the world.
But Diodorus’s plan was sound.
‘I’ll think on it,’ Kineas said.
‘Don’t forget the fodder,’ Niceas said, and coughed. Red sprayed his fist. He tried to hide it, and Diodorus and Kineas exchanged a look of shared concern.
The next day, the sun came up and stayed, and no rain fell on the fields of mud beyond the town and the citadel.
Diodorus, Leon and Nicanor were hard at work behind him, scratching out rows of Greek characters to represent every man in the line of march and to give the officers a manual on which to drill their men. Across the drill square, by the gate, Lycurgus was recruiting and drilling men that he had turned away all winter, wolfish Greeks and nondescript Persians. Beside him, Temerix the smith stood bundled in sheepskins, also recruiting from the brigands who came to the gate as soon as they heard that Kineas was paying silver for service.
He didn’t want to go to the palace. They had nothing to say to each other, except as a mercenary and his employer. He glanced around the smoky hall, looking for a man he could send in his stead.
Diodorus was busy, and besides, Sappho would not forgive him for sending her man.
Eumenes was under house arrest, and Kineas meant to let him stew.
Leon might do. Except that he was busy, and sending him would expose Kineas’s unwillingness to do what needed to be done.
Do the thing. Men said it when they asked for death, or when they sealed a deal in the Acropolis. He was evading responsibility. Facing the queen was his job.
He knew with the finality of oracular prophesy that if he climbed the hill again, he would fall into her arms, vulgarity or none. She would think that his offer of service by his infantry was a concession to her charms. And he was not made of wood, or stone.
Cowardice.
A gust of wind picked up dust and dry snow from under the eaves of the huts and brushed it across the parade ground in a long swirl of dirty white, and when it was gone, Nihmu’s slight figure could be seen riding across the drill field.
‘Do you never appear as other people do?’ Kineas asked, by way of greeting.
She laughed and lifted a leg over her horse’s head and slid to the ground all in one elastic motion. ‘The world is about to change,’ she said, her face suddenly serious. ‘I rode to tell you.’
Kineas nodded.
‘The woman in the palace — the sorceress. She is very dangerous to you — today and tomorrow and tomorrow again after that. Be on your guard.’ Nihmu’s odd eyes met his square on.
Kineas nodded again. ‘I was just thinking the very same thing as you rode up.’
Sometimes, when dealing with Nihmu, it was possible to forget that she was a child. At other times, it was painfully obvious. ‘I have not had as much time for you this winter as I ought.’
Nihmu nodded. ‘You are often at the palace. All the Sakje fear me. I long to talk to you. And my father orders it.’ She looked around. ‘I like your Nicanor. He is funny, and he makes good cakes.’
‘I’m sure that Nicanor doesn’t make cakes himself.’ Kineas couldn’t imagine the pompous and rather staid Nicanor amusing a child.
Nihmu made a face. ‘Fat lot you know, Strategos.’ She laughed.
Behind her in the drill square, Lycurgus dismissed the twenty files he was drilling and they broke up into knots of men talking and shouting. Another group, mostly Olbians, were heading out to the brothels of the agora, and they were shouting at a third party that was returning. The noise level swelled.
Suddenly all the voices in the drill square shaped themselves into one voice. ‘ Your blindness will kill as effectively as your sword, ’ it said in the tone of a god.
Kineas fell back a pace. Nihmu’s eyes were wide and her face was contorted, not the face of a child but that of a priestess. And then she grabbed at the bridle of her horse and ran away, crying.
He sent for Ataelus when he gathered the tangled skein of his thoughts. Ataelus rode up looking at the sky. ‘Sun again tomorrow,’ he said. ‘For drying earth.’
Kineas nodded. ‘I need you and the prodromoi to start making a fodder inventory,’ he said.
Ataelus shrugged. ‘Huh?’ he asked.
Kineas started again. ‘I need you and the scouts to go out every day and give me a report on the farms within a day’s ride — the number of wagons, the amount of fodder they have in their barns and stores.’
Ataelus grinned. ‘For counting wagons and for scouting trail to east. Anything else for scouts?’
Kineas spread his hands.
Ataelus leaned down from his horse. ‘Temerix for counting barns and wagons. Ataelus for scouting east.’
Ataelus never cut corners and he never feared to argue with his leader, which was welcome, even when the news was bad.
‘You are right.’
Ataelus nodded. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘If sun is for shining, scouts ride tomorrow. Back when moon is full.’ He shrugged. ‘Unless for dead. Always unless.’
Kineas pointed at the throng of would-be warriors at the gate. ‘Anyone worth recruiting for the prodromoi?’
Ataelus didn’t turn his head. ‘No,’ he said.
Having dismissed centuries of Hyrkanian horsemanship in one word, Ataelus grinned. ‘Anything else, Strategos?’ It was a word Ataelus relished — he trotted it out too often.
‘You taking the girl — Lot’s daughter? Mosva?’
‘When for riding east? No. Stay with father. Last child. Not for scouting.’
Kineas rubbed his beard and then snatched his fingers away. ‘I’d rather she went,’ he said.
‘Oho!’ said the Scyth. He nodded and gave a big grin. ‘Good. I for talking Lot.’
‘Go with the gods, Ataelus.’
‘Go with horses. For coming back with gods.’ Ataelus grinned. Then he wheeled his horse and rode away.
Kineas went to finish some discipline.
He slipped through two layers of hanging cloaks and blankets to enter the hut that Eumenes shared with Andronicus and six other gentlemen-troopers. The hearth was cold and so was the room, and the whitewashed walls served only to make it colder. There was no table and no chairs and no couches, only a rack of beds made by local craftsmen and covered with piles of blankets and furs and sheepskins. At the far end of the dark hut, one of the troopers — a Kelt called Hama — was ploughing a local girl, moving slowly and rhythmically under a tent of blankets. They whispered to each other, moaned and giggled together. Eumenes sat in misery, trying to pretend he was not there.
‘Let’s walk,’ Kineas said to Eumenes.
Eumenes took his cloak from the doorway and followed Kineas into the sunshine.
Kineas walked them up the snowdrifts to the walls. Troopers were punished with snow-clearing duty outside the walls, where a beaten zone was maintained. Inside, the snowdrifts sometimes added to the height of the fort.
‘You and Leon are competing for Mosva, Lot’s daughter,’ he said when they were out of the wind.
Eumenes nodded.
‘I have sent her off east with the prodromoi. I suggest you apply yourself to your work as a professional soldier. Buy a girl if you feel the urge. That outburst in the meeting was ill-meant and bad for discipline. And you started it. I hope you understand me.’
Eumenes flushed despite the bite of the cold. ‘It’s not fair. He called my father a traitor.’
Kineas put his hands on the boy’s shoulders. ‘What you mean is that it’s not fair that your father was a traitor. He was. And Leon was a slave. And both of you are important officers in this company, and we need you to function as adults and not as brainless children.’
‘Not fair,’ muttered Eumenes. He was weeping.
Kineas embraced the boy, who had suffered so much in the last year and was now weeping for the loss of a
