Tyrant (49 page)
Authors: Christian Cameron
Kineas followed him up the hill from the port. Nicomedes was an important man, and walking to his house involved running a gauntlet of requests, factors, beggars of various degrees and stations - it took an hour he could ill spare.
Once seated in a room full of beautiful, if salacious, mosaic and marble, Kineas lay on a couch with a cup of excellent wine. He kept his patience - Nicomedes was not just one of his officers, but, next to the archon and perhaps Cleitus, the city’s most powerful man. Probably as rich as any man in Athens.
‘What’s on your mind?’ Kineas asked.
Nicomedes was admiring the goldwork on Kineas’s sword. ‘This is superb! You’ll pardon me if I say I had not expected to envy you the ownership of an object - although I had heard of the wonders of the blade.’ Nicomedes shrugged, made a wry face. ‘Swords don’t move me much - I like one that’s sharp and stays in my hand. But the hilt - masterwork. From Athens?’
Kineas shook his head. ‘An Athenian master - living with the Sakje.’
‘The style - like great Athenian work, but all these outré animals - and the Medusa! Or is that Medea?’
Kineas smiled. ‘I suspect it to be Medea.’
‘Medea? She killed her children, didn’t she?’ Nicomedes raised an eyebrow. ‘That face - I can imagine her killing a few children. Beautiful - but fierce. Why Medea?’
Kineas shook his head. ‘Private joke, I think. What’s on your mind?’ he asked again.
Nicomedes continued to admire the sword. Then he straightened. ‘Cleomenes has reappeared,’ he said.
‘Zeus, lord of all,’ Kineas swore. ‘Heraclea?’
‘Worse. Tomis. He’s gone over to the Macedonians. I found out this morning. The Archon won’t know yet.’
Kineas rubbed his jaw. Cleomenes, for all his party enmity, knew all of their plans - every nuance. He’d attended every meeting of the city’s magnates - he was, after all, one of the leading men. ‘That could be a heavy blow,’ he said.
Nicomedes nodded. ‘I respect your command - but you are sending every leader in the assembly out of the city. There will be no one left with the balls to contest the archon - or Cleomenes, if he comes here. And he will.’
Kineas rubbed his beard and made a face. He took a deep breath and then said, ‘You’re right.’
‘He could murder some of the popular leaders among the people, and close the gates.’ Nicomedes drank his wine. ‘The archon has spent five years improving the defences - I’d hate to try and take this place.’
Kineas shook his head. ‘We’d have it in our hands in three days.’
Nicomedes looked surprised - not an expression his smooth features often wore. ‘How?’
Kineas raised an eyebrow to indicate that he wanted Nicomedes to guess.
‘Treason?’ asked Nicomedes, but as soon as he said it, he laughed. ‘Of course. We’re the army. All our people are in the city.’
Kineas nodded. ‘I like to think of it as an exercise in military democracy. Well-governed cities can stand a siege for ever, unless they are unlucky. But an unpopular government will only last until someone opens a gate. Not usually a long wait. Tyrannies . . .’ Kineas smiled a wolfish smile. ‘They fall easily.’
Nicomedes leaned forward on his couch. ‘By the gods, you are tempting him.’
Kineas shook his head. ‘I don’t play those games. I need the soldiers in the field - if for no other reason, to show the Sakje that we are with them. But if the archon is tempted to be foolish, and he acts,’ Kineas shrugged, ‘I am not responsible for the evil actions of other men. My tutor taught me that.’
Nicomedes nodded, his eyes alight - but then he shook his head. ‘He could still damage our property. He might attack families - he might even hand the citadel to Macedon, if he thought it was his only hope of survival.’
Kineas nodded. ‘I believe that he is a rational man, despite his burst of temper. You think worse of him.’
‘He is more stable with you and Memnon than he was last year. I fear that when you are gone - I fear many things.’
Kineas rubbed his beard. ‘What do you want me to do?’
‘Leave my squadron here.’ Nicomedes shrugged. ‘I can watch the archon. And I can deal with Cleomenes.’ His voice hardened.
Kineas shook his head. ‘Ah, Nicomedes - you have worked yourself too hard. Yours is the best of the four squadrons. On the day of battle, I need
you
.’
you
.’
Nicomedes shrugged. ‘I thought you’d say that. Very well, then - leave Cleitus here.’
Kineas rubbed his cheeks thoughtfully. ‘The older men - the worst riders, but on the best horses and with the best equipment.’
Nicomedes leaned across the space between the couches, handing Kineas back his sword, hilt first. ‘Most of them are old for a real campaign - but young enough to wear armour and stare down a tyrant.’
‘You and Cleitus are rivals,’ Kineas said carefully.
Nicomedes got up from his couch and walked to the table where a dozen scrolls were open. ‘Not in this. I’d rather it was me - Cleitus has a lingering respect for the archon, and he’s clay in Cleomenes’s hands - but he’ll hold the line.’
‘All the more reason for it to be him. The archon remains my employer. He is autocratic, but as far as I can tell, he has acted within the laws of the city. You empowered him. He’s your monster.’ Kineas rubbed his beard. ‘And I fear that you and Cleomenes - that it’s too personal.’
Nicomedes looked bitter. ‘It is. I’ll kill him when I can.’
Kineas stood up. ‘When the Athenian assembly voted for war with Macedon, many were against it, and some of them lie dead at Chaeronea. That’s democracy.’
Nicomedes came and walked Kineas to his door. ‘You’ll do it, though - leave Cleitus’s squadron?’
Kineas nodded sharply. ‘Yes.’
Nicomedes smiled, and Kineas wondered if he’d just been outmanoeuvred. ‘Good. It would kill Ajax to stay. And I’ve never seen war on land. It looks very safe compared to war at sea.’
