14
The Sakje town had a market as big as any on the Euxine. Twenty stalls competed to sell every edged implement from the simplest eating knife to the heavy rhompheas, the new, heavy swords favoured by the Thracian hillmen. Simple short swords were available at every booth, from plain iron weapons with serviceable bone hilts to fanciful examples decorated in Persian gold work.
Cavalry swords were less common because the Sakje didn’t like them. Kineas walked from one booth to the next, comparing lengths and weights, price, ornamentation, and practicality. Kineas enjoyed shopping and hearing the talk of war. Sword merchants were notorious gossips, often spies. Most of the stalls were run by slaves, but one was held by its owner, a big Egyptian freedman with his own stall and a wagon.
After he’d examined every ware on the man’s table, he was invited to drink wine. In half a cup, he heard professional gossip from Ectabana and from Egypt and all the lands in between.
‘You’re the hipparch I’ve heard so much about?’ the merchant asked. ‘No offence, but you’re in for it.’
Kineas shrugged and swirled the second cup of excellent wine in the plain horn cup he’d been offered. ‘I gather Zopryon has quite an army,’ he observed.
‘Zopryon means to conquer these Sakje — all the Scyths,’ the merchant replied. ‘At least, that’s what he says in his cups. Darius failed, Xerxes failed, Cyrus died fighting them — Zopryon figures that he can get a name up there.’ The merchant took a sip of his own wine and gave a slight smile. ‘All of them want to rival Alexander.’ He made the lords of Macedon sound like foolish boys.
Kineas was sitting on a leather stool behind the man’s stall, watching Laertes haggle for an expensive knife at the next stall. As he watched, Laertes’ face went through a series of expressions like a comic mime — anger, irritation, puzzlement, pleasure — as the price dropped.
The merchant was watching the exchange as well. ‘That man’s good at haggling. One of your soldiers?’
‘And an old family friend,’ said Kineas. ‘We grew up together.’
‘In Athens,’ the merchant said, and then paused, realizing that perhaps he’d said too much. ‘Well — that’s what I heard — and your accent.’
Kineas turned away to hide his smile. ‘He helped save my life at Issus,’ he said.
‘Nice kind of friend,’ the merchant said. ‘The kind of friend the gods send to a man.’ Both of them spilled wine on the ground. Then choosing his words carefully, the merchant said, ‘That would be when you won the prize for bravery.’
Kineas nodded. ‘Stupidity, more like.’ He considered the merchant for a few breaths. ‘You know too much about me.’
The merchant looked around and shrugged. ‘I came here from Tomis,’ he said. ‘Where Zopryon is raising his army.’
‘Ah,’ Kineas replied, pleased at the man’s calm. He was obviously a spy, but in some small way an honest one.
‘Zopryon has heard all about you from the veterans on his staff. The hipparch of his regiment of companions — Phillip? They’re all named Phillip, aren’t they?’
‘So they are,’ Kineas agreed. He knew a Phillip who commanded companions. The dreaded Hetaerae — the finest heavy cavalry in the world.
‘I gather this Phillip had a woman named Artemis.’
Kineas narrowed his eyes. ‘Yes,’ he said.
‘She has a very high opinion of you,’ said the Egyptian. ‘I began to wonder if this campaign is as one-sided as people in Thrace claim it is.’
Kineas leaned forward. ‘Zopryon may be surprised by the strength of the opposition,’ he said carefully.
The merchant flicked his eyes around the Sakje and Sindi in the crowd and then let his gaze fall heavily on Kineas. ‘Do tell,’ he said.
Kineas smiled. ‘Phillip barely scraped a victory out of his fight with the Scyths,’ he said. ‘Cyrus died. Darius ran home with his whiskers burned. What does that tell you?’
The Egyptian had a fur-lined Thracian cloak across his lap. He pulled it around his shoulders. ‘You tell me,’ he said slowly.
Kineas leaned back. ‘I’m here to buy a good sword, not swap gossip.’
