Force of Kings

15

Achilles was dour after the fight in the pass. He hadn’t stayed at Satyrus’s shoulder, and he’d missed the fight, and after that he was a shadow at Satyrus’s shoulder, night and day.

Anaxagoras behaved much the same way, although with plenty of self-mockery.

Satyrus just nodded. ‘I roam up and down the column, seeking to put heart into men,’ he said. ‘I have a horse and I go where I please. You two don’t have to be with me every moment.’

Achilles looked at him. ‘We have a contract,’ he said.

Satyrus nodded again. ‘We do, at that. So far, I have no reason to complain.’

Achilles shook his head. ‘I should have been there.’

Over the last ridge of the Pelekos Mountains, and down — precipitously down — to the plains by the Mekestos river — with the mountains towering on either hand. The two armies were beginning to blend — men shared fires and food, and when the three phalanxes and their auxiliaries paraded, the third day on the Mekestos, they looked like an army. It was the first time in a thousand stades that there had been room to form up.

Lysimachos nodded to the north. ‘We’re about halfway,’ he said.

Scopasis twirled his moustache. ‘So is One-Eye,’ he said. ‘His cavalry will be hard on us now.’

Lysimachos nodded. ‘You and my Getae will have to keep them away, then,’ he said.

Scopasis looked at the Getae chiefs, and spat.

The feeling was mutual.

But the sun shone for three straight days. The forage was better, the horses’ coats began to shine again, and the thrush in the hooves began to smell better. Or less bad.

Scopasis led a raid on one of Antigonus’s outposts and rode it down in the dark, returning with fifty horses and twenty captives, all members of the elite Aegema. Satyrus sent them with a herald, and received back the wounded Apobatai and four Cretan archers from the fight in the pass — a good trade as far as he was concerned.

But the sun made Antigonus’s horsemen bolder, and there was fighting in the rearguard every day. Satyrus felt that the Getae hung back and watched the Sakje die. After the third time that Scopasis’s three hundred fought unsupported, he rode up to the lead Getae chief — a man who wore so much gold he glittered like Demetrios in the sun.

‘Are your tribesmen women?’ he asked. He grinned. ‘Not women — my sister has killed more enemies than these children.’

The old Getae just smiled, showing his scars. ‘Anything you say, lord,’ he grunted.

Satyrus nodded. ‘I say that the Getae are all children — any man’s brats. You — pais — get me water,’ he said to a bearded warrior. The man flushed.

Satyrus took him by the throat — mounted — and boxed his ears swiftly, as if the man was a slave. ‘Water, boy.’

The Getae man roared ‘I am no boy, Greek fucker!’

Satyrus smiled. ‘Really? You can’t fight. So fetch water.’

The chief nodded. ‘You could get hurt, foreign king.’

Achilles’ blade appeared along the barbarian’s throat. ‘Lots of people could get hurt,’ he said, pleasantly.

‘Sakje so noble,’ the Getae spat. ‘Let them show us how great they are.’

‘It’s true,’ Satyrus said. His Getae wasn’t great, but he knew a few words. ‘Men with penises are generally better fighters then men with no penis.’ He turned his back and rode down the hill towards the column.

The next morning, Lysimachos joined Satyrus and Stratokles for a crust of bread and a cup of wine. ‘My Getae hate you,’ he said.

‘They’ll hate me worse later today,’ Satyrus said. ‘They don’t plan to fight, and they’re none too fond of you, either.’

Lysimachos nodded. ‘I think they’re negotiating with Antigonus,’ he admitted. ‘It’s the rain,’ he added.

‘It’s the Sakje,’ Satyrus said. ‘Stratokles has a plan.’

The sun was well up when Antigonus’s cavalry raid — late, but determined — overran the pickets and came flooding up the valley. The Sakje were caught flat-footed. There were only a handful of them, the rest asleep or elsewhere, and the enemy Aegema poured up the banks of the river, killed a handful of light infantrymen and some slaves still bathing in the river, and continued towards the infantry rearguard. A dozen Sakje fled before them, shooting from their saddles.

The enemy wanted them badly. So badly that they pursued them over a low ridge to the left and straight into the Getae camp, where they scattered the Getae herd, killed several men’s wives, and burned the Getae tents.

Then the Sakje counter-attacked, pushing the Macedonian cavalry back through the Getae camp again, back to the river, shooting as they went. They saved fifty Getae women and most of the children, and in the pursuit, they picked up most of the Getae herd.

The next morning, without orders, the Getae raided the Antigonid camp.

Stratokles was disgustingly smug. So was Scopasis.

And still they marched north, and still Antigonus pursued them.

At the forks in the Royal Road, Satyrus sent Charmides north with a message: to send the fleet east to Kios, covering the flank. Then he led the army down the east fork, towards Miletopolis and Apollonis and the Greek cities of the northern Troad.

