Kineas shook his head. ‘So she’s been fobbed off with a piece of Hyrkania? She can’t be that beautiful, or she’d have got something better. Cappadocia, perhaps?’
They all laughed. Hyrkania was all rock — the farmers among the soldiers couldn’t stop commenting on the uselessness of the soil.
‘I think you’ve all been away from civilization too long, and begging Sappho’s pardon, you sound like characters in Lysistrata. You may all love her more than you love the gods — but when the ground is hard and our horses have their hooves hard and their summer coats, we’re riding for Marakanda,’ he said. ‘Srayanka is waiting, and Alexander’s army is growing.’
Diodorus nodded. ‘I’d rather be fighting Alexander right now.’ Again he and Sappho exchanged glances.
‘I must meet this goddess,’ Kineas said.
Diodorus cut in, ‘She’s trying to use us against her father. And she’s dangerous.’
Kineas nodded, his mind already moving on to the new logistikon that Leon was compiling. ‘Is there enough fodder and grain in this petty kingdom to get us moving in the spring?’
Leon cleared his throat. ‘Yes,’ he said. Under his dark skin, he was flushed. ‘But it will require some work to collect it. There are not enough wagons for us to buy. We’ll need more oxen to drag the wagons and some for beef on the hoof.’
Kineas glanced back at Diodorus. ‘Why would we fight her father?’
Diodorus shrugged. ‘For money?’
Sappho raised her eyes and then lowered them — again.
‘I think you’re all barking at shadows,’ Kineas said.
After a minute of silence, he turned on his heel and walked back into his sleeping quarters to change for his audience.
A slave brought Kineas wine while he rummaged through his baggage. He tried to read a new piece — new to him — by Aristotle. Its release had apparently enraged Alexander, but so far he could make nothing of it. He had just located his best sandals in the leather bag under the bed when he heard a noise behind him. He looked up when the curtain that guarded his sleeping quarters rustled, and he shot to his feet when he saw that it was Sappho.
She smiled enigmatically as she entered. ‘Sometimes,’ she said, ‘it is almost worth three years of forced sex and the loss of my husband and children to be free to enter a man’s quarters and speak my own mind.’
Kineas started to reply, but his mind was grappling with what she had said, and all that came out of his mouth was ‘I’m sorry.’
She nodded. ‘As am I. And pleased to have your full attention.’
Kineas nodded. ‘Wine?’ he asked to cover his confusion.
She shook her head. ‘No, I’ve had enough. Listen, Strategos. You are a man like my brothers and my father. Like Diodorus. A man who does things — worthy things. I know your type.’ Her kohl-rimmed eyes were large and green, and very close to his.
Kineas sat back. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, again.
She choked a little. ‘I don’t think you should meet her alone. I speak for Srayanka, who is not here.’
Kineas narrowed his eyes. ‘I like a challenge,’ he said.
‘That is why you will fall,’ Sappho said. ‘Your own courage and your sense of challenge will betray you, and you will fall.’ She stood again. ‘Look at you — and you are only dealing with me. You look into my eyes, you measure my body, you hear that I have been abused — I could have you kissing me just by moving closer and putting my hand like this.’ She suited action to the word, fitting her body alongside his and putting one raised hand to the back of his head, and Kineas flinched away, stepping back to hide the immediacy of his arousal and the truth of her assertion.
She laughed.
‘Enough,’ Kineas said, turning away, disgusted at his weakness and her accuracy. He nodded sharply. ‘I appreciate now that you all take this seriously, and I can tell from what you say — and what you don’t say — that this woman has caused tensions.’ He backed away and selected a chiton, at a loss how to proceed, trying to cover his confusion and his sudden arousal. ‘I’m sure you all have my best interests at heart.’ He was growing angrier by the moment — angry at them, angry at himself. ‘But I dislike that you see me as an overgrown child.’
‘You control yourself so much that you are like clay for someone who can control you in turn,’ she said. ‘Please — call it whatever you like. Make sacrifice to the Foam-born and stay home tonight.’ She smiled gently. ‘Admit it — you, too, are like a man in Lysistrata.’
Kineas shook his head. ‘Bah,’ he said. ‘I am a commander, not a schoolboy.’
Sappho shook her head. ‘Athena, I tried,’ she said, and retreated through the curtain. Before she withdrew her head she said, ‘Philokles volunteered to try to speak to you first. But confronting you before you met her was my idea.’
Kineas nodded dismissively. ‘I appreciate your vote of confidence, madam,’ he said. Just at that moment, he hated her — her feminine superiority, the ease with which her physicality had taken him in. Then he sat on his bed, considering how far short of his own notions of good conduct he had just fallen.
After a few hundred heartbeats, he dressed quickly.
Antigonus sat on his charger with ten of his Keltoi in their best kit mounted behind him in the street by the gate. Sitalkes handed Kineas the reins of Thalassa, and Kineas swung his leg over the mare’s broad back, briefly remembering back to his first attempts to mount a tall horse in the middle of the Pinarus while Persians rained blows on his breast- and back-plate.
His hesitation caused him to push the mare through half a circle before he got his leg up, bringing him to face Coenus, who was standing in the snow with a bag of scrolls over his shoulder like a giant schoolboy on his way to the agora.
‘You too?’ Kineas asked.
Coenus shrugged. ‘Me too what?’ he asked. ‘Need a hand up?’
Kineas snapped. ‘No!’ he shot out, and then followed the charger through another half-rotation without getting his leg over.
Coenus was laughing. The escort were doing their best not to laugh. When Kineas’s pursuit of the horse went around again, Coenus grabbed her headstall. ‘Need a hand up?’ he asked again.
‘Fuck off,’ Kineas said. He made a face. ‘Yes.’
Coenus held her bridle while Leon made a step. Kineas sprang on to the mare’s back and pulled his cloak around him.
‘They aren’t fools,’ Coenus said, pointing at the open door of the commander’s building. ‘They all love you, and every one of them wants what is best for you. Damn it — this is what Niceas does.’ Coenus gave a lopsided smile. Even on foot, he came up to the middle of Kineas’s chest while mounted. ‘I’m a pompous aristocrat, not a rhetorician. If Niceas were himself, he’d swear a lot and you’d take it. The queen is dangerous. She writes letters to Alexander. Beware.’
Kineas found he could smile. ‘I had gathered that,’ he said.
Coenus raised an eyebrow. ‘Have a splendid evening at the palace, then.’ He gave a salute.
Kineas gave a shake of his head, backed Thalassa a few steps and whirled her around. ‘Let’s go,’ he said to Andronicus, who exchanged an amused glance with Coenus, barked an order and surged into motion.
The ride up the hill was cold and longer than Kineas had expected. He kept his mind carefully blank. The citadel was a grim reminder of what Hyrkania really was. The fortifications were high and strong, old stone courses at the bottom and new stone facing, with a double gate and towers every half a stade. Kineas whistled with professional appreciation as he rode under the gates.
‘Tough nut,’ he said to Andronicus, who shrugged.
‘We could have it in an afternoon. Garrison is crap,’ Andronicus said. He spat. ‘Walls are no better than the bronze behind them.’
As if to make the Kelt’s point, a pair of lazy sentries in green-spotted bronze breastplates greeted them under the inner gate.
‘What do you want, sir?’ asked the older sentry.
‘Invitation from the queen,’ Andronicus said.
The man nodded and straightened slightly — not exactly attention, but a better slouch. He held out his hand
