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Melitta sat on a stool covered in furs, wearing her best silvered-bronze scale and her favourite white caribou-hide boots and her mother’s caribou coat over her armour. Despite the stool, she sat with her back straight. Her right hand was supported by her mother’s sword, which, according to Assagetae tradition, had been taken as spoils from Cyrus the Great after a battle in the distant past.
Behind her stood – or sat – her bodyguard, twenty young knights of her own household led by her lover, Scopasis, who stood at her side like a heavily muscled statue.
Arrayed in front of her were ten days of heavy work – the men and women of the Assagetae who had brought their cases to her to plead. It was the spring gathering of the Assagetae in their ‘city’ of dykes and temporary walls, hidden in the upper reaches of the Borysthenes River where most Greeks had never travelled.
Merchants had been arriving for days. Hundreds of them: swordsmiths and goldsmiths and fine potters and leatherworkers from as far away as Athens and Alexandria, lured by the promise of rich profits and a sense of adventure. The Tanja of the Assagetae was like a combination of law court, agora and religious festival, with a trade fair thrown in for entertainment. There were twenty thousand tribesmen and women in the dykes, their great herds penned, tribe by tribe, with two hundred thousand horses and twice as many sheep spread over hundreds of stades. Cattle wandered from encampment to encampment, lowing loudly, eating whatever grass was already available, watched by children whose attention was more on the wonder of the Aegyptian priest and his wagon than on their charges. Horses trumpeted to each other – uncut stallions roared with irritation at the smell of so many other strange stallions, and mares rolled their lips back in scent-inspired appreciation of all the possibilities. Adolescent warriors of both sexes did approximately the same as their horses.
Melitta could remember coming to the Tanja with her mother: the adulation of the adults, the praise for her six-year-old accomplishments, the wonder of the trade fair, the fine horses and the beautiful clothes. But mostly she could remember her mother’s disgust that her people could behave so often like fools, and her annoyance at dealing with their failings in the giving of law. Adultery, drunkenness, child abandonment, horse-thieving, witchcraft, murder – she heard them all.
Are you children? her mother would often ask of the men and women brought before her.
Her attention snapped down to a pair of her own tribesmen – Cruel Hands – veterans of her summer campaigns of three years before, and men who had ridden to raid the Sauromatae these last two years. Impatient with a grain trader, they had killed him and taken his mules and his goods.
‘He was trying to cheat us!’ the shorter one said, as if this made it all right.
‘You murdered a foreign merchant in cold blood,’ answered Kairax. He was their immediate lord and was acting for the merchants.
‘Wasn’t cold blood!’ shouted the bigger of the two. ‘I was mad as fuck!’
‘Are you two children?’ Melitta snapped. For a moment she paused because she heard her mother’s voice emerge from her own lips. ‘He made you angry, so you killed him?’
‘He was cheating us,’ the smaller man said again.
Melitta took a deep breath. She looked at Kairax. ‘What do the merchants want?’
‘Restitution,’ Kairax said. ‘Fifty horses for the life of the man, twenty more for his goods.’
‘By the Heavenly Archer!’ the smaller man said.
‘That fuck wasn’t worth no fifty horses,’ said the bigger man.
Melitta’s eyes strayed around the enclosure. Carpets – fine carpets – hung on three sides of her, blocking the chill spring wind, separating her deliberations from the riot of the market on the far side of the barrier, although all Sakje were welcome and several hundred of them crowded around, more than a few on horseback.
Her wandering eyes crossed with Scopasis’, and she smiled at him – an automatic smile, as she was beginning to doubt the wisdom of taking him as a lover. He was brave – loyal – and deeply in love with her.
She sighed inwardly, and thought about how easy it would be to be a bad queen; to ignore these petty cases, give quick judgements and be free to roam the booths, spending her riches on golden cones to hang tinkling at the edge of her caribou coat, or fine saddles—
Drakas. That was the short one’s name. He’d been with her in the last charge at Tanais River when all the tribes became intermixed. But she could remember his ugly nose under his helmet, and his grin.
‘Drakas,’ she said.
He stiffened. ‘Lady?’