‘We’re at the edge of Bithynia,’ he said to Stratokles.

‘I’m on it,’ Stratokles said. He winked at Herakles.

Lysimachos shook his head. ‘If the Bithynians put an army across our path,’ he muttered, ‘we’re done.’

In fact, Scopasis had already located the nucleus of a local army — six hundred cavalry and some peltasts — forming on the banks of the great lake to the east, near the town Eumenes had founded at Niceas, just three hundred stades away.

‘I’m on it, I said,’ Stratokles insisted.

The army marched east, right into the Bithynian trap.

Mithridates the elder, uncle of the younger man who Demetrios had captured and lost, sat on a camp stool, listening to his scouts report on the army of Lysimachos, who was marching straight into his hands. Not that that was altogether good — his own small army would have the fight of its life, even in the constricted terrain on the banks of the lake with the mountains towering above them, and he’d pay dearly.

Could Antigonus be trusted to make it worth his while?

He sat and wondered why Lysimachos hadn’t at least made him an offer.

So he was unsurprised when his guards told him that there was a messenger from Lysimachos. With a woman.

That was more like it.

They were brought in; the messenger had been roughly handled, and stripped of weapons. He was bleeding from his mouth, and his eyes — he had the eyes of a killer, and just for a moment, Mithridates wasn’t amused.

‘You’re no herald,’ he said.

‘If I was,’ the man said, ‘you’d be guilty of impiety.’

‘Heralds,’ Mithridates said. ‘Do I look like a fucking Greek? Anyway, you have no staff. I can order you killed. I should.’

The man shrugged. ‘I’d like to live,’ he said through his split lip. ‘I’m here to tell you that Satyrus of Tanais is behind you with four thousand Sakje, and to offer you terms.’

No commander likes to have his subordinates hear about failure — especially one whose hold on power was as poor as Mithridates III of Bithynia. ‘Clear the tent,’ he said, glancing at his most dangerous rivals — the Lord of Niceas and the Lord of Apollonis, former mercenaries under Alexander, now petty tyrants in Asia. ‘Hold your tongue,’ he said to the man with the split lip.

He kept two guards and four slaves.

‘Now tell your story,’ he said. He’d had a moment to think about it, and while Satyrus might have got by him — by ship to Heraklea — Mithridates couldn’t see how he’d got four thousand Sakje. It didn’t hold water.

The man shrugged. ‘I’m here to offer you terms.’

‘You have a curious accent,’ Mithridates said. ‘Why the woman?’ he asked. He turned to look at her, and got a dagger point in the eye.

Lucius breathed out, a long exhalation like a sigh of despair. Both of the guards were dead, and the slaves had fled, and Mithridates IV was sitting on the stool. ‘That was not my best work,’ he admitted.

The young man on the ivory stool raised an eyebrow and rocked his head back and forth slightly, more like a handsome philosopher than a warlord. ‘Luckily, he was a fool,’ he said.

‘Should we be worried about the rest of the nobles?’ Lucius asked.

Mithridates sighed. ‘If we’re not dead in fifty heartbeats, I’ll be king for a while,’ he said.

‘Ares — that’s your plan?’ Lucius asked. He ran his thumb idly down his sword’s edge.

The Lord of Niceas pushed his head into the tent. His eyes widened — once at the blood, and again to see the young man on the stool. The Lord of Niceas was grey-haired, Greco-Persian, tall and hawk-nosed.

‘Come in, my lord, and swear fealty,’ Mithridates said.

‘Lord?’ the man said. Then he stepped in. He seemed unsure of himself. A dozen more local warlords came in behind him — too many for Lucius to kill all of them.

‘We are now allies of Lysimachos and Satyrus of Tanais,’ Mithridates said. ‘I will be receiving a small subsidy in gold. You will all receive a share.’ The handsome young man smiled.

They all smiled back. No one likes a battle, when the alternative is a subsidy.

They began to kneel and swear.

Lucius found that he felt light-headed. I need to get out of this business, he thought.

Antigonus found his enemies waiting on the shores of Lake Askania, and it became clear that his shaved knucklebone, the Bithynians, had betrayed him.

He sat on his horse and watched the enemy form opposite him. Their three big phalanxes filled the shores of the lake, and they had plenty of cavalry. He outnumbered them two to one, but they had started entrenching the narrow slice of farmland between the hills and the water.

‘Fucking Bithynians,’ he spat.

His numbers were still great enough to push through. He was sure his Macedonian veterans could rout whatever levies they used. But things happened in battles, and suddenly he was in hostile country, and if he lost here … well, he could forget conquering the world. He would be lucky to get buried.

