Srayanka pulled on a braid, fretting for her children. ‘I had forgotten what we were like in my father’s time,’ she said. ‘Truly, Kam Baqca and Satrax made us something greater. And you, my husband. The three of you made each leader see his place.’
‘Perhaps if you spoke to the queen?’ Diodorus said to Srayanka.
Srayanka shook her head. ‘I am as much a foreigner here as any of you Greeks. I will go and see to our children. My breasts are heavy.’ She kissed Kineas lightly.
Lot made a face as if he smelled something foul. ‘I know Zarina of old,’ he said. ‘You won’t find it easy to tell her anything. She esteems women above men, but not as much if they bear children.’ He looked at Srayanka, who nodded agreement. ‘She esteems men, but only for their strength, not their wisdom, even in war.’ Lot glanced at Philokles. ‘The Spartan might approach her with a message. She was impressed by his size and his name. And Lady Bahareh has known her for years.’
The chieftains went on shouting until the sun had set, and scouts came in to report that Iskander had moved bolt-shooters up to the banks of the river and was assembling bladders and rafts. Srayanka rode away. Kineas rubbed his beard and listened to the growing excitement. Rumours of Alexander’s imminent attack only fed the shouting, and the queen watched with a tolerant amusement that proclaimed her more interested in being the warlord of these chiefs than in working to defeat the common foe.
Diodorus shook his head. ‘They’re going to get their heads handed to them. Ares’ balls, Kineas — have we ridden fifteen thousand stades so that we can watch Alexander dispatch another horde of tribes the way he did the Thracians? Let us be gone — the rout will be ugly.’
Kineas was tired of standing. ‘There is some god-sent irony,’ he said, ‘that we can all but see how Alexander will attack, and no one here cares to listen to us.’ He shrugged and took his companions out of the great tent and into the gathering gloom of the Sakje camp, where three thousand fires twinkled along the curve of the river. The air smelled of horse and burning wood.
‘We should ride back while the sun gives us a little light,’ Kineas said.
‘I would try to speak to the queen, if you gave me leave,’ Philokles said. He glanced at Bahareh and Ataelus.
‘When have you ever needed my permission?’ Kineas slapped the Spartan on the shoulder. ‘This is not as bad as you all seem to think. Their very chaos will serve them against Alexander. It is almost impossible to plan a battle against a hundred generals. New forces will ride on to the field all day, and each will commit themselves as they see fit, unbound by precedent or structure.’
‘What would you have the queen know?’ Bahareh asked.
Kineas was looking for their horses, tethered in a herd of magnificent horseflesh brought by two hundred chiefs. He was pleased that Thalassa held her own, surrounded by admiring Massagetae children and a dozen respectful adolescents. A severe-looking young woman handed him her reins and nodded. ‘That is a horse,’ she said. ‘You sell her?’
Kineas grinned, his thoughts suddenly infected with an image of Thalassa’s foals. ‘Never,’ he said in Sakje. ‘But I wish you may find as fine a horse.’
They nodded to each other and Kineas used his spear to vault into the saddle, showing off for the children like a much younger warrior. He leaned down to Bahareh. ‘Ask the queen’s permission for us to ride north along the river to the next ford, to guard against a flanking move. Tell her we think that Alexander will send his best cavalry and his hardest infantry across with the dawn, tomorrow or the next day, and that he will send a force to cross upriver — to the north. Ask her to allow us to stop the northern thrust.’ He caused Thalassa to circle, to the admiration of all.
‘That’s all?’ Philokles asked. ‘Alexander’s coming across and we’ll hold the northern ford?’
Kineas nodded. ‘That’s all. Trying to tell these people how to fight Alexander would be like trying to tell an Athenian how to argue. Any half-measures we push on them will only impede them.’
Bahareh looked at Kineas with respect. ‘You are wise. I expected you to tell the queen how to fight.’
Philokles nodded. ‘Wait for us. Either she will see us, or she will not. Either way we will be brief.’
Diodorus smirked. ‘Show her your muscles and you won’t be so brief, Spartan. All night, maybe.’
Philokles punched the Athenian in the knee, just hard enough to hurt. ‘She values men in her bed to just the extent that I value women,’ the Spartan said. Bahareh coughed in her hand. Philokles waved to Ataelus, who shrugged at Kineas and followed Philokles, and then his faded red cloak swirled and he was gone in the dusk.
