argument. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Yes, if it would give me victory.’
Philokles looked at Kineas and Kineas shook his head. ‘Never,’ he said.
Sophokles’ cheeks developed two bright red spots, and his throat blotched, and he hung his head.
Kineas fingered his beard again, rubbing in the oil from his lunch. ‘Rules in war have purpose,’ he said. ‘Every broken rule deepens the hate between the enemies. Every rule preserved keeps hate at bay. If two cities fight, and both abide by their oaths, follow the rules, and fear the gods — then when they have settled the dispute, they can return to trade. But if one side violates a truce, or murders women, or tortures a prisoner — then hatred rules the day, and war becomes a way of life.’
Philokles nodded. And he added, ‘War is the greatest of tyrants, once fully unleashed. Men make rules to keep the tyrant bound, just as they use the assembly to keep the over-powerful citizens from dominating other men. Fools speak of “getting serious”, or of making “real” war. They are invariably amateurs and cowards, who have never stood in the line with a spear in their hands. In the phalanx, where you smell the breath of your enemy and feel the wind when he farts — war is always real. Real enough, when death awaits every misstep. But when the tyrant is fully unleashed — when cities fight to the death, as Athens and Sparta did a hundred years ago — when all the rules are forgotten, and every man seeks only the destruction of his enemy, then reason is fled, and we become mad beasts. And then there is neither honour nor victory.’
The boys nodded solemnly, and Kineas was left with the feeling that he and Philokles could as easily have proclaimed the utility of torture and rapine and convinced them.
After lunch, Kineas had them throw javelins at a tree on foot, and he watched them mount their horses and commented on how that could be improved. While they threw, he said to Philokles, ‘That was quite a speech. You are against war?’
Philokles frowned. ‘I am Spartan,’ he said, as if that answered Kineas. ‘That Kyros has a good arm.’
Kineas let the subject drop.
‘In combat, you’ll be unhorsed,’ Kineas said. ‘It’ll happen several times. Every time you are on foot in a cavalry fight, you are very nearly a dead man. Being able to remount is the most important skill you can master. Practise mounting your own horse, if you can, practise mounting other men’s horses — because the usual reason for finding yourself on foot is because some bastard has killed your horse.’
When they were all riding into the afternoon, passing the very last walled field and the last deep ditch and dyke that marked the very edge of the town’s property, he said, ‘In wrestling, were you taught first how to fall?’
Ajax smiled, because he’d heard this speech so many times already.
‘Practise coming off your horse, recovering, and getting back on. Practise it at a walk, at a trot, even at a canter. Ajax, here, was barely able to ride a few weeks ago.’ Kineas spared him a good-natured glance. ‘Now he can come off at a canter and remount in a flash.’
Ajax did it on cue, without warning, taking his horse a few steps away into a field, rolling from the saddle and landing on his side. He looked winded, but he bounced to his feet and his horse had already stopped. He ran to her and vaulted into the saddle, his back straight and his leg thrown clear of her back. He looked like an athlete.
Several of the young men thought he looked more like a god. Then they all had to do it, their fine cloaks and armour getting an array of dirt and dents as they threw themselves to the ground and remounted. Several of them lost their horses entirely — Eumenes, a competent young man, rolled out of the saddle and his horse bolted, and had to be run down by Kineas himself. After that, Kineas curtailed their enthusiasm. ‘We have miles to ride today,’ he said.
Ajax rubbed his hip. ‘That hurt.’
Kineas smiled at him. ‘You did it very well.’
Ajax beamed. If he still held an opinion on Kineas’s actions in the fight with the Getae, it had been dulled by time and the routine of the unit. Kineas felt some awkwardness in having Ajax as his second in command with all these raw youths, but Ajax took to it immediately, tacitly appointing Eumenes his own second man. Only when Kineas and Philokles had spoken about war had there been something in Ajax’s look — some hesitation perhaps, or disagreement.