‘Drakas, how many horses do you own?’ She leaned forward and pointed her mother’s sword at him. ‘How many?’
‘More than a hundred,’ he admitted.
‘And this lout?’ she asked. She didn’t really know his companion.
The big man shrugged. ‘A dozen,’ he admitted.
She shook her head. Drakas had enough horses to be treated as a nobleman, but his friend did not. She suspected that this apparent inequality had something to do with the killing – and she further suspected that Drakas’ success as a hunter and raider had something to do with the fact that Kairax was willing to see him punished. Rivalry? Jealousy?
You’re like children.
‘Who struck the killing blow?’ she asked.
Drakas shrugged. ‘I did,’ he admitted, pursing his lips. He spat. Among Sakje, that wasn’t a gesture of disrespect – she needed to remember that. Among Sakje, he was being contemplative and polite.
‘What was the actual value of the man’s goods?’ she asked Kairax.
Kairax shrugged. ‘They say twenty horses,’ he said, and shook his head. He and Drakas exchanged a glance that suggested their relationship was even more complicated than she had guessed.
‘Bring me a merchant who knew this man,’ she said. She raised her head to Scopasis. ‘Who’s next?’
He raised an eyebrow – an expression she loved. ‘Astis daughter of Laxan of the eastern Dirt People.’ He made a face. ‘Her father and brothers were murdered.’
‘Sauromatae?’ Melitta asked, suddenly interested.
‘Perhaps,’ Scopasis said. ‘A matter for your attention, anyway. I have heard her story and believe it.’
‘Have her brought,’ Melitta said.
An eddy in the crowd announced the arrival of a pair of long-robed merchants – Syrians. They bowed to her.
‘They ask if we will use their interpreter,’ Kairax asked. He grinned.
‘Tell them I would be happy to use their interpreter,’ Melitta said. She grinned too.
Their interpreter stepped forward. He looked sheepish, and they spoke among themselves for a moment.
‘How big was the dead man’s family?’ Melitta asked in Sakje, and the translator put the question to the two merchants in Greek.
‘No doubt she’ll use the size of his family to assess the total value of the judgement,’ muttered one merchant. Greek was not his first language, either.
‘So make it big. Eight children,’ said the other merchant.
‘Lady, the merchant says eight children,’ the interpreter said. ‘That’s what he told me to say, lady,’ the man added.
‘Ask him if he knows the family well,’ Melitta said.
‘Now what do I say?’ asked the second merchant. His Greek was better. ‘If I say I don’t know them—’
Melitta leaned forward and pointed her sword at the second merchant. ‘You could just tell the truth,’ she said in Greek.
Gaweint, one of her knights, and the one whose Greek was best, translated this sally for the audience, who roared with appreciative laughter.
The merchants glared around.
‘Come forward. Talk to me,’ Melitta said. ‘How many children did the man have?’
‘I don’t know,’ admitted the merchant. ‘He only worked for me this one trip.’
‘And if I give you horses, will any of them go to his wife and children? Where w
as he from?’
‘Far, my lady, by the great salt—’
‘Spare me, Syrian. I grew up in Alexandria and I’ve ridden a black-hulled ship into every port on the Syrian coast.’ She laughed at their discomfiture. ‘You people need to do more research before you come to the Sea of Grass. Now, no horse shit – do you even know where he’s from?’
‘No,’ admitted the Aramaic merchant. He shrugged expressively. ‘No. But that shouldn’t mean your man gets off free.’
‘How much merchandise did the man lose? Really lose?’ Melitta asked.
‘About ten good horses’ worth,’ the merchants admitted, after a whispered discussion.
Melitta nodded. ‘Kairax, step forward. Here is my judgement. Each of these two,’ she pointed at the two Cruel Hands tribesmen, ‘will give five good horses to these merchants. Yes?’
Both men nodded, although the bigger man – the poorer – grew pale.
‘Drakas will pay ten horses each to me and to Kairax for his breach of the lady’s peace.’ She looked at Drakas.
He jumped forward. ‘Where is the fairness in that, lady? Alkaix here did the same as me—’
‘You struck the killing blow and you, the nobleman, led him into this crime. Did you not?’ she asked.
