She laughed with him. ‘I didn’t have ten words of Greek,’ she said. ‘But oh, how I wanted you.’ She looked at him under her lashes, a look that was the more beautiful for its rarity, because she was more frequently the cavalry commander than the lover. ‘We held hands, I think.’
They danced and ate and drank wine until the sun set, and then they danced and sang and drank more, strong red wine from Chios that was like berries in the mouth, and they ate venison seasoned with pepper, which was too strong for some of the Greeks but delighted others. They had bread — rich, strong Greek bread, because Coenus had brought Olbian flour all the way across the sea of grass. And the Olbians had strong Maeotian fish sauce, three deep amphorae, to season their bread, and olive oil for the first time in three months, while the Sauromatae and the Sakje tried the Greek foods and passed around their own rich and heavily spiced mutton and foal with flatbreads and honey.
‘I brought cider,’ Coenus said, ‘but it was already turning by the time I reached Crax on the return trip, and we drank it to save it.’ He grinned and spoke slowly, the perfect aristocrat even staggering drunk. ‘We toasted the two of you, of course.’
They had built a bonfire that towered to the height of three tall men, tamarisk and willow and poplar on top, and the fire took with a rush after it had been blessed by a Persian fire priest who had come with the traders, and roared to life so that you could feel it on your back ten horse-lengths away. The burning cedar smell of the tamarisk mixed with the late honeysuckle and the briar roses that bloomed over every thicket in the river valley.
They were toasted and gifted, and they named their children in the last light of the sun at the top of Hirene and Bain’s kurgan, so that the swords of the two dead heroes caught the light and seemed to anoint the heads of the two infants.
Unmoved by all this spiritual glory, the babies roared against their hard fates in being kept up late, and received the plaudits of the crowd despite their ill manners. They were, after all, only a month old.
And then many of the Greek men appeared, drunk, singing obscene songs that Srayanka could only guess the meaning of — not that the guessing was hard, as most of them wore giant erect phalluses strapped to their groins, and they had convinced several young Sakje girls to be lewd. Battering pans and kettles, slobbering well-meant kisses, this raucous crew escorted them to their wagon. The serenade went on until Srayanka said they were waking the children.
‘Don’t hear that every day at a wedding in Athens!’ Diodorus called, and then they were gone.
‘There will be more wine than milk in these breasts,’ Srayanka said when finally they were alone.
‘No reason they shouldn’t share the feast,’ Kineas said. ‘At home, you would have a wet nurse.’
‘At home in Greece? A wet nurse, and slaves, and a life in a few rooms.’ She frowned. ‘I’m afraid you are wed to a barbarian.’
‘Well, Barbarian Queen? What will you have as a wedding present?’ he asked, kissing the side of her neck.
‘Hmm,’ she said. ‘Mmm?’ she whispered. She laughed at him and pushed him away. ‘Remember what happened the last time?’
‘Killers coming through the side of the wagon? By Zeus, that seems a long time ago.’ He laughed and snuggled next to her.
‘Even then, what I wanted was to take my people to war with Alexander,’ she said. ‘That is still what I want. And when we have fought him — win or lose — then we can return to the high ground by the Tanais. We will be king and queen of a united people. Our children will rule after us.’ She kissed his hand. ‘I want you to bring your people to the muster, King Kineas. That is what I want.’
Kineas knew what keeping that promise would mean. He dreamed of the tree and the river almost every night. But he looked into her eyes and thought that some fates were not as bad as they might seem. ‘To Alexander, then,’ he said.
PART V
23
‘ m I surrounded by fools?’ Alexander asked the assembled officers. Silence.
‘This country is not subdued,’ Alexander said carefully. ‘We are at war with every rock and tree. There is no room for weakness or doubt, or slovenly soldiering.’
The Macedonian officers were red with fury and embarrassment. The cadre of Persian and Sogdian officers who were present deepened their humiliation.
Alexander had little time for Panhellenism, but it had its uses. ‘Two thousand Hellenes died at the hands of barbarians. They were not even outnumbered. They were merely careless.’
Craterus, a Companion officer, and Ptolemy, the youngest of the phalanx commanders, exchanged glances. Alexander watched them. They looked as if they might voice some dissent. He was prepared to crush them. But after one exchanged glance, they subsided.
Alexander raised an arm. ‘If you gentlemen will turn your attention to the stream bed…’
Just to the north, a tributary ran down out of the Sogdian hills into the Jaxartes. The stream bed was nearly dry with mid-summer, and forage parties had cleared every stick of burnable brush and every leaf of green forage, so that the stream bed looked like an open mine. Packed into the gully were six thousand blank-eyed prisoners leashed by short ropes to stakes driven deep into the sandy soil. Lining the sides of the gully were soldiers — some Macedonian veterans, and some of the more recent Sogdian recruits. The Sogdians, most of them, were related to the men in the gully.
Alexander gave a sign and all the men, Macedonian and Bactrian, set to work in the mass slaughter of six thousand prisoners. For the most part, the victims waited fatalistically, although here and there men struggled, either panicked into a last resistance or too stubborn to go down without a fight. Their executioners approached with dripping swords and dispatched them. Those who struggled took the longest to die, and those who bowed their heads to the blade went fast.
Alexander watched for as long as it took a thousand men to die.
‘I don’t want any more mistakes,’ he said. ‘Nor do I wish to see any softness.’ The evening air stank of blood, as if the army was butchering oxen for meat. ‘You will all watch until these rebels are dead. Then you may dismiss.’
He turned on his heel and walked away, followed by Hephaestion and Craterus. Neither man walked with his accustomed swagger.
Alexander turned before he had gone ten steps. ‘Eumenes!’ he called, and the lone Greek on his command staff came quickly.
In his tent, he snapped his fingers for wine.
‘I worry that we are teaching the rebels not to surrender,’ Eumenes said.
Alexander sat heavily on his couch and swirled the wine in his cup. ‘I worry about the same thing, but I had to make an example.’
‘For Spitamenes?’ Hephaestion asked, and Alexander shook his head while he narrowed his eyes.
‘No,’ he said. ‘For this Scythian queen, Zarina. And for my own Macedonians.’ He turned to Eumenes. ‘You have all the survivors from Pharnuches’ column isolated?’
‘Yes, majesty.’ Eumenes could feel the lion’s rage from across the room, like the heat from a bonfire.
‘I considered having them executed with the rebels,’ Alexander said. ‘But that seemed to send the wrong message. I’m still thinking about it. Tell them from me that if I hear a word of this disaster from the army, I will have one man in every file killed. If I hear more, I’ll kill them all.’ He took a deep breath. ‘Understand me?’ he said after a moment. ‘I command it.’ He looked at Eumenes. ‘And we lost our Amazons. Spitamenes must be having quite a laugh at us.’