The sun was slipping down in the west when Ataelus, his red hood brilliant in the dying sun, came back. Kineas had his cloak tight around him, the bulk of his horse warming his lower half and the icy wind cutting through his helmet.
‘Well?’ asked Kineas.
‘Easy,’ said Ataelus. ‘For me, yes? Tracks and hooves, tracks and hooves. For me I find it. Tomorrow night, we for they camp. Yes? They camp?’ He gestured.
‘You saw their camp, and we’ll be there tomorrow night?’ asked Kineas.
‘See? No. See with eyes? Not for me. See with this!’ and the Scyth pointed at his head. ‘Tracks and hooves — for knowing where, not for seeing where, yes?’
Kineas lost the thread of this, especially as the Scyth tried to introduce details — and barbarian words. ‘So you went out, saw tracks — and we’ll be there tomorrow night?’
‘Yes!’ The Scyth was happy to be understood. ‘Tomorrow, maybe night. Yes. Food?’
Kineas offered him a loaf of bread from lunch and a clay flagon of wine — good wine. The Scyth rode away chuckling.
They continued until near dark with the river flowing dark and cold on their right. On a deep, sandy curve they stopped, and the slaves made camp. The boys were amateurs and insisted on having their own tents, their own bedding, and consequently were too cold to sleep. Kineas slept in a huddle with Philokles, Arni and Ajax, while Ataelus, more private or perhaps more practised still, pulled his horse down and slept against it.
In the morning the boys were drawn. They stood and shivered, waiting for their horses, waiting for the food to be prepared. Kineas set them to throwing javelins. His throat hurt, and he rubbed at it. Arni brought him a tisane and he drank it with honey. It helped for a while.
The sun was a bright orange ball against a dark sky. Arni came over to Kineas with a cloth in his hand, rubbing Kineas’s silver wine cup clean. ‘That’s heavy weather,’ he said, pointing his chin at the sun. Kineas nodded absently.
The boys warmed up quickly and in a few minutes they were again abuzz with questions, most of which was directed at Ajax, who handled them well enough. All of the boys were curious about the Scyth and most wondered aloud if he was some sort of privileged slave. If Ataelus understood any of it before he rode away, he gave no sign and left Ajax to explain his status.
It took more than two hours to get all of the boys packed and mounted — their slaves, while patient and capable, were not used to moving quickly and none of them was used to any discipline beyond the rods of their tutors. Ajax had to raise his voice, and Kineas enjoyed the spectacle of Ajax shouting down an embarrassed Eumenes when the boy wanted the fire to stay lit.
‘But I’m cold!’ said the boy. He sounded horrified that anyone could fail to see this as a crisis.
‘So am I. So are the slaves. Get mounted.’ Ajax sounded so much like Niceas that Kineas turned away to smile.
That second day they played at being a patrol. Kineas didn’t insist on any real degree of skill, but he sent the boys out to scout and report and he went out a few times with them, listened with patience to their reports of deer or cattle tracks, dead sheep, marshland to the west. He instructed. He kept them busy. By noon, he had started to cough in earnest. He didn’t feel bad — in fact, he was enjoying himself — but the coughs got longer. They ate in the saddle when the sun was high, because the boys were tired and Ataelus had returned to report that there were groups of Sakje ahead of them and they could expect to meet a hunting party any time. Kineas had long since admitted to himself that he liked what he had seen of the Sakje, barbarians that they were, and he didn’t expect any hostility from them — but professional caution and a certain desire to impress made him unwilling to be caught with a fire at a meal by one of their patrols. Besides, the sky was dark and it had grown curiously warm. Kineas didn’t know the plains, but he knew the sea. Weather was coming. From the saddle he said a prayer and poured a libation.
After lunch, it began to snow. Kineas had seen snow in Persia, but not like this — big, heavy flakes like the down from a goose. He pulled his cloak around himself and started to cough again, finally leaning over in his saddle and coughing until his chest ached. He noticed that Philokles was supporting his weight in the saddle.
‘You’re scaring the boys,’ Philokles said. ‘And we can’t see the river any more.’
