Tyrant

16

Kineas was the last man of the hippeis to reach the camp at Great Bend. He sent the squadrons off, one each day, while he continued to wrangle with the hipparch of Pantecapaeum and wrote detailed orders for the city allies.

Leucon took the elite first troop on the day after the festival. They were ready, still hard from the visit to the Sakje, and eager for it. Kineas sent Niceas to keep an eye on them — and to make sure that their camp was well sited and well built.

On the second day, when Diodorus’s squadron was clear of the gates, six light triremes arrived from their fellow city, the first concrete sign that the assembly of Pantecapaeum intended to honour its pledge. Kineas went down to see them and to discuss strategy with their navarch, Demostrate, a short, fat man with a nose like a pig. Despite his looks — ugly as Hephaestes — he was cheerful, even comic, and his ships were in good order, from the lustiness of their rowers, citizens all, to their sails, painted with a seated Athena twice as tall as a man, floating over the black-hulled ships like banners to the goddess.

Demostrate immediately agreed to hunt down the Macedonian triremes. ‘He’ll get more as the summer wears on, mark my words,’ said the fat man. ‘I’d just as soon wreck those he’s got as soon as they come under my hand.’

‘Go with the gods,’ Kineas said. ‘The tide’s on the make. I won’t hold you.’

‘Good to meet a general who knows the sea. Is it true you’re a citizen? Will you stay? You’ve become quite the famous figure in Pantecapaeum.’

Kineas shrugged. ‘I think I’m here to stay,’ he said.

‘That’s good to hear. Hard to trust a mercenary — no offence intended. ’

Kineas stood up on the oar rail and leaped to the wharf. ‘Send me word if you have an action.’

Demostrate waved. ‘I’ve played this game before. I can get three more hulls in the water by midsummer — if I get them, and I’ve cleared his squadron, I may just cruise the Bosporus.’ He leered. ‘My lads would love to take a few merchant men.’

Kineas turned to Nicomedes, who had accompanied him down to make an introduction. ‘He looks more like a pirate than a merchant.’

Nicomedes laughed. ‘He was a pirate. Pantecapaeum made him navarch to stop his predatory ways.’ He laughed.

Kineas realized that he had been expected to know as much — that the fat man had been making fun of both of them with his comment about mercenaries. ‘I assume he’s as competent as he appears?’

Nicomedes nodded. ‘He’s a terror. He used to prey on my ships.’

‘How’d you stop him?’ Kineas asked.

Nicomedes made a moue and winked. ‘It would be indelicate to relate,’ he said. Then his voice changed — all business. ‘I’m off with my squadron tomorrow. I want to voice a concern — a real concern. Come to my house.’

Kineas followed him up the hill from the port. Nicomedes was an important man, and walking to his house involved running a gauntlet of requests, factors, beggars of various degrees and stations — it took an hour he could ill spare.

Once seated in a room full of beautiful, if salacious, mosaic and marble, Kineas lay on a couch with a cup of excellent wine. He kept his patience — Nicomedes was not just one of his officers, but, next to the archon and perhaps Cleitus, the city’s most powerful man. Probably as rich as any man in Athens.

‘What’s on your mind?’ Kineas asked.

Nicomedes was admiring the goldwork on Kineas’s sword. ‘This is superb! You’ll pardon me if I say I had not expected to envy you the ownership of an object — although I had heard of the wonders of the blade.’ Nicomedes shrugged, made a wry face. ‘Swords don’t move me much — I like one that’s sharp and stays in my hand. But the hilt — masterwork. From Athens?’

Kineas shook his head. ‘An Athenian master — living with the Sakje.’

‘The style — like great Athenian work, but all these outre animals — and the Medusa! Or is that Medea?’

Kineas smiled. ‘I suspect it to be Medea.’

‘Medea? She killed her children, didn’t she?’ Nicomedes raised an eyebrow. ‘That face — I can imagine her killing a few children. Beautiful — but fierce. Why Medea?’

Kineas shook his head. ‘Private joke, I think. What’s on your mind?’ he asked again.

