had been when they crossed the Hellespont, his face still soft and unmarked with harsh experience. His wide eyes spoke well of his good nature, and his gestures had a fledgling dignity. Kineas liked what he saw.
Greek wine was brought in deep vases and poured into a huge bowl of solid gold. The king dipped cups of wine in the bowl and handed them to his guests, blessing each one. When he filled Kineas’s cup, he carried it to where Kineas sat.
Kineas rose, unsure of the protocol and unused to be being waited on by any but slaves.
The king pressed him back down. ‘The blessings of the nine gods of the heavens attend you, Kineas,’ he said in Greek. He had an accent, but his Greek was pure, if Ionic.
Kineas took his cup and drank, as he had seen others do. It was unwatered, pure Chian straight from the vase. He swallowed carefully and a small fire was lit in his stomach.
When the king was seated with a cup in his own hand, he poured a libation and spoke a prayer. Then he leaned forward.
‘To business,’ he said. He was aggressive, in the half-timorous way of the young. ‘Will Olbia fight against Macedon, or submit?’
Kineas was astonished at the speed with which the king moved to the issue at hand. He had made the mistake of finding similarities between the Sakje and the Persians and had therefore expected ceremony and lengthy conversation about trivialities. No answer came to him.
‘Come, Kineas, several of my friends have already broached this topic with you.’ The king leaned forward, clearly enjoying his advantage. ‘What will Olbia do?’
Kineas noted that the boy’s eyes flicked to Srayanka’s for approval. So. ‘I cannot speak for Olbia, sir.’ Kineas met the king’s eye. Close up, he could see the young king was handsome — almost as handsome as Ajax, with a snub barbarian nose the only jarring feature on his face. Kineas toyed with his wine to give himself time to think. ‘I think the archon will first have to be convinced that the threat of Macedon is real.’
The king nodded and exchanged a glance with a big, bearded man at his left. ‘I expected as much and I have no proof to offer. Let me ask a better question. If Macedon marches, will Olbia submit?’
Kineas suspected that the boy was giving memorized questions. He shrugged. ‘Again, you must ask the archon. I cannot speak for Olbia.’ He squirmed as Srayanka glanced at him with indifference and turned back to smile at the king.
The king played with his beard. After a short silence, he nodded. ‘This is as I expected and that is why I must go and see your archon myself.’ He paused. ‘Will you advise me?’
Kineas nodded slowly. ‘As far as I am able. I command the archon’s cavalry. I am not his confidante.’
The king smiled. ‘If you were, I should hardly ask you to advise me.’ He suddenly seemed very mature for his years — it occurred to Kineas that the boy might be asking his own questions, after all — and his sarcasm was as Greek as his language. ‘Many of my nobles feel we should fight. Kam Baqca says we should fight only if Olbia and Pantecapaeum intend to fight. What do you say?’
Easy to be derisory when facing Philokles. More difficult when facing this direct young man. ‘I would hesitate to fight Macedon.’
Srayanka’s head snapped in his direction. Her eyes narrowed. He noted how dark her lips were and how, when she turned her head away, they turned down.
Kam Baqca spoke a few words. The king smiled. ‘Kam Baqca says that you have served the monster and you know more of him than any man here.’
‘The monster?’ asked Kineas.
‘Alexander. Kam Baqca calls him The Monster.’ The king poured himself more wine.
‘I served Alexander,’ Kineas admitted. They all looked at him and he wondered if he was in danger here. None of the looks were friendly; only Kam Baqca regarded him with a smile. And Srayanka busied herself with her riding whip rather than meet his eye.
And he thought, I served him. I loved him. And now I begin to suspect that Kam Baqca is right. He is a monster. He was confused, and the confusion fed his tone. ‘The army of Macedon is the finest in the world. If Antipater sends Zopryon here, he will bring thousands of pike men, Thracians, archers — probably fifteen thousand men on foot. And cavalry from Macedon and Thessaly, the best in the Greek world. Against that, the men of Olbia and Pantecapaeum, plus a few hundred Scythians, were every one of them Achilles come back from the Elysian Fields, would not be enough.’
