'Oh, Auntie,' she said, and then shook her head. 'Silly me.'
But the image of Samahe didn't waver. Instead, she pushed her mount forward and emerged from the grey light, a bow bent in her hand and the arrow pointed right at Melitta's breasts. 'Who are you?' her aunt asked.
'Oh,' Melitta said. 'Am I dead?'
The arrowhead lowered a fraction. The Sakje woman whistled shrilly between her teeth.
Then Melitta had time to be afraid, because suddenly she was surrounded in the dawn, the first pink light showing her a dozen riders, both men and women, all around her, their breath rising on the frozen air and their horses making the noises of real horses in the world of the sun.
'Sauromatae girl,' said a man at her shoulder. 'I have something nice and round for her!' he said, and gave a cruel laugh.
But the woman shook her head. 'I think I know her. Girl! What's your name?'
Melitta shook her head. 'I smell of death,' she said.
'That's true,' said another Sakje, a bearded man in a red jacket at her elbow. 'She's got five Sauromatae horses and her quiver is empty. How d'you get that cut on your face, girl?'
'Killing,' Melitta said.
'Her Sakje is pure enough,' the older woman said.
'Samahe?' Melitta asked. She was hesitant, because this could still be a dream.
The men and women around her fell back in wonder.
'You know me?' Samahe asked, her voice eager.
'Of course I know you. You are the wife of Ataelus, and I am the daughter of Srayanka. We are cousins.' All this seemed as natural as breathing. 'Am I dead, or do you yet live?'
As soon as she said 'Srayanka', the woman pushed her horse forward and threw her arms, bow and all, around her. And the horsemen began to shout, a long, thin scream – Aiyaiyaiyaiyai!
'Oh, my little honey bee. What – what has happened?' Samahe ran a finger down her face and shook her head.
'I killed some men, and I thought perhaps that I died.' Melitta took a breath. 'I smell like death.'
And with those words, she fell straight from Samahe's arms to the ground, and the world fled away.
PART II
Poppy juice and bone-setting got Satyrus through the days in Tomis alive, although the arm never ceased to trouble him. A gale blew against the breakwater and all hands worked to save the captured ships. Then winter closed in a sheet of rain, and then another. His arm was setting badly, but Calchus's physician put more and more water and milk into the poppy juice, gradually weaning him from the colours and the poetry. The man was an expert, and Satyrus missed only the happiness of the dreams.
His appetite returned in a rush, and they had been ten nights in Calchus's big house when he found himself reclining at a dinner, eating mashed lobsters and drinking too much and almost unable to follow the conversation in his urge to eat everything that the slaves brought him.
'By all the gods, it takes me back to see you lying there, lad,' Calchus said. He raised a cup and swigged some wine. 'Eat up! More where that came from.'
Theron ate massively as well, and Calchus watched him consume lobster with an ill-grace. 'You eat like an Olympic athlete,' Calchus said.
'I was an Olympic athlete,' Theron answered.
Silence fell, as the other guests looked at each other and smirked.
Satyrus almost choked on his food. Calchus was his guest-friend, his father's friend, and his benefactor, his host – and yet, a hard man to like. His childhood visits to Tanais had always been full of ceremony and self-importance, and Satyrus could remember the face his mother would make when she heard that the man was coming. And yet, in his sixties, he'd risen from his bed to lead the men of the town against the raiders – not once, but three times, taking wounds on each occasion. He was not a straw man – but a brash one. Just the kind to have Theron in his house ten days and never trouble to learn that the man was an Olympian.
Calchus shrugged and drank more wine. 'Satyrus, I have another problem for you,' he said. 'T hose pirates locked up all their rowers in our slave pens – mercenaries and hirelings and slaves. Thanks all the gods they weren't free men like yours, and armed, or we'd all be dead!'
Satyrus tried to roll over. Without the poppy, the break in his arm ached all the time. The old infected wound was polluting it, and Satyrus missed Alexandria, where the doctors knew about such things. He had other wounds, but they weren't so bad. But it wasn't polite to lie flat at a party, and his left hip had a bad cut, so there was just one position that suited him.
'I was going to order them all killed,' Calchus said. 'But it occurred to me that you might take them – you'd could make them row your ships as far as Rhodos, at least. And then let them go – or sell them. Or keep them – they're hirelings.'
Theron nodded. 'Better than killing four hundred innocent men,' he said.
'Innocent? Athletics doesn't teach much in the way of ethics, I suppose,' Calchus said.
'Not much beyond fair play,' Theron said.
'They came here to rape and burn,' Calchus said, mostly to the audience of his own clients on their couches across the room. 'Their lives are forfeit.'
Theron raised an eyebrow at Satyrus. Satyrus nodded. 'We'll take them. When our wounded are recovered, we'll take them away.'
'That's a load off my mind,' Calchus said. He shrugged. 'I'm a hard man – but four hundred? Where would we bury them all? The pirates were bad enough.'
Two hundred pirates – two hundred armoured men – all killed in a night of butchery, and their bodies lay unburied for too long, so that the charnel-house sweetness crept into everything, even through the poppy juice.
Satyrus couldn't be gone too soon, once he was free of the poppy.
The town and the crew of the Falcon shared the armour and weapons of the dead men, and the Falcon's crew – a little thin on the decks of the Golden Lotus – was probably the best-armoured crew in the Mediterranean, although it was all stored below in leather bags under each man's bench.
The professional rowers from the enemy ships were mustered and sent to row in their original ships, but with every man stripped and a handful of heavily armed Falcons on every deck. Satyrus, Diokles, Theron and Kalos made difficult choices, promoting men to important positions just to get the captured ships off the beach.
One of them was Kleitos. He'd failed once as an oar master – too young, and too afraid of his sudden promotion. This time, on a rain-swept beach on the Euxine, he pushed forward and asked for the job.
'Let me try again,' he said to Satyrus. He stood square. 'You was right to put me back down – but I can do it. I thought and thought about it.'
Theron didn't know the history, and raised an eyebrow. Diokles, the man who had taken over when Kleitos froze, surprised Satyrus by taking his side. 'He's ready now,' Diokles said.
Satyrus nodded. 'Very well. Give him the Hornet.'
'Oar master?' Kleitos asked.
'Oar master, helmsman, navarch – call yourself what you will. It's going to be you and Master Theron taking the Hornet all the way to Rhodos. You up to it, mister?' Diokles raised an eyebrow.
Kleitos stood straight. 'Aye!'
Diokles cast Satyrus a look that suggested he had his doubts, but-
'Thrassos of Rhodos,' Theron said, calling another man forward. He was often a boat master, and he'd been slated for command back in Alexandria.
The big, red-haired man stepped forward. He looked like a barbarian, and he was, despite his Greek name. He wore a leather chiton like a farmer and had tattoos all over his arms. 'Aye?'