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Chapter 22: Stuck in the Mud

Katerini, Macedonia

October 28, 319 BCE

Daniel Lang escorted Thessalonike and Cassander off the Reliance. The Queen was officially neutral ground, but Cassander didn’t trust that neutrality, not when it had, at the moment, both queens Roxane and Eurydice, and both emperors Philip and toddler Alexander IV, on board. Not to mention Eumenes and Olympias.

Daniel couldn’t really blame him for that, but the truth was that the greatest danger—by far—was from Olympias. As to the Reliance, Katerini was as close as it was willing to get to Pella. The inlet that connected the sea to the city was too narrow and shallow for Commodore Adrian Scott to trust. Also, Daniel suspected that Adrian didn’t trust Cassander’s promise of free passage. For which Daniel didn’t blame him a bit.

Once in town, they called for a steam barge. Steam engines and, more importantly, their boilers, were still very expensive and the best ones came from the Queen of the Sea. But Cassander now had three of them, one for a factory in Pella, one for the royal barge that went from Pella to Katerini, and one that Cassander was being very tight-lipped about.

* * *

The trip to Pella was quite comfortable, at least for Daniel. He wasn’t the slave feeding coal into the boiler. He was seated on the deck, watching the birds and smelling the salt air, while he drank a cup of watered wine. Not great wine, but watered wine was the custom, in response to bad water. Nowadays, distillation was becoming available and the amount of alcohol put in water was much more controllable, so you could purify your water without the sour taste if you wanted to. Daniel sipped and grimaced. They didn’t want to.

The cheese was good, though. And the scenery was nice, in a not quite tropical way. He slapped his arm as a mosquito decided it was time to dine, then went into the cabin and closed the screen door. The screen was cheesecloth, not wire, but it worked and let some air through.

The door opened and Cassander came in with Thessalonike and one of his younger brothers—this one named Phillip, but called Lípos. He was a beefy young man. Daniel guessed he was in his mid-twenties. He had crooked teeth, but big shoulders. He was wearing a fancy bronze breastplate over a short-sleeved linen shirt and ship people jeans. His were green, not quite olive drab.

Daniel stood and waited while Cassander and Thessalonike took seats and Lípos took station by the door.

Thessalonike waved Daniel to a chair, getting a sharp look from Cassander, who, after a moment, said, “Sit, sit.”

Daniel sat.

Cassander looked at Daniel and began to speak. “We are here to discuss your duties. We wish you to act not only as the . . . what is the phrase . . . ‘boss of police’?”

Daniel nodded. It was close enough. The Greek word Archigós meant chief, and Afentikó meant boss, so it was an easy slip.

“We also wish you to set up a school to teach our police to use ship people law enforcement techniques.” The word Cassander used was Oi nkárntens, which meant guardsman, but that was about as close as local Greek came to cop.

Daniel nodded again. This was expected. “What sort of authority am I going to have in regard to hiring and firing?”

They talked for about an hour and Daniel noticed early that when Cassander said “we” he was using the royal we, not including Thessalonike or Lípos in the discussion. Also that Thessalonike wasn’t happy about that, but was not making an issue of it. Lípos, still standing by the door, didn’t seem to care.

More to the point, Cassander made it clear that Daniel was pretty limited in his hiring and firing practices. Among other things, he was getting a title, but unlike most of the titled nobility in Macedonia, Thrace, and the other Greek states, his didn’t come with family to avenge him.

“If you were to kill Metró Archelaus, his family would come to me to punish you. And if that didn’t work, they might take action on their own. So it behooves you to be careful using that ship people gun of yours.”

The gun in question, a six-shot black powder cap-and-ball revolver made on the Queen of the Sea, was even now openly displayed on his belt. Daniel had over a thousand caps and a mold for making lead bullets in his bags. He noticed that Lípos was grinning. “I will be careful, Your Majesty. However, if push comes to shove, you are going to lose some of your nobles.”

“Good!” Cassander nodded. “They need to learn to respect you.”

Lípos was still smiling.

Pella, Macedonia

November 1, 319 BCE

The police headquarters office was located in the same building that housed the radio. Partly, that was because Daniel didn’t have his own computer and would be sharing theirs. Malcolm Tanada and Rico Gica were the only ship people here and he knew that Rico was the “chief of station,” the ship people chief spy in Pella, which just meant he was the computer geek while Malcolm was the effective ambassador from the ship people to Cassander. Daniel would not need to set up his own spy network, which wasn’t anything new for a cop. Police work was all about informants, whatever shows like CSI made it look like.

