Storm of arrows

4

The funeral of Cleitus was a city-wide occasion. Almost every household had dead to mourn, between the battle at the ford and the storming of the city and the tyrant’s excesses. The dead of the great battle were long since buried, and the trophy long since raised at the edge of a field of unburied enemies — a cursed spot to any Greek, and an uncomfortable thought — but the dead were still fresh in the memories of their city, and needed words said in public to mourn them.

Cleitus, who had once been the city’s hipparch, and remained the leader of the aristocratic faction until his death, remained unburied, because the tyrant had denied his family the right to conduct the funeral. He had feared the public reaction.

Now Kineas had the tyrant’s ivory stool. He did not wear a diadem and he did not reside in the palace — instead, he awoke as usual at the hippodrome barracks, where the tyrant’s ivory stool leaned against the wall like a reminder, or an accusation. He was in some middle ground between the absolute power of the tyrant and his old role as hipparch and strategos, or military commander. He ordered that the funeral be a public occasion, and he was obeyed.

The army had been in the city for five days. There were Athenian ships in the harbour demanding grain, and the first boats full of grain were on their way down the raging river to the port. The autumn market was opening on the plain north of the city, although it would be weeks before cargoes could be gathered for the Athenian merchants, who owned the largest ships in the world. On the third night, he had gone to the stables and bridled the Getae mare and ridden her out of the dark gates, past all the farms, to the beginning of the sea of grass. As the sun rose, he sat at the edge of her world, and he reached out like a baqca…

Across the plains that rolled under the new sun, past the camp where Marthax chewed on the ruin of his plans, then north and east around the Bay of Salmon, and there she was, rising in the dawn, naked to the waist, cleaning her teeth with a twig, and she gave a start as he came near and grinned…

He awoke cold, and tired like a drunkard, but he was happy again.

The next night, Kineas dreamed of Srayanka’s tribes and their horses riding over the sea of grass, and of the dead, and of the tree. He tried to banish his dreams. He longed to be away into the dawn.

On the high ground north of the market camped the little army of Sauromatae. City slaves had built them cabins against the late summer rain, but Prince Lot’s presence at his side served to remind Kineas, if he needed any reminder, that the sailing season was closing in, and he needed to leave soon if he was leaving at all. Five days in Olbia had revealed a host of reasons why he could not leave. The assembly had met twice and both times he had risen to announce his departure, and both times he had instead spoken of how many of the tyrant’s laws had to be repealed, and how essential it was that the rule of law be restored.

On the fourth day, the assembly made him archon.

He went back to the barracks and talked with Philokles and Diodorus for hours, and then he sat on the ivory stool in the agora and announced the funeral of Cleitus.

The funeral day promised to be warm and sunny, and the procession began to form under the stars of earliest morning, the first stars and clear sky they had seen in days. Diodorus had the hippeis mustered before the first blush of dawn on the sand of the hippodrome. He had good officers under him, veteran hyperetes, and every man in the ranks had served in a battle — some in three.

Niceas grunted. ‘They don’t look the same as they did last year,’ he said.

Kineas rubbed his chin. It was not a day for laughter, but he smiled. ‘No,’ he said. As he grew used to power, he was learning to say less and think more. ‘No, they don’t.’

Niceas grunted again. ‘Weather looks better. Sky is clear.’ Behind him, the hippeis were falling in. Where five hundred had mustered on the morning of the great battle, fewer than four hundred would answer today.

The survivors of Cleitus’s fourth troop — now under Petrocolus’s command — were the strongest. They had come late for the battle and ridden only in the final charge, and despite having the oldest men, experience and fine horses had kept most of them alive.

But Nicomedes was dead — and his hyperetes for the third troop, Ajax of Tomis, lay in a canvas shroud, sewn tight, awaiting shipment to Tomis to be buried by his father. Their troop had fought alone against a tide of Macedonian horse, and died almost to a man. The survivors made a silent file in second troop.

Leucon had died in the rain and confusion of the night action, and Eumenes, despite three wounds and the treason of his father, sat at the head of first troop with Cliomenedes. Eumenes’ father, Cleomenes, had been instrumental in handing the city to the Macedonians — either for personal gain or because he truly believed that Macedon promised the city a richer future. He had died out on the sea of grass, leaving his son a rich man, and a deeply unpopular one.

