King of the Bosphorus

'Hah!' laughed a big black sailor in a fancy chiton and wearing a one-hundred-drachma sword. 'We serve no man!'

Satyrus sat down on his steering bench and laughed. He had moored to a pirate fleet. The first man to meet him ashore was Abraham, lean and bronzed, his long hair in wet ringlets. The man threw his arms around Satyrus and they embraced for a long time – long enough for sailors to call and make salacious comments.

'I thought you were dead,' Abraham said. 'But I hoped – and prayed. And I decided to wait here. Daedalus gave me hope – he came in a week after me and swore he'd seen you get free of the enemy line. But Dionysius said that he saw you sink.'

'We sank another boat. Easy mistake to make.' Satyrus let his friend lead him by the hand to a harbourfront wine shop – the kind of place that no Athenian gentleman would ever enter. The doorway was the stern gallery of a trireme, and the benches inside, worn smooth by a thousand thousand patrons, were oar benches, and the walls were covered in bits of wood, nailed to the wall with heavy copper nails. Satyrus slumped on to a bench and looked around.

'I need you to meet someone,' Abraham said quickly. 'Then you can rest.'

The place was quiet, yet packed with men – two hundred in a place meant for thirty. 'Zeus Soter!' he said, looking around. 'Is this a tribunal?'

'We don't swear by Zeus,' a burly old man said. 'Only Poseidon.' He sat on the bench opposite Satyrus. His face was scarred and he'd lost an eye so long before that the pit of his lost eye was smooth, as if filled with wax. He wore his hair long, in iron-grey ringlets, as if he was a young aristocrat in the agora of Athens. His linen chiton was purple-edged, like a tyrant's, and he wore a diadem of gold, studded with five magnificent jewels.

'I'm Demostrate,' he said. He nodded at Abraham. 'This young reprobate told me that you're Kineas's son. And that you might be dead. But this afternoon, it turns out you're alive. Eh?'

Satyrus tried not to nurse his arm. He waved at Diokles, who was pushing to get in. 'That's my helmsman. Get him a place,' Satyrus said. His voice snapped with energy, despite his fatigue. He thought that he had the measure of the place. 'Demostrate. The pirate king.' He looked at Abraham.

Abraham shrugged. 'Not all merchants can afford a squadron of warships to escort their cargoes. My father pays his tenth to Demostrate.'

Satyrus shrugged, although it hurt his arm. 'My uncle does not.' He looked at Demostrate. 'What can I do for you?'

Demostrate's chin moved up and down – either with silent laughter or in silent affirmation. Perhaps both. 'You have your father in you, and that's for certain-sure. I gather you just got your arse handed to you by Eumeles' shiny new fleet.'

Satyrus rubbed his new beard and managed a smile. 'Well – they did outnumber us three to one.'

Demostrate nodded. 'See, I thought that if Leon and Eumeles fought, I'd just sit and rub my hands in glee.'

Satyrus nodded, wondering if he was a prisoner now. It seemed to be a situation that called for some bluff. Satyrus didn't feel as if he had any bluff in him. He looked around at the hundreds of eyes watching him in near perfect silence. The place reeked – tallow candles, oil lamps, hundreds of unwashed bodies and old, stale wine and beer. 'But?' Satyrus prompted.

'But it turns out that I hate fucking Eumeles worse than I hate Leon. Leon's just a man with goods I covet. He's put some mates of mine under the waves, and I'll repay him in time. But Eumeles used to be a creepy lad named Heron, and he had me exiled.'

Satyrus grinned and shot to his feet. 'Zeus's – that is, Poseidon's balls! You're Demostrate of Pantecapaeum!'

'Aye, lad, that I am!' the old man said. He had a pleasant voice, not at all the gravelly rasp that his face would lead a man to expect.

'You were my father's admiral!' Satyrus said. His smile filled his face as he saw the possibilities – and the dangers. For this was a truly dangerous man – a man who'd refused alliance with any of the parties in the struggle of the Diadochoi, who preyed on all comers.

He sat down, his right hand automatically loosening his sword in its sheath, and rested his shoulders against the wall. His right hand cradled his injured left arm.

'Not really.' The old man shrugged. 'Nah. Nothing so fancy. I covered the coast for him one summer while he made war on the Macedonians. And the next year I guarded his merchantmen while they moved his army. To be honest, lad, it was dull, dull work for a sailorman, and damn little plunder.' He shrugged, and the gold beads in his locks winked. He had heavy amber earrings. 'So – how'd you come to get beaten?'

Satyrus was suddenly struck by the fitness of it – that Demostrate was talking to him – his father's ally. Who hated Eumeles for his exile. Of course, Leon would never stomach alliance with the man who controlled the entrance to the Propontis and preyed on every merchant who didn't buy his favour.

Clearly time to start thinking like a king.

'Sheer folly,' Satyrus said. As he spoke, Diokles shouldered a man aside and sat heavily next to Satyrus on the bench. 'And bad intelligence.'

'Tell it,' Demostrate said. He motioned for a man to bring wine. 'The lads like a good sea-fight story. What do you drink?'

'Wine,' Satyrus said, and got a ripple of chuckles and smiles from the hard men packed around him. 'I've had a long eight weeks.' He looked around. 'Where should I start? We heard that Eumeles had two dozen ships, and we headed north with twenty – not to fight him, but simply to land at Olbia.'

'Aye, where yer father was archon. Olbia would be yours just by landing there. I understand that.' Demostrate nodded.

'Eumeles knew we were coming,' Satyrus said. 'He was in the mouth of the Borysthenes with eighty ships. When we retreated, he followed and forced us to battle against the coast, eighty ships to twenty.'

Mutters, whispers and a catcall from the men around him. Demostrate merely turned his head and the silence returned. 'The battle story I've heard – from Daedalus of Halicarnassus. He says you fought well. Care to tell it?'

Satyrus shrugged. 'Not well enough to win, or to rescue my uncle.'

Demostrate nodded. A boy came up with a heavy bronze wine krater and cups. He put them on the table and served the wine. Demostrate poured a full cup on the floor. 'Not in the sea!' he said as he poured his libation.

Dozens of voices echoed his prayer.

Satyrus took a cup and drank, and it was good Chian wine – as good as anything on a dandy's table in Alexandria. 'Welcome to my town, Satyrus son of Kineas,' Demostrate said, still standing.

'Care to buy a pair of small triremes?' Satyrus asked. 'They have a little worm, but nothing a pirate king can't fix with his arsenal.'

Men laughed, but Demostrate sat and laughed louder. 'They're mine now, don't you think?'

Satyrus shrugged. 'By that logic, your life is mine now, don't you think?' Without shifting his weight, his right hand, which had been cradling his left arm, reached over it and he drew the short sword from under his arm in the motion practised a thousand times – the blade out, the tip precisely at the bridge of the pirate's nose.

Demostrate didn't move. 'Now that's a point of what people call philosophy, don't you think? I can possess myself of your ships, but you can only take my life. You can't keep it.' The old man grinned. 'And thankless as these scum are, I don't think you'd live long to brag of it.'

Satyrus was proud that, despite the last eight weeks and everything he'd been through, the point of his sword wavered less than a finger's width. 'The thing is that if you take my ships, I have absolutely nothing to lose.'

'You'd be killing the young Jew here and your helmsman, too. Maybe every man in your crews.' Demostrate still didn't move.