welcome and a winter camp in the barbarous country of Hyrkania.’
Philokles glared at him, but the other men laughed.
Niceas grinned. ‘If we’re sending Philokles,’ he said, ‘then I’m confident we’ll be massacred.’
‘Unless he kills them all before we arrive,’ Diodorus said.
Kineas looked around. ‘Humour aside, that’s my intention,’ he said. ‘Across the high ground and the sea before winter falls, and a winter camp in the thousand kingdoms — that’s what it is called.’
‘Enchanting,’ Philokles said. ‘I’ll wager it’s called the thousand kingdoms because there are a hundred thousand bandits all fighting among themselves.’
‘Yes,’ said Leon. He smiled. ‘Namastae is the most vicious of the lot. That’s where we’re going.’
They all looked at him. He shrugged. ‘We have a factor there,’ he said. ‘After we lost half a dozen merchants, my master — that is, Nicomedes — sent a mercenary.’
‘And?’ asked Philokles.
‘Now there are a thousand and one kingdoms,’ Leon said. ‘And Namastae trades with us. Hyrkania has riches.’
Philokles leaned forward, interested despite himself. ‘And Hyrkania means…?’
Leon grinned. ‘The land of the wolves,’ he said.
Niceas stretched and rubbed his nose. ‘Food?’ he asked.
Kineas looked at Leon, and Leon rose to his feet. His voice was shaky as he began — he was not used to speaking to groups of men — and as he went on he spoke faster, and his voice became shrill. ‘We’ll march with a herd of bullocks and ten days’ grain,’ he said. ‘The Tanais is farmed by the Maeotae and the Sindi as far north as the great lakes, and we will not travel so far on the river.’
Kineas interrupted because he could sense the ignorance of the audience, and because Leon wasn’t doing credit to himself. ‘Much of the grain traded through this port and through Pantecapaeum comes from the Tanais,’ he said.
The soldiers nodded. Leon, emboldened, glanced at Kineas and then continued. ‘At the portage we’ll leave the Tanais and cross the high ground to the Rha. Merchants do it every year in the summer and autumn.’ His voice was getting quieter and his words came more slowly as his confidence improved.
Lycurgus, Memnon’s former lieutenant and now their commander of infantry, raised a hand. ‘Son,’ he said with authority, and he was obviously old enough to be Leon’s father, ‘are you trying to tell us that we can get grain as we march?’
Leon gave a shaky grin, glanced down at his scrolls, and frowned. ‘Yes, sir.’
Lycurgus motioned to a slave for water. ‘Then just say so, son.’
Leon stuttered for a moment and then began again. ‘It will be harvest time when we march from the Bay of Salmon, or close enough. By the time we run out of our rations, the harvest will be in and we’ll have access to the cheapest grain in the circle of the world.’
Kineas stood again. ‘I will pay for the grain — at least for this winter. ’
Lycurgus grunted. ‘That will convince the shirkers,’ he said. ‘At least until spring.’
Kineas smiled. ‘And then it’ll be too late to change their minds,’ he said.
Memnon laughed. ‘It worked for Xenophon,’ he said. ‘You almost tempt me to come along.’
‘What’s in it for us?’ Lycurgus asked. ‘I’m in, however you put it — I followed you this summer and I like the idea. But for the boys in the ranks, what’s in it for them?’
‘Whatever loot we can get,’ Kineas said. ‘Was anyone dissatisfied with the booty from the Macedonian camp?’
Diodorus snorted, but Coenus cut him off. ‘Are you seriously suggesting that we’ll get to loot Alexander’s camp?’ he asked. ‘I’m not sure, but I’d bet that counts as hubris.’
Kineas spread his hands, acknowledging the point. ‘I can’t say because we’re talking about a march of ten thousand stades — at least ten thousand stades. Four hundred parasangs and maybe more. I will say that I expect some pay from the Massagetae.’ He tilted his head to give Philokles a private look, and then said, ‘If you know your Herodotus, we’re marching right into the land of the eastern Sakje — the land of gryphons and gold.’
