Tyrant: King of the Bosporus

by Christian Cameron

  Melitta introduced her brother to Tameax as her baqca, and to Thyrsis, and to all the nomads with whom she had lived in the weeks before she’d made her bid for kingship.

  And while they stood on the low hill, Urvara came with Eumenes of Olbia and many of their people, all carrying torches. Nihmu came, and Coenus, and Lykeles and Lycurgus from the Olbians. All the old people, the ones who had gone east with Kineas and Srayanka twenty years before.

  They surprised Satyrus by singing. First the Sakje sang, and they clapped while they sang, and Melitta joined them, her low voice merging seamlessly with the tribesmen and women around her. They sang about Srayanka and her horse, and how her eyes were the blue of winter rivers in the sun. And then they sang about Samahe, and how she had nursed infants, and how many men she had killed in battle, and how she had killed a snow leopard in the high mountains north of Sogdiana. And another song about how she and Ataelus had hunted something monstrous in the east, and lived.

  Then Coenus and Eumenes rose and sang, and many of Eumenes’ young men took parts. Abraham appeared with Panther and Demostrate, Diokles, Neiron – dozens of the sailors and marines from the camp on the beach. They all knew the Greek songs. Satyrus walked from his place by his sister to stand with the new archon of Olbia. They sang a song from the Iliad, and another about Penelope, and a third song about Athena, the warrior goddess, that men said was by Hesiod, or perhaps Homer himself. They sang well, for men who didn’t sing together, and when they were finished, Ataelus stepped into the firelight.

  ‘Sometimes, a Sakje is lost,’ he said. His voice was tired with weeping, and he didn’t attempt Greek, so that Eumenes, who had so often interpreted for Ataelus, did the office once again. ‘Sometimes, a rider vanishes in the snow, or on a scout, and we never find his body. So my beloved was lost, although she fell in full view of a thousand of the people.’

  He walked to Melitta, and then led her to Satyrus. ‘Our spirit is back with us,’ he said. He pointed at the sword Satyrus wore. ‘T hat is the sword of Kineax, that has returned. The stories of this spring will live for ever. You, every one of you, are in the songs now. You are in the songs.’ He nodded. ‘Samahe was in the songs from her youth. If we lose tomorrow, all these songs will be forgotten. If we win, she will live for ever.’

  He let go of the hands of the twins.

  And then the Sakje passed wine around, and drank.

  ‘My father does not expect to live through the battle,’ Thyrsis said to Melitta.

  Satyrus shook his head. ‘I hear that too often,’ he said.

  Satyrus felt as if he had never been to sleep – and he had had a straw bed and two heavy cloaks, and Helios to massage the muscles of his arm.

  ‘Nikephoros has asked for another parley,’ Helios reported.

  Melitta had insisted on sleeping with Ataelus’s people, and Satyrus wasn’t sure whether to go to her or send for her – but that was just foolishness, and he pulled a chiton over his head, arranged the folds, clasped his cloak. ‘Boots, Helios. I’ll probably ride. Panther – will our sailors serve as peltasts?’

  Panther was drinking wine at Satyrus’s fire. He had a wound – all of them had wounds. But he smiled. ‘Satyrus, I have done more fighting in the last ten days than in the last ten years – and you are asking me for another fight. I’ll arm them and hold the camp. If we get bold, we might harry a flank. Think of the rowing these men gave you yesterday.’

  Satyrus nodded. ‘Too true, and I will not offend the gods by asking more. Care to come to the parley?’

  Panther nodded. ‘Yes. I may tip the scales.’

  Together they made their way across the camps in the first light. Satyrus was stiff in both shoulders, but the massage helped. ‘Helios? I need a new shield.’

  ‘I’m on it, lord,’ Helios answered.

  Melitta was up and drinking wine – Satyrus never drank wine so early, and he was worried to see his sister drink down two cups of unwatered wine for her breakfast.

  ‘Parley?’ Satyrus asked, and she gathered her war leaders. Eumenes and Memnon joined them, and they all clasped hands and embraced, one by one, with Parshtaevalt and Ataelus, Coenus and even Graethe.

  ‘Like old times,’ Graethe said.

  ‘We need Diodorus to be complete,’ Eumenes said. He suddenly appeared older, taller, in a white chiton and a purple-edged white cloak. He had a chaplet of gold oak leaves in his hair.