Clio was the youngest of their officers, Petrocolus’s adolescent son, who had commanded the troop through the harrowing last hour of the great battle, and he was struggling to maintain authority despite his popularity and obvious courage. The two young men had all the youngest cavalrymen and his troop had seen the longest fighting, if not the hardest. The homes of the wealthy up by the statue of Apollo were still full of wounded from this troop, but for the moment, only twenty troopers sat behind them,

Only second troop, commanded by Diodorus and now holding all the mercenary cavalrymen, looked prepared for another day of battle. A summer of campaigning had made Diodorus into a fine commander, and Antigonus the Gaul was the complete hyperetes — calm, authoritative and efficient. His appointment made the integration of the tyrant’s former bodyguard simpler, because he spoke their language and could claim some birth that impressed even Hama, their chieftain. There were almost a hundred of the Keltoi, and they were natural horsemen. Recent enmity meant nothing to them — more important were their endless taboos and rituals. A Greek officer might quickly have fallen foul of them. Antigonus had no such troubles. But for political reasons, only Hama and a dozen of his Keltoi rode in the second troop today. The rest were in their barracks. This was a parade of the victors.

And there was Heron. The tall young man was no less gawky in the saddle than walking the grass, and even the tallest of the captured chargers was too small for him. His troop — men of Pantecapaeum, a neighbouring city, and not really under Kineas’s command — had also taken part in Nicomedes’ desperate defence on the left of the army. They had been luckier — and broken earlier — and fifty saddles remained filled. But their victory was bitter-sweet. They were now exiles. Victory in the great battle had empowered the democratic faction in their city, and the troop of rich men — aristocrats to a trooper — was no longer wanted at home.

Kineas and Diodorus had been the victims of just such an event. They knew the sting of exile — the humiliation and the endless small slights that citizens imposed on stateless men. But Heron was a prickly fellow at the best of times, and he sat in his resentment, disdaining attempts to improve his lot, and his men followed his lead. They remained with Kineas because most of them had nowhere else to go.

Finally, formed on the far left of the line of hippeis, there were Ataelus’s twenty Sakje, half of them women. They wore odd combinations of Greek and Sakje armour, rode expensive horses and were covered in gold. They were exotic and dangerous and they would march in the procession, despite the protests of certain city factions, as would the Sauromatae.

All the survivors had benefited from the battle by acquiring the very best of the Macedonian armour and the heavy Macedonian chargers. On the day of battle, the Macedonian horses had been starved and tired — but a month on the grass, even in the rain, had restored some of their spirit, and five days’ access to the granaries of the city meant that every man was mounted like a prince.

Diodorus cantered up and gave a precise salute, his fist clenched on his breastplate. Kineas returned it.

‘Rain’s stopped,’ Diodorus said. He grinned, his sharp features and freckled cheeks glowing with pleasure. He enjoyed command, and he worried less about the future than Kineas. ‘Maybe there’s hope after all,’ he added. ‘You look beautiful, I must say.’

‘Why are you so fucking cheerful?’ Kineas asked.

‘I’m tired of rain. And Coenus is better this morning. His fever broke in the dark. He ate.’ Diodorus tilted his helmet back so that his red hair showed at the brow. ‘You have to see him. It’s a gift from the gods.’

Kineas felt his mood lighten immediately. Coenus — one of his oldest friends, one of his best men, a scholar and a fellow exile — had been given up for dead.

So Kineas had a different look about him as he took his place at the head of the hippeis and led them out into the streets, through the gate and along the edge of the market to where the priests of Apollo waited with the phalanx — all the men of the city. There were gaps in the phalanx just as there were in the hippeis, but in his present mood, Kineas was glad to see that there were also men back standing in the ranks who had ridden into the city in the wagons of wounded.

Every morning another two or three of the wounded tried on their armour and either crept back to their pallets defeated, or fought their way through a fog of dizziness and weakness to attend the musters. The recoveries had peaked now. Kineas, who visited the wounded twice a day, had little hope for the men who continued to lose weight, or whose wounds were still fevered.

Sitalkes, the Getae boy, was one. Coenus had been another — with light wounds that had suddenly festered — and he had been down since the army left Marthax. If he had recovered, there was still hope for the rest.

Movement in the Sauromatae camp roused him from thought. Prince Lot was mounting a captured Macedonian mare. He waved to Kineas, and Kineas waved back. A glance over his shoulder showed him that Memnon was some minutes from having the phalanx in order. He pressed his knees against his own captured Macedonian charger and cantered painfully across the short-cropped grass, his hip burning with the rhythm of his unnamed charger’s hooves.

