yes.’
‘So he will not retreat to disgrace. He will lash out. He will, if he can, force us to battle.’ Kam Baqca sat up on her knees. ‘Even if he must take reckless gambles with his men and his supplies.’
All the Greeks nodded.
She also nodded, as if to herself. ‘It is the wounded boar who kills men. It is the boar with no hope who gores kings.’
‘Ouch,’ muttered Niceas.
Srayanka bowed her head to Kam Baqca. ‘Honoured one, we need not fear him. With our full muster-’
Kam Baqca reached out and touched her face. ‘We might still lose. Every person in this circle might lie broken under the long moon.. ’ She stopped and closed her eyes.
The king watched her closely. ‘Do you prophesy?’
She opened her eyes. ‘It is on a sword’s edge. As I have said.’
Kineas spoke with all the conviction of a man forced to speak against his will. ‘We will not win such a battle.’
Srayanka spoke — not angrily, but with great force, and the king translated for her. ‘You sound as if he is Alexander!’ he said, mimicking Srayanka’s gesture. ‘What if he makes the wrong choice? What if he retreats?’ Kineas watched her face while the king translated her words. ‘You have never seen us fight, Kineax. Do you think we are cowards?’ She clenched her fist and held it up. ‘Perhaps we lack the discipline you have, but we are strong.’
Kineas shook his head. He was not doing well at avoiding her eyes, but when he spoke, he was controlled. ‘Zopryon is no Alexander. Praise the gods, he is an average commander with no particular gifts. But the worst commander in Macedon knows how to conduct this kind of campaign. In Greece, we have books to tell us even if we don’t have veterans to tell us how to do it.’ He frowned. ‘I have never seen you fight, but I know you to be brave. But no amount of courage will break the front of a taxeis.’
The king translated his reply and then looked at both of them. ‘Kineas, my father’s sister’s daughter has more merit in her argument than you might think. You have never seen us fight. You don’t know what we can muster.’ He turned to Srayanka. ‘Yet as I first said, Kineas thinks like a king. Battle is a risk. War is a danger. Why chase fortune’s tail?’ He looked at Marthax, who nodded deeply, so that his grey and black beard rode up and down on his chest.
‘I hadn’t thought to destroy the ferry at Antiphilous,’ the king continued. ‘And I didn’t know how great Zopryon’s fleet might be. But in other respects, is this not the plan as we discussed it all winter? And you, my lady — did I not warn you that Kineas would bring even more reasons to be wary?’
Marthax drained his cup and belched. ‘Better,’ he said, and Kineas understood before Ataelus translated. He went on. ‘When he reaches some agreed point we harry him. And then, unless he retreats, we offer submission.’ He grinned. ‘Only a fool would reject us.’
Kam Baqca sat back on her heels and sipped a cup of wine. ‘He will reject us,’ she said. ‘I have seen it.’
Srayanka’s head snapped around. She spoke at length, and with the kind of vehemence that Kineas associated with reprimands to errant troopers. She spoke quickly and her voice rose in pitch, so that he couldn’t even pick out words.
Eumenes shook his head, lost by the fluidity of her speech. Even Ataelus hesitated. The king came to their rescue. ‘She says that if Kam Baqca has already foreseen the rejection, we can save ourselves the shame of offering the submission and concentrate on proving Kineas to be a fool about the battle.’ He avoided looking at Kineas. ‘She said some other things best left between her and Kam Baqca. But I will answer her.’ He spoke briefly in Sakje, and then said, in Greek, ‘I am king. Kam Baqca is often correct, but she herself says that the future is like the wax of a candle, and the closer it gets to the flame, the more malleable it is. She has been surprised. I have been surprised.’ He turned to Srayanka and spoke in Sakje, and she put her hands to her face — a girlish gesture Kineas had never seen her use.
In Greek, the king said, ‘We will not have our full muster of strength.
