Authors: Christian Cameron
Tyrant (40 page)
Kineas felt his face grow hot. He grinned at her, and she grinned at him. The look went on too long. Kineas decided it was time to change the subject. ‘Ask her if the king is ready to make war,’ he said.
The laughter from the Sakje stopped. She replied in a few words. Her face changed, returning to the hard look she had worn while she shot her bow.
‘She say - not for her to speak for king. She come to guide. She say - speak not for war until we come for king.’ Ataelus had a look on his face that pleaded for understanding.
Kineas nodded. But he continued, ‘I have heard of Zopryon’s army. It is very great, and ready to march.’ It was infuriating to have to listen to Ataelus’s halting translation and her reply.
Ataelus turned back to him. ‘She say the king is for having many things for talk. Much talk. Not for her to take the words for the king.’
‘Tell her I understand.’ Kineas pantomimed understanding to her. She spoke directly to him. He understood
Getae
and
Zopryon
and the verb for riding.
Getae
and
Zopryon
and the verb for riding.
‘She say the grass already knocked down with hooves of the Getae. She say she know Zopryon ready to ride.’ Ataelus wiped his forehead with his sleeve. ‘I say for talking -
that
talking is hard work.’ He laughed grimly.
that
talking is hard work.’ He laughed grimly.
Kineas took the hint and rode back to his own men.
The column moved fast, and the land became flat, the endless grass greener with each warm day, extending to the horizon on the left, and the river coiling like a snake. Sometimes it was at their feet, and sometimes it passed far away to their right in long, last curves. Those curves were the only marker of their progress, otherwise they might have been standing still for all the variation in the landscape. When the river passed out of sight, the plain of grass and the solid blue of the sky spread unchanged in every direction, like a blue bowl inverted over a green bowl. The immensity of it made the Greeks uncomfortable. Time seemed to stand still.
Yet by the second day the whole life of the column was routine - rising in pre-dawn cold, the welcome warmth of the horse at first mounting, a hasty meal with the first rays of the new sun, and then hours walking and trotting through the grass, the trampled line of their passage straight as the flight of an arrow behind them and the virgin grass before them as far as the eye could see.
Evening was different. Srayanka’s scouts chose the halting place each night, always close to water and often shaded by trees at the river’s edge, and fires were lit against the cold. The product of the day’s hunt roasted on iron spits, and the warriors told stories or pushed each other to vicious competitions. Horse races, wrestling, archery, contests of strength and memory, wit and skill filled the evening from the last halt to the dying of the fires.
At first the Olbians hung back, but on the second night Niceas wrestled Parshtaevalt, the black-haired Scyth who had shown interest in everything Greek. Then Eumenes raced his best pony against Srayanka’s trumpeter and lost the race and the pony.
The third evening became an equine Olympics, with mounted races, a dozen wrestling matches, and new events - boxing and foot races. The Sakje were as poor on foot as they were gifted on horseback. Their notion of boxing was even stranger. The Sakje had a contest that appeared similar, where two champions would stand toe to toe and hit each other by turns until the weaker man fell or declared himself beaten. Leucon, a passable boxer, thought that he was seeing the Greek sport and proceeded to block blows, to the consternation of his opponent and half the audience, and Kineas had to explain boxing to Srayanka through Eumenes and Ataelus, and then he and Leucon gave a demonstration.
Leucon was a sturdy man, powerfully built and well trained, but he lacked the speed and grace of Ajax - or Kineas. Kineas drew the match out, both for Leucon’s vanity and for the benefit of the audience, but when he parried Leucon’s best punch and responded with a flurry of blows too fast to be counted in the dwindling light, the crowd, Sakje and Greek alike, roared approval. Leucon fell.
Then, by torchlight, Philokles and a score of other men threw stones from the river. They threw for distance and argued the rules - did a bounce count? until Kineas feared violence would ensue, and ordered the Olbians to bed.
The fourth day passed like the others - the Olbian horse drilled and skirmished, formed and reformed, and the Sakje watched and hooted, or hunted, or rode in speculative silence. A week in the saddle, and all of Leucon’s troopers were already hardened to the life - eating in the saddle, riding all day. Kineas reined in next to the young commander in the late afternoon. Leucon had a hard head from the boxing, but he kept his temper like a gentleman and everyone respected him the more.
