Satyrus rolled his hips. ‘I just hope we don’t fight for ten days,’ he said. ‘I can barely ride.’
Sappho laughed. ‘But you will,’ she said.
‘It’ll take ten days to get the rearguard up to here,’ Diodorus said. ‘Our army is spread across six hundred stades of crappy roads. But ten days … that’s about it. Ten days will see us near enough that we’ll be fighting.’
Five days, and two days of rain. Satyrus could ride well again, and he exercised hard, sparring with Anaxagoras, and Crax, whose Keltoi sword was three palms longer than any Greek sword and who used it in an alien way, snipping with long sweeps and cutting straight into attacks.
Five days brought them to the shores of the Karalis Lake, more than a hundred stades from the sea and covered in gulls. The rain filled the water courses and, uncomfortable as it was, it allowed the vanguard to move faster — suddenly, water for horses was abundant.
Seleucus knew the business of war, too. Every night, when they halted, there was an agora of merchants from the nearest towns — even if those towns were fifty stades distant — with wagons full of produce, sheep, goats, fodder for horses. All they required was cash, and Diodorus’s war-chest seemed to be bottomless.
‘No point in being a rich mercenary if you can’t keep your horses fed,’ he said.
On the evening of the fifth day, Crax came in from a long scout north and west — he’d taken six men and gone as far and fast as a string of ponies would take them. Seleucus and a dozen of his officers came up the column from Iconium to hear the report.
Crax was drinking cider. He was covered in dust, he appeared to be a wraith; and the men who had ridden with him simply fell from their saddles and lay like the dead.
Crax was uncowed by having Seleucus present, although he bobbed his head to the King of Babylon — rather, Satyrus felt, like one Maeoti farmer greeting another on the road.
‘Well?’ Seleucus said.
‘Antigonus is supposed to be at Sardis, trying to link up with his son, who’s coming south from the Troad with eighteen thousand men. I didn’t see any of them, lords, but there’s a detachment of Antigonus’s cavalry up the road a piece, north of the mines at the road junction. Locals call it Kotia. I took a man there — he hasn’t been paid since the festival of Ares in the autumn — and he talked. Said that they expect us at Gordia, and they have troops ready to march that way and hold us in the passes.’
Seleucus nodded. ‘It is so helpful that One-Eye thinks I’m a fool. Still, if they expect us at Gordia …’
‘Send some of your satrapal levies marching that way,’ Diodorus said.
‘Sardis …’ Seleucus began. ‘That’s six hundred stades. Where’s Lysimachos?’
Crax shook his head. ‘I don’t know, lord, and my prisoner doesn’t know either.’
Diodorus swore, and so did Seleucus.
Satyrus finished the wine in his cup. ‘Give me a dozen men with six remounts a man, and I’ll find him,’ he said. ‘I know these hills — I campaigned around Sardis last year.’
Diodorus nodded. ‘I’d rather send-’
Satyrus shook his head. ‘No — no assassin is going to follow me across Phrygia.’
‘I was considering what would happen if one of One-Eye’s cavalry patrols got you,’ Seleucus said. ‘But I need information more than I need you, Satyrus. If you’ll do it … go with Athena and Hermes.’
Satyrus took his friends, as well as Andronicus the Gaul and a dozen troopers — all with strings of horses. And Crax. The Bastarnae man was unstoppable, and he was awake at first light with his own horses.
They were off before dawn, and they rode until dusk, slept with their reins on their arms, and were off in the dark again, sweeping around the north end of the lakes, then across country to Akmonia, through tribal territories where people lived high on the hillsides in villages that seemed to hang from the sky. They weren’t troubled.
They picked up the Sardis road at Thyrai and went due east, into the rising sun. They left the road when their vedettes saw soldiers and rode along the ridges above the Kogamas River.
‘Welcome to Lydia,’ Satyrus said. He felt wonderful — his thigh hurt, but in the usual ways of an injury. Three days in the saddle, and he was like a god. And free of the plodding columns.
