Tyrant

21

The king was just summoning his clan leaders. He had a big felt tent, and his guardsmen had erected it in the clear space at the centre of his laager.

Kineas was still in armour from his reconnaissance. He kept his cloak around him, the more so as the clan leaders came in, Srayanka among them. She lay down on the rugs next to him. Marthax sat on his other side, and the king sat on a folding stool. He served them wine with his own hands, in heavy gold cups, glanced disapprovingly at Srayanka, and turned his head away.

The last of the chiefs came in, and a pair of Sauromatae, and then Kam Baqca. She bowed to the king, and slumped at his side, as if the energy of standing had exhausted her.

The king pointed his whip at Kineas. ‘Our thanks to our allies. We would have had many empty saddles without your actions at the ford.’

Kineas rose and pointed a bare arm at the Sauromatae. ‘They turned the tide,’ he said bluntly. ‘Without them, we might have been beaten. Even as it was, I lost young Leucon — one of my officers.’

The blonder of the two Sauromatae rose and returned his bow. He spoke rapidly to the king, and the king translated with pleasure.

‘Prince Lot says that he questioned you as allies, and now he asks no more questions, and hopes that the quality of the offence was altered by the brotherhood on the field.’

Kineas smiled at the tall blond man.

The king nodded. ‘It is good that we have the army together, and it is good that we struck Zopryon a blow at the edge of dark. Marthax?’

Marthax rose. He cracked his fingers and stretched his arms. In Greek he said, ‘It is good.’ Through Eumenes, he said, ‘Zopryon flinched from the contest.’ Eumenes translated, although, as was increasingly the case, Kineas understood almost every word. ‘My sense is that he was afraid of what started in the dark and rain — and he retreated.’

The other chiefs roared approval.

Kineas could sense that their morale had shifted in the night. They were eager, and the king looked happier. Only Kam Baqca had hollows under her eyes and pale cheeks.

Kineas raised his hand and the king waved to him.

‘I had scouts to the south,’ he said. ‘They saw patrols, and took a prisoner. Zopryon is looking for a ford. He has scouted us well — his men knew where to expect us last night, even in the rain.’

Srayanka spoke from the rug at his side. ‘Those Thessalians are tough bastards,’ she said.

Another chief across the tent swallowed his wine. ‘And their companions are just as good,’ he said.

Kineas nodded. ‘As we said from the first — this is where he is desperate. He must either destroy this army or cross to the south and go to Olbia.’ Kineas shrugged. Hesitantly, he enunciated his dearest thought. ‘If he even knows of Cleomenes’s treason — and nothing we have seen so far suggests he knows.’ He grimaced at the irony of it — Zopryon’s greatest advantage might be unknown to the man. The gods punished hubris in just such ways. He made a gesture learned from his nurse — pure superstition, to avert any part he might play in such hubris.

Kineas continued, ‘He ought to push to the ford today. If he does not, we should consider pressing him again — sending raids across the river.’

Marthax rubbed his moustache and drank some wine. ‘Already it is late in the day. And the rain soaks everything.’

The king nodded. ‘There is standing water in the camp. It will be worse where the Macedonians are.’

Srayanka looked around the circle. ‘I don’t want to fight today,’ she said, and other chiefs nodded with her, and Gaomavant, lord of the Patient Wolves, rose to his feet. ‘We need rest, Lord. The horses are weary, and the warriors — too many are hurt. The rain does not help.’

Lot of the Sauromatae shrugged, despite the weight of his armour. He spoke through the king, who matched him gesture for gesture. ‘We are not tired. Show us a line of bronze hats, and we will cut them down. The rain does not wet our lance heads. If you are tired, think how the bronze hats are today.’

