14
In the morning, Satyrus was so stiff that he could only rise to his feet by grasping the pole of his impromptu tent, and even that caused his stomach muscles to protest. But he rose when ordered, stumbled out into the near dark and found his beautiful new horse. He made sure she was fed and walked her all the way back to the gully with the watering party before he got a handful of dried figs from his sister and a slice of honey cake from Sappho for breakfast. Melitta was astride Bion, eating her breakfast in the saddle, and casting a great many glances at the small tent where Banugul lay.
He repicketed his horse and sat with Hama and Dercorix to eat, sharing the honey cake with an appreciative audience.
‘You have to pay Apollodorus for that horse,’ Hama said. ‘Or give it back and we’ll find you a remount.’
Satyrus rubbed his chin, which felt weirdly itchy. ‘I don’t have any money,’ he said.
Melitta came and sat with her back to his, handing out dates. ‘We’re not poor, brother. Diodorus will give you money.’
‘That beast’s worth a talent of silver,’ Hama said.
‘Poseidon!’ Satyrus said. ‘Really?’
‘She’s wearing a dozen mina of silver on her harness, boy.’ He was watching something. ‘There’s trouble,’ Hama said, pointing a tattooed arm at a clump of Saka sitting on their ponies across the gully. Two of them turned and rode away in a spurt of dust.
‘Now?’ Satyrus asked Hama. He looked around. ‘Don’t we need to do something about the Saka?’
The Keltoi man nodded. ‘Not really, lord. No one wants more killing right now - and they have had a taste of bronze from our pickets. Now, no time like the present. Just acknowledge the debt, lad. That’ll be enough.’
Satyrus wiped his sticky hands on his sister’s barbarian trousers, arousing her indignation, but he skipped out of range and trotted off. She didn’t follow, because Herakles came out of his mother’s tent, wearing a shining white chiton and a diadem of gold.
Most of the hippeis had camped in the same order that they rode, so each file became a mess and sat around their own fire. Apollodorus was in third file of first troop. Satyrus found him drinking camomile tea.
‘Is a talent fair?’ Satyrus asked, walking up.
All the men in the mess group stood, as if he was an officer.
Apollodorus frowned. ‘A talent of silver, lord?’ He couldn’t hold the frown. ‘That’ll have to do!’
‘Herald coming in,’ another trooper said, shovelling barley-porridge into a bowl. ‘Can’t be good news.’ He handed the bowl to Satyrus. ‘Barley, lad?’
It was full of honey, and Satyrus ate the whole bowl with more appetite than he thought he had, while the herald dismounted and exchanged words with Andronicus beyond the wagon laager.
‘Clean your bowl, lord?’ a woman asked.
The camp was almost besieged by women - not their own women, who were inside the laager, but hundreds of hungry refugees from yesterday’s disaster, begging food for their children. Grim-faced pickets kept them outside the wagons, but many of the troopers handed out their scraps.
A few single men simply walked out of the gate and chose companions. They and their children changed status instantly, coming in past the pickets. Satyrus watched his uncle, who in turn was watching the process with a jaundiced eye. He shook his head, gathered a couple of handfuls of grass and wiped the bowl clean and handed it back to the owner. Then he walked over to Diodorus, who stood alone, looking thunderous. Satyrus wanted to continue being a soldier, not a boy. He hoped he’d be allowed to ride with the troop again.
‘Good morning, Strategos,’ Satyrus said.
Diodorus finished his wife’s honey cake. ‘Nice piece of work yesterday, boy,’ he said, dusting his hands on his chiton.
‘I told you not to get honey on that chiton,’ Sappho called.
The strategos looked sheepish and stepped away from his wagon. ‘We need to move,’ he said. ‘The refugees will get desperate tomorrow. Antigonus - the strategos, not our troop commander - has demanded a parley.’ The hippeis seemed to get an unending amount of mirth out of the fact that they had both a Eumenes and an Antigonus among them.
Satyrus was delighted to be addressed in such an adult manner. It seemed to promise well. ‘What will you do?’ he asked.
Diodorus nodded. ‘You and I will go and meet the great man,’ he said, ‘While Eumenes and Crax get our people out of here. You ready to move?’
Satyrus was wearing the same chiton as yesterday and no boots. ‘May I have a few minutes, sir?’ he asked, heart pumping hard.
‘Five. No, three. Hurry.’ Diodorus was already turning away to Crax, who looked clean, neat and golden.
