King of the Bosphorus t-4

by Christian Cameron

  On the way back, they collected their refugees and sent them to strip the dead in the valley. In camp, Urvara was beside herself with worry when she saw Melitta, and she was visibly reining in her temper.

  'I had to,' Melitta said.

  Temerix slapped her back and headed off with his own. Urvara watched him go, and then kissed her brow. 'I guess you did, at that,' she said in Sakje. 'You know that if you die, this comes to an end.'

  'No,' Melitta said. 'No, Auntie. I have a brother, and a son. If I die, they'll ride the horse.' The next morning, it rained – cold rain that seemed like a last touch of winter's icy fingers. She sat in the cold rain with Coenus on the same low ridge where Temerix had rallied them the day before, oppos ite the enemy camp. The enemy ships were drawn up on the muddy beach – twenty triremes and forty more small merchant ships and big fishing smacks, all capable of carrying forty or fifty men.

  Coenus peered at them under his hand in the rising sun. 'Nikephoros,' he said. 'Good officer. Look at the camp – and the sentries.'

  'You know him?' Melitta asked.

  'Don't spend your life on the stage without getting to know the chorus,' Coenus said. 'There he is!' He pointed to the line of ships.

  Melitta had no idea what her captain was pointing at. Coenus's eyes had always been godlike. 'Will he fight?' she asked.

  Coenus saw her puzzlement. 'No,' he said. 'Whatever he came for, he's too smart to fight. He made a grab at the fort, destroyed some farms, got his fingers burned and now he's re-embarking.'

  'He built that fortified camp and now he'll just leave it?' she asked.

  'That's right, honey bee,' Coenus said. He rubbed his beard and then snuffled. He had a cold. Most of them did. Spring had come and the ground was drying, but the nights were still damp and cold. 'I would. Camps are easy to build. He can't afford losses. And if he lost a battle here – we'd kill every man in his force and burn his ships.'

  Scopasis, normally silent, was moved to speak. 'Send us, lady. We will storm his camp now.'

  Gaweint seconded him. 'Send us!' he said.

  Melitta looked at Coenus, expecting a rapid negation. Instead, the Megaran scratched his beard, and then pulled his helmet off and his wool cap and scratched his head more thoroughly. 'Creatures of icy Tartarus,' he cursed. 'Lice. Lice are supposed to come with warm weather. Scopasis, you may have something – and I don't mean more lice. Lady, how many dead can you tolerate?'

  Melitta felt her stomach contract. 'What are you saying?'

  Coenus smiled grimly. 'Did I mention how all my life I've refused command? This is it. Scopasis is right. They've just started to load.' He crushed a bug between his nails. 'Right now, if we go for them, we'll wipe them out.' He smeared the remains of the bug on his horse's withers. 'It'll cost you a thousand warriors.'

  'Unacceptable,' she said. Coenus's tone horrified her.

  'It'd change the war,' Coenus said. 'In one blow, we cripple his fleet and get his best general and a third of his professional soldiers.'

  Scopasis pulled his horse in front of her. 'I would be proud to lead,' he said. 'I will die here.'

  Gaweint threw his sword in the air. 'Hah!' he said, and caught it.

  Urvara came up with her bodyguard and Parshtaevalt followed, dickering with Graethe over the price of a horse. They fell silent as they saw the enemy camp.

  Melitta looked down at the enemy ships and the files of rowers going aboard, the men on the walls looking up the hill at the Sakje and over their shoulders, already nervous that they might be abandoned.

  'No,' she said. 'It is enough that they board their ships and sail away.'

  'Tomorrow, they will land a hundred stades from here. They will burn the Temple of Herakles, or kill your friend – that farmer up on the Hypanis. What's his name? Gardan.' Coenus shrugged. 'Right now, we have them under our hands.' Coenus pulled his wool arming cap back on to his head. 'I don't want to order it, either. But this is what war is. And if you order it, I will lead it.'

  'A thousand riders?' Urvara asked. 'Dead?' She looked at Coenus. 'This is some Greek madness. The people would never recover.'

  'And Upazan would still come,' Parshtaevalt said. 'But – oh, Coenus. It is a hard thing, but even if it is my clan that dies, I see the merit in your words.'

  Coenus nodded. 'Don't mistake me, friends. I don't want this battle. But mark my words – later in the summer we'll face Nikephoros on ground of his own choosing, with Eumeles and all his mercenaries and Upazan guarding his flanks.'

