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They docked at Tyre and the men were herded off the boat by the white-suited guards who carried death in their right hands. Then the boat left and the next one docked. Jakov looked around and headed for the gates in the walls. He was called over by a lochagos, file leader, roughly a sergeant. “Come with me. The general wants to see you.”
Jakov was a soldier, but just a common soldier, not a lochagos. “Why me?”
“Why not you? Can you think of any reason we shouldn’t take that boat out there?”
“Are you insane?” Jakov shouted.
The lochagos stopped and looked at Jakov. “Ares blood, man. What did they do to you?”
Jakov looked at the lochagos and tried to explain. “They just shot me and I was four ranks back. The bullet, a lead bullet this long—” He held up his thumb and forefinger three and a half inches apart. “—and this big around—” He held his finger and thumb an inch apart “—pointed like a quarrel, but made of lead dipped in copper! It went through three men, the ones in front of me! Broke my rib. They had a machine, manned by two men!” Jakov held up two fingers for emphasis. “And it fired so fast that…”
Jakov had run out of words. “Here is what you do. You fart in Nike’s face, and after that you charge that boat. But don’t expect me to be anywhere near you when you do it.”
The lochagos looked at him and must have seen something in his face, because he grabbed Jakov by his arm on his good side and pulled him along. “The general will need to hear this.”
So Jakov got to explain to the strategos in charge of the defense of Tyre what the battle on the Reliance had looked like from the point of view of a Greek foot soldier.
Strategos Nedelko didn’t believe him. Officers are good at disbelieving privates who tell them things they don’t want to hear. But he was a good officer, an experienced one, and so before attacking anyway he asked other soldiers and even other officers. Some of them had survived. Every story was as horrible as the last, but those stories took time. By the time he heard a dozen he was starting to think in terms of mass cowardice, but the boats were back at the Queen and two hundred of the soldiers Metello had taken with him to Rhodes were ashore, talking to the troops on the island.
He could give the order and the galleys would put to sea and attack the Queen. But his men would be nervous and upset. If there was any truth at all to what the returning troops said, his army would come apart all the quicker for the prior knowledge. He had mostly discounted the sheer size of the Queen but, no, he couldn’t. He might still be able to use the prisoners as a tool…but the prisoners were holed up with the Silver Shields. And he knew about the magic talking device. He would waste his strength against them and probably only end up with dead prisoners anyway.
Royal Compound, Tyre
Evening, October 27
The strategos of Tyre, roughly the equivalent of a colonel, came up to the royal encampment and requested a parley. Dag looked over at Evgenij. “What do you think?”
“Let him in. Nedelko is a good man, honest.”
Dag nodded agreement, and the officer was let in. They met in Roxane’s sitting room. Kleitos’ body had been removed, but the blood stains were clear on the wood floor and spots of blood dotted the rugs and hangings. Alexander was being quiet, sucking on Dag’s comb. Roxane was being quiet too.
The strategos saluted Evgenij and then turned to Dag. “What is nonsense words, more nonsense words.”
Roxane held up the phone and pushed a button. “What is the device that throws sling bullets and quarrels from the great ship?”
Apparently the app was having some trouble with the Greek words, but Dag managed to work it out. He motioned for Roxane to hold up the phone. “It’s a steam cannon.”
The translation had everyone looking at him like he was insane. He motioned for the phone again, and Roxane passed it over. He pushed a few icons and had the thing translate back. “The cooked ballista” was what he got.
He tapped the record symbol and said, “It’s hard to explain. Doesn’t translate well. What do you want to know about it?”
What followed was a tale of horror and clearly one that strategos Nedelko didn’t quite believe. But Dag knew about World War I, and the machine guns in the trenches, and those poor bastards on the Reliance had been stuck in no man’s land with no trenches to retreat to, and no way of getting to the enemy’s trenches. It had to have been utter slaughter.
“I know you don’t believe me, but think of men caught in the open with no armor and no place to hide while arrow after arrow rains down on them. No place to escape and no room to scatter. No place to hide.”
“They would surrender.”
“Ever since we got here, you people have assumed we are weak. You assumed it when you attacked the Reliance, when Ptolemy attacked the Queen. As you held me and my people here. We don’t like to kill, but it’s not because we aren’t good at it. It’s because if we let ourselves, we could kill the whole world, down to the insects.” Which wasn’t true in the here and now, but wasn’t that far from the mutually-assured-destruction doctrine that kept the nuclear powers from blowing up the world back in the last half of the twentieth century. Dag didn’t remember much of that, but his parents talked about it.
Royal Lounge, Queen of the Sea, off Tyre
October 28
Nedelko looked across the table at Marie Easley. “I will need some explanation for Attalus and Eumenes.”
Marie slid a folder over the smooth surface of the table. It was a manila binder with a picture of the ship and a picture of a monarch butterfly on the cover. It had one hundred seven pages of Greek lettering in a twelve-point type face. “That is an outline of what we know of the history of this time. There were a lot of scholarly works about Alexander’s era, but not much hard information. Very few of the original sources survived. What we got was quotes, often taken out of context and always incomplete. I have learned almost as much in the month we have been here as I learned in the thirty years of study back in our time. In spite of that, the details about what would have happened if we had not arrived are sketchy at best.”