Kineas shook his head. ‘The taxeis are not tired. They can march through a hundred days of rain.’ He looked at the king and shook his head again. ‘We are drier — and more secure — than the Macedonians. We will rest better. You have more remounts to replace those who are lame. And — I hesitate to shout this to the gods, lest I offend by hubris — but nothing, nothing we have seen in two days suggests that Zopryon knows that Olbia is open to them. If my council carries weight here, then I suggest that the freshest clans cross the ford and block Zopryon’s access to the south. Cut him off from any message. Strike his southern pickets and wear at them. A few hundred horse, at most — if they are cut off when Zopryon moves to the ford, they can harry his rear or simply ride off into the grass.’

The king rubbed his beard. He glanced at Marthax. ‘Warlord?’ he asked.

Marthax shrugged. ‘What do we want, Lord?’ he asked bluntly. ‘The campaign has always come to this. Do we avoid battle? Or force battle and fight to destroy this enemy utterly — risking our own destruction? Did we not decide from the first to take that risk? We might have ridden into the grass in the spring — even now, we might be with the Messagetae. We are here. Enough council. Let us cut this Zopryon off from the south — that is sense — and goad him to the fight. Let him cross the ford in the morning.’ Marthax’s look at Kam Baqca was almost tender. ‘We will be stung. But the hornet’s nest will be destroyed utterly. So say I.’

The king glanced around the circle, but it was clear that the chiefs were with Marthax, and only the king hesitated. He said, ‘I remind you that when we first planned this campaign, we discussed a parley at this precise moment. A token of submission.’

The chiefs growled. Next to Kineas, Srayanka stiffened and her face set.

The king looked around at them. He pointed to Kineas. ‘Your friend the Spartan says that war is a tyrant, and nothing makes it more clear than this.’ His bitterness was evident. ‘The taste of blood has excited you. You want to risk all so that this menace may be destroyed, or so that we may all be remembered in song.’ He glanced at Srayanka. ‘Or so that past injustice may be wiped clean.’

The tent was silent while he toyed with his whip. None of them made a noise, and the sound of hoof beats carried clearly from outside.

The king looked at Kam Baqca, but she turned her face away and raised her hand, as if the king’s eyes might scorch her. The hoof beats came closer, and stopped, and in the unnatural stillness Kineas heard the sound as the rider’s feet hit the ground.

The king flinched at Kam Baqca’s reaction. Then he drew himself up, and Kineas, who knew the weight of command, could all but see the full load settle on the king’s shoulders. He raised his whip and pointed at the lord of the Grass Cats.

‘The king! I must see the king!’ said a strong voice from the doorway of the tent.

The messenger was young, wearing nothing but a gorytos over breeches and boots and a short knife. He threw himself in front of the king.

‘Lord — there is a herald at the ford demanding our submission. A herald from the bronze hats.’

As soon as Kineas saw Cleomenes sitting on a tall mare at Zopryon’s side, he knew the worst.

The rain was clearing. A veil of cloud moved fitfully along the river valley, separating the two armies, but in the heavens, the sun was gradually conquering the element of water. Kineas looked up, and saw an eagle or a hawk far, far to the north — his right. A good omen. Below, on the earth, a hundred Macedonian cavalry sat a half-stade to the west, while a hundred of the king’s household sat at the edge of the ford. And between them were two half-circles: the king of the Sakje, Marthax and Srayanka, Lot and Kineas. Across a horse length of grass: Zopryon, flanked by a Macedonian officer and Cleomenes, and a herald.

The good omen in the sky hardly balanced the disaster of Cleomenes’ presence.

The Macedonian herald had just completed reading his master’s requirements — the submission of the Sakje, a tribute of twenty thousand horses, and the immediate repudiation of the armies of Olbia and Pantecapaeum.

Kineas watched Cleomenes. Cleomenes met his eye and smiled.

When the herald was done, Zopryon nudged his horse into motion. He wore no helmet, but a diadem of white in his hair.

‘I have Olbia in the palm of my hand,’ he said. His words were arrogant. They belied the look on his face — fatigue, and worry. He went on. ‘With Olbia as a base, I can ride against your towns. I will spend the autumn burning your crops. Save me the time. Submit.’

None of the Sakje flinched.

