‘No, lord,’ the man said, standing tall. His eyes met Kineas’s and he smiled. ‘I liked her and she liked me.’ The man shrugged. ‘We fucked. She warmed my bed.’ He smiled. ‘We please each other, so she can stay with me.’
Kineas sighed. ‘She is a slave at this man’s brothel,’ he said. He indicated the Hyrkanian merchant next to him, a big man in his own right. Beside him stood Banugul’s captain of the guard, Therapon.
Gwair grinned. ‘He wants to fight me for her?’
Kineas shook his head. ‘You know better than that, Gwair.’
Blackhorse grinned again. ‘Stupid merchant can’t keep a girl like that. Girl like that is for heroes. You know that.’
Therapon rolled his shoulders. ‘I’ll fight him,’ he said. ‘And when I kill him, the queen will be satisfied.’
‘Not so fast,’ Kineas said. The problem was that Kineas knew that among the Sauromatae, slave girls went to those who could hold them — until the women stepped in. Sauromatae women fought with the lance and bow like the men, and were not easily crossed, and the men who married them had to be heroes. Kineas turned to Lot, who was sitting next to him. ‘Would you be so kind as to send for some of your noblewomen?’ Kineas said. ‘I think we need their help.’ Kineas had to be seen to do everything he could before he ordered a Sauromatae to be punished or to fight a duel that he was unlikely to win. Therapon was a dangerous man and none of the Sauromatae would be his match.
Lot raised an eyebrow and rose to his feet. Kineas’s initial impression of a slow, cautious man had turned out to be the product of the language barrier. Lot narrowed his eyes at Kineas, glanced at Therapon as if considering the man’s potency and gave one sharp nod. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Although, as you must know, I cannot summon them. I must go and ask.’
Kineas nodded. ‘Should I go?’
‘That would be better,’ Lot said.
‘This assembly is to wait my pleasure,’ Kineas said, and rose.
‘Get on with it,’ said Therapon. ‘Punish the barbarian and move on. I’m cold.’
Kineas ignored the Thessalian and turned to Niceas, who sat on a stool bundled in sheepskins. ‘Can you deal with the Greek defaulters while I’m gone?’
Niceas gave a wolfish smile, much more like his old self, and bawled out the name of a pair of hoplites who had started a fight with the local mercenaries. Kineas pulled his cloak about him, walked along the main street of the camp, past his own log megaron and Lot’s heavy wagon, to where the Sauromatae yurts lined the streets in Greek military order that made them look out of place, like regimented kittens.
Most of the women lived with their men, but the unmarried noblewomen had a yurt to themselves. Most were between fourteen and twenty, but a handful were older — spear-maidens who chose to remain warriors. Kineas rapped his riding whip against the doorpost and one of the young maidens popped her head out and immediately blushed and bowed her head.
‘Lord Kineas!’ she said.
Kineas smiled. No Greek called him ‘Lord Kineas’, and it was ironic that the Sauromatae accounted for most of his discipline problems, because man for man and woman for woman, they worshipped him, a far cry from the views of the average Olbian trooper.
‘I would like to see the Lady Bahareh, if she will receive me,’ Kineas said.
Bahareh came to the door of the tent, took his hand and led him inside. She was an older warrior, with grey in her braids and a face that was more leather than flower petal. She was also one of the army’s finest lancers and her deep female voice carried over any amount of strife. She held no particular rank, but in battle, she rose to command.
Kineas accepted a cup of her tea. ‘I wish you to come and help me with the judgment of Gwair Blackhorse,’ he said.
She raised an imperious eyebrow. ‘He took that heathen girl from the slaver. Is this a crime?’
Kineas nodded. ‘The slave is like a horse — a thing of value to the brothel keeper.’
Bahareh frowned. ‘So he should buy her.’ The Sauromatae women smiled. ‘She is quite a piece.’
‘The brothel keeper wants her returned. He does not wish to sell the woman.’ That’s what I tried first, Kineas thought.