Nicomedes continued to admire the sword. Then he straightened. ‘Cleomenes has reappeared,’ he said.

‘Zeus, lord of all,’ Kineas swore. ‘Heraclea?’

‘Worse. Tomis. He’s gone over to the Macedonians. I found out this morning. The Archon won’t know yet.’

Kineas rubbed his jaw. Cleomenes, for all his party enmity, knew all of their plans — every nuance. He’d attended every meeting of the city’s magnates — he was, after all, one of the leading men. ‘That could be a heavy blow,’ he said.

Nicomedes nodded. ‘I respect your command — but you are sending every leader in the assembly out of the city. There will be no one left with the balls to contest the archon — or Cleomenes, if he comes here. And he will.’

Kineas rubbed his beard and made a face. He took a deep breath and then said, ‘You’re right.’

‘He could murder some of the popular leaders among the people, and close the gates.’ Nicomedes drank his wine. ‘The archon has spent five years improving the defences — I’d hate to try and take this place.’

Kineas shook his head. ‘We’d have it in our hands in three days.’

Nicomedes looked surprised — not an expression his smooth features often wore. ‘How?’

Kineas raised an eyebrow to indicate that he wanted Nicomedes to guess.

‘Treason?’ asked Nicomedes, but as soon as he said it, he laughed. ‘Of course. We’re the army. All our people are in the city.’

Kineas nodded. ‘I like to think of it as an exercise in military democracy. Well-governed cities can stand a siege for ever, unless they are unlucky. But an unpopular government will only last until someone opens a gate. Not usually a long wait. Tyrannies…’ Kineas smiled a wolfish smile. ‘They fall easily.’

Nicomedes leaned forward on his couch. ‘By the gods, you are tempting him.’

Kineas shook his head. ‘I don’t play those games. I need the soldiers in the field — if for no other reason, to show the Sakje that we are with them. But if the archon is tempted to be foolish, and he acts,’ Kineas shrugged, ‘I am not responsible for the evil actions of other men. My tutor taught me that.’

Nicomedes nodded, his eyes alight — but then he shook his head. ‘He could still damage our property. He might attack families — he might even hand the citadel to Macedon, if he thought it was his only hope of survival.’

Kineas nodded. ‘I believe that he is a rational man, despite his burst of temper. You think worse of him.’

‘He is more stable with you and Memnon than he was last year. I fear that when you are gone — I fear many things.’

Kineas rubbed his beard. ‘What do you want me to do?’

‘Leave my squadron here.’ Nicomedes shrugged. ‘I can watch the archon. And I can deal with Cleomenes.’ His voice hardened.

Kineas shook his head. ‘Ah, Nicomedes — you have worked yourself too hard. Yours is the best of the four squadrons. On the day of battle, I need you.’

Nicomedes shrugged. ‘I thought you’d say that. Very well, then — leave Cleitus here.’

Kineas rubbed his cheeks thoughtfully. ‘The older men — the worst riders, but on the best horses and with the best equipment.’

Nicomedes leaned across the space between the couches, handing Kineas back his sword, hilt first. ‘Most of them are old for a real campaign — but young enough to wear armour and stare down a tyrant.’

‘You and Cleitus are rivals,’ Kineas said carefully.

Nicomedes got up from his couch and walked to the table where a dozen scrolls were open. ‘Not in this. I’d rather it was me — Cleitus has a lingering respect for the archon, and he’s clay in Cleomenes’s hands — but he’ll hold the line.’

‘All the more reason for it to be him. The archon remains my employer. He is autocratic, but as far as I can tell, he has acted within the laws of the city. You empowered him. He’s your monster.’ Kineas rubbed his beard. ‘And I fear that you and Cleomenes — that it’s too personal.’

Nicomedes looked bitter. ‘It is. I’ll kill him when I can.’

Kineas stood up. ‘When the Athenian assembly voted for war with Macedon, many were against it, and some of them lie dead at Chaeronea. That’s democracy.’

