Kineas blessed the moment in which some god had sent him the Scyth. Hermes — almost certainly the god of travellers and thieves had sent him the Scyth as a guide, because without him this woman would have killed them all. He could feel it. He could feel the anger rolling off her, making her ugly and hard.
She had a golden whip on her saddle and she waved it at him and spoke again, just a few words, and then whirled and galloped back to her main body with her trumpeter on her heels.
Ataelus shook his head. ‘Pity for Getae bastards,’ he said. ‘Did something fucking stupid. Killed someone — I not knowing for whom. But fucked up, going to die.’
Kineas took a deep breath. ‘You did tell her that we killed the man who was wearing these and scattered his riders?’
‘She not care. Angry and young. Hey! You owe me, Captain!’ Ataelus looked happy.
‘No shit,’ said Niceas, his first words in ten minutes. ‘We all owe you.’
Atelus grinned, showing some bad teeth. He liked being the centre of approbation. ‘Where you camp?’
‘We’re going to camp at the river.’ Kineas pointed down the beach towards the site Lykeles had located.
Other Scyths from the main body were riding down on them. They didn’t seem threatening. In fact, they seemed curious. Two of them rode right up until their ponies were nose to nose with the two Greeks. One of them pointed at Kineas with his whip and called to Ataelus.
‘He say — good horse!’ Ataelus said. Ataelus looked around, turned his horse and looked up the hill. He seemed upset.
Kineas had other things to occupy him. In a few moments the company was surrounded by Scythians riding around their formation, pointing at things. One whooped and suddenly they were all whooping. They galloped off down the beach a stade and came to a halt.
Ataelus rode back over. ‘Gone,’ he said. He shrugged. ‘She say camp and eat but she gone.’ He shook his head. ‘Getae bastards for trouble are. ^’
‘You think she’s going against the Getae right now? Just like that?’ Kineas had his eyes on the other Scythians, about twenty of them, who were waiting down the beach. He looked back at his men and the horses, and he caught a glimpse of his captive, the Getae boy, and an ugly thought came to him. ‘Niceas, get the men moving. In armour. Now. Gentlemen, right along the beach. Ignore the barbarians. I have to bet they won’t make trouble. Hermes, send they do not make trouble.’ The company moved off in double file.
Kineas pulled his charger over to Crax, who was riding his mare. He had to hold the charger hard; his stallion liked the smell of the mare, wrinkled his lips and snorted. ‘Crax, the moment we make camp — I mean it — you get the Getae boy into a tent and stay there. These barbarians…’ He realized that there wasn’t much he could say. The barbarians were after the Getae. He’d just fought them himself. The distinction was likely to be lost on Crax.
But Crax understood. He nodded. ‘The amazon wants blood.’ Just like that.
‘Amazon?’ Kineas asked, astonished at the former slave’s erudition.
‘Amazon. Women who fight.’ Crax looked back at the Getae boy. ‘I’ll protect him.’
‘Don’t make trouble, boy.’ Kineas wished he had time to explain, wished he understood anything about the politics of the plains or where those thrice-damned brooches had originated from. The column was moving. The Scyths were keeping their distance. ‘You are Getae?’ he asked.
Crax glanced at him sideways and spat. ‘No,’ he said. ‘Bastarnae.’
Kineas had heard of the Bastarnae. ‘But you know these people?’ he asked.
Crax shook his head. ‘The Getae are thieves. The Scyths are monsters. They never take slaves, only kill and burn and go. They have magic.’
Kineas rolled his eyes. He wasn’t the only one listening and he heard some comments behind him. ‘Magic — Crax, magic is a story to scare slaves and children.’
Crax nodded. ‘Sure.’ He looked around. ‘They have men…’ He paused, clearly uncertain about what to say. ‘They are horrible. Everyone says so. The Getae are just thieves.’ He looked at Kineas. ‘Am I really free?’
Kineas said, ‘Yes.’
Crax said, ‘I will fight for you. For ever.’
