Authors: Christian Cameron
Tyrant (58 page)
‘The archon holds the city,’ Leucon said. His voice was flat.
Kineas had no response to that. He dismissed them to go to bed. They moved off, grumbling.
Philokles stood by his shoulder when they were gone. ‘You are a surprising man, Kineas. I think perhaps you would have been a dangerous opponent in the law courts, if you had not taken to the cavalry. You will argue that the army, and not the archon, is the voice of Olbia?’
‘I will,’ Kineas said. ‘I would lie if I said that I expected this, but by Zeus, I feared it, and I thought about it. And now all I can do is to ask them - they are men - let them act like men.’
Philokles shrugged. ‘Sparta has no walls,’ he said.
In the morning, the men were calm and obedient, which was as much as Kineas had hoped for. He attended the king’s council with his own officers. When called on, he rose and addressed them.
‘King Satrax, noble Sakje, men of Pantecapaeum. I wish to speak before rumour exaggerates. It appears to us from a report that the archon of Olbia has allowed a garrison of Macedon into the city’s citadel - or perhaps it has been taken by surprise.’
A murmur rose, first from the officers of the Pantecapaeum horse, and then from the Sakje. Kineas raised his voice and continued.
‘It is possible that, even now, there is an order en route to this camp from the archon, ordering this part of the army home.’ He caught Srayanka’s eye unwittingly. Her dark brows were drawn together as one.
The king flicked his whip. ‘And what will the men of Olbia do?’ he asked.
Kineas bowed. ‘We must have a few days to decide.’ He had explained in private, as soon as the king was up, and again to Srayanka, choosing his words carefully, but none of them smiled at him. The atmosphere of the council was heavy and cold. Many new men and some new women sat there now - the war leaders of the western clans, and the alien Sauromatae, handsome, tall men and women from the east with closed faces, who wore their armour to the council.
Kam Baqca spoke carefully. Her eyes were wide and her pupils enormous, as if she had received a blow to the head, or recently awakened. She seemed to have trouble focusing, and her body writhed from minute to minute, as if inhabited by a giant snake. ‘Do you think,’ she asked carefully, into a dead silence, ‘that the Sakje should allow you to ride away, if your archon intends to make war on us?’ Her head sunk suddenly to her chest and then snapped back erect, and her eyes were locked on the king. ‘I never saw this,’ she said.
Kineas spoke over the first angry response from his own officers to Kam Baqca’s threat. ‘I ask for time to deal with this crisis in our own way. Threats, promises, censure - none of them will help the men of Olbia deal with their own sense of betrayal and their own very deep fears for their city. I beg this council and the king to exercise patience, lest our alliance, already touched with victory, dissolve.’
The king made a sharp notion for Kineas to desist. Before he could speak, the best armoured of the Sauromatae rose from his seat and spoke. He spoke rapidly, in the Sakje tongue with a strong accent, and Kineas could catch little more than his anger.
The king listened attentively and then said to the council, ‘Prince Lot speaks for the Sauromatae. He says they have come far - far from their tents on the great sea of grass, and farther from the queen of the Massagetae, who also craved their lances in Bactria. He says they come to find a handful of foreign allies preparing to desert to Macedon, and he wonders aloud if I am a strong king.’
The king rose to his feet. The campaign against the Getae had hardened him. There was no adolescent rage - just a cold focus. He spoke in Sakje, and Kineas understood him well enough, and then he spoke again in Greek. ‘I
am
a strong king. I have crushed the Getae, who preyed on my people for ten generations of men. I won this victory with the help of the men of Olbia, and such brotherhood is not lightly set aside.’ He looked at Kineas. Kineas read a great deal from that look. The boy was putting his kingship above his desire for Srayanka - again.
am
a strong king. I have crushed the Getae, who preyed on my people for ten generations of men. I won this victory with the help of the men of Olbia, and such brotherhood is not lightly set aside.’ He looked at Kineas. Kineas read a great deal from that look. The boy was putting his kingship above his desire for Srayanka - again.