Lot raised a fist in greeting. ‘Rain stops!’ he said in Greek. He pointed to the sky over Kineas’s shoulder, where dark blue could be seen at the base of the sky in the east like the glaze on an expensive cup.

‘Rain stops,’ Kineas agreed. The Sauromatae had fought in every action that Kineas had led. Their superior armour and battle skills had kept many of them alive despite a battering, and most of their saddles would be full if they mustered. Their horse herd, bolstered by their share of the Macedonian and Getae spoils, numbered almost a thousand, guarded by shifts of well-armed young women, and they were eating Olbia’s farmers out of their grain, yet another problem Kineas had to face.

‘Rain stops and ground hard again,’ Lot said. ‘Hard ground makes good road east.’ The Sauromatae prince leaned close. ‘Need to ride — need to be home.’

Kineas switched to Sakje, a language where he was stilted and Lot was more fluent. ‘At least a month until we ride, cousin.’ Kineas had adopted the habit of addressing the senior tribal officers as cousins, elder or younger as age and rank dictated.

Lot had a magnificent, if barbaric, blond moustache, and his right hand parted his moustache and then twirled each end, a habit that was sometimes imitated behind his back. ‘Need to ride,’ he said in Sakje. ‘My nephew worries me.’

Kineas shrugged. ‘Nephew?’ he asked, wondering which of the many Sauromatae or even Sakje counted as his nephew.

‘My wife’s sister’s son. My heir. He worries me.’ Lot stared out over the sea of grass as if he could see the man riding in the distance. ‘Never thought to be gone so long.’ Lot looked chagrined. ‘Didn’t know the sea of grass was so big. ’

Kineas raised a hand to forestall him. Lot had done his share — far more than his share — to win the victory at the Ford of the River God. Since that day, Lot had never ceased to press the Sakje and the Greeks to follow him east, where his tribe and the others of the Massagetae confederacy — the eastern Sakje — were hard pressed by Alexander. And the five days of waiting at Olbia was making him edgy.

‘Patience,’ Kineas said. ‘Today we mourn our dead.’

Lot bowed his head. Then he waved to his own nobles, who began to file out into the column. Niceas had kept a space for them — they were aliens, but they were allies, and with Ataelus’s little troop of prodromoi, they represented the whole realm of the Sakje out on the sea of grass.

A realm that might now be an enemy of Olbia. Kineas shook his head to clear it, because this was the day of mourning, and politics would have to wait.

Helladius, now chief priest of Apollo, joined him. Helladius was an old and very conservative priest, but he had held his ground in the phalanx. Memnon had noted that the old fool had ended the battle in the front rank and done his part.

‘You will lead the procession?’ Helladius asked.

Kineas shook his head. ‘No. We will return to the ways of the city before the tyrant came. The priests of Apollo will lead, followed by the hippeis and allies and the phalanx, and then Cleitus’s body and his honour guard. I will ride with them.’

Helladius nodded. ‘The god smiles on you, Archon,’ he said. ‘I have interpreted the omens for you all summer, and I say that you are beloved of all the gods, but of Apollo and Athena most of all.’

Kineas narrowly avoided a cynical reply. Hubris was never becoming, and Helladius was not a sanctimonious fool. Or not entirely. ‘Thank you,’ he said carefully.

The funeral procession marched on time, because the army had a summer of campaigning behind it. The priests sang, and the phalanx caught the tune and sang with them, scandalizing the younger priests who had not served with the army. And then, as the procession entered the gates, Helladius began the paean, and all the soldiers took it up, thousands of throats straining to praise Apollo, the same chant that had settled their nerves in the last seconds before the Macedonian charge. Dolphins of gold rose on either side of the gate, and the temple of Apollo was visible at the end of the long street of the gods, and still the paean lifted to the heavens with its song of reverence and victory. Kineas found that he could not sing for the tears in his throat, and when he turned his horse to see the column he could see that many men were weeping openly as they sang, and yet the power of the paean waxed as if all the missing voices were there too, and for a moment the distinction between the world and… the world blurred and Kineas heard Ajax beside him, his pure voice full of pride, and Nicomedes’ harsh croak in his ear, and Agis, who so revered the god, and many others.

When the paean ended, so many men were weeping that it sounded as if the god was mourning, the sound of their laments echoing from the temple and across the agora, the sound magnified by the men too wounded to march but standing in orderly ranks at the foot of the temple steps, and the women, mothers and sisters and lovers and wives.