‘Your men are very good,’ Kineas said. ‘You’re a good commander.’
Leucon smiled ruefully at the praise. ‘Good thing,’ he said. ‘As my Olympic boxing career seems to be over.’ Then he said, ‘But thanks. I’m so proud of them I feel like I might burst, or start singing.’
Kineas rubbed his jaw, where his new beard was now prominent. It barely itched any more. ‘I know what you mean.’ He glanced at Niceas. ‘They’re good, aren’t they, old man?’
Niceas had Eumenes by his side in the column, and he glanced at the younger hyperetes before responding. ‘Better than I expected,’ he said. Then he broke into a smile. ‘Of course, we’ll see what they’re really made of when we have to fight.’
‘Don’t stop drilling,’ said Kineas. ‘After
achieving
excellence comes
keeping
it.’
achieving
excellence comes
keeping
it.’
On the fourth evening, Kineas found himself throwing javelins against Niceas and Kyros and one of the more promising boys. The Sakje watched curiously as the men rode through the course, throwing to the right and left. Kineas was done, having struck all his targets, and was watching the boy intently when he saw that Srayanka had mounted her mare and was starting the course behind the boy. She had a bow, and shot twice for every javelin he had launched, and rode past the last target, flushed with triumph, to the cheers of her band.
Kineas rode back to the lists and retrieved all of his javelins, determined to answer her challenge. He took two more javelins from Niceas. His hyperetes shot him a look through the failing light at the crowd of Sakje. ‘This is a good idea?’ he asked.
‘Ask me after I ride,’ Kineas responded.
He halted his horse at the start line and cleared his mind. Srayanka was still receiving the applause of her warriors. He watched her for a moment, and then pressed his horse into motion.
The stallion hadn’t been ridden all day, except for his first pass, and he was full of energy. Kineas threw his first javelin from well out - a difficult shot, but well placed, and the heavy dart sank into the rawhide of the target, a Sakje shield. He threw his second just before he passed the target and heard the
thunk
as the head bit home. Without looking at the result, he took his third javelin from his rein hand and threw for distance. It was one of Niceas’s - lighter than his own - and it flew high, catching the top of the second target and knocking it flat. At a gallop, too fast to think, he took his fourth javelin and sent his horse over the shield rather than past it, raised the second javelin high as he gathered the horse to jump, and plunged it down with the whole weight of his arm. He heard a reaction from the crowd but he was already throwing his fifth, his whole being concentrated on the last target and his last javelin. He was a stride behind - he fumbled the grip change for a heartbeat - and the shield was past. He turned - if she could do it, he could - and threw side-armed at the last target. He felt a muscle pop in his neck as he released and felt the pain as he turned back to the course, but the sudden burst of sound from a hundred throats told him that the pain was well won.
thunk
as the head bit home. Without looking at the result, he took his third javelin from his rein hand and threw for distance. It was one of Niceas’s - lighter than his own - and it flew high, catching the top of the second target and knocking it flat. At a gallop, too fast to think, he took his fourth javelin and sent his horse over the shield rather than past it, raised the second javelin high as he gathered the horse to jump, and plunged it down with the whole weight of his arm. He heard a reaction from the crowd but he was already throwing his fifth, his whole being concentrated on the last target and his last javelin. He was a stride behind - he fumbled the grip change for a heartbeat - and the shield was past. He turned - if she could do it, he could - and threw side-armed at the last target. He felt a muscle pop in his neck as he released and felt the pain as he turned back to the course, but the sudden burst of sound from a hundred throats told him that the pain was well won.
He trotted his charger back to Niceas. Niceas was holding the second shield over his head and shouting his approval. His leaping throw had punched right through the rawhide and through the wood, so that the black spike of the head protruded the length of an arm from the back.
Parshtaevalt, Srayanka’s second in command, reached up and embraced him, shouting in Sakje, and then Srayanka, still mounted, put her arms around his neck and pressed him close. The crowd shrieked approval. Then Eumenes was pushing a cup of wine into his hands. Unseen hands made wreaths, and Kineas found himself reclining on a carpet wearing his, while Srayanka sat with her back to a rolled cloak, wearing hers with her hair loose and looking like a muscular nymph.
