Kineas’s breath away. A temple stood on a high bluff over the river, and around it lay an acropolis of large log structures, brightly coloured, and smaller buildings built of hewn timber and earth. The acropolis itself was small enough, but the walls that surrounded it ran off to join earthworks three men tall that ran off almost to the horizon.
‘It’s not really a city,’ Satrax said. They were standing together on the walls of the acropolis. ‘It’s really a big stock pen.’
Kineas had spent two days discussing plans with Marthax, the king’s principal warlord, and other of his inner council — Kam Baqca, the king himself, and Srayanka. Eumenes and Ataelus were exhausted from constant translation, and even the king, the only man among them to speak Sakje and Greek with equal fluency, was showing the strain. When Kineas slept, he had dreams of languages, where Sakje dogs accosted him in broken Greek, where objects named themselves in Sakje. He was learning the language, but his brain was tired all the time.
The king ordained a break, and dragged Kineas outside to see the sun. He was less distant, less aggressive, than he had been at their winter meeting.
Srayanka, who ignored Kineas as if he didn’t exist, spent most of her time with the king. While they debated the conduct of the war, she opposed him, always seeking the rashest course. In this, he sided with the young king and caution. She didn’t seem to hold the cautious policy against the king. She focused her discontent on just one man.
That morning, however, she was off with the other fighting women and Kam Baqca. Something about religion.
Kineas was heartsick, and only the loss of Srayanka’s favour informed him fully of what she had come to mean to him over the winter. He chided himself for being a fool — he had help in this from Niceas — and tried to concentrate on the weighty matters at hand. Of course she, as the greatest magnate among the Assagatje, would favour the king, who doted on her.
Kineas realized that the king had been speaking for some time. He seemed to expect a response.
Kineas waved at the stock pens. With the exception of the acropolis, and a built-up stretch along the river where the Sindi farmers had a town and Greek merchants had their warehouses, the rest of the walls were empty.
‘Who built the walls?’ Kineas asked. ‘They go on for what — forty stades?’
‘Twice that, if you include all the tribal enclosures.’ The king gave a proud smile. ‘The Sindi did it. Many years ago, after the threat of Darius. The Sakje decided that we needed a safe place for all the herds in time of war, and the Sindi agreed to build the walls.’
‘The Sindi are your peasants?’ Kineas asked. There were Sindi farmers in Olbia, but there were also Sindi aristocrats. They were native to the Euxine, but many of them had assimilated so successfully with the Greeks that the only sign of them was their dark eyes and straight black hair. Eumenes had the hair, Kyros had the eyes, and young Clio had both.
The king shook his head. ‘The Sindi love the dirt. The Sakje love the sky.’ He shrugged. ‘When first we came, so our legend says, we had contempt for the Sindi. We destroyed their army and took their women.’ He glanced at Kineas and raised an eyebrow. ‘All sounds likely enough. But they fought back in their own ways. They shot our men from behind trees. They fouled wells and killed men in their sleep.’ The king shrugged. ‘So the legend says. Myself, I think that the wiser Sakje knew from the first that without the grain raised by Sindi farmers, there would be no gold and no Greek wine. Does it matter? We are not really two peoples any longer. We are one people with two different faces.’ He leaned out over the timber hoarding of the acropolis wall and pointed at a crowd of merchants arguing over grain prices at the base of the wall. ‘Sometimes in the villages, there is a boy or a girl. They live in the dirt, but they want the sky, and one day, when a band of Sakje ride by, the boy or girl goes to the chief and says, “Take me.” And in the same way, sometimes a rider, old or young, watches the grass grow and yearns for the earth, for something solid under his feet. Such a one goes to the chief of a village and says, “Take me.” He turned to Kineas, his handsome face lit by the rising sun. ‘I am the king of all of them. So I love the dirt and the sky.’