Kineas rode his charger up and down. A boy came up on a tall horse, a captured Nisaean of which he was justly proud, and Kineas, in the grip of some daimon, accepted his offer of a race. Torches were brought and ten more riders materialized from the gloom, while Diodorus cursed him for a fool. ‘Are you a boy? With a battle tomorrow?’
‘Hush,’ Kineas said. ‘I am making a sacrifice to Poseidon.’
Diodorus pursed his lips. ‘As long as you aren’t just showing off,’ he called, as Kineas rode to the starting spear.
The race was like swimming in darkness and fire from the first surge of Thalassa’s hindquarters to the last pounding moments as the leading knot of them burst through the circle of light by the finish to a roar so loud that it rose above the debating in Zarina’s tent like an offering to the Horse-God, to whom Kineas sent his prayer winging while the Sakje embraced him for his victory.
Diodorus sat on his charger, shaking his head. ‘Are you twelve years old?’ he asked.
Kineas shook his head. ‘Let us make that sacrifice to Poseidon.’ Kineas managed to convey that he wanted to purchase a goat and the animal was brought. A Massagetae baqca, resplendent in caribou antlers and a silk robe, led them past Zarina’s tent to the camp altar. Kineas sacrificed the animal himself, slashing the beast’s throat and stepping free of the blood with practised ease. He raised the hymn with Leon and Diodorus: Poseidon Lord of Horses,
Thou lovest the clip-clop beat
Of hooves in hard-fought battle
And neighs to thee sound sweet,
And when our black-maned horses
The winning vase may gain,
Their swiftness cheers the ruler
Of the wildly tossing main…
They sang to the end, Kineas grinning like a man half his age. Philokles came up singing the hymn, and with him were many of Zarina’s commanders, and at the back of the group, Zarina herself, talking and waving her hands at Ataelus, who wore a deep frown.
Kineas stood by the altar with Thalassa beside him, surrounded by Massagetae and Dahae warriors, many of whom reached up to touch his horse. He saw a girl clip a few hairs from her tail and he was about to step in when he found himself face to face with Zarina.
‘Now I see how my young cousin could marry a Greek,’ she said. She nodded. ‘Go north if that is where you see the enemy, Kineax. I have heard the Spartan — I have understood.’ She shrugged. ‘No queen has ever faced a battle this great — with the whole might of the people. I am not a Persian, to kiss and cuddle my chiefs until they go sullenly to some carefully ordered place in the battle line. Nor am I the Qu’in, with chariots and horses and lines of men like pieces on a game board. I am the queen of the Sakje, and my chiefs will fight like dogs for a place in the line. Do as you will — you are a man of war. Those are my orders to you, as they are the orders I give to every chief — you are a free man. Do as you will.’
As they rode back, Philokles rattled on about his time with her. ‘Very much the sort of barbarian that Solon or Thales might have admired. Utterly free.’ He shook his head, barely visible in the moonlight. ‘I warned her that Spitamenes was coming. She knows him. I gather that it is a marriage of convenience.’
‘As long as he is on the right while we are on the left,’ Kineas said. ‘If he comes in front of Srayanka, she will kill him and to Hade
s with the consequence.’
They reached their camp in the last glow of the western horizon. Fires were lit and warriors ate their fill. Leon waited until they took their horses out to the picket lines.
‘We have food for two more days and then things will get tight,’ he said.
‘The whole host of the Sakje is in the same position,’ Diodorus said bitterly. ‘All Alexander need do is wait, and we will all melt away.’
‘Two hours ago you were ready to leave,’ Kineas said.
‘I’ve ridden all this way,’ Diodorus said, shrugging off his own mercurial comments.
‘Alexander is in the same situation. He’s converged all of his armies in the east at the edge of a desert, and he’s spent the summer fighting partisans. He doesn’t have the food stores he’s used to. We’ll fight him, tomorrow or the next day. My wager goes on the next day.’
Srayanka came up with Antigonus and the rest of the chiefs and officers, as if Kineas had called a council. They stood quietly, and Kineas smiled to think of the Sakje outside the queen’s red and white silk tent.
‘They’re fine?’ Kineas asked Srayanka.
