Tyrant: Destroyer of Cities Read Online Free PDF Page A

for their wares, or for merchant ventures.
    It took him the better part of the afternoon to cross the agora.
    Finally he freed himself from the last anxious citizen – a farmer complaining about the moving of his boundary stones – and walked under the gate to the citadel where he was, at last, on his own ground. And this was Tanais – next to Olbia the easiest of his cities to administrate. In Pantecapaeaum, it might have taken him all day to get across the agora and he’d have needed the soldiers at his back. There were still many men who hated him in Pantecapaeaum.
    ‘My lord?’ purred Idomenes. Idomenes was the Steward of the Household – the man who made sure that the king was fed and clothed and had a place to sit. He was also the Royal Secretary. He’d held both of these jobs for the former occupant of the throne, and Satyrus suspected he’d do the same for the next.
    ‘Dinner – just friends.’ Satyrus dropped his chlamys on the tiled floor of his own apartments. A dozen servants came forward to lay out his clothes for dinner.
    ‘Bath?’ Karlus asked, a giant German who served as Satyrus’ personal guard and often worked as his manservant, as well. The big German was getting white in his hair, and his body was criss-crossed with scars earned in thirty years of near-constant fighting.
    ‘Yes, Karlus. Thanks,’ Satyrus said. The living areas of the palace had hypocausts – heated floors – and a central furnace that kept water hot all day. Satyrus slipped into the water, swam around his little pool for a few minutes and climbed out to be greeted by a pair of attendants with towels.
    Massaged, oiled and clean, Satyrus lay down on his couch for dinner as the sun set in red splendour over the valley of the Tanais River. Satyrus rose only to say the prayer to Artemis and pour the libation of the day, and then he led the singing of a hymn to Herakles, his ancestor, before he reclined alone.
    On the next couch, Coenus raised a wine cup. ‘You did well, lad,’ he said.
    Satyrus made a face. ‘Posturing. Philokles would laugh. I had a spat with Melitta, and took my aggression out on the Macedonians.’
    Coenus shook his head. ‘Philokles would say that it was well done. He was the very master of deceit when he needed to be, lord. You should have seen him fool the Tyrant of Olbia with spies—’
    Satyrus nodded and cut off the impending story. ‘I did see him fool Sophokles, the assassin of Athens,’ he said.
    Coenus laughed. ‘I’m getting old, lord. You did, right enough.’
    Satyrus shook his head. ‘Never say old.’
    Crax scratched his head. ‘I’m just a dumb barbarian,’ he said. ‘Why exactly do we have to do this dance?’
    Satyrus exchanged a long glance with Coenus. ‘To keep Antigonus off balance until our grain fleets are safely in Rhodes and Athens,’ Satyrus said. ‘We’re at sea in what, two weeks? Antigonus has more than two hundred hulls in the water, and he could pick our merchants off like a hawk takes doves.’
    ‘So we offended his ambassador?’ asked Hama. Hama was another barbarian – a Keltoi from the far north, who had served Satyrus’ family for twenty years as a bodyguard and war captain. ‘How does that help?’
    Coenus gave a half-grin. ‘Listen,’ he said. ‘It’s not simple. We offended the ambassador to make him believe what he saw and heard here. If we’d been nice to him, he’d have wondered what was up – after all, we’ve never exactly been friends. The truce between Antigonus and Ptolemy is a dead letter, now. It’s war, across the Ionian Sea, and our people have to sail through the middle of it.’
    Hama sat up on his couch. ‘I see it!’ he said. ‘By appearing to offend One-Eye, it seems possible that Satyrus is … available.’
    ‘Or mad,’ Coenus said. ‘Niocles can report it either way, and Antigonus might choose to keep his distance from our merchantmen this summer.’
    ‘Ares,’ Crax spat. ‘What do we do next