Tyrant

4

The sun shot over the distant hills between one girth strap and the next, and suddenly the light was different and every blade of grass in the yard had its own shadow. Kineas counted heads — all present, all looking eager, even the old soldiers. Ajax had a slave with his own horse, which he had insisted on bringing, a pretty Persian mare. Crax went up on one of the spare chargers as if born to the saddle, which he probably was, and carried Kineas’s two javelins easily in the same hand as his reins. Ataelus had a bow on a belt at his hip and a riding whip, and he moved his bay around the grass like most men walk, the man and the horse a single animal. Niceas mounted and passed the reins of the baggage animals to the slaves. Kineas rode with him up and down the column. A dozen men, twenty horses and baggage — too big a target for bandits, all the men obviously armed. Kineas liked the look of them, felt happy to have them all. He left Niceas in the middle of the column with the remounts and the baggage and rode to the head where the Scyth waited.

Calchus was not up. Only a handful of slaves were moving around the house, most of them carrying water. Isokles was there to see his son leave, leaning on the paddock wall and chewing grass.

‘Embrace your father,’ Kineas said to Ajax.

Ajax dismounted and they embraced for a long time. Then he came back and vaulted into the saddle.

Kineas raised his hand. ‘Let’s ride,’ he said.

The road from Calchus’s farm became a track the width of two cart wheels within a few stades, and continued as such all day as it turned inland from the sea and headed north and west. At first, Greek farms lined the road, each house set well back amid olive groves and fields of wheat. After a few hours, the Greek farms vanished, to be replaced by rustic villages where the women worked in the fields and men wore barbarian dress, although there were plenty of Greek goods to be seen at every house — amphorae, bronze goods, blankets and wool fabric.

‘Who are they?’ asked Kineas.

Ataelus didn’t understand the question until it was repeated with a gesture. ‘Bastarnae,’ he said. He said a good deal more, with occasional Greek words interposed in his own barbarian tongue — bar bar babble smash bar bar bar destroy! And bar babble warriors. From which Kineas understood that they were fierce warriors when roused. He had heard as much.

They didn’t seem particularly fierce.

When the sun was sinking, they found a bigger house in the third village and asked for lodging. They were well received by an obvious chieftain and his wife, and one silver owl of Athens paid for fodder and food for the whole party. Kineas declined to sleep in the house, but accepted dinner, and despite the barrier of language, enjoyed himself. Philokles declined dinner.

‘My fucking thighs are bleeding,’ he said.

Kineas winced. ‘You’re a Spartan.’

Philokles swore. ‘I gave up on that closed-mouth, endure-the-pain shit when I was exiled.’

Niceas laughed. ‘You’ll be fine,’ he said. ‘In about a week.’

But they provided him with salve, and Niceas saw to it that the salve made its way to Ajax as well.

In the morning, they were away again at first light. They continued to ride past villages and fields. Twice they passed Greek men with carts headed into the town they had left with goods for market.

Late afternoon brought them to the ferry at the Danube. The river, just one of its many mouths, was as wide as a lake. The ferryman had a small farm and had to be summoned to his duty. It took them an hour to unpack the horses and pack the ferry and then they were away, rowed by the ferryman and his slaves while the horses swam alongside. It was a difficult, complex operation, but Kineas and his veterans had crossed too many rivers to be unprepared, and they made it without the loss of baggage or horse.

The mast of the ferryboat cast a long shadow by the time they were across. Niceas put the men to unpacking, and Kineas, done with the worries of the crossing, sat under a solitary oak tree and watched. The ferryman took no part in the unloading, although he did encourage his slaves to help.

Ataelus didn’t touch the baggage. Neither did he show any signs of drinking wine. He recovered his wet horse, curried her, and mounted. Then he sat, an immobile centaur.

The ferryman spoke good Greek, so Kineas waved him over. ‘Can you tell me about the next two days’ travel?’

The ferryman laughed grimly. ‘You just left civilization, if you call Aegyssus civilization. On the north bank it’s just you and the Dacae and the Getae and the Bastarnae. That boy of yours — Crax? He’s Getae. He’ll run tonight, mark my words — and cut your throat if he can. The Getae will want your horses. If you keep following the edge of the hills over there and keep clear of the marches, you’ll come to Antiphilous in four or five days. There’s not a farm or a house between.’

Kineas turned his head to watch Crax. The boy was working hard under the orders of Antigonus the Gaul. They were laughing together. Kineas nodded. ‘Fair enough.’

‘Your party is too small. The Getae will be stuffing your heads with straw by tomorrow.’

‘I doubt it. But thanks for your concern.’

The ferryman shrugged. ‘I’ll take you back over. Course, I’ll have to charge you again, but you can wait at my place until another party comes. ^’

Kineas yawned. It wasn’t feigned, he found the ferryman’s scare tactics dull. In fact, he had heard it all before. ‘No, thanks.’

