Tyrant (22 page)
Authors: Christian Cameron
‘Here. Wait just a moment - one more twist of thread. There. Put it on her head. See?’ Kineas looked around for the rider - Cleitus’s son Leucon, hurriedly introduced moments before. ‘She won’t be able to see to her sides. Remember that when you try and pass another rider.’
Already, the mare was calmer. Cleitus and Leucon walked her away into the crowd and Kineas followed the rest of Cleitus’s slaves to the finish line, where all the owners and their retainers stood in the light of one of the temple bonfires. Torches were lit from the fire and tossed up to the riders.
Kineas was unable to follow the progress of the race beyond the sound, the chorus of shouts and cheers that moved like fire itself around the temple precinct. But as the horses finished, they presented a brilliant spectacle, crossing the line in a close-knit pack with their torches streaming fire behind them. Cleitus’s mare finished third and Leucon was presented with a wreath of laurel leaves.
‘I wanted to talk to you about the muster tomorrow,’ Kineas said when the congratulations and thanks were tapering away.
‘I don’t plan to give you any trouble. You’re the professional.’ Cleitus was rubbing down the mare.
‘I’ll need your help to get any of these men to do any training.’ Kineas thought that straight talk was the right course with Cleitus.
Cleitus turned and leaned one hand against the rump of his mare, crossed his feet and smiled. ‘You always in such a hurry, Athenian? It’s going to take time - and luck - to get these boys to practise anything. Look, tomorrow will be a shambles - we’ll be lucky if everyone on that damned list comes. You come back to dinner with me tomorrow night - bring your officers, we’ll all get to know each other. And some advice? Don’t be in such a hurry.’
Kineas took a brush from one of the slaves and began to work on the other side of the mare’s rump. ‘Sound advice. I have my reasons for hurry.’
‘I really should thank you for the blinders. Dangerous in a night race - but the chance was worth the result, eh? But I still had to wait for you to get the blinders done. You see? Let’s get through tomorrow - Apollo send that all the men are wise enough to come; if some fool gets arrested we’ll never have a day’s peace.’
‘Your words to the god. May every man come.’ Kineas handed his brush to the waiting slave. ‘I’ll take my leave. Until tomorrow.’
‘Goodnight, then. Leucon, say goodnight to the gentleman.’
Kineas had his men up at cock’s crow and they flogged the stable floors dry, set up more exercise butts and curried their horses until they shone. Mounted, in armour, with new plumes and cloaks, they made a fine show. Kineas had them at the barracks end of the hippodrome half an hour before the appointed time.
The city’s gentry arrived all together a few minutes before the appointed hour. They rode or walked into the hippodrome in a long column and immediately spread over the sand, forming groups of ten or twelve, with a few loners and one large group of two dozen, all well mounted, gathered around Cleitus.
Kineas left his men to Diodorus and rode up to Cleitus. As he rode, he watched the local men. They were excellent riders - far better than their equivalents in Athens or Corinth. They rode as well as Macedonians or Thessalians, just as he expected. They had odd taste in accoutrements, as well. More than one of them wore Sakje trousers, or Thracian-style caps, and their horse harnesses were often more Sakje than Greek.
Cleitus glanced at him and turned his head away, then glanced back and shouted for his men to wheel and join Kineas’s men at the far end. The tail of the column was still entering the hippodrome, little knots of men without horses.
Behind the laggards, Kineas saw the dark cloaks of Memnon’s soldiers. ‘There’s trouble,’ he said, pointing his whip at them.
Cleitus pulled his heavy Corinthian helmet back on his head so that he could see better. ‘Those idiots had better all be here. How do you want to do the muster?’
Kineas gestured to the end, where Cleitus’s horsemen had joined Kineas’s men, making an imposing front. ‘First we muster the properly turned-out men. Then we line the rest up and muster them - first those with horses, then those with armour and no horses, then those with neither armour nor horses. It makes the least prepared waste the most time.’
‘You’ve done this before.’ Cleitus smiled mirthlessly.
