Kineas yawned. It wasn’t feigned, he found the ferryman’s scare tactics dull. In fact, he had heard it all before. ‘No, thanks.’
‘Suit yourself.’
Before the sun had dipped another degree, the ferryman and his boat were gone. They were alone on the north bank. Kineas called Niceas to him. ‘Camp here. Watches, picket and hobble the horses, and watch Crax. He’ll try to run tonight, says the ferryman.’
Niceas glanced at the boy and shrugged. ‘What else did he say?’
‘We’ll all be killed by the Getae.’
‘Like as not.’ Niceas said philosophically, but his hand went to his amulet. ‘What’s a Getae?’
‘Crax’s folk. Thracians with horses.’ Kineas looked at the horizon under his hand. He beckoned to Ataelus, who rode over. ‘We camp here. Take Antigonus and Laertes and ride out, check the area, come back. Yes?’
Ataelus said, ‘It’s good.’ He patted the flank of his horse. ‘She want to run. Me too.’ He waited for Antigonus to mount up. Laertes, the best scout in the company, was already up, and the three of them rode out on to the plain, heading north-west to the horizon.
The other men built two fires and put their cauldron on one. They made up beds from the grass all around. They argued over setting up the two tents and Niceas made them do it, his gravelly voice and imaginative curses a counterpoint to their work. Kineas took no part — barring a crisis, he acted the part of the officer and watched them. Niceas gave most of the orders, settled the disputes and allocated the watches. The three mounted men came back just before the fall of full night and reported horse tracks in all directions to the north, but no immediate threat.
So easy to forget. When he wasn’t on campaign, Kineas mostly remembered the good times and the danger. He never remembered the nagging weight of casual decisions and their mortal consequences. For instance — double the watch and double their chances of detecting an attack, with the consequent fatigue for all of them tomorrow. Or keep normal watches and know that any one man could fall asleep and the first they’d know of an attack was the rush of hooves and the spike of iron in the belly.
He compromised — always an added danger — and ordered that the last watch at dawn be doubled, and put himself on it. Then he summoned Crax and ordered him to put his blankets down next to Kineas’s own, placed Antigonus on the other side, and dismissed the subject. They ate quickly, set their watches and lingered — too early in the campaign to go to sleep automatically. Instead, they sat up with their last amphorae of wine from Tomis, telling each other stories of their own exploits, reliving and laughing. Ajax sat and watched, silent and polite, his eyes wide as if he were sitting with Jason and the Argonauts.
Agis recited lines from the Poet
“But come now, change thy theme, and sing of the building of the horse of wood, which Epeius made with Athena’s help, the horse which once Odysseus led up into the citadel as a thing of guile, when he had filled it with the men who sacked Ilios. If thou dost indeed tell me this tale aright, I will declare to all mankind that the god has of a ready heart granted thee the gift of divine song.” So he spoke, and the minstrel, moved by the god, began, and let his song be heard, taking up the tale where the Argives had embarked on their benched ships and were sailing away, after casting fire on their huts, while those others led by glorious Odysseus were now sitting in the place of assembly of the Trojans, hidden in the horse; for the Trojans had themselves dragged it to the citadel. So there it stood, while the people talked long as they sat about it, and could form no resolve. Nay, in three ways did counsel find favour in their minds: either to cleave the hollow timber with the pitiless bronze, or to drag it to the height and cast it down the rocks, or to let it stand as a great offering to propitiate the gods, even as in the end it was to be brought to pass; for it was their fate to perish when their city should enclose the great horse of wood, wherein were sitting all the best of the Argives, bearing to the Trojans death and fate. And he sang how the sons of the Achaeans poured forth from the horse and, leaving their hollow ambush, sacked the city. Of the others he sang how in divers ways they wasted the lofty city, but of Odysseus, how he went like Ares to the house of Deiphobus together with godlike Menelaus. There it was, he said, that Odysseus braved the most terrible fight and in the end conquered by the aid of great-hearted Athena.’
