Tyrant

9

The next day he was stronger and they moved him. The move cleared his head and his glimpse of the outside world, even amidst the snow, cheered him; there were dogs and horses and men wearing skins and fur, women in trousers and heavy fur jackets, gold rings and gold decorations everywhere. He had been in the tent of the Kam Baqca, he now understood, and now they took him to a tent set aside for him. He had piles of furs and two gold lamps, rugs and mats and several Thracian cloaks for good measure. Philokles led the move and all of the boys were there, fighting for a place in carrying his litter, arranging his furs, his blankets, getting him hot wine.

It was deeply touching and he enjoyed it. And the conversation with Kam Baqca seemed less alien. Perhaps he had still had a touch of fever, but it was gone now.

‘I take it you are all waiting for me to recover,’ he said to Philokles. The rest of the boys had cleared out, led by Ajax, to join hunters from the Sakje.

‘Yes. The king wants to speak to you before he moves. To be frank, I suggested we leave you with his people and I lead the escort back to Olbia, but he thinks that you are a person of consequence.’

‘Ares’ balls. Why?’ Kineas snorted. Many things had gone below the threshold of worry during the last days, but they were all back now — his alienated employer, the factions, the city.

‘Lady Srayanka — I mentioned her. The king’s niece, I think, although they have a different word for every degree of relative.’

‘Like the Persians.’

‘Just so. She’s a niece, or maybe a sister’s adopted child, but she’s someone with power and she’s our girl from the plains. She claims you are a man of importance. Ataelus says it’s a warrior thing.’ Philokles shrugged. ‘I gather you killed someone important — or perhaps just at the right time? Or — Eumenes says this — avenged somebody here by your act and that gives you status.’

Kineas shook his head. ‘We’re a long way from home.’ He felt an excitement — our girl from the plains. Now I’ve learned her name. Srayanka. It seemed an absurd thing for a grown man to be so pleased by, but he was pleased. He repeated it over and over, like a prayer.

Philokles sat on a pile of furs. Kineas realized with a start that Philokles was wearing leather trousers. It was so un-Greek; so unlike a Spartan, however exiled. Philokles followed his gaze and smiled. ‘It’s cold. And someone made them for me — Eumenes said it would be rude to refuse. They are warm. They rub the parts.’

‘If the Ephors could see you now, you’d be an exile for ever.’ Kineas began to laugh. It hurt his chest, but it felt good. He was speaking Greek to a Greek. The world would be right soon enough.

Philokles laughed with him and then leaned over. ‘Listen to me, Kineas. There’s more to this than you know.’

Kineas nodded.

‘No, listen! These people — they hold the military power on the plains. They don’t need hoplites or walls. They’re nomads — they just move when they want. They hold the power here. They have the ability to stop Macedon on the plains. Or not.’

Kineas sat up. ‘Since when do you care so deeply what Macedon does?’

Philokles stood up. ‘This is not about me.’

Kineas lay back. ‘It is. It is about you.’ There was something nagging at the edge of his thoughts, some connection. ‘You wanted to be here. Here you are. Macedon? Are they really coming here? Do I care? I’ll get the company clear before-’

‘NO!’ Philokles leaned over him. ‘No, Kineas. Stay and fight! All these people need to hear is that Olbia and Pantecapaeum will stand and fight beside them, and they will assemble an army. Srayanka says so.’

Kineas shook his head and said slowly, ‘This means a great deal to you, Spartan. Is this why you came? To make an alliance against Macedon?’

‘I came to see the world. I am an exile and a philosopher.’

‘Bastard! You are an agent of the kings and Ephors, and a spy.’

‘You lie!’ Philokles snapped up his cloak. ‘Rot in hell, Athenian. You have it in your power to do good, to hold the line and save something — bah. Like an Athenian — save your skin and let the others rot. No wonder the Macedonians own us.’ He pushed out through the flap, bruising snow off the roof and leaving a gap where an icy wind crept in. The fire began to smoke.

Kineas climbed out from underneath his furs and made his way to the door. It wasn’t as bad as he had feared — just cold. He tugged at the heavy felt flap until it fell into place across the door, and he pushed on a stick sewn into the felt until it closed just right — sealing the door. An inner curtain fell over the whole. He was warmer immediately. He found dried meat and apple cider by his bed and tore into them — the meat was softly seasoned, almost tart, and the cider smelled of Ectabana. He drank it all.

Then he had to piss. He was naked in his tent, and there was nothing like a jar or a chamber pot.

He wondered what had led him to accuse Philokles and he shook his head at the hypocrisy of his accusation. He had to piss and he needed someone to help him. That revealed to him how foolish he had been to antagonize the Spartan — and for what? He was suspicious of the Spartan’s motives — he always had been.

‘Who cares?’ he asked the tent flap. He had no clothes and it would be cold as hell outside, and he needed to piss. ‘Who gives a shit?’ which under the circumstances, seemed funny.

