Authors: Christian Cameron
Tyrant (33 page)
Kineas swung the whip at the man’s hands - once, twice, three times in a rhythm that put the bigger man on the defensive and drove him back into the centre of the street as he tried to protect his hands.
Kineas let him gain a step. He still believed that the man would bolt as soon as he came to his senses.
The step gave the big man time to recover. With both hands on the haft of his club, he leaped to the attack, swinging the club faster than Kineas thought possible. Kineas scrambled, ducked, and slashed with both whip and sword, but he was parried. The lash landed twice, but the big man showed no effect.
His assailant was a skilled fighter, not a thug. Big, skilled, and brave.
Kineas was driven back by a flurry of blows he could neither parry nor fully avoid without retreat. Suddenly his back foot was stopped by the stucco of the wine shop and he had no place to move to the right due to the presence of a huge urn by the door.
The big man paused. He hadn’t said a word, except to grunt when the lash went home. Both of them were breathing hard.
Kineas began to be afraid - not the normal fear of every warrior, but the fear that he might be outmatched. Might die, in the old vomit at the door to a wretched wine shop. His assailant was very skilled. Not a common hired killer.
He feinted movement towards the open ground to his left, and at the same time, feinted an underhand sword cut at the clubman’s hands. The big man changed his guard, shifted, and Kineas gave him the whole lash of the whip across his face. The man screamed and swung his club, and Kineas tripped and fell in attempting to avoid the blow, and his head hit the shop front hard enough that he smelled blood in his nostrils. He pushed himself on his heels, rolled to avoid a second blow, and got his legs under himself despite the weight of the breastplate and the fog in his mind. He staggered.
The clubman wasn’t blind, but he was in pain. He swung the club. The swing was wild, and lacked the full power of the man’s arms, but it almost ended the fight, glancing off Kineas’s left shoulder. Even so, the blow numbed his left arm and he dropped the whip.
Kineas moved in, despite his body’s urge to run while the other man was hurt. He got in close, punched with his left hand against the big man’s head and cut with his sword at the man’s fingers, several of which fell in the street. The big man’s blood steamed as it sprayed.
‘Ungggh!’ screamed the clubman, more in rage than fear - his first loud noise. With his one good hand, he brought his club down on Kineas’s sword. It wasn’t a heavy blow, but it knocked the weapon clear and left Kineas’s hand numb.
Kineas was disarmed.
His enemy had trouble recovering the club.
Kineas threw himself on the bigger man. He got his arms around him and threw him, a simple wrestling move that his assailant didn’t know, and then Kineas was atop his foe, kneeing him in the groin,
The man thrashed, trying to break his hold, and he bit into Kineas’s arm, so that Kineas had to move his arm. He smashed his right fist into the man’s face and his flailing left hand found the pliable fronds of his Sakje whip. Without conscious thought, he snapped it up and rammed the haft of the whip into his opponent’s belly, kneed him again in the groin, grappled him close so that he could smell the garlic and the pork on the man’s breath. The big man tried to squeeze him but the breastplate stopped him.
Even with the damage Kineas had just wreaked at close quarters, his assailant managed to break his remaining hold and started to struggle to his feet.
Kineas twisted, placed a leg behind the other man’s thigh and levered him over. The bigger man was unprepared - or had never wrestled - the whole sequence surprised him again, and in three heartbeats he was face down in the icy mud with Kineas’s foot on the back of his neck. Kineas was too afraid of the clubman to let him up. So he reversed the whip again and hit him, hard, on the head.
The giant lay still. His back rose and fell to show that he was alive. Kineas lifted his head by the hair and then let it down, so the man didn’t drown in the mud - and so he knew the man was out.
He couldn’t remember fighting hand to hand with an opponent so dangerous. ‘Ares and Aphrodite,’ he breathed. His lungs were eager for air, any air, and his throat felt like a narrow funnel through which molten bronze had to pass. He bent to retrieve his sword and felt light-headed. His whole body shook in reaction, and he sat down in the mud suddenly, his knees too weak to support him. But the mud was as cold as the Styx, and it got him to his feet again quickly.