Antigonus had been fighting wars since he was fifteen, and he was eighty-one. He had not arrived at this age by making rash decisions. So he halted his army on the banks of the lake and ordered his engineers forward. And he ordered his cavalry to start rounding up the population of the countryside. If their leaders chose to oppose him, the people would serve as slaves.

Besides, his son was ferrying his army over from Europe, in Lysimachos’s rear. He didn’t need to fight here.

Unless he could win. And one thing the fucking Bithynians wouldn’t do well was sit and wait while he raped their land.

Satyrus watched as the Antigonids began to lay out a fortified camp behind the heavy screen of cavalry and light infantry — thousands of men. Behind them, two full taxeis — almost as many pikemen as all of Lysimachos’s army — stood to, their pikes upright in the sun.

Anaxagoras, Stratokles and Mithridates watched with him. Slightly to the rear, Lucius and Herakles and Charmides played at dice. Herakles had begun to adopt Charmides as his role model — or his erastes. It was early days yet. Satyrus watched them with a reserve he hadn’t had on earlier campaigns. His sister was right. The joy was gone from the thing. No longer did he watch with fascination as war cemented the bonds of honour and friendship between warriors. Now he watched from a distance, expecting the best of them to die.

‘Why so glum?’ Anaxagoras asked. ‘He’s doing exactly what you said he would do.’

Satyrus shrugged. ‘That doesn’t make it any better. He can bleed us white, once his access to food and water is secure.’

Mithridates rubbed his beard. ‘You Greeks are the barbarians. He’s enslaving virtually the whole population of northern Mysia to build that camp.’

Anaxagoras barked a laugh. ‘Mithridates, you will be a great king but you are a poor historian. The Assyrians did the same, and the Babylonians, and the Persians, your ancestors. No people have a monopoly on barbarism. It is a human trait. All humans share it.’

Mithridates sighed. ‘I believe that is a cold comfort for my people over there.’ He looked at Satyrus, who was chewing an apple — a new apple, too green for eating, but the taste was delicious. ‘Can we do anything?’

Satyrus nodded. ‘We need wood and iron and bronze for war machines. Jubal is gathering them with the cavalry. When that is done, I will send my little band around the lake. Antigonus will do it as well. It would be best if you sent some of your noble cavalry and their retainers as far as you can — all the way into Mysia, if possible — to harry his patrols and his efforts at collecting wood. And slaves.’

Mithridates shook his head. ‘If I release my nobles, they will never come back,’ he said. ‘Most of them are already prepared to change sides, for certain assurances.’

Satyrus nodded once, briskly. ‘As I expected. Very well. Let’s find Lysimachos.’

Stratokles looked interested. ‘Why? I mean, from fear? Or because they already hate you?’

Mithridates laughed. ‘They hate anyone greater than themselves. It is our way. And they say — with some justice — that Antigonus has done nothing to them but enslave some peasants.’

Stratokles nodded. ‘Who would you say was your most dangerous nobleman? The one most likely to desert?’

Mithridates laughed again. ‘I really would be hard put to choose one among all of them,’ he said. ‘But Darius Thrakes, as we call him, is the worst of the lot, and he leads almost a thousand riders. I can’t touch him.’

Stratokles saw the look that passed between Satyrus and Lucius.

‘You can do this one yourself, boss,’ Lucius said.

Stratokles sighed.

Lysimachos, when they found him, was watching Jubal build war engines. He had sixty men — his own men, many former sailors and some former slave artificers — all laying out machines together, and he had another three hundred Bithynian workmen with adzes and axes.

‘That is a dangerous man,’ Lysimachos said. ‘Would you sell him to me?’

‘He’s not mine to sell,’ Satyrus said. ‘Try asking him.’

Jubal was standing, his chiton pulled down to his hips, showing a young smith the patterns for corner plates for a torsion engine — demonstrating how to form the plates, cut them, and bend them to shape with the minimum of work.

‘We need a cavalry raid,’ Satyrus said.

Lysimachos nodded. ‘Of course.’

‘Mithridates says his men will desert if allowed out of our lines,’ Satyrus said.

‘Aphrodite’s tits!’ Lysimachos exclaimed. ‘So you want my Getae?’

‘And all of my Sakje. Yes.’ Satyrus shrugged.

‘They hate each other. Your Scopasis and my Sakarnus — they are not friends.’ Lysimachos shook his head. ‘And if we lose them … Ares, Tanais, if we lose them, we can’t cover our retreat.’

If he calls me Tanais, should I call him Thrace? Satyrus thought. Lysimachos was a curious blend of old campaigner and parvenu king. ‘If we don’t try, we might as well retreat right now,’ he said.

Lysimachos shook his head. ‘We have a few days.’

