thunder of your hooves and feel the taste of your bronze arrows.’
Srayanka stepped forward and accepted the sword. There were cheers from the crowd of onlookers, but also hisses of disapproval.
‘Let Zarina fight her own war!’ shouted a young war chief of the Standing Horse clan. He tugged at his braids in annoyance. ‘And who are you, Cruel Hands, to take the sword of Cyrus? Eh? Eh? Give it to Marthax!’
Parshtaevalt, one of Srayanka’s chiefs, clouted the Standing Horse on the shoulder. ‘Silence!’ he roared. ‘Srayanka is the king’s heir.’
Kineas listened to the dissenting opinions and wriggled on his stool.
Next to him, Philokles sharpened a twig with his belt knife. ‘They’ve just had a war,’ Philokles said quietly. ‘They don’t want another.’
Srayanka held up the sword and waited for silence. ‘I accept the sword of Cyrus for the Assagatje,’ she shouted. ‘We will not send ten thousand riders to the east. Tell Zarina we have already fought Iskander in the west.’ She turned to the crowd. ‘But will we leave our cousins alone to face the monster? Did the east not send us Lot?’
Lot shouldered forward. The Sauromatae prince was tall and blond and pale-eyed, past his first youth but still in his prime. He had a new scar that ran across his face from his right eye down to the left corner of his mouth. When he came up to Srayanka, he reached out and she handed him the sword. He raised it over his head and the crowd was quieter. When he spoke, his excitement and his thick eastern accent made him difficult to understand.
‘Just as you needed our horses,’ he called, ‘now Queen Zarina asks in her time of need. Even a tithe of your strength would help. I promised Zarina when I rode west that I would bring the Assagatje back with me. Will you make me a liar?’ He turned to Kineas. ‘And will our Euxine allies desert us? Olbia and Pantecapaeum and all the cities of the Euxine have benefited from our alliance. Will they stand by the tribes in turn?’
Eumenes had to speak quickly to keep up with Lot, and the effort of translating the difficult dialect was exhausting the young man. Kineas put a hand on his shoulder and felt the heat of fever in the bare skin. He turned to Philokles.
‘Take this young man to his bed,’ Kineas said. ‘Shush!’ he ordered Eumenes. ‘My Sakje is good enough for this!’
Despite his claim, Kineas glanced around for Ataelus. Ataelus’s Greek wasn’t of the first order, but he could translate well enough. Ataelus pushed forward with his wife, Samahe.
‘Lord?’ he asked.
‘Help me speak,’ Kineas said.
Ataelus took a stand by Kineas’s right shoulder.
Kineas rose. ‘I am not the lord of the Euxine Greeks,’ he shouted. Ataelus translated. Kineas went on, speaking slowly, half-listening to Ataelus’s version. ‘I cannot speak for Olbia or Pantecapaeum. When the phalanx of Olbia has settled the affairs of our own city, we will be ready to listen to plans for alliance and war in the east. We are faithful allies. But we are not yet ready to talk.’
Prince Lot shook his head and this time he spoke more carefully, his accented Sakje coming out in a rhythmic cadence as if he declaimed an epic poem. Ataelus still struggled to keep up. ‘For being noble allies. For holding field — brave! Standing fast! But now, he says, no king of Sakje! No army of Sakje! No allies to go east to Massagetae, fight monster. Says he is for weeping.’
Marthax rose. He walked to the centre of the circle, but he did not ask for the sword of Cyrus. He was a big, heavy man with a ruddy blond beard and a big belly. He was the best-known war leader of the Sakje, the king’s cousin, his sword arm. And one of two possible contenders for the kingship.
‘Of course they are for going home,’ he said, with Ataelus trailing his words.
Kineas was adept enough at listening to Marthax, and he followed the Sakje directly, listening to Ataelus with half an ear to check his own translation.
