Now the man was moaning, a campfire away.
‘I can tell,’ Miriam said. She took the skin and drank, leaving a line of drops spattered along the edge of his chlamys. They both laughed.
‘One of us should go,’ Satyrus said some time later, when they’d fallen asleep briefly with her head against his shoulder.
‘Why?’ Miriam said. ‘I will be true to my oath. But I would rather be true with you beside me.’
Satyrus smiled into her hair. ‘Will you marry me?’ he asked.
‘Ask me when the siege is over,’ she said. ‘We are living in a world of heroes and horrors, not in the real, waking world. When you awake, I will be a scrawny Jew with a big mouth, and you will be a godless Hellene who needs a dynastic marriage. But I will tell my granddaughters that I might have been a queen-’
Satyrus got a hand under the chlamys, and with all the practice of years of brotherhood and martial training, rammed his thumb in under her arm so that she leaped in the air and squealed.
‘You’re ticklish!’ he said, delighted.
‘Uh-oh,’ she said.
He fell asleep with her sprawled across him for warmth, held closer than any lover he’d ever slept with — oath unbroken. And woke to her eyes on his in the light of a new day. She rubbed the tip of her nose on his, and her fingers pressured his, and she touched her lips against his — and leaped to her feet.
‘It’s a new day,’ she said.
PART V
The Athenian delegation might have been chosen specifically to argue against their own best interests, or so it seemed to Stratokles.
‘You must explain to the king how hard pressed Athens is,’ Stratokles said. Again.
‘We don’t want to seem like beggars,’ Democrates said. ‘No, that would never do.’
‘We represent one of the most powerful states within the girdle of the ocean,’ said Miltiades the Younger. ‘It would not do to appear as supplicants.’
‘No, no,’ said a chorus of elderly aristocrats.
Stratokles all but tore his beard. ‘Do you think that King Demetrios the Golden will come to you to ask if he can send troops to relieve your city?’
Miltiades nodded. ‘Well put. That is exactly what we should do.’
‘That would preserve the dignity of our city,’ Democrates said.
‘There is no dignity in a city sacked by a conqueror!’ Stratokles said. These men appalled him — they were the scrapings of the areopagitika, the worst sort of orators. They had told him themselves that Cassander’s forces were at the gates. That the olive groves of Attica were on fire.
Democrates looked at Stratokles as if he were a piece of filth. ‘You would not understand, young man. We have the city’s best interests at heart. We represent the best families. We have not exchanged the tyrant Demetrios of Phaleron for a new master. Our city must have her own rulers — good men, from good families.’
‘We know how to rule well,’ said the chorus of aged sycophants.
From the doorway of the tent, Lucius the Latin chuckled and farted.
Stratokles was too angry for reason. ‘You are a group of aged idiots,’ he said.
That got him silence, at least. ‘You must go before Demetrios the Golden as supplicants — as very beggars, because that’s what we are! And we needn’t care if Holy Athens is under siege! May Athena blast me if I speak a lie — I have watched six months of siege here. You gentlemen have no idea what Rhodes has survived — but you do not want this war to come to Athens. You do not want your maidens ravished, your lands burned, the Acropolis pulled down around your ears or torched the way the Persians torched it. Save yourselves — let me help you. Go to Demetrios with halters around your necks and beg him to break the siege here and send troops to Athens before it is too late.’
Stunned silence greeted his tirade. For a moment — just a moment — he thought that he’d carried them.
‘You are full of passion,’ Democrates said. ‘But you have little idea how great nations do business.’
For a moment, Stratokles considered killing the man. For ten years he had served Athens — served in secret, hidden in shadows, gathering information and money and mercenaries. He had served with Cassander and the Tyrant, Demetrios of Phaleron, with Dionysus of Heraklea, with Antigonus One-Eye, with Ptolemy and with Demetrios the Golden, shifting sides as a breeze turns on a cloudy day at sea, all for the best interests of Athens.
And these old fools were going to throw it all away.
He was blind with rage for a long moment — perhaps fifty heartbeats.
The chorus babbled.
Democrates said something that was lost in his rage.
When he was able to see them, they were cowering away from him in the edges of the tent, and he had a sword in his hand. He took a deep breath. And said the words Athena whispered in his ears.
‘No matter how beautiful a woman may be,’ he said, ‘she wins no suitors sitting at home. You, gentlemen, are fools. Sit in this tent, if you like. I will endeavour to save our city without you.’
Straight from the chorus of useless old men to the tent of his mistress, Stratokles entered without announcing himself and walking past her maids, who shrieked. He found her sitting on a stool, reading.
‘Pack, Despoina,’ he said. ‘You must leave — soon.’
She sat up. Raised an eyebrow. ‘I had not expected this level of impertinence from you-’ she began.
Stratokles struck her. It was not a hard blow, open-handed, a mere tap — but across her face. The shock of it knocked her to the floor and she squealed.
‘Wake up, Despoina.’ Stratokles was ashamed of hitting her, but he’d done worse things. ‘Demetrios is going down. Now — soon — a year from now — perhaps five years. He gambled here, and he has lost badly and you are dallying. We need to cut our losses, save your best soldiers and sail away — and put some new pieces on the board.’
She lay on the floor, staring at him with enormous, hurt-filled eyes. ‘You hit me.’
‘You needed the blow.’ Stratokles’ voice was hard, and his face closed. ‘I have served you well, as well as I am able, and I have to leave you soon. I will see you clear of the wreck. I guessed wrong, Despoina. Demetrios will either lose here, or win with such losses that he will destroy his father’s best army. You have options. It is time to employ them.’
‘You would leave me?’ she asked.
‘My city is threatened, Despoina. I have never hidden my first loyalty from you. Indeed, I intend to use you to save my city, and use my city to save you, all in one roll of the dice. Now, please cease your struggles and obey.’
She got to her feet. ‘I have never seen you like this. I might like it.’
Stratokles shook his head. ‘I apologise for the blow. And I have no interest in being your master, Despoina — I am in haste. Pack. Now.’
‘I will,’ she said. There was wonder in her voice. ‘Should I leave-’
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Leave everything that is not gold.’
He nodded curtly and turned to leave.
She met his smile with a brave smile of her own. ‘I’ll get on with it. Is it so bad? Can we save me? And your city?’
He nodded. ‘If the gods will it.’
Stratokles met Lysander in the great red tent where men waited to be received by Demetrios the Golden. The Spartan took his arm as he entered.
‘Satyrus son of Kineas told me to send you his greetings,’ he said.
Every head in the tent turned, despite Lysander’s attempt to speak quietly. The name carried its own force.
Stratokles nodded. ‘You saw him,’ he said.
‘I was his prisoner for a day and a night,’ Lysander responded.
Stratokles nodded again. ‘He is well?’ he asked.