Satyrus had missed some change in orders, because all around him men were tying up their kit, wrapping spare gear in cloaks and tying them in bundles, handing things to slaves. Satyrus’s gear was the last in his area of the camp to be lying on the ground under the hasty shelter. He pulled it all down and tried to roll his cloak as tightly as he saw the soldiers doing, but his sister stopped him.
‘Don’t be silly,’ she said. ‘I’ll get slaves to pack you. Get your corslet on and your boots.’
His Thracian boots were crusted in salt and dried hard, but he got them on, feeling the beating in his back and the fatigue in his abdomen. His corslet was soaked through with sweat and clammy. The cord that held his sword was almost broken and he tied it hurriedly and tossed the scabbard over his head and made sure it was in his armpit, and then he made himself trot to his mare, although he didn’t want to trot anywhere. Melitta didn’t look exhausted, and his uncle and Crax looked as fresh as the new day.
Of course, neither of them had been beaten by their tutors for disobedience.
It took him three attempts and some ungraceful squirming to get a leg over the mare’s back. She stood for it, though, and he was up. Only then did he realize that he didn’t have his petasos hat or his helmet.
‘Zeus Soter,’ he swore, and regretted his impiety. Too late to get his hat. He rode around the camp to the gate, pushed his horse through the crowd of women and children, and reined in by his uncle.
Melitta ran up, clutching his hat. He smiled at her. ‘What would I do without you?’ he asked.
‘Get even redder,’ she said. She clasped his hand, and then his uncle was up on a charger and they were riding, out of the gate, through the women, past the pickets and past the gully. Andronicus came with them, his trumpet on his hip, and twenty troopers led by Hama.
On the far side of the gully they saw the band of Saka. The chief motioned with his hand, as if beckoning the Tanais troopers to come across. The gesture might have been well meant, but it might also have been mocking.
‘I’ll go,’ Satyrus said. ‘I can talk to them.’
Hama grunted.
Diodorus sighed. ‘Nothing less threatening than a twelve-year-old.’
Hama spat. ‘They could kill him.’
Diodorus looked around. ‘Carlus? Go with him. Do it, Satyrus. Our goal here is to waste as much time as possible.’ Diodorus patted him on the shoulder.
Satyrus glanced at Hama and rode forward. He angled off to avoid the gully and then rode straight at the Saka, who came to meet them, surrounding them and calling shrilly to one another.
Carlus towered over him, right at his shoulder, his spear on its throwing loop.
‘Whose band is this?’ Satyrus called out in Sakje, and the man with the most gold reined in his pony and laughed.
‘Astlan of the River Foxes,’ he called.
‘I am Satrax of the Cruel Hands,’ Satyrus responded. ‘My mother is Srayanka, who fought with your Queen Zarina against Iskander.’
Astlan raised his hand in greeting. ‘Names of story,’ he said. ‘You do not look like a son of the people,’ he said. He shrugged. ‘But you talk the people’s talk.’
‘We intend to make parley with Antigonus,’ Satyrus said. ‘Will you let us pass?’
The Massagetae chief shrugged. ‘You are no enemy of mine, son of Srayanka. Ride free.’
The Saka whooped and rode off in a thin veil of dust.
Satyrus rode up the ridge towards the bluff, Carlus at his shoulder. A couple of the Saka paced them, and a young woman waved at him.
‘Greetings, cousin!’ he shouted.
She grinned. ‘Greetings, cousin!’ she shouted back, and rode in closer. She had gold plaques on her tunic and gold in her hair and gold foil wrapped her braids. ‘You are just a boy!’ she said when she was closer. ‘I thought you were a spear-maiden!’
Satyrus blushed with embarrassment, but she smiled again. Her eyes had an odd shape. ‘I’m Darya of the Golden Horses,’ she said. ‘I killed a Greek yesterday! Yiee!’
‘Satrax of the Cruel Hands,’ he called to her. I maimed a peasant and cut down some fleeing men who wanted my horse.
She paced him up the ridge. ‘Good hunting!’ she called, and wheeled away, waving her bow. ‘Nice fucking horse!’
My sister would have made her a friend for life, Satyrus thought. He sighed.
Carlus grunted. ‘My shoulders are tight,’ he said. ‘I wait for the arrow in the back.’ He gave Satyrus a gap-toothed grin. ‘Like riding with your father, eh?’
