He stepped up to the altar with a young fawn he’d caught wandering in the woods after he killed the mother with a spear, and he slashed the animal’s throat on the altar. He was the priest, here.
And as the blood flowed away, Coenus prayed for his friends.
Most of them were shades in the underworld. Niceas and Philokles, Kineas … friends of his youth and middle age. Lovers – where was Nihmu, now, he wondered? On the earth, or under it? Leon? Remember beautiful young Ajax? Remember Nicomedes? Good men, who died in valour.
‘If this is my last time,’ Coenus prayed, ‘Lady, let me be as good a man as they.’
Then he rode down the Tanais towards the city. There were changes on both banks – more farmers, Greek and Sindi and Maeoti, and more Sarmatians on the high ground – Sarmatians who had come to stay, whether they won or lost their battles with the Sakje. When they won, they pushed in, and when they lost, the survivors simply joined the Sakje clans in the old way of the steppe.
At the fork, where the road crossed the last ford over the river, there were a hundred horsemen waiting – Sakje of the old school, in red coats, with horsehair ropes at their saddles, most with a pair of gorytoi, each with its own bow and arrows, and a string of horses.
Ataelus sat on his best horse, a tall Persian in storm grey. Beside him sat his sons. Ataelus was older than Coenus, and they were the lords of this land, and they embraced gravely.
‘Not for going,’ Ataelus said.
Coenus was taken aback. ‘But …’
Ataelus pointed at his sons. ‘They go. For being old, friend. Too fucking old to fight in fucking desert.’ Ataelus pointed out over the Tanais high ground, towards the distant Caucus mountains, towards Asia. ‘Stay and drink wine for me, Coenus, Greek brother. Let young men fight for Satyrus. Old men for the fireside.’
Coenus grinned. ‘No. No, my friend. This is the last fight, and I’ll go. I wouldn’t miss it.’
Ataelus grunted. ‘No fucking last fight, Greek brother. Never “last fight”.’ The Sakje lord pounded his fist against his chest. ‘I for fighting sixty times – never beaten. Lost wife for Satyrus and Melitta – lost sons. Lost horses.’ He looked out over the steppe. ‘Lost my heart for Kineas. Twice I’ve been dead. Eh? Now stay home, guard flocks.’ He sat straight. ‘Go, Greek brother. Ataelus will die in bed.’
Thyrsis saluted his father. He turned to Coenus. ‘Temerix is home in his forge. They decided together … to stay home.’
Coenus saw Maeton, Temerix’s lieutenant in the wars with the Sarmatians. He rode over. ‘Temerix is staying at home?’ he asked.
Maeton shrugged. He had more than a hundred men on ponies, men with heavy bows and axes. ‘Temerix says, I was Kineas’s man, and I am old. Let the young men ride to war.’
Coenus looked at Maeton and Thyrsis. ‘Who will I talk to?’ he said. But he rode to Ataelus’s side, and they embraced for a long time. Ataelus said something in his ear – something about Kineas.
Coenus could only picture the drunken barbarian riding back into their camp.
Kineas turned and looked over his shoulder. A lone horseman was trotting to the paddock. Coenus laughed.
‘Ataelus!’ bellowed Kineas.
The Scyth raised a dusty hand in greeting and swung his legs over the side of the horse so that he slipped in one lithe movement to the ground. He touched the flank of the horse with a little riding whip and she turned and walked through the gate into the paddock.
‘Horse good,’ he said. He reached out a hand for the flagon.
Coenus handed it to him without a moment’s hesitation. The Scyth took a deep drink, rubbed his mouth with his hand. Then Coenus caught the Scyth in a bear hug. ‘I think I like you, Barbarian!’ he said.
He hugged the Sakje harder, and then he raised his hand.
‘Ready to march?’ he asked.
Eumenes, archon of Olbia, gathered his hippeis in the hippodrome that Kineas had ordered built when Leucon was archon. They made a fine show, but only fifty of them were good enough to go to war. He’d already chosen them.
And he would lead them himself, because Melitta had asked in person.
They’d hollowed out a pair of triremes captured from Macedon in Kineas’s day. They took eighty chargers, the fine Olbian breed that Ataelus and Niceas had started thirty years before, heavy geldings resulting from cross-breeding the Sakje plains horses with the biggest Persian mares.
When Eumenes stood on the beach, watching his hippeis load, he felt as if Kineas was all around him – from the hero statue in the agora to the very horses his men rode, Kineas had been the architect.