Cleomenes spoke to Kineas. ‘You are wise to bring no man of Olbia to this parley, mercenary. But my men will find them, and tell them. And they will march away from you, and leave you to die with these. Traitor. False hireling. For you, my lord Zopryon will have no mercy.’

Kineas gave no more reaction than the Sakje. Instead, he turned to the king. And the king, who had sat slumped, relaxed, or perhaps tired while listening to the herald, now drew himself erect.

‘When news of your herald came,’ he said in his excellent Greek, ‘I was in council with my chiefs. Ever they urge me to battle, and ever I hesitate, because to fight a battle is to submit the fate of my people to chance and death. O Zopryon, your words have cleared the air for me, as the sun burns away every fog, in the end. Do you know your Herodotus?’

Zopryon’s face darkened. ‘Do not toy with me. Submit, or take the consequence.’

Even now, Kineas could see that the man was in a hurry. Even with Olbia in hand, just three hundred stades away, the desperation was still there. A flicker of hope relit in Kineas’s stomach.

The king reached out and took a basket from Srayanka, who rode at his side. ‘Here are your tokens, O Zopryon.’ He shrugged, and appeared as young as he really was. ‘I hadn’t time to catch a bird.’

He pushed his horse into motion. The horse took a few steps, and all of the Macedonians reacted. But the king handed the wicker basket to the herald. And then stopped his horse nose to nose with Zopryon’s horse.

Zopryon motioned impatiently. The herald took a linen towel off the top of the basket, and a frog leaped clear. The herald dropped the basket in shock. He turned to his master. ‘Vermin!’ he said. ‘Mice and frogs!’

The king reached into his gorytos and withdrew a handful of light arrows, which he threw on the ground at Zopryon’s feet. ‘I am the king of the Sakje. That is the answer of the Sakje. My allies may speak for themselves.’ The king glanced at Kineas and sat straight. And then he turned his horse and rode away.

Cleomenes was as red as a Spartan’s cloak. The herald’s horse shied from the mice in the grass.

Kineas leaned forward. His hands were clenched with tension, but his voice carried well enough. ‘His tokens mean just this, Zopryon. Unless you can swim like a frog, burrow like a mouse, or fly like a bird, we will destroy you with our arrows.’

Zopryon reacted angrily enough to confirm Kineas’s suspicion that the man was at the edge. ‘This embassage is ended, mercenary! Be gone before I order you dead.’

Kineas pushed his horse forward, floating on the promise of his dream. ‘Try, Zopryon,’ he said. ‘Try to kill me.’

Zopryon turned his horse. ‘You are mad. Drunk with power.’

Kineas laughed. It was a harsh laugh, a little forced, but it did the job. ‘Does Alexander know you wear the diadem?’ Kineas called. ‘Do you have an ivory stool to match it?’ He saw the shot go home. Zopryon whirled his horse. He put his hand on his sword hilt.

Kineas sat still, and his warhorse didn’t stir.

Cleomenes leaned forward over his horse’s neck. ‘You are a dangerous man. And now you will die.’

Kineas stood his ground. His laugh was derisive, and he was proud that he could conjure it. And he needed to goad Zopryon. He needed the man to commit to his desperation. ‘Your horses are starving,’ he yelled. ‘Your men walk like corpses. You are burning your wagons for firewood.’

Zopryon was two horse lengths away. His hand was still on his sword, and his face was moving.

Kineas pointed at the king’s arrows. ‘Cleomenes,’ he said mockingly. ‘You have chosen unwisely.’ He held the man’s eyes. ‘You are a fool. This army will never get to Olbia alive.’

Cleomenes didn’t flinch. ‘I demand that you give me my son, and all the men still loyal to the archon.’

Kineas shook his head. ‘If I sent Eumenes to you,’ he said, ‘he would kill you himself.’ To Zopryon, he said, ‘Olbia is on our side of the river. Your scouts will have told you that there is no ford south of here. Whenever you think you can force the ford, come and face us. If your horses don’t starve first.’