The flap rustled and Philokles’s head appeared.

Kineas smiled in relief. ‘I apologize.’

‘Me, too.’ Philokles came in. ‘I antagonized a very sick man. What are you doing out of your blankets?’

‘I have to piss like a warhorse.’

Philokles wrapped him in two Thracian cloaks and led him out in the snow. His feet hurt from the cold, but the relief of emptying his bladder trumped the pain of his feet and in seconds he was back in the furs.

Philokles watched him intently. ‘You are better.’

Kineas nodded. ‘I am.’

‘Good. I have found someone more persuasive to make my argument. Lady Srayanka will be here when the hunt ends. She will make the case herself.’

Kineas cast about the tent again. ‘Where are my clothes?’

‘Don’t be a fool. This is not a mating ritual — I imagine the lady is well wed. This is diplomacy and you have the advantage of illness. Sit and look pale. Besides, you’ve seldom been lovelier. Eumenes pines for you when he isn’t pining for Ajax.’

Kineas glanced at him and realized that he was being teased. ‘Cut my beard.’

‘An hour ago I was a coward and a liar.’

‘No, a spy. You said liar.’

The possibility of real enmity hung in the air between them, just a few words away from the raillery. Kineas made a sign of aversion in the air, a peasant sign from the hills of Attica. ‘I have apologized, and I will again.’

‘No need. I’m a touchy bastard.’ Philokles looked away. ‘I am a bastard, Kineas. Do you know what that means in Sparta?’

Kineas shook his head. He knew what it meant in Athens.

‘It means you are never a Spartiate. Win at games, triumph in lessons and still no mess group will welcome you. I thought that I had escaped from the weight of the shame — but apparently I brought it here with me.’

Kineas thought for a moment, sipping more cider. And then he said, ‘You are not a bastard here. I’m sorry for the word. I use it too often. It is easy — I’m well born, whatever I am now. But I say again — you are no bastard here, or in Olbia. Or in Tomis, for that matter. Please forgive me.’

Philokles smiled. It was a rare kind of smile for him, free of sarcasm or doubt — just a smile. ‘The Philosopher forgave you when I walked out the tent.’ He laughed. ‘The Spartan needed a little more combat.’

Kineas rubbed his face. ‘Now trim my beard and comb my hair.’

And Philokles said, ‘You bastard.’

It was long after dark when she came. Kineas and Philokles had spent the afternoon talking, first in a gush and then comfortably, by topics, with silences. Twice, Kineas went to sleep and awoke to find him still there.

The snow had finally ceased. Eumenes said so when he came back with an antelope he’d knocked over with his own spear, proud as a boy reciting his first lines of Homer, ‘These barbarians can ride! My father calls them bandits, but they are like centaurs. I’d only seen them drunk in the town — and my nurse, of course. Not like they are here at all!’

Philokles smiled. ‘I fancy you are seeing a different type of Sakje altogether.’

‘Noble ones. I know. The lady — she rides like Artemis herself.’

Kineas started before he realized the boy must mean the goddess. He made the avert sign — women who rivalled Artemis seldom came to a good end. But his Artemis had been a fine rider, in many different ways. He smiled to himself. He was becoming an old fool.

Eumenes continued. ‘She killed twice, once with a bow and once with her spear. A woman, sirs, imagine? And the men — so courteous. They found my buck. I was nervous — what if I failed my throw right there, surrounded by barbarians?’

Kineas laughed aloud. ‘I know that feeling, young man.’

Eumenes looked hurt. ‘You sir? I saw you throw in the hippodrome, sir. But anyway — I’ll never let my father call them bandits again.’ Philokles ushered him out.

‘I gather Lady Srayanka has gone to dinner.’

Kineas was disappointed. He was shaved and under the furs he had a good linen tunic, now somewhat creased from being napped in. But he smiled. ‘You are good company, sir.’

Philokles flushed like a young man. ‘You please me.’

‘Socrates said there was no higher compliment. Or maybe Xenophon. One of them anyway. For a soldier — but why hector you about what soldiers think? Have you made a campaign? Is it not something about which you will speak? I mean no insult.’

‘I made a campaign with the men of Molyvos against Mytilene. It was my first, for all my training.’

‘Why did you leave?’

Philokles looked into the fire. ‘Many reasons,’ he began, and there was a stir at the door cloth.

Lady Srayanka entered alone and without fuss, sweeping the door aside and closing it with a single sweep of her arm. Having entered, she walked around the fire, brushed her long doeskin coat under her knees and sat in one fluid motion. She flashed a brief smile at Philokles. ‘Greetings, Greek men. May the gods look favourably upon you.’

It was delivered so well, so fluently, that only later did Kineas realize it was a practised phrase learned off by heart.

Philokles nodded gravely, as if to a Greek matron in a well-ordered house. ‘Greetings, Despoina.’