He went back to the smaller man, counting himself lucky that he had landed so heavy a blow at the very outset - two men as well trained as the giant clubman would have had him down in seconds. He whispered a prayer of thanks to Athena and bent by the body. He turned aside to vomit as the reaction hit him again, and then he shook again.
It was all right. He was alive.
The smaller man was oiled like a wrestler - good olive oil. He was almost naked, despite the cold. Close up, he looked like a barbarian - close examination showed that he had yellow hair. The oil made it lank and dark.
The big man wasn’t oiled, but he, too, had blond hair. The smaller man had tattoos on his face.
Kineas wanted them both alive, but the streets remained obstinately empty, and Kineas knew from experience that the sound of a fight late at night would drive any sober slave or decent citizen to shutter their windows. His limbs ached and his breastplate weighed more than the Atlas mountains.
He looked at his sword. It was badly bent where the club had hit it, and the iron was notched. He straightened it against the ground and felt the slight give in the weak point. The sword would break soon.
‘Aphrodite and Ares,’ he said again. Then he set his shoulders, gathered his cloak from the mud, and started for the palace.
Night or day, the gloom in the palace was the same, and the opulence. Memnon’s men were on duty on the porch of the megaron, but inside at the door to the archon’s sanctum were two of the archon’s giants in their lion skins. They relieved him of his sword without a word spoken.
Looking at their blond hair and oiled skin, Kineas smiled grimly. Neither of them reacted in any way.
Two more stood flanking the man himself. Cyrus stood behind the archon, a tablet in his hand.
‘I’m surprised you came,’ said the archon. He looked Kineas up and down. ‘You look a little the worse for wear.’ He grinned at his own witticism.
‘Cyrus told me you suspected me of plotting revolt.’ Kineas didn’t like the look of the two barbarians any more than he had the first time he had visited the archon. ‘I’m not. I hope my presence here demonstrates as much, because we have more important matters to discuss.’ He could smell the garbage, and more, on his sandals and feet. His tunic was foul with mud and the backs of his legs were worse. ‘I was attacked on my way here.’
The archon held out a gold goblet, and a slave hurried to fill it. Otherwise, he didn’t react, although Cyrus, behind him, gave a start. ‘There is no matter more important than the obedience of my men. I ordered you out to the plains—’
‘And I went.’ Kineas was tired, in pain, and suffering the bleakness that the gods send to men after they fight. He was impatient with the tyrant’s games.
‘You returned without permission.’ The archon was drunk. The words were slurred. It didn’t shock Kineas - Alexander had ruled the world through a haze of wine, but he was never drunk in a crisis.
‘What permission?’ Kineas demanded. ‘You sent me on a mission. I accomplished it. I have a report to make.’
‘You also arranged to be appointed hipparch in your own absence. It makes me wonder who is ruling this city.’ The archon sat up. ‘You were a fool to come here alone.’
Kineas flicked a glance at the two big barbarians. Probably Kelts. Kineas had heard a great deal about the Kelts. He readied himself. ‘Macedon is marching, and Antipater intends to take this city,’ Kineas said.
The archon didn’t seem to be listening. ‘They could kill you right now.’
Kineas took this for an admission - not that he needed one. ‘Their two comrades failed. And if these two try, and fail, I’ll kill you.’
Kineas still had his Sakje whip - Srayanka’s whip. His wrists trembled a little with fear and fatigue. All bluff, now. He didn’t think he could muster the virtue for another fight. But his threat got through to the archon. His head snapped around, and for the first time, he seemed to give Kineas his full attention.
‘You think you could best them?’ Then more slowly, he said. ‘Their comrades attacked you? Where?’
Kineas shrugged. ‘In the street. Does it matter? Can we move from these threats to the war that is coming? I serve you and this city. I have come - despite the attack - to prove my words are true.’
