Kineas shook his head. ‘Why are you so adversarial with the palace?’ he asked his officers.
Sappho came in through the door and pushed the linen chlamys she wore as a wimple back from her face.
‘Have you already had trouble with the queen?’ Kineas asked.
His receiving room was larger than all the space he’d had in the barracks at Olbia. Diodorus and Philokles sat in barbarian chairs, Niceas lay on a couch, Coenus reclined with a bucket of scrolls, while Eumenes, Darius and Leon sat at the desk doing accounts. Ataelus sat quietly on another barbarian chair, speaking with Prince Lot and Samahe. Sappho sat in a chair that had obviously been set aside for her.
Kineas wondered why she was present. ‘I’m glad you have all made yourself comfortable in my absence,’ he said.
Darius returned, a drift of cold entering with him. ‘The strategos is invited to attend the queen,’ he said in a neutral voice.
Kineas looked around the room, a hint of annoyance in his tone as no one was answering his questions. ‘You dislike her? Philokles, has she given you trouble?’
Philokles raised an eyebrow. ‘I’m not the sort of man who would have trouble with the queen,’ he said. He laughed. ‘No, she’s given no trouble.’
Eumenes blushed and kept his head down.
‘What’s all this costing us?’ Kineas asked.
‘Actually, we’re getting a few minae a month profit. We’re defending her over the winter, aren’t we?’ Diodorus gave a wry smile. ‘I hadn’t realized that salesmanship was part of my duties.’
Kineas nodded. ‘Well done.’
‘Not all crap. Every one of these petty kingdoms in Hyrkania is out to eat every other one. Our arrival here guaranteed her farmers an uncontested harvest — that’s worth a few acres of land for one winter.’ Diodorus looked around the room. ‘Our troops have put a lot of silver into the locals — one way or another.’ He gave his words the intonation of an actor — a comic actor. Diodorus had a new scar on his brow from the fighting in the autumn. It made him look older. There was grey in his red hair that Kineas hadn’t noticed before — the price, no doubt, of command. He steepled his hands. ‘There’ll be Hades to pay in the spring,’ he said.
Other men were nodding their heads.
Kineas swirled the wine in his cup and waited.
‘She thinks we’ll fall into her arms and conquer her neighbours for her,’ Diodorus said. He and Sappho exchanged a glance, and Sappho raised a plucked eyebrow before her eyes went back to her scroll.
Leon looked up from his numbers, drew breath for speech and then thought better of it.
Kineas had to smile, despite his best resolve. ‘She’s a harlot?’ he asked.
‘She’s no harlot,’ Philokles said. ‘You’ll want to see for yourself.’ He paused. ‘She has wit.’
Diodorus leaned forward. ‘She calls herself Banugul. It’s a Zoroastrian saint’s name. The peasants call her Asalazar. That means the demon of honey.’ He gave a lopsided sneer. ‘It’s not meant as a compliment.’
Heron, silent until then, spoke up. ‘They say she’s Artabazus’s bastard daughter — Barsine’s sister. Barsine is still with Alexander. They’re rivals in every way. They say she’s the lovelier of the pair — and that Alexander preferred her, but needed the satrap’s alliance.’
Kineas shook his head. ‘So she’s been fobbed off with a piece of Hyrkania? She can’t be that beautiful, or she’d have got something better. Cappadocia, perhaps?’
They all laughed. Hyrkania was all rock — the farmers among the soldiers couldn’t stop commenting on the uselessness of the soil.
‘I think you’ve all been away from civilization too long, and begging Sappho’s pardon, you sound like characters in Lysistrata. You may all love her more than you love the gods — but when the ground is hard and our horses have their hooves hard and their summer coats, we’re riding for Marakanda,’ he said. ‘Srayanka is waiting, and Alexander’s army is growing.’
Diodorus nodded. ‘I’d rather be fighting Alexander right now.’ Again he and Sappho exchanged glances.
‘I must meet this goddess,’ Kineas said.
Diodorus cut in, ‘She’s trying to use us against her father. And she’s dangerous.’
Kineas nodded, his mind already moving on to the new logistikon that Leon was compiling. ‘Is there enough fodder and grain in this petty kingdom to get us moving in the spring?’