Kineas couldn’t help but smile. The head was the same, although the face was less severe. Still the same clear blue eyes and her ludicrous, heavy brows that nearly met in the middle of her face. He was being rude, staring into her eyes — and she was looking back at him. The corner of her mouth curled.

‘Greetings, lady,’ he said. It didn’t sound as stumbling as he had feared.

‘I desire — to send — for Ataelax. Yes?’ Her voice was low, but very much a woman’s.

‘Ataelax?’ asked Kineas.

‘Ataelus. His name as it is said here, I gather,’ Philokles explained as he opened the flap and called.

Ataelus came in so quickly it was obvious he had been waiting nearby. The moment he entered, something changed. Until then, her eyes were mostly on Kineas. Once he was through the flap, they were everywhere else.

‘For speaking,’ he said.

Kineas decided that he would pay some teacher in Olbia to improve on the cases of the Scyth’s nouns as soon as possible.

Lady Srayanka spoke softly and at length. Ataelus waited until she was completely finished and then asked her several questions, then she asked him a question. Finally, he turned to Kineas. ‘She says many fine things for you, you birth, and how to say? Hearting? Brave. She say you kill a very big man Getae. Man kill her — for special friend, and for dear man. Yes? And other thing. For other thing, all good. Then this — sorry she take tax on plain for her, from us. Make trouble with stone houses; make trouble for horse people Sakje. She say, “You never say Olbia!” and I say, “You never ask!” but truth for truth, you never tell me, or maybe I for understand. Or not. Yes?’

Philokles leaned over. ‘I’ve heard this before, Kineas. This Getae you killed — he had killed someone important to her. Not a relative. Not a husband. A lover? I don’t think we’ll get to know.’

Kineas nodded. Praise was praise when you valued the giver. ‘Tell her I am sorry for the loss of her friend.’

Ataelus nodded and spoke to the lady, who nodded too. She spoke, tugging one of her heavy black braids. ‘She say, “I cut these for loss.” So not now, but long ago, I think.’

She went on, gesturing with her hands. She was wearing a different coat and her golden breastplate was not in evidence, but this coat was also decorated in dark blue lines, abstract patterns from the middle of the sleeve to her wrist, and it had the same cones of gold foil wrapped around hair that tinkled and whispered as she moved.

‘Now she say other thing. She say you airyanam. Yes? You know this word?’

Kineas nodded, flattered. The Persian word for aristocrat, old noble, and also for good behaviour. ‘I know it.’

‘So she say, you this airyanam, you big man for Olbia. She say, Macedon walks here. She say, Macedon kill father, brother. I say this — big battle, ten turns of the moon. Years. Ten years. Yes? In the summer. Sakje fight Macedon. Many kill, many die, no win. But king, he killed. Me, far away on the plains, care nothing for this king, nothing for Macedon, but I hear this, too. Big battle. Big. Yes? So — so. Her father this king, So I say, not she — she big woman, big she, like I think first time. Yes?’

Philokles glanced at her and said, ‘You think her father was the king who died fighting Macedon? In a big battle ten years back. You weren’t there, but you heard a lot about it. And you think she is very important?’

‘Good for you,’ said Ataelus. ‘For me, she big. Yes? And she say, Macedon walks. She say, hands of hands of hands of men walk for Macedon, like grass, like water in river. She say, new king good man, but not fight. Or maybe fight. But if Olbia fight, king fight. Otherwise, not. King go off into plains, Macedon walks to Olbia.’

Kineas nodded that he understood what had been said. He was sitting up, watching her. She ignored his regard, concentrating on Ataelus. Now, she was passionate, her hands flashing in front of her as if she urged on a horse by pumping the reins. She was loud.

Ataelus continued. ‘She say, you big man for Olbia, you man airyanam, you make for her.’ Although Ataelus was just starting to translate her most impassioned speech, she was finished, and she sank back with her head against the tent’s central pole, her face turned up to the smoke hole, her heavy lashes covering her eyes — as if she couldn’t bear to watch the result of her words. Kineas realized that he was watching her so intently he was missing the translation of her speech.

‘You go, bring Olbia, make Olbia fight. War down Macedon. Make Sakje great, make Olbia great, break Macedon, everybody free. She say more — all word talk. And Kineax — she like you. That she not say, yes? I say it. Little childrens ouside yurt say it. Yes? Everybody say it. King poke her with it. So you knowing this, I say it.’ Ataelus was smiling, but he had forgotten that the lady spoke some Greek. Like an arrow from a bow, she rose to her feet, glared at him, struck him with her riding whip — a substantial blow that knocked him flat — and vanished through the door flap.

‘Uh oh,’ said Ataelus. He got to his feet unsteadily, holding his shoulder. Then he pushed through the flap and called out. A steady stream of obvious invective greeted him. It was quite loud, fluent, and went on for long enough that Kineas and Philokles exchanged glances.

Kineas winced. ‘Very like a Persian. I think she just said that he could eat shit. And die.’