Nicomedes came and walked Kineas to his door. ‘You’ll do it, though — leave Cleitus’s squadron?’

Kineas nodded sharply. ‘Yes.’

Nicomedes smiled, and Kineas wondered if he’d just been outmanoeuvred. ‘Good. It would kill Ajax to stay. And I’ve never seen war on land. It looks very safe compared to war at sea.’

Kineas didn’t know whether this was humour or not. It was always hard to tell with Nicomedes. So he clasped the man’s hand in his doorway, amidst a crowd of hangers-on, and went back to the barracks.

The third day, Nicomedes’ squadron rode forth with more baggage and more slaves then the other two combined — but his squadron had the best discipline of the four. Kineas watched them go with a heavy heart — he wanted to go, but he had to finish his work with the allies.

Philokles, Memnon and Cleitus stood with him until the last spare horse and the last mule cart passed through the gates.

Memnon continued to appear a foot taller. He turned to Kineas and saluted — without a trace of sarcasm — and said, ‘I’ll just take my lads out for an hour, with your permission?’

Kineas returned his salute, hand on chest. ‘Memnon, you do not need my permission to drill the hoplites.’

Memnon grinned. ‘I know that. God help you if you thought otherwise. ’ He pointed at the waiting men, formed in long files in the streets of the town. ‘But it’s a good game for them.’

Philokles agreed. ‘Those who obey will be obeyed,’ he said.

Memnon pointed at him. ‘Right! Just what I mean. Socrates?’

Philokles shook his head. ‘Lykeurgos of Sparta.’

Memnon walked off, still laughing.

Memnon found much to admire in the hoplites of Pantecapeum — their phalanx he accounted very good, and their elite young men, two hundred athletes in top shape — the epilektoi — made him grin. ‘Of course, their officers are a bunch of pompous twits,’ he said through his snaggle teeth.

The hipparch of Pantecapaeum was about the same. He was a tall, thin, very young man with a dour face and a large forehead — usually a sign of immense intelligence.

‘My troops will remain exclusively under my command,’ he said. ‘You may communicate your orders to me, and if I feel that they are appropriate, I will pass them to my men. We are gentlemen, not mercenaries. I have heard a great many things about you — that you force the gentlemen of Olbia to curry their own horses, for instance. None of that foolishness will apply to my men.’

Kineas had expected as much from their exchange of letters. ‘I will discuss all of these points with you, of course. In the meantime, may I inspect your men?’

The allied hipparch — Heron — gave a thin smile. ‘If you wish to view them, you may. Only I inspect them. Only I speak to them. I hope I’ve made myself clear.’ Kineas knew him instantly — a man for whom intelligence replaced sense, and whose fear of failure made him distant and arrogant. All too common in small armies. Kineas had known from the first how lucky he was with Nicomedes and Cleitus — and Heron was the proof.

Kineas nodded. His mind was refreshingly clear of anger — and long years with the arrogance of Macedonian officers had accustomed him to this sort of thing. Instead of a reaction, he turned his horse and began to walk it down the front rank of the hippeis of Pantecapaeum.

The hippeis of Pantecapaeum were fifty years out of date in their equipment. Like the hoplites of Olbia, they were wearing equipment that their grandfathers would have used — light linen armour or no armour, small horses, light javelins. Most of the riders were overweight, and at least a dozen were sitting back on their horse’s haunches — what Athenians called ‘chair seat’, a posture that was easier on untrained riders but hard on the horse. Kineas noted that they had no cloaks at their saddlecloths, and that the squadron, just seventy men, had a surprising mix of horses.

He smiled, because he suspected that if he had seen the hippeis of Olbia a year ago, the few who turned out might have looked like this. He reined up and turned to Heron.

‘We’ll train you. You’ll have to work on your equipment. I’ll treat you as one of my troop commanders for as long as you deserve it.’ He rode up close to the man. ‘I’ve seen years and years of mounted warfare, and this is going to be a hard campaign. Obey me, and you’ll keep most of your men alive. Go your own way, and you are of no use to me.’