The Valley of the Kogamas was full of men. When they made camp, the light of their fires stretched away east as far as they could see.
‘That’s Antigonus,’ Crax said. ‘I didn’t get this far, but here he is. He’s east of Sardis — where’s his son? Where’s Lysimachos?’
Andronicus grunted.
Anaxagoras dropped to the ground and unrolled his blankets.
Satyrus laughed. ‘You know, Anaxagoras, I’ve done my sister a great service the last two weeks.’
Anaxagoras was already in his blankets. ‘Yes?’ he asked.
‘You can ride,’ Satyrus said. ‘Like a Sakje. Now she’ll marry you.’
‘I’m not sure that equine riding is the skill she’ll marry me for,’ Anaxagoras said. He smiled, turned over, and was asleep.
Another day of careful riding — walking, often, and it was the slowest day they’d made yet — and they were clear of Antigonus. His cavalry was on the roads, but the high ground on the north flank of the valley was empty of everyone but refugees.
They had news — all of it conflicting. Demetrios had won a great victory at Kallipolis — had lost his fleet — had abandoned his fleet and marched inland — defeated Lysimachos — been defeated — everyone was dead.
‘See why scouting is such a pain in the arse?’ Crax asked.
Satyrus shook his head. ‘Crax, you know that I’ve been conducting campaigns as a strategos for eight years, eh?’
Crax slapped him on the back. ‘And see, you still have so much to learn.’
‘Crax, my mother taught you to scout.’ Satyrus was tired of the patronising lectures.
Crax laughed. ‘Ataelus taught me to scout, young king. And if you know so much, why do you sit and argue with an old tribesman while the sun to anyone in the valley below silhouettes you? Eh?’ He laughed. ‘Your mother would know better.’
Satyrus shook his head and resigned himself to being a perpetual adolescent to these men.
Tyateira, and Satyrus, riding as a vedette with Apollodorus, met a messenger and took him. He had a scroll from Demetrios to Antigonus.
Satyrus read it, handed it to the messenger, and said, ‘On your way.’
The young man, a Lydian, terrified with Apollodorus’s knife at his throat, relaxed. ‘Thank you, lord.’
Satyrus bowed. ‘How far to Lord Demetrios?’
The messenger remounted, took his satchel and his scroll tube, and saluted. ‘Forty stades, lord. Stratonika. And marching this way as fast as his pikemen will go.’
‘And Lysimachos is pressing him?’ Satyrus asked.
‘Hard. But we’re holding.’ The messenger saluted, gathered his reins, and rode off, and Apollodorus shook his head.
‘I’m going to guess that bastard is off to tell One-Eye something you actually want the bastard to know.’ He shrugged. ‘Otherwise, we just had the best piece of intelligence we could have had, dropped on us by the gods, and you’re letting him ride away.’
‘He’s marching to meet his pater, and he’s sent the fleet back to Athens rather than face ours. And he’s telling his pater that our troops are at Gordia.’ Satyrus took a deep breath. Suddenly his hands were shaking. ‘Athena — we may yet pull this off. Let’s find the others.’
That night, all of them gathered around a fire no bigger than a man’s head. When Satyrus went off to piss, he couldn’t see even a flicker of light. They crouched, cloaks spread to catch the heat and hide the flame, and Crax fed it patiently from scraps of wood.
Satyrus explained the situation to every man.
‘The whole war may turn on one of us getting back to Seleucus,’ he said. ‘I need every man to know. Antigonus and Demetrios are about to join forces — perhaps tomorrow — on the plains north of Sardis. Then they can either go north against Lysimachos or east against Seleucus. They think Seleucus is way up north by Gordia.’ Satyrus tried to choose his words carefully, trying to imagine a cavalry trooper reporting this to the King of Babylon. ‘If Seleucus marches like lightning, he can pass west of Antigonus and join Lysimachos.’