Bahareh snapped her fingers and a pair of teenaged girls helped her don her long, fur-lined coat. It weighed almost as much as armour. Unlike a man’s, it fitted her figure — a very elegant garment, even for a barbarian. Another girl put her hair up and she pulled on a Sakje cap, extinguishing her sex utterly. She looked like any other well-to-do Sakje. As she rose to her feet, she asked, ‘Is the girl pregnant?’
Kineas wanted to slap her on the back.
‘I hadn’t thought to ask,’ Kineas said. ‘Let us assume she is pregnant.’
They were walking down the street. Lady Bahareh had longer legs than Kineas and he had to hurry to match her stride. ‘Then when she gives birth, if she lives, she is a free woman of the clan. He gives her a few horses as a birth present, and the baby is part of his family. That is the law.’
Kineas grunted. ‘I see how to judge this. Listen, lady — I wish you to let it be known that tribesmen who visit the brothels must pay — every time — and that the next man who takes one of these girls to his yurt will suffer as if he stole her from another tribe. If you will do this for me,’ he stopped her in the middle of the street because her stride was so long that she was going to walk him back into the assembly before he was ready, ‘I will tell a lie and save Gwair Blackhorse.’
Bahareh was tall — almost eye to eye with him. She frowned. ‘It is not for you to punish a tribesman, Lord Kineas. That is for our prince to do.’
Kineas held her eye. ‘Lady, we will not make it through the winter as friends unless all obey. Surely it is the same in a winter camp of the Sauromatae?’
She toyed with her whip. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Fair enough. Save Gwair — he’s a fool, but most men are — and I’ll whip the men into line.’ Her whip made a sharp whisper as it cut the air. ‘Lot is right to follow you,’ she said.
Kineas spent the better part of the next hour bargaining with the brothel keeper and the town’s self- appointed archon over the value of the woman, while Therapon, balked of his fight, stalked off. Kineas used her pregnancy to prise her loose from her owner. He made the whole clan pay her inflated value, putting Gwair neatly in the wrong with his own people. The process took roughly four times the time and money it would have taken him to punish one of his own people.
‘This is going to be a long winter,’ he said to Niceas.
‘That’s not good,’ Diodorus said, pointing to the gate.
Two horsemen came up in a shower of snow, riding hard. One of their pickets. The riders pressed right through the assembly.
‘There’s a boat down at the beach,’ Sitalkes said. His breath steamed and so did the breath of his horse, whose panting was audible. ‘From the fort we built at Errymi. Someone from Olbia.’
‘That’s not good,’ Diodorus repeated.
Kineas sent a patrol with spare horses down to the water, three stades distant, with Sitalkes in command. They came back with Nicanor, a freedman who was now the head of the household that had been Nicomedes’. Kineas had the man taken into the megaron, where he stood by the hearth, soaking up the heat. ‘I thought I’d never be warm again,’ he said. ‘I’ve been on that boat for three days, cold and wet through.’ He sighed. He was fat, over-dressed and very out of place, and the whine in his tone was not something often heard in Kineas’s camp.
‘Thank you for coming so fast. You have a message for me?’ Kineas asked gently.
The man reached inside his tunic and drew out a scroll tube. Even the bone tube hadn’t resisted all of the wet, but the vellum inside was clear enough. Lykeles to Kineas of Athens, greetings. My friend, I received your request for funds and could not fill it. The city is near a state of war — the factions have twice attempted the murder of Petrocolus and his son. I dare not send wealth out of the city for fear that it will be stolen and used against us. I send Nicanor to you that you will see how hard-pressed I am. If you are not gone too far, please come back. And together we will crush this upstart. I know that I have failed you in this, but I cannot see another choice. I enclose a letter that arrived at the Maimakteria from Athens. Surely if our own city expects you to campaign against Amphipolis, your duty must recall you.
Kineas read the letter, and the enclosed letter from Demosthenes of Athens, or one of his faction, with growing alarm. He handed them both on to Philokles, who had been questioning Nicanor. The former slave was