At the top of the ridge were a dozen horsemen, and Satyrus was surprised to find that one of them was the young officer he’d outrun the day before.
‘Hail, lord,’ he said, slowing his mount. ‘I come to speak for Diodorus of Tanais.’
The young man had a blond beard and bright blue eyes. ‘I am Demetrios,’ he said in a tone replete with self-importance. ‘Bring your Diodorus to me.’ He looked down the ridge. ‘You seem friendly with my Saka. I’m surprised they did not eat you for breakfast.’
Satyrus kept his face as neutral as twelve years could manage. ‘I will go and find my strategos.’
‘Don’t keep me waiting, boy,’ Demetrios called. His breastplate and helmet were newly polished. His eyes were on the horse Satyrus was riding.
Satyrus bowed from the back of his mare and turned away.
‘Where did you get that horse?’ Demetrios shouted after him.
Satyrus affected not to hear and rode down the ridge and around the gully, passing back through the loose line of Massagetae. They paid him no attention at all, although Darya waved at him.
He cantered back to Diodorus and saluted. ‘Demetrios awaits you at the top of the ridge.’ Satyrus shook his head. ‘I don’t like it.’
‘I don’t like it either, lord,’ Carlus said. ‘He has a hundred men around him and he’s a hothead boy. He didn’t offer us laurel or olive or safe passage.’
‘Demetrios is Antigonus’s son,’ Diodorus said. ‘He honours us, in a backhanded way. And we’re buying time.’ He motioned over his shoulder, where a distant curl of dust indicated Sappho’s wagons rolling out, heading south and east. They started forward around the gully, riding slowly, never faster than a walk.
‘You know what happened last night?’ Diodorus asked Satyrus.
Satyrus wondered if this was about his punishment. He looked at the strategos. ‘No,’ he said. Anything to keep his uncle talking.
‘We didn’t lose the battle yesterday. Antigonus lost his phalanx - heavy casualties. Our leader, Eumenes, rallied his beaten cavalry at the end of the day, and Antigonus retreated.’ Diodorus’s voice was grim, and he held his horse to a walk, although Demetrios was plainly visible on the skyline.
‘So we won?’ Satyrus asked.
‘Listen, boy. Late afternoon, and Eumenes summoned all his commanders to meet him. Remember? I rode away?’ Diodorus looked at him, and Satyrus could see the fatigue in his eyes.
‘Yes,’ Satyrus replied.
‘As I rode up, the fucking Macedonians seized him. They tried to get me. His own officers betrayed him.’ Diodorus’s face was a mask. ‘There are no rules any more, Satyrus. No honour. Zeus Soter, they call us mercenaries faithless.’ He shook his head. ‘So be ready for anything. Hear me?’
Satyrus wanted to ask why he’d been brought, but he decided to let it go.
Astlan and a pair of riders rode up, looked at them from a few horse-lengths and cantered easily away. They had bows in their hands, but no arrows on the string - yet.
Satyrus turned out of his uncle’s small column and trotted over to Darya, feeling bold. He reached into his quiver and took out an arrow - one of his own red-shafted arrows fletched in heron feathers. ‘Here,’ he said.
She smiled. She had dimples and jet-black hair. She gave him one of her own arrows. The Massagetae of her band began to tease her, and she swatted another girl with her bow. Then she flashed a smile at Satyrus, who returned it with interest and cantered back to Carlus.
‘I thought that I’d lost you for a moment,’ Carlus said. ‘Try not to do that again.’
‘Give the boy some respect,’ Diodorus said. ‘His Sakje may be all that is keeping us from their arrows.’
Demetrios displayed his impatience by cantering down the hill away from his entourage. ‘Can we get this done?’ he said. ‘My father offers you all your lives. You will take service with us. There, it’s done. You, boy - that’s my spare horse. Hand it over. She’s a Nisaean!’
The silver-helmeted young man reached for Satyrus’s reins.
Satyrus backed the mare away, leaving the blond officer grasping air. ‘Spear-won!’ he said, delighted with himself for remembering the right word at the right time.
‘You lost, you stupid Greek. Give me my horse!’ Demetrios became aware that he was surrounded by enemy cavalry. ‘Touch me and you are all dead.’
Diodorus caught the enemy boy’s bridle and turned his horse. ‘You’ll be worth a pretty penny,’ he said. ‘Ride for it!’