‘Suit yourself.’

Before the sun had dipped another degree, the ferryman and his boat were gone. They were alone on the north bank. Kineas called Niceas to him. ‘Camp here. Watches, picket and hobble the horses, and watch Crax. He’ll try to run tonight, says the ferryman.’

Niceas glanced at the boy and shrugged. ‘What else did he say?’

‘We’ll all be killed by the Getae.’

‘Like as not.’ Niceas said philosophically, but his hand went to his amulet. ‘What’s a Getae?’

‘Crax’s folk. Thracians with horses.’ Kineas looked at the horizon under his hand. He beckoned to Ataelus, who rode over. ‘We camp here. Take Antigonus and Laertes and ride out, check the area, come back. Yes?’

Ataelus said, ‘It’s good.’ He patted the flank of his horse. ‘She want to run. Me too.’ He waited for Antigonus to mount up. Laertes, the best scout in the company, was already up, and the three of them rode out on to the plain, heading north-west to the horizon.

The other men built two fires and put their cauldron on one. They made up beds from the grass all around. They argued over setting up the two tents and Niceas made them do it, his gravelly voice and imaginative curses a counterpoint to their work. Kineas took no part — barring a crisis, he acted the part of the officer and watched them. Niceas gave most of the orders, settled the disputes and allocated the watches. The three mounted men came back just before the fall of full night and reported horse tracks in all directions to the north, but no immediate threat.

So easy to forget. When he wasn’t on campaign, Kineas mostly remembered the good times and the danger. He never remembered the nagging weight of casual decisions and their mortal consequences. For instance — double the watch and double their chances of detecting an attack, with the consequent fatigue for all of them tomorrow. Or keep normal watches and know that any one man could fall asleep and the first they’d know of an attack was the rush of hooves and the spike of iron in the belly.

He compromised — always an added danger — and ordered that the last watch at dawn be doubled, and put himself on it. Then he summoned Crax and ordered him to put his blankets down next to Kineas’s own, placed Antigonus on the other side, and dismissed the subject. They ate quickly, set their watches and lingered — too early in the campaign to go to sleep automatically. Instead, they sat up with their last amphorae of wine from Tomis, telling each other stories of their own exploits, reliving and laughing. Ajax sat and watched, silent and polite, his eyes wide as if he were sitting with Jason and the Argonauts.

Agis recited lines from the Poet

“But come now, change thy theme, and sing of the building of the horse of wood, which Epeius made with Athena’s help, the horse which once Odysseus led up into the citadel as a thing of guile, when he had filled it with the men who sacked Ilios. If thou dost indeed tell me this tale aright, I will declare to all mankind that the god has of a ready heart granted thee the gift of divine song.” So he spoke, and the minstrel, moved by the god, began, and let his song be heard, taking up the tale where the Argives had embarked on their benched ships and were sailing away, after casting fire on their huts, while those others led by glorious Odysseus were now sitting in the place of assembly of the Trojans, hidden in the horse; for the Trojans had themselves dragged it to the citadel. So there it stood, while the people talked long as they sat about it, and could form no resolve. Nay, in three ways did counsel find favour in their minds: either to cleave the hollow timber with the pitiless bronze, or to drag it to the height and cast it down the rocks, or to let it stand as a great offering to propitiate the gods, even as in the end it was to be brought to pass; for it was their fate to perish when their city should enclose the great horse of wood, wherein were sitting all the best of the Argives, bearing to the Trojans death and fate. And he sang how the sons of the Achaeans poured forth from the horse and, leaving their hollow ambush, sacked the city. Of the others he sang how in divers ways they wasted the lofty city, but of Odysseus, how he went like Ares to the house of Deiphobus together with godlike Menelaus. There it was, he said, that Odysseus braved the most terrible fight and in the end conquered by the aid of great-hearted Athena.’

They cheered his performance, as the veterans always had, and made jokes comparing red-haired Diodorus to wily Odysseus. The first watch was done before any of them were in their blankets except Philokles, who all but fell from the saddle straight into bed.

Kineas caught Ajax as he rolled in his cloak. ‘You’ll want this,’ he said, and nudged Ajax with a sword.

Ajax took it, hefted in his hand and tried to look at it.

Kineas said, ‘Sleep with it under your head or in your hand.’ He smiled invisibly in the dark. ‘You get used to it after a few nights.’

Kineas was asleep as soon as he was under his cloak. It was like being home. He had a dream of Artemis — neither long nor precise, and certainly not one of those dreams that Aphrodite sends to men, but a happy dream none the less, and he awoke when the watch changed and men shifted in the tent, alert as soon as his eyes opened and then relaxing, remembering the dream and wondering if some hint of her was in his cloak. He smiled and went to sleep again and awoke with a start when something heavy fell across his legs. He remembered a loud noise — he had his heavy sword in his hand and he was on his feet before he was awake, the sword clear of the scabbard.

