He reached up and took the first soft-backed branch over his head, threw a leg over it clumsily and pulled himself up. His arms were as full of the drug as his head. He found that he had closed his eyes and he opened them.
He was sitting on a horse in the middle of a river — a shallow river, with rocks under his horse’s feet and pink water flowing over and around the rocks. The ford — it was a ford — was full of bodies. Men and horses, all dead, and the white water burbling over the rocks was stained with blood, the froth of the water pink in the sun.
The river was vast. Not Issus, then, some part of his mind said. He lifted his head and saw the far bank, and he rode towards it. There were other men behind him, all around him, and they were singing. He was astride a strange horse, tall and dark, and he felt the weight of strange armour.
He felt the power of a god.
He knew that feeling — the feeling of a battle won.
He gestured, and his cavalry gathered speed, crossing the ford faster. On the far bank a thin line of archers began to form and fire, but behind them was the chaos of defeat and rout — a whole army breaking into fragments.
A Macedonian army.
A half-stade from the archers, he raised his hands, his gold-hilted sword of Egyptian steel like a rainbow of death in his hand. He half turned to Niceas — it wasn’t Niceas, but a woman — the woman raised the trumpet to her lips, and the call rang like a clarion, and they charged.
The day was won. It was his last thought as the arrow knocked him from the saddle into the water. He was deep in the water, and he had been here before, and he pushed himself to his feet, but the arrow dragged him down.
He sat — alive — astride a branch of the tree, and it was as soft as a woman’s leg against his groin.
Kam Baqca spoke. ‘You have seen your death?’
Kineas was lying flat, holding someone’s hand, his death scream still raw in his throat. ‘Yes,’ he whispered.
He opened his eyes and found that he was holding Kam Baqca’s hand. Not a bad death, he thought.
Niceas had not been beside him when he fell. Had Philokles been there? Hard to tell in the chaos of a few seconds — all the men at his back had worn closed helmets, and most had been in coats of scale — Sakje armour, in fact.
Kam Baqca spoke again. ‘Do not dare to interpret what you have seen. You may be sure of what it means and you can still be surprised. You have begun to climb the tree — I have climbed it all my life. I gave my sex to the gods to help me climb faster. You do not even believe in the climb. Beware of hubris.’
‘What?’ He coughed, as if he still had water in his lungs. His mind was clear, but his body was sluggish.
‘There are no rules for Greeks,’ she replied. ‘But I think you will find it unwise to speak of it — especially in a few weeks, when you decide that I am a bent she-man who uses drugs to manipulate.’ She shrugged. ‘Perhaps I wrong you. You and Philokles — I have never met, nor seen in any dream, Greek men more open to new things.’
Kam Baqca rose on her haunches and threw another herb on the fire — this one redolent of pine. ‘That will clear your head and take death from your spirit,’ she said. She stood. ‘It is a week for hard news, Kineas the Athenian. Here is mine for you. You watch Srayanka like the stallion watches the mare. I tell you, and I speak for the king — we will not allow stallions and mares to serve in the same company, because they disturb all the horses. So with you. You will not mate until this war is over. Already Srayanka thinks more of you than of her duty. Already you fear to offend her rather than offering the king your best council.’ She put a hand on his shoulder. ‘Who cannot see that you are for each other, although you share no tongue? But not yet, and not now.’
Kineas spoke, and he couldn’t hide the anguish in his voice. ‘She hasn’t spoken to me in a week!’
‘Has she not?’ Kam Baqca seemed unperturbed by his tone. ‘You are blind, deaf, and stupid, then.’ She gave him a small smile. ‘When you grow less stupid, I ask that you have a care.’
‘It’s a care I would like to have,’ Kineas said.
Kam Baqca reached out and touched his cheek. ‘Everything — everything — is balanced in the blade of a sharp sword. One word, one act, and the balance tilts.’
Kineas thought less of the balance than of the fact that he was doomed to die — and soon.
15
They rode like Sakje on the road home, trotting for miles, changing horses, and moving again. They had no escort this time, just Parshtaevalt and a second Cruel Hand called Gavan as guides and messengers.
Through the entire trip, Kineas felt the press of urgency on his shoulders. The ground was hard enough. Zopryon could march at any time, and the campaign, for so long in abeyance, was suddenly upon him and he felt unprepared. He worried about the archon’s treachery, and about the morale of the city, about the lives of his troops and about the alliance of the Sakje, their numbers, their quality.
And having foreseen his own death, he struggled to understand what it meant — or whether he accepted it as genuine prophecy, or merely the result of the smoke. The Sakje used a drug of smoke for many things, including recreation. He’d experienced it more than once now, when visiting Dikarxes, when sitting in the great hall while the drug was cast in braziers. He’d smelled it in Kam Baqca’s tent in the snow. It was possible that the drug was the root of all the dreams. And if the dream was real — it was a two-edged sword. No man wanted to know he had just sixty days to live. But there was comfort, too — to fall at the hour of victory had at least the virtue of predicting victory.
Of all the things he had ever wanted to discuss with Philokles, this — the dreams, the prophecy, oracular powers, dreams of death and of the future — pressed on him every time they spoke, and yet some reserve, some caution about making it more real by discussing it aloud, kept him from it.
And, of course, the Baqca had forbidden it.
On the last day, when the outriders had already seen the walls of Olbia, exchanged shouts with the sentries on the walls, and relieved Kineas’s mind of half its illogical worries by reporting all was well, Philokles rode up next to Kineas. He rode well enough now to be accounted a horseman. He required larger horses than any other man, and he tired them more quickly, but he was tireless in the saddle.
Kineas glanced at him with affection. Philokles was a big man, but he was now a tower of muscle. The fat he had worn when they first met was gone, burned away by almost a year of constant exercise. He was handsome, heavily bearded, and he smiled more often than had been his wont.
‘All is well in the city?’ he asked as he rode up.
‘That’s what the scouts say.’ Kineas was still smiling to himself.
‘You seem happier today,’ Philokles said.
Kineas raised an eyebrow.
‘You have been a silent man for six days, brother. You’re putting the troops off their feed and Niceas is so worried he put me up to this. You are a worrier, but not usually a brooder. Did your amazon play you false? I confess that I heard much speculation about her relations with the king.’
Kineas fidgeted with his reins, which his riding horse resented. The horse showed his resentment by shying at a passing bee and then kicking his rear hooves until Kineas squeezed his thighs and stopped playing with the reins.
‘I have a great deal to think about.’ Kineas didn’t meet his friend’s eye.
‘Doubtless. The man of the moment — the warlord of the alliance.’ Philokles paused, and then said, ‘May I tell you something I know about you?’
‘Of course.’
‘You worry all the time. You worry about many things — some of them very profound, like good and evil, and some of them very practical, like where we’ll camp, and some of them quite silly, like the archon’s potential for treason. It’s all that worrying that makes you a good commander.’
‘This is not news to me, my friend.’ Kineas growled. ‘Why is the archon’s potential for treason silly?’
Philokles said, ‘If he chooses to betray the alliance, you will take action — you and Memnon, and Cleitus, and
