afford, and the second would want to hilt it himself. The sword was made for you. Make me an offer!’
Kineas found that he had picked the sword up again. Not his best bargaining technique. ‘I might be able to find three minae.’
The Egyptian raised his hands to heaven and then pulled them abruptly down on his head. ‘I’d have my slaves throw you in the mud, except you are a guest,’ he said, and then he smiled. ‘And, of course, none of my slaves are big enough to throw you in the mud, and your friend the king could have me executed.’ He put his hands on his hips. ‘Let us drop this haggling. You pleased me with your tidbits about the Scyth. You are the first man of sense I have met in this market. Make me a genuine offer and I will take it.’
Kineas leaned close, where he could smell the rose-scented perfume on the other man and the fish sauce he’d had with his lunch. ‘The Sakje here will eat Zopryon for dinner.’
The Egyptian narrowed his eyes. ‘And your alliance with him is firm?’
Kineas shrugged. ‘I suspect Zopryon would like to know.’ He grinned. ‘Will he hear it from you?’
‘Amon — do I look like a spy for Zopryon?’ The Egyptian smiled. With a sleight of hand that Kineas had to admire, two small scrolls were pressed into Kineas’s cloak.
To cover the movement, Kineas nodded. ‘I might go to four minae,’ he said.
The Egyptian shrugged. ‘Now you offer some money. Still not enough.’ He pulled his cloak tighter. ‘When the assembly restores your father’s property, you’ll be so rich you can buy every sword in the market.’
Kineas raised an eyebrow. ‘Your words to Zeus, Egyptian. Or do you know something?’
‘I know many people,’ the Egyptian said. ‘Some live in Athens.’ He made a face and pulled his cloak tighter yet. ‘By Zeus-Amon, it’s colder than Olbia.’
Kineas’s eyebrows shot up. ‘You were in Olbia?’
‘I just missed you,’ said the Egyptian. Raising his voice, he said, ‘Perhaps I might let you keep this sword for six minae.’
Kineas was too eager to read the letters to wait and haggle over the sword blade. ‘I don’t have six minae,’ Kineas said. He put the horn cup down on the table and laid the sword gently on the rug. ‘I wish I did.’ He gave the Egyptian a short bow. ‘Thanks for the wine.’
‘Any time,’ said the merchant. ‘Borrow the money!’
Kineas laughed and walked away. At a table in a tented wine shop, he read the two scrolls — letters from Athens. The letters were months behind. He rubbed his face, and then laughed.
Athens wanted him to stop Zopryon.
One thing the Sakje town boasted out of all proportion to its size were goldsmiths. Kineas walked among them with the king’s companion Dikarxes, as well as Ataelus and Philokles. Gold was cheap here — not cheap, per se, but cheaper than in Athens — and the Sakje required it for every garment, every ornament. There were shops of craftsmen from Persia and from Athens and from as far afield as the Etruscan peninsula north of Syracuse. The crowds of goldsmiths made Kineas feel yet more foolish for imagining the town a secret.
A freedman from Athens ran a shop with six men of all races working. The bust of Athena in his shop window and the sound of his voice moved Kineas profoundly, and he entered to talk and stayed to buy. He presented the Egyptian sword blade to be hilted — purchased the day before for five minae.
‘Quite a piece of iron,’ said the Athenian. He made a face. ‘Most of my customers want a horse or a griffon on their swords. What do you fancy?’
‘A hilt that balances the blade,’ Kineas said.
‘How much can you pay?’ asked the man, eyeing the blade with professional interest. He put it on a scale and weighed it, made notes on a wax tablet. ‘Point heavy? Show me where you want the balance. Close enough.’ He set some weights on the balance and then wrote the result, drew a line on the blade with a wax stylus.
Kineas looked around the shop. Parshtaevalt was admiring a gorytos cover — solid gold, with magnificent depictions of Olympus — surrounded by a score of Assagatje nobles. ‘Not as much as they can pay,’ he said. ‘Two minae of silver?’ he said. He’d have to borrow it — the sword had returned him to penury.