Satyrus was still mounted, and he used his height and his voice to show his discontent. ‘I don’t agree,’ he said. ‘We do not have a few days. Antigonus will have his cavalry on the south shore by tomorrow.’

Lysimachos grinned at his own staff, all waiting a few horse lengths away. ‘This from your years of experience as a strategos, eh?’

Satyrus raised an eyebrow. ‘Your scouting is poor at best. Antigonus owned your flanks at Magnesia and again when I found you because you won’t send your best troops out into harm’s way to find and eliminate the enemy scouts.’

‘How nice! Lessons in hoplomachia from a Greek stripling.’ Lysimachos shook his head. ‘Listen, Tanais, don’t turn red on me like a maiden with her first dick. I’ve fought Antigonus and his son for as long as most of you have been alive. Scouting — listen. I can see his camp. He can see mine. If he wants to ride around and kill barbarians, let him.’

Satyrus nodded. ‘You fought for Alexander, right?’ he said. ‘So you really should know better.’ I should keep my mouth shut and ride away.

Lysimachos swung up onto the back of a pretty Nisean mare, the kind of warhorse men killed for. He was unruffled. ‘I remember what it is like to be young,’ he said. ‘I forgive you. You are a good ally, Satyrus of Tanais, and I don’t need a quarrel. So I’ll give you fifty Getae — no more.’

Several of his staff officers — Macedonians all — laughed. Lysimachos whirled on them. ‘Keep it to yourselves, gentlemen. Remember where we’d be without these men.’

Satyrus took a deep breath, held it, counted, and listened to the inaudible sounds of a lyre scale. When he was done, his eyes were clear and his smile was genuine.

‘Send me the cavalrymen at nightfall,’ he said. ‘And thank you.’

He and Lysimachos clasped hands.

As he rode away, Stratokles came up beside him. ‘I’m going,’ he said. ‘And I want Mithridates to send his goat-boy — Darius what’s-his-name. With fifty men.’

‘I’m commanding myself,’ Satyrus said.

‘All the better,’ Stratokles said.

Satyrus wanted a fine Nisean like Lysimachos’s horse. His gelding chewed the bit constantly, and now thrust out with his head, trying to act like a stallion. Satyrus slapped his neck. ‘You have plans for Darius?’

‘I think he should give his life for his country,’ Stratokles said. ‘Can you give Herakles a command?’

Satyrus turned in his saddle and eyed the young man. ‘I had intended to raise twenty cavalrymen from the mercenaries. Can Herakles be trusted to do it?’

Stratokles nodded. ‘Let’s find out.’

Anaxagoras laid his hand on Stratokles’ reins. ‘I hate to interrupt a good plot,’ he said.

‘But?’ Satyrus smiled.

‘You know that the men now know who he is, eh?’ Anaxagoras asked.

‘Who he claims to be,’ Satyrus added.

Stratokles shrugged. ‘It was bound to happen,’ he said.

‘Draco and some of the Apobatai are … emotional about it.’ Anaxagoras shook his head. ‘If he’s Alexander’s son, should we be sending him on cavalry patrols?’

‘Let them show their worship of him by keeping him alive,’ Satyrus said. He wondered whose voice uttered those words in such a tone of hard finality.

Anaxagoras clearly wondered, too. He met Satyrus’s eyes and held them. ‘Have a care,’ he said. ‘I think a music lesson is required.’

‘After the cavalry raid. Charmides, fetch me Scopasis: my compliments, and would he meet me at my pavilion.’

Satyrus’s pavilion was another topic of contention. They all used it — Anaxagoras, Charmides, Nikephorus and Stratokles all sat and drank wine and used the stores of cedar oil that Phoibos had against mosquitoes, and the lavender soap and whetstones and … everything. The man thought of everything.

But somehow, with the red oiled-silk pavilion and the slaves — now more than fifteen — who attended it, he gave Satyrus the air of a potentate, of a king. Satyrus understood better than some of his men understood — that he had always lived like one of them on campaign, and consequently, the appearance of his pavilion set him apart in a way he had never been set apart before.

The pavilion offended Anaxagoras and Charmides and Draco, but not Nikephorus, who simply wanted one of his own, nor Scopasis, who never seemed to notice it, as long as a cup of wine was put in his hand as soon as he dismounted.

Satyrus understood their discontent, which was really about him. And the change he was experiencing — from captain to king. From leader of a few to leader of an army. He seldom had time to talk about philosophy with Charmides, to play his lyre with Anaxagoras, or even to discuss Miriam. He longed to discuss Miriam, but his sense of justice made him hold his tongue. Anaxagoras had his own troubles, and didn’t need to talk about a woman who had, in effect, left them both.

Scopasis was waiting at the pavilion, long legs stretched before him as he leaned against a tent wall, a cup of wine in his hand.

‘I greet you,’ he said, formally.