Antigonus spoke softly at his ear. ‘It’s nothing — Kineas — nothing. Your slave boy tried to run and I knocked him cold. He’ll be sore in the morning.’

The weight that had landed at his feet was Crax; the boy was deeply unconscious. And other sleepers were now awake, pushing him from where he had fallen. They wrestled him into his own blankets.

‘Where was he headed?’

‘I didn’t wait to see. When I saw him get up, I knocked him flat with my butt-spike.’

Kineas winced. ‘I hope he isn’t dead. Wake me for next watch.’

‘Never fear. You can have rosy-fingered dawn all to yourself.’

Kineas fell asleep thinking that Antigonus, who couldn’t read or write, probably hadn’t ever read the Iliad. He was awakened the third time to throw water on his face and hands. His hands swelled at night, and his joints ached when he woke, and waking up seemed harder every year. Campaign aged a man too quickly.

He took the heavy javelin from Antigonus’s hand. Ajax was up, too — Kineas had decreed a double watch for dawn and Niceas had put Kineas on with the least experienced man, and the most expendable — decisions, decisions.

‘Before you turn in, find him a javelin,’ Kineas said to Antigonus, who burrowed in the equipment and came out with one. He handed it to Ajax, who looked quite self-conscious with it in the first grey light of morning, as if he were wearing the wrong costume for a party. He also looked absurdly young, pretty, and well-slept, and Kineas thought, I’ll bet his joints don’t swell.

‘Anything to report?’ Kineas asked.

Antigonus peered off to the north. ‘I heard something — distant, could have been a wolf taking a buck, but it was heavy movement. It was an hour back.’ He gestured at a dim shape by the tree. ‘Don’t trip over our barbarian. He’s asleep with his horse.’

Kineas nodded and pushed the other man towards his sleeping spot. It was light enough to crawl into the tent without waking everyone else and Antigonus was snoring before Kineas had walked the perimeter of the little camp. Ajax followed him, clearly at a loss as to what to do.

Kineas took him around the camp again, showed him the two slight rises which would give a sentry a few stades more view, stopped with him to smile at the sight of Ataelus asleep with the reins of his horse in his hand, ready for instant action. Then Kineas told Ajax to build up the fires. ‘When that’s done, curry the horses.’

Ajax gave Kineas the first look of displeasure Kineas had ever seen him wear. ‘Curry the horses? I’ll wake my slave.’

Kineas shook his head. ‘Build up the fires and then curry the horses. Yourself. Do a good job. Then you and I will take a little ride before we wake the others. And Ajax — don’t imagine you can discuss orders.’

Ajax hung his head, but he said, ‘Other men do.’

Kineas laughed and swatted him. ‘When you’ve killed a dozen men and stood sentry a thousand nights, you can debate with me.’

He liked being on watch and he stood under the tree, immobile, and watched the grey horizon to the north-west. He listened to the rising birds, watched a rabbit move across the light grass where the ferry had landed and then watched a falcon stooping out over the estuary of the Danube. He felt they were safe — in wild places, it was usually easy to feel the approach of an enemy.

For an hour, he watched Ajax bring up the horses one at a time, curry them and then hobble them again. The lad was thorough, although he had a rebellious set to his back that Kineas hadn’t seen before. But he checked hooves, rubbed each horse with straw, looked in their eyes and their mouths. He knew what he was about. Kineas went back to watching the horizon, and he was surprised when Ajax started walking towards him with a pair of horses — the time had flown by. But his hands were back to normal, his neck felt less strained and he was ready for a ride. Once mounted, he walked his horse to the near tent and tapped the poll with the butt of his javelin. Niceas put his head out.

‘We’re riding a dawn patrol. Have the slaves start the food. We’ll ride in an hour.’

Niceas buried a yawn with one of his big hands. ‘I’m on it.’

Kineas turned his horse and rode out with Ajax at his side. He rode straight north along the river, staying in low ground when he could and showing Ajax what he was doing at every step — keeping the rising sun from silhouetting him and his mount, using the brush along the river for cover and background, coming to a dead stop when he had to cross a rise. They made their way along the bank and then Kineas led them inland, almost due north, until they reached some high ground that he had seen while he was standing watch. They were almost a stade from the camp, and he slid to the ground, tossed his reins to Ajax and crawled to the crest on his hands and knees. He was showing off for the boy, but the cause was good — the boy needed to see how to do a dawn patrol correctly.

From the crest he could see an enormous arc of ground, all of it empty. Of course, every fold of it could contain a Scythian horde, but Kineas knew from experience how hard it was to keep men and animals in ambush without motion and dust for any length of time. He slid back down to Ajax. ‘Hobble your mount and keep watch up there until I come for you. I’ll have your slave bring you something to eat. If you see movement, run like the furies were on you.’