Zopryon’s rage began to boil out of him, and Kineas rode away.

At the ford, he caught the king. ‘He must not be allowed to march south.’

Marthax nodded. ‘We know.’

‘Let the Grass Cats cross the ford as soon as Varo their lord can be ready,’ the king said. ‘Let us show them their future.’

Kineas found that Kam Baqca was watching him. He met her eyes, and wondered if the same emptiness lay in his own.

The Grass Cats rode off across the ford as the rain tailed off to fitful spurts in early afternoon. And a damp sun made portions of the sky overhead lighter, if a man was an optimist.

Kineas ordered Diodorus to take a patrol across and scout the enemy camp — or their patrol line. He wanted to do it himself, but he needed sleep.

His nap was dreamless. But he had a sharp feeling of dream when it was the same damp arm that woke him, and Philokles’ voice in his ear.

‘Huh?’ he asked, as before.

‘Your prisoner?’ Philokles said. ‘The one Laertes brought? He’s a Kelt. One of the archon’s.’

‘Athena, protectress. Shield of our fathers, lady of the olive. All the gods.’ Kineas swore, but he was out of his wagon into late afternoon light — a pale sky, sun too weak to cast a shadow but drier than rain. He followed Philokles to the fire pit, where the prisoner sat on a stone, watched by a trio of the blacksmith’s friends. He had his head in his hands, and Kineas could see that the back of his head was swollen.

‘Look at me,’ Philokles ordered in his Ares voice.

The man raised his head, and Kineas knew him, despite the bruise over his eye.

‘So,’ Kineas said. ‘It was not hubris. The gods smile on us — unless others slipped past.’

Philokles shook his head. ‘A dozen Kelts and a pair of Macedonians and Cleomenes left the city together. Ataelus’s wife discovered them in the dark, and led Heron’s men to them. This one thinks they are all dead.’

Kineas rubbed his beard. Balanced on a knife’s edge. If he and Srayanka — if she hadn’t found Ataelus — if Ataelus didn’t have a new wife to ride with him…

It wasn’t over yet.

Kineas rubbed his face with cold water. ‘Cleomenes made it to Zopryon,’ he said. ‘A day too late, I think. I hope.’ He shrugged. ‘I’m for hot water, a shave, and a strigil,’ he said. ‘Tomorrow, we fight.’

Philokles nodded. ‘I’ll comb my hair,’ he said.

Marthax pushed more of his lightest, freshest cavalry across in late afternoon, with orders to cause as much chaos as possible among the Macedonians. The next hours saw a constant skirmish just out of sight of the ford. Sakje would ride back to change horses, get arrows, or tend a wound.

Kineas sent Diodorus to support them, and to gather what information he could.

There was yet an hour of light, or perhaps more, when Kineas saw the stir at the ford. He waved to Memnon, who approached at a run. Horsemen — Olbians — were coming across the ford at speed. He could see a Sakje messenger going up the hill to the king’s laager. Another Sakje coming from the north, on their side of the river — galloping through the herds at a reckless pace. And a Greek — Diodorus, as it proved — coming to Kineas at the gallop from the ford.

‘They’re moving,’ Diodorus panted.

Kineas rubbed his trimmed beard. ‘They’re going to fight now?’

Diodorus struggled to catch his breath. Memnon arrived. ‘They’re going north. The parley must have been to cover them. The whole army is in motion. There’s cavalry as a screen — we were lucky. And they’re tired. We got a glimpse.’

Kineas stretched as tall on his mount as he could, as if he could see farther. The last of the rain was blowing away in the east, but the visibility was still soft, and the middle distance of a few stades was already losing colour. ‘North?’ he said.

The reckless Sakje rider was coming to him. A stade away, Kineas could see it was Ataelus. His heartbeat quickened. He had a sense — almost the sense of his baqca dreams — of knowledge. Ataelus was coming from Heron. Heron was searching north. Diodorus said the Macedonians were marching north.

