Free Tyrant: King of the Bosporus by Christian Cameron Page B

kit back aboard the pentekonter. The Rhodian convoy was slow to form in a contrary breeze, and the pair of triemioliai provided by the Rhodian navy as guards tacked back and forth like worried dogs with a herd of recalcitrant sheep, but before the sun was high they were rowing again to the curses of the oarsmen for the contrary wind and the bad luck.
    Early afternoon and they were in the Propontis, the little sea in the midst of the Hellespont, and Parium was clear on their bow as they crept up the north coast. They made Rhaidestos with a freshening breeze that quieted some of the grumbling of the crew, and ate crabs on the beach and drank a terrible local wine sold off two-wheeled wagons by local farmers.
    ‘We’re in luck,’ Coenus said, looking at Nihmu. ‘The local pirates – the whole fleet – is on the opposite coast, making a grab at one of the cities, if you can believe it. They are strong – fifty warships, or so the farmers assure me.’ He drank wine and made a face. ‘Gods – who would want to be a colonist?’
    ‘So Auntie Nihmu was right,’ Melitta said.
    ‘I’ll sacrifice a new lamb to Poseidon when we’re through the strait,’ Coenus said. ‘But yes – I think she’s right.’

GRACCUS’S STELE, EUXINE SEA, 311 BC
     
    ‘w hat we need is wood,’ Satyrus said.
    It had taken a day to build a camp on the bluff behind the stone farmhouse, out of sight of the shore and well watered by the creek. Another day had been filled in cutting the boatsail mast free, floating the
Falcon
, jury-rigging a bow and pulling the hull up the creek to the new camp, so that he could receive the care he deserved, out of sight of cruising ships in the great bay.
    By the third day, Satyrus was standing in Alexander’s largest stone barn, eyeing the curved joists that held the main beams. ‘What we need is wood,’ he said again.
    ‘I don’t think that Alexander, however well disposed to us, would fancy our stripping his barns of their innards to rebuild the bow.’ Theron was still tired, and still moved stiffly. Six men had died of their wounds, and Satyrus was beginning to wonder if he would ever run well again himself – his hip was not knitting well, and he had trouble sleeping because of the pain in his arm, but Theron was recovering his sense of humour, and Satyrus had begun to feel that he might yet survive this.
    ‘T hose beams and joists came from somewhere,’ Satyrus insisted.
    ‘We could just ask him,’ Theron said.
    So Satyrus did.
    ‘Sakje brought them – dragged them overland from up-country on sledges,’ Alexander said. ‘I traded them for wine – forty amphorae, good stuff from Mytilene.’
    Satyrus thought about that while he looked at the bow of his ship, now protruding from the water at a gentle angle, pulled up by the might of two hundred men and four oxen until the whole hull was clear of the creek. The wrecked bow stuck up over his head the heightof a man. He walked back and forth. ‘Even if we get timber,’ he said to Diokles, ‘we need a ram.’
    ‘One thing at a time,’ Diokles said. ‘I say we rebuild the bow without a ram and sail him home – as fast as we can. New ram in Alexandria is just a matter of money.’ He looked at Satyrus and Satyrus was afraid he saw pity in the man. ‘You think you can fit him for war and rescue your uncle – that ship sailed four days ago, lord. He’s taken, or dead. It’s us as needs to get free – and no ram bow will save us in these waters.’
    Satyrus drank herb tea and walked back and forth, looking at his ship and at Diokles. After an hour, he nodded.
    ‘Right,’ he said. ‘You’re right. Wooden bow. We’ll have to rebuild him – move the masts. Without the ram, he’s a pig – we know that. Have to rebalance the whole hull.’
    Diokles nodded slowly.
    Theron came up, his dark chlamys thrown back because the weather was fine. ‘I have some talent for mathematics,’ Theron said. ‘So does Satyrus. Let’s design him