Philokles poured himself wine. ‘I’m happy that your romance is flourishing, but I need your brain. You understand her words about Macedon?’

Kineas was still listening to her. She was running down, using words that he didn’t know. They all seemed to end in — ax. ‘Macedon? Yes, Philokles. Yes, I was listening. Macedon is coming. Listen, Philokles — I’ve made seven campaigns. I’ve been in two great battles. I know what Macedon brings. Listen to me. If Antipater comes here, he’ll have two or three Taxies of foot — half as many as Alexander has in Asia. He’ll have as many Thracians as he can pay and two thousand Heterae, the best cavalry in the world; he’ll have Thessalians and Greeks and artillery. Even if he only sends a tithe of his strength, these noble savages and our city hoplites wouldn’t last an hour.’

Philokles looked at his wine cup and then held it up. It was solid gold. ‘You’ve been sick a week. I’ve been talking to people. Mostly to Kam Baqca. She is their closest approach to a philosopher.’

‘The witch doctor?’ Kineas said with a smile. ‘She scared me last night.’

‘She is a great deal more than a witch doctor. In fact, she is so great that her presence here is probably more important than the king’s. She speaks some Greek but — for her own reasons — seldom uses it. I wish I spoke this language — everything I think I know comes through the sieve of other men’s thoughts. Kam Baqca scares Ataelus so badly he can barely keep his thoughts in order to translate for me.’

Kineas was losing hope that Srayanka would come back. ‘Why? I admit she has tremendous presence-’

‘Have you ever gone to Delphi?’ Philokles interrupted. ‘No? The priestesses of Apollo are like her. She combines in herself two sacred functions. She is Enareis — you remember your Herodotus? She has sacrificed her manhood to function as a seer. And she is Baqca — the most powerful baqca anyone can remember, according to Ataelus.’

Kineas tried to remember what had been said in her tent. ‘What is baqca?’

‘I have no idea — Ataelus keeps telling me things, and Lady Srayanka — they speak of her with reverence, but they don’t speak of baqca in detail. It is a barbarian concept.’ Philokles shook his head. ‘I’m losing my thread in a maze of details. Kineas, there are thousands of these people. Tens of thousands.’

‘And their king is wandering around with a witch doctor and a handful of retainers, looking for support from a little town on the Euxine? Tell me another one.’

Philokles tossed off the rest of his wine. ‘You’re pissing me off. They are barbarians, Kineas. I don’t understand the role of their king, but he’s neither figurehead nor Asian tyrant. The best I’ve been able to understand, he’s only king when there is something “kingly” to do. Otherwise, he’s a major chief ruling his tribe — and this is only a fraction of his tribe. His escort, if you like.’

Kineas lay back. ‘Tell me all this in the morning. I’m better. In the morning, I intend to see if I can ride.’

‘And Srayanka wants it,’ said Philokles. He smiled nastily. ‘Whichever head you want to think with, I have an argument.’

As soon as it was known that Kineas was up and dressed, he was summoned to meet the king. He was prepared, dressed in his best tunic and sandals. He left his armour off, as he was still too weak to bear the weight for any time. Outside the tent his escort waited, his eight men from Olbia in their cloaks and armour, looking like statues. They faced together like professionals and marched him to the king’s yurt, flanked by a crowd of curious Sakje. Dogs barked, children pointed, and they crossed a few yards of muddy snow. The king’s yurt was by far the largest and the entrance had two layers of doors that had to be thrown back by his escort.

Inside, it was so warm that he shed his cloak as soon as dignity permitted. A dozen Sakje sat in a semicircle around the fire. They sat crosss-legged on the ground, chatting easily and as Kineas entered the yurt, they all rose to their feet. In the centre of them stood a boy, or perhaps a very young man with heavy blond hair and a short blond beard. His position marked him as the king, but for the splendour of dress and the quantity of gold, any one of the dozen Sakje might have been royal.

Srayanka stood at his right hand. Her face was closed and cold and her glance flicked over him, rested briefly on Philokles, and returned to the king next to her.

Kam Baqca stood behind the king, dressed simply in a long coat of white, with her hair coiled atop her head. She inclined her head in greeting.

The king smiled. ‘Welcome, Kineas. I am Satrax, king of the Assagatje. Please sit, and let us serve you.’ At his words, all of the people in the tent sat together and Kineas tried, and failed, to match their grace. Philokles and Eumenes had entered with him and sat on either side by prior arrangement, and Ataelus sat a little to his right in a sort of no-man’s-land between the groups.

Kineas spoke once he had settled. ‘I thank you for your welcome, O King. Your hospitality has been gracious. Indeed, I was sick and your doctor healed me.’ He watched the king carefully. The boy was younger than Alexander had been when they crossed the Hellespont, his face still soft and unmarked with harsh experience. His wide eyes spoke well of his good nature, and his gestures had a fledgling dignity. Kineas liked what he saw.