Kineas could see it — Zopryon’s desperate lunge. The desperate boar gores kings.

Ataelus didn’t bother to dismount. He pulled up so close that horse sweat showered his audience. ‘Heron finds ford. North. And Macedon find ford too.’

Kineas felt the weight of the inevitable future clamp down. Another ford — with a wide shingle and a big dead tree, no doubt.

The ford was just north of their northernmost herds — just by the shrine of the river god. Ataelus said that it was as wide as four wagons and no deeper than a man’s knees, and that there were Macedonians on the far side — just a handful, but more arriving — and that Heron was determined to hold the ford as long as he could.

Kineas didn’t wait to hear it all. He turned to Memnon. ‘I’m off to see the king. Take the phalanx and march immediately. You have to beat the taxeis in the race. They have a head start, but you have the inside track.’

Memnon nodded. ‘They won’t cross tonight.’

Kineas shook his head. ‘They’ll try. Go!’

He turned to his own officers. ‘Eumenes — your men are the most rested. Every man take two horses. Mount all the Sindi. Ride like every one of you bestrides a Pegasus. Nicomedes — go with him as soon as your men can mount. I’ll push the slaves to get a wagon in motion and you’ll have a late dinner. Thirty stades?’ he asked Ataelus.

Ataelus shrugged. ‘An hour’s ride.’

‘Diodorus — pull your men back from the ford. Rest now. You’ll ride with me in an hour.’ Kineas looked around. ‘We must win the race to the ford.’

They all nodded.

Kineas said, ‘This is his last throw. This will be the battle. He’s stolen a march — and we know he can march fast. Now we show what we can do.’

Philokles put a hand on his shoulder. ‘Enough orders,’ he said. ‘See you at the ford.’

Kineas’s news only served to reinforce what the king had already heard.

Marthax was blunt. ‘Maybe the ford. Maybe not the ford.’ He made a motion with his hand. ‘We cannot allow him to march away — go south, go to Olbia.’

The king looked five years older. ‘We’re taking the Sakje across the river,’ he said. ‘We will follow him, crush his rear guard, impede his march.’

Kineas took a deep breath. ‘He will have a three hour head start. He will march all night. You won’t catch him until morning. If I’m right, he’ll be crossing.’ Kineas ran a hand through his hair. ‘We have the smaller army and we intend to divide it?’

The king shook his head. ‘We have the faster army. We watch all of his motions and we rejoin to fight.’

Kineas shook his head. ‘He may force you to fight on the sea of grass — and I’ll be hours away, unable to help.’

Marthax’s face was set. He spoke rapidly, and the king translated. ‘We have no choice. If he gets ahead of us to Olbia, we’ve lost.’

Kineas could see that their minds were made up. They were tired — everyone was tired, and there was no time to talk. He thought about a battlefield he had never seen, except in a dream. He thought about the king, his friend — and rival. Riding away to leave him.

He knew what mattered now. After a moment’s hesitation, he said, ‘Leave me a clan — I can’t hold the ford with the Greeks alone.’ He was more afraid of how the Olbians would feel, waking to find that they alone were to bear the weight of Macedon.

The king frowned, but Marthax nodded. ‘Grass Cats. Standing Horses. You keep both. You know chiefs. Grass Cats fight all days — tired. Not ride all night. Standing Horses take hardest fight yesterday.’ He sent Ataelus for the chiefs. Through the king, he said, ‘I think Zopryon will go to the ford. We will catch him two hours after dawn — I think. You hold him. We will catch him.’ The other chiefs were hurrying up the hills, those that weren’t already across the river, fighting. Kineas saw Srayanka, already mounted, giving orders to her household knights. Philokles ran by her at the head of his light-armed two hundred, setting out at a run, and even as he watched, Philokles lifted his spear to her, and she shrieked a war cry in return that was taken up by her clan. Eumenes’ troop was already vanishing into the gloom. Nicomedes’ men were mostly armed, and the slaves had two wagons loaded — the whole column was moving, with Memnon’s heavy phalanx marching at the rear.