Leon cleared his throat. ‘Yes,’ he said. Under his dark skin, he was flushed. ‘But it will require some work to collect it. There are not enough wagons for us to buy. We’ll need more oxen to drag the wagons and some for beef on the hoof.’
Kineas glanced back at Diodorus. ‘Why would we fight her father?’
Diodorus shrugged. ‘For money?’
Sappho raised her eyes and then lowered them — again.
‘I think you’re all barking at shadows,’ Kineas said.
After a minute of silence, he turned on his heel and walked back into his sleeping quarters to change for his audience.
A slave brought Kineas wine while he rummaged through his baggage. He tried to read a new piece — new to him — by Aristotle. Its release had apparently enraged Alexander, but so far he could make nothing of it. He had just located his best sandals in the leather bag under the bed when he heard a noise behind him. He looked up when the curtain that guarded his sleeping quarters rustled, and he shot to his feet when he saw that it was Sappho.
She smiled enigmatically as she entered. ‘Sometimes,’ she said, ‘it is almost worth three years of forced sex and the loss of my husband and children to be free to enter a man’s quarters and speak my own mind.’
Kineas started to reply, but his mind was grappling with what she had said, and all that came out of his mouth was ‘I’m sorry.’
She nodded. ‘As am I. And pleased to have your full attention.’
Kineas nodded. ‘Wine?’ he asked to cover his confusion.
She shook her head. ‘No, I’ve had enough. Listen, Strategos. You are a man like my brothers and my father. Like Diodorus. A man who does things — worthy things. I know your type.’ Her kohl-rimmed eyes were large and green, and very close to his.
Kineas sat back. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, again.
She choked a little. ‘I don’t think you should meet her alone. I speak for Srayanka, who is not here.’
Kineas narrowed his eyes. ‘I like a challenge,’ he said.
‘That is why you will fall,’ Sappho said. ‘Your own courage and your sense of challenge will betray you, and you will fall.’ She stood again. ‘Look at you — and you are only dealing with me. You look into my eyes, you measure my body, you hear that I have been abused — I could have you kissing me just by moving closer and putting my hand like this.’ She suited action to the word, fitting her body alongside his and putting one raised hand to the back of his head, and Kineas flinched away, stepping back to hide the immediacy of his arousal and the truth of her assertion.
She laughed.
‘Enough,’ Kineas said, turning away, disgusted at his weakness and her accuracy. He nodded sharply. ‘I appreciate now that you all take this seriously, and I can tell from what you say — and what you don’t say — that this woman has caused tensions.’ He backed away and selected a chiton, at a loss how to proceed, trying to cover his confusion and his sudden arousal. ‘I’m sure you all have my best interests at heart.’ He was growing angrier by the moment — angry at them, angry at himself. ‘But I dislike that you see me as an overgrown child.’
‘You control yourself so much that you are like clay for someone who can control you in turn,’ she said. ‘Please — call it whatever you like. Make sacrifice to the Foam-born and stay home tonight.’ She smiled gently. ‘Admit it — you, too, are like a man in Lysistrata.’
Kineas shook his head. ‘Bah,’ he said. ‘I am a commander, not a schoolboy.’
Sappho shook her head. ‘Athena, I tried,’ she said, and retreated through
the curtain. Before she withdrew her head she said, ‘Philokles volunteered to try to speak to you first. But confronting you before you met her was my idea.’
Kineas nodded dismissively. ‘I appreciate your vote of confidence, madam,’ he said. Just at that moment, he hated her — her feminine superiority, the ease with which her physicality had taken him in. Then he sat on his bed, considering how far short of his own notions of good conduct he had just fallen.
After a few hundred heartbeats, he dressed quickly.
Antigonus sat on his charger with ten of his Keltoi in their best kit mounted behind him in the street by the gate. Sitalkes handed Kineas the reins of Thalassa, and Kineas swung his leg over the mare’s broad back, briefly remembering back to his first attempts to mount a tall horse in the middle of the Pinarus while Persians rained blows on his breast- and back-plate.
His hesitation caused him to push the mare through half a circle before he got his leg up, bringing him to face Coenus, who was standing in the snow with a bag of scrolls over his shoulder like a giant schoolboy on his way to the agora.
‘You too?’ Kineas asked.