Srayanka smiled. ‘Would I wander out here to talk of war if my children were unwell?’ she asked. She looked wryly at Samahe. ‘I am becoming my mother. When young, she rode with the spear-maidens, but in middle age, she was a mother first and her hand grew light.’
Kineas took her chin and kissed her. ‘I don’t think your hand will grow light,’ he said.
‘Let Spitamenes come under it tomorrow and we’ll see,’ she said.
‘Alexander is the enemy,’ Diodorus drawled.
‘Alexander was polite,’ Srayanka said. She tossed her head. ‘Hephaestion — that one I would geld, if only for Urvara’s sake.’
Kineas felt his guts roil. ‘I hadn’t heard this.’
Srayanka shrugged. ‘She’s a tough girl. He did not break her, and the young Olbian boy loves her, and she has healed. No more need be said. But Hephaestion…’ No one looking at Srayanka in the light of a fire needed to wonder if her hand had grown light. She cocked her head to one side. ‘So, husband, do you see it in your head?’
There in the firelight, Kineas outlined his plan. He drew pictures in the dust with the tip of a bronze knife he’d found in the fire pit. ‘Ataelus and I agree that Alexander will send a force north — either he will lead it himself or he will send someone he trusts. It’s something he learned from Parmenion. It will be Philotas, won’t it?’
‘He murdered Philotas!’ Diodorus said. ‘Old age must be getting to you.’
‘More fool he. Philotas was his best after Parmenion. So Eumenes, perhaps? The Cardian?’
‘Craterus?’ Philokles asked. ‘I never served the monster myself, but I know the names. Why not Craterus?’
Kineas shrugged. ‘Somebody dangerous, with good troops, probably all cavalry. In my head I still see Philotas.’ He paused and poured a libation to the dead man’s shade. ‘They’ll go north to the next ford — which Ataelus has already located — and try to push across into the queen’s left flank. We’ll meet them at the ford if we’re quick. That’s the best service we can do for this army.’
Everyone nodded.
‘And if Zarina loses, we’ll have a clear road home,’ Srayanka said.
Kineas nodded. ‘Yes.’ He didn’t elaborate.
‘Let us say we meet this Macedonian and rout him back across the ford,’ Samahe asked. She shrugged, looking around. ‘Why do you look at me this way? We have been known to win battles in the past!’
That got her a laugh.
‘Then what? Eh?’ She looked around, defiant.
Kineas nodded. ‘I really can’t say. We could cross after them and return the favour, but I would expect that any fight will leave us too beaten up to turn their flank — and we’re too few. We ought to be able to turn in on our own side, however,’ Kineas’s knife point traced a black furrow along the Sakje bank of the line that marked the Jaxartes, ‘and strike the flank of their main effort.’
‘Our horses would be blown,’ Srayanka said thoughtfully.
Diodorus had found a heavy basket to sit on. He leaned forward, the basket creaking under his weight, and he pointed a stick at the map in the dirt. ‘What if Alexander’s main effort is the northern ford?’ he asked.
‘Hmm,’ said Philokles. ‘How long would we last?’
Kineas shook his head. ‘I wouldn’t even fight, beyond some skirmishing to make the ford cost him.’ He gave a bitter smile. ‘We wouldn’t last long.’
‘No,’ Diodorus said. ‘And it wouldn’t be worth spit, anyway. This Sakje army isn’t a phalanx, Philokles. If you hit the Sakje in the flank, they just ride away and fight another day. If Alexander wants a fight, he has to goad them to it, fix them in place and then hit them.’
Srayanka nodded, as if she had held a conversation with herself. ‘Listen. Let us fight like Assagatje. Let us move all our remounts to here.’ She indicated a place just west of the ford, then pointed at Diodorus. ‘If Diodorus’s worst instincts are right, and Alexander comes north, we can fight in retreat, change horses and vanish. No pursuit could possibly catch us on fresh horses. Yes?’
All around the fire, the chiefs and officers nodded. Lot slapped her back. ‘Cruel Hands, you are still the cunning one.’
She went on, smiling a very unmotherly smile at her husband. ‘If we meet this flanking force and defeat it, we take the time to change horses — and we ride to the battle in the centre on fresh mounts.’
