Merach drained his cup. ‘Our left was destroyed, and in the centre he had us pinned. He lost a lot of men there. The bodies piled up so thick in the water they changed the river’s course, and the water ran red as a pomegranate crushed in your fist. His cavalry wheeled on our phalanx’s rear, and after that the thing fell apart, and it became a hunt. They chased us for pasangs across the plains south of the Haneikos. We took fifty thousand spears up to the river. I doubt a fifth of that made it back to Gansakos. We lost our baggage, our stores, the paychests, even the remounts. He has light infantry who work with javelin and what they call a drepana, a curved, slashing sword. They run as fast and far as horses.’
Merach placed his empty cup on the table with a click.
‘My lord, I am told you knew something of this defeat already — you have the meat, but Darios wanted me to bring you the raw bones. I have been two weeks on the road, killing three horses a day to stand before you. Darios bade me say that Gansakr is lost, and Askanon cannot hold. He is moving his quarters south to Ashdod, and if necessary will stand siege there.
‘My lord, we need another army. We need your presence on the battlefield to inspire our people, as you did at Kunaksa. We need the Honai. Without such a grand levy, the outer empire cannot hold. This is no mere adventurer we face. This man comes to conquer.’
‘We know the facts of these things, Merach,’ Kouros growled. ‘Every satrap west of the Magron has been forwarding rumours of your disgrace for weeks. Perhaps we do not need a grand levy — perhaps we only need generals with a little backbone.’
Merach lowered his gaze. His eyes were as bright as coins caught in the sun. He said nothing.
‘Bravely said, brother,’ Rakhsar drawled. ‘It’s quite a feat to insult a man who cannot answer back — you truly have the knack of it.’
‘Go back to the women’s quarters, Rakhsar. We talk of the real world here. If we want to hear harem gossip we will send for you.’
Rakhsar smiled, but only with his mouth. ‘I doubt you need my help for that, Kouros. There’s not a whisper comes out of there that your mother has not heard before anyone.’
Kouros drew himself up like an infuriated bear. ‘You bastard spawned little shit! You do not speak of my mother — she is Queen of the empire — yours is nothing but forgotten bones.’
‘Indeed — well, the Queen would know all about that, don’t you think, brother? When you visit her, do you drink her wine, or do you bring your own?’
Startled, Merach had to step back as the two brothers lunged at one another, Kouros a black bulk, Rakhsar a rapier-lean shadow. They bore no weapons, but seemed about to fly at each other’s throat nonetheless.
‘Stand still!’ Ashurnan shouted, his angry bellow clear as a cymbal in the night. His head swam, and it seemed that there were black flies circling in the light of the lamps.
The two princes froze, their eyes locked on one another, the hatred sizzling in the air between them.
Perhaps I should leave them to it, Ashurnan thought; get it over with here and now. But the part of him that had grown grey since Kunaksa, that had sat on a throne for four decades, was too disgusted.
‘You are princes of the empire, sons of the Great King, not brawlers in some hut in the Magron. Bel’s blood, do you think you can behave so in front of me? Is this how kings are made? I have seen traitors go to the spike who show more respect to the diadem than you. Get out of my sight — and do not speak a word to one another as you go. I will deal with you — both of you — later. Now go!’
Kouros glared at his father, and in that instant, Ashurnan saw the older man within him; the heavy jowls, the down-turned lines about the petulant mouth. Then he strode off, feet pounding into the ground as if each step set his seal upon it.
Rakhsar lingered a few seconds more. His face was one perpetual sneer — what would it take to wipe it off? Then he bowed to his father and sauntered away into the trees.
‘Perhaps they will finish their argument out in the dark,’ Merach said, and then coloured. ‘Forgive me, lord.’
‘That is not their style, either of them,’ Ashurnan said. He waved a hand impatiently at Merach’s two mute, horrified companions, who were standing forgotten on the edge of the light. ‘Go — leave us.’ Then he rubbed his eyes, trying to wipe away the black circling flies.
‘More wine, Merach — pour it for us both.’
When they were drinking again, Ashurnan said; ‘Kouros is a coward, for all his size. He has a good head, but he is thin-skinned as an ugly girl, and his mother’s venom has curdled something in him. Rakhsar, he is all scheming and planning, but all to his own back. He thinks nothing of larger things. These, Merach, are my sons. The ones whose voices have broken, at any rate.’
‘They are your sons: they are not King. Lord, there is yet time for one of your other children to grow into a man.’
Ashurnan tilted his head to one side and smiled crookedly. ‘One reason I have always trusted you, old friend, is that you have all your life retained the simplicity of the soldier. And if truth were told, I kept you from this city so that it would remain that way. You know nothing of the workings of the Court and the Harem. These young boys who ran about under the trees this evening — they will all die before they become men.’
Merach bared his teeth a second in a spasm of anger. ‘I should speak no more.’
‘You may say what you like — it is why Darios sent you.’
Lord, forgive me.’ He looked down into his cup. ‘Is it the Queen?’
‘Who else?’ Ashurnan smiled again. ‘A marvellous woman, Orsana. She would have made a fine ruler of this empire in her own right, but she must work through her son, who is an inferior instrument.
‘She will tolerate no other. It is something I have become almost reconciled to, Merach. I have shielded Rakhsar this long because I thought there was promise in him, but I know now I cannot gainsay my wife. Kouros will succeed me, if this phoenix from the west leaves him anything to rule. And Orsana will control the empire at last. It may actually be for the best. She is a poisonous bitch, but she is as able as I am, and lacks my streak of absurd sentimentality.’
‘I call it honour,’ Merach said, and the anger was still smouldering in his eyes.
‘Kings cannot afford a sense of honour, my friend.’
‘Then they are not worthy of the name. Lord, this enemy of ours out in the west, this young man who calls himself Corvus; he — ’ Merach hesitated a second. ‘He took in the wounded we left behind us in our flight, and he had his surgeons treat them as though they were his own. He has not ravaged the land as an invading army ought, and his men are under savage discipline.’
‘Ah,’ Ashurnan said. ‘The Macht. They are something to see, in battle, are they not?’
‘They are like some great machine. He has drilled them to perfection, foot and horse alike. They are clad all in scarlet, as their mercenaries once were at Kunaksa. This boy is something remarkable, my lord. In seven years he has taken almost two hundred feuding city-states and made of them a nation.’
‘Indeed. I wonder what his plans for us are.’ Ashurnan emptied his cup and tossed it out of the lamplight, the gesture a flicker of fury. When he turned back to his friend, his eyes glowed like those of a wolf caught in firelight.
‘This empire will endure, Merach. It has stood for so many centuries that men have stopped counting them.
‘It is civilization.
‘The Macht are barbarians, a race which does not belong to this world, an aberration of nature. They will be defeated by me and mine as the founder of my line defeated them in the ancient days. The empire cannot fall. If it does, it will topple us all into a dark age the likes of which history has never seen before.
‘I will take the field — the preparations have already begun. You may begin your journey back to Darios in the morning. Tell him the Great King is coming, and with him shall march the full army of the empire. He will see us at the end of this summer. Until then he must hold at Ashdod. He must hold the passes of the Korash Mountains for me, no matter what the cost.’
Merach nodded, eyes shining.
‘And Merach-’ Ashurnan rose to his feet, a majestic figure, golden-skinned, the diadem a black line across his forehead. ‘I do not care how this invader behaves, or how gently he treats our people. The Macht must be allowed no quarter. We will take no prisoners and show them no mercy. You must make Darios understand this. We are fighting a different kind of war from those we have known before.’ Ashurnan drew his lips back from his