They cheered his performance, as the veterans always had, and made jokes comparing red-haired Diodorus to wily Odysseus. The first watch was done before any of them were in their blankets except Philokles, who all but fell from the saddle straight into bed.
Kineas caught Ajax as he rolled in his cloak. ‘You’ll want this,’ he said, and nudged Ajax with a sword.
Ajax took it, hefted in his hand and tried to look at it.
Kineas said, ‘Sleep with it under your head or in your hand.’ He smiled invisibly in the dark. ‘You get used to it after a few nights.’
Kineas was asleep as soon as he was under his cloak. It was like being home. He had a dream of Artemis — neither long nor precise, and certainly not one of those dreams that Aphrodite sends to men, but a happy dream none the less, and he awoke when the watch changed and men shifted in the tent, alert as soon as his eyes opened and then relaxing, remembering the dream and wondering if some hint of her was in his cloak. He smiled and went to sleep again and awoke with a start when something heavy fell across his legs. He remembered a loud noise — he had his heavy sword in his hand and he was on his feet before he was awake, the sword clear of the scabbard.
Antigonus spoke softly at his ear. ‘It’s nothing — Kineas — nothing. Your slave boy tried to run and I knocked him cold. He’ll be sore in the morning.’
The weight that had landed at his feet was Crax; the boy was deeply unconscious. And other sleepers were now awake, pushing him from where he had fallen. They wrestled him into his own blankets.
‘Where was he headed?’
‘I didn’t wait to see. When I saw him get up, I knocked him flat with my butt-spike.’
Kineas winced. ‘I hope he isn’t dead. Wake me for next watch.’
‘Never fear. You can have rosy-fingered dawn all to yourself.’
Kineas fell asleep thinking that Antigonus, who couldn’t read or write, probably hadn’t ever read the Iliad. He was awakened the third time to throw water on his face and hands. His hands swelled at night, and his joints ached when he woke, and waking up seemed harder every year. Campaign aged a man too quickly.
He took the heavy javelin from Antigonus’s hand. Ajax was up, too — Kineas had decreed a double watch for dawn and Niceas had put Kineas on with the least experienced man, and the most expendable — decisions, decisions.
‘Before you turn in, find him a javelin,’ Kineas said to Antigonus, who burrowed in the equipment and came out with one. He handed it to Ajax, who looked quite self-conscious with it in the first grey light of morning, as if he were wearing the wrong costume for a party. He also looked absurdly young, pretty, and well-slept, and Kineas thought, I’ll bet his joints don’t swell.
‘Anything to report?’ Kineas asked.
Antigonus peered off to the north. ‘I heard something — distant, could have been a wolf taking a buck, but it was heavy movement. It was an hour back.’ He gestured at a dim shape by the tree. ‘Don’t trip over our barbarian. He’s asleep with his horse.’
Kineas nodded and pushed the other man towards his sleeping spot. It was light enough to crawl into the tent without waking everyone else and Antigonus was snoring before Kineas had walked the perimeter of the little camp. Ajax followed him, clearly at a loss as to what to do.
Kineas took him around the camp again, showed him the two slight rises which would give a sentry a few stades more view, stopped with him to smile at the sight of Ataelus asleep with the reins of his horse in his hand, ready for instant action. Then Kineas told Ajax to build up the fires. ‘When that’s done, curry the horses.’
Ajax gave Kineas the first look of displeasure Kineas had ever seen him wear. ‘Curry the horses? I’ll wake my slave.’
Kineas shook his head. ‘Build up the fires and then curry the horses. Yourself. Do a good job. Then you and I will take a little ride before we wake the others. And Ajax — don’t imagine you can discuss orders.’
Ajax hung his head, but he said, ‘Other men do.’
Kineas laughed and swatted him. ‘When you’ve killed a dozen men and stood sentry a thousand nights, you can debate with me.’
He liked being on watch and he stood under the tree, immobile, and watched the grey horizon to the north- west. He listened to the rising birds, watched a rabbit move across the light grass where the ferry had landed and