Kineas grabbed her and kissed her. They kissed, and the other leaders whooped and mocked them. When he left her lips, he shook his head. ‘You kiss better than any of my other cavalry commanders,’ he said, and she kicked his shin.
Diodorus looked at the map in the sand again. ‘We should move tonight,’ he said. He looked at Srayanka and shrugged, apologetic. ‘Forty stades under a bright moon is nothing to us after the desert. And then there will be no dust to betray us.’
‘Odysseus is, as usual, correct,’ Kineas said. He and Srayanka exchanged a long look, because precious hours were being taken from them, never to be replaced.
‘We will ride together, as we did when our love was young,’ she said, and she began to choke on her words, but she fought through unbroken. ‘I will ask you the names of things in Greek, and you will ask me the Sakje words, and we will forget the future and know only what is now.’
Philokles couldn’t bear it, and he turned away.
Ataelus was already calling for horses, and Antigonus was passing the unpopular news, but the rest stayed by the fire. The night on the plains was brisk.
‘I wonder where Coenus is?’ Diodorus asked. He waited a moment, and then decided that Kineas had not heard him. ‘Do you wonder-’ he began, and Kineas turned.
‘Coenus should be watching the sun rise over the mountains of Hyrkania in the morning,’ Kineas said.
‘Athena and Hermes, have we been riding that long in the desert?’ Philokles asked.
Ataelus grunted. ‘Yes.’
Diodorus thumbed his beard. ‘Every time you kiss Srayanka, I miss Sappho more.’
Kineas slapped his shoulder. ‘There are great days ahead,’ he said. He felt sad and happy at the same time. And then, after a pause, ‘See to Philokles when I am gone.’
Diodorus coughed to cover some tears that stood bright on his cheeks. ‘It just hit me that it will be as you say — that you do know the hour of your death.’ He sniffled. ‘Are you sure?’
Kineas gathered him in an embrace. ‘I know this battle,’ he said simply. ‘I die.’
‘Philokles?’ Diodorus asked, wiping his eyes with the back of his hand. ‘Ares, it’s Srayanka who will need us.’
‘No,’ Kineas said. ‘She will be queen, and all the Sakje will be her husband. Philokles will have only you.’
Diodorus chewed his lip. ‘You remember sword lessons with Phocion?’
‘I think of them all the time.’ The two men were still locke
d in embrace.
‘I will be the last left.’ He was weeping, the tears flowing down his cheeks like the muddy waters of the Jaxartes.
‘So you must be the best,’ Kineas said. ‘When I fall, you command. Not just for one action, either. I leave you the bequest of all my unfought battles.’
Diodorus backed away, his hand hiding his face. ‘I was never the strategos you were,’ he complained.
Kineas gripped his neck. ‘Two years ago you were a trooper,’ he said. ‘Soon, we will fight Alexander. You know how to command. You love to command.’
‘Before the gods, I do,’ Diodorus said.
‘I leave you the bequest of my unfought battles,’ Kineas said again.
‘You should be king. King of the whole of the Bosporus.’
Kineas felt his own tears as he thought of all he would miss. His children, most of all. ‘Make Satyrus king,’ he said. ‘I’m too much an Athenian to be a king.’
The other Athenian stood straight. ‘I will,’ he said.
They covered forty stades in a dream of darkness and the soft glitter of moonlight on the sand, and the hand of Artemis the huntress covered them. Ataelus’s prodromoi waited at every obstacle and every turn, guiding them around a camp of Sakje in the dark, clearing them across a gully with a burbling stream at the base, and around a shaled hill that might have hurt the horses in the dark, until they came to the back of a long ridge running perpendicular to the Jaxartes. Ataelus rode up next to Kineas in the dark.
‘For fighting,’ he said quietly. He pointed down the ridge at the river as it bowed through a deep curve in the moonlight. ‘Iskander!’ he said, and pointed across the river, where a thousand orange stars shone in the foothills of the Sogdian mountains — Alexander’s cooking fires.
They rode on for an hour, the column winding back to be lost to sight in the darkness over the big ridge. Twelve stades later, as Kineas reckoned it, they descended sharply from the path they’d followed towards the river, which they could hear but not see.
He rode down into the vale, heedless of possible enemy patrols, eager to see the ground as best he could, and Srayanka came with him, her household clattering along behind. They rode hand in hand, almost silent.
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