Eumenes was pushing a cup of wine into his hands. Unseen hands made wreaths, and Kineas found himself reclining on a carpet wearing his, while Srayanka sat with her back to a rolled cloak, wearing hers with her hair loose and looking like a muscular nymph.
They watched the rest of the competitions together. At some point he took her hand, and she turned to him and her eyes were wide, her pupils huge, and she moved her thumb across his palm. Despite the crowd around them, she continued to stroke his hand, turning it back and forth as she would, and he began to join her at the game — stroking the back of her hand, comparing the calluses on her palm to the warm softness on the back, daring to touch the inside of her wrist as if it were a much more private place.
It was the closest they had been to privacy. Neither said a word. Time passed, and then the competitions died away into drinking, and then the pressure of the wine on Kineas’s bladder made him rise, much against his will. He looked down, aware that he was grinning like a fool or a love-struck boy with his first serving girl. They didn’t even speak a common language.
She met his eyes and then looked down. She laughed.
‘Srayanka,’ he said.
‘Kineax,’ she said.
And that was the fourth night.
13
The next day, he was stiff and cold when he awoke, and his hands ached, every joint swollen. His right shoulder burned when he reached up to fasten his cloak, the trophy of last night’s throw. He summoned Eumenes and Ataelus.
‘I want to work on my Sakje as we ride,’ he said.
Both of them looked away, smiling. But when they were all mounted, Eumenes and Ataelus joined him, and began to point around them — mare, stallion, sky and grass — and give him the words in Sakje. The roots of the words lurked at the edge of familiarity, like Persian, some like older Greek forms in the Poet, but the declensions were different and the end sounds were barbaric.
Kineas had started the process in the winter, but the press of politics and training had drowned his attempts at language lessons. Now, with the object of his lessons at hand and nothing to do but ride and watch Leucon handle his men, Kineas worked like a boy with a tutor.
Parshtaevalt joined them at the midday halt. He was a tall man, for a Sakje, with pale golden hair and a deep tan. Kineas had gathered that he was some relation to Srayanka, but the relationship was hard to define — a matrilineal cousin. He was also a successful war leader with the hair of a dozen enemies on his saddlecloth. He had a keen intelligence, and he took to the language lessons easily. He seemed to enjoy and admire Greek things.
He rode away after an hour and returned with Srayanka, who rode with them the rest of the day, naming things in Greek as Kineas named them in Sakje. She continued to command the column while she practised her Greek, and Kineas had an opportunity to observe her at work.
She was a fine commander. He watched her separate two men who were fighting over a haunch of venison, her eyes blazing in contrast to her calm, level voice. They shrank down as if struck. She moved around the column, she knew the state of every horse in her considerable herd and her scouts were always alert. In the evening, she spoke to her people when they won contests and when they lost them. That much he gleaned just from watching her. But he learned more from watching her warriors — the respect, almost awe, with which they treated her could be seen in every interaction. She never shied from a contest, and although she didn’t win them all, it was a matter for boasting for the victor when she lost any of them. She was first in the saddle at the start of the day and last in the saddle when the column halted. She had a different face and a different voice for every warrior in her band, man or woman — to some, she explained using her hands to emphasize a point, whereas to others she simply directed.
And all her people loved her.
He talked to Parshtaevalt through Eumenes on the sixth day, when she had ridden away from the language lessons to question a scout. Parshtaevalt now rode with Niceas and Eumenes most of the time, asking questions of the younger man as quickly as he could think of them. When Parshtaevalt mentioned a raid he had been on the year before, Kineas asked, ‘Did Srayanka lead the raid? Against the Getae?’
Ataelus passed the question and then rolled his eyes at the answer. ‘He say — fucking Getae. They burning towns — three towns. For killing every man they found.’
Kineas nodded to indicate he understood. ‘How many actions has she fought?’ he asked, pointing at Srayanka. ‘Raids? Battles?’
Eumenes phrased the question. His Sakje was better every day.
The black-haired man looked down at his reins and then up at the sun, as if looking for inspiration. ‘As many as the days of the moon,’ he said, through Eumenes.
‘Thirty?’ Kineas said aloud. ‘Thirty actions!’
Philokles, who always rode to the sound of a good conversation, appeared from the Sakje part of the column. ‘More than Leonidas,’ he said.
‘More than me,’ said Kineas.
‘More than me,’ said Niceas. He gave Kineas a grin. ‘I’ll be more respectful.’
On the seventh day, the scouts found a herd of deer, and a mixed group of hunters, Sakje and Olbian, rode away to procure fresh meat. They returned with six big carcasses, and Kineas stood beside Srayanka as they ordered the division of the meat. The youngest warriors of the Sakje were skinning the animals, and the Olbian’s slaves were breaking the joints and butchering.
Srayanka watched two young women skinning the biggest buck. Kineas watched her. He could see her desire to say something, or perhaps take the chore herself, although he couldn’t see that they were making any error.
A trio of Olbian cavalrymen, younger ones with no immediate duty, had gravitated to the sight because the two Sakje women had stripped naked to do the bloody work.
Srayanka glanced up from her own concerns when one of the Olbian men said ‘barbarian’ a little too aggressively. She turned to Kineas and raised an eyebrow.
Who needs language? he thought. He walked over to the knot of hippeis. ‘If you gentlemen don’t have anything better to do, I expect I could teach you to do some basic butchering.’
The mouthy one — Alcaeus — shook his head. ‘That’s slave’s work,’ he said. ‘We’re just watching the amazons bathe in blood.’
‘They’re skinning the buck to get the skin, not to impress you with their charms. Move along, or I’ll put you to butchering.’ Kineas kept his voice low. He didn’t want to advertise the poor behaviour of his men. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Srayanka’s trumpeter and a half-dozen other Sakje, watching and flicking their riding whips.
Alcaeus put his hands on his hips. ‘I’m not on duty.’ He tossed his head arrogantly. ‘I can watch the barbarians show their tits if I want.’
His companions both moved away from him as if he had the plague. Kineas glanced around for Niceas or Eumenes — he would have preferred that this obvious indiscipline be dealt with by someone else. But they were both busy.
Still keeping his voice low, Kineas said, ‘No, you can’t. Don’t be a fool. Go to your horse and curry him. Then join the sentries until I order you in.’
The man looked affronted rather than sheepish. ‘I take my orders from Leucon,’ he said. ‘And besides-’
‘Silence!’ Kineas said in his battlefield voice. ‘Not another word.’
Alcaeus shifted his gaze to look past Kineas at the two women. He glanced at his two companions with all the arrogance of an adolescent assuring himself of an audience. He smirked. ‘You’re blocking my view,’ he said lazily.
Kineas lost his temper. It happened in a moment — he felt the flood of anger and then he had knocked the stupid boy unconscious with a single blow. It hurt his shoulder and split a knuckle. He turned on one of the man’s