Satyrus slipped down from his gelding, passed the reins to a slave, and smiled at Scopasis. ‘I greet you, hipparch.’

Scopasis smiled at the Greek word. ‘When did you last love a horse?’ Scopasis asked.

‘I was just thinking the same,’ Satyrus said, and nodded. ‘Too long. They die. Like flies.’

Scopasis folded his legs under him and rose to his feet. ‘Let me show you something I have for you, then,’ he said.

Behind the tent was a Nisean — grey like a storm at sea, with a small, high head and a pale mane and tail.

‘Is Antigonus dead?’ Satyrus asked. ‘Where did this horse come from?’ The stallion — his status was obvious — had red leather tack decorated in bronze, and a polished bronze bit in the Persian, and thus the Sakje, style, and a high-backed saddle like the Sauromatae used.

Scopasis shrugged. ‘I found him wandering the plain to the south, a broken hobble on his fetlock,’ he said. ‘My mare wanted him.’

‘He is magnificent,’ Satyrus said. Indeed, he was the tallest horse Satyrus had ever seen, or close enough. Melitta had a pair of war-Niseans, and they were of a size. ‘You should have him.’

Scopasis shook his head. ‘Too finicky. He needs five slaves and a constant supply of grain. But in a fight … by the gods, Satyrus, that is a fighting horse. My gift.’

Satyrus gave the Sakje a hug. Scopasis thumped his back.

‘The gods must have sent that horse,’ Satyrus said. ‘Because I was just thinking about how poor my horses are — and about leading a cavalry raid. I want all the Sakje — all your cavalrymen. We’ll have fifty Getae and another fifty Bithynians and at least fifty Greek cavalry. I plan to strike south around the lake — a long scout into the rear of his army.’

Scopasis nodded. ‘High time. I will come, of course, and all my men.’

They all ate dinner together: Satyrus and Scopasis, Charmides and Herakles, Nikephorus and Anaxagoras and Jubal and Orestes, his foreman, and two of the phylarchs, chosen by Phoibos; Naxes, an Athenian thetes risen to command, and Niceaos, an exiled aristocrat from Samos who looked like a Spartan from tip to toe. It was a good dinner — roebuck and rich bread and a plate of figs so good that the men ate them to the last fruit and sat on their stools, licking their fingers and laughing like boys.

‘Phoibos, you are a miracle worker,’ Satyrus said.

‘I endeavour to give satisfaction, lord,’ the man replied. ‘I must say, lord, that I find this — exhilarating. I might wish that I’d gone on campaign earlier. The challenges of maintaining the oikia in such circumstances — splendid. May I mention that our money supply is running low, lord?’

That brought Satyrus up short. ‘Low? I gave you a talent of silver.’

‘Yes, lord. I have a little more than a quarter of that left. You did insist that I pay for everything.’ He shrugged. ‘The figs were not cheap. Nor the roebuck, to be frank. The market here is very … expensive.’ The butler smiled ruefully.

Satyrus was taken aback. He was not used to thinking about money at all. But a talent of silver would pay a hundred mercenaries for the summer. ‘By Hephaestus, sir — how much did you pay for the figs?’

Phoibos shrugged. ‘A moment, if you please, lord?’ he said, and returned with a five-fold wax tablet. He flipped it open on his knee.

‘Ahh … here. Mykos did the shopping. A good pais with a head on his shoulders. Five silver owls of Athens.’ He nodded and snapped the tablets shut.

‘Five drachma? For figs?’ Satyrus turned to his assembled guests. ‘Please pardon me, gentlemen, but I need the figs back. We have soldiers to pay.’

Charmides fell off his stool he was laughing so hard.

Anaxagoras slapped his back. ‘That’s the first joke I’ve heard from you since Athens,’ he said.

‘Up until now, the food has been cheap,’ Satyrus said back. He turned back to Phoibos. ‘You are an excellent steward, and I recognise that you have the highest standards. I need them a little lower. A talent of silver has to last the entire campaign. And then some.’

Phoibos sniffed. ‘Ah. Very well, lord. I will economise.’

Scopasis held out his cup. ‘Do that thing tomorrow! For now, pour us more of the Chian!’

Satyrus shook his head. ‘A talent of silver is the value of twenty farms north of Olbia — the whole tax of a district.’

Phoibos nodded. ‘It is not cheap, to be a king,’ he answered gravely.

When they gathered, it was still dark. The Getae came in early — only thirty of them instead of fifty, under a young, blond nobleman who looked more like a Keltoi than a Getae. His Greek was excellent — he was called Calicles, and while he kept his distance from Scopasis, he was not ill at ease with the other officers.

His men all came with two horses apiece, or more.