The troopers carrying Cleitus’s ashes climbed the steps and placed the ashes where Kineas and Petrocolus had placed a bronze statue of Nike from Nicomedes’ house. The priests sacrificed in the temple and blessed the people and the city, and then Helladius raised his arms and turned to Kineas.

Kineas dismounted from his Macedonian charger and walked up the steps, his thigh burning at every step and making his climb painful and slow. He stopped below the statue of Nike, so that her wings were over his head, and turned to the crowd.

‘I speak to the whole city, the citizens and the wives and the mothers and the farmers and the smiths and the Greeks and the Sindi and even the slaves,’ he said. A year of speaking in public had improved his manner, and the occasion gained him their utter silence.

‘Nothing I can say will make the dead greater in the eyes of the gods,’ he said. ‘Cleitus, who gave his life to save you from the tyrant, failed because he was one man. But all the dead, together, drove the Macedonian from the field and slaughtered him. And all together killed the tyrant and freed the city. All the dead sacrificed themselves equally for the triumph of the city.’

He looked out over the agora with the feeling that he could see many men who were dead, and perhaps even some who were not yet alive. ‘When we faced Zopryon in battle, no man flinched. The Sakje stood and the Greeks stood. The hippeis stood and the hoplites stood. The citizen and the mercenary stood together. Indeed, the slaves stood their ground, and this city has twice a hundred free men today because as slaves they did not cower.

‘Virtue — freedom and liberty — is the concern of every man, not a few politicians or a few soldiers,’ he said. ‘I will chide you, Olbia, in full view of all the gods. You allowed a few men to make your laws and paid a few men to guard your walls, and those few became your rulers. Politicians and mercenaries!’ he bellowed, and his words echoed off the walls.

‘Cleitus died to pull down the tyrant — and failed, because he was one man, murdered for his voice. We waded in blood to stop Macedon — aye, and lost hundreds of the flower of this city’s best men. But on our return, we overthrew the tyrant in an hour with a thousand willing hands helping us into the city and into the citadel. Women threw down ropes to the army. Slaves led us to the open postern of the citadel. Never let this lesson be lost on you, citizens of Olbia! Women of Olbia! Slaves of Olbia! In your hands are the keys to the city and the keys of your own chains!’

Chains chains chains echoed off the walls.

‘Had Cleitus lived, he would now be archon,’ Kineas continued. ‘He was an honest man, a powerful speaker and a trained lawmaker. But he is dead.’ Kineas paused, and then pointed at another Nike, also from Nicomedes’ house, beside him on the steps. ‘Had he lived, Nicomedes might have been archon. He desired the role with all his ambition, and he had the talents to lead the city to greatness. But he fell in the battle.’

Kineas looked out over the crowd, where men shouted ‘Lead us, then!’ as if they had been paid. He shook his head.

‘I have acted as archon for a few days — to see the dead buried, and to see good laws passed. But I will not be tyrant. And if I stay, either I will make myself your lord, or you yourselves will make me take the power. I must go east — to fight against Macedon, and to preserve the liberty you have just won. Our allies on the plains still need our help, and I will go with them. And when I return, you will be a strong state, with a free assembly, and I will vote my vote and grumble when my motion is defeated, drinking my wine in a wine shop and cursing that my side had the fewer voices.’

Then he told the story of the campaign, from the first rumour of Zopryon, to the assembly voting for war, through the campaign against the Getae and on to the last battle — a long story, so that his voice was hoarse when he reached the end. He named as many of the dead as he could — from young Kyros, who had been a great athlete, the first to fall in combat, to Satyrus One-Eye, who died in the courtyard of the tyrant’s palace. He recounted their names and their deeds, until the crowd wept again that so many had fallen. And as he spoke, the sun rose to its full height in the sky.

When he fell silent, Helladius saluted the disk of the sun, and all the people cheered, and then they sang: I begin singing of Demeter,

The goddess with shining hair,

And Persephone, her daughter, fair Slim-ankled, too. Hades took her,

Zeus gave her to his brother,

Far-seeing Lord of Thunder.

They sang the hymn to the end, and another to Apollo, as the sun rose strong on their faces. And then Kineas raised his arms for silence and summoned the assembly for the next day. He bowed to the grave markers of Cleitus and Nicomedes as if the men were standing with him and then he limped down the steps of the temple, mounted his horse and rode away.

That night, Kineas dreamed again of the column of the dead, and again a dead friend vomited sand — this time Graccus, a long-dead boyhood friend. But the tone of the dream changed, so that he was less afraid. And then a woman came to him.

