Read Tyrant: Destroyer of Cities for Free Online

and put his arms by his sides. ‘Sorry.’
    ‘Thank you.’ Melitta looked at her brother. ‘Take good care of him,’ she said.
    ‘I always do,’ he answered, and wished the words unsaid as soon as they had crossed his lips.
    She was mounted and gone before he could think of anything more to say.
    Satyrus waited for his ships to sail with the eagerness of a child anticipating a feast, or a holiday from school. But unlike a child, he had plenty to fill his days. He sat with Theron, Coenus and Idomenes for hours, going over long lists of items – of luxury and necessity – that they needed from Alexandria and Rhodes.
    ‘We need more smiths,’ Theron insisted.
    ‘Temerix is probably the finest smith in the wheel of the world!’ Satyrus said.
    ‘That may be, but men now wait years for him to make a blade.’ Coenus shook his head. ‘His very excellence has blinded us all to the scarcity of other smiths.’
    ‘He has apprentices,’ Satyrus put in.
    ‘He has twenty apprentices. We need twenty smiths – just in the Tanais countryside. And bronzesmiths, and more goldsmiths.’ Theron shook his head. ‘We need to have the ability to manufacture our own armour.’
    ‘We need tanners,’ Idomenes said quietly.
    ‘Tanners?’ Satyrus asked.
    ‘Tanais is growing as a place where animals are slaughtered and hides are gathered,’ Idomenes said. He held up a bundle of tally-sticks. ‘Last month alone, from the Feast of Demeter to the Feast of Apollo, we gathered in six hundred and forty hides of bulls and big cows. If we had a tanner, we’d make ten times the profit on them.’
    ‘Tanner means a tannery and a lot of stink,’ Coenus said. He rubbed his beard and his eye met Satyrus’, and both of them smiled.
    ‘Beats the hell out of being an exile in Alexandria, doesn’t it?’ Coenus asked him, and Satyrus chuckled.
    ‘It does, at that. But somehow I never thought that being a king would involve quite so much maths .’ He laughed. ‘Very well, Idomenes. Your point is excellent. We need a master tanner, some slave tanners and some silver to build a tannery.’
    ‘Slaves?’ Idomenes asked.
    ‘I’ll buy ’em as slaves and free them here,’ Satyrus said. ‘Good way to start.’ He looked around, grinned and said, ‘Basically, you want me to buy everything on the skilled-labour market.’
    Theron nodded. ‘Where would we put the tannery?’ he asked.
    ‘Up the coast. There’s that black stream up by Askam – flows all year round. Stinks already.’ Idomenes was making a catalogue of all the terrain in the kingdom, and he knew every landmark within five days’ ride. He raised his eyes, found no disagreement and wrote a note on his wax tablet.
    ‘If we all die, let’s leave the kingdom to Idomenes,’ Satyrus said.
    Idomenes’ head came up. The other men were all smiling. He flinched.
    ‘Hey!’ Satyrus said. ‘I’m not Eumeles!’ He leaned back and held out his cup for cider, which a servant poured for him.
    ‘Lord, such a comment … scares me.’ Idomenes had served the old tyrant, a ruthless man who taxed and killed without meaning or warning, bent on making himself a major player in the game of succession to Alexander.
    ‘I merely meant that you seem to do this better than the rest of us,’ Satyrus said.
    ‘I’ll just write my notes up and make a smooth tablet, shall I, my lord?’ Idomenes clutched his tablets to him as if to protect him from wrath, and slipped out.
    Theron shook his head. ‘He’s not even slimy. He’s a good man. Why does he act like a snake?’
    Satyrus shrugged.
    Coenus pursed his lips, rubbed his beard and took a drink. ‘He lived too long with snakes, I think. Never mind – he’ll get used to us.’ He took a stylus from behind his ear and made a note in his own tablet. ‘Where do you think Diodorus is, anyway?’
    Theron shrugged. ‘Idomenes has the latest letter – but you’ve seen it.’
    ‘I haven’t,’ said Satyrus. He turned to his hypaspist,