Drakas mumbled something.
‘Twenty horses will not break you, Drakas. But it ought to remind you to keep your temper in check.’ She motioned him forward. He came to her side, and she gestured for him to kneel so that she could speak into his ear.
‘You desire to be treated as a nobleman, do you not?’ she asked.
Drakas nodded. ‘I have—’
‘Spare me. What do you have for armour?’
Drakas shrugged. ‘A good helmet.’
‘Noble status cuts both ways. Arm five men as knights, mount them yourself and bring them to me, and I will see to it that Kairax grants you your due. See to it that one of them is your friend here. Otherwise shut up and obey your betters.’
‘Yes, lady!’ he said.
‘Anything further?’ she asked of the assembly when Drakas had backed away.
Silence reigned.
‘I have spoken my will. Will you see it carried out?’ she asked the assembly.
Men – and women – nodded. Many voices were raised in assent. Kairax gave her a nod. Scopasis gazed at her with adoration.
She felt a certain satisfaction. Giving justice well was a good job.
‘Next,’ she said.
Scopasis stepped up. ‘Astis daughter of Laxan the farmer requests that the lady and Lord Thyrsis help her achieve revenge.’
Astis was a strong-looking woman with a square face and blond-brown hair. Her nose had been recently broken and her eyes had the look that hunted animals and damaged people hold. But she stood erect in front of the assembly of the people in a good Parsi coat of blue wool and deerskin trousers.
‘Who speaks with her?’ Scopasis asked.
Thyrsis stepped forward. Melitta thought of Thyrsis as the Achilles of the Assagetae. His father, Ataelus, had been her father’s right hand on the plains, his chief scout and a hero of every battle he’d ever fought. After her father’s death, Ataelus had served her mother. When she was murdered, he’d held the high plains to the east against the Sauromatae in a six-year campaign of raid and counter-raid. In the process he’d built a mighty clan out of broken men and outlaws from both sides of the Assagetae-Sauromatae divide. Thyrsis was already a famous warrior – handsome, tall and utterly honest; loyal, strong in battle, clever in council. Too good to be true, really.
Both of his parents had died preserving her kingdom; his mother in the battle, his father shortly after, and he had a special call on her attention. Many Assagetae felt that she should marry him.
He and Scopasis hated each other, but both adored her.
They glared at each other for a long moment.
Melitta laughed. ‘Hey, stallions!’ Melitta called. ‘The mare is waiting.’
That got a roar of approval from the crowd.
Thyrsis stepped forward. ‘Lady, this woman is the daughter of Laxan, who served with the archers at the Battle of the Tanais. I have this word from the smith, Temerix, on her behalf. Her people settled the upper Tanais high ground, east of the Temple of the Hunting Goddess, and her father’s father held land by Crax’s fort.’
Melitta nodded to the woman. ‘You are welcome, and doubly welcome for the service of your father.’
‘Thank you, lady. Temerix and Thyrsis both say you are the Lady of the Dirt People as well as the Sky People, and I pray this is true.’ Her eyes were slightly mad, and there was something flawed in her voice, as if she was afraid to talk and afraid to be silent.
‘I am here,’ Temerix said. He was a giant of a man, his shoulders as broad as the full length of a child, his arms heavy with muscle like the roots of a strong oak. He was a master smith, and his best work could rival that of the Aegyptian smith-priests or the best ironsmiths of Chaldike or Heraklea. He was another fixture of Melitta’s childhood, having served her father.
This no-account Dirt People woman had two powerful advocates. That was interesting.
‘Speak, daughter of Laxan.’ Melitta smiled at her, trying to disarm the tension in her shoulders and the fear in her face.
‘Lady, raiders came to our farm and killed my family.’ She laughed – a terrible sound. ‘They took me and my sisters. I lived with them – almost a year.’ She took a deep breath. ‘Last autumn I took a horse and rode away. I would not be one of them. I ask that you . . . ride against them.’
The broken nose and the odd motions of her face told that this was a woman who had been beaten – many times. ‘Who are they?’ Melitta asked.