Ajax nodded, very serious. ‘Am I — in trouble?’

‘Certainly not. This is what we do on the dawn patrol. I have work to do — you already did yours. So you can loaf up here, watch the whole horizon, and wait for the men to have breakfast. It’d be the same if I had Diodorus here.’

Ajax let a smile break through. ‘Oh. Good. I’ll watch, then.’

Kineas rode back to camp by a different route, still keeping his silhouette away from prying eyes. He ate a bowl of reheated soup from the night’s dinner, re-curried his own charger and then put her into the remounts, choosing a smaller, lighter horse for his day’s work. He told Diodorus, Lykeles and Graccus to be prepared to hunt. They were eager for it.

Crax was working on the baggage animals under the careful eye of Niceas. He didn’t seem the worse for his misadventure, but when Kineas checked the baggage, he found that every girth the boy had done was loose or sabotaged. Kineas summoned the boy with a wave and knocked him flat on his back with a single blow of his fist.

‘I don’t like to hit a slave,’ Kineas said evenly. He paused to lick some blood where he had split the skin over a knuckle. ‘You tried to run last night. Fair enough. If I were a slave, I’d run for home, too. Then you rigged the baggage to slip — lost work and a late start for us. Bad job both times. If you try something like this again, I’ll just kill you — you didn’t cost me a copper obol and I don’t need a slave. Understand?’

The boy looked dazed — probably was, after two heavy blows.

‘But I do need more cavalrymen. Show me you can do the job and take the crap, and I’ll put you up as a groom in Olbia and free you in the gamelia. Or die. I hate to waste manpower, but I don’t like sloppy knots.’ Kineas turned away and rolled heavily on to the back of his light horse. He didn’t feel like vaulting, and his split knuckle hurt like fire.

He sent Ataelus to bring Ajax in, and then they were off across the plains of the Getae.

They made good time after they started, although Crax remained dazed and he had to be tied over a horse. By noon they were clear of the marsh to the east and riding on a board, flat grass plain dominated by a line of low rocky hills to the west. Lines of wind moved the tips of the grasses in waves. The sea of green rolled on and on over hummocks and low hills, all the way out to the horizon. It was terrain built for horses by the gods, and Kineas stopped at the top of the first low ridge and looked out under his hand while the sun crept up a finger’s breadth.

The magnitude of the view kept them silent, and then Ataelus dismounted, knelt, and kissed the ground, before giving a screech that vanished in the vastness of the sky.

‘Someone’s home,’ said Coenus with a grin.

When they found some tracks Ataelus rode all the way to the base of the hills and came back with a heavy black arrow that he handed to Kineas without comment.

‘Getae?’ Kineas asked.

Ataelus shrugged expressively and rode out ahead.

In early afternoon they flushed a small herd of roebuck in a deep gully cut by a small stream, and the three hunters rode ahead of them, cut out a big buck and brought him down with javelins. It was a pleasure to watch, and the aristocrat in Kineas appreciated how professional cavalrymen had mastered the mounted hunt in a way that few aristocrats would ever see, much less learn. He rode on, thinking of Xenophon, whose works on horses and hunting he had read in his youth. Coenus — an educated man, and often out of place in a company of mercenaries — doted on Xenophon, and could quote great swathes of his works. Seeing the returning hunters, he rode up next to Kineas, pointed, and said, ‘“Therefore I charge the young not to despise hunting or any other schooling. For these are the means by which men become good in war and in all things out of which must come excellence in thought and word and deed.”’

Somehow, that reminded him that he still had Isokles’s scrolls of the fourth book of Herodotus, and that pained him, because he couldn’t imagine having the time to read and he dreaded the scrolls getting soaked to illegibility.

Philokles came abreast of him. ‘Is this spot sacred, or may I ride here?’

Kineas snapped to full awareness. ‘Sacred?’ he said.

‘Only Niceas ever rides with you — or Ataelus, I suppose, and Coenus, when he needs a vent for his scholarship. And I’m bored, and my thighs are burning, and a little gentle conversation might get another few stades out of me.’

Kineas was looking over the Spartan’s head. ‘I think you’ve come to the wrong place for gentle conversation. Niceas! ’ He raised a hand. ‘Halt! Chargers and armour, now!’

The orderly column fell apart. The old soldiers were the fastest — Niceas was in his armour and up on his best warhorse while Ajax was still fumbling at a basket pannier for the sword he’d been lent. Philokles had no armour, so he sat on his horse and watched Kineas don his own.

‘What did you see?’ he asked.