Heron stared to the front for a few seconds. ‘I will consult with my men,’ he said stiffly.

Kineas nodded. ‘Be quick, then.’

Kineas sent a slave for Cleitus, and spent an ugly half hour on the sand with an angry troop of allied horsemen. He gave them orders and they were sullen, or simply ignorant. Their hyperetes — Dion — seemed willing enough. Heron retreated — first to the far edge of the sand and then to the gate.

Cleitus appeared at the head of his squadron, it being an appointed drill day for the cavalry left in the city. They filed into the hippodrome, making it look empty compared to full muster days, but the fifty of them made a superb contrast to the men of Pantecapaeum.

‘Thank the gods,’ Kineas said. He was somewhere between frustration and rage. He had Niceas to do this kind of work, and always had. Kineas pointed at the allied horse. ‘Can you train them for me? Two weeks?’

‘Surely you can train them faster — and better — in camp.’ Cleitus looked around. ‘Where’s Heron? Did you kill him?’

‘No. He’s brave enough — just pig-ignorant.’

Cleitus shook his head. ‘He’s the son of an old rival of mine. He grew up soft. Too soft.’

Kineas shrugged. ‘So did I. Listen — they need armour, and they need the same big geldings we have. You can do all that here — I can’t. I’ll get them remounts at the camp, but the armour has to come from here.’

Cleitus scratched his chin. ‘Who’s paying?’

Kineas grinned. ‘Let me guess. The thin kid — Heron — is rich?’

Cleitus laughed. ‘Rich as Croseus.’

Kineas shook his head. ‘I wish all my problems had such easy answers. Tell him I’ll keep him as hipparch — even apologize — if he pays. Otherwise, send him home and pick a new one. Dias looks competent. ’

Cleitus nodded. ‘Dion. Dias is the trumpeter. He is. He’s just dishonest. ’ He waved to his friend Petrocolus, who trotted up, looking a decade younger.

‘What’s up?’

Cleitus pointed at the men of Pantecapaeum. ‘I knew we were getting off too easily when we were left as the garrison. Now we get to train them.’

Petrocolus eyed them with the disdain of the veteran for the amateur. The sight made Kineas smile. ‘I’ll do my best,’ he said.

Kineas saw the archon one more time before he left. The archon refused to be serious, mocking Macedon and Kineas by turns. He was drunk. He accused Kineas of wanting to take the city and made him swear he’d defend it. And then he demanded Kineas’s oath that he would not try to overthrow him.

Kineas swore and was eventually dismissed.

‘You can be so naive,’ Philokles said, when he heard the whole story. They were finally riding out, just the two of them with Ataelus for a scout.

‘He was pitiful,’ Kineas said.

Philokles shook his head. ‘Note how he put you on the defensive. He made you swear a vow. He swore none.’

Kineas rode in silence for a stade. Then he shook his head. ‘You’re right.’

‘I am,’ Philokles said. He grinned. ‘Nevertheless, you can’t have hurt things. Perhaps you purchased a few more weeks of trust. My people in the citadel say that he fears an assassin — Persian courts are full of them.’

Kineas rode in silence again, and then said, ‘I fear the archon and I fear for him.’

‘He’s useless and self-destructive and he will betray us. Are you ready for it?’ Philokles asked.

‘We’ll have the army. Let’s beat Zopryon. Worry about the archon later. Wasn’t that your advice?’ Kineas drank some water. He looked out at the sea of grass. Somewhere, around the curve of the Euxine, Zopryon was coming — forty to fifty days away. Imagine — every day that he kept Zopryon at bay was another day of life. It was almost funny.

‘Does Medea know?’ Philokles asked.

‘What?’ asked Kineas, startled out of his reverie.

‘The Lady Srayanka. We call her Medea. Does she know about your dream?’

Kineas shook his head. ‘I thought it was you lot. You got the goldsmith to take her as a model?’

Philokles grinned. ‘I’ll never tell.’