He continued. ‘I give the Olbians five days to make their decision, and then we will take council again. In the meantime, I command that the harrying of the army of Macedon begin. Zopryon is two hundred stades distant. He will take at least a week to reach the bank of the great river. By then, all questions of Olbia and its archon will have been resolved.’
The king sat. He had never looked less young, or more fully a king. Srayanka smiled at him, and Kineas felt the bile in his gut. It occurred to him to wonder what, exactly, Srayanka wanted in a man. Was it power?
The thought was black with jealousy, and unworthy of her.
But the barb stuck.
Marthax’s army returned, with the rest of the Olbians, and all the other veterans of the campaign against the Getae. Srayanka’s Cruel Hands came into camp with a whoop of victory. Kineas saw them at a distance; he saw Srayanka greet Parshtaevalt, just as he saw the king welcome Marthax, and he saw the subdued celebrations among the Sakje. For the first time that summer, however, he was separate, distant, and not welcome. And as soon as they came and celebrated, they rode away again. Kineas watched Srayanka lead the Cruel Hands out of the camp on the third day after their return.
She rode up to him. He hadn’t touched her in days - hadn’t spoken to her, except at the council. She gestured with her whip at the knots of Olbian men gathered by their fires. ‘Fix this - it is between us.’
Kineas tried to grab her hand. She frowned, shook her head, turned her horse, and galloped back to the head of her column, and Kineas felt a hot jab of rejection - and rage.
Behind Kineas, there was a great deal of comment - the veterans of the Getae campaign filling in their mates on just how the ground lay between their commander and the Lady Srayanka. Kineas whirled on them, savage, and a great many punishments were handed out.
It was ruinous for morale. By the time Memnon’s spears marched into sight on the east bank of the river, those who remained, Sakje and Greek alike, were waiting to hear the news like men waiting for a bolt of lightning.
Memnon arrived at the head of the phalanx of Pantecapaeum, with the phalanx of Olbia a few stades behind. Kineas rode out to him as soon as the glitter of his spears was identified. It was obvious from their first exchange that Memnon’s news of the city was out of date - he had left a city dedicated to the war.
Kineas took Memnon aside as soon as he could, pressed a cup of wine into his hands, and sat him on a stool. ‘We have reason to believe that the archon sold the city to Macedon a day or two after you went out the gates,’ he said.
Memnon took a gulp of wine, spat it in the fire, and then drank some. ‘Bastard. Whoreson. Dickless catamite.’ He drank off the wine. ‘We’re fucked. They’ll all go home.’
Kineas shook his head. ‘Let them hear the news tonight. Tomorrow, all the men of Olbia will gather in assembly.’
‘Ares, it’ll be chaos, Kineas. And there’ll be desertions. I hate to say it - I love the whoresons, but I know them.’ Memnon shook his head. ‘Bastard - boyfucker. He just waited for us to march out, and then he handed the citadel to Zopryon.’
Kineas raised an eyebrow. ‘Did you expect anything else? I didn’t. Now we’ll see what we’ve made.’
Memnon shook his head. ‘Listen, comrade. We’re old soldiers - mercenaries, masterless men, exiles. We know that the loss of your city is a bitter pill, but in the end - nothing. A city is a city. Yes? They don’t know. They will feel as if their gods have died. And they’ll crawl back to the archon and swear whatever he requires to have their city back.’
Kineas looked at the marching column. ‘They look good,’ he said.
‘They are good, fuck your mother!’ Memnon spoke with angry pride. ‘They trained all winter and they marched here like - like Spartiates. They’ve trowelled off a lot of weight and they like it. Most of them are middle-aged men who just won themselves a last summer of youth. They’ll fight like heroes,’ he said glumly, ‘if they choose to fight.’
Kineas slapped the dark man’s shoulder. ‘Isn’t that the way it ought to be?’ he said. ‘Men ought to fight only if they vote it.’
‘You spend too much time with that fucking Spartan,’ Memnon grumbled. ‘If somebody pays me to fight, I fight. I don’t ask a lot of questions.’
Kineas met his eye. ‘That’s how we both came to work for the archon,’ he said. ‘From now on, I think I’ll ask more questions.’
In the night, Leon the slave of Nicomedes came into camp, having run day and night from the city. He brought news.