  Melitta was sure that her answer was the right one. 'Friends,' she said, and all their heads turned. 'My friends, this is a battle I will never fight – a battle where I must expect a thousand empty saddles. Coenus – I understand. I am enough Greek that I understand, but I will find us another way.'

  Coenus nodded. He tucked his helmet into the leather bag at his back and pulled out a Sakje fur hat. 'Good,' he said. 'It would have been horrible.'

  Scopasis shook his head. 'Glorious,' he spat. Gaweint looked as if he might cry.

  Ataelus came up last, heard the end of the debate and slapped his former outlaw on the back. 'Live a few more days,' he said. 'You may find that dying in battle is not the only joy.'

  The Sindi and the Maeotae cheered like heroes as their queen rode up the bluff and entered the gates over the corpses of a dozen dead phalangites. Coenus congratulated the farmers on the spirit of their defence, and Ataelus already had two hundred riders across the river, riding the coast, trying to find out where the enemy fleet was heading.

  'Where is my brother?' Melitta asked.

  'If he is alive, he is coming,' Urvara said.

  Coenus nodded.

  But the enemy fleet sailed out into the bay, and Melitta suspected that perhaps an opportunity had sailed with it.

  One boat returned, a pentekonter rowed by soldiers with a handsome older man in the stern. Melitta found Coenus overseeing the storage of yet more grain and pointed it out to him.

  'Nikephoros,' he said. 'Must want to bury his dead. He's of the old school – quite an honourable man.'

  'How can he stomach his master, then?' Melitta asked. She saw Nihmu – pale, thin and distraught. It took her a moment to realize that Nihmu was waiting on her – literally. Melitta had waited on Nihmu most of her adult life. It was odd to reverse the situation.

  Coenus smiled at Nihmu and she looked elsewhere. He rolled his eyes. 'Listen, honey bee. Your father was lucky. His employer was a monster – but Kineas rose above him. Not every professional soldier can do the same.'

  Melitta continued to watch the fifty-oared boat approach. 'Nihmu?' she said softly.

  'Lady?' Nihmu came closer. 'Lady? I have come to crave a boon.'

  Melitta tore her eyes from the approaching galley. 'Nihmu, I think you're being silly. I'm not the lady to you.'

  Nihmu had tears in her eyes. 'You are, lady. Listen – I wish to leave.'

  Melitta started. 'Leave?' she asked. She glanced at Coenus – whose look of Laconic concern didn't fool her for a moment. 'Why are you leaving?'

  Nihmu bit her lip. 'I am going to rescue my husband,' she said. 'Coenus and I feel that it won't be long before Eumeles executes him. He must be rescued.'

  Melitta felt a void in her stomach as she realized that among all her busy plots and plans, Leon had vanished into obscurity. She looked at Coenus, who wiped sweat from his brow and shook his head. 'Nihmu and I agreed that it must be her. If I go, you have no military counsel that you trust.' His voice was flat, and she realized that he was making a sacrifice, and bearing it – rather the opposite of her first assumption.

  'You would rather rescue Leon?' she asked.

  Coenus nodded. 'Yes,' he said. 'This morning reminded me of why I do not wish to command.'

  Melitta nodded and began to walk down to the beach beneath her father's kurgan. The pentekonter was coming ashore, and the first sailors to touch the beach had branches of olive in their hands. A herald came next. He wore green and walked up the beach to Coen
us, and bowed. Coenus pointed to Melitta. The herald looked puzzled, but then he inclined his head.

  In abysmal Sakje, he said, 'Master of many horses Nikephoros look to ask to make not war with you.' The man's nerves were betrayed by the way he clutched his staff.

  'I speak Greek,' she said.

  'Ah! My pardon, despoina. My strategos requests a truce during which he might bury his dead, or take their bodies.' The herald waved his wand in the direction of the fort.

  'Let him approach me himself,' Melitta said. 'I see him standing in the stern. It is right that leaders should look each other in the eye.'

  The herald turned and walked away. She saw him walk back the half-stade across the sand.

  'Build a fire,' Melitta said. 'Fetch wine.'

  The herald went aboard, and she saw Nikephoros look her way and shrug. Then he leaped down into the cold water and trudged up the beach.

