Sakje and Greek worked together, every warrior cutting enough turfs to cover a man and his horse. Then the cutters carried the turf to the builders, almost all of them Sindi tribesmen from the farms up the river — earth people, the Sakje called them — or dirt people. They dug out the chambers of the barrow and reinforced them with heavy timbers floated down the river from the forests in the north.
Once, Satrax had stood at this ford and asked Kineas if he would like to go north to see the forests.
And now the king was dead. Kineas shook his head at the ways of the gods, at Moira and Tyche, fate and chance. He straightened and rubbed his hip, which hurt like fire with every trip he made back to his own pile of turf. He could only carry one block of earth and grass at a time — his right shoulder was better, but the long cuts on his bridle arm and his left leg still gave him trouble.
Diodorus and Niceas and Philokles had wounds too, and they were working by his side. Kineas was determined to do his part without complaint, but on his next trip his left forearm hurt so much he had to put his turf on the ground and sit in the rain. ‘I want a bridle gauntlet,’ he said. ‘Parmenion had one.’
Philokles nodded. ‘I suppose Temerix could make you one,’ he said. His tone expressed his view that too much armour was effeminate.
‘Look at that,’ Niceas said, pointing at the new kurgan.
At the mound, Marthax, the old king’s warlord, and Srayanka, the old king’s niece, were bickering, their fists raised and their voices audible across half a stade.
The two had shared the burden of design and construction, but they could agree on nothing. They quarrelled about the kurgan’s size and shape, about the location of the internal chambers, about the orientation of the door and their own roles in the final rites. When Kineas saw Srayanka, whether in fleeting assignations or carefully arranged chance meetings, she smelled of loam and spoke only of Marthax’s perfidy. She tried to hide her anger, but out on the plain, the warriors knew too much of the quarrels of their leaders. They cut the turf, and mourned, and worried about the future.
In addition to turf, each warrior was expected to bring a gift to the king’s barrow. Around the base of the square of earth, more Sindi dug a trench. A long row of tethered horses — most of them chargers, all brilliantly accoutred — waited to be slaughtered for the burial.
The battle had cost the allies thousands of men, but the campaign as a whole had bound them together, Sakje and Sauromatae and Euxine Greeks. Today, they all laboured together, almost without orders, to build a mighty grave for the dead king of the Sakje. The turf bricks rose from a wall to a block and then to a squat pyramid of grass as ten thousand men and women made their offerings of earth and gold. And as the afternoon dripped into the evening, the clouds began to break and the weeks of drizzle gave way to a soft evening. The last courses of turf went up to the truncated top and torches were lit, then Kineas and a dozen of the lesser baqcas of the various clans hoisted the stone he had chosen and dragged it up to the top of the kurgan and positioned it carefully. None of the baqcas questioned his choice or his right to be there, and they were a silent and worshipful coven as they did their work.
By the time the stone was in place and a song had been sung over it, darkness had fallen, and more torches were brought forward. Even as Kineas walked on a pair of trees laid as a bridge, the horses in the trench below began to shy and call. They were afraid. They were right to be afraid.
Marthax and Srayanka took turns pulling the chargers down, first grabbing the headstall and then giving the killing blow with a short sword, slashing the beasts across the neck where the muscle was soft and the artery close to the skin. They shared the task as cousins and priests, but Kineas could see the iron in Srayanka’s spine and the careful set of her shoulders, and a season in the saddle shared with Marthax allowed Kineas to recognize the same tension in the big Sakje warlord.
Each was resolved to be seen to be worthy… of kingship. The competition had started. Kineas wished they could settle it quickly. The Euxine Greeks had other concerns, and they needed a steady hand out here on the plains.
Kineas wished that he was sure that Srayanka was the queen the Sakje needed. Or even that Marthax was fit to be a king. He wished that the boy, for all his failings and his desire to take Srayanka for himself, had lived.