‘Bastards, the lot of you. No, she doesn’t know, at least from me.’ Kineas watched the horizon. He ached to ride to her — day and night, until he got to the camp. Good, mature behaviour from a commander. He reached out a hand for the water skin and said, ‘Kam Baqca and the king have forbidden us to — be together.’

Philokles turned his head away, obviously embarrassed. ‘I know.’

‘You know?’ Kineas spluttered on his water.

‘It was discussed,’ Philokles said. He made a series of fidgets and motions indicating extreme embarrassment. ‘I was consulted.’

‘Ares and Aphrodite!’ Kineas said.

Philokles hung his head. ‘You had eyes for no one else.’ Philokles looked out over the plain. ‘She refused to speak to you. The king is mad with love for her. The three of you…’ He sighed. ‘The three of you threaten the whole war with your lovesickness.’

With the clear head of a man who had forty days to live, Kineas did not succumb to rage. ‘You may be right.’

Philokles glanced at him, searched for signs of anger. ‘You see that?’

‘I suppose. Solon had a rhyme — I don’t remember it, but it was about a man who thought that he was right and every other citizen in the city was wrong.’ Kineas gave a fleeting smile. ‘You, Niceas, Kam Baqca — I doubt that you are all wrong.’ His smile brightened. ‘Even now, I consider touching my heels to this horse and riding hard to her camp. Just a stade back I was thinking of it.’

Philokles grinned. ‘Her barb’s sunk deep. I can see why — she’s more like a Spartan woman than any barbarian I’ve ever seen.’ He took the water back. ‘Is it eros, or agape? Have you lain with her?’

‘You are like some pimply boyhood friend asking after my first conquest!’

‘No — I’m a philosopher studying my current subject.’

‘The girl in the golden sandals has, indeed, smacked me with the big fat grape of love,’ Kineas said, quoting a popular song from the Athens of his youth. ‘When, exactly, can two cavalry commanders find private time to make love?’ He rubbed the hilt of his new sword with his left hand.

Philokles smiled. He looked away. ‘Spartans manage such things pretty well on campaign. Even Spartiates.’

‘Bah, you’re all men. You just pick your cloak mate.’ Kineas raised an eyebrow.

The Spartan answered it. ‘Is your amazon a woman? I mean, besides the anatomy — she’s no more a woman than Kam Baqca is a man.’

Kineas felt his face grow hot. ‘I think she is,’ he said.

‘Going to settle her down in the top floor of your house and raise babies?’ Philokles said. ‘From what I’ve seen of Sakje women, I understand Medea all the better. Bred to freedom — life as a woman in Thebes would be slavery. Cruel Hands. You know why they call her that?’

‘Clan name,’ said Kineas.

‘In her case, she used to take heads from her kills — without a mercy blow.’ Philokles slung his water skin. ‘I’m not against her. I just want you to see that she will never be a wife — a Greek wife.’

‘Do I want a Greek wife?’ Kineas said.

‘Perhaps not,’ Philokles said. ‘But if you change your mind, she will be a fearsome foe. Medea indeed.’

Kineas turned away, waved to Ataelus, and choked, somewhere between laughter and tears. ‘Luckily,’ he said finally, ‘I’ll be dead.’

His first sight of the allied camp made him stop his horse and stare. Across the river, as far as he could see, from the low hill to the north of the ford in a great curve away to the south, there were herds of horses. He did as his tutor had taught him. He took a deep breath, kneed his own horse forward, and divided the vast expanse into a grid of manageable squares. He estimated the size of one square and began to count the animals in it, arrived at a reasonable answer, and multiplied by his approximate number of squares, adding the columns as he moved, until his horse was splashing across the ford and he was shaking his head at the impossibility of the figure he’d calculated.

Ataelus lead them to the king’s wagon. The king’s household, his personal clan, had their camp on the hilltop north of the ford, with fifty heavy wagons parked in a circle like a wooden fort. The king’s wagon was in the centre. At the base of the hill herds of horses, flocks of goats, and dozens of oxen milled in promiscuous confusion.