‘Twice a year in Athens.’ Kineas gestured with his whip to Niceas, who galloped across the sand to him, nearly oversetting two portly men. ‘You have the roll?’
‘Right here.’ Niceas stifled a cough.
‘Start with the men who just fell in. Then do our men. Once a man is mustered, he may dismount and relax. Cleitus and I will start culling the herd,’ Kineas gestured at the hundreds of men milling about, ‘for more to muster, and we’ll send them to you at the end.’
Niceas nodded and saluted.
‘Who is your hyperetes?’ Kineas asked Cleitus.
‘My son. Leucon. You met him last night.’
‘May I send him to help Niceas so that it doesn’t look like it’s all my doing?’
‘Good thought. Leucon!’ Cleitus clamped his horse’s back with his knees, rose in the saddle and roared. His son was resplendent in a deep-blue cloak and gilt breastplate - one of the best turned-out men in the city. Kineas sent him to Niceas.
As it turned out, the muster itself was uneventful. Three men of the cavalry class were absent, but all for acceptable reasons - one at Pantecapaeum on business, two known to be ill, and both had sent substitutes. When the muster was complete, they had all gathered at the far end of the hippodrome. It was a cold day and the crowd huddled for warmth.
Kineas inspected them from a distance. Less than one quarter had any armour, although many claimed that they had such stuff at home. About one half had come mounted, mostly the younger men.
‘Want to say something?’ asked Kineas.
‘You’re burning to do it,’ said Cleitus. ‘Be my guest. Just remember that antagonizing them will serve no one.’
Kineas rode to the head of the crowd. His voice, when he started, was a roar that squashed interruption.
‘Men of Olbia! We are gathered today to serve this city! I serve her for pay - and you from love of your homes. Is it possible that some of you love the city more than others? Or that the gold you pay me is dearer to me than your love of your city? Or is it possible that some of you are really too poor to bear the burden of cavalry service and lack the horses and arms that make a cavalryman?’
He lowered his voice, because he was the only man talking. ‘Anything worth doing is worth doing well. Socrates said so, and so did my father. There is no point pretending to have a troop of city cavalry. There is no point in wasting your valuable time mustering you for a service you can’t perform - and make no mistake, gentlemen - at the moment you cannot perform it. Even if the gods gifted you this second with fine Persian chargers, trained from birth for war, with armour crafted by Hephaeston himself and weapons fresh from his forge, you wouldn’t last a minute against real cavalry.’ He smiled. ‘With nothing but a little work, we could change that. With a little work, we could make you gentlemen good enough to participate in city parades, as the Athenian cavalry does. Perhaps good enough to rival the precision of Memnon’s men.’ Kineas pointed down the field where Memnon stood with fifty soldiers - a palpable threat. And by pointing them out, Kineas hoped that he had been sufficiently subtle in suggesting that they could be bested.
‘I wish to show you what cavalrymen look like. Perhaps, having seen them, you will say that professional soldiers have the time to practise such things - but I’ll tell you that these skills can be taught to you, and you can master them and serve your city with pride.’
Kineas rode in silence to the head of his own men. He pitched his voice low, hoping the gods would carry his words to his own men only. ‘Gentlemen, I’d appreciate it if you’d put on the finest display of horsemanship in history.’
Diodorus smiled coldly. ‘At your command, Hipparch.’
‘Start with the javelins,’ he said. ‘At my command, form file from the left and throw at the gallop. Then form your front and halt just short of Memnon’s line. And gentlemen, when I say just short, I mean the length of a horse’s head. Throw both javelins if you think they’ll both hit the target - Ajax, Philokjles, throw just one. Ready?’
A shifting, some glances.
Kineas looked around, found Arni waiting by the barracks door. ‘Collect the javelins as soon as they score and bring them back here.’
Arni nodded.
‘File from the left,
skirmish!
’ Kineas shouted, and led the way.
skirmish!
’ Kineas shouted, and led the way.
