Melitta raised her head and looked away from the intensity of his blue eyes, at the hangings behind his head. She thought for a time that seemed to her long. 'There are many reasons, all true, and yet some are more true than others,' she said.
He nodded.
'If I ride to Parshtaevalt or Urvara, I will build an army. In answer, Marthax will also build an army. When armies are built, they fight. Once that battle is fought, it will no longer matter whether I win or I lose, because the people will have split.'
Tameax fingered his wispy black beard. He was remarkably handsome. The remarkable part is that he was a baqca, and they were usually ugly men, or mad ones. He was strictly sane, and had the straight nose and blue eyes of the Medes and the Persians. 'This seems true to me. Did you dream it?'
'No,' she said. She shrugged, wondering why she was being so honest. She'd considered her strategy again and again, and it had occurred to her to tell the people that she had dreamed it, but his eyes disarmed her.
The shadow of a smile touched the corners of his mouth. 'Perhaps I will,' he said. In another man, it would have been an admission of the falsity of his dreams, but that was not how it came from him. 'But there is more.'
'You are – very like my tutor.' She sat up fully and crossed her legs. Then she picked up her tea cup – a beautiful thing of pottery, unlike any other cup she had ever handled. 'If I go to Parshtaevalt, he will advise me. And Urvara – she will advise me. And each will have their own needs and desires and they will quarrel, and I will lose by it. And each will expect my mother – always my mother. When I go straight to Marthax and…' She paused, having almost revealed her entire plan. Not even to this handsome young man. She took a breath. 'When I win him over, I will be queen. By my own hands.'
Tameax nodded. 'Would you take me as a lover, Queen of the Assagatje?'
Melitta felt herself blush. 'No,' she said with real regret. 'Not if you are to be my baqca.'
Now it was his turn to flush – clearly, it was not the answer he expected. 'Maidens seldom refuse me,' he said.
She shrugged, smiling at him. 'Many of your maidens are not queens, I expect,' she said.
'We will see,' he answered. 'I am a patient man. And to be honest, right now we sit in my yurt on a field of new snow, far from our lands, the enemy of every man and horse in the vale of the Tanais, and part of my mind imagines what it might be to be baqca of a queen, but the other says that we will never be anything but a band of brigands, and that you dream big dreams for nothing.'
'This from a baqca?' she asked. She rose to her feet. 'Is the cup from Qin?' she asked.
'Yes,' he said. 'I had four, and now I have but two.'
'Perhaps we will go there one day.' She touched his hand in giving him the cup. 'Nihmu went with Leon.'
'I have been to the grass that laps on the shores of Qin,' he said. 'I would like to go again. Indeed, it was that trip that made me baqca.' He put the cup reverentially into a small lacquer box and then he took her hand. 'You see deeply,' he said.
She took her hand out of his and stepped away. 'You say that to every spear-maiden who comes to this tent,' she said.
His eyes sparkled. 'I do too.'
'Keep it for them and be my friend,' she said.
'The cycle will bring what it brings,' he said.
11
The days after the feast of Aphrodite were full of work. Satyrus heard the views of each of his officers and then made his own decisions, and it was a week after the mad symposium that he briefed them all on how he saw the winter.
'I am going to take the Golden Lotus to Alexandria,' he said. 'My people deserve to know that I am alive. Further, I need money in quantity and counsel. If I'm lucky, Diodorus will be home for the winter. We need our hired Macedonians – as marines first, and then as the core of our army.'
Theron nodded. None of the other officers had any comment to make.
'Theron will go to Lysimachos as my ambassador in the Herakles.' Satyrus was satisfied with the condition of the Herakles. 'We need to choose a crew from our own sailors, Abraham's and any of the captives who will take service with us for the Hornet.'
Diokles nodded. 'Most of them still come around to the warehouse every morning,' he said. 'You paid them. They're like stray cats when you give them a bowl of milk.'
Theron shook his head. 'You threatened to kill them all!' he protested.
Diokles grinned. 'He's got quite the reputation now,' the Tyrian said.
'Daedalus should be here,' Theron said.
'He's a mercenary and what I need to discuss is still too raw,' Satyrus answered.
Theron shook his head in disagreement. 'Daedalus has been loyal ever since we got here. And he commands a powerful ship and a good crew. And despite what men say, he's no pirate.'
'And what of me?' Abraham asked.
'You're my ambassador to the pirates,' Satyrus said. 'And you get the Hornet for your own, if you want him.'
'Nice.' Abraham smiled. 'That's the best present I've ever had. Mine to keep?'
'Unless you lose him to one of Eumeles' cruisers,' Satyrus shot back.
Abraham shook his head. 'T hanks,' he said again. Then, after a moment, 'You'll go to Rhodos?'
Diokles shook his head. 'I've sailed for Rhodos most of my life,' he said. 'They won't like it, that you came from here. And there must be rumours in every port in the east now – that we're here.'
Satyrus leaned back until his head was against the Sakje tapestry that hung behind him. 'I've thought about this for a week,' he said. 'Hear me and tell me if I'm in the grip of delusion.' He gave them a rueful smile. 'We need Rhodos and the pirates. And Lysimachos. We need them all.'
Diokles smiled. 'Pigs can't fly,' he said.
Theron shook his head. 'Hear him out,' he said.
Abraham rubbed his chin and looked at his friend. 'Do they have a common interest?' he asked.
Satyrus nodded at Abraham. 'Give that man a golden daric. Rhodos wants the pirates gone. We can take them away. If we defeat Eumeles, Demostrate will return to Pantecapaeum and the pirate fleet will disperse. At the very least, they'll be out of the Propontis and the grain fleets will move.'
Diokles whistled. 'Just like that? And Rhodos will just let them go?'
'Rhodos is facing extinction,' Satyrus said. 'They are trying to be the balance point in the war between One-Eye and Ptolemy. They need peace for their hulls to carry cargoes, and they need peace to be able to apply their sea power to the pirates. Instead, they have war all around them and their losses mount. At any moment, one of the adversaries is going to take a fleet and have a go at laying siege to Rhodos. If, at the same time, the pirates are ravaging their merchants – they're dead.'
'Indeed,' Theron said. 'In fact, Antigonus One-Eye is trying to hire pirates on the Syrian coast to serve in his fleet.'
'And while the pirates sit in the Propontis, Lysimachos lacks the power to go into the Euxine and defend his satrapy against Eumeles,' Abraham said. 'I see it! Whereas, when you offer to take the pirates out of the Propontis, you actually turn them into a navy that, to all effects, serves Lysimachos against Eumeles!'
Diokles shook his head. 'But they all hate each other!' he said.
Satyrus sat up, the claw feet of his iron chair smacking the floor with a crack. Then he stood. 'Exactly. They all hate each other – so without a fourth party, they'll never make common cause.'