Kineas greeted Marthax, who stood within a ring of other nobles. ‘The raid?’ Kineas called out in Sakje.

Marthax waddled over with the rolling gait of a man who scarcely ever walked when he could ride. He spoke rapidly — too rapidly for Kineas to follow, although by now his Sakje was sufficient to register the raid’s success.

‘Ferry destroyed,’ Ataelus said. ‘All boats burned, and town for burning. No horse lost.’

Kineas winced. Despite the ill treatment of his column at Antiphilous the summer before, he hadn’t expected the whole town to be sacrificed to the war.

Marthax grinned. He said something, and all Kineas caught was a phrase about ‘baby shit’.

Ataelus said, ‘Lord say, I burned towns when you were baby.’

Kineas frowned at what he suspected the man had actually said, and Marthax grinned back.

Behind him, Philokles grunted. ‘The tyrant rears his head,’ he said.

Kineas looked back at him as he dismounted. ‘Tyrant?’

The Spartan also dismounted and rubbed his thighs. ‘Haven’t I said it a dozen times? War is the ultimate tyrant, and every concession you make him leads only to further demands. How many died at Antiphilous?’

Kineas sighed. ‘That’s war.’

Philokles nodded. ‘Yes. It is. And this is just the beginning.’

Kineas made the king laugh when he asked if the full muster was present.

‘A tenth of my strength, at most. I, too, have my stronger and my weaker chiefs. My Olbia and my Pantecapaeum, if you like.’

Kineas waved at the plain below the hill. ‘I counted ten thousand horses.’

Satrax nodded. ‘At least. Those are the royal herds. I am not the greatest of the Sakje kings but neither am I the least. They are also the herds of the Standing Horse, Patient Wolves, and Man Under Tree clans.’ He gazed out over the plain. ‘By midsummer we will have eaten the grass from here to the water god’s shrine upriver, and we will have to move.’ He shrugged. ‘But the grain is starting to come.’

Kineas shook his head. ‘So many horses.’

‘Kineas,’ said the king. ‘A poor Sakje, a man with no skills at the hunt and no reputation in battle, owns four horses. A poor woman has the same. A man with less than four horses isn’t welcome with his clan, because he can’t keep up with the hunt or the treks. Every man and every woman has at least four — most have ten. A rich warrior has a hundred horses. A king has a thousand horses.’

Kineas, who owned four horses himself, whistled.

The king turned to Ataelus. ‘And you? How many horses have you?’

Ataelus spoke with obvious pride. ‘I have six horses with me, and two more in the stables of Olbia. I will take more from Macedon, and then I will have a wife.’

Satrax turned to Kineas. ‘When you met him, he had no horses — am I right?’

Kineas smiled at Ataelus. ‘I take your point.’

The king said, ‘You are a good chief to him. He has horses now. Greedy chiefs keep spoils for themselves. Good ones make sure every man has his due.’

Kineas nodded. ‘It is the same with us. You know the Iliad?’

‘I’ve heard it. An odd story — I was never sure who I was supposed to like. Achilles struck me as a monster. But I take your point — the whole story is about unfair division of spoils.’

Kineas, who had been taught from childhood to see in Achilles the embodiment of every manly virtue, had to choke back an exposition on Achilles. The king could be very Greek, despite his trousers and his hood-like hats, but then, in flawless Greek, he would render an opinion that showed just how alien he was.

The king saw his confusion and laughed. ‘I know — you worship him. But you Greeks spend a lot of time being angry, so perhaps Achilles is your model. Why so much anger? Now come and tell me what your archon is going to do.’

‘He was all compliance, my lord. The hoplites will march with the new moon. Diodorus will have explained about the troop of horse left behind.’

‘He did indeed. He also chose your camp. Go to it, and we will talk later.’ War had made the king more autocratic. Kineas noted that he had a larger court, and that he had more men and more women in attendance. He wondered what that might portend.

Diodorus met him with a hug and a cup of wine. ‘I hope you like our camp,’ he said.