‘Ataelus. He’s coming in towards us at a flat gallop, and shooting behind him — a nice trick if you can learn it. No — farther away. Look up the valley.’ Kineas had his breast and back plate fastened, his helmet locked and the hinged cheek pieces down, and was trying to get control of his charger, who was not having any of it.

Another minute passed as men forced their helmets on or fought with straps and buckles. Niceas served out javelins. Kineas finally got up on his warhorse, embarrassed by looking like a new recruit in front of his men. The grass here grew in heavy tufts that formed small mounds and made walking nearly impossible and mounting even more difficult. Horses on the other hand seemed to walk easily among the tussocks. From a distance, the hilly plain stretched away to the hills beyond like a rippled green cloth, with no sign of the treacherous ground under the lush green grass.

Ataelus was one grassy rise away, and Kineas could see riders pursuing him a few stades back. They were small men on small horses. A few had bows, most had javelins, and none had armour. There were quite a few of them. Even as they watched, Ataelus changed direction, riding wide of Kineas’s troop and heading north beyond bowshot.

‘Diodorus! Take — take Ajax and support the Scyth. Get on their flank and harry them if they ignore you. The rest of you, knee to knee. Now! Two lines, and move!’

He had ten fighting men — a tiny number, but they had some advantages and the Scyth had brought the Getae in close. He thought that he’d have one chance to charge them and scatter them, force them into close action where his big, grain-fed military horses would overpower their ponies.

‘On me. Trot.’

The Getae were still coming on. At this distance they might just be seeing the armour, and the horse size would be hard to judge…

‘At them!’ Kineas had his horse in hand, was ready for the change to the long surge of the beast’s powerful hindquarters. He trusted the stallion to know how to gallop over the tussocks — if he misjudged, they’d be dead in a heartbeat. ‘Artemis!’ he cried, and the veterans took it up — Artemis, Artemis! It was a pale, thin remnant of the sound that three hundred of them had made, but loud enough.

The initial charge was going to be successful. He could feel it already in his balls, see the next act of the play as easily as if he had written it himself. He rose a little in his seat, pressed his horse’s sides with his knees and threw his light javelin into the side of a Getae. The next one pivoted his pony on its haunches, pulling her mouth viciously, but he was too slow, and Kineas’s warhorse rode the smaller horse over without changing gait. A boy — brave, or perhaps simply frozen — waited for him, sitting on his horse with his bow drawn. Kineas put his head down to take the point of the arrow on his helmet and leaned forward with his heavy javelin. The bow twanged, a singular sound even in the melee.

The arrow missed — it went the gods knew where — and Kineas reversed his javelin in both hands and swung it like a staff, knocking the boy clear of the saddle. At the end of the stroke he reversed the staff again and turned his head. He drew rein, used his rein hand to push the helmet back on his head so that he could see and snapped his head right and left looking for friends and foes.

Niceas was right by him, mumbling a litany of prayers to Athena, his heavy javelin reversed and held short in his fist, dripping red on to the ground. Antigonus was on his other flank with his heavy sword out. His horse was giving him trouble, skipping and hopping. Smell of blood. New horse. Kineas didn’t have to think about these details, he just knew them, just as he could see the shape of a fight in his mind.

Coenus and Agis were side by side, a few horse lengths away. Coenus was just finishing a man in the grass. He had a long red mark down his right thigh. None of the others appeared to be hurt.

Kineas used his knees to push his horse around in a tight circle. One man was down — his count was one short. There were dead and dying Getae all around him in the grass and a double handful already a hillside away. Even as he watched, one of them took an arrow full in the back from Ataelus’s bow and the man fell slowly, losing his seat and finally collapsing to the ground. His horse stopped and began to crop grass. The other Getae continued to run. Agis tried a long javelin throw from horseback, missed, swore, and then the surviving Getae were swallowed by a hillside and the fight was over.

No time at all had passed since Kineas had first spotted the Scyth coming back. The blink of an eye. Kineas had done something to his back and had the pain of a pulled muscle in his shoulder. He felt as if he had pushed a plough in a field for a whole day. He turned to Niceas. ‘Who’s down?’

Niceas shook his helmeted head. ‘I’ll find out, sir,’ and he rode away.

After a few moments. Niceas rode back, his shoulder hunched like an old man. ‘Graccus,’ he said. He turned away, hand on his amulet, then looked at Kineas. ‘He got an arrow in the bole of his throat as soon as we went to the gallop. Dead.’

Kineas knew that Niceas and Graccus had been friends — sometimes more than friends. ‘What a waste. Stupid barbarians — we must have killed ten of them.’

‘More than ten. And three prisoners. The boy you levelled. You want him?’

Kineas nodded. ‘That’s why I didn’t kill him, yes. He and Crax can plot behind our backs.’

Niceas nodded heavily. ‘The other two — they’re wounded.’

