But the most magnificent gift sat in front of their wagon on an armour stand for all to view: a Sauromatae-style scale hauberk, the scales in alternating rows of silvered bronze and gilt and blue enamel, carefully fitted with dozens of different-sized scales to cover his torso and shoulders perfectly, the scales sewn to a new leather thorax. The resulting cuirass was heavy, but no heavier than his damaged Athenian breast- and back-plates, and it glowed in the summer sun with gilded Greek leg armour and a matching bridle gauntlet produced by Temerix in secret. His helmet, refurbished, had a new blue plume.
Diodorus fondled the gauntlet as if it was a woman’s arm. ‘They wear them in Italia,’ he said.
‘Craterus had one at Arbela,’ Kineas said. ‘We all admired it.’ He laughed. ‘I don’t suppose it would do to wear armour for my wedding. ’
‘Soon enough,’ Nihmu said, doing a handstand nearby.
There were games - Sakje games and Greek games, with horse races and wrestling and shooting bows for distance and accuracy, but once the wine and fermented mare’s milk began to flow, the contests ran their courses and the contestants hurried to get their share of the drink. Kineas and Srayanka gave prizes to the winners, sitting together hand in hand on a pile of skins in the red sunset, their children in baskets at their feet.
‘Do you remember?’ Kineas asked. ‘On the sea of grass, riding to see Satrax?’
She laughed with him. ‘I didn’t have ten words of Greek,’ she said. ‘But oh, how I wanted you.’ She looked at him under her lashes, a look that was the more beautiful for its rarity, because she was more frequently the cavalry commander than the lover. ‘We held hands, I think.’
They danced and ate and drank wine until the sun set, and then they danced and sang and drank more, strong red wine from Chios that was like berries in the mouth, and they ate venison seasoned with pepper, which was too strong for some of the Greeks but delighted others. They had bread - rich, strong Greek bread, because Coenus had brought Olbian flour all the way across the sea of grass. And the Olbians had strong Maeotian fish sauce, three deep amphorae, to season their bread, and olive oil for the first time in three months, while the Sauromatae and the Sakje tried the Greek foods and passed around their own rich and heavily spiced mutton and foal with flatbreads and honey.
‘I brought cider,’ Coenus said, ‘but it was already turning by the time I reached Crax on the return trip, and we drank it to save it.’ He grinned and spoke slowly, the perfect aristocrat even staggering drunk. ‘We toasted the two of you, of course.’
They had built a bonfire that towered to the height of three tall men, tamarisk and willow and poplar on top, and the fire took with a rush after it had been blessed by a Persian fire priest who had come with the traders, and roared to life so that you could feel it on your back ten horse-lengths away. The burning cedar smell of the tamarisk mixed with the late honeysuckle and the briar roses that bloomed over every thicket in the river valley.
They were toasted and gifted, and they named their children in the last light of the sun at the top of Hirene and Bain’s kurgan, so that the swords of the two dead heroes caught the light and seemed to anoint the heads of the two infants.
Unmoved by all this spiritual glory, the babies roared against their hard fates in being kept up late, and received the plaudits of the crowd despite their ill manners. They were, after all, only a month old.
And then many of the Greek men appeared, drunk, singing obscene songs that Srayanka could only guess the meaning of - not that the guessing was hard, as most of them wore giant erect phalluses strapped to their groins, and they had convinced several young Sakje girls to be lewd. Battering pans and kettles, slobbering well-meant kisses, this raucous crew escorted them to their wagon. The serenade went on until Srayanka said they were waking the children.
‘Don’t hear that every day at a wedding in Athens!’ Diodorus called, and then they were gone.
‘There will be more wine than milk in these breasts,’ Srayanka said when finally they were alone.
‘No reason they shouldn’t share the feast,’ Kineas said. ‘At home, you would have a wet nurse.’
‘At home in Greece? A wet nurse, and slaves, and a life in a few rooms.’ She frowned. ‘I’m afraid you are wed to a barbarian.’
‘Well, Barbarian Queen? What will you have as a wedding present?’ he asked, kissing the side of her neck.
‘Hmm,’ she said. ‘Mmm?’ she whispered. She laughed at him and pushed him away. ‘Remember what happened the last time?’
‘Killers coming through the side of the wagon? By Zeus, that seems a long time ago.’ He laughed and snuggled next to her.