Lycurgus nodded. ‘I can sell that,’ he said. ‘Especially if they can leave their loot from this campaign here, safe, and march knowing that you’ll pay to fill their bellies.’
‘Until we run out of money,’ Niceas said.
‘Then we’ll just start taking what we need,’ Diodorus said. Some of the younger men looked at him. He met their glances and shrugged. ‘Sure, it gets ugly. But that’s what armies do.’
‘Out on the sea of grass, there’s no one to plunder,’ Leon said. ‘And after the grass, there’s desert.’ He looked around. ‘But chances are any army that you march out there will be the toughest proposition in Hyrkania. There’ll be contracts in plenty, if we want to spend the spring fighting for their petty tyrants. I can arrange one before we arrive, if that’s what you want.’
Lycurgus shrugged. ‘Cross that desert when we come to it,’ he said, and they laughed.
After listening to Kineas and Leon and wrangling over half-made plans, they were all tired. Arguments had begun to have a personal edge and the fumes of last night’s wine were like poison. It was then that Sappho entered, and Arni, and a dozen of the barracks slaves, with ewers of water and flagons of wine and loaves of bread.
‘Best of women!’ Diodorus said, and got a real smile from his companion.
Kineas bit into the bread — crusty and excellent — and savoured the olive oil with it. ‘Sappho, you are a paragon.’
She lowered her eyes and smiled. ‘I crave a boon, Kineas.’
Kineas mopped his beard with his bread. ‘Anything,’ he said, expecting humour.
‘Allow me to accompany the army,’ she said.
Kineas flicked a look at Diodorus, but he appeared as surprised as if a bolt from Zeus had fallen among them.
Sappho took his hesitation for an opportunity. ‘Every army has followers, ’ she said. ‘I can manage them. I can ride a horse. I am as hard as a rock.’
Kineas, whose hands could remember the muscles in Srayanka’s legs, doubted that Sappho was as hard as she thought, but he couldn’t ignore the fact that she was correct. Every army had followers. Often, their fortunes affected the morale of the army. Generals and strategoi often ordered them to be abandoned, as if the men who served in the ranks had no feelings for the bodies that warmed their beds or the voices that shared their campfires. They were wrong.
Kineas looked at Diodorus — she was, at least temporarily, his property in many ways. Diodorus smiled his devious smile, and Kineas wondered if the man hadn’t known of her request all along. Kineas disliked being managed as much as most men, but he liked Sappho well enough, and he liked the idea of having an ‘officer’ to deal with the followers.
‘You agree to obey my orders?’ he asked. ‘And if I order you home, you’ll go as meek as a lamb?’
She raised her eyes. ‘I am always as meek as a lamb, Strategos,’ she said.
No one had referred to him as strategos before. He felt himself blushing. Nonetheless, he hardened his tone. ‘That is not an answer,’ he said.
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I will agree to obey you — in all things.’
She raised her eyes just a little on the last word, so that he caught a flash of their colour. The glance affected him. He turned his head away and tried to ignore the pulse that shot from his head to his groin. And met Diodorus’s eyes — and his raised eyebrow. Kineas looked away in confusion, made an excuse to walk out to relieve himself, counted to a hundred in Sakje. Then he rejoined his company, made jokes and laughed at them, and fell back into the tide of masculine camaraderie.
After they had shared bread and wine, Kineas rose and carried his wine cup to the centre of the room.
‘A year ago in this room I asked my officers to swear an oath. If you will accompany me against Alexander, I’ll ask you to swear again.’ He raised his cup.
Niceas rose and gave him a rare grin. ‘Who’d’ve thought, a year ago, when we had a tyrant to tame and the threat of Macedon stirring, that today we’d be planning to march an army into the east?’
Diodorus, sober, raised his cup. ‘Who’d have thought that we would be officers with commands? Or rich men? Or citizens?’