Kineas could hear someone making a horrible, pitiful mewling alternating with a full-throated roar of anguish. He rode back to the first man he had downed, it was a good throw — the javelin was through his chest and had probably cut his heart. He gave the shaft a half-hearted tug without leaving the saddle. It didn’t budge. He kept going, riding carefully over the tussocks until he came to the wounded men. The loud one was hit in the guts by a throwing javelin. He might live a long time, but it would be horrible. The other man had lost a hand to somebody’s heavy sword. He was bleeding out, his face empty. He was trying to stop the flow of blood with his other hand, but he wasn’t really strong enough. He had also soiled himself from the pain.

It was like the end of every action. War in all its glory. Kineas rode over to the screaming man and thrust his heavy javelin through the man’s upturned face. Thrust, twist. The man fell forward across his own lap, instantly silent. The other man turned and looked up at him. He raised his eyebrows a little, as if surprised. ‘Do the thing,’ he said in weak, guttural Greek.

Kineas saluted his courage and prayed to Athena that when it was his turn he’d be as brave. Thrust. Twist. The second man died as fast as the first. ‘Graccus can have them to work the ferryman’s oars. Poor bastards. Niceas, get the slaves moving. We need all the javelins back — I left mine about a stade deep in that poor bastard over there. Anyone else hit?’ He looked around. ‘Put Graccus over his horse.’

Ajax was looking at him with loathing. He was clutching his arm.

Kineas pointed at him. ‘Ajax. Show me your arm.’

Ajax shook his head. But the corners of his mouth were white.

‘Antigonus, get Ajax off his horse and see to his arm. Ajax, that’s what war is. That’s all it is, boy. Men killing men — usually the strong killing the weak. Right. The rest of you, dismount, except Lykeles and Ataelus. You and the Scyth collect the horses.’ Lykeles was one of the best riders, and horses loved him. He rode out. The Scyth was already out on the plain, using his short sword to take the hair off men he had killed. It was a grisly piece of barbarism and Kineas didn’t spare him more than a glance.

Kineas stayed mounted, in his armour. He rode from man to man, exchanging a few words, a jest or a curse. Making sure they weren’t wounded. The god-given spirit that flooded a good man in a fight could rob him of the ability to feel a wound. Kineas had seen men, good men, drop dead after a fight, pools of blood around them, without ever knowing they had taken a wound. Horses could go the same way, as if they, too, were touched by the daimon of war.

Coenus’s wound was minor, but Kineas set Niceas to look after it while he tended Ajax. When he had seen to the others, Kineas cantered his horse to the top of the next rise and looked past the slope towards the hills in the distance. Carrion birds were already coming in to the feast of Ares. The smell of blood and excrement lay over the smell of sun and grass, polluting it. His shoulders sagged and his hands shook for a while. But the Getae didn’t come back and in time he had control of himself. The Getae horses were rounded up, the few wounds coated in honey, and the column moved off across the sea of grass.

They made camp early because the men were tired. They found a small steam with a handful of old trees growing on the bank with enough downed wood to make a fire. Crax was working, Kineas was happy to note. He moved heavily, but he moved. The other Getae boy was still out. Ajax’s slave was cooking, a stew of deer meat and barley from their stores. The men ate it hungrily and then sat quietly.

Niceas didn’t speak except to ask about the burial of his friend, but Kineas shook his head. ‘Town tomorrow,’ he said. ‘We’ll give him a pyre.’

Niceas nodded slowly and went to take a second helping of food. Ajax avoided Kineas, staying around the fire from him. Philokles, who had played no part in the fight, came and lay on the ground next to him where he sat with his bowl of stew. The Spartan indicated Ajax with a thrust of his jaw. ‘He’s in a state,’ he said. ‘You should talk to him.’

‘No. He watched me kill the captives. He thinks…’ Kineas paused, searching for words. I’m in a state, too.

‘Bah, he needs to grow up. Talk to him about it or send him home.’ Philokles took a mouthful of his own food, dropped a heavy piece of campaign bread into his bowl to soften it.

‘Maybe tomorrow.’

‘As you say. But I’d do it tonight. You remember your first fight?’

‘Yes.’ Kineas remembered them all.

‘You kill anyone?’

‘No,’ Kineas said, and he laughed, because his first fight had been a disaster, and he and all the Athenian hippeis had ridden clear without blooding their weapons and hated themselves for it. Hoplites disdained the hippeis because they could ride out of a rout.

Philokles pushed his jaw at the boy while chewing. ‘He cut that man’s hand off. One blow. And then the poor bastard lived and you had to put him down. See? A lot for a boy to think about.’ He took a bite of his bread and chewed, some of the stew clung to his beard.

‘You’re the fucking philosopher, Spartan. You talk to him.’

Philokles nodded a few times, silently. He took another bite of bread and wiped his beard clean with his fingers. And he looked at Kineas while he chewed. Kineas held his gaze, irritated at being badgered but not really angry.