The king fingered his beard again, and then played with a ring — embarrassed. ‘How many riders do you think I can put in the field, Kineas?’
Kineas was at a loss how to answer, since barbarian kings inevitably exaggerated the numbers of their men. If he flattered and guessed too high, he robbed his own argument of validity. Too low and he insulted the king.
‘I do not know, O King. I see a few hundred here. I’m sure there are more.’
The king laughed. As Kineas’s words were translated, more and more of the Sakje laughed. Even Srayanka laughed.
‘Listen, Kineas. It is winter. The grass is under the snow and there is little wood out on the plains for fires. In winter, every band from every tribe goes its own way, to find food, to get shelter and to cut wood. If we all stayed together, the horses would starve and the animals would all stay away from our bows. I have seen the cities of the Greeks — I was a hostage in Pantecapaeum. I have seen how many people you can put inside a stone wall, with slaves to till the land and slaves to cook it. We have no slaves. We have no walls. But in the spring, if my chief war leaders agree that we must fight, I can call tens of thousands of horsemen here. Perhaps three tens of thousands. Perhaps more.’
Philokles put a hand on Kineas’s knee. ‘Ataelus says this is so. I think it is true. Think before you speak.’
Kineas tried to imagine three tens of thousands of horsemen in a single army. ‘Can you feed them?’ he asked.
The king nodded. ‘For a while. And for a longer while, with the cities at my side. Let me be straight with you, Kineas. I can also simply ride away north into the plains and leave you to the Macedonians. They can march until the snow falls next year and never find me. The plains are vast — greater than all the rest of the world.’
Kineas took a deep breath, shutting out the hand on his knee and the blue eyes under the dark brows across the tent. ‘If you wish to sway the archon, you must convince him that you have such force.’ With three tens of thousands of men and women who rode like Artemis…
The king pointed the toe of his boot at the great golden bowl at his feet. ‘I cannot show him the riders on the great plain, Kineas. But I can show him an enormous amount of gold. And gold is the way to the heart of a Greek, or so I have observed. And your archon might ask himself this. If the bandit king has a mountain of gold, why should he not have thirty thousand riders?’
Kineas winced at the words ‘bandit king’, and the king laughed again. ‘Isn’t that what he calls us? Bandits? Horse thieves? Worse? I heard them all when I was a hostage.’
Kineas said, ‘Then why would you fight at all? Why not retreat into the plains?’
The king sat back until his shoulders rested against a wall hanging. He looked comfortable. ‘Your cities are our riches. We sell our grain there, and we buy goods we love. We can lose these things — we are not bound by them. But we might fight to keep them, too.’ He raised his hand and rocked it to and fro. ‘It balances like this. Fight for our treasure, or leave it?’ He smiled wryly. ‘If I decide rightly, I will be a good king. If I decide poorly, I will be a bad king.’ He stood. ‘You are tired. I will have more questions as we ride. Will you be prepared to depart tomorrow?’
Kineas stood as well, Philokles rising impatiently by his side. ‘O King, I will. By your leave, I will escort you to Olbia.’
‘Let it be so.’
The next day, Kineas still felt light-headed when he moved too fast and the effort of wearing armour was at first too much for him, but he was soon accustomed to it. The snow lay in deep drifts around the camp, tramped flat where the tracks of hunters or wood gatherers left the circle of wagons. Away to the south he could see a great black curve of the river. There was no sign of the track they had followed this far.
‘We will have to go slowly,’ Kineas said to Ajax and Eumenes. Philokles was avoiding him.
‘The Sakje will all have changes of horses.’ Eumenes pointed to where the travelling party was preparing; the king and ten mounted companions. They were all dressed like kings, heavy with gold ornaments. All of them wore red cloaks, although no two cloaks were dyed to exactly the same hue.