He was a fair man, and he owed Kineas one more ride. Even if it would take him past Troy.
He kissed his wife, and gave his will to his son, who he was not taking. He gave the ivory stool to Lykaeus. He had held the archonship for Kineas, and now, as an old man, he could keep the seat warm for Eumenes.
Melitta reined in her horse. She was, almost literally, covered in gold – from the tip of her helmet to the base of her long, caribou-hide coat, she shimmered with gold plates, gold signs, gold sigils, gold scales. Her gorytos cover was beaten gold, showing the gods dining on Olympus, and her shield had Artemis – a mounted Artemis – worked in gold.
Her reins were gold. Her high-backed war saddle was worked in gold. Every handspan of her tack had a gold plate. Her horse towered over other horses – a Royal horse, his coat the colour of steel.
She touched her heels to his sides, and put pressure on his bit, and he reared – as he would in battle – and his hooves lashed the air, and the Assagetae screamed their approval.
Behind her, the best of her knights – Scopasis, Sindispharnax, and the rest – formed a neat wedge.
The Assagetae filled the plain south and east of Tanais – their tents went on for stades, and if there were more Sarmatian-style yurts than ever, it was a fair representation of the changes coming to the Sea of Grass. The lord of the Western Sarmatians now rode freely over the ridges of the Tanais without hindrance. His people came to council on the Euxine.
The queen of the Assagetae rode at the head of her golden knights, along six stades of tribal warriors – Stalking Wolves, Standing Horses, Grass Cats, Cruel Hands. At the southern end of the line, Nikephorus stood with a token force of pikemen and Eumenes and Coenus waited with two hundred Greek cavalry and Maeton with his scouts and Thyrsis with his. Nikephorus’s taxeis had already sailed to Heraklea – the Apobatai hadn’t even left the city after the fall campaign.
Coenus saluted her, and she raised her war-axe to her helmet.
‘Ataelus stayed at home,’ he said.
‘I know,’ she said. ‘I’m the queen. People tell me things.’ She pushed her Attic helmet back on her head, and Coenus thought that she had never looked so much like Athena.
‘I tried to change his mind,’ Coenus said.
‘Why?’ Melitta asked. ‘He’s the wise one. My brother’s the fool. This is not our war.’
‘That’s why we’re all going?’ Coenus asked.
‘I know,’ Melitta said, raising her axe to salute Maeton. ‘Philokles would tell me that if I go, I’m as responsible as Satyrus. And I am. But my heart tells me that we should sit home and prepare to trounce the winner.’
‘Hence you take a tithe of your strength,’ Coenus said.
‘A tithe would be too much. I take a
token
of our strength, and that is too much to lose.’ She shrugged. In armour, it scarcely showed. ‘All told, I’ll take a thousand warriors, and I’ll leave half of them at Heraklea. And Parshevaelt – he’s staying. I need someone here I can trust.’ She smiled. ‘On the other hand, I’ve invited
all
the Sarmatian chiefs to accompany me.’ She laughed. ‘All our friends want to come. But as queen, they’re just the ones I want to stay home. All our foes desire that we fail. So naturally, they’re the ones I want where I can see them.’
Coenus looked at her knights. ‘These men alone could turn a battle.’
Melitta nodded, and her face was the face of Smells like Death. ‘That’s why I keep them around. Let’s ride.’
Coenus fell in with Scopasis, and behind them, the chosen men and women of the Assagetae, the Keepers of the Western Door, the Royal Scythians, and their remounts and slaves and wagons joined the column, and the rest of the Assagetae cheered them until their dust cloud rolled out of sight. And then they went back to the grass.
When he awoke, Satyrus’s first thought was
I am not dead
.
It was an altogether pleasant thought. And before an hour had passed, Anaxagoras had unrolled the bandage on his leg and shown him the flesh – the lines of red were gone, no longer lines of death reaching for his groin and heart.
He was weak, but he was a veteran of many wounds and he knew the drill – he began to eat anything he could lay hands on.
They let him rest for three days.
His friends were out all the time – riding. Mostly, Satyrus saw the farmer, Belial. He sensed that there were daughters hiding up in the rafters, and that the whole house was afraid of them. But he ate, and watched.
The third day of rest, he was alert enough to figure out that his friends were patrolling. Jubal came back with a twisted leg – a bad fall from his horse.