  Coenus worked his magic. In moments, he had a driftwood fire going. Nihmu came to her side with a heavy amphora of wine cradled in her arms like a baby, and Urvara came down on horseback, dismounted and joined her. Temerix walked up on foot.

  'Parshtaevalt, Ataelus and Graethe are already out on the grass,' Urvara said. 'I gather that's Nikephoros.'

  Melitta nodded.

  Nikephoros walked the half-stade towards them, apparently indifferent to his wet cloak and the icy wind. He came alone.

  'Please come and be warm,' Melitta said. 'There's wine.'

  'I never refuse a cup of wine,' Nikephoros said. 'Hello, Coenus the Megaran. Your presence gave me hope that I could expect the courtesies of war.'

  Melitta handed him a cup of wine. 'Did you know my father?'

  Nikephoros was Boeotian. He had copper-red hair – what was left of it – and fine armour. He wore a full beard like a man of a bygone era, and he didn't waste words. 'No. Or rather, only by repute.' He poured a libation. 'To all the gods, and to the shade of your father. In his name, I ask you for a truce of one day, in which to recover and bury my dead.'

  Melitta nodded. 'It is odd, Nikephoros. An hour ago, I was considering the storming of your camp. Now we drink wine. Yes – and no. You may have a five-day truce to recover your dead. There will be some by the outlying farms where we killed them yesterday.'

  'I need only a day,' Nikephoros said.

  'Five days, during which your ships remain in the bay where I can see them.' Melitta had to look up at him. He had a pleasant face, the kind of face she trusted. Too bad, she thought.

  His anger showed in his face. 'You did not beat me badly enough-' he said, and his voice was hard.

  She raised her whip. 'You serve a usurper, a tyrant who ordered you here to burn his own farmers. I owe you no courtesy at all. Because Coenus told me that you are a man of honour, I agreed to meet you. But hear me, Boeotian. My father would never have served a tyrant like Eumeles. Instead, he would have overthrown him. My uncles serve Ptolemy, who builds cities, and Seleucus, who liberates them. I judge you by the company you keep. To me, you are a mercenary who serves a rebel. Take my five days, or sail away. There is no bargain to be made here.'

  Nikephoros shook his head. His anger had cooled. 'So you already know,' he said.

  Coenus's face was carefully blank.

  Melitta took her cue from him. She said nothing. But suddenly hope soared in her.

  Nikephoros sipped his wine. 'Listen, lady. I expect no special treatment from you, but your request is unreasonable. To wait five days is to guarantee that I'm blockaded here. So I'll offer three days, and no more.' He addressed Coenus. 'Be fair, Coenus.'

  Coenus leaned forward. 'Because if we keep you here five days,' he said, 'Satyrus's fleet will be here.' His voice cracked a little at the end – he could barely keep the smile off his face.

  Nikephoros shrugged. 'I can't chance it. That boy moves fast. I got word this morning he's at Heraklea with a fleet. I assume that you heard the same?'

  He looked around, and his face filled with blood. This time he was angry. 'You didn't know!' he said.

  'I know now,' Melitta said. 'T hree days has just become acceptable.'

  Nikephoros spat. 'This is not how embassies proceed. Coenus, I expected better of you.'

  Coenus shrugged. 'Neither you nor your herald has been threatened. You dickered over the days of truce. It all seems normal to me.' He turned to Melitta. 'Three days?'

  Melitta nodded.

  Nikephoros stood still.

  'Three days' truce,' Coenus intoned. 'You may land up to fifty men at a time, and you may use the beach north of the old town to cook and eat.'

  'We want our camp!' Nikephoros shot back.

  Coenus shook his head. 'No, Nikephoros. There is no question of that. Nor will we allow you to fortify a new place.'

  Nikephoros shook his head. 'No truce, then.' He turned on his heel and walked away.

  Coenus held up his hand for silence. Then he turned to Melitta. 'You know what this means!' he said quietly.

  Melitta nodded. 'Listen, Coenus. There are boats in the fort. Take one and a crew of Sindi – follow his ships out of the Bay of Salmon and run down for Heraklea. Tell my brother how it lies and we'll have Leon back in no time.' She looked around at her chiefs. 'Satyrus must have a fleet.'

  'And here?' Urvara asked. 'What about us?'

