King of the Bosphorus

'That's a risk I'm willing to take,' Satyrus said. 'The last eight weeks have taught me quite a bit about the price of kingship.'

'So you'd sacrifice your own friends and your whole life for the gratification of instant revenge,' the pirate said.

Satyrus shrugged but his sword point did not. 'No. I'd wager my own life and that of my friends that you are a reasonable man. With the full knowledge that if my bluff was called, I'd have to pay the wager. Revenge,' and here, Satyrus shrugged again, and his point twitched as his hand tired, 'is a luxury I can't yet afford.'

'I won't bargain while you threaten me, lad. It'll look bad for the scum.' Demostrate met his eye and winked.

Satyrus sheathed his sword with the same economy of movement he'd used to draw it. 'Replace the ram on my Black Falcon and you can have both ships and all the men that rowed them,' Satyrus said. There it was. The knuckle bones were rolled.

The silence was as thick as the smell. Satyrus had time to think of how much his arm hurt, and to wonder if he was about to be relieved of the pain – for ever.

'Find us a base in the Euxine and we'll rip Eumeles a new arsehole together,' Demostrate said. 'Every city on the Euxine is closed to me.' He shrugged, rose to his feet. 'I like him. What of you lot?'

The two hundred laughed and muttered – no roars of acclaim, but few hoots of derision, either.

The old man leaned down. 'Finish the wine and my compliments, lad. You've all winter to get a new ram – and I'm quite happy to have a new pair of light triremes, although I have the better of the deal. But I have thirty ships that can stand in the line of battle with you, and maybe I know where there's more. Right now, you need to sleep.'

Satyrus nodded heavily. 'T hanks,' he said.

Most of the two hundred men followed Demostrate out of the arched door, and Satyrus was left in a dockside tavern with Diokles, Abraham and Theron, who had lurked at the edge of the door.

'Leon hates him,' Theron said.

Satyrus gulped wine. What he needed was water, and the wine went straight to his head.

'Where are our men?' Satyrus asked.

'Drunk as lords, somewhere dry,' Diokles said. 'I promised a muster for pay tomorrow. Do you have coin?'

'Not a silver owl,' Satyrus said. 'However much Leon hates this man, I suspect his credit is good here.'

Abraham leaned forward. 'I'm made of money. I have silver to hand and I can get more.' He raised an eyebrow. 'Even though you just wagered my life.'

Diokles shook his head. 'Demostrate! I thought we'd all be gutted on the spot.'

'We may yet,' Satyrus said. 'I liked him.'

Theron sighed. 'He's a hard man, Satyrus. You think you're hard?'

'I suspect he'll keep a deal when he makes one,' Satyrus said.

'He left Lysimachos high and dry two years back, you'll recall,' Theron shot back. 'Bought and paid for, he deserted – and took this town. From Lysimachos. Who hates him. Whose alliance you crave. And Amastris? Her father Dionysius, whose alliance you desire, hates this pirate for closing his trade.'

Satyrus nodded. He was drunk on two cups of wine. His arm throbbed, and he was high on the adrenaline of having drawn on the greatest pirate in the world – and lived. 'Tomorrow,' he said unsteadily. 'Abraham, do you have a bed for me?'

Abraham put an arm around his shoulders. 'You poor bastard. I didn't think he'd come the moment you landed.'

Theron finished his wine. 'He wanted to find you weak. To see what you are made of. Satyrus, it's the law of the wild, here. It's like living with lions. If you bind yourself to these men, you are outside the laws of men.'

Satyrus waved his hand. 'Tell me tomorrow,' he said. He stumbled out into the dark with Abraham's arms around his shoulders.

'You look like shit,' Abraham said as they walked through the rain.

'I'm drunk,' Satyrus said.

'No, worse than that,' Abraham said.

'I'm drunk, and I got some people killed, and then I killed some more people all by myself,' Satyrus said. 'Other than that, I'm fine.' Then he stopped against a building and threw up all the wine and everything else he'd eaten for a day.

Abraham held his head and said nothing. Abraham had made his father's factor's house into a headquarters for his crew, and he had cleared the warehouse for his wounded when he came in. What Isaac Ben Zion would make of the loss of profits was another matter.

It was a two-storey house with an enclosed yard and an attached warehouse, common across the Hellenic world, but it was comfortable in a way that Calchus's house never had been. The slaves were sleek and well fed, and the yard was full of sailors and oarsmen at all hours – noisy, singing, sometimes vicious but never dull. The house itself held all the officers of two ships, and with Satyrus's arrival, it held the officers of four ships.

On his first morning there, Satyrus awoke to hot, heavily spiced wine and barley gruel, which on later days he would eat while listening to reports from his officers in the biggest room on the ground floor, a room utterly devoid of the decorations that Greeks preferred – scenes of the gods, heroes, slaughter. Instead, there were carefully painted designs along the borders, and blank walls in bright colours.

On the first morning, Satyrus sat drinking hot wine and looking at the blue wall. 'You need a scene painter.'

'I'm a Jew,' Abraham said. 'Remember? No nymphs will be raped on my walls.'

'Can't you have Jahveh – I don't know – smiting his enemies?' Satyrus wasn't trying to mock, but it sounded that way.

Abraham made a peasant sign to avert ill-luck. 'No,' he said firmly. 'No, we don't.' Then he grinned. 'Listen – with blank walls, you can imagine any scene you want!'

Satyrus watched the walls and sipped more wine, and he felt the mirth drain out of him. 'Listen,' he said. 'When I stare at these walls, right now I just see people being killed. Killed by me – one way or another.'

'You're the one ready to make an alliance with a pirate,' Theron said, coming in. He had fresh oil on his skin. 'Mind you, the pirate has a gymnasium and a palaestra.'

Satyrus looked up in irritation. 'I was speaking to Abraham.'

Theron sat and poured himself hot wine. 'Exercise cleared my head. I have things I want to say to you.'

Abraham rose. 'I'll leave the two of you.'

Satyrus frowned. 'No.'

Theron shrugged, and Abraham sat.

'I was appalled when you killed those men,' Theron said. 'But I was appalled when you marched the phalanx away and left Philokles bleeding on the sand.'

Abraham looked from one to the other. 'Killed what men?' he asked.

'I executed two mutineers,' Satyrus said. 'Myself.'

Abraham nodded, his face closed.

'I think you are what you have been trained to be. I think that I helped to train you.' Theron shrugged.

Satyrus nodded. 'Hardly a day passes when I don't think of it,' he said. He leaned back on the armrest of his kline and put his feet up. 'The day my world changed. I still wonder about Phiale, too.'

'You let the doctor live,' Theron continued. 'And he repaid you badly.'

'Yes,' Satyrus said.

Theron said, 'I love you. I hope that when I have a son, he's like you. I remain yours, and I'll stay by your side, if you'll have me. But – Satyrus, please listen.'

Satyrus was staring at the fire on the hearth. 'I'm basking in the first compliments you've ever paid me, pighead. I'm listening!' He turned and smiled at Theron.

Theron smiled back. But after a moment, his smile faded. 'But I want you to ask yourself if this is really the path you want. Kingship? Will you really wade in blood all the way to the ivory stool? And who will you be when you get there?'

Satyrus felt the tears well up in his eyes. He rolled over to hide them. 'Abraham, do you think you could find me a physician to reset this arm?' he asked.