The wind was warmer and the grass was greener, but the north wind bit hard and Kineas pulled his cloak tight around his shoulders for warmth. He looked at the walls he could see, following them from west to east, right up to the river. Athens, Piraeus, Olbia and Tomis would fit inside those walls and still have room. But there weren’t enough people to fill a small Greek town. ‘Stock pens,’ he said as a reminder.
‘When the tribes come in for the festival, or in time of war, there is grazing for their herds — at least for a month. The walls serve to keep the animals in, and to keep raiders out.’ He grinned. ‘So we have a population higher than Athens — if you count goats.’
‘I see a great many merchants.’ Kineas could see further than usual over the plains. ‘And villages on the river. We never saw a village in two weeks travel.’
The king nodded. ‘The merchants don’t speak much about this. It’s a trade secret. This is where the grain is grown. Those warehouses are where the grain is stored. They ship it down the river in barges, spring and fall. Why tell other men?’ He looked out over the wall. ‘But neither is it a secret. I suspect most of your men could have told you.’
Kineas shook his head. ‘I feel like a fool. I thought I was going to find a field of tents.’
‘In a month, you would have. We don’t live here — except for the Sindi, the merchants, and a handful of priests.’
‘Not even for the winter?’ Kineas asked.
The king nodded. ‘I have wintered here. The hill is cold.’ He looked north. ‘I prefer to winter in the north, by the trees.’
The king began to walk back into the great hall at the top of the acropolis, opposite the temple. The great hall was a log version of a Greek megaron, with a central hearth. The fire blazed as high as a man. The warmth could be felt as soon as the two men pushed through the tapestries that covered the great door.
The tapestries were a shock of colour. They were as alien as the endless sky and the sea of grass. The pair that kept the cold at bay in the door were made from heavy felt in many layers, with figures of men and horses and fantastic beasts cut out or applied in bright colours and geometric patterns on a white ground. On the walls hung larger panels of heavy wool embroidered with griffons and horses, huge horned deer and hunting cats. The floor was deep in bright carpets such as Kineas had seen in Kam Baqca’s tent. The dominant colour was red, and the warmth was palpable.
The king waved at Marthax, standing by the fire with Kam Baqca in a magnificent robe, and Philokles.
‘What trees? How far are the trees?’ Kineas asked. He was looking for Srayanka.
‘A thousand stades, or more. I doubt it could be measured. The trees are like another world. A world of forests. The Sindi say that once, all the world was a single forest.’ He shrugged. ‘I have seen the sea, and I have seen the trees. Each is like another world.’
‘Why winter there?’ Kineas asked.
‘More wood makes bigger fires,’ Satrax said with the adolescent sneer he’d avoided all morning. He grinned. ‘It’s not complicated.’
Kineas thought of the walls, the warehouses, and the grain. ‘You don’t need Olbia as a base to feed your army,’ he said.
Satrax grinned. ‘It wouldn’t hurt to spread the cost. I don’t own all that grain. But no. I lied. Kings do that, when they must. I don’t need Olbia.’
Kineas grinned back, but then narrowed his eyes. ‘But you do have something for the Macedonians to march against. A city to lose. You can’t really just melt into the grass.’ He stopped as if struck. ‘You have to fight for your farmers.’
They joined the circle at the fire. The Sakje had little ceremony — the king came and went like any free man, and the respect accorded him was no more — or less — than that given by Greek soldiers to a commander they respected. The king took a cup of heated apple cider from the woman who was mulling it by the fire. Then he sat on a pile of carpets.
While Kineas got his own cider, the king answered. ‘Yes and no, Kineas. I could still melt into the grass. Nothing here is built in stone. That’s our law. Zopryon can burn the lot — we’ll build it back in a season. Or move.’ He waved at a group of merchants by the fire. ‘And if we all agreed to it, the Sindi would come with us.’
Kineas sat — without the grace all the Sakje showed in descending to the carpets.
The king looked into the fire. ‘But I don’t want to build it again. I don’t want the interruption in trade. In fact,
