know, you will change his campaign. His Amazon — his prize! — is right here. And so is the man who defeated Zopryon.’ Philokles had never looked more like a philosopher, despite his stained tunic and dirty legs, than at that moment, gleaming and golden in the firelight, leaning forward like a statue of an orator. ‘If you tell him, he will drop everything to fight us — out on the grass. And you will never see home.’ Philokles’ eyes were sparkling. ‘And you know it.’
Diodorus, still reclining, said, ‘There is a god at your shoulder, Philokles.’
The others were silent. Some slurping and gurgling from Lita broke the solemnity of the moment.
Ptolemy was gone in the morning with the other prisoners. Philokles rode with him to the south, accompanied by Ataelus, and returned alone at midday, when the whole column was so far out on the sea of grass that the trees of the Polytimeros valley were lost in the haze. Only the mountains to the east marred the perfect bowl of the earth.
It was not until evening that the desert nature of the ground began to take its toll. The scouts had found waterholes, and their camps were based on those, but no single place gave sufficient water for eight hundred horses. Kineas had to fragment his command into four groups, based more on horse strength than on manpower. Srayanka and the Sakje were at another waterhole. He lay awake listening to the restless, under-watered horses. He was unused to sleeping alone, already missing his children. He awoke with a dry mouth. He drank water from the spring after the horses were clear, and there was more silt than refreshment.
By noon his mouth was like parchment, his tongue had taken on a presence in his mouth it had never had before and his clay water bottle, sized for Greece where dozen of streams crossed the plains, was almost dry. He had travelled through deserts before, in Persia and Media and west, by Hyrkania, so he knew to put a pebble under his tongue and to ration his water skin and pottery canteen carefully. He made sure that Antigonus and the under- officers checked the Greek and Keltoi troopers constantly, made them drink, watched them for signs of sickness.
Even with a host of water problems, they flew. Released from the rough ground at the foot of the Sogdian mountains, the four small columns moved at a pace that could only be maintained when every man had at least two mounts. Their second camp on the sea of grass came after what seemed like three hundred stades of travel — an incredible march for one day. The prodromoi rode back and forth between the columns, reporting on the water ahead and the distance that each troop had left to reach their camp, but soon enough the horses smelled the water and then they saw a stream rushing out of the hills — hills that had shifted from the eastern horizon towards the south, and were closer. The stream was still cool and the horses trumpeted when they smelled it and could barely be controlled.
‘For worrying,’ Ataelus confessed, as they watched the horses charge into the stream. ‘For one day on Great Grass.’ He pointed mutely at the chaotic drinking. ‘Next time, four days. And one night — no water.’ He shrugged. His shrugs were so Greek now that he could have sat on a wall in the agora of Athens.
‘We’ll survive,’ Kineas said.
Ataelus gave him a look that suggested that no amount of command optimism was going to cure a night without water.
They all camped together, because of the stream. Kineas snuggled up to Srayanka, and she snuggled back. ‘I missed you,’ she said. ‘I know I will lose you — so I resent being parted. I will yet be a silly girl.’
‘No,’ Kineas said, smelling the sweet grass and woodsmoke and horse smell of her. ‘How were the children?’
She rocked her hips, pushing back against him. ‘They were like babies. When their mouths get dry, they cry. Worry more when they don’t cry.’ She rolled her head back to him. ‘Most of the women who have borne children are gone — the only other women are spear-maidens. I wish I had someone to ask-’
‘Ask what?’ Kineas said.
‘Lita doesn’t — move — as much as I am for liking.’ She kissed him. ‘I am being a mother. Pay me no heed.’
Kineas lay still for a little while.
Srayanka rolled on to her back. ‘What are you for thinking?’
Kineas watched her in the starlight. ‘I’m thinking how many things there are to worry about. Babies and water, horses and water. Alexander. Death.’
Srayanka put her hand behind his head. ‘I can think of something we can do to stop worrying,’ she said, her right hand already playful. ‘But you must be quiet!’
Kineas chuckled into her lips. He started to say something witty and then he wasn’t thinking about much of anything.
About two minutes later, something hit Kineas’s rump. ‘Keep it down!’ Diodorus called, and forty men and two women laughed.
‘Told you to be quiet,’ Srayanka said. But her chuckles didn’t last long.
PART VI
27
‘ So this party of mixed Greeks and Scythians just let you go. ’ Hephaestion was beginning to see Ptolemy as a competitor, and in his creed competitors needed to be destroyed.
Ptolemy was struggling not to lose his nerve or his temper. In his detached, commander’s brain, he wondered that a man could be afraid and enraged at the same time. The Poet always said that one drove out the other.
The Poet had never been to Sogdiana. ‘The Greeks made sure of it,’ he said. ‘There was a Spartan mercenary. He rode me clear of their lines.’
Alexander, far from being angry, seemed pleased. ‘So the Sakje barbarians have some Greek allies,’ he said. He rubbed the stubble on his chin. ‘That makes it more of a fight, don’t you think?’
Hephaestion wasn’t through yet. ‘It might, if you believed this halfarsed story.’
Alexander looked at his closest companion with a certain scepticism. He raised an eyebrow. ‘Do Sogdians take prisoners?’
‘No,’ said Hephaestion. ‘Of course not.’
‘Dahae? Sakje? Massagetae?’ Alexander was just like his tutor when he bored in on an argument. He was at his most annoyingly superior, but since the focus of his superiority was on Hephaestion and not him, Ptolemy was prepared to watch.
‘No,’ said Hephaestion, now surly as he understood the point being made.
‘Exactly. If his story was false, he wouldn’t be here. So Craterus lost, what, seventy Sogdians?’ Alexander snapped his fingers and received a cup of wine. Another cup was offered to Ptolemy, while Alexander shared his with Hephaestion.
Ptolemy nodded. ‘More like a hundred, lord.’
Alexander rolled the wine in his cup before he raised his eyes. ‘Craterus needs to be replaced.’
Ptolemy shook his head. ‘Who could have expected a trained commander in this wilderness? Or an enemy who could make three direction changes inside a few stades?’
Alexander’s steady and mismatched gaze didn’t waver.
So much for Craterus, Ptolemy thought.
‘Will you take command of the Sogdian cavalry?’ Alexander asked.
‘No,’ Ptolemy said, without a moment’s thought. ‘I would like to go back to commanding my taxeis.’
‘Very well,’ Alexander said. His annoyance was plain — blood rushed to his face. ‘Go back to foot-slogging with my compliments on your report.’ He made a hand motion that indicated dismissal. Ptolemy gave a brief bow — a sketchy compromise between a Macedonian head nod and a Persian bow — and withdrew.