‘I have come to offer you a choice,’ she said. She had the white skin of a goddess and she looked like his mother — or like someone else, someone as familiar as his mother.

He smiled at her in the dream because it was such a Greek dream, a welcome relief from the strain of the tree and the animal totems and the alienness that had infected his dreams since he came to the plains. She was dressed in a peculiar garment, a bell-shaped skirt and a tight jacket that bared her breasts. Kineas had seen such a costume on a priestess once, and on old statues.

‘State your choice, Goddess,’ Kineas said.

She laughed when he called her goddess. ‘If you remain here, you will be king. You will rule well and wisely, and your city will be the richest in the circle of the seas.’

Kineas nodded.

‘If you travel east, your life will be short-’ she said.

Kineas interrupted her without intending it. ‘This is Achilles’ choice?’ he asked. ‘If I go east, I will live a short life, but a glorious one? And all the world will know my name?’

She smiled, and it was an ill smile, the sort that terrified men. ‘Do not interrupt me,’ she said. ‘Hubris has many forms.’

Kineas stood in silence.

‘If you go east, your life will be short, and no one but your friends and your enemies will know your name.’

Kineas nodded. ‘It seems like an easy choice,’ he said.

The goddess smiled. She kissed his brow…

He awoke to ponder the meaning of the first dream — a true one, he was sure. He needed Kam Baqca to interpret it, but it occurred to him that Helladius was not such a fool as he sometimes acted. The second dream needed no interpretation.

Kineas arose with the kiss of the goddess still lingering on his forehead and a sense of well-being, a very different mood from the day before. The sun was shining on the sand of the hippodrome. And down the hall, Sitalkes sat up in his bed and Coenus asked for a book, and the mood of the barracks changed as if the sun had come inside. Indeed, Kineas wondered if men were simpler creatures than he had supposed, that a day of sunshine could so change their mood, or serve to mend wounded men who had abandoned hope and turned to the wall, expecting to die. Men recovered in the citadel, and in their homes, as if the touch of the sun on their skin carried the healing of the Lord of the Silver Bow.

Kineas had a morning meeting arranged with the Athenian captains in his role as the acting archon, but well before that he donned his second-best tunic and a light chlamys and slipped out of the barracks alone. He purchased a cup of fruit juice from a stall in the agora, ate a seed cake in front of a jeweller’s stall, purchased a fine gold ring for Srayanka and then climbed the steps of the temple of Apollo just as the morning prayer to the sun was finished.

Kineas waited until the last of the singers were clear of the vestry before he approached the priest, and he was surprised to see the young Sakje girl walking with the maidens.

The priest was putting away his shawl, examining the fine wool for cleanliness as he folded it.

‘Helladius,’ Kineas said. ‘The Lord of the Silver Bow has seen fit to restore the sun.’

Helladius nodded. ‘My lord withholds his anger.’

Kineas raised an eyebrow. ‘Anger?’

Helladius shrugged. ‘Who can know the thoughts of the gods?’ he said. ‘But I imagine that my lord was less than pleased at the unburied bodies at the Ford of the River God and withheld the sun, just as the Lord of Horses sent his waters to cover the death at his ford.’

Kineas nodded slowly. His mother and his uncles had been such believers — those who saw the hands of the gods in everything. ‘It might be as you say,’ he admitted.

‘Or not,’ said Helladius. ‘I commit no hubris. What brings you here to honour my morning prayers?’

‘Who is the Sakje girl?’ Kineas asked.

‘Her father was a priest — a great seer, despite being a barbarian. His daughter is always welcome here.’ Helladius smiled at her retreating back.

‘You knew Kam Baqca?’ Kineas asked.

‘Of course!’ Helladius said. ‘He travelled widely. He wintered here with us on several occasions.’ He took Kineas’s arm and led him into the temple.

‘I think of Kam Baqca as a woman,’ Kineas said.

‘We knew him before he made that sacrifice,’ Helladius said, and then shook his head. ‘I don’t think you came here to discuss a barbarian shaman, no matter how worthy.’

‘I have a dream,’ Kineas said.

‘You have powerful dreams, Archon. Indeed, I saw when the Sakje treated you as a priest.’ Helladius turned and began to walk towards the temple garden. ‘Come, let us walk together.’

Kineas fell in beside him. ‘Yes. The gods have always seen fit to provide me with strong dreams.’

Helladius nodded. ‘It is a great gift, but I feel the gods’ will towards you, and it is strong. I don’t need to be a priest to tell you that the interest of the gods is not always a blessing.’ He gave a half grin. ‘The poets and playwrights seem to be in agreement on that point.’