‘Even then, what I wanted was to take my people to war with Alexander,’ she said. ‘That is still what I want. And when we have fought him - win or lose - then we can return to the high ground by the Tanais. We will be king and queen of a united people. Our children will rule after us.’ She kissed his hand. ‘I want you to bring your people to the muster, King Kineas. That is what I want.’
Kineas knew what keeping that promise would mean. He dreamed of the tree and the river almost every night. But he looked into her eyes and thought that some fates were not as bad as they might seem. ‘To Alexander, then,’ he said.
PART V
ACHILLES’ CHOICE
23
‘Am I surrounded by fools?’ Alexander asked the assembled officers. Silence.
‘This country is not subdued,’ Alexander said carefully. ‘We are at war with every rock and tree. There is no room for weakness or doubt, or slovenly soldiering.’
The Macedonian officers were red with fury and embarrassment. The cadre of Persian and Sogdian officers who were present deepened their humiliation.
Alexander had little time for Panhellenism, but it had its uses. ‘Two thousand Hellenes died at the hands of barbarians. They were not even outnumbered. They were merely careless.’
Craterus, a Companion officer, and Ptolemy, the youngest of the phalanx commanders, exchanged glances. Alexander watched them. They looked as if they might voice some dissent. He was prepared to crush them. But after one exchanged glance, they subsided.
Alexander raised an arm. ‘If you gentlemen will turn your attention to the stream bed . . .’
Just to the north, a tributary ran down out of the Sogdian hills into the Jaxartes. The stream bed was nearly dry with mid-summer, and forage parties had cleared every stick of burnable brush and every leaf of green forage, so that the stream bed looked like an open mine. Packed into the gully were six thousand blank-eyed prisoners leashed by short ropes to stakes driven deep into the sandy soil. Lining the sides of the gully were soldiers - some Macedonian veterans, and some of the more recent Sogdian recruits. The Sogdians, most of them, were related to the men in the gully.
Alexander gave a sign and all the men, Macedonian and Bactrian, set to work in the mass slaughter of six thousand prisoners. For the most part, the victims waited fatalistically, although here and there men struggled, either panicked into a last resistance or too stubborn to go down without a fight. Their executioners approached with dripping swords and dispatched them. Those who struggled took the longest to die, and those who bowed their heads to the blade went fast.
Alexander watched for as long as it took a thousand men to die.
‘I don’t want any more mistakes,’ he said. ‘Nor do I wish to see any softness.’ The evening air stank of blood, as if the army was butchering oxen for meat. ‘You will all watch until these rebels are dead. Then you may dismiss.’
He turned on his heel and walked away, followed by Hephaestion and Craterus. Neither man walked with his accustomed swagger.
Alexander turned before he had gone ten steps. ‘Eumenes!’ he called, and the lone Greek on his command staff came quickly.
In his tent, he snapped his fingers for wine.
‘I worry that we are teaching the rebels not to surrender,’ Eumenes said.
Alexander sat heavily on his couch and sw
irled the wine in his cup. ‘I worry about the same thing, but I had to make an example.’
‘For Spitamenes?’ Hephaestion asked, and Alexander shook his head while he narrowed his eyes.
‘No,’ he said. ‘For this Scythian queen, Zarina. And for my own Macedonians.’ He turned to Eumenes. ‘You have all the survivors from Pharnuches’ column isolated?’
‘Yes, majesty.’ Eumenes could feel the lion’s rage from across the room, like the heat from a bonfire.
‘I considered having them executed with the rebels,’ Alexander said. ‘But that seemed to send the wrong message. I’m still thinking about it. Tell them from me that if I hear a word of this disaster from the army, I will have one man in every file killed. If I hear more, I’ll kill them all.’ He took a deep breath. ‘Understand me?’ he said after a moment. ‘I command it.’ He looked at Eumenes. ‘And we lost our Amazons. Spitamenes must be having quite a laugh at us.’
Eumenes avoided his eyes. ‘I do not think it was Spitamenes who ambushed Pharnuches.’
Hephaestion spluttered on his wine. ‘What?’ he asked. ‘Don’t be foolish. I interrogated some of the survivors myself.’
Eumenes was tired to death of Hephaestion, so he wasn’t as careful as he ought to have been. ‘Really? And did any of them mention the enemy had Greek cavalry?’