‘Sauromatae?’ asked Scopasis. The Sauromatae had become the enemies of the Assagetae, but it had been three years since their defeat and now many of the beaten tribesmen had simply moved into the tribes of the victorious – as was always the way on the plains. Many of the men and women gathered around the assembly were Sauromatae, but they were no longer the ‘people of Upazan’, the leader who had ridden to defeat and death. Now they were her own people. Scopasis’ failure to understand these things was one of the reasons he could never be her consort.
‘They were not Sauromatae,’ Astis said. She gave her curious laugh again. ‘In the year of the War, Sauromatae came and burned our farm and my father took us and led us into the woods. I killed a Sauromatae. I know what a Sauromatae looks like. I know a Sauromatae horse from an Assagetae horse, although I am a farmer.’
That provoked a growl from the assembly.
‘What clan would dare to breach the peace and kill your father?’ Melitta asked. This is bad, she thought, and inwardly she cursed Scopasis for not bringing her this in private – and Thyrsis for not bringing the matter to her attention before the assembly. If one of the clans had done this . . . so much for her pleasant spring progress.
‘No clan of Assagetae,’ Astis said.
Now she had silence. Every ear was turned to her. Melitta found herself leaning forward.
‘They call themselves Parni,’ she said. ‘Big men with yellow hair from the east. What they speak is like Sakje, but not Sakje. I heard them say that after they take Hyrkania, they will come here.’ She looked around. ‘I went with them, east of the Kaspian Sea. Twenty days east of the salt water.’ She raised her mad eyes and Melitta looked into them – into a year of horror, slavery, beatings and rapes, degradation. ‘I ask for revenge – for my father and brothers, for my sisters who died under them.’
Melitta rose. ‘Astis, you have suffered, and we will discuss your revenge, but this is not a matter for the assembly. I cannot offer a single judgement on this, the way I might on the murder of one man by another. If we are to punish these Parni, it would require the agreement of a dozen clan leaders. But when we meet, I will ask you to speak.’
A hundred heartbeats later, in the relative privacy of her own tent, she turned on Scopasis.
‘Why wa
s I not warned?’ she asked. ‘This is a matter for all the Assagetae!’
Scopasis shrugged. ‘A woman was taken in a raid,’ he said. ‘These things happen.’
‘Artemis! Gentle lady, deadly archer – Scopasis, are you a fool? This is not a simple abduction. That woman has been used – brutally. And not by some tribal youngling with a delusion of power – this is some clan about which we know nothing, attacking our high-plains farmers!’
Thyrsis pushed into the tent behind Scopasis. Melitta’s main tent space was big enough for four men on horseback. She waved her hand automatically, inviting him to sit. ‘Wine for my guests,’ she said to her servants. She and her brother had outlawed slavery in the city of Tanais – but the Assagetae had paid no attention at all. They had slaves, especially after a successful war.
‘Pardon me, lady,’ Thyrsis said.
‘And you!’ she turned on him. ‘If he’s a fool, you’re two fools – once for not warning me in advance, and again for not sending her to Tanais.’
Scopasis was angry, she could see that. No man enjoys being called a fool in front of a rival. But Thyrsis bore her anger easily.
‘Lady, this woman presented herself to me just yesterday, when I came into the camp. She travelled far to the north, and came among us with the Standing Horses, even though she is one of ours. And she is from far to the east, lady – I’m not even sure that she can claim to be one of our people, except that her father served with Temerix – and I did not even know that until she brought the smith to me this morning. Then this one,’ Thyrsis pointed at Scopasis, ‘told me that it was a matter of little moment, and that you would deal with it in due time.’
Melitta turned on Scopasis. He shrugged. ‘I was wrong, it appears. I cannot always be correct.’
Melitta drew breath to speak her mind – and all but bit her tongue. The Lady of the Assagetae was not the same person as Melitta, lover of Scopasis, nor yet again the same person as the warrior Smells Like Death. In Assagetae terms, these were different people who shared her body – a belief that would have angered Aristotle, she thought. Regardless, if she unleashed her rage on Scopasis—
Tyrant: Destroyer of Cities Page 5