Kineas stopped and looked at the priest as if seeing him for the first time. Helladius was hardly a humble man, and the wry humour he had just showed was not his public face.

Helladius raised his eyebrows. ‘Do you receive more than dreams, Archon? Does the will of the gods come to you awake? Or the voices of the dead?’

Kineas rubbed his chin. ‘You make my head spin, priest!’ He looked around the quiet temple. ‘I do not — how can I say this — I am not aware of other messages from the gods. But perhaps I do not pay attention properly. Tell me what you mean.’

Helladius rubbed his chin. ‘Listen, Archon. You have priestly powers. I have seen this happen elsewhere — among the Medes it is common. Not every man with priestly powers becomes a priest. Do you know of all the types of divination?’

Kineas shook his head. He felt like a schoolboy. His tutor had taught him about divination. ‘There are three types, I think.’

‘You were tutored by a follower of Plato? Not a Pythagorean, I hope. There are as many types of divination as there are birds in the air, but I will tell you a little of the three main types so that you may be on your guard.’ His voice took on a professional tone. ‘My father taught me that there are three types of divination. There is natural divination — the will of the gods shown in the flight of birds, for example. I perform this right every day. Or perhaps in the entrails of a sacrifice, such as I performed for you in the field. Yes? Then there is oracular divination — the will of the gods spoken directly through an oracle. These can be difficult to interpret — rhymes, archaic words, often they sound like nonsense or leave the hearer more confused by a riddle than ever he was by the question. And finally, there is the divination of dreams — the will of the gods spoken through the gates of horn into our sleeping minds.’ Helladius shrugged. ‘The dead may also speak in any of these ways, or rather, we may divine their speech. For instance, there is the kledon, where a god — or the dead — may speak through the mouth of a bystander, or even through a crowd, so that a priest may hear the speech of the god in random utterings.’ He smiled. ‘I am waxing pedantic, I fear. Tell me what you dreamed.’

Kineas told him his dream about his dead friends.

Helladius shook his head. ‘I have seldom had such a strong dream myself,’ he said in irritation. ‘I see why the barbarians treat you as a priest. And you have had this dream twice?’

Kineas nodded. ‘Or more.’

Helladius furrowed his brow. ‘More?’

Kineas looked away, as if suddenly interested in the mosaics of the god that covered the interior walls of the temple garden. He didn’t want to say that he had had the dream every night since the attack on Srayanka. Or that he had heard voices in the mouths of other men — the kledon.

Helladius rubbed his hands together. ‘It seems possible to me,’ he said carefully, ‘that the dead of the great battle wish to be buried. And they speak through your old friend.’

Kineas nodded. ‘I wondered. But I cannot arrange the burial of ten thousand corpses — even if I could call on the labour of every slave in this city. And today it seemed to me that Kleisthenes was offering me a gift, if only I had the wit to take it.’

Helladius nodded. ‘My first interpretation is the obvious one. I am sorry to say that I cannot dismiss it just because its achievement is impossible — the gods make great demands. On the other hand, your thought about the gift is interesting. I shall pray, and wait on you later in the day.’

Kineas bowed. ‘Thank you for your help, Helladius.’

The priest walked with him to the top of the steps. ‘The former archon never came to the temple without fifty soldiers and a bushel of scrolls containing new orders and taxes,’ he said. ‘I wish you were staying.’

Kineas shook his head. ‘I meant what I said, Helladius. It would start well. But in a year I would make myself king, or you would demand it of me.’

Helladius stood at the top of the steps, his pale blue robes blowing in the August wind. ‘May I advise you, my lord?’ he asked, and then, taking a nod for permission, he carried on. ‘Men like you — it grows. The voices come more often, and the dead haunt harder.’ He shrugged, as if embarrassed to admit even this much.

‘What can I do?’ Kineas asked.

Helladius shook his head. ‘Obey the will of the gods,’ he said.

Kineas nodded slowly. ‘I do, to the best of my ability.’

‘That is why you would have made us a great king,’ Helladius said. He waited until Kineas was halfway down the steps, just even with the stele for Nicomedes. ‘The gods love you!’ he called, so that every man in the market on the temple steps heard him.

Kineas let a smile wrinkle his mouth. He didn’t answer openly. Quietly, to the stele of Nicomedes, he said, ‘The gods loved Oedipus, too.’ He shook his head at Helladius. To no one at all, he murmured, ‘Look how that turned out.’