They thundered away, through the surprised Saka and across the ridge, past the gully. Satyrus didn’t start breathing until they were within the circuit of their own pickets. Not an arrow flew their way.
Demetrios was all but raving. ‘You are all dead men! You have broken your oaths! You fucking Greek mercenaries, you scum!’
His escort hadn’t pursued them past the gully.
Diodorus handed the blond’s reins to Hama. ‘I couldn’t resist. Listen, boy. We swore no oaths - you offered us no safe conduct. Your herald didn’t have a staff. And you did not win the battle. Now - speak your piece. Then - maybe - I’ll let you go back to your father.’
Demetrios didn’t lack courage. He looked around him, as if assessing the situation. ‘You’re the boy who shot past us yesterday!’ he said to Satyrus. He grinned, suddenly, and looked like the statue of a young Apollo. ‘My father offers you wages. And demands the return of any booty you have taken. And the handing over of certain people. I am not to discuss this in public.’ He looked around him.
Satyrus admired his coolness, because the golden boy was smiling as if he’d just been given a gift.
‘Dad says I’m a hothead. I’ll never live this down. You will let me go? He really will kill you. Look at the force he’s putting together!’ Demetrios pointed at the mass of cavalry already gathering on the ridge beyond the gully.
‘What people?’ Diodorus asked.
‘Eumenes’ widow and her bastard son,’ Demetrios said. ‘We will not mistreat her.’
Diodorus looked south along the valley. From the top of the ridge that had held their pickets all night, he could see that Sappho’s wagons had made fifteen stades and were still rolling.
‘The answer is no,’ Diodorus said after a moment. ‘No, we won’t take service with your father and, no, we won’t return any booty and, no, you cannot have Banugul. Although I wish you fucking had her already,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘As to being fucking Greeks, and mercenaries—’
‘I was overwrought,’ Demetrios said cheerfully. ‘I have a temper.’
‘Your father arranged with the Argyraspids to have my employer murdered, did he not?’ Diodorus was watching as more Macedonian cavalry crested the far ridge.
‘The mutinous troops killed Eumenes,’ Demetrios said. ‘What you say is a very serious accusation.’
‘Go and tell your father that if he wants us, he can try and catch us,’ Diodorus said. ‘Now get off your horse.’
‘This is my best horse,’ Demetrios said.
‘It is about to become my best horse,’ Diodorus said. ‘Think of it as the cost of a little lesson in war. You still have a great deal to learn. Next time you offer someone a truce, keep it.’
Demetrios dismounted. He turned to Satyrus. ‘Who are you?’ he asked.
‘Satyrus, son of Kineas,’ he said.
Demetrios gave him a good-natured smile, and tossed him his silver helmet. ‘You might as well have this to go with the horse. That way, I’ll know you next time!’ He grinned, turned away and started to jog across the grass to the north.
‘There goes fifty talents of gold,’ Hama said bitterly. ‘We got a horse!’
Diodorus led them back south, towards the vanishing column of dust. ‘Antigonus One-Eye would follow us to the ends of the earth to rescue his son,’ he said. ‘I hope it won’t be worth his while to pursue us otherwise.’
‘They really murdered Eumenes?’ Crax asked.
‘Someone did. I saw them grab him yesterday - Argyraspids and some cavalry officers.’ Diodorus shook his head. ‘He deserved better.’
‘Where in Hades do we go now?’ asked Eumenes the Olbian, who rode up from the head of his troop. ‘Hello, young Satyrus.’ He reached out for the silver helmet that Satyrus was still holding. ‘That’s quite a piece of kit.’
Satyrus hugged him.
Eumenes eyed the helmet. ‘Well, I’d be careful where I wore it,’ he said, laughing. ‘Young Apollo over there will probably want it back.’
‘He said something of the sort,’ Satyrus admitted.
Diodorus looked around. ‘Has this outfit lost any semblance of discipline? You people have troops to command, I believe?’
‘Where are we going?’ Crax asked. ‘Tanais is gone, and Eumenes the Cardian is dead. We’re out of employers!’
Diodorus gave them a tight smile. ‘Aegypt,’ he said. ‘Down the hills to the Euphrates, up the Euphrates until we can cut across the desert to the Jordan, and down the Jordan to Alexandria.’
Crax shook his head. ‘That’s five thousand stades!’ he said. ‘By Hermes, Strategos, we don’t have remounts, we don’t have food, and we’re surrounded by enemies. We don’t have a bronze obol amongst us!’
