Looking at Anaxagoras, taking a nap in the sun, Satyrus thought back to their last conversation in Rhodes and frowned to himself. Hard to lie to a friend. Harder to hide from yourself. Satyrus’s sense of bitterness — betrayal, even — over Amastris’s change of heart was deeper than he wanted to admit to another man. He told himself that the feeling was not just the jealousy of the jilted lover. He reminded himself that he would have lain with Miriam a hundred times — a thousand — during the siege, had she only been willing. He allowed that Amastris was a ruler, as he was, and had duties to her city, as he did.
Despite all of that, he couldn’t think of her without a rush of anger. Her decision to marry the Satrap of Thrace — a major player in the war against Antigonus — made war with Lysimachos almost certain; a war that would pit him against Ptolemy, if not in immediate fact, then in form, and would have repercussions across his personal, professional and mercantile life. It was this that had caused him to be so very careful of the trierarchs he chose to take to Athens. He wanted only his most trustworthy men, men who would look after his interests even when offered major bribes, even when threatened. He had no idea what the city might try to do. But he needed to keep the door opened by the truce with Demetrios ajar, at least, even if it meant trading with the enemy. Amastris’s wedding had put him there, and he had no choice but to react this way.
Or that’s what he told himself.
So he had Aekes scouting ahead, and Anaxilaus and his brother Gelon — both aristocrats from Sicily, wealthy men and no friends to Athens. They had Oinoe and Plataea. And Daedelus of Halicarnassus brought up the rear of the column in another heavy penteres — Glory of Demeter, a famous ship.
He could not take only his most trustworthy captains, however. None of the rest of his captains were remarkable men, and all of them were new to him — he had Eumenes of Olbia’s son Ajax, a fine young man with a fine new ship called Apollo of Olbia, and two ships from Pantecapaeaum commanded by relatives of his former adversary, Heron, the last Tyrant of Pantecapaeaum — Lykeles son of Draco, and Eumeles son of Tirseus, both too young to have reputations. They had light triremes — Tanais and Pantecapaeaum.
And finally, he had a pair of Rhodian-built triemiolas, decked triremes with a half deck for carrying full sail and more sailors — or marines. Their captains were prosperous men who had been made by Leon: Sandokes of Lesbos, a foppish man famed for his daring navigation, trierarch of the powerful Marathon and the Etruscan; and Sarpax, whom Leon had employed for twenty years. Satyrus could see Sarpax from the helm, because the tall Etruscan was standing in the bow of his Desert Rose just a few horse lengths astern of Medea.
He put the inexperienced men in the middle of his line, the way a good strategos would place them in the phalanx. They had expert helmsmen to help them — his money and reputation now attracted some of the best on the ocean.
It was all very satisfying. He looked back down the line of his fighting ships, all heeling well to starboard with the press of wind, sails well set, the ropes that crossed them appearing to be restraints on mighty Boreas himself. And behind his warships, sixteen heavy merchants — six Athenian grain ships, towering over the rest, and ten of his own. A fortune in grain, carefully guarded, representing the wealth of his kingdom and a new avenue of diplomacy. Grain for Athens.
Where Stratokles had begged him to take it. Stratokles, who had single-handedly engineered Amastris’s betrayal — her wedding to Lysimachos.
On the bench built under the rising strakes of the stern by the helmsman’s station, Anaxagoras opened his eyes. ‘Who could doubt the gods on a day like this one?’ he asked.
Satyrus smiled and looked away.
‘Aha,’ Anaxagoras said, swinging his feet onto the planks of the deck. ‘You could. Thinking of Miriam?’
Satyrus shook his head. ‘Lysimachos. Cassander. Stratokles.’ The last name he spat.
‘He has done you no disservice,’ Anaxagoras said.
‘Hmm,’ Satyrus said.
‘None, philos. You need to keep everyone a little further away — arm’s length, I think Coenus said.’ Anaxagoras nodded north, towards distant Tanais, where Coenus was regent. ‘The appearance of alliance with Athens will give everyone pause.’
Satyrus shrugged. ‘I know.’
‘And you don’t like it,’ Anaxagoras said. ‘Do you ever think that men make war because they don’t want to go through the tedious process of keeping peace?’
Satyrus laughed. ‘You have me exactly. I was just thinking how much simpler open war was than peace. We overawe Athens with our fine warships while we sell her grain from our fine merchant fleet — while selling to Rhodes and offering our ships to Ptolemy. At least when Demetrios was firing his huge rocks at us, we knew which way the enemy lay.’
Anaxagoras shook his head. ‘No we didn’t. Think of Nestor’s betrayal. Think of all the idiotes who would have sold Rhodes for some cash and a guarantee of survival. Think of the welter of cross-purposes — slaves, mercenaries, soldiers, your men, Rhodians, old versus young — all the factions, all the sides. That was war.’ Anaxagoras smiled when his eye caught that of Charmides, who was exercising amidships. ‘What you wish for, lord, is the freedom that man has to pretend that the world is simple, when you and I both know that in war and in peace the world is very, very complicated.’
Satyrus nodded. ‘Who made you so wise?’ he asked.
‘Dionysus,’ Anaxagoras said. ‘And old Aristotle played his part, I expect.’
‘We could go wrestle at the Lyceum,’ Satyrus said. ‘There’s glory for you.’
‘Now you’re talking, brother. Wrestling at the Lyceum, and the finest courtesans in the world. Oh — I didn’t mean to say that aloud.’ He roared with laughter at Satyrus’s reaction. ‘Got you, got you.’
Satyrus laughed too. Astern, Sarpax waved. He was laughing, too.
They made landfall at Delos in late afternoon. Satyrus was a pious man, and the opportunity to revisit the temple complex was appealing, even with Athens looming — or rather, the more appealing because Athens was looming — just a few days away. And he told himself that he needed a body slave.
He beached his ships on the windward side of the island, and paid a fisherman to take him around the point to the temples. Sandokes and Aekes and their helmsmen came, as did Apollodorus and Charmides. Anaxagoras had eaten bad shellfish on the beach and was busy returning it to Poseidon, or so he croaked between bouts of being sick.
This time, Satyrus sent Apollodorus ashore first to make sure that the priests knew that his visit was religious and not official, and then waded ashore himself, paying the fisherman a gold daric to stay on the beach waiting. The man bit it, looked at it carefully, and then gave him a pleased smile.
‘I’d a’ sold you my boat for it,’ he said cheerfully.
‘Don’t tell the priests or they’ll find a way to take it from you,’ Satyrus said, only half joking.