He spared a thought for his ancestor Herakles. He had dreamed of death the night before.
Anaxagoras turned to Artaxerxes. ‘Tell me about yourself, youngster. Who is your father?’
The young Mede coloured. ‘My father was Xerxes son of Artaphernes. He is dead. My mother is dead. My brothers and sisters are dead. I was a hostage in Mysia when they were killed, and now I am a prisoner of my great-uncle. May I have a sword?’
Anaxagoras shook his head. ‘They’re worse than Macedonians,’ he said. ‘You can have a sword when the king and I think you are worthy of it. Do you know how to use a sword?’
‘Oh, yes,’ the boy said.
Anaxagoras raised his eyebrows. ‘Really?’ he asked.
‘Your first pupil,’ Satyrus said. ‘All boys claim that they can wrestle and use a sword.’
‘Can you play music?’ Anaxagoras asked.
‘I play the harp. And the flute.’ The boy nodded. ‘And the trumpet,’ he said with disdain.
Satyrus didn’t like what he was seeing to the west. He rose to his knees, shifted his weight so that he could kneel on the gelding’s back. He needed to see a little farther.
‘Would you rather be here with us, or in Mithridates’ tent?’ Anaxagoras asked.
‘Here with you, lord! Mithridates has to have me killed.’ The boy shrugged. ‘If I grow to manhood, I will surely kill him.’
Anaxagoras clucked. ‘So the trumpet has already bought you a few days of life,’ he said.
There were men in a gully — Satyrus was sure of it. Almost sure of it. The sun was high in the sky, and even this close to autumn, the heat was palpable.
‘Sound halt,’ Satyrus said. ‘One long blast.’
Artaxerxes froze.
‘Now, boy,’ Satyrus said.
The trumpet went to the boy’s lips, and the call rang out — the first time, a spluttering sound like a flock of geese, but the second was a loud clarion that carried across the valley.
All the Sakje froze.
A few of the Getae stopped moving. The officers at least looked around.
‘Enemy is front. Do you know the call?’ Satyrus asked. This is what the Sakje did — using trumpets to tell distant scouts what to do. The Exiles were masters of the trumpet. Satyrus and Scopasis knew all the calls — not so the rest of the phylarchs. Herakles wouldn’t know five of them, which was one of the reasons he and Charmides were close to the main column.
Anaxagoras whistled the call, and Satyrus shot him a thankful glance.
The boy put the trumpet to his lips and played. The first call was halting, but again, the second was high and loud.
Satyrus took a spear from Charmides and pointed it at the gully, three stades distant, where he had seen flashes. Far away to the front, a mounted man smaller than an insect waved a lance. Sakje riders broke right and left, enveloping the head of the gully.
They got four prisoners, and the fight was on.
The Antigonid cavalry was just coming over the ridge. The men in the gully were their prodromoi, and they had a heavy force behind them.
Satyrus brought his column forward at a trot, heedless of the sun and the thirst of his horses until he had his men well down in the shade of the valley.
‘Water them by sections,’ he said, and changed horses to the Nisean — The horse was a pleasure under him — calm, collected, eager. He turned to Charmides. ‘Do not move forward until all the horses are watered. Then come up to me.’ He took Artaxerxes and Anaxagoras and went sloping up the ridge towards the fighting.
Scopasis had twenty men, a dozen Getae and some of the Bithynians as well. He’d dismounted them in an olive grove — a natural growth of wild olives, high on the flank of the main ridge above the lake. The Sakje had bows, and a few of the Bithynians and Getae did as well.
The enemy had already made an attempt on his position. It was nigh impregnable; rocks spiked out of the sandy ground, and the trees provided dense cover. The ridge top fell away around them so that the last approach to the summit was steep and rocky — terrible cavalry ground. But just below the summit was a long meadow coated in late-summer flowers, and the drone of bees filled the air. At the far side of the meadow, three hundred enemy cavalry formed in two great rhomboids, and ahead of them came two dozen infantry skirmishers, moving cautiously across the meadow.
‘They tried the road,’ Scopasis said, pointing to the gap between two enormous rocks. The gap was filled with dead men and horses. ‘Nice horse,’ he said, and smiled.
‘He’s a pleasure,’ Satyrus said.
Scopasis nodded. ‘Don’t get him killed,’ he said. ‘I like him.’
Satyrus nodded. He unslung his gorytos, rode over to a Bithynian trooper.
‘Know how to shoot?’ he asked.
The man grinned. He had two gold teeth, and he looked particularly rapacious. ‘Aye, King!’ he said.
Satyrus gave the man his bow. ‘I’ll want it back,’ he said. ‘So try not to die.’
Again, the gold glinting grin. ‘Aye, King.’ The man said again.
Satyrus rode back to Scopasis. ‘How’re the Bithynians?’
‘Not bad at all. Some of them can ride.’ From a Sakje, this was praise. ‘How long?’ he asked.
Satyrus shook his head. ‘I told Charmides to water all the horses,’ he said. ‘And Stratokles is already west of here — he may not even know we’ve stopped.’
Scopasis nodded. ‘He’ll know,’ he said. ‘Here they come.’
The enemy cavalry — mostly Mysians, and some Persians, with Greek officers — came forward and met with archery. They tried to circle around the summit and found less resistance.
After fifteen minutes, they retired, leaving a dozen dead and wounded.
Scopasis puffed up his cheeks and blew out. ‘Fools. Now their horses are blown and unwatered.’
Satyrus shook his head. ‘Remember that up until now, they’ve had it all their own way,’ he said. ‘No reason they should expect anything else.’
The Getae and the Bithynians were beside themselves with joy — forty men against three hundred, and holding their own.
The Sakje were methodically stripping the enemy dead.
Now the enemy hipparch sent his infantry scouts out — carefully probing the ground all around the summit. They were fixated on Scopasis, and missed the main body of the allied cavalry until it was almost on them. Satyrus leaped up, gathered his reins, and wriggled onto his horse’s back. His legs were already tired. It made him feel old.
‘Come when you can,’ he called to Scopasis. He found that his trumpeter was right with him, and he rode along the road, over the fly-infested corpses from the first attack, and into the field of bees.
Charmides was forming his files. It was odd — more like a dream than a real fight. They were on a hilltop meadow in the sun, so that all Satyrus could see was a field of flowers and distant mountaintops, as if they were fighting in the heavens for the entertainment of the gods. The drone of bees filled his ears.
Charmides was appalled at the responsibility — he’d never commanded so many men, and he’d dismounted to organise them, unsure of his seat.
They were forming well — the professional Greeks in the centre, and the Sakje and Getae on the flanks. They were still outnumbered two to one, but their horses were fresh and all the Sakje had bows. Without orders, they cantered forward and loosed a volley.
Satyrus was too late to stop them, and he shrugged.
‘Surely they are helping you win this action,’ Anaxagoras said.
‘We didn’t need to fight,’ Satyrus said. ‘Their horses have no water. They should have retreated. But now we’ve stung them, and their hipparch is inexperienced, so he’ll come forward, and men will die.’