Greek wine was brought in deep vases and poured into a huge bowl of solid gold. The king dipped cups of wine in the bowl and handed them to his guests, blessing each one. When he filled Kineas’s cup, he carried it to where Kineas sat.

Kineas rose, unsure of the protocol and unused to be being waited on by any but slaves.

The king pressed him back down. ‘The blessings of the nine gods of the heavens attend you, Kineas,’ he said in Greek. He had an accent, but his Greek was pure, if Ionic.

Kineas took his cup and drank, as he had seen others do. It was unwatered, pure Chian straight from the vase. He swallowed carefully and a small fire was lit in his stomach.

When the king was seated with a cup in his own hand, he poured a libation and spoke a prayer. Then he leaned forward.

‘To business,’ he said. He was aggressive, in the half-timorous way of the young. ‘Will Olbia fight against Macedon, or submit?’

Kineas was astonished at the speed with which the king moved to the issue at hand. He had made the mistake of finding similarities between the Sakje and the Persians and had therefore expected ceremony and lengthy conversation about trivialities. No answer came to him.

‘Come, Kineas, several of my friends have already broached this topic with you.’ The king leaned forward, clearly enjoying his advantage. ‘What will Olbia do?’

Kineas noted that the boy’s eyes flicked to Srayanka’s for approval. So. ‘I cannot speak for Olbia, sir.’ Kineas met the king’s eye. Close up, he could see the young king was handsome — almost as handsome as Ajax, with a snub barbarian nose the only jarring feature on his face. Kineas toyed with his wine to give himself time to think. ‘I think the archon will first have to be convinced that the threat of Macedon is real.’

The king nodded and exchanged a glance with a big, bearded man at his left. ‘I expected as much and I have no proof to offer. Let me ask a better question. If Macedon marches, will Olbia submit?’

Kineas suspected that the boy was giving memorized questions. He shrugged. ‘Again, you must ask the archon. I cannot speak for Olbia.’ He squirmed as Srayanka glanced at him with indifference and turned back to smile at the king.

The king played with his beard. After a short silence, he nodded. ‘This is as I expected and that is why I must go and see your archon myself.’ He paused. ‘Will you advise me?’

Kineas nodded slowly. ‘As far as I am able. I command the archon’s cavalry. I am not his confidante.’

The king smiled. ‘If you were, I should hardly ask you to advise me.’ He suddenly seemed very mature for his years — it occurred to Kineas that the boy might be asking his own questions, after all — and his sarcasm was as Greek as his language. ‘Many of my nobles feel we should fight. Kam Baqca says we should fight only if Olbia and Pantecapaeum intend to fight. What do you say?’

Easy to be derisory when facing Philokles. More difficult when facing this direct young man. ‘I would hesitate to fight Macedon.’

Srayanka’s head snapped in his direction. Her eyes narrowed. He noted how dark her lips were and how, when she turned her head away, they turned down.

Kam Baqca spoke a few words. The king smiled. ‘Kam Baqca says that you have served the monster and you know more of him than any man here.’

‘The monster?’ asked Kineas.

‘Alexander. Kam Baqca calls him The Monster.’ The king poured himself more wine.

‘I served Alexander,’ Kineas admitted. They all looked at him and he wondered if he was in danger here. None of the looks were friendly; only Kam Baqca regarded him with a smile. And Srayanka busied herself with her riding whip rather than meet his eye.

And he thought, I served him. I loved him. And now I begin to suspect that Kam Baqca is right. He is a monster. He was confused, and the confusion fed his tone. ‘The army of Macedon is the finest in the world. If Antipater sends Zopryon here, he will bring thousands of pike men, Thracians, archers — probably fifteen thousand men on foot. And cavalry from Macedon and Thessaly, the best in the Greek world. Against that, the men of Olbia and Pantecapaeum, plus a few hundred Scythians, were every one of them Achilles come back from the Elysian Fields, would not be enough.’

The king fingered his beard again, and then played with a ring — embarrassed. ‘How many riders do you think I can put in the field, Kineas?’

Kineas was at a loss how to answer, since barbarian kings inevitably exaggerated the numbers of their men. If he flattered and guessed too high, he robbed his own argument of validity. Too low and he insulted the king.

‘I do not know, O King. I see a few hundred here. I’m sure there are more.’

The king laughed. As Kineas’s words were translated, more and more of the Sakje laughed. Even Srayanka laughed.

‘Listen, Kineas. It is winter. The grass is under the snow and there is little wood out on the plains for fires. In winter, every band from every tribe goes its own way, to find food, to get shelter and to cut wood. If we all stayed together, the horses would starve and the animals would all stay away from our bows. I have seen the cities of the Greeks — I was a hostage in Pantecapaeum. I have seen how many people you can put inside a stone wall, with slaves to till the land and slaves to cook it. We have no slaves. We have no walls. But in the spring, if my chief war leaders agree that we must fight, I can call tens of thousands of horsemen here. Perhaps three tens of thousands. Perhaps more.’