Herakles had two dozen men, most of them older veterans. Most Macedonians could ride, and the infantry was full of Thessalian peasants who had been born to riding but couldn’t afford a horse or panoply. The young man looked more terrified than inflated by his first command.

‘Don’t fuss,’ Satyrus said. ‘Who’s your hyperetes?’

Draco came forward out of the murk. ‘I am, lord,’ he said. He was grinning from ear to ear.

‘I wondered where you were,’ Satyrus said. I am so far from these men, he thought. ‘You can be the hyperetes of the whole force. Get me a trumpet. Charmides, find me a trumpeter. Even if he’s a slave.’

Mithridates provided the trumpeter — a young boy, no more than twelve. His trumpet seemed as long as he was, and he rode a magnificent horse — almost as tall as Satyrus’s gelding, an enormous horse for a boy. ‘My great-uncle’s son, Artaxerxes,’ he said. ‘He’s lucky I haven’t executed him. If he doesn’t come back,’ Mithridates’ eyes grew hard, ‘I shall shed no tears.’ The new King of Bithynia looked troubled in the grey light of first dawn. ‘I should ride with you. If only to keep an eye on that one.’

Satyrus looked at Darius Thrakes, the lord of the northern Bithynians, a man who looked more like a Getae nobleman than Calicles who led them. But the Thracians had been in Bithynia for generations. ‘We’ll keep an eye on him,’ Satyrus said, his eyes flicking to Stratokles.

Stratokles was tightening his girth. He was a hippeis class Athenian, and an expert cavalryman — one of the few Satyrus had. Lucius was a cavalry-class Latin — also a professional. The three of them had more professional cavalry experience than most of the rest of their Greek troopers combined.

Stratokles got his girth the way he wanted, played with the buckles on his Sakje-style bridle, and Lucius gave him a leg up into the saddle. The Athenian then turned his mare. ‘I’ll go make friends with him,’ he said.

The Bithynians were strong — almost a hundred cavalrymen, all with two mounts. They had a baggage wagon, as well.

Satyrus rode up to Lord Darius and clasped his hand. The hand was not offered with any great willingness. ‘Good morning. Fine-looking horseman, lord. Please leave your baggage wagons.’

Darius smiled. ‘No,’ he said.

Satyrus shrugged. He turned to Draco. ‘Burn them,’ he said.

Darius froze. ‘We will-’

Satyrus forced himself to smile. ‘You and your men will all die. Understand? War is not a game. You want those wagons so that you can ride away and leave us. That won’t be happening, my lord. If it does, we will hunt you down and kill you. Every man. Understand? You think you are a wily, dangerous man. The men sitting around you have been at war for their entire lives. Understand, lord?’

He saw it all in the other man’s eyes — fear, and hate, and acceptance. It made Satyrus tired.

Behind the Bithynian nobleman, Stratokles smiled mirthlessly.

By noon, they were well south of the lake, edging along the downslope behind the crest of the main ridge of the hills ringing the lake, so that they were hidden from Antigonus — unless his horsemen had beaten them to the ridge top. There were parties of Sakje and Getae all around them, and each of them had one Bithynian trooper as a scout and guide.

And Darius rode between Stratokles and Lucius, so obviously a hostage that his men understood and obeyed.

‘You’ve done this before?’ Satyrus asked Stratokles.

Stratokles grinned. ‘I’m an Athenian,’ he said. ‘Before the Macedonians, we had an empire that covered most of Thrace and all of the Asian coast. Unwilling allies — it’s an Athenian speciality. Don’t worry, when we’re done, the Bithynians will be as eager as Scopasis. More so.’

Lucius grimaced.

Herakles was cautious and careful of his men, and Draco had to drive him forward. Scopasis was too rash, and Satyrus had restrain him, finding a fine edge between speed and foolishness.

Anaxagoras rode at his shoulder and shared his canteen. ‘You play them like I play the kithara,’ he said. ‘Charmides is a first rate leader.’

‘But a poor rider,’ Satyrus said.

‘So you coach him on riding. Herakles is a good rider,’ Anaxagoras said.

‘But a nervous man with his first command, starting at shadows.’ Satyrus dug his knees into his gelding’s back and rose up, looking forward and then down the ridge to the left and south. He could see Sakje — red jacketed, most of them — away to the south on the next ridge, and well ahead, too. He longed to be on the back of his stallion, but he was saving the Nisean for the inevitable moment.

He spared a thought for his ancestor Herakles. He had dreamed of death the night before.

Anaxagoras turned to Artaxerxes. ‘Tell me about yourself, youngster. Who is your father?’

The young Mede coloured. ‘My father was Xerxes son of Artaphernes. He is dead. My mother is dead. My brothers and sisters are dead. I was a hostage in Mysia when they were killed, and now I am a prisoner of my great-uncle. May I have a sword?’