‘What’s this?’ Alexander asked, his voice harsh as an executioner’s sword.
Hephaestion shrugged. ‘Diomedes, the surviving Companion, said he fought a Greek. I think the man’s deranged.’
Eumenes shook his head. Hephaestion glared at him. Eumenes ignored the favourite and looked at the king. ‘Diomedes says that the whole thing was a rescue of the Amazons, and it was done by Dahae and Greeks.’ Daring, he added, ‘I asked Kleisthenes to help me with the questioning. He thinks that the best-armoured of the enemy cavalry were Sauromatae, who we haven’t encountered before.’
‘By my father’s thunder,’ Alexander cursed. ‘The king of the Sauromatae sits in my camp and eats my food and his warriors serve Spitamenes! Send for Pharasmenes!’ To Eumenes he said, ‘I curse the loss of the Amazons. They were something a man could hold in his hand. Some visible proof of our conquests, like elephants. Something to show.’
Hephaestion flushed.
Alexander gave a half-smile. ‘I want them back. Or replaced with others as fine. If I have to take the army across the Jaxartes, I will.’
‘Not, I think, the best use of our assets,’ Eumenes murmured.
‘You are not indispensable, Greek. I command here. I have crushed the rebels and retaken all our forts.’ Alexander looked off into the distance. ‘When I break this Queen Zarina, there will be Amazons for every man in the army.’
Eumenes knew the storm was coming. He raised his head and met it square on. ‘You will find it almost impossible to raise more mercenaries, ’ he said.
‘Greek soldiers are like snow in the mountains,’ Alexander said contemptuously.
Eumenes wouldn’t back down. ‘Every satrap is raising an army. The lesson of Parmenion has not been lost. And we are a long way from Greece, majesty. We don’t pay the most, and we kill them like cattle. A thousand with Pharnuches, two thousand in the Jaxartes forts - and those are just our most recent losses.’
‘The Thessalians are on the verge of mutiny,’ Craterus put in. ‘Thankless bastards.’ Bitterly, he said, ‘And young Ptolemy says the phalanxes aren’t much better.’
Eumenes looked around. ‘Thankless? They were our very best cavalry. ’
‘But they loved Parmenion better than they loved me,’ Alexander said. ‘Best to send them home.’
‘And replace them with what?’ Craterus said. ‘More Persians?’
‘Bactrians. Sogdians. These are not soft-handed Persians. These are men of war, like our Macedonians. Mountain men, like us.’ Alexander used much the same voice he would use in gentling a child.
Craterus raised his voice. ‘Ares’ balls, Alexander! Don’t fool yourself. They’re fucking Persians! Orientals! They’re counting the hours until they stab us all in our sleep!’
Eumenes fought back a smile. Craterus was speaking his lines as if they had been written for him, and he, not Eumenes, would now suffer the wrath of the king.
But Alexander surprised them all by remaining calm. ‘I understand your concern, Craterus - and yours, Eumenes. But I must have cavalry for this war, and to leave the Sogdians unemployed would be to invite them to join my enemies.’ He put his leg up. He’d received an arrow through the leg - a clean wound, but it kept weeping pus and yesterday a bone fragment had emerged. It made the king feel mortal and fallible.
Eumenes exhaled slowly. ‘May we at least secure Marakanda behind us before we cross the Jaxartes?’ he asked.
Alexander nodded. ‘I’ll take a flying column myself.’ He glanced at Hephaestion, seemed on the edge of saying something and then shook his head. ‘No, it will have to be me - another disaster like the one on the Oxus and the whole fabric will start to unweave. I’ll be gone two weeks. Spitamenes hasn’t the stomach to make a stand - he’ll break the siege. If I am fast enough, I’ll catch him. If not, I’ll come back and we’ll try to wrong-foot the barbarians and have a go at the Massagetae.’ He gave them a smile that was meant to be reassuring. ‘She’ll have Amazons.’
24
The next morning brought Kineas news of another side to his wedding feast. Words had been spoken and blows exchanged, and there was anger in the air - sidelong glances, trouble on the horse lines, voices raised.