He wished that many men had lived — Nicomedes and Ajax, priestly Agis, Cleitus and his son Leucon, Varo of the Grass Cats, and countless others, many of them friends and companions. Laertes, whom he had known from boyhood, who had followed him across the world and back. But of all of them, Satrax the king was the one whose death affected every man in the army. Satrax was the man who bound the army together, and his death signalled an end.
The torches flared and spat in the last of the rain. To the west, stars were appearing in the sky. The ground stank of horse blood, and the light of the torches glared fitfully on gold and iron and wool.
Marthax wore red, as was his right as the commander of the dead king’s bodyguard. He had the king’s sword across his arms, and with it he climbed the pyramid of earth and grass until he stood on the top.
Srayanka, dressed from head to foot in white skins decorated in blue hair and gold cones, climbed behind him, carrying the king’s helm. This she placed with reverence at the very apex of the pyramid. Then she took the sword from Marthax. She raised it into the darkness.
Thunder rumbled in the distance, and the crowd of warriors made a noise like the sigh of the wind over the plain of grass.
‘Victor in two great battles, hammer of the Getae, lord of ten thousand horses,’ she called. Kineas understood her slow Sakje well enough. He had heard her practise this chant for ten nights.
Again, the warriors seemed to sigh.
‘Young like a god, swift in battle, terrible to his foes, life-taker, lord of ten thousand horses,’ she called, and again they sighed.
Marthax stood behind her, his arms crossed.
‘Wise like a god, gold-giver, great in peace and council, lord of ten thousand horses,’ she said, the sword in her hand unmoving. She had arms like bundles of iron rods, as Kineas now had reason to know.
Satrax had helped to unite them, but he had also been a reckless adolescent intent on taking Srayanka for himself. Kineas was not altogether sorry he was gone.
‘He was the king of the Sakje!’ she shouted, her voice suddenly deep and wild. And at the last word, she reversed the blade and plunged it into the grass.
The warriors gave a great shout, a bellow of sorrow and anger and victory and loss, and then they turned away to the banquet that awaited them, a feast on the new mound, a last feast with the old king. They ate and drank and wept, and bards sang songs of the battles. And they were like brothers and sisters, all the Greeks and the Sakje and the Sauromatae.
One last time.
Ataelus, the Massagetae warrior who led Kineas’s scouts, introduced the messenger from the east with a sweep of his arm.
‘Fifty days’ ride to the east on a good horse, with five more horses for changing — beyond the Kaspian, farther than the Lake of the Sea of Grass, farther than Sauromatae — for riding fifty days, and not for resting — there is the queen of the Massagetae.’ Ataelus’s eyes roved around. The open tent was packed, and there were more Sakje all around. He stood straight, fully conscious of the importance of the occasion. ‘This man for being my cousin. Qares speaks for the queen.’ Ataelus stepped back.
The messenger of the Massagetae was shorter than Ataelus and had something of his look — black ringlets like a Spartan, a wind-burned face and a round nose like a satyr. He wore a red silk robe over silvered-bronze scale armour that winked like a hot fire in sunlight. In his hand he held a short Sakje sword with a hilt of green stone. He brandished it at the council of chiefs and Greek officers who sat in the fire circle in front of Satrax’s empty wagon.
Sakje rules of council allowed any interested person to attend, so hundreds of men and women, many armed, and dozens of children gathered on the council hill. They were never fully quiet, and the murmur of their comments and the sigh of the wind forced the speakers to shout to make themselves heard. The messenger of the Massagetae had a deep voice and it carried well.
‘Keepers of the western gate!’ he shouted, and Eumenes, still stiff from wounds, interpreted in a tired voice. ‘Queen Zarina, lady of all of the riders of the east, calls upon you to come to the muster of all the Sakje! Iskander, who the Greeks call Alexander, King of Macedon, threatens war on the sea of grass! Zarina requests the aid of the Assagatje!’ He waved the sword. ‘She sends this, the sword of Cyrus, as a token of her need. Let Iskander hear the