Nedelko listened to the scholar as he flipped through the pages. He stopped at a drawing, little blocks on a map. He read the inscriptions. “The battle of Paraitakene.” The Macedonian date six years after the joint kings had been proclaimed, with no month given. Three and a half, maybe four, years in the future. Eumenes managed a draw with Antigonus One-eye. Nedelko hadn’t imagined that the Greek would be alive in a year, much less fighting Antigonus to a draw, maybe winning if the casualties were to be believed. And four years from now. But Marie Easley was still talking. “We have given a copy of that to Satrap Ptolemy of Egypt and another to Nauarch Demaratos of Rhodes.”
“I request several copies, one for me, one each for Attalus, Eumenes, Cassander, Cleopatra, Olympias, others.”
“Cassander? Didn’t he go with Antigonus?”
“This is going to change who goes with who. This is going to change everything.”
“It already has. The first time someone saw this ship, it changed everything. The first page after the table of contents is a short description of what we call ‘the butterfly effect.’ When you have some time, you should read that section carefully. Just what I told Crates in Alexandria changed history drastically. In my history Antipater was named guardian of the kings and strategos for the whole empire. Antigonus got possession of the kings and Cassander as an aide and a watcher, then was sent off to capture and execute Eumenes.”
“Well, old One-eye is still going after Eumenes. And he still has Philip and Eurydice.”
“But he hasn’t been empowered to arrest Eumenes by the regent, and Roxane has endorsed Attalus as regent.”
“Is that still the case?”
“We’ll know that when Roxane is on the Queen of the Sea.”
“And that’s my problem. If Roxane, from the safety of the Queen of the Sea, endorses old One-eye, Peithon, Seleucus,
or anyone else, all the rest are going to blame me for letting it happen.”
“And they are all going to claim that we coerced the endorsement out of her,” Marie agreed. “That’s why she isn’t going to endorse Captain Floden, Dag or Congressman Wiley. And we aren’t going to endorse anyone to her. We’re going to give her that history book we compiled—the one with the butterfly on the cover—and let her read it. Then she can make up her own mind.”
Nedelko swallowed.
Royal Compound, Tyre
October 28
Roxane read the small writing with some difficulty. Her father hadn’t seen any point in teaching a girl to read. Alexander had, though. He had her tutored and she could read now, but it didn’t come as naturally as if she had started as a child. This, however, was easier to manage than most writing. The letters were all exactly the same and there were spaces clearly separating the words. There were even little dots to mark the ends of specific thoughts, and double-sized letters to start thoughts and to delineate the beginnings of names. By about halfway through, she was reading it more easily than anything she had read before. In spite of that, she read well into the night.
As Roxane read, most of her goods were packed up under Dag’s guidance and the eagle eyes of the Silver Shields. Rooms had been assigned and part of her guard contingent was already there. The rooms for her guards had cost thirty silver talents and her rooms had cost another two talents, but she was paid in advance for the next six months. She had a royal suite, the men shared staterooms, and Evgenij was positively loquacious over the quarters.
Meanwhile, over half the survivors from Rhodes were shipped back to shore. The exchange was being done a little at a time, even as negotiations were ongoing.
Dag came in carrying a cloak. It was a heavy cloak with a hood and it clinked.
“What is this?”
“This is an armored cloak. It has steel plates sewn into the lining and the hood. It also looks just like two others that we are going to have other women wearing for the transfer to the ship.”
“No!”
“What? Why not? It’s a good idea. It will keep you safe from assassins with bows.”
“I have to be seen,” Roxane insisted. “If I am not seen getting on the boat myself, they will assume you killed me and buried me in the garden.”
“What are you talking about?”
“When Alexander was sick, the men almost rioted until he showed himself. For all I know, going out like that when he was so sick killed him. But he had to because the rumors said he was dead and the generals were hiding it. I have to be seen and so does my son.”
Dag muttered and pulled out the new cell phone he got when he got back to the Queen, and started talking to it.
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“No, not for nothing. I know the formula, and if you don’t pay me two talents of silver that knowledge is going to sail away with me.” Keith Seiver grinned, showing even white teeth in a brown face. Curly black hair topped his head and he had the bare beginnings of a beard, even though he had himself shaved just that morning.
Dareios wanted to punch out the teeth of the arrogant bastard, but he smiled, keeping his mouth closed. Dareios had always been comfortable with his teeth until he met these people. His teeth ground together in frustration. The shipman had him, and he knew it. He couldn’t use force. The grinning Silver Shield behind the shipman made that very clear. He paid the money.
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Keith handed two pounds worth of silver in electrum coins to Hermogenes. The old bastard had to be sixty and had a son in the Silver Shields as well. He also had a wife, a daughter, three grandchildren, and four slaves who would be going along on the trip. He was a right bastard in a lot of ways, and had never risen higher than private, but he knew how the world worked and was always out for the main chance. Keith was looking forward to the bastard’s expression when he learned there was no slavery on the Queen of the Sea.