But that was upstairs. Here and now, Daniel was standing in a room roughly ten feet by fifteen, with no furniture and no door in the doorway or windows in the window frames. He would need to order glass from Carthage. Carthage had a glassmaking industry before the Queen arrived. Now it had a clear glassmaking industry, and if the glass was only flat on one side, it still let in the light while keeping out the cold. He looked over at Zoilo, the Greek slave whom Cassander had assigned to him.

“So, it looks like we are starting from scratch,” Daniel said in his Macedonian-accented Greek. He’d picked up his Greek from Silver Shields and from the computer translation programs that got most of its pronunciations from the Macedonians.

Zoilo nodded, but didn’t speak. Not all that surprising. During the trip to Pella, Zoilo didn’t use two words if he could get away with one. Daniel didn’t know whether that was just with him or with everyone.

“We’re going to need a door with a lock,” Daniel said.

Zoilo pulled a waxed slate out and started writing.

Pella, Office of the Police

November 2, 319 BCE

Thessalonike walked into the office, looked around, and sniffed. Well, waddled into the office. She was six months pregnant and her movement was affected.

Daniel didn’t blame her for the sniff. There was still no door, and not even shutters in the window frames. No furniture but a single couch that was doubling as Daniel’s bed. Zoilo was sleeping on a pallet on the floor, and that was rolled up in the corner. She looked at Zoilo and he got up and left.

Then she walked over and sat on the couch. “Olympias says I can trust you.”

“Within limits.” Daniel stayed standing. “Olympias and I have an agreement concerning you.” Daniel wished he still had his phone with its translation app, but it was owned by the Queen and he was watching his expenses.

They talked in fits and starts, and mistranslations and careful rephrasing about the political situation and what Daniel might be able to do to keep her safe if things went to hell.

“Philip Lípos is leaving to take command of the army tomorrow. The army will be heading into Thrace to defeat Seuthes.”

Daniel nodded, trying to keep his expression bland.

“You doubt Lípos’ ability?”

Daniel shook his head. Then looked at the young woman and decided that his best course was honesty. “I don’t know enough about Lípos to have an opinion of his ability as a general. I do know that he will be going up against a general who history counts as only slightly less capable than Alexander the Great himself, and one—maybe the only one—who gets the twentieth-century military axiom ‘amateurs study tactics, professionals study logistics.’” He shrugged. “That’s not why I’m here. I’m here to make a professional police force and to make the streets of Pella as safe as the corridors of the Queen of the Sea.”

“Can you really do that?”

“Not a chance. But I’ll get as close to it as I can.” He smiled, and she smiled back. She had dimples and a little gap between her two front teeth.

There was a cough from outside. Daniel looked at the door to see two young men, teenagers really, walk into the room. They were wearing the nippled bronze breastplates that were so popular with the Macedonian nobility.

They were laughing until they saw Thessalonike. Then they stopped, and gave her a bow. One of them said, “You should be in the palace. Not out among peasants without even your ladies.”

Daniel looked at them, then at Thessalonike. He wasn’t sure of the status here. She was the queen, but she was female, and women weren’t supposed to act on their own. That was most of the reason that the Macedonian nobility was outraged by the queens regent. Especially Eurydice. And Daniel wasn’t sure how the dynamic fit in this situation.

Thessalonike stood up, sniffed, and gave the boys a look that would freeze half a lake. “I am your queen. You will not speak to me in that fashion.”

The boys stiffened, and one of them started to advance on her. That was enough for Daniel. His hand dropped to the pistol on his belt, and the second youngster grabbed the first’s arm.

Suddenly Daniel had a thought. “Queen Thessalonike,” he said, “the king said that if I killed any nobles I would have to deal with their families mostly on my own. What families am I going to have to deal with after I kill these fellows?”

It was partly his horrible accent, and partly the way he was using the Greek words that made both young men and Thessalonike look confused as they worked out what he was saying. But it was his hand resting on the butt of his pistol that made the point when they finally worked out the words.

After she parsed his sentence, she pointed. “That is Bastian of the house of Papados. The other is his cousin Demos.”