Coenus shrugged. ‘Me too what?’ he asked. ‘Need a hand up?’
Kineas snapped. ‘No!’ he shot out, and then followed the charger through another half-rotation without getting his leg over.
Coenus was laughing. The escort were doing their best not to laugh. When Kineas’s pursuit of the horse went around again, Coenus grabbed her headstall. ‘Need a hand up?’ he asked again.
‘Fuck off,’ Kineas said. He made a face. ‘Yes.’
Coenus held her bridle while Leon made a step. Kineas sprang on to the mare’s back and pulled his cloak around him.
‘They aren’t fools,’ Coenus said, pointing at the open door of the commander’s building. ‘They all love you, and every one of them wants what is best for you. Damn it — this is what Niceas does.’ Coenus gave a lopsided smile. Even on foot, he came up to the middle of Kineas’s chest while mounted. ‘I’m a pompous aristocrat, not a rhetorician. If Niceas were himself, he’d swear a lot and you’d take it. The queen is dangerous. She writes letters to Alexander. Beware.’
Kineas found he could smile. ‘I had gathered that,’ he said.
Coenus raised an eyebrow. ‘Have a splendid evening at the palace, then.’ He gave a salute.
Kineas gave a shake of his head, backed Thalassa a few steps and whirled her around. ‘Let’s go,’ he said to Andronicus, who exchanged an amused glance with Coenus, barked an order and surged into motion.
The ride up the hill was cold and longer than Kineas had expected. He kept his mind carefully blank. The citadel was a grim reminder of what Hyrkania really was. The fortifications were high and strong, old stone courses at the bottom and new stone facing, with a double gate and towers every half a stade. Kineas whistled with professional appreciation as he rode under the gates.
‘Tough nut,’ he said to Andronicus, who shrugged.
‘We could have it in an afternoon. Garrison is crap,’ Andronicus said. He spat. ‘Walls are no better than the bronze behind them.’
As if to make the Kelt’s point, a pair of lazy sentries in green-spotted bronze breastplates greeted them under the inner gate.
‘What do you want, sir?’ asked the older sentry.
‘Invitation from the queen,’ Andronicus said.
The man nodded and straightened slightly — not exactly attention, but a better slouch. He held out his hand and Andronicus dropped a coin in it.
‘Nice that all these fucking foreigners are so ready with their cash,’ the sentry said in Persian to his mate. He was contemptuous.
Andronicus grinned and nodded like a stupid barbarian. He’d served four years in Persia. He refused to let the palace grooms take their horses. Instead, he told off four of his troopers to take the horses to the stables. The other men followed Kineas inside, where slaves took their cloaks and sandals and washed their feet.
The floors were tiled and heated. The interior of the citadel bore no more relation to the outside than the citadel-palace in Olbia. But the tyrant of Olbia hadn’t run to heated floors and mosaics. And slaves. Kineas had seldom seen so many slaves devoted to personal service. Most of them were women, and all were pretty, and naked, or next to it. The mosaics were not subtle.
Like a gymnasium, the palace grew warmer as one got further in, and the decorations more costly, more colourful, from beige and white tiles in the outer receiving rooms and barracks to red and purple and glitteringly erotic mosaics in the heart of the castle, a throne room warmer than blood with naked men and women glistening with oil waiting on a dozen courtiers and the queen herself.
She was not naked. She was dressed like a Persian matron, her hair dressed with ropes of pearls and lapis, her limbs and breasts well covered. Amidst a plethora of sensual and aesthetic possibilities, hers was the body that called out to be watched, to be caressed with the eye. Even fully clothed, modest, apparently unadorned, she was beautiful. Her proportions were worthy of a statue — from her delicately arched feet to her intelligent eyes and straight Greek nose.
‘Welcome, Kineas of Athens,’ she said. ‘I am Banugul.’
She had an appraising look, as if he was a horse and she was a Sakje. She crossed her legs and her Median trousers of silk rode up one leg, revealing an ankle and a bangle. ‘Your men worship you as a god,’ she said. Her intonation suggested that such worship was probably misplaced.
Kineas grinned, although it was the kind of grin he wore when he was fighting. ‘They only worship me from afar. In person, there’s a great deal of dispute.’
She was smaller than he had thought at first impression. She leaned her chin on a small fist, a man’s gesture that suited her. ‘Your men give the impression of excellent discipline. What do they dispute?’
