No one told Kineas anything useful about the Scythians, either. He drank four cups of watered wine, felt his internal balance change, and passed on the next cup.
‘You didn’t use to be such a woman about wine,’ Calchus laughed.
Kineas didn’t think he had done anything to react, but Calchus flinched from the look on his face and the room fell silent.
In a soldier’s camp, that would have been an insult demanding blood. Calchus didn’t mean it as such, Kineas could see, although he could also see that the habit of power had robbed Calchus of his social conscience.
Kineas bowed and forced a smile. ‘Perhaps I should go sleep in the women’s quarters, then,’ he said.
Guffaws. Outright laughter from Isokles. Calchus’s face grew red in the light of the lamps. It was his turn to resent an insult — the suggestion that his women might enjoy a visit from Kineas, however oblique. Kineas saw no reason to apologize. He upturned his cup and slipped away.
3
The next morning he was up with the dawn again. He didn’t have a hard head and he didn’t like to drink too much wine, however good the company.
Once again, Philokles was snoring on the portico. Kineas walked past him, thinking that the man was certainly a nested set of surprises, contrasts within contrasts and he barely knew the Spartan. Fat athlete, Spartan philosopher.
He walked out to the paddock. One of the Gauls was standing sentry. This morning Kineas raised a hand in greeting and then went out to the paddock and got the grey stallion to come to him with a handful of dates. Then he was up on his bare back, his thighs clenched on the animal’s ample sides, and the chill air of the morning was rushing past him as he cantered the length of the paddock. He jumped over the paddock rail without much effort on the stallion’s part and headed north, off Calchus’s farm and on to the rolling hills of the plains. He walked until the sun stood clear and red above the horizon, and then he made a garland of red flowers and sang the hymn to Poseidon, which the grey stallion liked. The stallion ate the rest of the dates and spurned the grass as too coarse, and then Kineas mounted and rode back towards the town, gradually pushing the stallion to his extended gallop, until he was a god, floating on a carpet of speed. The stallion was scarcely winded when he pulled up at the edge of the market. He dismounted and led the grey along the street until he found an early stallholder with a jug of watered wine for sale by the cup. He drank deeply of the sour stuff until he came fully awake. The grey watched him, waiting for a treat.
‘Good fucking horse,’ the Scythian said. He was standing by the stallion’s rump. Kineas turned and saw that he was stroking him and cooing. The grey didn’t resent it.
‘Thanks, I think.’
‘Buy me for wine?’ the Scythian asked. The phrase rolled off his tongue as though he had said it a thousand times.
He didn’t smell so bad this morning and he fascinated Kineas. Kineas paid for more wine, handed a cup to the Scyth, who drained it.
‘Thanks. You ride for her? I see you ride — yes. Not bad. Yes. More wine, please.’
Kineas bought more wine. ‘I ride all the time.’ He was tempted to boast, but couldn’t see why. He wanted the Scyth — a drunk, a beggar, but one with the value of a farm in gold about his person — to like him.
‘Thanks. Rotten wine. You ride for all times? Me, too. Need for horse, me.’ He looked comical, with his pointed hat and his terrible Greek. ‘You got more horse? More?’ He patted the grey.
Kineas nodded gravely. ‘Yes.’
The Scyth patted his chest and touched his forehead — a very alien gesture, almost Persian. ‘I call Ataelus. You call?’
‘Kineas.’
‘Show horse. More horse.’
‘Come along, then.’ Kineas mounted with a handspring, a showy, Cavalry school mount. Before he could think about it, the Scyth was mounted behind him. Kineas had no idea how he had mounted so quickly. Now he felt ridiculous — he hadn’t intended to let the man ride with him and they doubtless looked like fools. He took a back street and kept the stallion moving, ignoring the glances of a handful of early rising citizens. Something for Calchus to twit him with when he was up.
They cantered up to the paddock. All of his men were awake and Niceas had the paddock open for the grey before Kineas could call out.
Niceas held the grey’s head as they dismounted. ‘He’s been here before. Seems harmless. Might make a good prokusatore.’
Kineas shrugged. ‘I have a hard time understanding him, but I think he wants to buy a horse and get out of here.’
Diodorus was stretching his legs against the paddock wall. His hair was a tangle of Medusa-like red snakes in the morning, and he kept pushing the more aggressive locks off his forehead. ‘Who can blame him? But if he’s a Scyth, he’d be a good guide.’
Kineas made a quick decision and went over to the Gaul. ‘Cut the white-faced bay out and bring him here.’
Antigonus nodded and started pushing through the horses. The Scyth walked over to the paddock wall and sat with his back against it, his leather trousers in the dirt. He didn’t seem to mind. He seemed content just to watch the horses.
When Antigonus brought him the bay, Kineas walked it over to the Scyth. ‘Tomorrow, we go to Olbia,’ he said slowly.
‘Sure,’ said the Scyth. Impossible to tell if he understood.
‘If you will guide us to Olbia, I’ll give you this bay.’
The Scyth looked at the horse. He got to his feet, ran a hand over her and leaped on to her back. In one stride, he was moving at a gallop and off, over the wall of the paddock and up the road to the plain.
For a group of professional soldiers, it was an embarrassment how totally he had taken them by surprise. He was gone, just a thin tail of hoof dust hanging in the morning sun, before any of them thought of mounting or getting a weapon.
‘Uh,’ said Kineas. ‘My fault. He seemed harmless.’
Niceas was still watching the dust, his hand on his amulet. ‘He didn’t exactly do us harm.’
‘He certainly knew how to ride.’ Coenus was watching the last of the dust under his hand. He grinned. ‘The Poet called them Centaurs, and now we know why.’
There wasn’t anything useful to be done about it. They didn’t know the plains and they didn’t have the time to chase a lone Scyth for days. Niceas put them all, even Kineas, to cleaning their tack and packing it tight for the next movement. They agreed that they’d leave the next morning. It wasn’t that they were a democracy — it was just that they took orders better if they had participated in shaping them.
Of course, Kineas took a good deal of teasing from the citizens — he’d lost them their pet Scyth, didn’t he know better than to let a Scyth up on a horse? Would he let a child play with fire? And more such. Calchus just laughed.
‘I wish someone had woken me up to see you riding with that drunk. The things I miss!’ If he held any rancour about the night’s revel, it was clearly dispelled by his guest’s embarrassment of the morning.
‘I’ll be off in the morning.’ Kineas was indeed embarrassed, and caught his fingers smoothing the hem of his tunic, an old habit.
Calchus watched the men around the paddock oiling leather. ‘I can’t make you see sense and stay?’
Kineas turned up his hands. ‘I have a contract, my friend. When it is done, and I have a talent or two in silver — why, then I’d be pleased to have this conversation again.’
Calchus smiled. It was the first really happy smile that Kineas had seen in two days from the man. ‘You’ll think about it? That’s good enough for me. I have Isokles coming tonight, and his daughter will visit to sing for us. Family evening — nothing to shock a girl. Take a look at her.’