Anaxagoras shook his head. ‘They’re worse than Macedonians,’ he said. ‘You can have a sword when the king and I think you are worthy of it. Do you know how to use a sword?’

‘Oh, yes,’ the boy said.

Anaxagoras raised his eyebrows. ‘Really?’ he asked.

‘Your first pupil,’ Satyrus said. ‘All boys claim that they can wrestle and use a sword.’

‘Can you play music?’ Anaxagoras asked.

‘I play the harp. And the flute.’ The boy nodded. ‘And the trumpet,’ he said with disdain.

Satyrus didn’t like what he was seeing to the west. He rose to his knees, shifted his weight so that he could kneel on the gelding’s back. He needed to see a little farther.

‘Would you rather be here with us, or in Mithridates’ tent?’ Anaxagoras asked.

‘Here with you, lord! Mithridates has to have me killed.’ The boy shrugged. ‘If I grow to manhood, I will surely kill him.’

Anaxagoras clucked. ‘So the trumpet has already bought you a few days of life,’ he said.

There were men in a gully — Satyrus was sure of it. Almost sure of it. The sun was high in the sky, and even this close to autumn, the heat was palpable.

‘Sound halt,’ Satyrus said. ‘One long blast.’

Artaxerxes froze.

‘Now, boy,’ Satyrus said.

The trumpet went to the boy’s lips, and the call rang out — the first time, a spluttering sound like a flock of geese, but the second was a loud clarion that carried across the valley.

All the Sakje froze.

A few of the Getae stopped moving. The officers at least looked around.

‘Enemy is front. Do you know the call?’ Satyrus asked. This is what the Sakje did — using trumpets to tell distant scouts what to do. The Exiles were masters of the trumpet. Satyrus and Scopasis knew all the calls — not so the rest of the phylarchs. Herakles wouldn’t know five of them, which was one of the reasons he and Charmides were close to the main column.

Anaxagoras whistled the call, and Satyrus shot him a thankful glance.

The boy put the trumpet to his lips and played. The first call was halting, but again, the second was high and loud.

Satyrus took a spear from Charmides and pointed it at the gully, three stades distant, where he had seen flashes. Far away to the front, a mounted man smaller than an insect waved a lance. Sakje riders broke right and left, enveloping the head of the gully.

They got four prisoners, and the fight was on.

The Antigonid cavalry was just coming over the ridge. The men in the gully were their prodromoi, and they had a heavy force behind them.

Satyrus brought his column forward at a trot, heedless of the sun and the thirst of his horses until he had his men well down in the shade of the valley.

‘Water them by sections,’ he said, and changed horses to the Nisean — The horse was a pleasure under him — calm, collected, eager. He turned to Charmides. ‘Do not move forward until all the horses are watered. Then come up to me.’ He took Artaxerxes and Anaxagoras and went sloping up the ridge towards the fighting.

Scopasis had twenty men, a dozen Getae and some of the Bithynians as well. He’d dismounted them in an olive grove — a natural growth of wild olives, high on the flank of the main ridge above the lake. The Sakje had bows, and a few of the Bithynians and Getae did as well.

The enemy had already made an attempt on his position. It was nigh impregnable; rocks spiked out of the sandy ground, and the trees provided dense cover. The ridge top fell away around them so that the last approach to the summit was steep and rocky — terrible cavalry ground. But just below the summit was a long meadow coated in late-summer flowers, and the drone of bees filled the air. At the far side of the meadow, three hundred enemy cavalry formed in two great rhomboids, and ahead of them came two dozen infantry skirmishers, moving cautiously across the meadow.

‘They tried the road,’ Scopasis said, pointing to the gap between two enormous rocks. The gap was filled with dead men and horses. ‘Nice horse,’ he said, and smiled.

‘He’s a pleasure,’ Satyrus said.

Scopasis nodded. ‘Don’t get him killed,’ he said. ‘I like him.’

Satyrus nodded. He unslung his gorytos, rode over to a Bithynian trooper.

‘Know how to shoot?’ he asked.

The man grinned. He had two gold teeth, and he looked particularly rapacious. ‘Aye, King!’ he said.

Satyrus gave the man his bow. ‘I’ll want it back,’ he said. ‘So try not to die.’

Again, the gold glinting grin. ‘Aye, King.’ The man said again.

Satyrus rode back to Scopasis. ‘How’re the Bithynians?’

‘Not bad at all. Some of them can ride.’ From a Sakje, this was praise. ‘How long?’ he asked.

Satyrus shook his head. ‘I told Charmides to water all the horses,’ he said. ‘And Stratokles is already west of here — he may not even know we’ve stopped.’

Scopasis nodded. ‘He’ll know,’ he said. ‘Here they come.’

