Satyrus found Lysimachos, Stratokles and Prepalaus under the vine trellis of a tavern in Malos. The streets were packed with soldiers, and men were simply lying down on their shields and sleeping.
‘If Antigonus catches us tonight, we’re done,’ Lysimachos said. ‘But we marched a hundred stades today, and crossed a river. We couldn’t have done more.’
‘Seleucus fought a delaying action today,’ Satyrus said. ‘We need to march at dawn. I’d like you to agree to give me all the cavalry at first light — even the Thracians. I can be up with Seleucus by midday.’
Prepalaus shook his head. ‘You can have my cavalry and welcome, but it is our infantry that Seleucus needs.’
Satyrus nodded. ‘But our cavalry will show that we are near. And perhaps … perhaps Antigonus will make a mistake.’
Demetrios had to admit that the blue cloaks were excellent cavalry. He ushered them around the valley floor but he couldn’t corner them, and their Persian allies stayed loyal, despite gifts of money sent blatantly across the valley to them. Neron came back from one such foray shaking his head.
‘I spoke to a noble named Darius. They are all named Darius. He said that such behaviour would be despicable, and did he look like a Greek?’ Neron shrugged.
Demetrios sent more and more men up the ridges, trying to flank the Persians or cow them into retreat, and by late morning he had moved them back. But his horses were still tired from the day before and needed water and better food — grain.
The sun was high above them, grilling man and horse together, when the blue cloaks turned by squadrons to the right and formed four deep rhomboids, the points facing him, and their outriders, armed with bows, began to gall his Greek cavalry.
Demetrios looked back up the road to the north. He’d screened his father rather well, he thought — the pikemen were coming on in long columns of files, ready to form at a moment’s notice but free to walk their fastest, and their pikes travelled in carts to save their energy in the broiling sun.
Demetrios shook his head at Neron. ‘He can’t actually mean to make a stand,’ he said, pointing at the old man on the horse, a stade away.
‘That is Antiochus with him,’ Neron said. ‘I have it from a prisoner.’
‘My would-be rival,’ Demetrios said. He rubbed his chin. ‘Apple.’
His groom-slave handed him an apple.
Demetrios took a bite and gave the rest to his horse. ‘Have we got a charge in us, Philip?’ he asked his phylarch.
‘Not unless the horses can smell water, King.’ Philip shook his head and dismounted.
Demetrios agreed, but this was taking too long. That’s all the old bastard over there wanted — to waste his time.
‘That can’t be good,’ Philip said from behind him. Before he was done speaking, Neron swore and galloped away, headed for the ridge, where a little knot of Greek cavalry were rallying, silhouetted against the ridge line.
More men came streaming over the ridge.
‘Lycos, go with Neron. Get me a report and bring it to my father.’ Demetrios turned his horse and trotted his horse all the way to where his father sat, sweltering in his armour. He and all his officers were peering up the ridges.
‘Kick them in the crotch, I said.’ Antigonus shook his head. ‘You’re pissing on them.’
‘Pater, my horses are blown and need water, my remounts are all with you, and the fucking Persians have outflanked my stupid Greeks again,’ Demetrios said.
Antigonus cursed. ‘Why didn’t you tell me you needed to water your horses?’ This from a man who grumbled ‘don’t trouble me with details’. ‘Aphrodite’s quivering cunny, boy, if we need water, we’ll water. I’ll push the pikes at them. Bring the cavalry back through us. I’ll put elephants on my flanks. They have no infantry — they’re not going to stand, are they?’ He motioned for his officers.
Neron rode into the command group like a lightning bolt. ‘It’s Lysimachos,’ he said. ‘The cavalry behind our flank are Thracians.’
Antigonus paled under his tan. Demetrios thought he saw something go out of his father then — perhaps the daimon that men spoke about.
‘Lysimachos,’ Antigonus said. He was looking down the road towards the blue cloaks, who had just faced about and begun to retreat. And they were cheering as they went. ‘Ares fucking Aphrodite and all the gods watching. Missed him by that much.’
Demetrios sighed. ‘We can still push forward.’
Antigonus shook his head. ‘No. No … we’ll roll the dice we have. Camp here, rest everyone. Fight tomorrow. Edge us west until our flank’s on the Kaistros river. And fortify the front. Let’s not make it easy for them.’
Six stades away, Satyrus sat with Diodorus and Antiochus, Crax and Melitta, Andronicus and Scopasis, Calicles, Anaxagoras and Charmides. On the ridge just east of the extreme flank of Demetrios’s cavalry line, the rightmost file of the Persian satrapal cavalry was linked up with the leftmost file of Satyrus’s bodyguard and the Thracians. Their line was continuous, and Melitta’s knights had already turned the flank further north. The Greek cavalry were retreating as fast as they could out of the shower of arrows, and Melitta’s men were stopping to retrieve every shaft they shot. The impetus had already gone out of the fight.
Coenus rode up out of the dust with his Tanais hippeis, and Eumenes of Olbia with his. Satyrus embraced them both.
‘Will your men be my Companions?’ Satyrus asked Coenus. ‘Will you command them?’
Coenus shook his head. ‘No. I dislike command. Let Eumenes have it — he has the spark. But I’ll ride at your side.’
Satyrus turned to Eumenes. ‘It seems rude to offer second best,’ he said.
Eumenes smiled at Coenus. ‘It would be odd if you offered it to me before you offered it to my teacher.’
Charmides was delighted at the news. ‘Too much responsibility for me,’ he said.
Eumenes put his arm around the young man. ‘You remind me of a young man I once knew.’
Coenus remained mounted. ‘That’s the problem with age and nostalgia, Eumenes. After a while, they all remind you of someone.’
Almost at his feet, Apollodorus came toiling up the ridge, two hundred hoplite-armed marines at his back, running like the athletes they were, and behind them, the Apobatai, running just as hard, with Nikephoros.
Apollodorus stopped at the top of the hill, tilted his helmet back on his head, and bellowed, ‘Finish as you started!’
The laggards put on a burst of speed, and the column closed up. Apollodorus stopped at Coenus’s feet and saluted.
Coenus laughed. ‘You want to impress the crap out of the King of Babylon,’ he said, leaning from his mount. ‘He’s the well-dressed fellow — right there.’
Apollodorus smiled and led his marines over the ridge.
Coenus watched as he ran up to Seleucus. Saw Seleucus salute.
Satyrus came up next to him. ‘I have that feeling,’ he said.
Coenus nodded. ‘As do I. Do me a favour?’
Satyrus turned to the older man. ‘Anything.’
‘The night before battle, your father did a thing: he gathered his friends and made sacrifice to the gods. And we sang — sometimes the Iliad. And then we drank together. Do it tonight. Most of us are here.’
There were tears in the old man’s eyes.
‘Most of us still alive, I mean. And the shades of the rest … they’ll be here, too.’
Satyrus looked over the fields below him on the ridge. Almost at his feet, a stone-walled farm with a big yard was like a small fortress at the edge of the plain, and the dusty Asian fields rolled away, littered in shining scarlet poppies as far as the eye could see to the haze raised by the opposing army. In the distance, the small hamlet of Ipsos rested on dry stream bed. Irrigation made the farther fields a lurid green, while the higher fields of poorer farmers were a greyer, sparser colour. All would be tramped flat on the morrow, rich and poor together.