All the way down the sand to the target, Kineas had time to consider whether he could have handled them any other way - and then he was ten strides from the butts, his first javelin away, his second just as he passed - not his best throw, but in the target and he swept by, curbing his charger and bringing her to a canter so that Diodorus caught him up easily, and then Crax fell in behind him. He refused to turn his head and count the hits. The Hippeis on the sand were watching closely - Lykeles fell in, and then Coenus behind him, and then Philokles and Ajax -
gods send they hit something
- and then the Gauls, and the line was formed. Kineas shouted, ‘Charge!’ and the line went back to a gallop. Just short of Memnon’s waiting men, he shouted, ‘Halt!’ They were knee to knee, aimed at the center of Memnon’s line. Memnon’s men flinched - more at the back than in front. Kineas’s men had their own troubles - Ajax nearly lost his seat and Philokles, despite the month of practice on the road and a week’s drill in the hippodrome, had his horse rear under him and threw his arms around her neck to keep his.
gods send they hit something
- and then the Gauls, and the line was formed. Kineas shouted, ‘Charge!’ and the line went back to a gallop. Just short of Memnon’s waiting men, he shouted, ‘Halt!’ They were knee to knee, aimed at the center of Memnon’s line. Memnon’s men flinched - more at the back than in front. Kineas’s men had their own troubles - Ajax nearly lost his seat and Philokles, despite the month of practice on the road and a week’s drill in the hippodrome, had his horse rear under him and threw his arms around her neck to keep his.
The hoplites had lost their ordered ranks and Memnon was bellowing at them, his voice high with real rage. Kineas ordered his men to face about and led them sedately down the sand to the waiting Hippeis.
Diodorus leaned over to him. ‘Memnon will make a bad enemy.’
Kineas nodded. ‘I didn’t see much choice. Perhaps I can sweeten him later - but they all hate him. And I need them to be united.’
Diodorus shook his head. ‘Why? Why not just collect the money and let them rot?’ But then he smiled and shook his head again. ‘At your command.’
‘Many of your mounts are untrained for war,’ Kineas called to the men waiting on the sand. ‘Many of you are not expert at mounting, or throwing the javelin, or staying in ranks. We can teach all of these things. We would like to teach you. And every man who loves his city should want to learn. At the next muster, I expect every man in armour and atop his horse. At the next muster, we will throw javelins until the sun sets. Cleitus?’
Cleitus rode to the head of the muster. ‘I intend to learn what this man has to teach.’ He turned and rode back to the ranks of the fully armed men. It wasn’t a long speech, but it had its effect.
When Niceas declared the muster complete and announced the next one at the new moon in just three weeks, there was a buzz of talk, but no angry shouts. Kineas was greeted afterwards by at least twenty men, many of whom found it necessary to stress excuses as to why they were not mounted today, but would be next time.
As the last of them trickled out of the hippodrome, Diodorus unfastened his chinstrap. ‘The town’s armourers will be busy men for three weeks,’ he said.
And then came the summons from the archon. Kineas heard it from one of the palace slaves and nodded curtly. To Diodorus, he said, ‘We dine tonight with Cleitus. You, Ajax, and one of the gentlemen.’ Nodding at the retreating figure of the slave, he shrugged. ‘If I survive meeting the archon.’
Diodorus raised an eyebrow. ‘The archon can hardly be offended by a minor scuffle between mercenaries. Is this dinner purely social?’
‘Nothing in this city is purely anything, Diodorus. Bring Agis. He’s a talker.’ Kineas decided to wear his armour. He rode to meet the Archon.
This time, the Archon was not in the murk of his private citadel. He was sitting in the open in the agora, flanked on both sides by files of fully armoured soldiers, giving justice at the courts. The market was full of people: men walking arm in arm, talking; men doing business, from the sale of a farm by the fountain to the dozens of stalls set up by merchants along the sides. Kineas was surprised by the scale of some of the sales - one stall seemed only to be an office selling cargoes of late-season wheat to ship owners anxious to beat the first winter storm on the Euxine. And there were women. Women doing their market shopping, attended by a string of male slaves; slave women on the same errands, or buying for their households, or talking by the fountain. Finally, there were beggars. Dozens of children begged by the foot of the statue of Hermes and grown beggars sat by every stall.
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