‘This is not the fight I want!’ Upazan said. ‘This is the demeaning squabble of slaves!’
Kineas nodded. ‘It is not the fight you want — I agree. So you may apologize and retract your challenge, or fight.’
Upazan looked around for counsel — for the support of the men who had ridden with him. A few of them had come up, watched by the Keltoi, but their faces were carefully blank. Upazan opened his tunic and dropped it to the rugs. He had thick cords of muscles — even by Greek standards, he had a good physique.
He raised his arms. ‘I am ready,’ he said.
Upazan didn’t lack courage, and he was strong. But he was a poor wrestler and he had never even seen boxing.
Kineas had almost finished before Philokles, a late arrival, finished his wine. Kineas took his time, trying to teach the boy how powerless he was — a life lesson the boy clearly needed. He took a blow — powerful but untrained — on the muscle of his arm and then locked the Sauromatae in a hold around his neck, turned his body so that the younger man had no purchase and then hit him once with his fist on the temple. Upazan fell unconscious from his arms.
The Sakje and the Sauromatae joined in their applause, and Kineas was human enough to enjoy their praise while he strigilled with Philokles’ help, enjoying the clean smell of olive oil on his flesh. Srayanka watched him thoughtfully.
‘You are quite handsome,’ she said with a half-smile. ‘And the oil is strangely attractive.’ Her eyebrows drew together as she frowned. ‘But you would have done better to kill him.’
Kineas shrugged. ‘I can’t kill him and keep the Sauromatae as allies.’
Srayanka raised an eyebrow. ‘You can’t keep them anyway, my husband. And now — now he will be like a serpent.’ She frowned, her eyebrows a single line over her nose. ‘We had this conversation before. I was right then and I am still right.’
Kineas shrugged. ‘Sometimes, you are like a Greek wife,’ he said.
Philokles’ strigil found the bruise on his arm where Upazan had landed a blow, and he winced.
Nihmu watched with ill-concealed glee. ‘Your mercy is wasted on him, lord,’ she said. ‘He has none for others!’
‘All the more reason for the strategos to show some mercy to him,’ Philokles said.
The council gathered as the sun began to go down in the west. The air was almost cool and the dust of the day had settled. Kineas had Nicanor build a big fire in the clear ground behind Srayanka’s wagon and he arranged as many stools as he could find. The tribal leaders came in little knots, gossiping about the feast and about Upazan. Kineas noted that Parshtaevalt came with Ataelus and Leon, while Lot stood apart with Monae, his wife. Upazan did not attend. The Olbian officers were all there.
Kineas rose after Nicanor had poured wine for them all. He made a libation, pouring the whole cup of good wine into the fire, so that a cloud of fragrant steam rose around him in the dark. ‘I begin to sing of Pallas Athena, the glorious goddess,’ he said, ‘bright-eyed, inventive, unbending of heart, pure virgin, saviour of cities, courageous, Tritogeneia. Wise Zeus himself bore her from his manful head, already armed in bronze and gold, and awe seized all the gods as they looked at her. But Athena stood before Zeus who holds the aegis, shaking a bright iron spear. Olympus shook at the warlike ardour of the bright grey eyes, and the earth all around the mountain cried fearfully, and the sea rolled and spat dark waves and foam in sudden torment, until the maiden Athena stripped the glorious bronze from her lovely shoulders. And wise Zeus was glad.
‘And so hail to you, daughter of Zeus who holds the aegis! Now we will remember you.’
Then he turned to his council. ‘It is time for us to go and fight Alexander,’ he said. ‘We are here to discuss who will go, and how we will go.’
‘We’re best off where we are,’ Lot said. ‘There’s no grazing east of here, and I’ve heard that the Massagetae camp and all the Scythians fill the vale of the Jaxartes, eating all the grass. Let us wait here until she summons us again.’
‘We wouldn’t even know if a battle took place,’ Srayanka shot back. ‘Zarina and the Jaxartes are ten days’ ride from here.’
‘Or more,’ said Ataelus.
‘We’re running out of grass already,’ Parshtaevalt said. He had aged quickly during Srayanka’s captivity, and unlike Upazan, he had never had any interest in rulership beyond his own concept of duty. ‘Already the herds are twenty stades from the camp.’ He gave a bitter smile. ‘I send my daughters to fetch my mounts every morning.’
Srayanka nodded. ‘The grass is not of the best.’
Lot glanced at his wife. ‘We are thinking of leaving our young and old with a guard and sending them back to our summer pasture,’ he said. He sounded apologetic.
Srayanka surprised her husband by agreeing immediately. ‘We should do the same. We should transform ourselves into a great war host and not a movement of all the people.’
‘The warriors left behind will be bitter,’ Parshtaevalt said. ‘They will miss the great battle.’
Srayanka shook her head. ‘Let every warrior left behind be one who served at the Ford of the River God,’ she said. ‘And let them console themselves with remaining alive.’
Kineas approved, but he leaned over to her and whispered, ‘So we leave our veterans? And take only the young?’
She shook her head. ‘We take our best, and then leave a tithe of our best as guards. It is the way. Those who stay behind are chosen by chance from those who are picked to go. Do you understand?’ She looked at him gravely. ‘And if we are badly defeated, the people will yet have an army of proven warriors.’
Kineas nodded. ‘A very good system. Yes, I understand.’ He smiled. ‘I understand that I have much to learn if I am to act as the king!’
Srayanka shrugged. ‘No more than any man,’ she said. ‘Or woman!’
Lot rubbed his beard. ‘I fear we cannot host you on our summer grazing,’ he said. ‘I am sorry. There is hard feeling because of the boy — Upazan, despite his hot head, has many friends. But more, we have many horses — more than I can ever remember.’ He rocked his head back and forth in self-mockery. ‘I must be a good prince.’
Srayanka looked at Kineas. Kineas took a sip of wine — it was almost gone — and nodded. ‘I think our own people should start west,’ Kineas said.
There was murmuring from all around the fire.
Srayanka looked surprised. ‘Now?’ she asked.
Kineas nodded. ‘Now. If they go soon, and stay on the move, they’ll have no fodder problem. Three months will see them at the fort on the Rha. Messengers can tell Crax to buy grain against the winter, and the high plains will have abundant grass in the spring.’ He looked at Lot. ‘I think we should travel separately — not because of your foolish nephew, but because that’s the way we’ve crossed the bad ground to get here. I want to talk about the route.’
Lot nodded.
Kineas went on, ‘As I see it, there are two routes and two sets of risk. If we go straight east, we cross the desert — and crossing in mid-summer will be very different from crossing in spring. Together we have ten thousand horses. Perhaps after we send our people to their winter grass, we’ll have four thousand horses.’ He shrugged. ‘That’s a lot of water.’
All around the fire, men and women nodded, picturing the desert crossing.
‘If we ride south for two days, we’ll be back at the forks of the Polytimeros. As I understand it, we can follow the Polytimeros into the valley of Marakanda, and then go north through the Sogdian gap to the Jaxartes, and never spend a night without water.’
‘There is Alexander,’ Diodorus said.
‘Both routes have risk,’ Kineas said. ‘Alexander will have outposts on the Polytimeros. The closer we go to Marakanda, the more dangerous it will be. But if we move like Sakje, we could be with Queen Zarina and the Massagetae in a fortnight.’
‘If Alexander catches us in the valley of the Polytimeros, we’ll be in a lot of trouble.’
‘We scout carefully and move fast.’ Kineas looked around. ‘We’ve left it late, friends. If we are agreed that we’re going to Zarina — that we’ll help her stop Alexander this summer — then we must go now and we must go fast. ’