The goldsmith tilted his head. ‘I suppose I could make it from lead,’ he said.
Parshtaevalt leaned over. ‘Listen — you big man. King pay for you, yes yes.’
‘I don’t want the king to pay,’ Kineas said.
‘Let me build you something as fine as the blade,’ said the Athenian smith. ‘You’re the hipparch of Olbia — I’ve heard of you. Your credit is good with me.’
Kineas relinquished the blade with some hesitation.
Dikarxes, the king’s friend, pushed past Philokles. The shop was growing crowded with Sakje nobles — almost every man and woman from the council. Parshtaevalt growled a greeting and Dikarxes replied at length. Ataelus translated. ‘Trust you to find out all our secrets! Our own Athenian goldsmith!’ Parshtaevalt slapped his back.
Dikarxes spoke again, and Ataelus said, ‘Of course the king for pay. He for show favour you. He ask everyone what gift to give. What better gift than sword?’
Dikarxes interrupted to introduce the other nobles. ‘Kaliax of the Standing Horse,’ he said through Ataelus. And went on, ‘Gaomavant of the Patient Wolves. They are the most loyal — the core of the king’s army — with the Cruel Hands, of course.’ He grinned at Parshtaevalt. ‘It is a very good sign that they are already come in, with most of their strength.’
Kineas clasped hands with each in turn.
Gaomavant gave him a tight hug and spoke while slapping his back. Ataelus choked, and Eumenes translated, his face red as a flame. ‘He says — you are the one that Srayanka fancies. It is good you are so tough, or she will swallow you.’
Dikarxes said a few words, and the others roared, and again Gaomavant slapped his back.
Ataelus wiped his eyes. ‘Lord Dikarxes say — good for everyone if she mate you — you Greek, and no clan suffer from the alliance. If Cruel Hands join Patient Wolves, blood on the grass — yes? Cruel Hands mate with king — king too powerful. But Cruel Hands-’
‘Cruel Hands?’ Kineas asked. ‘Is that Srayanka’s clan?’
Ataelus nodded. ‘And lady’s war name, too. Cruel Hands.’
Philokles patted his shoulder. ‘Nice name. Perfect little Greek wife.’
Kineas made himself laugh, but for the rest of the afternoon he heard Ataelus’s voice in his head — Cruel Hands mate with king.
Kineas tried to avoid Kam Baqca because the woman scared him. She was the personification of the dreams that troubled him, and in her presence, the dreams of the tree and the plain seemed more imminent — almost real. But on his fifth day in the city of the Sakje, Kam Baqca found him in the great hall and seized his arm in hers — strong as an iron blade — and walked him to a curtained alcove like a tent. She threw a handful of seeds on a brazier and a cloud of heavy smoke rose around them. The smoke smelled like cut grass. It made him cough.
‘You dreamed the tree,’ she said.
He nodded.
‘You dreamed the tree twice. You touched the tree, and you are paying the price. But you waited for me to climb it, so you are not altogether a fool.’
Kineas bit his lips. There was a drug in the incense — he could feel it. ‘I am a Greek man,’ he said. ‘Your tree is not for me.’
She seemed to move in the smoke like a snake, coiling, flowing easily from one place to another. ‘You are a baqca born,’ she said. ‘You dream like a baqca. Are you ready for the tree? I must take you now, while I have you. Soon you will be gone, and the maw of war will devour you. It is a war I will not survive — and then there will be no one to take you to the tree. And without the tree, you will neither survive, nor win the lady.’ She was telling him too many things too fast.
‘You will die?’
She was beside him. ‘Listen to me.’ She held his arm in a grip of iron. ‘Listen. The first thing the tree shows you is the moment of your death. Are you ready for that?’
Kineas wasn’t ready for any of it. ‘I am a Greek man,’ he said again, although it sounded like a poor excuse. Especially as the tree itself was growing before his eyes, rising from the smoke-dense tent, straight out of the charcoal of the brazier, its heavy branches just over his head and rising into the heavens above him.
‘Take a branch and climb,’ she said.
