’
‘I do not take orders from you,’ Damophilus shot back. Then he relented. ‘We were all on the walls — they should be here.’
Satyrus raised a hand for silence. Helios had a pair of torches now, and he stepped up behind his master.
‘This is for us,’ Satyrus said. ‘Not for the Neodamodeis or the mercenaries.’
Memnon understood immediately. You could see it in his face. And Menedemos.
‘Gentlemen, when the west gate was opened to Demetrios, I smelled a rat. So did Panther. We took some action — to be honest, we hid certain things from the boule. Some weeks ago, I was fool enough to give Daedelus timings out in open council — and Demetrios was waiting for him. Last night, I told a member of the boule in detail how I would make my attack with the ephebes.’ He paused to let that sink in. ‘I lied. By some stades. Idomeneus, tell them what you saw.’
The Cretan stood forth. ‘I went to the west wall — to the gully where Lord Satyrus told me to wait. There was almost a full taxeis waiting there — waiting in blackened armour. If I hadn’t been warned, I would never have seen them.’
Satyrus grinned mirthlessly. ‘They call it the poisoned pill, gentlemen. My tutor, Philokles, taught me the technique. Tell different men different lies, and wait to see who acts on which.’ He turned. ‘Lady Aspasia?’
‘We saw Nicanor send a pigeon, immediately after the boule met,’ she said.
At Nicanor’s name, the crowd of citizens shifted nervously.