‘My people are going home to bring in the harvest and ship it down the rivers,’ Marthax said. ‘Satrax dreamed of taking an army east to the Massagetae. He was a great king, but he was also a boy in his heart. He wanted a great adventure. Now he is gone.’ Marthax crossed his arms on his chest and looked at Prince Lot. ‘Things change. Seasons change. Before Zopryon came, perhaps we could have sent warriors east to the sun to help our cousins of the eastern gates. But that cycle did not come to pass. Different suns rose and sank, and now we must fill our wagons with grain and prepare to survive a winter on the plains. Perhaps next spring we could send a tithe of our young warriors east to Queen Zarina and the keepers of the eastern gate.’
A junior lord of the Standing Horses stood to speak — the same man who had shouted at Srayanka. Marthax bowed to him and went to sit, and the young warrior, his arm in a sling, came to the centre of the circle.
‘I am Graethe of the Standing Horse,’ he said. He had the accent of his clan, which Kineas had come to know as the northern Sakje accent. But he spoke slowly, as was the custom in council, and Kineas could understand him well enough. ‘My lord has taken our warriors out on the sea of grass to pass the summer on the wind, and to watch our Sindi. If he were here, he would say that Zopryon was not the only wolf to threaten our herds, but only the strongest. The Standing Horses will not cross the sea of grass to go to the eastern gate. Let the Massagetae see to themselves.’
Kineas’s eyes were drawn to a young woman, or perhaps a child, who sat behind Marthax, playing with a bow. Children were everywhere among the Sakje — they were allowed unlimited freedom. But this was the girl who had called herself Kam Baqca’s child.
Instead of shooting toy arrows, she had wrapped the bowstring around an arrow, and she was using it to twirl the arrow faster and faster. Kineas had seen a jeweller in Athens using a bow-drill, and he wondered if the girl had devised the tool herself. She was using it to bore holes in Marthax’s great shield of rawhide and wooden slats, the bronze arrowhead cutting at the bronze binding and rawhide strings until the whole structure was about to give way.
Kineas reached out a hand to stop her, and her eyes met his. They were old eyes for such a young face, deep and blue like cold water, and he stopped the movement of his arm as if he had been stung by an insect.
She smiled. She was a child on the edge of womanhood, and her smile was equal parts mischief and wickedness.
The Standing Horse droned on in the same vein. Marthax watched him with drooping eyelids. Srayanka, on the other hand, watched the young man as if she might leap at him. When he drew breath for another foray, she stood up and put out the hand with the sword to forestall him.
‘Great is the wisdom of the Standing Horse,’ she said. ‘We understand that they took their place in battle, and that they will not go east to the support of the keepers of the eastern gate. Have you more to add?’
The young man bowed his head and said nothing, but he glared.
‘We welcome your words, Graethe.’ She pressed a strong hand on the young man’s shoulder, and he sat. One of Srayanka’s young leaders, Bain, laughed and gave a wolf call, and Graethe flushed.
Srayanka turned and glared at Bain. ‘Silence,’ she said.
Bain’s face burned with adolescent wickedness. But he subsided when Urvara rose to her feet. Daughter of Varo, the lord of the Grass Cats who had died in the great battle, Urvara had her own scars — she was a bow- maiden, and Kineas could remember her rallying her people to support his final charge. She was just sixteen or seventeen, with heavy brows and full lips and arm muscles like the cords on a siege engine. Bain loved her.
‘The Grass Cats look to the rising sun,’ she said, pointing her riding whip out to the east. Her voice was deep and calm for such a young girl, and Kineas had to admit that Srayanka was no fluke — the Sakje formed remarkable women. Amazons, he thought.
‘We will go east to the rising sun and lend our aid to the keepers of the eastern gate,’ she said simply.
‘Your clan lands are to the east,’ Marthax said without rising. ‘Your homes are on the way.’ His tone was dismissive.
‘We came here,’ she said simply. ‘My father died for the king of the Assagatje. I know what you think, Marthax. I care not.’ She sat.
Srayanka’s eyes turned to Kineas, and he rose. Most of the men around Marthax made growls in their throats.
Before he uttered a word, Marthax rose as well. He was almost a foot taller than Kineas. ‘You have no place speaking here,’ he said.