Kineas listened to the story from Ataelus, who had a bad cut on his arm, and watched the men and women behind Ataelus spreading the gossip with their eyes. The prodromoi were a tight-knit group who saw themselves as the elite of the whole force. Ataelus was turning them into a clan of his own - a process about which Srayanka had warned him. Kineas had learned enough about Scythian politics to know that weak leaders lost followers to strong leaders, and that even when a clan had a great leader, some men and women would drift away to greener pastures.
‘Garait - for kissing this woman,’ Ataelus said. ‘Derva of the Sauromatae? You know her?’
Kineas shook his head, caught in ignorance of his troops. ‘No,’ he said.
Ataelus shook his head in turn. ‘Derva was paradâtãm to Aurvañt of the Sauromatae. But she was kissing Garait.’ He shrugged and winced, as the wound in his shoulder hurt him. ‘So Aurvañt is for going to Upazan, who is his chief.’
Srayanka came up behind her husband and put her hands on her hips. ‘Not a good story, Ataelus,’ she said in Sakje.
He bowed his head, but said, ‘These young people are my people. Derva has denied her paradâtãm for the required number of days.’
‘And then what happened?’ Kineas asked.
Ataelus frowned. ‘Upazan and Garait for shouting,’ he said in Greek. He met Kineas’s eye. ‘Upazan hits Garait, and Leon hits Upazan. Upazan draws a sword. Cuts at Garait. I step in to stop foolish boy-talk and get this.’ He gestured with shame at his wound. His bow arm was in a sling.
‘What does Leon have to do with this?’ Kineas asked, his temper fraying.
Srayanka’s eyes narrowed fractionally and she shook her head. ‘Leon loves Mosva of the Sauromatae.’
‘I know that!’ Kineas said.
‘So does Upazan,’ Srayanka said, as she would speak to a not-very-bright child. ‘What do you want, Ataelus?’
‘I ask for killing Upazan,’ Ataelus said formally at the end of his testimony. ‘Man to man and horse to horse.’
Kineas looked at Srayanka, who simply shook her head. ‘Am I your queen, Ataelus?’ she asked.
Ataelus looked back and forth between Kineas and Srayanka. He had always made a point of his status as a Massagetae, not a Sakje. A visitor, not a subject. But he was thoroughly Kineas’s man - Kineas had made him. This, too, was Scythian politics.
The day was hot, but there was an edge of something on the wind and lightning flashed out over the desert. Kineas l
eaned forward to speak, but Srayanka put a hand on his shoulder to stay him.
Ataelus made a mute appeal to Kineas, and getting no response, he said, ‘Yes.’
‘Really? You are Sakje?’ She was relentless.
‘Yes,’ said Ataelus.
Srayanka flashed a smile at Kineas. ‘As he has declared himself to us, he is subject to our justice.’ She nodded. ‘It would be bad manners to allow you to fight Lot’s sister’s son. Bring me this Garait.’
Garait was brought forward, his braids carefully plaited, in his best tunic.
‘How many horses do you have, Garait?’ Srayanka asked.
‘I have twenty horses of my own,’ he answered in Sakje, but his pride was audible to every person in the tent. Twenty was an excellent score for a man so young, but of course he had had two years of war to collect them. ‘No ponies. No horses-for-meat. Twelve Thessalians, tall and strong. Four Getae ponies fit for any work. Four of our own horses for riding.’
Srayanka nodded. ‘And what is Derva’s bride price?’
Garait shrugged. ‘I do not know,’ he said.
Srayanka looked at Kineas. ‘You trust me to handle this?’ she asked him in Greek.
‘You do know the customs better than I,’ Kineas said.
‘I will speak to Prince Lot. In the meantime,’ she turned back to Garait, ‘you are forbidden to be within twenty horse-lengths of her. You may not speak to Upazan, nor accept or deliver a challenge. In every case, you will refer him to me.’
‘Yes, lady.’ Garait nodded, the equivalent of a deep bow among Persians. Then she summoned Leon, who was suspiciously close by, and also very clean and in his best tunic. He looked as if he had a major bruise forming around his left eye, his dark skin almost purple in the sun.
‘Do you intend to wed Mosva?’ she asked.
The black man nodded gravely. ‘If she’ll have me,’ he said.
‘Arrange a bride price and pay it,’ she said. ‘And be quick about it. Your flirtation is hurting us, Leon.’
Tyrant: Storm of Arrows Page 34