‘My godhood. We are Greeks, my lady. We worship with a great deal of argument.’ He looked around, suggesting with body language that she might offer him a seat.
She sat up straight. Her shoulders were square and her bearing had dignity. ‘I know Alexander,’ she said. She smiled, and one manicured eyebrow rose a fraction. Her choice of Greek words was perfect, and her facial expression said, I slept with Alexander and I mean you to know it, but I am not crude — and I was not impressed. It was an enormous burden of communication for a fractionally raised eyebrow and two Greek words. She handled it easily.
Kineas’s opinion of her intellect rose considerably. ‘He says he is a god,’ Kineas noted with a certain reservation.
‘Hmm,’ she answered. ‘He never claimed to me to be a god. He claimed gods in his ancestors, but we all have gods among our ancestors, do we not?’
Kineas nodded.
‘You are not impressed with Alexander?’ she asked.
‘I served him for some years,’ Kineas responded. ‘He is the best general I have ever seen — and yet, a headstrong man capable of error and vice.’
‘You rebuke me like a philosopher,’ she said. ‘And like a sophist, you have not answered my question.’
‘Yes,’ Kineas said. ‘I was impressed.’ He paused, and thought, Why not? ‘I loved him,’ Kineas said.
‘But he spurned you, did he not?’ Banugul smiled, and the smile informed her face — her smile said that happiness was not the normal state of her being, from her green eyes to her pointed chin. Her smile took the sting from her words — she meant no insult, nor was she drawing a comparison. She, too, had been spurned. ‘I understand that he sent all his Greeks away.’
‘You are well informed,’ Kineas said.
‘And now you will make war on him?’ she asked.
‘Yes,’ Kineas answered.
She nodded. ‘Would you care to sit down?’ she asked. ‘I thought you might be the ordinary kind of soldier, who boasts and ogles my girls. I apologize for my poor hospitality.’ She waved a hand and a pair of slaves brought a chair.
Kineas sat.
‘What could I offer you to fight my father in th
e spring instead of Alexander?’ she asked. She motioned at a slave, a small hand with almond nails, and a silver cup of wine appeared at Kineas’s elbow. He sipped it. It was excellent.
‘Nothing, my lady, will sway me from my plans for the spring,’ Kineas said. ‘When the ground is hard, we’ll march.’
She nodded.
‘What did Alexander give you when he sent you away?’ she asked.
‘Gold,’ Kineas said.
‘You had the better bargain,’ she said. ‘I got a small piece of the Land of Wolves, and no dogs of my own to protect it. What do you think of my guards?’
Kineas sipped wine. ‘They are adequate,’ he said. He glanced at her captain of the guard, a Thessalian she had not bothered to introduce.
‘I have seldom heard anyone damned with such faint praise,’ she said, and laughed, her chin tilted back and her throat dancing in the torchlight. ‘Do you read?’ she asked.
Kineas was startled. ‘Yes,’ he answered. He was determined to stop speaking in monosyllables, but she was robbing him of his wits. He felt as if he was wrestling with a master, missing every hold. ‘I’m reading the new Aristotle now.’ He winced inwardly at the boyishness of the boast.
She leaned forward, a wolf ready to spring. ‘You have the new Aristotle?’ she asked.
‘I had a copy scribed before I left Olbia. It came out on the Athenian grain ships.’ He grinned at her eagerness. ‘If you have a scribe, I can lend it to you for copying.’
‘Hah!’ she laughed. ‘No work on my taxes this winter!’ Her eyes gleamed. ‘Do you like singing?’ she asked.
‘I like conversation that is not all interrogation,’ he said carefully.
Her chin went back on her hand. ‘I do apologize, but we’re a little short of polite company here in Hyrkania. You’re from Athens! You’re only the tenth Athenian I’ve ever met.’ She shrugged. ‘Men expect women to ask all the questions and carry the conversation. Especially beautiful women.’
Kineas smiled. ‘I like singing. I enjoy reading. I’m an excellent soldier and I will not fight a spring campaign on your behalf.’ He rolled his shoulders. ‘I will see that your fiefdom is protected all winter, and perhaps we can negotiate a garrison or a few officers to help your levies.’
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