Philokles put a hand on Kineas’s knee. ‘Ataelus says this is so. I think it is true. Think before you speak.’

Kineas tried to imagine three tens of thousands of horsemen in a single army. ‘Can you feed them?’ he asked.

The king nodded. ‘For a while. And for a longer while, with the cities at my side. Let me be straight with you, Kineas. I can also simply ride away north into the plains and leave you to the Macedonians. They can march until the snow falls next year and never find me. The plains are vast — greater than all the rest of the world.’

Kineas took a deep breath, shutting out the hand on his knee and the blue eyes under the dark brows across the tent. ‘If you wish to sway the archon, you must convince him that you have such force.’ With three tens of thousands of men and women who rode like Artemis…

The king pointed the toe of his boot at the great golden bowl at his feet. ‘I cannot show him the riders on the great plain, Kineas. But I can show him an enormous amount of gold. And gold is the way to the heart of a Greek, or so I have observed. And your archon might ask himself this. If the bandit king has a mountain of gold, why should he not have thirty thousand riders?’

Kineas winced at the words ‘bandit king’, and the king laughed again. ‘Isn’t that what he calls us? Bandits? Horse thieves? Worse? I heard them all when I was a hostage.’

Kineas said, ‘Then why would you fight at all? Why not retreat into the plains?’

The king sat back until his shoulders rested against a wall hanging. He looked comfortable. ‘Your cities are our riches. We sell our grain there, and we buy goods we love. We can lose these things — we are not bound by them. But we might fight to keep them, too.’ He raised his hand and rocked it to and fro. ‘It balances like this. Fight for our treasure, or leave it?’ He smiled wryly. ‘If I decide rightly, I will be a good king. If I decide poorly, I will be a bad king.’ He stood. ‘You are tired. I will have more questions as we ride. Will you be prepared to depart tomorrow?’

Kineas stood as well, Philokles rising impatiently by his side. ‘O King, I will. By your leave, I will escort you to Olbia.’

‘Let it be so.’

The next day, Kineas still felt light-headed when he moved too fast and the effort of wearing armour was at first too much for him, but he was soon accustomed to it. The snow lay in deep drifts around the camp, tramped flat where the tracks of hunters or wood gatherers left the circle of wagons. Away to the south he could see a great black curve of the river. There was no sign of the track they had followed this far.

‘We will have to go slowly,’ Kineas said to Ajax and Eumenes. Philokles was avoiding him.

‘The Sakje will all have changes of horses.’ Eumenes pointed to where the travelling party was preparing; the king and ten mounted companions. They were all dressed like kings, heavy with gold ornaments. All of them wore red cloaks, although no two cloaks were dyed to exactly the same hue.

Kineas looked for Srayanka, but she was not there. She would not be accompanying the royal party. He wondered if she would have come had he spoken as she desired. He wondered what, exactly, she and Philokles had wanted him to say. He thought about the reception waiting for him in Olbia and a winter training rich men and their sons to be cavalrymen, and for the first time the prospect seemed empty and worthless. He thought about the proposition he had been made after being exiled, and what it might now mean.

He thought about her, and the way the king had looked at her. Royal mistress? Fiancee? Sour thoughts — the kind of jealous thoughts that first inform a man that he’s in love — were filling his mind when Philokles appeared at his elbow.

‘You look as if a dog ate your breakfast,’ Philokles said. He looked happy, fit, and ready for anything.

‘Is she actually well wed, brother?’ Kineas asked.

Philokles grinned — Kineas seldom referred to him as brother, and he enjoyed the compliment. ‘She is not. Something told me that you might enquire.’ He laughed aloud.

Kineas could feel the flush rolling down his cheeks to his neck. ‘Laugh all you want,’ he said tersely.

Philokles held up a hand. ‘My pardon,’ he said. ‘Unfair to laugh, who has so often felt the sting of Aphrodite himself. She is unwed — and, as Ataelus thought, the lord of a great tribe of these barbarians. And a famous warrior.’

Kineas rubbed his beard, watching the king and his mount and avoiding Philokles’s eyes. ‘Is she the king’s… concubine?’

Philokles put his hands on his hips. ‘Can you imagine that girl as anyone’s concubine?’ He grinned. ‘I have half a mind to tell her you asked.’ Kineas whirled around, and Philokles laughed again. ‘You have it bad!’ he said.

Kineas grunted. Then he turned away from Philokles, grabbed Eumenes by the shoulder, and strode to the king’s side.

The king was checking the hooves of his mount. He had a forefoot between his knees and a crooked knife in his teeth. ‘Good morning,’ he said around the knife.

Kineas bowed stiffly, the weight of his breastplate making him clumsy. ‘I don’t want to slow you, sir. But we have only a few remounts and we won’t be able to travel quickly.’

