‘Nice throw,’ Philokles said.
The other two came forward. They were brave, and they knew they had no choice, so they urged their horses forward across the last stretch and up the muddy bank. The first man came up just where Thalassa had come up and died there, spitted on Philokles’ spear. The second man’s horse took him further upstream to an easier climb, and he made it up the bank. His horse had spirit, and he turned the animal and went straight for Philokles. He got his own spear out and up and parried Philokles’ butt-spike – the Spartan was just getting the weapon clear of his kill.
He might have had Philokles then, except that Melitta got under his horse with her knife and ripped at his booted leg, slashing what she could reach, desperate to save the Spartan.
Satyrus didn’t feel as if he was in control of his own body, because he didn’t recall pushing his body into panicked attack, but he was suddenly cutting at the rider with his akinakes, the blade locked against the other man’s long iron sword. Satyrus saw his blade skip over the bigger weapon and cut the man’s tattooed bicep, and then Theron was there, cutting with his kopis in big, overhand cuts like a slave hewing wood, and they swarmed the man until he was dead.
When he was down, his cries stilled, they looked at each other, covered in blood. Theron made a sound like a fox’s cry, choked grief or rage, and they all looked away at once.
Satyrus saw movement in the corner of his eye and he turned to see Thalassa give a little skip, almost rearing. She tossed her hooves at the heavens, and then she toppled and fell.
Philokles walked over to her, a hand stretched before him in supplication. He put a hand on her withers, and then on her head. He shook his head.
‘Her heart went,’ he said.
‘Poseidon, Lord of Horses, take her to you,’ Satyrus said, and burst into sobs, heavy, wrenching sobs of a kind he hadn’t cried for people. And Melitta fell across him crying. They went to the horse, patting her head ineffectually and weeping.
‘We need to eat,’ Philokles said. His voice had a dead quality to it, as if he wasn’t letting himself think about his words. ‘There’ll be another pursuit as soon as they find a way to cross the river.’
Melitta shuddered. ‘I thought we were safe,’ she said, and immediately sensed the illogic in her words.
‘You’ll never be safe again,’ Philokles said. ‘Get your packs and follow me.’
All they had was their fishing kit, and they had it on their shoulders quickly. Satyrus stood looking at Thalassa in the grass. ‘We should burn her or bury her,’ he said.
‘We should, but we can’t. I’m heading for that house.’ The Spartan pointed at a distant stone house – a Maeotae farmhouse, perhaps the farthest along the shore.
The yard was empty and the man didn’t want to raise the bar on his door. Philokles threatened him from the yard until he complied, and the twins were afraid of Philokles’ rage. Melitta and her brother had exchanged looks of horror. Yesterday, they had had the love of these farmers. Now they couldn’t trust the man whose roof gave them shelter.
‘Hey!’ the man called, scared, as Theron scooped sausage from the rafters.
‘We need to eat,’ Theron said.
‘We have fish!’ Satyrus said, and Theron managed a smile.
‘We do, at that,’ he said. He and Satyrus each had a fish in their soaking leather bags, and the fish were no worse for their swim in the Tanais. Theron broiled them on the hearth and shared the fish with the farmer. It didn’t make him love them any more, but he shared some sour wine, and they were quickly asleep.
Theron woke them at the edge of dawn, a heavy hand on their heads, and pulled them stumbling into the cold spring morning past the terrified farmer.
‘Boat on the water,’ he said. ‘Time to go.’
Out on the swollen river, they could just see the flash of oars as a pentekonter rowed steadily against the current. The boat wasn’t making much headway, but it was coming. The first rays of the sun were pink and red.
Their horses were all lame, the riders equally spent despite ten hours of sleep, and they had to walk slowly away from the stone house. Theron had a bag of sausages and he handed everyone a link – heavy garlic and spice, overpowering in the morning.
Or so we thought. Melitta pondered her brother’s sullen silence. He seemed ashamed, when he should be proud. He had fought well.
I put two in the grass myself, she thought. My mother will be proud, and I will not go to Hades without slaves. Then she thought of her father’s horse – a tangible link to the man she knew only through her mother and Philokles and Coenus’s stories. Dead. She frowned away a new bout of tears.
As they crossed the farmyard to fetch the horses, she saw a rough bundle on the manure pile. She had to turn her head away, and her eyes met Philokles’. ‘Is that…’ She paused, ‘Coenus?’ she asked quietly, so that her brother wouldn’t hear.
‘You think I’d leave Coenus on a manure heap?’ Philokles asked, and didn’t meet her eye. He wasn’t sober – she could tell – and there was something wrong with him.
Melitta made bright small talk to hide the corpse from her brother. She knew who was on the manure pile. The farmer wasn’t going to betray them, because Theron or Philokles had killed him.
Coenus, on the other hand, had lived through the night. He was stiff, but his wounds had stopped bleeding, and he had the farmer’s whole store of linen wrapped around his torso. He was in better shape than Philokles, who could barely walk.
They made less than ten stades in the first hour, and if it hadn’t been for Theron’s muscles, they might have done worse.
Melitta watched her tutor sink into the same kind of sullenness that affected her brother, and finally she spoke up. ‘Where are we going?’ she asked.
‘Heraklea,’ Philokles said.
That was a quarter of the way around the Euxine. ‘That will take weeks!’ Melitta said.
Philokles stumbled to a stop. ‘Look, girl,’ he said. ‘Yesterday, we were attacked by Upazan. Galleys out of Pantecapaeum sacked the town. What does that tell you?’
‘Pantecapaeum is an ally!’ Melitta cried. Her brother raised his head.
‘Mother was going to Pantecapaeum,’ he said. ‘To renew the treaty with Eumeles.’
‘And now you will be hunted,’ Philokles said. ‘Upazan and Eumeles have made a deal.’ He shook his head, utter weariness getting the better of his good sense. ‘All we can do is run.’
Melitta’s nails bit into the palms of her hands. ‘What of mama?’ she demanded. ‘She’s not dead? She’s not dead!’ She grabbed her brother’s hand, and he gripped it as if she was a sword.
‘She’s not dead!’ the boy shouted.
Philokles and Theron kept walking, and Coenus raised his head, shook it and looked away.
‘Maybe not,’ the old soldier said.
None of them spoke for a long time. After a while the sun tried to rise on a grey day, and then it began to rain.
Coenus’s head came up. ‘Rain,’ he said. ‘Cover our tracks – cover our scent.’ He looked at Philokles and drew a deep breath, although they could see that it hurt him. ‘Now you have a chance.’
Philokles stood on the road in the rain for as long as it takes a good smith to shoe a horse. Then he said, ‘We need to get off the road.’
Coenus nodded. ‘Cross-country until you have to cross the river,’ he agreed.
Theron shook his head. ‘We must be ahead of the news – no one else could have swum the river.’
Coenus’s eyes came up. He was having trouble breathing and his eyes were dull, but he got his head up and he pointed his walking staff at Theron. ‘Listen, boy,’ he said. ‘Eumeles needs these children dead. His whole fucking attack on our town is for nothing if the children live. He’ll be across this morning, if he has to swim himself. He’ll flood this side of the river with soldiers – men he trusts.’
Theron swished his walking staff in irritation. ‘This is not the sort of expedition I signed on for.’
But then he saw something in Philokles that changed his mind. Melitta saw him start. He doesn’t want to end up like the farmer. She’d never seen Philokles the tutor – Philokles the drunk – like this.
He was scary.