The merchant took his turn to shrug. ‘I have a few good swords I save for special customers,’ he said. ‘The kind that bring me good gossip are my favourites.’ He watched Laertes paying for his purchase. Kineas was glad to see the man happy.
Kineas got up and began to toy with one of the infantry short swords on the merchant’s table. ‘There are a lot of Scyths,’ he said. He rolled his wrist, letting the sword fall into an imaginary victim under its own weight. Too light. He knew that.
The merchant looked bored. ‘This is something about which I have wondered much,’ he said. He poured more wine from a ewer and held it up for Kineas, who held out his horn cup.
‘Think of it this way,’ Kineas said. ‘There are Scyths here, there are Scyths all around the Euxine. Scyths north of Bactria, and north of Persia, and everywhere in between.’
The Egyptian nodded. ‘Just as Herodotus says.’ He got up, shrugged the cloak into place on his shoulders, and took a heavy rug off the two-wheeled cart at the back of his stall.
Kineas had had all winter to read Herodotus. It had become one of his favourite pastimes. Especially the part about Amazons. ‘He came to Olbia,’ Kineas said. ‘He knew what he was talking about.’
The merchant nodded. ‘I expect he did,’ he said. ‘Will they fight?’
Kineas watched him unroll the rug. It had four swords in its folds. Two were short and two were long. The longest was shaped like a Greek cavalry sword, a true machaira, the weight near the tip of the blade, curved like a reversed sickle, but it had a wicked point. It felt curiously light in his hand, almost alive. The tang had a simple leather wrapping and no hilt. Kineas rolled it in his fist and let the point drop. It bit into the table with a soft thunk. ‘Beautiful,’ he said.
‘Steel,’ the merchant said. He flexed it in his hands and handed it back. ‘There’s a priest in Alexandria who has the knack. He doesn’t make many, but every one of them comes out right.’ The merchant drank wine, put his cup down and rubbed his hands before blowing on them. Then he said, ‘I’ve seen other men make steel blades — one in a dozen, or one in a hundred. This priest is the only man I know who makes them every time.’
The blade seemed to have a dozen colours trapped just under the surface, which was polished to a degree Kineas had not seen before. He made an overhand cut and the sword sang as it cut the air. Kineas realized that he had a broad smile on his face. He couldn’t help it. ‘How much?’ he asked.
‘How many Scyths are there?’ the man asked again.
Kineas rubbed his thumb on the tang. ‘Thousands,’ he said, and sat back on his stool.
The Egyptian nodded. ‘The Getae tell Lord Zopryon that there are only a few hundred warriors, the last remnant of a proud race, and that he can conquer them in a summer. Zopryon intends to take Olbia and Pantecapaeum to pay for the campaign and to serve as bases, and then march inland, building forts as he goes. I tell you nothing that is not common knowledge, yes?’ He looked intently at Kineas for a reaction.
It wasn’t common knowledge in Olbia. Kineas tried to keep his face blank. It must have been good enough, because the Egyptian continued. ‘But some of the older officers ask questions about the numbers of the nomads. They say the old king brought ten thousand horsemen to fight Phillip.’ He gestured with his chin at the sword blade across Kineas lap. ‘Eight minae of silver.’
Kineas handed the sword back with regret. ‘Too rich for me,’ he said. ‘I’m an officer, not a god.’ He rose. ‘Thanks for the wine.’
The Egyptian rose as well, and bowed. ‘I could perhaps accept seven minae.’
Kineas shook his head. ‘He must be a very rich priest, this fellow in Alexandria. Two minae would break me. I’d have to go sell my services to Zopryon.’
The merchant gave him an amused look. ‘You are the hipparch of the richest city on the Euxine. You plead poverty? I think rather that you are some hard-hearted rich man who seeks to beggar me and leave my wife and my two expensive daughters as paupers. That sword is a gift of the gods to a fighting man. Look — I didn’t even bother to put a hilt on it, because only a rich fool or a swordsman would want the thing. The first would want a hilt I can’t