Many horses we should have counted from our cousins the Massakje. Many we should have counted from our cousins the Sauromatae.’ He looked around the circle. ‘This is not for every man to discuss. Alexander is beating at the eastern gates of the grass, just as Zopryon beats at the west gate. The monster is in Bactria, chasing a rebel satrap.’ The king rolled his shoulders and looked very young. ‘Or he has always planned the campaign this way — to have armies enter the plain of grass from either end. Kam Baqca says this is not true — that it is mere happenstance. But it makes no difference to us. We will have only two thirds of our full muster. Perhaps less. The Getae are already marching east, and our easternmost clans will have to protect their farmers.’ He shrugged, spoke a long sentence in Sakje. Kineas understood several words — no horses and Macedon. In Greek, the king said, ‘Submission alone costs us nothing. There is no shame in it, because we have no intention to submit.’
Somewhere in his head, Kineas realized that nothing in Greek was indicated in Sakje by no horses. Surrender costs us no horses, the king said. Kineas nodded in satisfaction.
‘The grass is growing,’ Kam Baqca said. ‘The ground is almost hard. In a week the last of the heavy rain will pass. In two weeks, he will march.’
Kineas nodded in agreement.
The king said, ‘Where do we appoint the muster? Where do we assemble our army?’
Kineas shrugged. ‘We need to cover Olbia. If Zopryon takes Olbia you will have no choices at all. And if the archon does not feel that you are willing to protect him, he will abandon the alliance and submit — really submit.’ Privately, Kineas thought that the archon might be tempted to make such a submission anyway. ‘The closer the main army is to Olbia, the more reliable will be your alliance with the Euxine cities.’
The king nodded while Kineas’s words were translated for the Sakje. ‘So that my army threatens even as it protects.’ Satrax said. He put his chin on his hand. ‘It will be a month before I have even half my army in hand.’
Marthax spoke. The king listened and nodded. Eumenes said, ‘Marthax says that the ferry will have to be destroyed immediately — that the riders should be dispatched today.’
Kineas looked at Marthax and nodded emphatically. Then he said, ‘Our camp should be on the other bank of the great river, near a ford. If a battle must be fought, we must seize every advantage. Make Zopryon cross the river, if we come to that extremity.’
Srayanka waited for his translation and then spoke, as did several of the other Sakje nobles.
The king said, ‘All of them agree that if we need a ford and a place to camp, the best is the far side of the campsite at the Great Bend. There is water and forage for an army, and supplies can reach us easily on boats.’ He paused, and then said, ‘Let it be so. The muster is appointed for the summer solstice, at the Great Bend.’ To Kineas, he said, ‘You will bring the city troops? We have nothing like your hoplites — and few enough of our nobles have the armour of your cavalry.’
Kineas agreed. ‘I will bring the troops of the Euxine cities to the Great Bend by the solstice,’ he said. He hoped he was telling the truth.
They talked about the campaign for two more days. They planned the muster of the Sakje. Messengers were dispatched to the leading Sakje clans to appoint the muster. They drafted letters for Pantecapaeum and for Olbia. Marthax was to go with sixty warriors to destroy the ferry, a job he felt required his presence in person. Before he departed Kineas took him aside and asked him to spare the farm by the bay where Graccus was buried, and Marthax laughed.
‘Many and many the wine I swill there, Kineax,’ Ataelus translated. Marthax gave Kineas a hug, which he returned. ‘Old man feel no fire from us.’ He gave Kineas a squeeze that threatened his ribs. ‘Worry for less, Kineas. Plan good.’
Kineas extricated himself from Marthax’s hug. The trust that Marthax put in him unnerved him. ‘I am not a commander of armies,’ Kineas said.
The young king emerged from the door behind his warlord. He shrugged at Kineas. ‘Nor am I. But if I intended to make shoes, I would go to a shoemaker.’
‘Plato,’ said Kineas with a sour smile.
‘Socrates,’ said Philokles. ‘Plato would have tried to make the shoes all by himself.’