Philokles kept chewing, swallowed. ‘You’re not as tough as you act, are you?’

Kineas shook his head. ‘He’s a nice kid. You want me to go tell him what everyone else around this fire knows. Yes? Except that once he knows, he’ll never be a nice kid again, will he?’

Philokles rolled over so that he was lying on his stomach and staring at the fire, or maybe the contents of his bowl. ‘If that’s what you tell him. Me, I’d tell him in the terms he understands. Honour. Virtue. Why not?’

‘Is that really honour and virtue in Sparta? Killing prisoners because they’re too much trouble to save?’

‘If killing those two is eating your liver, why did you do it? I wasn’t close, but it looked to me like they should have wanted a quick end.’ Philokles slurped some soup from his bowl. ‘Ares and Aphrodite, Kineas. The boy isn’t suffering because you put those two down. That’s just what he’ll tell himself. It’s because he knows that he’s responsible. He did it — he cut the hand off, he fought, in effect he killed. How many fights have you seen?’

‘Twenty. Or fifty. More than enough.’ Kineas shrugged. ‘I see where you are leading the donkey, though. Fair enough, philosopher. I’m old enough to ignore the men I kill and I still feel it — so it follows that the boy will feel it worse and blame me. Why not? His blame lies lightly enough on me.’

‘You think so? He worshipped you this morning.’ The Spartan rolled back to look at Kineas. ‘I think you’d both be happier if you talked. Happier and wiser. And he’ll be a better man for it.’

Kineas nodded slowly. ‘Why are you with us?’

Philokles smiled widely. ‘I’m running out of places to go where they speak Greek.’

‘Angry husbands?’ Kineas smiled, getting to his feet. Best to get this over with.

‘I think that I ask too many questions.’ Philokles smiled back.

‘Honour and virtue…’ Kineas began, and looked at Ajax across the fire.

‘Admit it, Kineas. You still believe in both of them. You want what is good. You strive for what is virtuous. Go tell it to the boy.’ Philokles waved him away. ‘Get going. I intend to eat your stew while you are gone.’

Kineas snatched his bowl from the other man and refilled it at the common cauldron as he passed. By tradition, the captain ate last, but everyone had eaten, most men twice, even the slaves. Kineas scraped the side of the bronze with his wooden bowl. While he filled his bowl, Antigonus came up and refilled his own. ‘Fair haul, for barbarians. Twelve horses, some gold and silver, a few good weapons.’

‘I’ll divide it after dinner.’

Antigonus nodded. ‘It will make the men feel better,’ he said.

Diodorus, listening in, nodded. ‘Graccus lived through all those years with the boy king just to die on the plains in a gang fight with stupid barbarians. Sticks in our throats.’

Kineas nodded. ‘I’ll keep it in mind,’ he said, and went and sat by Ajax. He did it so suddenly that the boy didn’t have time to bolt. He was just rising when Kineas put out a hand. ‘Stay where you are. How’s your arm?’

‘Fine.’

‘Long gash. Does it sting?’

‘No.’

‘Yes, it does. But if you keep honey on it and don’t go mad from the flies, it’ll heal in a week. It won’t hurt in two weeks. And by then, you’ll have forgotten his face.’

Ajax took a quick breath.

‘I’m sorry I killed him without asking you. Perhaps you would have kept him. But he was a man of my age, and he had never been a slave. Missing a hand, like a criminal? No way for him to live as a crippled slave.’

‘Does that make it right?’ Ajax asked. His voice was steady, even light, as if the question had no consequence.

‘Right? They attacked us, Ajax. We were crossing this land on the plain, below their hills. They came for our heads and our horses. Next time, we may be the ones in their territory — going right up to their huts in the hills and putting fire to their thatch. That’s what soldiers do. That’s a different kind of right — the right of strength, of one polis against another, where you trust that the men who voted for war had their reasons and you do your duty. This was a simpler right — the right to resist aggression. Like killing a thief.’

‘You killed both of them. And then you said… you said that that’s all there was, the strong killing the weak.’ Less steady.

‘Let me tell you the truth. It’s a rotten truth, but if you can handle it, maybe you’ll make a soldier. Ready?’

‘Try me.’

‘I’m the captain. Yes?’

‘Yes.’

‘Rank means you do what is hard. Killing unarmed men is rotten work. Sometimes we all do it. But usually, I do it. so that other men don’t have to.’

Ajax watched the fire for a while. ‘You make it sound like a virtue.’

‘I’m not done yet.’

‘Go on, then.’ Ajax turned and looked at him.

‘Mostly, when the polis makes war, or all of Greece, or the whole Hellenic world goes to war — think about it. Do all the men go to war?’

‘No.’

‘Do all of the warriors go? All the men trained to war?’