‘Men trying to kill you, eh?’ he said, and grinned.
Satyrus shook his head. Even here – three thousand stades from Tanais. ‘Who are they?’ he asked.
‘Don’t know. Big bunch – a dozen or more. We hit their camp, only caught three of them.’ He shrugged. ‘Rest were off east. Setting an ambush?’
Satyrus hadn’t seen Charmides in days. ‘And Charmides?’
‘Apollodorus sent him east for Seleucus. He’s supposed to be at Zeugma. Apollodorus is afraid he’s already passed us.’ Jubal rubbed his beard.
The horses were stirring outside.
‘Uh-oh,’ Jubal said. He got a bow from his case and went to the window. As soon as he looked out, he popped back. ‘Party of men.’
Satyrus was flat on his back, too weak to pull a woman’s bow.
Above him, a small girl, no more than seven or eight, waved a hand.
‘We hide,’ he said.
Sophokles was still hobbling from the arrow he’d taken in the fight five days earlier – the luck of the gods that the arrow had been a whistler, or he’d be dead instead of bruised. He dismounted with a curse, having covered all the ground from the mountains to the Euphrates and missed his quarry.
He wanted a good night’s sleep and a chance to regroup. Seleucus was less than a day away to the east and Sophokles didn’t fancy the odds of tracking his quarry amidst the biggest army in Asia.
He dismounted with a curse, and was immediately on his guard. The farmer’s body language gave him away. He was hiding something.
Of course, that could be food or horses or a beautiful daughter. All of which Sophokles would be happy to take. ‘We mean no harm,’ he said, raising his hand.
The farmer nodded. ‘How can I help you?’ he asked. He had two slaves with him – big men, but not trained to arms.
‘Feed us, give us all your horses, and stay out of our way,’ Sophokles said. ‘And we’ll be gone tomorrow.’
The farmer’s eyes were everywhere. ‘You could go in the barn, I suppose,’ he said.
‘Are you a fool?’ Sophokles was in pain, and tired of peasants. ‘I don’t ask you to suppose anything. I’ll have the house.’ He tossed his reins to one of his men. ‘Clear the house. Don’t touch his family. Slaves are fair game.’
There were stools on the lower exedra, and Sophokles lowered himself on one. ‘A cup of wine might improve my mood,’ he said to the farmer.
The man’s wife brought it herself. She’d mixed herbs in it. Sophokles had a moment to picture himself poisoned by a farmer’s-wife in Phrygia, and the thought made him smile. He drank it off.
‘Not bad,’ he said. ‘Honey?’ he asked.
She nodded, her eyes huge.
Telon, his lieutenant – an intelligent man, for an oaf – jogged up from around the stone house. ‘There’s horses in the barn,’ he said. ‘War horses.’
Sophokles reached out to grab the farmer’s wife, but she was faster than he expected – her fist held an iron poker, and it clipped his shoulder and his head, and he was down.
Telon killed her – cut her nearly in half with a big kopis.
Sophokles felt distinctly queasy – something in his gut, and the blow to his head. He threw up and felt better. Telon was pushing at the barred door of the barn and shouting for help, and his men were trying to get in one of the windows.
Sophokles got to his blanket-roll, and it took all his will to untie the leather thongs that held it shut.
The bitch poisoned me.
His brain was processing very slowly. He got the knots open – the blanket unrolled of its own accord. He got a hand into the leather wallet at the heart of the bundle – found the flask. Got it to his lips.
No time to measure. Only his vomit reaction had kept him alive
this
long. He took a sip, swallowed it …
Vomited, and vomited again. His men were calling out.
By all the gods, that had been close. One of his eyes was gummed shut from blood.
They’d killed the farmer and one of his slaves.
He took a breath and then another.
Looked up. Heard the hoof beats – saw the dust cloud.
Shook his head in weary disbelief.
‘Mount up!’ he croaked, and stumbled towards his horse, abandoning his blanket roll.
Telon, at least, had the wits to listen. He abandoned the barred door and leaped for his horse. Seeing the two of them mounted, the rest ran for their horses. The last man was shot dead trying to get a leg over, but the rest of them were away.
Satyrus found the act of climbing down from the hiding hole in the rafters to be as much adventure as he could handle, but worth it, because the big ginger-haired man holding the ladder proved to be Crax. Behind him was Charmides, and half a dozen troopers Satyrus had known since childhood.
‘Did you get them?’ Satyrus asked.