youth. I wish her for myself — but she will have only you. Now I must endure not just the loss of her — a woman I have desired since I was old enough to feel a man’s desire — but to know that my best warriors speak of you as airyanam. If you wed her, you will be a potent ally — or a deadly rival. And I ask myself — is this what you desire? Will you leave your men to ride the plains? Or bring them, like a new clan?’
Kineas rubbed at his beard and felt old. ‘Lord, I will serve you. Indeed, I had not thought on any of these matters. I can see that they prey on you. But…’ Kineas struggled for words. ‘It is the lady herself that I value.’
‘How will you live?’ the king asked. ‘Can you leave Niceas, or Diodorus, to be the consort of a barbarian girl?’ He looked away over the grass. ‘Or would she leave the Cruel Hands to grind flour and weave with Greek women? I think perhaps she would — until she hated you, or went mad.’
Kineas nodded, because he had thought these thoughts, and because the sentence of death hanging over him had saved him from having to decide. Except he felt — knew, in his heart — that they would have found a way.
Or would he have ended as Jason, and she as Medea?
But what could he say? Lord, I’ll be dead, so it doesn’t matter? ‘I think we would — will find a way,’ he said carefully.
The king was still watching the grass. He drew himself taller. ‘I will try not to stand between you,’ he said. The sentence cost him. And then he added, ‘Kam Baqca says I must do this thing.’
Kineas wondered what it was like to have so much power at eighteen years. ‘It is a noble thing to do, whether Kam Baqca recommended it or not.’
Satrax shrugged. Then he straightened and sought again for dignity. ‘I hear you lost your warhorse,’ he said. ‘You lost that grey — which gives me a beautiful opportunity to show you how highly I value you.’ He extended a hand, inviting Kineas to mount behind him.
Kineas mounted with the king. ‘People will laugh,’ he said.
‘Unlikely,’ the king answered. He kicked his horse into a trot and then a canter.
They were riding through the royal herd, or rather the abbreviated version that the king had brought on the pursuit of the Getae. Kineas knew the brands.
The king spoke suddenly, ‘My other lords think you are the perfect choice — she will have a husband, and the Cruel Hands will have heirs, and you, of course, are already a war leader of repute.’ The horse continued for a few strides. ‘I am told I should pick a girl my own age, with better hips for childbearing — a Sauromatae princess is recommended.’ Kineas was pressed against the king’s back, and Satrax was stiff — angry. Angry that he had to bow to the wishes of his lords. Then he relaxed and pointed. ‘There!’ he said.
The stallion was not so much grey as silver, a dark silver the colour of polished iron, or steel. He had a heavy black line down his back — a marking Kineas had only seen among the heavy Sakje breed — and a pale mane and tale. He was tall, and self-possessed. In fact, he was twin to the king’s war mount.
‘He won’t be as well trained as your Persian,’ the king said — like all men giving a great gift, he had to decry its faults. ‘But he’s well broken to harness — my next warhorse. Yours, now. And a couple of riding horses — Marthax has them for you, but I wanted to talk.’
Kineas walked around the stallion, admiring his haunches. He had a short head, without the purity of line the Persian had, but he was big and the colour was either ugly or magnificent. It was certainly rare. ‘Thank you, Lord. This is a kingly gift.’
The king grinned, embarrassed and looking very young indeed. ‘He is, isn’t he?’ Satrax smiled, showing his essential good humour. ‘There’s the advantage of owning ten thousand horses,’ he said after a moment.
‘I am sorry,’ Kineas said. He couldn’t think of anything else to say.
The king grimaced. ‘Kings have to think hard thoughts. If you are her husband, you will be a man of great power among my people. A baqca who was also a man with a wife who commanded a clan. A great soldier with Greek allies. You may be my rival.’ He looked at the horse. ‘As Marthax is.’ He stared over the plain. ‘Or is this just my jealousy speaking?’
‘You are blunt,’ Kineas said. ‘You think like a king.’
‘I have to.’ The king gestured at the horse. ‘Give him a try,’ he said.
Kineas caught the mane of the stallion in one hand and vaulted on to the beast’s tall back. He almost missed his seat — this monster was a hand taller than the Persian — and he was thankful that the animal waited patiently while his feet scrambled.
Satrax restrained his laughter with difficulty, pleased to see the Greek discomfited by the horse. Kineas made a clucking sound, and the big animal flowed into a curve. ‘What a gait!’ Kineas crowed. The beast’s easy flow of hooves was strangely familiar. He tried his knees alone, his hands free, and brought the stallion alongside the king’s mount easily. The two horses sniffed at each other like stable mates — which they probably were. They were the same colour.
‘Same dam?’ he said.
Satrax grinned. ‘Same dam and sire,’ he said. ‘Brothers.’
Kineas inclined his head. ‘I am honoured.’ He patted the horse’s shoulder, thinking of his conversation with Philokles. ‘I swear to you that no action of mine will harm your kingship. Nor will I wed Srayanka, or ask for her, without your permission.’ He slapped the horse. ‘This is a wonderful gift,’ he repeated.
‘Good,’ said the king. He nodded, obviously relieved and just as obviously still troubled. And jealous. ‘Good. Let’s get the army moving.’
It was later in the day when Kineas, who was becoming more enamoured of his new horse by the hour, realized why his gait seemed so familiar.
The silver horse was the stallion from the dream of his death.
18
They crossed the plains from west to east at speed. The Sakje set their usual pace, and the Olbians, with remounts provided, kept up. They made a hundred stades a day, by Kineas’s estimation, watering at rivers that crossed the plain at measured intervals, camping in established spots with fresh green grass for fodder and a few trees for firewood.
The level of organization was staggering, for barbarians. But Kineas no longer thought of them as barbarians.
Kineas had never seen an army of five thousand move so fast. If Zopryon pressed his men as hard as Alexander himself, he might make sixty stades, although patrols would go farther. And Kineas suspected he had not seen the fastest march of which the Sakje were capable.
Most of the campsites were shadowed by tall hills of turf that grew out of the plain, often the highest point for many hours riding. On the fourth evening, his muscles sore but his body clean, Kineas sat with his back against Niceas’s, rubbing tallow into his bridle leather and then working carefully at the headstall where it had begun to burst its stitches, making minute alterations in the fit as he went. The new horse had a big head.
Srayanka came with Parshtaevalt, and Hirene, her trumpeter. She had become less shy about seeking him out.
‘Come walk, Kineax,’ she said.
Kineas used the awl in his palm to punch two new holes, working carefully with the old leather. He needed the headstall to last until they were back at the camp at Great Bend, and no longer.
‘Soon,’ he said.
She sat down by him and pointed at his work to Hirene, who frowned. Niceas was cutting a Getae cloak to make a saddle blanket.
Hirene spoke quickly in Sakje. Her lip curled, whether in sneer or smile Kineas couldn’t tell. Srayanka laughed, a lovely sound, and sat gracefully on Kineas’s blanket.
‘Hirene say — you have uses, after all,’ Srayanka said. ‘The great war leader sews leather!’
Kineas ran a stitch back through the last hole, and then again, and then a third time, and then bit the linen thread as close as he could to the leather. Kineas buffed the headstall with the palm of his hand and then laid it carefully atop the pile of his tack. Parshtaevalt knelt by the pile and began to examine the bit.
‘Not good ours,’ he said. ‘But good.’ His Greek, like their Sakje, was improving by the day.