The king put the horse’s foot back on the ground, gave the beast a friendly pat, and began tightening the girth. Kineas still had difficulty watching a king tighten his own girth. It rendered him unable to believe that the same king might have thirty thousand horsemen.

Sure that his girth was adequate, the king waved his whip at a tall man with white-blond hair and an enormous beard, dressed from head to foot in red. At the council, he had sat at the king’s left side. ‘Marthax! I need you.’

Marthax rode over on a tall roan stallion. He was a heavy man, with a paunch that spilled over his belt, but he had arms like small trees and his legs were enormous. His red pointed hat was trimmed in white fur and he had a set of gold plaques modelled as kissing Aphrodites that ran around the top of each bicep. He and the king exchanged a few words. Kineas was sure that they said ‘horse’ and ‘snow’. Then they both looked at him. Marthax grinned widely.

‘You friend king!’ he said. ‘Some friend. King give horses. Come! See horses, take.’

Kineas shouted for Ataelus and said to Eumenes, ‘I don’t want to be beholden for these horses. Just tell him to loan us a few so that we have remounts.’

Eumenes began to hem and haw, interjecting a few tentative words of Sakje, but the king shook his head. ‘Just take them. I have a few thousand more. I want to go fast and get this over with. My people here will be waiting and we have a long, long ride north across the plains when this is done.’ His words were friendly, but the tone was pre-emptory. The gift was not a request; it was an order.

Kineas pointed to Ataelus, already mounted, to follow Marthax. He returned with a string of sturdy plains ponies and two tall chargers. They were both pale grey like new iron, with black stripes running down their spines.

Kineas watched them go by, scrutinizing their size and strength. He was so absorbed with the chargers that he almost walked into Kam Baqca. She held his shoulders firmly and looked into his eyes. Her own were dark, so brown as to be almost black even in the glare of the snow. She began to speak, almost to sing, and the king came and stood beside her.

‘She says, “Do not try to cross the river again without my help.”’ The king raised his eyebrows. The seer smiled, still holding his shoulders, and he looked into her deep brown eyes: All the way down to where the dreams waited, and a tree grew in the dark…

And then he was standing in the snow, and she said, ‘You must not leave without speaking to my niece,’ in clear Greek.

The king turned to look at her — the sudden turn and glare of an eagle. Kineas noted it. The seer ignored her king. Instead, she reached up and attached a charm to Kineas’s horse’s bridle. The bridle was plain, just a loop of leather with a bronze bit. His good bridle was with his charger, safely back in Olbia. The charm was of iron, a bow and an arrow.

‘Will that keep me warm?’ he asked lightly.

The king frowned. ‘Do not joke about Kam Baqca. She does not sell her charms, but we are greatly favoured if we wear them. What river can you not cross without her?’

‘I dreamed a river,’ Kineas said. His eyes were on Lady Srayanka, who stood in the muddy snow by the king’s yurt, giving orders to men loading a wagon. He looked back at the king, and his eyes were wary and his face closed.

‘She says, “Next time you will dream a tree. Do not climb it without me.”’ The king rubbed his beard. He was too young to hide his anger, and Kineas had no idea what the king might be angry about. ‘This is seer talk, Kineas. Are you, too, a baqca?’

Kineas made the sign of aversion. ‘No. I am a simple cavalryman. Philokles is the philosopher.’

His aside was apparently translated, because Kam Baqca spat an answer back and then, as if relenting, gave him a pat on the head as if he were a good child. ‘She says, the one who says poems is a fine man, but she has never seen him and he did not go alone to the river. And she says,’ the king paused, his eyes narrowed, ‘she says this decision will come down to you, however you twist and turn. I think she speaks of the war with Macedon.’ Kam Baqca hit the king lightly on the shoulder. ‘And she tells me this is not for me to think on, that I am only her mouth.’ The king frowned again, adolescent petulance warring with natural humour. ‘What satrap, what great king can be ordered around in this way by his people?’ The king began to collect his arms; a heavy quiver that held both bow and arrows, called a gorytos; a short sword on an elaborately decorated belt with a heavy scabbard, and a bucket of javelins that attached to his saddle.

Kam Baqca patted Kineas on the head again, and then turned him by his shoulders so he faced Lady Srayanka. Srayanka caught his eye and then looked away. Her indifference was a little too studied; a younger man would have read her motion as a direct rejection, but Kineas had seen some of the world and recognized that she wanted his attention. He couldn’t help but smile as he walked to her. He had no translator, which, given the last occasion but one, seemed just as well.

And, as he came close to her, she extended a hand in greeting. On a whim, he reached up and took the gorgon’s head clasp off his cloak and put it in her hand. Her hand was warmer than his, with heavy calluses on the top of the palm and a velvety smoothness on the back he hadn’t remembered, and the contrast — the hard sword hand and the soft back — went through him like poetry, or the sight of the first flower of spring — recognition, wonder, awe.