Kineas was proud of them.

Kaliax of the Standing Horse came first. He was nursing a badly cut arm, and he was pale, but he agreed to serve at Kineas’s command. Varo of the Grass Cats looked better — he spoke quickly, still full of the daimon of the fight, and he spoke eloquently in Sakje of the day-long skirmish beyond the ford, the puncturing of the enemy screen, the discovery that the enemy camp was being packed.

Kineas tried to be patient, but his heart was with the Olbians, moving swiftly up the river. They might be fighting in an hour. Right or wrong, Kineas wanted to be there. He had the eye for the ground, and his was the voice that all of the other Greeks would obey — even Memnon.

It occurred to him that he might die today — this very evening, if the fight started immediately. He felt his stomach clench, and his heart race. It was here. Now.

He wanted to see Srayanka again. The last time. She was at the foot of the hill, just the length of a racecourse away.

Instead, he turned to Varo and Kaliax. ‘There will be fighting at the river god’s shrine by nightfall,’ he said. ‘It is an hour’s ride for you. How soon can you come?’

Kaliax flexed his injured hand. ‘Sunset,’ he said.

Varo nodded. ‘Some of my Cats are still across the ford. We’ll need remounts — food. Sunset at best.’

Kineas nodded grimly. He hadn’t hoped for any better. ‘Come on my right flank,’ he said. He had to search for the words, and after a minute of confusion and worry, he slid off his mount, walked to a campfire, grabbed a burnt stick and a scrap of linen that covered a pot despite the protests of the Sindi woman at the fire. He put the linen over his knee and drew. ‘River,’ he said. Then two lines at right angles, like a road. ‘The ford and the shrine,’ he said, and the two chiefs nodded. He sketched a block, a simple rectangle. ‘The Greeks,’ he said. And another, crossing the river. ‘Macedon.’

Both chiefs nodded. Kineas’s stick was out of charcoal. He walked back to the fire and chose another. He drew a line, and then a broad, curving arrow. ‘You come north,’ he said. ‘Swing east, away from the river, along the ridge.’

Both men nodded. ‘Sunset,’ said Varo.

‘Go with the gods,’ said Kineas.

He could feel the thing moving — the whole course of events, the preliminary to the battle, sweeping along like the river in the king’s story. He wanted his warhorse and armour; wanted to make sure the slaves had sufficient food for a hot meal for every one of the Greek allies — wanted to see Srayanka.

He had no time to talk to Srayanka.

He would probably never see her again.

He mounted, took one look at the column of Olbians vanishing into the deep grass along the river, and rode down the south side of the hill to where she sat her horse, one hand on her hip and the other holding her whip. She smiled at him. ‘Now,’ she said. ‘Now you will see how we fight.’

Something in Kineas was too weary to talk. He had only come to say goodbye, but she was so alive, so like a goddess — the Poet often said that men and women were like gods in their best moments, and there she was.

He didn’t want to die. He wanted to be with her for ever.

His silence, and something in his eye moved her. She leaned forward, threw her arms around him, pressed her cheek against his, so that he felt the warmth of her and the bite of her gold gorget against his neck.

‘Tomorrow,’ she said. ‘I will find you, or you will find me, and the Sastar Baqca will be lifted.’

He thought of many things to say. He realized, because he was a brave man, that what he wanted was her comfort — and that the best thing he could give her was his silence about the dream, so that she would ride to her battle with her hope undiminished. He pressed her to him.

‘You shaved,’ she said, patting his cheek as their horses pulled them apart.

‘Always look your best for battle,’ he said. ‘It’s a Greek tradition.’ He tried for humour, but she nodded seriously.

With that inane exchange, they parted. They were commanders — they had roles to play.

Kineas looked at her one more time — and she was looking at him. Her eyes — across a widening length of grass — and then she turned to bark an order. He took a deep breath, and rode for the horse lines.