Kineas didn’t know whether this was humour or not. It was always hard to tell with Nicomedes. So he clasped the man’s hand in his doorway, amidst a crowd of hangers-on, and went back to the barracks.
The third day, Nicomedes’ squadron rode forth with more baggage and more slaves then the other two combined - but his squadron had the best discipline of the four. Kineas watched them go with a heavy heart - he wanted to go, but he had to finish his work with the allies.
Philokles, Memnon and Cleitus stood with him until the last spare horse and the last mule cart passed through the gates.
Memnon continued to appear a foot taller. He turned to Kineas and saluted - without a trace of sarcasm - and said, ‘I’ll just take my lads out for an hour, with your permission?’
Kineas returned his salute, hand on chest. ‘Memnon, you do not need my permission to drill the hoplites.’
Memnon grinned. ‘I know that. God help you if you thought otherwise. ’ He pointed at the waiting men, formed in long files in the streets of the town. ‘But it’s a good game for them.’
Philokles agreed. ‘Those who obey will be obeyed,’ he said.
Memnon pointed at him. ‘Right! Just what I mean. Socrates?’
Philokles shook his head. ‘Lykeurgos of Sparta.’
Memnon walked off, still laughing.
Memnon found much to admire in the hoplites of Pantecapeum - their phalanx he accounted very good, and their elite young men, two hundred athletes in top shape - the
epilektoi
- made him grin. ‘Of course, their officers are a bunch of pompous twits,’ he said through his snaggle teeth.
epilektoi
- made him grin. ‘Of course, their officers are a bunch of pompous twits,’ he said through his snaggle teeth.
The hipparch of Pantecapaeum was about the same. He was a tall, thin, very young man with a dour face and a large forehead - usually a sign of immense intelligence.
‘My troops will remain exclusively under my command,’ he said. ‘You may communicate your orders to me, and if I feel that they are appropriate, I will pass them to my men. We are gentlemen, not mercenaries. I have heard a great many things about you - that you force the gentlemen of Olbia to curry their own horses, for instance. None of that foolishness will apply to my men.’
Kineas had expected as much from their exchange of letters. ‘I will discuss all of these points with you, of course. In the meantime, may I inspect your men?’
The allied hipparch - Heron - gave a thin smile. ‘If you wish to view them, you may. Only I inspect them. Only I speak to them. I hope I’ve made myself clear.’ Kineas knew him instantly - a man for whom intelligence replaced sense, and whose fear of failure made him distant and arrogant. All too common in small armies. Kineas had known from the first how lucky he was with Nicomedes and Cleitus - and Heron was the proof.
Kineas nodded. His mind was refreshingly clear of anger - and long years with the arrogance of Macedonian officers had accustomed him to this sort of thing. Instead of a reaction, he turned his horse and began to walk it down the front rank of the hippeis of Pantecapaeum.
The hippeis of Pantecapaeum were fifty years out of date in their equipment. Like the hoplites of Olbia, they were wearing equipment that their grandfathers would have used - light linen armour or no armour, small horses, light javelins. Most of the riders were overweight, and at least a dozen were sitting back on their horse’s haunches - what Athenians called ‘chair seat’, a posture that was easier on untrained riders but hard on the horse. Kineas noted that they had no cloaks at their saddlecloths, and that the squadron, just seventy men, had a surprising mix of horses.
He smiled, because he suspected that if he had seen the hippeis of Olbia a year ago, the few who turned out might have looked like this. He reined up and turned to Heron.
‘We’ll train you. You’ll have to work on your equipment. I’ll treat you as one of my troop commanders for as long as you deserve it.’ He rode up close to the man. ‘I’ve seen years and years of mounted warfare, and this is going to be a hard campaign. Obey me, and you’ll keep most of your men alive. Go your own way, and you are of no use to me.’
Heron stared to the front for a few seconds. ‘I will consult with my men,’ he said stiffly.
Kineas nodded. ‘Be quick, then.’
Kineas sent a slave for Cleitus, and spent an ugly half hour on the sand with an angry troop of allied horsemen. He gave them orders and they were sullen, or simply ignorant. Their hyperetes - Dion - seemed willing enough. Heron retreated - first to the far edge of the sand and then to the gate.
Cleitus appeared at the head of his squadron, it being an appointed drill day for the cavalry left in the city. They filed into the hippodrome, making it look empty compared to full muster days, but the fifty of them made a superb contrast to the men of Pantecapaeum.
‘Thank the gods,’ Kineas said. He was somewhere between frustration and rage. He had Niceas to do this kind of work, and always had. Kineas pointed at the allied horse. ‘Can you train them for me? Two weeks?’
‘Surely you can train them faster - and better - in camp.’ Cleitus looked around. ‘Where’s Heron? Did you kill him?’
‘No. He’s brave enough - just pig-ignorant.’
Cleitus shook his head. ‘He’s the son of an old rival of mine. He grew up soft. Too soft.’
Kineas shrugged. ‘So did I. Listen - they need armour, and they need the same big geldings we have. You can do all that here - I can’t. I’ll get them remounts at the camp, but the armour has to come from here.’
Cleitus scratched his chin. ‘Who’s paying?’
Kineas grinned. ‘Let me guess. The thin kid - Heron - is rich?’
Cleitus laughed. ‘Rich as Croseus.’
Kineas shook his head. ‘I wish all my problems had such easy answers. Tell him I’ll keep him as hipparch - even apologize - if he pays. Otherwise, send him home and pick a new one. Dias looks competent. ’
Cleitus nodded. ‘Dion. Dias is the trumpeter. He is. He’s just dishonest. ’ He waved to his friend Petrocolus, who trotted up, looking a decade younger.
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