‘I’m in love,’ Satyrus said.
‘That’s more like it. So — can I kill Amastris?’ Melitta waved at Demetrios’ camp.
Satyrus hugged her. ‘I’ve missed you.’
‘I’ve missed you, too. Where is this paragon? Have you married her?’ She asked.
Satyrus paused. ‘She — she may love someone else.’
Melitta raised an eyebrow. ‘Let me get this right. You are squandering our kingdom’s riches for a town where there’s a woman you love who you don’t know, for certain sure, loves you?’
Satyrus found himself smiling.
‘Sister, it’s the siege of Troy.’ He shrugged. ‘Wait until you meet her!’
‘Gods, you are doomed.’ She laughed. ‘Any handsome young princes?’
‘Eh? What of Scopasis?’ he asked.
Melitta saw Abraham in the distance, and waved. Abraham waved back. ‘I can’t go around sleeping with my officers. It’s bad for discipline,’ she said.
‘Doesn’t seem to hurt the Spartans,’ Satyrus quipped.
‘Are you joking?’ she asked. ‘Did you listen when Philokles described the inequities of the king’s justice?’
‘It was a joke, Melitta,’ Satyrus managed. ‘Abraham — you remember my sister?’
Abraham got a crushing embrace. ‘How could I forget — the very Queen of the Amazons?’
He smiled, and she smiled, and then he turned. ‘You remember my sister, Miriam?’ he said.
Miriam stepped forward — Satyrus knew her well enough now to see that her motion was very tentative. She was unsure of herself with Melitta.
Melitta had, when Miriam last saw her, been a Greek woman with good clothes, beautiful hair and a philosophical education that Miriam envied deeply. Now she was a scarred woman with enormous, shockingly blank blue eyes and an armoured shirt over a barbarian coat and trousers.
Miriam saw a woman with a mob of brown hair and long, naked legs.
Satyrus could only marvel at how much similarity he saw between them.
‘Well,’ Melitta said. She kissed Miriam. ‘I must say, that style suits you.’
Miriam laughed. ‘We call it the “Great Siege of Rhodes” style.’
Melitta grinned. ‘Ever do any archery, Miriam?’
That night, in honour of his sister’s arrival, Satyrus gave a party. A symposium. The recent loss of the third line of the south wall had placed the southern fringe of the agora within the long range of Demetrios’ engines, so Satyrus got his marines and sailors to clear the tiled floor of what had been Abraham’s dining room — they needed the rubble anyway, for the fourth south wall — and then he moved pithoi of wine, fresh from the ships, and fresh-baked bread and some olive oil and cheese — riches in a town under siege — to the excavated floor.
The invitees brought cushions if they had them, and all lay on cloaks, and there was a fire in the hearth, as the evening held an autumnal chill. As polemarch, Satyrus had arranged to issue every man and woman in the town with some wine, some oil and some bread — the symposiasts weren’t getting anything that any other citizen didn’t have.
Six months of lessons had not made Satyrus a master lyricist, but he managed the first fifty lines of the Iliad and received the applause due a swordsman who has learned the harp — that is, there was some jeering and some good-natured mockery.
Anaxagoras played with Miriam, and they played Sappho’s ode to Aphrodite.
Apollodorus was, at that moment, sharing Satyrus’ cloak. ‘That’s a dangerous song to play at a symposium,’ he said.
Satyrus shrugged. ‘They play beautifully.’
Melitta took Apollodorus’ place. She was warmer, but she wriggled and wriggled under the cloak like an eel in a trap. ‘You are sharing Abraham’s sister with that beautiful man?’ she asked. ‘Does he fight?’
‘Like a young god,’ Satyrus said happily. ‘Yes.’
‘Good, then,’ Melitta said. ‘I approve of her indecision, and I approve of your choice. Worth ten of Amastris.’
She lay still. The wine bowl came by and he rose out of his cloak, drank and noticed that she had shed her Sakje clothes under the cloak and emerged as a Greek woman in a very short chiton. He choked.
‘If Miriam can play Artemis, I certainly can,’ Melitta said. ‘I have good legs, and the moon is full. Here, have some wine.’ He took back the cup, and his sister slipped away.
Other men rose to play. Damophilus played the kithara. Memnon and Apollodorus sang together, and Charmides played a few halting tunes. Helios sang.
Melitta and Miriam were hardly the only women. Aspasia lay with her husband, Memnon, and her daughter Nike did not — quite — share Charmides’ cloak, although she sat very near. As the drinking moved on to the third bowl, Satyrus noted that women — and some men — came out of the darkness to sit or lie by their partners — Plestias the ephebe and his sister, whose name Satyrus didn’t know, but who he realised he had seen near his tent — near Helios’ tent, now that he gave it a moment’s thought. A slave-girl with brilliant red hair — he’d certainly seen her — looked utterly out of place until Jubal scooped her off her feet and carried her to his couch.
Satyrus made his way to his feet. Three bowls of wine, and he was light-headed — they were all out of practice.
He stood. ‘I wanted everyone to have a lovely evening,’ he said.
They fell silent a little at a time. He smiled around at them until they were still.
‘I want to welcome my sister,’ he said, raising the kylix, and there was a cheer.
‘And I want to tell you that we’re about to enter the very worst part of the siege,’ Satyrus said.
Memnon said something to his wife — meant to be quiet, but quite loud, in the tension. ‘Here it comes,’ he said.
There were giggles.
Satyrus walked a few steps. ‘Jubal?’ he said, and handed the black man his kylix.
Jubal rose, patting his girl’s haunch. ‘Not much to say. Maybe two days, maybe three — then Demetrios — he rush the fourth wall. They fall faster an’ faster,’ he said, and he grinned. He swept an arm through the air in an arc. ‘South wall used to be straight, like an arrow, eh?’ He nodded. ‘An’ now it bends, like a bow. Little by little, Golden Boy punches deeper.’ He looked around. ‘Nex’ punch, he go deep enough to hit th’ agora with his engines. Lord, yes.’ Jubal was grinning like a jackal.
‘Course, ’less he’s got lot smarter, he won’t notice that his engines are inside the bow, when he moves them.’ Jubal drank from the kylix.
‘And then what happens?’ Melitta asked.
‘Jus’ you wait an’ see, lady.’ Jubal’s grin rivalled the moon. ‘Got to be a surprise!’ He nodded. ‘But what Lor’ Satyrus wan’ me to say is this — this wall’s the las’ wall we lose. No more room to give groun’ — no more. This wall gotta stan’.’ He handed the kylix to Satyrus.
Satyrus looked around. ‘You think we’re goners, friends. We’ve been here more than four months. Some of us have already been here a year. We’re getting regular supplies, and we’ve all heard there’s thousands more men ready to come to us, fifty ships at Syme and twenty more across the straits. Abraham says that the Greek cities are begging Demetrios to give up the siege. Athens will be under siege from Cassander this winter.’
He nodded. ‘If we were facing One-Eye; if we were facing Lysimachos, or Ptolemy, or Seleucus — this siege would be over. We’re not. If we win here, the Antigonids will never be the same again. Demetrios’ notions of his own deity will never be the same again. Demetrios will very soon become desperate. Indeed, if Jubal’s trick works, it will be the last straw. And then-’ Satyrus took a deep breath, ‘and then he’ll stop fucking around and throw the whole of his fifty thousand men at the walls.’
They gasped all the way around the fire circle.
‘And we have to hold. So drink. Relax. But remember — in three days, we start the last part. For good or ill.’ Satyrus went to Abraham, and sat on his cloak.