‘Twenty days should see us to Ptolemy’s outposts,’ Diodorus said. ‘We’ll buy remounts - or take them. Look, I have the first one under my hand.’
‘We couldn’t buy a donkey,’ Crax said.
‘Remember how One-Eye was asking for our loot back?’ Diodorus asked, smirking at Eumenes.
Crax grinned. ‘That was a good one. What loot?’
‘The loot I got,’ Eumenes said. ‘While you folks were gallivanting around the battlefield, I lifted One-Eye’s treasury.’ He shrugged at Crax’s disbelieving look. ‘All Tyche, brother. I got lost in the salt haze, and I tripped over these packhorses.’
They all laughed, and Satyrus, now one of them, laughed too.
When they rejoined the column, they found Banugul sitting on a white Nisaean with her son on a black mare. She looked like a queen, her pale-skinned beauty scarcely aged. She wore a considerable amount of carefully applied cosmetics, more than Satyrus had ever seen on a free woman, and she had a cloth-of-gold scarf tied over her hair. Her purple-blue eyes sparkled under the shawl, and she was obviously angry.
Herakles looked deeply unhappy.
Diodorus rode up in a swirl of dust and embraced his Sappho. ‘Beautiful job,’ he said.
She gave him a lopsided grin. ‘Men,’ she said. ‘Birth a baby and they’ve nothing to say. But get a column moving—’
‘I wish to go to One-Eye,’ Banugul said.
Diodorus gawked at her. ‘What? He tried to kill you yesterday.’
She shook her head. ‘I am not going to Aegypt with a column of mercenaries,’ she said. Her tone softened. ‘There are many men here with no reason to love me, or Alexander’s son, either, Diodorus. I will never forget that Philokles saved me, nor that Kineas’s daughter saved my son. But I am the satrap of Hyrkania, and Antigonus One-Eye is now my lord. I will go and make obeisance to him.’
Sappho laughed.
Banugul glared at her.
Diodorus rubbed his chin. ‘He asked for you and the boy, right enough,’ the strategos said. ‘He might just kill you.’
Banugul smiled. It was an easy smile, a light smile, and it undid fifteen years of ageing and rendered her Aphrodite-like. ‘He will not kill me. He needs my father, and my brothers, and my son will give him legitimacy.’
‘I want to be a king,’ Herakles said suddenly. ‘Not a pawn.’
‘Your father started as a pawn,’ Banugul said. And then, in a kinder way, she said, ‘Your turn will come.’
‘I want to stay with Satyrus and Melitta,’ he said.
Satyrus rode over to the boy and clasped his hand, as men do. ‘We will be friends,’ he said.
Diodorus looked at Sappho, and then at Eumenes. The young Olbian gave a slight nod. So did Sappho.
‘You’d be doing us a favour, and no mistake, lady,’ Diodorus acknowledged. ‘If you were to - to go to him, One-Eye might just let us go.’ He looked at the northern horizon. ‘But we’ve got Hades’ own jump on the bastard. I think we can outrun him.’
Banugul smiled her Aphrodite smile again. ‘So many brave men. But not today.’
Diodorus exchanged one more look with his wife. ‘Fine. I’ll send a herald.’
Banugul nodded. ‘By leaving you, I return the favour that Philokles - and Kineas - did me.’
Sappho turned her head away. Satyrus could tell that his aunt didn’t like the beautiful queen.
Melitta came up the column, already covered in dust from riding around, visiting. Apparently unaware of her condition, she rode into the command group. ‘Herakles is leaving?’ she asked.
‘Yes,’ Sappho answered. ‘Say your goodbyes. His mother feels she’ll do better with our enemies. The men who just murdered her husband.’
Banugul’s head shot around, and her glare had the power of a thousand courtly confrontations, and Sappho met it full on.
‘Better for all of us, really,’ Diodorus was heard to mutter. ‘Hama? Take a file from first troop, and Andronicus as your herald.’
Melitta embraced a startled Herakles, who then hugged her back with sudden fervour. She kissed him, which got a grunt of disapproval from his mother. Sappho exchanged her frown for a smile - anything that displeased the blonde Persian woman pleased her.
‘I won’t forget you!’ Herakles called, as he rode away. Satyrus waved to him, and then pressed his heels to his mount, galloped up by the other boy, and handed him a javelin - one of his own, a nice heavy one.