“Is good,” the guy said in English, then some words in Greek. Something about them working well together. Keith nodded agreement, and they headed for the boats.
Tyre Docks
October 29
Roxane, in shining steel plate armor with a lion’s head helmet over her black hair, waved at the crowd as she walked out on the docks. It was a copy of Alexander’s famous lion’s head headgear, made by the jewelry shop on the ship. It was a rush job and not great in quality, but they had buffed the steel to a high shine. The lion’s head had glass eyes that looked almost real. The rest of her armor was steel plate, breast and back plate, greaves and bracers, all shined.
It was a pageant, and not bad for a rush job. Anyway, the people seemed to approve. There was a lot of cheering.
Dag stepped ahead and handed her into the converted life boat, then took little Alexander—also in armor and not happy about it—in his arms.
Then the rest of the party boarded and they headed for the Queen.
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In the Royal Lounge, Captain Floden, Congressman Wiley, and Marie Easley were waiting, and so were Nedelko and Evgenij.
Marie Easley spoke before anyone could get formal. “Have you decided who you are going to endorse as regent?”
“As regent? No one. I will act as regent for Alexander. But for strategos of the kingdom, I endorse Eumenes. He has always been loyal to my husband’s house. He will countenance no harm to come to Alexander or his uncle.
“I place command of all of my husband’s armies in his hands, to distribute as he sees fit until our return.”
Dag had learned a bit of Greek, and had no trouble recognizing Nedelko’s muttered “Oh, shit.” Evgenij didn’t look pleased either.
But Roxane was still talking and now seemed to be speaking to the two Macedonians. “I know that many will not like being placed under the orders of a Greek, but that is part of the reason I chose him. He can never be more than council to the kings. Never be tempted to seize the crown for himself.”
Marie Easley nodded firmly, and gave Roxane an approving half-smile, as if a student in one of her classes had come up with a good answer to a question in the lecture hall. “Very well, Your Highness, we will have the documents drawn up for your signature.”
Queen of the Sea
Two hours later
“What?” Evgenij asked. “You’re stealing our slaves?”
“No,” Dag said quite calmly. “We’re emancipating them.” The word he used was cheirafétisi, which translated as “manumission,” though, as a rule, you could only manumit your own slaves. The English “emancipation” didn’t imply prior ownership the way manumission did.
“They aren’t your slaves. You can’t manumit them,” Evgenij used the word cheirafétisi too.
“Slavery is illegal on the Queen of the Sea and it’s going to be illegal in the colony we’ll be setting up in America too. Consider yourselves lucky you’re not being arrested for being a slaver.” Dag looked the angry old bastard dead in the eyes. “You grabbed me and my people. You held us hostage, and I’d be ready to see you thrown over the side for that.”
“We treated you well.”
“In expectation of ransom, yes, you did. But if the Queen of the Sea hadn’t come to our rescue, you would have sold us.”
“Yes, of course. That’s what happens when you lose.” By the end of that statement, Evgenij was sounding querulous, but with the next sentence, he was back to belligerent. “We didn’t lose. We came aboard the ship by agreement. You have no right to seize our property.”
“You should have looked into the laws then, because we have made no secret of the fact that slavery is illegal on the Queen.” They hadn’t either. They just hadn’t specifically said that yes, those laws did apply to the Silver Shields.
Dag saw Evgenij’s hand moving in the direction of his sword. “Be careful, Commander.” Dag slapped the holster and the old man flinched.
“This isn’t over,” Evgenij blustered.
“It had better be,” Dag said. br />
Roxane’s Suite, Queen of the Sea
“You betrayed us,” Roxane said coldly.
Dag didn’t want this fight, not the way he had wanted the fight with Evgenij. “I guess in a way we did,” he agreed. “But it was necessary for your safety and your son’s. Would you have come knowing that your slaves would be freed? And even if you would have, would the Silver Shields have let you?”
“But my servants have been with me for years.”
“Then hire them. Pay them a wage and keep in mind they can leave if they want to,” Dag said hotly. Then, with an effort, he got himself under control. “Think, Roxane. If we were willing to set aside our laws at your desire, what protection would those laws be when you needed them? You can’t have slaves, but neither can you be made a slave. Not a slave or a playing piece of Alexander’s successors.”
“If you will take my property without my consent, what else will you take?” Roxane said. “Leave me!”
Dag left.
CHAPTER 13
Queen of the Sea, Straits of Gibraltar
November 2
“Ptolemy is a cold man,” Roxane agreed. “Eumenes is almost as cold, though. And I am not at all sure that he would have come down on my side, even if I were still in Attalus’ custody.”
“I’m surprised by that statement,” Marie Easley said. “Eumenes was recorded as unfailingly loyal, though some scholars gave that loyalty baser motives. Besides, you endorsed him.” She glanced past Roxane at the grizzled Silver Shield who stood by the door of the dining room in Roxane’s suite. He was standing straight in what looked to Marie like something between attention and parade rest. His feet were apart, but one hand rested on the hilt of his sword, and the other was tucked into his belt. What struck Marie was his expression. He didn’t look happy. Then Roxane’s next words brought her back to the politics of the diadochi.