The enemy cavalry — mostly Mysians, and some Persians, with Greek officers — came forward and met with archery. They tried to circle around the summit and found less resistance.

After fifteen minutes, they retired, leaving a dozen dead and wounded.

Scopasis puffed up his cheeks and blew out. ‘Fools. Now their horses are blown and unwatered.’

Satyrus shook his head. ‘Remember that up until now, they’ve had it all their own way,’ he said. ‘No reason they should expect anything else.’

The Getae and the Bithynians were beside themselves with joy — forty men against three hundred, and holding their own.

The Sakje were methodically stripping the enemy dead.

Now the enemy hipparch sent his infantry scouts out — carefully probing the ground all around the summit. They were fixated on Scopasis, and missed the main body of the allied cavalry until it was almost on them. Satyrus leaped up, gathered his reins, and wriggled onto his horse’s back. His legs were already tired. It made him feel old.

‘Come when you can,’ he called to Scopasis. He found that his trumpeter was right with him, and he rode along the road, over the fly-infested corpses from the first attack, and into the field of bees.

Charmides was forming his files. It was odd — more like a dream than a real fight. They were on a hilltop meadow in the sun, so that all Satyrus could see was a field of flowers and distant mountaintops, as if they were fighting in the heavens for the entertainment of the gods. The drone of bees filled his ears.

Charmides was appalled at the responsibility — he’d never commanded so many men, and he’d dismounted to organise them, unsure of his seat.

They were forming well — the professional Greeks in the centre, and the Sakje and Getae on the flanks. They were still outnumbered two to one, but their horses were fresh and all the Sakje had bows. Without orders, they cantered forward and loosed a volley.

Satyrus was too late to stop them, and he shrugged.

‘Surely they are helping you win this action,’ Anaxagoras said.

‘We didn’t need to fight,’ Satyrus said. ‘Their horses have no water. They should have retreated. But now we’ve stung them, and their hipparch is inexperienced, so he’ll come forward, and men will die.’

‘Surely that is war,’ Anaxagoras said.

‘Will you be so philosophical if it is you?’ Satyrus asked, somewhat pettishly.

The Corinthian pursed his lips, then fumbled for his helmet. The enemy was coming.

The first clash was hard fought. The enemy may have been tired and their horses unwatered, but they had weight of horse, numbers, and a certain determination, and the mêlée was desperate. Satyrus led the counter-charge from the centre — he put himself in front of Charmides’ little troop of bodyguards, took a spear from the phylarch, snapped his cheek-plates down and pointed with the spear.

The two forces met with a crash like an avalanche in a winter valley, and the meadow packed them so tight that men were brought to a stand or knocked flat. Satyrus was at an advantage, mounted on his magnificent new Nisean, and he knocked aside a Lydian noble in scale armour on a much smaller horse. His spear glanced from the man’s aventail, the man’s lance missed over his shoulder, and then he was reining frantically, his hands in the Nisean’s mane, trying to keep him upright as he trampled the smaller horse.

He’d lost his spear, so drew his sword — the good sword Demetrios had given him. The Lydians were well-armoured men, and the sword’s point was quickly dulled against the bronze breastplates most of them wore.

Then he was in the midst of the enemy. Both sides had threaded each other, so that their files were intermixed, and his back-plate rang with blows; he was face to face with a Macedonian officer, and Satyrus got his bridle hand on the other man’s elbow, put his pommel in the man’s face, and took his spear from his unresisting hands as the man fell. It was a good spear, short and needle sharp, and Satyrus used it against the unarmoured rumps of the Lydian horses around him, twisting and stabbing like a viper.

And then he heard Charmides shouting to his right — he had both hands on the spear haft, and he shifted his weight and the stallion backed a few steps, as nimble as a dog, and Satyrus loved him. He shifted his weight and he backed again.

A terrific blow on his head and he was on the ground, on his feet, but a horse stepped on his foot and he was down in the dust.

The stallion stood over him.

He must have lost consciousness for some time — heartbeats or more — suddenly Charmides was right over him, and Satyrus got his feet under him and got to his feet, although his head was spinning and his foot hurt so badly he couldn’t put his full weight on it. But the Macedonian’s spear was right there and he got a hand on it, used it to hold his weight and then, as he had been taught as a boy, he put it against the stallion’s back and stepped up onto the spear with his good foot, gritted his teeth against the pain in his other foot and got his leg over. He barely clung on, hung there a moment like a sack of wool, but he was up, and despite the pain reached behind and retrieved the spear.

Scopasis had come into the flank of the enemy. He could see where they were falling back, and how they had been disoriented by Scopasis’s charge.

He looked around. His trumpeter had blood running down his neck — an ear, cut clean off. And his trumpet was cut in two. He had used it as a club.

‘Rally!’ he began to call. It hurt his head.