  Melitta nodded. 'I think we went about this wrong,' she said. 'We're Sakje. We leave the farmers to hold the fort – they know we'll come back. We scatter into war bands, across the whole of the east country, and we make war our way, preying on the Sauromatae wherever we find them, acting as our own pickets for either invasion – Upazan or Eumeles. We harry whichever comes first. We concentrate if we can defeat a detachment, and otherwise we are like snowflakes on an eastern wind. Let them strike at the snow.' She waved her whip at Nikephoros, who now stood still, half a stade along the beach, looking out to sea. 'The farmers can protect their grain until my brother comes, surely.'

  Urvara started to speak, but Coenus cut her off with an exclamation. 'By the gods – the grain! Nikephoros is here for the grain! He must be poor.'

  Melitta spat at the notion of a king who would steal grain from his own subjects.

  Urvara's eyes shone, reflecting the fire. 'That is proper war,' she said. 'That is the war the people know.'

  'One day's rest,' Melitta said. 'And then we ride.' She turned to Coenus. 'Will you go for my brother?' she asked.

  'You can live without me?' Coenus asked. His tone held mockery – whether of her or of himself she couldn't reckon.

  She chose to take his question at face value. 'I need you,' she said. 'But no one is irreplaceable. Not even me. So go. Who will command my guard?'

  'Scopasis,' Coenus said without hesitation. 'He has a keen eye and a loyal heart. Don't take his advice on military matters – he seeks glory.'

  Melitta swatted her dearest advisor. 'I know that!' she said. She had tears in her eyes. She took Coenus's hand and Nihmu's. 'Come back to me.'

  Nihmu was looking out at the enemy fleet. 'I can't believe I am going to sea again,' she said. 'Bah.' But she smiled. 'We'll come back,' she said.

  But Melitta was chilled to see that Nihmu would not meet her eye. 'What have you seen?' Melitta demanded.

  'Seen?' Nihmu asked. She shook her head, still refusing to meet Melitta's eye. 'I no longer see. The spirit world is closed to me.'

  Melitta put her hand on the woman's shoulders. 'No!' she said. 'I don't believe it. What did you see?'

  'Nikephoros is coming back,' Coenus said. 'Look like a queen.'

  Nikephoros stopped a horse-length away and tucked his thumbs in his sash. 'T hree days,' he said. He shrugged.

  Melitta drew herself up against the weight of the armour on her shoulders. 'T hree days,' she said, as graciously as she could manage.

  The Boeotian nodded. He turned to Coenus. 'Your men will know where mine are lying,' he said.

  Coenus handed his wine cup to his queen. 'I'm at your service, Strategos. Shall we get to it?'

>   Nikephoros didn't smile. His face was closed and hard, and Melitta wondered what inner struggle had just transpired. She could feel his anger across the fire. She thought that she might have scored on him with her speech – but not in a way that would help her cause. And she could see that he loved his men.

  She stood on the beach, in a light rain, watching as other Greeks came ashore. She continued to stand there as they gathered wood, as the first parties brought corpses down to the beach. She stood with Urvara as they watched a party bring a man who yet lived down the rocky path to the beach, and rowed him swiftly out to the boats.

  And that night, Coenus and Nihmu sailed away on a triakonter, unmolested through the enemy fleet.

  With the dawn, her army vanished into the spring fields and the new grass, searching for Upazan's raiders, for ships full of enemies coming from the sea. Herself, she took her bodyguard, now swelled to twenty warriors with a hundred horses, and rode for the Hypanis. To see to Gardan's family. And to raise the georgoi to defend themselves, because war was coming to her whole country.

  19

  Satyrus lay that night in the house that had been Kinon's, and the old slave – Servilius – served him a superior breakfast of lentils cooked in wine and jugged hare. Then he sent another slave to his ship, to bring his men ashore.

  He was still wiping the hare out of his moustache when the old slave came back to his elbow. 'Your man,' he said. Helios was there, dripping wet and nearly blue with cold.

  'You swam ashore,' Satyrus said. He shook his head. 'If you die, I freed you for nothing.' He turned to the house slave. 'Servilius, can you get him warm?'

  The older man nodded. 'Freed you, eh?' he said. 'Lucky man.' His tone suggested that if he were freed, he wouldn't squander his freedom by jumping into the water and swimming a stade to shore for his master. He managed this in one tilt of the head and a flat tone that no master could have found rebellious. 'And there's a visitor,' he tossed over his shoulder, as he led Helios away into the house.