Kineas, summoned from a dream full of smoke and monsters, was muddled when he made his way to Nicomedes’ tent. Leon looked like a literal man of clay - he was coated in pale river mud, and he stank of it.
Nicomedes handed Kineas and Philokles a cup of wine. ‘It’s bad,’ he said. ‘Tell him, Leon.’
Leon drank from his own wine cup. ‘Cleomenes had Cleitus murdered by the Kelts day before yesterday,’ he said. He rubbed his face with his hands as a man does when he tries to stay awake, and flakes of mud came away from his face, as if he was literally falling to pieces. ‘He has seized command of the rest of the hippeis.’
Kineas pounded his right fist into his left hand. ‘Zeus! Of all the base acts . . .’ He drained his wine. ‘What of the archon?’ Thoughts and images boiled in his mind. The archon’s treason came as a shock, for all of his preparation.
Leon shook his head. Nicomedes swirled some more wine - unwatered - in his cup. ‘It’s always worse than you think. No one has seen the archon. Cleomenes has seized power and turned the citadel over to a garrison from Thrace.’
‘Amarayan gives the orders in the citadel,’ Leon said. ‘No one has seen the archon in ten days, since the garrison came. They came out of a big merchant ship, and by the time Cleitus had heard and mustered the hippeis, they were installed in the citadel.’
‘How many?’ asked Kineas.
‘Two hundred?’ Leon speculated. ‘Hard to know - they haven’t come down into the town. Indeed, they only hold the gates and the citadel - they don’t patrol the walls.’ He hung his head. ‘Cleitus was going to try ejecting them with his hippeis and some citizens who remained behind. That’s when Cleomenes showed his hand and had Cleitus killed.’ He looked at Nicomedes. ‘You are exiled. Kineas and Memnon have their citizenship revoked. The army of the city is recalled. All our goods have been seized.’
‘How’d you come free?’ Kineas asked. It was harsher than he meant, but he was not in a trusting mood.
Leon met his eye. ‘I’m a slave,’ he said. ‘I walked through the gates with the market crowd, took a horse from the Gamelios farm, and rode hard.’ He shrugged heavily. ‘When I saw the Macedonians, I got down in the riverbed and walked.’
Nicomedes put his hand on the seated man’s neck. ‘Now you are a free man,’ he said.
Leon glanced up - taken aback. ‘Can you afford to free me?’ he asked. ‘I’m quite valuable.’ Then he laughed, despite everything. ‘By all the gods - you mean it, sir?’
Nicomedes tossed his cloak off his shoulder and curled his beard with his fingers. ‘Why not? I used to be the richest man in Olbia. Get some sleep.’ He glanced at Kineas. ‘I thought you should know first.’
Kineas mutely held his cup out for more unwatered wine. Philokles shook his head. ‘I thought it would be the archon,’ he said blearily. ‘Or - or you, Nicomedes.’
Nicomedes shrugged with a pained look. ‘It might have been me - after we dealt with Zopryon.’
Philokles nodded. ‘We’re in deep trouble. Cleomenes - he knows exactly how to hurt us.’
Kineas nodded. ‘Yes,’ he said, and rubbed his jaw like a boxer who had taken a heavy blow.
19
T
he next day dawned red, with a promise of heavy weather later in the day. Kineas gathered all the men of Olbia in a great half-circle, a conscious recreation of the place of assembly in the city. Kineas and Nicomedes had worked to make the assembly ground as familiar as possible.
he next day dawned red, with a promise of heavy weather later in the day. Kineas gathered all the men of Olbia in a great half-circle, a conscious recreation of the place of assembly in the city. Kineas and Nicomedes had worked to make the assembly ground as familiar as possible.
It was an odd assembly, because, for whatever reason, all the men, hoplites and hippeis, brought their spears, and stood leaning on them, so that the assembly was a forest of bright spear points in the red morning light.
First came Helladius, a priest of Apollo, who made a sacrifice in the name of the god and declared the day favourable, just as he would have in Olbia. He was solemn, and the steam that rose from the blood of his slaughtered lamb in the red light of dawn seemed to waft the sacrifice straight to the gods.
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