  ‘You’re out-dressing me,’ Satyrus said, and smiled, because when you are a king, men mistake humour for assault.

  Eumenes grinned, suddenly the young man they’d grown up with. ‘I knew I’d be in brilliant company,’ he said.

  They poured a libation from an old cup that Eumenes had.

  ‘This was Kineas’s,’ he said. ‘Every time we fought, we poured wine from this cup, and then we all drank from it. To all the gods,’ he said, and one by one they drank.

  When it came to Satyrus, he saw that it was a plain clay soldier’s cup. But he drained it, and in the bottom he saw his father’s name in the old letters, and tears came to his eyes.

  He looked around. His hand reached out and he took his sister’s hand. ‘This is my father’s dream,’ he said. ‘And my mother’s. A kingdom on the Tanais, where free men and women can make their lives without fear. Upazan and Eumeles decided to destroy that dream.’

  Melitta spoke up, as if they had planned the speech together. ‘Today we reverse fifteen years of their evil,’ she said. ‘Many of you have fought for days already. This will end it. And when we look at the kurgan by the river, we will remember Kineas and Srayanka as the founders, not as the defeated.’

  Panther spoke up. ‘Is there anything that you would accept from this parley?’ he asked. ‘I am the closest thing to a neutral party here, as a man of Rhodos.’

  Satyrus and Melitta looked at each other.

  ‘Let’s hear what they have to say,’ Satyrus said. But they shared a different message.

  ‘We would confirm you in your kingdom,’ Eumeles said. His voice was reasonable. He had Upazan behind him, and Nikephoros, and his advisor, Idomenes, and a dozen other officers, Sauromatae and Greek. ‘You will have restored to you all the kingdom that your mother held, and we will recognize your sister as the lady of the Assagatje on the sea of grass. And my friend Upazan will go back to his land, keeping only the high ground between the Tanais and the Rha.’

  Melitta watched Eumeles the way a farmer watches a snake while he repairs a fence. The farmer knows that if he goes too close, the snake will bite, but from a distance, the snake is merely – fascinating. She looked at her brother. He looked back, and they shared a thought as clearly as if it had been spoken aloud.

  And he left it to her to speak.

  She stepped forward. Eumeles bowed – Eumeles, who had murdered her mother. She let herself look at him, and in her mind, she allowed Smell of Death to take her face from Melitta, so that her face settled into a mask, and the scar was her face to the world.

  ‘No,’ she said. She spoke in a calm, low voice, more like a mother soothing a child than the voice of doom. ‘No,’ she said again, even more quietly, so that Upazan leaned forward to listen.

  Eumeles shrugged. ‘Tell us what you want,’ he said.

  ‘Your head on my spear,’ she said, and looked him full in the eyes, so that he could see the hate, feel it come across the gap of air and go down his spine.

  And it did.

  ‘No peace, killer of my mother. No peace, killer of my father. You are dead men. Go from here and be dead.’

  Even Upazan flinched.

  ‘We will have peace when Upazan and Eumeles lie in their blood and rot,’ she said, her voice still quiet and calm. ‘If the rest of you wish to give them to us, so be it. We will then arrange a peace. Otherwise,’ she smiled for the first time, ‘let’s get down to the thing.’

  ‘You are mad,’ Eumeles said. He stepped back. Satyrus’s lip twitched.

  ‘Goodbye, Eumeles,’ Satyrus said softly.


  ‘You are mad!’ Eumeles said again, his voice rising.

  Upazan shook his head. ‘You are a fool, and I am sorry I have a fool for an ally. But I am strong.’ He turned to Melitta. ‘You will not find me easy. And if you come under my spear again, it is you who will feed the ravens.’ He had shrewd eyes, and he was tall, strong and fearless. ‘We could make peace. I killed Kineas with a fair arrow, not a back-stab at a parley.’ He looked at Eumeles with contempt. Then he looked at Nikephoros and the Greek commander met his eye.

  Melitta’s voice did not waver. ‘How many times must I say no?’ she said.

  Upazan drew himself up. ‘So,’ he said.

  Nikephoros spoke for the first time. ‘Then we’ll fight.’

  Eumeles gathered his dignity. ‘Expect no mercy,’ he said.

  And that was the parley.