The boys were looking at the pistol and it was clear that they were familiar with them. Not really surprising. Malcolm had one just like it, and shot at a small pistol range he’d built next to the radio shack. “And what brings Bastian and Demos to police headquarters?” Daniel asked.

“I believe they are two of your police captains,” Thessalonike said.

Daniel looked at her, then back at the boys. They had dark curly hair and—not following Alexander’s example—they were letting their whiskers grow, but neither had much in the way of beards. “How old are you?”

“Fifteen,” Bastian said.

“Sixteen,” Demos added.

“Oh, my God,” Daniel muttered. Then he took a breath. “Gentlemen, run up to the radio shack and ask Rico Gica for a copy of the Greek translation of the police manual. Then find a place to sit and read the first chapter while I discuss the organization of our police force with the queen.”

The young men looked at him like he’d just killed their dog. It was Bastian who said, “We don’t read Greek. At least, not well.”

“I think there may be a Macedonian translation,” Daniel offered. “Marie Easley has been studying Macedonian since we got here. Rico will probably have to download it from the Queen and print it, though.”

“Ah . . . ” Bastian said. “Almost no one reads Macedonian.”

Daniel felt like whimpering. Even he, who was no great reader, knew the value of education.

Thessalonike looked at Daniel, then back at the boys. “Have your tutors read them to you.” Then to Daniel, “Their tutors will be Greek slaves, probably Athenians.”

That didn’t make Daniel Lang feel one bit better. Slavery was illegal on the Queen and in New America, but to the best of Daniel’s knowledge, nowhere else on Earth, not in this day and age. So leaving the Queen of the Sea meant that he would have to deal with slavers and slaves. And, for that matter, Daniel was going to have to enforce the property rights of slave owners. He knew that, but he didn’t like it.

* * *

Once the boys were gone, Daniel and Thessalonike got down to cases. Lípos was in charge of the army because Cassander couldn’t afford to be in command of the army if it lost to Eumenes, and when Cassander’s army went after Seuthes, Eumenes would almost have to come to Seuthes’ aid.

Once again, it was made clear that this war was as much about politics as battles. He wondered what was going on with Eumenes.

Amphipolis

November 3, 319 BCE

Philip III, co-emperor of the United Satrapies and States of the Empire, drew the symbol on the sheet as the discussion passed over him. They were talking tactics, and while the individual actions made sense, they didn’t fit together for him. So he worked on determining how much time would be saved by a steam hammer versus the cost of making one, and how soon the steam hammer would pay for itself.

Eurydice came over and squeezed his arm hard. Which didn’t make him jerk the way he would have if she touched him gently.

She looked at the calculations and nodded. She could follow some of them now. Then she turned back to the discussion.

* * *

“My father says you should prepare to attack Pella,” Nike said. Seuthes now had a radio team in Abdera. “He says that he can hold out against Lípos for months.”

Eurydice nodded agreement. In her opinion they should attack Pella whether Seuthes could hold out or not. Chop off Cassander’s head and the whole rebellion would die. At least the rebellion in Macedonia and Thrace. All of the “Greek” states. She knew that Roxane and Eumenes disagreed. She even understood their reasoning. They had to be seen as defending the states and their legitimate kings.

“In that case,” Eumenes said, “we need to get ships here to take our army to Pella. I want to go by sea because they can tell where we march, but they won’t be sure where we’re taking the army if we go by sea. For all they will know, we could be sailing for Tyre to reinforce Attalus at Babylon.” He snorted a laugh—something Eurydice found irritating—and continued. “I almost wish we could do that. I don’t like the reports we’re getting from there. Antigonus One-eye is winning the cavalry war in the area around Babylon.”

“Frankly, I’m shocked Attalus has lasted this long,” Eurydice said. “He has kept Antigonus locked in Babylon for months. He can last a few more while we deal with Cassander.”

West Babylon

November 3, 319 BCE

Karrel Agot helped the kid onto the bed. He was three, maybe four, with a distended belly from the malnutrition that was making the switch to out-and-out starvation. Rations were getting scarce in Babylon. Boats still got through, bringing food and other things from up- and downriver, but they had to make the trip at night and hug the bank once they got in sight of the walls, which gave Antigonus’ patrols a shot at them.