Ajax laughed without happiness. ‘No.’

‘No. A few men go. Sometimes more than a few. And the only thing that makes their profession noble is that they do it so that the others don’t have to.’

‘You’re a mercenary!’ spat Ajax.

‘You knew that before you came.’

‘I know. Why do you think I find myself so craven now? I knew just what happened here and I came anyway, and now I have no stomach for it.’ Ajax had tears running down his cheeks.

‘I fight for other men. And for my own profit. It is a hard life, full of hard men. I don’t recommend you become one of them, Ajax. If you wish to leave, I’ll send someone back to the ferry with you. On the other hand, if you wish to stay, you have to answer for yourself if you can do this and be a good man.’ Kineas rose to his feet, felt the age in his knees and thighs. ‘You won’t like the next part. The ugliest part, after the killing. But you should watch.’ He rubbed at his unshaven chin. ‘Besides, the division of spoils is part of war. And it’s in the Iliad, so it can’t be wrong.’

Kineas put a hand on his shoulder and Ajax didn’t shrug it off. Then he walked off, dropping his bowl by a slave, washing his hands in a leather bucket, and then stood by Diodorus and the string of captured horses. Crax had the sum of all the valuables from the bodies on a bloody tunic at his feet. His face betrayed no emotion, but Kineas could see tension in his stance and in his shoulders — recognition, perhaps, of the origin of the brooches and pins on the blanket at his feet.

Kineas didn’t have to speak to gather the attention of the men. He raised a hand for attention. ‘Gentlemen. As is our custom, we will divide the spoils of our enemies by share, in turns. For the good of the company, I take these.’ Kineas reached among the brooches and took both of the large gold ones. They were worth twenty owls apiece and would feed the horses for several days in a city. No one demurred, although they were easily the most valuable objects in the pile.

Then he pointed to the Scyth. ‘Ataelus discovered their war party and gave us warning. He also slew four of them. I say he gets the first share.’

It was uncommon for a new man, or a barbarian, to be given the first share. There was a buzz of talk, but not an ugly one. On the one hand, there wasn’t much spoil to divide, and first choice wasn’t a matter of heaps of gold. On the other hand, the buzz seemed to say, the Scyth had probably saved all of them, or at least saved them from a harder fight.

Antigonus, himself a barbarian born, raised a fist at the Scyth. ‘First share!’ he rumbled. Other men took up the cry.

Ataelus looked around as if making sure he was being chosen. He grinned from ear to ear. Then he went to the string of captured horses and leaped astride the tallest, a pale bay mare with a small head and some Persian blood in her. He gave a loud yip yip! and then dismounted to release her from the string.

It didn’t surprise Kineas that the Scyth took a horse, but it pleased the men, who wanted the ready cash in the form of silver and coins. The tradition of a first share to the man judged most worthy was often a two-edged sword, causing resentment as easily as it rewarded military virtue. But Ataelus’s choice made him popular, or perhaps more popular.

The rest of the division was by strict seniority. Niceas chose second, and whatever grief he might feel for Graccus, he chose carefully from the pile, a heavy silver torc with a chain attached that was worth a month’s pay. Ill armoured as the Getae had been, they wore good jewellery and carried coins.

The other men each took a share in turn, and there were plenty of items left after the first share had passed. Ajax did not join in the sharing, but Philokles did and no one complained — the Spartan was already accepted.

Kineas allowed them to circle around again, so that most men had at least a dozen owls worth of silver and some had more. What was left on the tunic after the second sharing was mostly bronze, with a few small silver rings.

‘Slaves,’ Kineas said. He pointed at the tunic. Ajax’s slave came forward willingly — he had become the head slave by age and experience and he didn’t hesitate, but took the largest silver ring and put it on his hand. Then he winked at Crax.

Crax’s face in the firelight showed the tracks of tears like rivulets on a hillside after a storm. Nonetheless, he reached down and took another silver ring. Then they divided the bronze coins between them. No one noticed this last division, because they were examining the horses, bickering over their small size and complaining that the Scyth had taken the only good one. The sun slipped under the hills to the west while they divided the horses.

Ataelus came up to Kineas. ‘Me look?’ he asked, pointing at the two heavy brooches in Kineas’s hand.’

Kineas handed them over. The Scyth looked at them in the last light, the red sun colouring the gold so that it looked like new minted copper. He nodded. ‘Make for my people,’ he said. He pointed to the horse and stag motif that ran through both. They were very fine for barbarian work, the haunches of the horse well worked, the head of the stag noble and fine.

While Ataelus looked at the brooches, Kineas glanced at Ajax twice, but the young man showed nothing but weary resignation at the evils of an older generation. Ataelus handed the brooches back and returned to gloating over his horse. Kineas shrugged, took his cloak and rolled in it on the ground. He didn’t think of Artemis, and then it was morning.