They made camp by the river before the sun had slanted far down the sky. The tents went up quickly after Kineas and Niceas had made the reason plain to everyone, and Crax disappeared with the Getae boy while the Scythians were busy with their own camp. Ataelus didn’t go with them. He picketed his horses with the Greeks and squatted down by the first fire to be lit. Kineas sat by him.
‘Who is she?’ he asked, pointing to the eastern horizon for emphasis.
‘Young, for angry woman?’ Ataelus shrugged. ‘Noble.’ He used a word that usually meant ‘virtuous’ in Greek. Kineas puzzled it out.
‘She’s well born? A queen?’
‘No. Small force. Big tribe. Assagatje. Tens of tens of tens of riders they can put on the plains and still have many for camp, again. They for Ghan — Ghan like king for them. Yes? Ghan of Assagatje big, big man. Has nobles, yes? Three tens of tens, nobles. All Assagatje.’
Kineas took a deep breath. ‘The king of these Assagatje has thousands of warriors and this is just a small band under a noble?’
Ataelus nodded.
‘And she is young and angry and maybe eager to make a name for herself, and she took her troopers and went after the Getae, who are four days ride away?’
‘Getae feel fire tomorrow,’ Ataelus said.
The flatness of his answer gave Kineas a chill. ‘ Tomorrow? That ride took us three days.’
‘Assagatje are Sakje. Sakje ride over grass like north wind for blow, fast and fast and never for rest.’ Ataelus thumped his chest. ‘Me Sakje.’ He thumped his chest. ‘Ride for day. Ride for night. Ride for day again. Sleep for horse. More horse for fight — like Captain, yes?’
Niceas cut in from across the fire. ‘Ares’ balls — so she’s going to hit the Getae tomorrow and come back?’
Ataelus nodded vigorously. He pounded his right fist in his open left hand, making a noise like a sword hitting a body. ‘Hit — yes.’
Kineas and Niceas exchanged a long glance. Kineas said, ‘Right. Up in the last watch, move as soon as there is light in the sky. Everyone not on watch get in your cloak.’
Kineas curled up next to Diodorus, who was not asleep. ‘What are we afraid of? You paid the tax — with our horses, I’ll hasten to add.’
Kineas considered feigning sleep and not replying, sure that every man in the tent was attending to a question only Diodorus could ask him. Finally he said, ‘I don’t know. She was pleasant. Straighter than many an oligarch. But when she saw those damned brooches — I am afraid we’ve started something. And I want to get to Olbia ahead of whatever it is.’
Diodorus whistled softly. ‘You’re the captain,’ he said.
Too right, thought Kineas, and went to sleep.
Artemis, naked, her broad back and narrow waist he so well remembered. He came up behind her, his prick stiff as a board, like something an actor would wear, and she turned and smiled at him over her shoulder, but as she turned she was the Assagatje noblewoman, the gold gorget hiding her breasts, and she spoke words in anger, words that sounded like a snarl, and in each hand she held one of the brooches, and she slammed the pins into her eyes…
He awoke with Diodorus’s hand over his mouth. ‘You were screaming, ’ Diodorus said.
Kineas lay and shook. He knew he had stronger dreams than other men, and he knew the gods sent them, but they often disturbed him nonetheless.
When the fit passed, he rose, took his own silver cup from a bag and poured wine into it from his own flagon, walked well down the beach and poured the whole cup into the sea as a libation, and he prayed.
6
Olbia stood out from the low shoreline of the Euxine like a painted statue in a dusty marketplace. From where Kineas sat on a low bluff across the great Borasthenes River, he could see a long peninsula projecting from the far shore. A pall of smoke from thousands of fires coated the town like dust, or soot, but the temple of Apollo rose in pristine splendour atop a steep hill at the base of the peninsula and the town filled the tip, with solid walls as high as three men — the highest walls Kineas had seen since the siege of Tyre. The walls seemed out of place, out of proportion to the size of the place and the position of the town. And the town spilled over the walls, small houses and mud buildings filling the ground from the base of the walls to the temple hill, an ill-defended suburb that would have to be sacrificed in the event of a siege. Olbia had two harbours, one on either side of her peninsula, and dolphins, the symbol of the town, sported in the water below him and gleamed gold on distant marble pillars at the town gates.