He had taken the spur of ground immediately south of the king’s camp, a spur that pushed out into the deeper water north of the ford as a rocky peninsula. The tents of the Olbians were arranged in a neat square, with a line for the horses and another line for fires, and beyond the fires, a line of pits — latrines. It was straight from one of the manuals, like a mathematics exercise transformed into hard reality. To the north of the hill he pointed out another square, a stade on a side, marked with heavy pegs and almost clear of Sakje animals. ‘For the hoplites, when they arrive.’

‘Well done,’ Kineas said.

He walked among the fires, greeting men he knew, clasping hands and basking in their joy at seeing him. At the centre of the camp stood a wagon.

‘The king presented it to you,’ Diodorus said.

The wagon was painted blue from its wheels to the heavy boards of the sides. The felt tent that covered the roof was a dark blue, and the yokes for four oxen were blue. Steps led from the ground to the back flap of the felt cover.

Kineas handed his horse to a slave and leaned in. The box was small — just a little wider than the height of a man and twice as long. Inside was a bed, set into the wagon’s wall and protected by hangings — felt, figured with deer and horses and griffons — and a low table. The floor was thick with Sakje rugs and cushions.

‘I took the liberty of testing the bed for a few nights,’ Diodorus said. He grinned. ‘Just to make sure it worked.’

‘And?’

‘It does. It makes you want to stay in it. By the gods, Kineas, I am glad you are here. If ever I thought I could do your job, I was mistaken. A thousand crises a day-’

He was interrupted by Eumenes, who clasped Kineas by the hand and then turned to Diodorus. ‘We were told there would be grain for the chargers today. Where will we get that?’

Diodorus pointed at Kineas with both hands. ‘Welcome to Great Bend, Hipparch,’ he said. ‘You are in command.’ He mimed lifting a great weight off his back and placing it on Kineas. Eumenes, Philokles and Ataelus all laughed.

Kineas smiled at all of them. ‘Diodorus, where is this grain dole?’ ‘No idea,’ he replied.

‘Go find out,’ Kineas said with the same smile.

Diodorus shook his head. ‘Why didn’t I think of that?’

Kineas’s first week in the camp at Great Bend was a constant exercise in humility. His men — trained to near perfection by a hard winter and now being carefully tempered in the camp — were as good as any Greek cavalry he’d ever seen. The Sakje were an order of magnitude better.

Kineas had seen the Sakje in sport and contest, riding over the grass, racing, shooting for pleasure. But he had never seen a hundred warriors lying in the grass with their ponies lying beside them, invisible in a fold of the ground until their chief blew a bone whistle and, before the shriek died away on the air, every man rolled his pony upright and was mounted. It was one of a hundred tricks they had that used their god-like riding skills, and Kineas understood exactly why the earliest poets had thought them to be centaurs.

On the second day, Srayanka and a dozen of her warriors returned from a hunt. She eyed him coolly and challenged him to shoot a course with her, javelin against javelin.

‘I have practised,’ she said in Greek.

He rode almost as well as he had in the first contest, landing five of six javelins in the shields, the last one a hand’s breadth too high. Srayanka raced through the shields faster, and missed none. Her eyes sparkled when she slid off her mare. ‘So?’ she said.

I practised five years to throw that well, he thought. But he mastered his disappointment and praised her.

She smiled up at him. ‘Loser give winner gift,’ she said.

Kineas went to his wagon and emerged with his first sword, the plunder of Ectabana, the blade long since repaired. He handed it to her.

Ataelus spoke, and Srayanka replied. They shot back and forth several times as she turned the weapon in her hands.

‘You give gift like chief,’ she said in Greek. ‘Like king. I dream of you, Kineax.’

‘And I of you. I carry your gift,’ Kineas said, and her eyes strayed to his whip.

‘Good!’ she said. She waved her whip at her companions, and they mounted and raced off across the grass, hooting and shouting.

‘Nice little wife,’ Philokles said.

‘Why didn’t I ever think of using swords as courtship gifts?’ Nicomedes asked the air.