‘Now you’re armed,’ he said. Then he made himself say something personal. ‘Remember what Philokles said yesterday. Don’t try to be your father. Just be yourself.’
Herakles gripped his hand so hard it hurt, and Satyrus was shocked to see tears in the boy’s eyes.
They clasped hands again, and Herakles rode away.
When Satyrus rode back to his uncle, the strategos was frowning at the dust raised by Banugul’s party. ‘I should have sent more of an escort.’
‘You should have sent her alone,’ Sappho said.
‘You are not helping,’ Diodorus said through clenched teeth.
Satyrus rode away from them, back along the column to his sister, who cried for a little, very quietly.
‘I really liked him,’ she said.
Satyrus didn’t have much of an idea what to say, so he gave her a quick and clumsy hug from horseback and they rode on without speaking. Silence was the order of the day, and a lot of glances back past the dust of the column.
‘They’re all worried about the escort,’ Satyrus said. He’d just worked it out. ‘If Antigonus murdered Eumenes the Cardian, he could do anything, including murdering Banugul.’
His sister sobbed.
‘What did I say?’ he asked the gods.
‘Just the fucking obvious! You are so useless.’ Melitta’s voice trembled.
Crax went out with the prodromoi to find a campsite and still there was no sign of Hama or the escort. Crax returned long after Melitta’s tears had dried, and she and her brother were reconciled, and still there was no news. They made camp - a cold and hasty camp, which consisted mostly of picketing horses and unrolling blankets and cloaks. The mountains rose all around them, and it was cold, and in the last light of the late summer evening, it began to rain. Melitta pressed hard against her brother’s back.
‘I really liked him,’ she said. ‘Herakles, I mean.’
‘I know who you mean,’ Satyrus said.
‘Of course you did,’ Theron said kindly, from the other side of the sleeping pile. ‘He was a nice enough boy, for the son of a god.’
‘Go to sleep,’ Philokles ordered.
They all slept fitfully, the intermittent rain and the cold making real sleep impossible. Melitta shivered and Satyrus’s hips were hurting from sleeping on the ground. He pulled his Thracian cloak over his face to keep the rain off of it and managed to slip away.
He smelled the lion skin first, and then he saw the club.
‘You have done well,’ said a voice deep enough to raise the hairs on the back of his neck.
Satyrus snapped awake with the scent of wet cat fur in his nostrils. He lay awake a long time, listening to his heart race and to Theron’s snores, until the reality of the dream slipped into the next one, and he relaxed, and slept.
 
They were all stiffer, and older, in the morning, and the horses were tired. But just after first light, when the sentries were calling men to wake, a young trooper rode in, weary but obviously full of news, and went to the cluster of tents that stood in the centre of the camp. By the time Satyrus was sharing a bowl of yogurt and honey with his sister, the news was spreading from fire to fire, and the sound of laughter could suddenly be heard, and fatigue began to fall away.
Philokles came over, having been to Diodorus’s tent. ‘Melitta? One-Eye welcomed Banugul as a queen, with open arms, and his escort hailed Herakles as the son of Alexander.’ He smiled at her.
She nodded. ‘Excuse me,’ she said, slipping away a little.
‘That’s good to hear,’ Satyrus said, just to say something.
Philokles and Theron both nodded.
‘One-Eye sent Diodorus a safe-conduct,’ Philokles added.
‘Zeus Soter!’ Theron said. ‘So we’re going to live?’
‘Eventually he’s going to discover that we have his pay chest,’ Philokles said.
Not much later, the whole escort came in, with another dozen troopers who had been accounted dead. They were stripped of their armour, but they were mounted, and glad to be released. Most of them had been taken prisoner while wandering lost in the dust cloud.
Diodorus, finished with other business, strode up. ‘You don’t have to live like soldiers. You know that you can all stay with us,’ he said. ‘We have an empty tent,’ he added, pointing at the tent where Banugul had stayed. It wasn’t meant to be funny, but for some reason it made all the men around the fire roar with laughter.
Satyrus looked at his tutor. Philokles nodded. ‘I think it is time my charges learned to live like soldiers,’ he said.
Diodorus smiled. ‘Well,’ he said, looking at the horizon, ‘they’ll have all the way to Aegypt to learn it.’
They all laughed together, glad to be alive, and their laughter rose to heaven like a sacrifice, and just for a moment, Satyrus could smell lion skin.
Funeral Games
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