The archon appeared moved - even shocked. ‘You were attacked. And yet you came?’ He looked at Cyrus.
Cyrus gave a small fraction of a nod.
The archon looked at him carefully. ‘I appear to have been mistaken in my estimation of you,’ he said. ‘Tell me of this war. Apollo be my witness, these last days have been unkind enough. More bad news may send me mad.’
‘Macedon is marching here. The king of the Sakje is waiting to speak to you of alliance. And Apollo and Athena by my witnesses, I am
not
plotting to take this city.’
not
plotting to take this city.’
Kineas felt the reaction from the fight. Just six days ago he had argued against war with Macedon. Something in his head had changed during the fight in the alley, or perhaps here in this room that choked him with riches and incense.
The archon held out his hand and Cyrus put another cup of wine in it. Then he looked up. ‘Where is this bandit king?’
Kineas met the tyrant’s eyes. ‘Hard by the city ditch, at Gade’s farm.’
The archon put forth his arm in a dramatic gesture of negation and shook his head. ‘Why? Why is Macedon marching to take
my
city? I already paid a hefty bribe to send them elsewhere.’ He looked up and met Kineas’s eye. ‘We can’t fight Macedon.’
my
city? I already paid a hefty bribe to send them elsewhere.’ He looked up and met Kineas’s eye. ‘We can’t fight Macedon.’
Kineas stood unmoving. Did he agree? He had already begun to plan his campaign on the endless grass. With tens of thousands of Sakje horsemen, one of whom had dark blue eyes . . . Suddenly he realized that his thoughts had been fully changed, as if by one of the gods. His pulse raced. It was like insanity. ‘Talk to the king,’ he said carefully.
‘Do you know that the assembly used to meet at my whim and vote anything I asked?’ The archon looked into his wine cup, and then at Kineas. ‘They loved me, Kineas. I protected them from the bandits on the plains, and they grew rich in peace, and they loved me. Now they simmer to revolt - for what? That fop Nicomedes could no more protect them from the bandits than a whore in the agora. And
you
, with your talk of Macedon and war - what can some bandit from the grass tell me of Macedon?’ he said. ‘Perhaps it doesn’t matter, anyway.’ He sounded drunk, and maudlin, and tired. ‘I’ve ridden this horse too long, I think, Athenian. I can no longer remember how to get their agreement.’ He waved out the doors of the megaron at the city beyond, and laughed bitterly. ‘Antipater can come and depose the assembly, perhaps. And set up a new tyrant. Nicomedes, perhaps.’
you
, with your talk of Macedon and war - what can some bandit from the grass tell me of Macedon?’ he said. ‘Perhaps it doesn’t matter, anyway.’ He sounded drunk, and maudlin, and tired. ‘I’ve ridden this horse too long, I think, Athenian. I can no longer remember how to get their agreement.’ He waved out the doors of the megaron at the city beyond, and laughed bitterly. ‘Antipater can come and depose the assembly, perhaps. And set up a new tyrant. Nicomedes, perhaps.’
Kineas approached the ivory stool, words coming unbidden to his head as he saw both of his campaigns form in his thoughts; the one to defeat Antipater, and the other to push this tyrant to make a stand. He thought of Achilles on the beach, his rage at Agamemnon, and then his acceptance of the council of the Goddess, so that he spoke in honeyed words.
Because, like it or not, Athens had hired him from exile for this very task. They’d lied about it, of course. But it was clear to him - as clear as if Athena had just whispered it in his ear - that Licurgus and his party had sent him to Olbia to stop Antipater.
Aye. Honeyed words. They came to him as if on a whisper, and he used them. ‘The threat of Macedon should serve to unite your city,’ he said, and he saw on the archon’s face that his arrow had struck home. ‘And the king could be a better friend than you think, Archon. Peace on the plains, and more grain in our ships.’
The archon grunted. ‘I doubt that my city will be saved by the bandits,’ he said, but he had his chin in his hand and he was looking thoughtful. ‘But as soon as it is known that Antipater is marching, this city will empty.’
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