  Satyrus and Melitta arranged their armies in the order they had camped. Eumenes had the left, facing Nikephoros, with all the infantry, including the Macedonian marines. Satyrus was in the centre with Melitta and the best of the Sakje knights all formed together, and opposite them was Eumeles’ banner, and the aristocracy of Pantecapaeum and all the Euxine cities he held save only Olbia, flanked by thousands of Upazan’s warriors. But Upazan himself faced Urvara and Parshtaevalt and Ataelus on the right by the beach and the remnants of the fortified camp, now full of javelin-armed sailors who had enough spirit to annoy Upazan’s horsemen as they attempted to move forward.

  Both sides were tired, and neither side formed quickly. Nikephoros’s men marched to the right and then back to the left, and the phalanx of Olbia shadowed them, moving east and west along the riverbank.

  ‘Should we worry that our backs are to the river?’ Melitta asked her brother.

  ‘Yes,’ he said. Then he shot her a grin. ‘You scared the shit out of Eumeles.’

  She nodded. ‘I’ve been to some dark places.’ She retied the sash at her waist for the thirtieth time. ‘But I’m glad they taught me something useful.’

  Satyrus nodded. ‘Me, too.’ He took her hand again, raised it and called to the men and women around them. ‘If I fall,’ he said, ‘I name Melitta’s son Kineas my heir.’

  No one cheered, but people nodded. It was good to know that there was continuity. A man who saw him fall might keep fighting if he thought that Satyrus’s death didn’t mean defeat.

  ‘We aren’t making a speech?’ Melitta asked.

  ‘If they take any longer forming up, we’ll be fighting tomorrow,’ Satyrus said. He looked for Coenus, who was at his shoulder. None of his companions – Helios, Abraham, Neiron, Diokles – were horsemen. But Satyrus was fighting mounted in the middle of the aristocrats of Olbia because that was where the king had to be. Melitta had all of her guard to back them up, and Satyrus had Coenus.

  Coenus pushed his big mare forward.

  ‘Should I be making a speech?’ Satyrus asked.

  Coenus pointed across to where Upazan was trying to get his flank to refuse so that he wouldn’t lose more men to the javelins and arrows coming from the sailors. Even as Satyrus watched, he saw the Cretan Idomeneus stand up on the pilings of the camp and shoot one of Upazan’s knights out of his saddle at two hundred paces. The whole of the Sauromatae line moved.

  Satyrus turned to Melitta. ‘You, or me?’

  Melitta touched Gryphon’s side. ‘Together. You talk. I’ll wave.’

  They rode the line from one end to the other. At the eastern end were the farmers – almost three thousand of them, facing Nikephoros’s few peltasts and open fields beyond. They were eager. They began to cheer. Satyrus raised his sword and Melitta took off her helmet and shook out her hair so that it streamed behind her, and they rode.

  After the farmers were the hoplites of Olbia and the taxeis of Draco’s veterans. The Olbians cheered hard enough, and the Macedonians stood their ground – resigned to another day fighting for foreigners. Satyrus reined in to the front of Amyntas.

  ‘Macedonians!’ he said. ‘If we triumph today, every one of you will be a farmer on the Euxine tomorrow!’

  That got a cheer, and they were off again, crossing the centre. There, Satyrus waved. ‘Do you remember my father?’ he called to the Olbians, and they roared. ‘Say Kineas!’ and they roared it out, and he was away, Melitta at his heels, riding across the front of the Sakje. Satyrus reined up, but it was Melitta who spoke. She reared Gryphon and pointed at her brother.

  ‘I promised Eumenes, and he is here. I promised Satyrus, and he is here. I promised one last battle, and it is here. Avenge my mother! Avenge my father! Avenge your own dead! Today!’

  And they cheered – men and women who had been in action for seven days, but they cheered. Some of Ataelus’s Sakje had fewer than twenty arrows in their quivers, but they cheered.

  ‘He’s got to come or he’s done,’ Satyrus said, pointing at Upazan’s golden helmet. ‘The sailors are hurting him. Either he charges or he rides away.’ He put his heels to his horse and rode towards the camp, where Abraham was standing on the wall with Demostrate and Panther and Diokles. Satyrus reined in under the wall.

  ‘Anything you can do,’ he said. ‘Just the archery is helping.’

  Panther nodded. ‘We’ll do what we can,’ he said.

  Abraham had his armour on and a shield on his arm. ‘I have two hundred marines,’ he said. ‘If I can, we’ll come into their flank. Right now, we cover the archers.’