The people of West Babylon weren’t starving yet. Not most of them, anyway. But the poor were always the first to suffer as a siege closed in and food got scarce. Karrel dipped the cloth in the broth and put it next to the kid’s mouth. It was goat broth thickened with wheat flour, not the milk that the kid really needed, but it would have to do.

* * *

Susan Godlewski sat at the table with Attalus, Menander, and the rest of the general’s staff. It was a decent but not overly fancy meal. There was bread, cheese and, of course, olives. A sour wine that was cut with water. Out the window, they could see the river wall. It was a short wall compared to the outer walls, because the river was expected to provide part of the defense and because the other side of the city across the Euphrates River was taller.

“But every day we hold out is another day for Eumenes to catch Cassander,” Attalus said, just as though that had been his plan from the beginning. It hadn’t, of course. By now Susan knew the history. Partly through anger and partly through arrogance, Attalus attacked Babylon trying to prove that he was a better general than Eumenes, and at the same time trying to kill the murdering bastard who had his wife killed. Attalus got caught in a trap of his own making and only survived by luck. None of that changed the validity of the statement, however. As long as West Babylon held out, Antigonus was stuck in East Babylon. And every day Antigonus was stuck here, he got weaker and the empire got stronger.

“I don’t disagree, Satrap, but the poor are starting to starve. If we don’t do a better job of sharing out the rations, we are going to lose West Babylon to disease, if we don’t lose it to betrayal first.”

Attalus’ face got hard and Susan was quick to add, “It’s not disloyalty. It’s hunger. If your wife was starving, what would you do to save her?”

“It’s not just the sharing of rations,” Menander said, “it’s getting supplies in through the blockade. Antigonus’ cavalry owns the east side of the Euphrates, and we don’t own the west side, not really.”

East Babylon

Boulos the slave sat on his pallet of bound reeds with a small knife and whittled. He had a pattern and two chunks of wood. The pattern was in bronze, two cups with a narrow tube between them, a tall cup on one side and a short, fat one on the other. And if Boulos didn’t finish it to the overseer’s satisfaction, he would be beaten. Though skilled, a childhood of chronic malnutrition had left him not overly bright, and a life lived in a world where questioning authority got you killed left him profoundly incurious.

So Boulos slid the short-bladed steel knife over the wood, taking off a paper-thin sliver at a time, and gave no thought at all to what he was making. That was up to the masters, not to him.

* * *

One of those masters, Rahel of Rhodes, a cavalryman in Antigonus’ army, was trying to fit a venturi onto the body of a rocket. Rahel was a reasonably well-educated man by the standards of Rhodes. He could read, write, do basic math, and had never missed a meal until he joined Alexander’s army at sixteen, and not often since. He picked up the often read Ship People Basic Physics and reread the section about every action having an equal and opposite reaction, and still couldn’t quite get his head around the idea that it meant they needed venturi. A hole in the back for the gas to escape should work. He shrugged, put the booklet down, and went back to the rocket.

It was all magic, anyway. It didn’t really need to make sense. The venturi was just part of the spell.

He looked at the fins. Those made sense to him. They were like the feathers on an arrow. They would make the rocket spin and the spinning would keep it going straight. Then he got up from the bench and nodded to the overseer, a slave but higher ranking than the average. “How many? And how soon?”

“It’s slow work, master. And new designs . . . we don’t know which parts matter, so we can’t scrimp anywhere. It will be months before we have the number of rockets that Strategos Antigonus demands.”

Rahel nodded and looked over at the palace where the increasingly irritable Strategos Antigonus resided.

* * *

Antigonus One-eye stood on the balcony of his palace and looked across the Euphrates River at the thorn in his side. I’m winning. He had to keep telling himself that, because it didn’t feel like it was true. He looked at the antenna rising up from the tallest building in West Babylon, so tall that it could speak to Fort Plymouth on the other side of the world. That radio told him what was going on in Macedonia and Thrace. It let him send messages to all the satraps of the eastern empire, and without it the fragile alliance would have already collapsed. But, at the same time, it told everyone of every loss that Cassander’s army suffered and, worse, it was portraying the rebels in West Babylon as courageous defenders of empire.

He turned and looked down at the shop. It was located in East Babylon, just a few blocks from the palace, and in it he was building the rockets and the boats that would open a way into West Babylon and end this farce.


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