At first she didn’t meet his eyes — but neither did she reject his touch. She shouted a command over her shoulder and then flicked her eyes over the broach, smiled, and looked at him. She was taller than he had imagined. Her eyes had flecks of brown amidst the blue, and were very nearly level with his own.

‘Go with the gods, Kin-y-aas,’ she said. She looked at the gorgon’s head again — decent work from an Athenian shop — and smiled. He could smell her — woodsmoke and leather. Her hair needed washing. He wanted to kiss her and he didn’t think that was a good idea, but the urge was so strong that he stepped back to avoid having his body betray him.

She put her whip in his hand. ‘Go with the gods,’ she said again. And turned on her heel, already calling to a mounted man carrying a bundle of fleeces.

Kineas looked at the whip after he mounted. He had never carried one, despising them as a tool for poor riders. This one had a handle made of something very heavy, yet pliable. He could feel it moving under his hands. Alternating bands of worked leather and solid gold were wrapped over a pliable core. The worked leather showed a scene of men and women hunting together on horseback that wound up the handle from an agate stone in the pommel to the stiff horsehair of the whip. It was a beautiful thing, too heavy to hit a horse, but a useful pointer and a pretty fair weapon. He flexed it a few times. His young men were mounting behind him. They looked better for a week riding with the Sakje and today they all had their armour, helmets and cloaks. He took his place at their head, still playing with his whip.

Ajax saluted. He was already a competent hyperetes — the men were formed neatly, and Kineas saluted back. ‘You’re a fine soldier, Ajax,’ he said. ‘I’ll be sorry when you go back to marry your rich girl and trade your cargoes.’

Ajax flashed him his beautiful smile. ‘Sir, do you ever pay a compliment without a sting in the tail?’

Kineas flexed the whip again. ‘Yes.’ He smiled at Clio, the nearest trooper. ‘Clio, you look like an adult this morning.’ and to all of them: ‘You gentlemen ready for a hard ride? The king intends to do this in two days. That’s going to be ten hours in the saddle. I can’t let anyone drop out. Are you ready?’

‘Yes!’ they shouted.

The Sakje stopped whatever they were doing to watch them for a moment. Then they went back to their preparations.

Philokles came up, mounted on one of the Sakje chargers — a fine animal, with heavy muscles. ‘The king gave me this horse. I must say, he’s a generous fellow.’ He looked around and then whispered, ‘Not your greatest fan, Kineas.’

Kineas raised an eyebrow.

Philokles spread his hands and bowed his head, a gesture universal among Greeks — I’ll say no more on the subject.

Kineas shook his head and returned his mind to the matter at hand. ‘I couldn’t find a horse your size. That’s a superb animal, Philokles. Don’t waste him in the snow.’

‘Bah, you’ve made a centaur of me, Kineas. With this beast between my legs, I could ride anywhere.’ Philokles gave him a broad smile. ‘If you don’t wipe that grin off your face, Kineas, people might mistake you for a happy man.’

Kineas glanced at the Spartan, ran his eyes over his horse. ‘You might want to get your girth tight first.’ Kineas slid down, got under the Spartan’s leg, and heaved. ‘And roll your cloak tight. Here, give it to me.’

Philokles shrugged. ‘Niceas always does it for me.’

‘Shame on him. Shame on you.’ Kineas flipped the cloak open over the broad back of the charger, who shied a little when he saw the flapping cloak in the corner of his black eye. Then Kineas folded it, rolled it tight and hard, and buckled it to the high-backed Sakje saddle.

‘In the infantry, we just wear the damn things,’ Philokles said.

‘Tie it like this, behind your saddle and you have something to lean your ass on when you’re tired.’ Kineas was looking at the Sakje saddle that Philokles had acquired. It had a much higher back than any Greek tack. Most Greeks were content with a blanket. He remounted and gathered his reins.

‘Nice whip,’ Philokles said. ‘That didn’t come from the king.’ He flashed a wicked smile.

‘Philokles,’ Kineas said, putting his hand on the Spartan’s rein.

The king rode up on his other side and interrupted him. ‘We’re ready if you are,’ he said curtly.

‘In what order would you like us to ride?’ Kineas looked at his own disciplined Greeks and the milling Sakje nobles. They were showing off for women, or men, performing curvets and rearing their horses. Two were already off, having a race, and the snow erupted from under their hooves in the early sun.

The young king shrugged. ‘I thought that I would send out a pair in front, like any decent commander. And then, since this is a peaceful mission, I thought you and I could ride abreast, perhaps with this talkative Spartan for company. I shall practise my Greek, Philokles shall learn more of my land, and I can teach you how to use the Sakje whip.’ The king indicated the whip in Kineas’s hand. ‘That looks familiar to me,’ he said with Greek sarcasm.

‘At your command, sir,’ Kineas said. He raised his hand.

‘Forward,’ said the king in Greek, and then: ‘ Fera! ’