  Satyrus snapped a salute and Melitta blew Abraham a kiss. He turned as red as blood over his beard, and men laughed at him.

  And then they saw Upazan’s line start forward.

  ‘Back where we belong!’ Melitta called, and they rode like the wind.

  Satyrus got a new horse – his was already blown – but Gryphon was still as strong as an ox, and Melitta stayed with him. She had forty arrows. She loosened her akinakes in her scabbard and watched her brother check his weapons.

  ‘Long time since I fought mounted,’ he said.

  And then Eumeles raised his arm a stade away, and the whole enemy line came forward.

  Satyrus looked at the sky. ‘Already late,’ he said. He drew his sword – Kineas’s sword – and just the sight of it caused men among the Olbians to shout.

  ‘Nike!’ he cried.

  Eumenes’ trumpeter sounded the call, and they went forward.

  Satyrus went from the walk to the trot with the front line and let himself obey like a trooper. He saw Melitta’s set face – she was aiming for Eumeles.

  So was he.

  He angled to cover her flank, and saw Scopasis, her guard commander, do the same on the other side.

  Ten horse-lengths from the enemy, and they were a wave of riders, their mouths open, the horses as wild-looking as the men. Eumeles was a rank or more back, not in the front.

  Both sides shot their arrows, but the Sakje bows were dry and strong, and the Sauromatae arrows reaped half the shades that the Sakje arrows took.

  Satyrus felt a blow as an arrow hit his chest and all the breath went out of his body. He tried to get his arm up but something hit his head and he almost lost his seat. As his horse burst through the first line of enemy riders he was struggling to breathe but he managed to get his sword up and parry a cut from a man going by.

  Coenus was there, and his arm moved as fast as a striking cat’s paw. A Sauromatae knight went down, armour clattering even over the rage of battle, and that fast the air was full of dust.

  Satyrus finally ripped some air into his lungs and the pain almost made him vomit, then he put his bridle hand to his gut, glanced down—

  The arrow was point-deep in the muscle of his stomach. He pulled at it. The barbs ripped his flesh and the leather lining of his thorax – caught. Growing fear and pain powered his arm until he tore the head free and blood coursed out, but he could breathe and he was not dead.

  He dropped the arrow. The fight was all around him. He put his knees to his mount, sawed the reins and caught a long cut from a Sauromatae knight. He pushed forward and
cut the man from the saddle, the sword easily penetrating his leather armour. He was deep in their formation now – no fault of his own – but the men around him seemed uninterested in fighting him. He cut down two more, riding in close and stabbing, and saw Coenus’s blue plume. He leaned and his horse obeyed his change of seat, turning sharply. He parried a cut and got his charger in close to Coenus.

  And there was Melitta. He watched her shoot a man out of the saddle. She used her bow the way another fighter would use a lance – close in. Even as he watched, she put the point of an arrow almost against a man’s chest and released as she rode by, so that he exploded backwards over the tail of his horse.

  And then he saw Eumeles. The tall man was fighting with a mace, a long-handled weapon with a head of solid gold. Whatever his failing, he was no coward.

  If Satyrus had had a javelin, he could have killed the man easily.

  Nothing worth doing is ever easy.

  Satyrus pushed his borrowed horse forward and slammed into Eumeles’ horse, head to flank, so that the other horse stumbled – a magnificent white charger, probably a Nisaean.

  Eumeles turned and swung the mace, catching Satyrus’s horse a glancing blow on the head – and then their eyes locked.

  ‘Here’s where we settle the battle,’ Eumeles said.

  Satyrus’s horse was hurt – it bucked, rose on its haunches and shook. Satyrus struggled to keep his seat and Eumeles swung at him with the mace, catching his left hand on the reins.

  Satyrus rammed his heels into his horse to no effect. He cut at Eumeles, but the taller man had a better horse and managed to stay just out of his reach. He flicked the mace and Satyrus only just avoided losing his sword.

  ‘I kill you, and the rest is easy,’ Eumeles said.

  Satyrus couldn’t control his mount, and Coenus was locked spear to spear with another man. Satyrus’s thoughts flashed to Sappho: Eumeles could say the same of your mother! He killed her because he feared her!

  Satyrus’s horse was shuddering. The mace blow had hurt it – there was blood in one ear.

  ‘Kill me, and you will still lose this battle.’ Satyrus had to shout, but Eumeles heard. ‘And your kingdom. You are a fool, Eumeles.’