He explained as much to Anaxagoras as the oarsmen ran the ships into the water. Anaxagoras just shook his head.
‘I feel like a fool,’ Satyrus said. ‘But I won’t change my mind.’
Anaxagoras sighed.
‘When we’re off Piraeus, I’ll go off in Miranda or one of the other grain ships. I want you to stay with the fleet,’ Satyrus said. ‘Just in case.’
Anaxagoras picked up the leather bag with his armour and the heavy wool bag with his sea clothes and his lyre. ‘Very well,’ he said crisply.
‘You think I’m a fool,’ Satyrus said.
‘I think you are risking your life and your kingdom to see Miriam, and you know perfectly well you don’t have to. She loves you. She’ll wait. So yes, I think you are being a fool.’
Satyrus narrowed his eyes.
‘You asked,’ Anaxagoras said sweetly, and walked away.
3
Attika appeared first out of the sea haze; a haze so fine and so thin that a landsman would not even have noticed how restricted was his visibility. Satyrus saw the mountains, but the coast was still lost.
‘I have a favour to ask,’ Polycrates murmured, suddenly at his side.
Satyrus was standing at the rail. His helmsman, Thrassos, had the steering oars, the length of a sword thrust away.
He turned to the Athenian priest. ‘We are guest friends,’ Satyrus said. ‘Whatever I can do for you, I will.’
Polycrates flushed. ‘I am in your debt, then. I need you to land my slave at the Temple of Poseidon. At Sounion. It is a religious matter — the matter that took me to Delos. And he is … very good at running messages.’
Satyrus had barely noticed the young man, a gangly youth with a face full of spots and pimples. He was, now that Satyrus looked at him, well-muscled for such slim bones. His hair was black. He was older than he seemed at first glance.
‘He looks like a Greek,’ Satyrus said. He nodded to the man. He liked the look of him, despite the pimples.
‘Theban mother and father.’ Polycrates took his turn to look out over the rail. ‘Friends of mine, really. What Alexander did there — brutal. Horrible. Jason is not really a slave, but I protect him. And he serves me.’ Polycrates looked around. ‘He serves me in political ways. If you take my meaning.’
Satyrus thought that it was remarkable how little information the man had just conveyed, given that he had lowered his voice to a pitch that was virtually inaudible.
He smiled at the young man — Charmides’ age or a little younger, he stood straight, but with that indefinable air of slavery about him. His demeanour caused Satyrus to look at Polycrates in a new way.
You can judge a man by his dogs. Or his slaves. Satyrus hoped that none of his own slaves ever looked like this young man. I am looking for reasons to dislike Polycrates, he thought. Because he can beat me at my best game.
‘It will be our pleasure to land him at Sounion.’ Satyrus turned to Thrassos. ‘Tell me when you can see the Temple of Poseidon clear,’ he said.
Thrassos raised an eyebrow. Satyrus wanted to ask the gods why all helmsmen were self-important argumentative arrogant pricks — but he knew the answer. ‘Mind your wake,’ he said, with no justice.
I am surly this morning, he thought.
Satyrus had his Medea lead the way into the cove below the temple. He flashed his shield at the other ships, raised and showed a red flag at the stern, and hoped that they understood; his war captains knew most of the signals, but not as well as the men who’d served in the seas off Aegypt the year before, like Aekes — and the merchant captains didn’t know them well at all.
Medea raced in towards the beach under oars, and Polycrates was in the bow with young Jason, whispering to him urgently.
‘He’s a fucking spy,’ Thrassos said, pointing with his chin at Polycrates.
Charmides nodded agreement. ‘He is not a good man, for all his skill at pankration.’
‘Spoken by the very paragon of Greek manhood,’ Satyrus said.
Charmides blushed and looked away.
‘Fucking spy,’ Thrassos said again.
‘Apollo himself told me to make him my guest friend,’ Satyrus said.
‘Never been a big follower of the Lord of Light, myself,’ Thrassos put in. ‘Not exactly a god for men.’
Anaxagoras was just completing his exercises. He executed a snap kick — a shin attack — with his left foot, punched with his right, and turned his head slightly.
‘Who’s not a god for men, Thrassos? And who healed you when you had a certain, hmm, complaint?’ he asked.
Thrassos turned bright red — a flame of colour from the middle of his chest to his fire-red hair, making his dark tattoos stand out like brands. ‘Meant no disrespect,’ he said. ‘Just not my favourite.’
Anaxagoras raised an eyebrow. ‘You, my barbarian friend, worship a storm god who isn’t even included in most civilised pantheons and you believe that the amulet around your neck will protect you from drowning better than learning to swim would protect you. Eh? Have some respect for our gods.’
‘Someone’s in a mood today,’ Thrassos muttered.
‘You weren’t exactly respectful of his beliefs,’ Satyrus said. In the bow, Jason had received his instructions.
‘We won’t run up the beach,’ Satyrus said. ‘We’ll heave to as soon as you can see the sand under the water.’
‘Aye, aye. Sand line it is.’ Thrassos sent a boy forward to call the depth under the ram-bow.
Polycrates came aft. ‘May I thank you again for this, my lord? Your whole fleet delayed — this is guest friendship, indeed. But my boy can swim. He’s ready.’
Satyrus saw that the young man was naked in the bow, all his clothes in a leather bag. He gave a salute, like an athlete beginning a contest — a gesture that raised him in Satyrus’s estimation — and leapt into the water, straight off the rail of the marine box, vanishing under the water for a long time, a truly surprising amount of time, enough time that Satyrus began to scan the sea, wondering where the dark head had come up, and then began to fear for the boy.
‘He’s a wonderful swimmer,’ Polycrates said. ‘And a good fighter. A good man in every respect. I really couldn’t live without him.’ He sighed.
The young man surfaced way in, further than Satyrus would have thought to look, halfway to the beach.
‘Ready about,’ Satyrus said.
Thrassos grinned. They had already started their turn.
‘Fine, know-it-all. Lay me alongside Miranda.’ To Polycrates, he said, ‘Your Jason reminds me that I meant to buy a body slave on Delos.’
‘I’ll be happy to loan you one from my house,’ Polycrates said. ‘If you fancy him, you can buy him. What kind of body do you fancy?’
Satyrus laughed. ‘Not that kind of body slave, friend. I mean a servant — a man to watch my clothes and braid my hair and clean my weapons and stand at my shoulder in a fight.’
Polycrates shook his head. ‘A slave? In a fight?’
‘Oh, I’d free him if he suited me.’ Satyrus found that some acerbity had crept into his tone.
That seemed to silence Polycrates, which was unfortunate, as they had some hours of sailing left. The rowers were hard at work today, and Satyrus walked down the waist of the Medea, talking to his upper deck men, making sure that they knew he’d be away — and that he was going to be back.
He felt the change as the ship came out of a tight turn, and he was up the forward ladder from the thranites deck in no time. He picked up his sea bag from under the helmsman’s bench, embraced Thrassos, and waved to Anaxagoras and Charmides.
‘Don’t get yourself killed,’ Anaxagoras said. ‘And take your lyre. Nothing like a spot of time in a cell to practise.’