‘Don’t you people have work to do?’ Kineas asked.

The Black Horse clan came into the camp on the fourth day — a thousand warriors and another eight thousand animals. They arrived in full panoply and Kineas had his first sight of Sakje nobles dressed for war.

The first hundred riders — the chief’s companions — wore scale armour from shoulder to knee, heavy coats of leather with bronze and iron scales attached like the scales on a fish, or like tiles on a roof. The richest men on the biggest horses had the same armour on the chests of their horses, as well as full-face Greek helmets with enormous plumes.

And every man of the chief’s companions rode a black horse. They were magnificent, and as well armoured and mounted as the cream of a Persian host. They each carried a bow in a gorytos, and a heavy lance, as well as a brace of javelins.

Niceas, watching at Kineas’s side, said bitterly, ‘What in Hades do they need us for?’

Srayanka was impatient for the rest of her Cruel Hands to ride in from her pastureland to the west. They were late, and she was losing prestige every day they delayed. Her retinue said as much, and so did Ataelus.

They came on the sixth day after Kineas’s arrival. They did not make much of a show — the herds were as large as any other tribe, but the warriors looked tired, and a convoy of travois carrying wounded men and women led the herds.

She was gone among her people for an hour, and then the king summoned all the chiefs to meet in his laager.

‘Zopryon has sent the Getae to burn the Sindi,’ Srayanka said. ‘My people were hard pressed to hold them, and my tanist chose to come to the rendezvous rather than fight alone.’

The king nodded grimly. ‘Kairax is a good man. But your people are tired, and you have many wounded.’

Srayanka frowned. ‘We can ride back tonight,’ she said.

Marthax shook his head. ‘If your people had been on time for the muster, we’d never have known,’ he said. ‘As it is, your people took the brunt of the raid and your farmers are paying in blood and fire — but we’re warned.’ Eumenes translated as fast as Marthax could speak. Kineas, after a week in camp and more dreams of talking trees, understood Marthax before the translation was done. The army’s language barrier was falling — slowly.

‘We must strike back,’ Srayanka said.

All of the Sakje were with her, even the king. Kineas let them talk, and then cut in. ‘Zopryon is using the Getae to test your strength, and to see — if he’s lucky, or you are foolish — if he can scare you into breaking up your army to protect your farmers.’

‘Fucking Getae,’ Ataelus said. A phrase that never needed to be translated.

‘Fucking Getae indeed,’ Kineas said. He ignored Srayanka’s glare. ‘They know where to find your farmers. They know just how to hurt you — yes? And if Zopryon sent them, they’ll raid in a wide arc across the north — probably the whole of their strength — right to the walls of your town. How many of your chiefs will stay home to fight them rather than march through them to the muster? And Zopryon won’t have to feed them — while they cover his army against your raids.’ Kineas paused. ‘It’s a good strategy.’ Privately, Kineas knew it was the strategy of a man who was fully informed of the Sakje plan — by Cleomenes. His stomach bubbled.

Satrax rubbed his temples. ‘Why didn’t we foresee this?’ he asked Kam Baqca.

She shook her head. ‘As you know, more is hidden than is revealed.’

‘Very well,’ said the king. ‘What do we do?’

Marthax and Srayanka spoke together. Both said the same thing. ‘Fight.’

‘You disagree?’ the king said to Kineas.

Kineas stood silent a moment, gathering his thoughts. Kam Baqca’s sentence lingered in his head, and his idea was born from it. ‘I agree,’ he said. ‘Let’s fight.’ He took a deep breath. ‘If we are swift, and decisive, the result will allow us to return to our original plan — with an advantage. Zopryon has been bold — but he may also have made an error.’

He spoke rapidly, outlining his plan.

‘Mmm,’ said Marthax.

‘He like for plan,’ said Ataelus.

Kineas’s plan carried the day. But he didn’t like the king’s hesitation, or his frequent exchanges with Srayanka. And over the next dozen days, he had many opportunities to ponder what those exchanges might have meant.