They watched the rest of the competitions together. At some point he took her hand, and she turned to him and her eyes were wide, her pupils huge, and she moved her thumb across his palm. Despite the crowd around them, she continued to stroke his hand, turning it back and forth as she would, and he began to join her at the game - stroking the back of her hand, comparing the calluses on her palm to the warm softness on the back, daring to touch the inside of her wrist as if it were a much more private place.
It was the closest they had been to privacy. Neither said a word. Time passed, and then the competitions died away into drinking, and then the pressure of the wine on Kineas’s bladder made him rise, much against his will. He looked down, aware that he was grinning like a fool or a love-struck boy with his first serving girl. They didn’t even speak a common language.
She met his eyes and then looked down. She laughed.
‘Srayanka,’ he said.
‘Kineax,’ she said.
And that was the fourth night.
13
T
he next day, he was stiff and cold when he awoke, and his hands ached, every joint swollen. His right shoulder burned when he reached up to fasten his cloak, the trophy of last night’s throw. He summoned Eumenes and Ataelus.
he next day, he was stiff and cold when he awoke, and his hands ached, every joint swollen. His right shoulder burned when he reached up to fasten his cloak, the trophy of last night’s throw. He summoned Eumenes and Ataelus.
‘I want to work on my Sakje as we ride,’ he said.
Both of them looked away, smiling. But when they were all mounted, Eumenes and Ataelus joined him, and began to point around them - mare, stallion, sky and grass - and give him the words in Sakje. The roots of the words lurked at the edge of familiarity, like Persian, some like older Greek forms in the Poet, but the declensions were different and the end sounds were barbaric.
Kineas had started the process in the winter, but the press of politics and training had drowned his attempts at language lessons. Now, with the object of his lessons at hand and nothing to do but ride and watch Leucon handle his men, Kineas worked like a boy with a tutor.
Parshtaevalt joined them at the midday halt. He was a tall man, for a Sakje, with pale golden hair and a deep tan. Kineas had gathered that he was some relation to Srayanka, but the relationship was hard to define - a matrilineal cousin. He was also a successful war leader with the hair of a dozen enemies on his saddlecloth. He had a keen intelligence, and he took to the language lessons easily. He seemed to enjoy and admire Greek things.
He rode away after an hour and returned with Srayanka, who rode with them the rest of the day, naming things in Greek as Kineas named them in Sakje. She continued to command the column while she practised her Greek, and Kineas had an opportunity to observe her at work.
She was a fine commander. He watched her separate two men who were fighting over a haunch of venison, her eyes blazing in contrast to her calm, level voice. They shrank down as if struck. She moved around the column, she knew the state of every horse in her considerable herd and her scouts were always alert. In the evening, she spoke to her people when they won contests and when they lost them. That much he gleaned just from watching her. But he learned more from watching her warriors - the respect, almost awe, with which they treated her could be seen in every interaction. She never shied from a contest, and although she didn’t win them all, it was a matter for boasting for the victor when she lost
any
of them. She was first in the saddle at the start of the day and last in the saddle when the column halted. She had a different face and a different voice for every warrior in her band, man or woman - to some, she explained using her hands to emphasize a point, whereas to others she simply directed.
any
of them. She was first in the saddle at the start of the day and last in the saddle when the column halted. She had a different face and a different voice for every warrior in her band, man or woman - to some, she explained using her hands to emphasize a point, whereas to others she simply directed.
And all her people loved her.
He talked to Parshtaevalt through Eumenes on the sixth day, when she had ridden away from the language lessons to question a scout. Parshtaevalt now rode with Niceas and Eumenes most of the time, asking questions of the younger man as quickly as he could think of them. When Parshtaevalt mentioned a raid he had been on the year before, Kineas asked, ‘Did Srayanka lead the raid? Against the Getae?’
Ataelus passed the question and then rolled his eyes at the answer. ‘He say - fucking Getae. They burning towns - three towns. For killing every man they found.’
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