stream.
‘I don’t think this is the Hypanis,’ Philokles said, shaking his head. ‘Ares, I have no idea where we are. I hope I haven’t got you going in circles.’
‘No,’ Coenus muttered. ‘Not circles.’
Every time they awoke, Melitta expected Coenus to be dead. But so far, he wasn’t.
‘Not circles,’ he said. ‘Not Hypanis, either.’
They crossed with the horses, again, all wet to the bone as every person had to swim some of the distance with one hand on a pony.
‘The horses are failing,’ Philokles said when they were done. He was wearing his chlamys like a giant chiton, pinned at the shoulders. It made him look even bigger.
‘We need a house,’ Theron said. ‘I don’t think Coenus will make another night in the open.’
‘I doubt we’re ahead of the bastard’s cordon,’ Philokles said. ‘We’ll never escape them if we spend a night in a town.’
‘Maybe they’re past us,’ Theron argued. ‘They can’t be everywhere.’
‘You just want to sleep in a bed,’ Philokles accused.
‘Is that so bad?’ Theron asked. ‘I’d like a cup of wine, too.’
It was Coenus’s fever that convinced Philokles to risk a night in a house. He walked down the trail and found a farmer’s field, and exchanged a few words with the man, and he came back to them where they waited in the trees.
‘I like him. He’s the village headman, and I think he can be trusted.’ Philokles looked at Coenus. ‘We need to get out of the rain.’
‘Don’t take the risk on my account,’ Coenus muttered. Theron ignored him and nodded.
The farmer, called Gardan the Blue for his bright blue eyes, was friendly, and his wife welcomed the twins as if they brought her house good fortune. They sat together in the main room of the house, swathed in dry wool and warm for the first time in five days, enjoying a meal of goat and lentils and barley bread. They ate like hungry wolves.
Melitta assumed that they would buy fresh horses from the extensive string she had seen in the paddocks, concealed in a stand of woods away from the road. She waited for Philokles to mention it, and when he didn’t, she nudged him.
‘If we buy their horses, we can make better time,’ she said.
Philokles looked at her with ill-concealed sorrow. ‘I have the gold from the men we killed, and our gear,’ he said. He nodded in the direction of the farmer. ‘We can’t give him a fair price for his horses. Not and have the money to take a ship.’
Neither of the twins had given a thought to the sea. ‘But where will we get a ship?’ Melitta asked.
Philokles looked around at the farmer, smiled grimly and shook his head at the children. ‘Quiet. He’s a good man, and I don’t want to have to kill him to keep you alive. Understand?’
They went to bed without another word.
In the morning, the farmer walked them to the edge of the road. He bowed to the twins. ‘Young master? Young mistress? May I speak freely?’
Satyrus nodded. ‘You are a free farmer,’ he said seriously. ‘You can say anything that you want.’
Gardan tugged at his beard. ‘You’re on the run,’ he said. He looked at Philokles. ‘You don’t have a clean garment among you.’
Philokles nodded, looked around and then said, ‘It’s true. The Sauromatae attacked the city with help from Eumeles. Soon enough, some of them will come down this road looking for us.’ He shrugged. ‘I recommend that you be helpful to them.’
The farmer nodded. He rubbed his beard. He was a short man, swarthy as many of the Maeotae were, although he had the blue eyes of a Hellene and jet-black hair from the age of heroes. ‘My uncle fought with Marthax at the Ford of the River God,’ he said. ‘We remember your father.’ He tugged his beard again. ‘I know what happened at the town,’ he said slowly. He looked at Philokles. ‘Been two patrols through, both Sauromatae. Farmers round here don’t take kindly to such people. A man was killed.’ He shrugged and pointed at the heavy bow that rested on pegs over the door. ‘They may come back to burn us out, and then again they may not,’ he said with something like satisfaction. Then he seemed to gather himself. ‘I’m chattering. What I mean to say is, no one in this steading will give you away. Nor any of our neighbours. We know who you are. And there’s five good geldings down the road in a pasture. No one’s watching them.’ He smiled. ‘I’ll tell the next barbarian that the last barbarian stole them.’
His wife came out of her door into the yard, a bag of feed in her hand. ‘There’s clean fabric and wool blankets,’ she said.
Philokles didn’t answer. Instead he looked at the twins. ‘This is a lesson,’ he said. ‘I have told you of Solon and Lycurgus, and I have read to you from Plato and from other men who account themselves wise. But this is the lesson – that good returns good and evil returns evil. These people have saved our lives because your father was a good man, and your mother has ruled fairly and well. Remember.’
Satyrus nodded soberly. ‘I will remember.’ He extended a hand to the farmer, who clasped it.
Melitta rode forward a few steps. ‘When I am queen,’ she said, ‘I will return this favour a hundredfold.’ She kissed the wife and clasped hands with the man.
The horses were just where the farmer had said, and three of them had bundles tied to their backs.
‘When you are queen?’ Satyrus asked.
Melitta shrugged. ‘It is a role, brother. We are exiles. Perhaps we will return. Those people just gave us all of their profit from a year of farming – the whole generation of their horses, the wool from their sheep – there’s linen here that was grown as flax in Aegypt and paid for with the wheat. They gave it all in one open-handed gesture, like heroes – because of who we are.’ She shrugged. ‘They are more like heroes than we are.’
Satyrus spent too much time gulping against sobs. Now he did it again. They rode through the rain in silence.
Philokles was quiet too.
‘Why are you crying?’ Satyrus asked.
Philokles met his eyes, not even trying to hide the tears. ‘All we built,’ he said heavily. ‘A decade of war to create peace. Gone.’ He took a rasping breath. ‘You have no idea what was given to gain this land and the peace it deserves.’ He shrugged. ‘Leave them Hermes and the other horse – they’re good beasts, and then Gardan won’t be at such a loss.’
Satyrus nodded. He took his tack off Hermes and put it on the strange gelding, and then whispered to the old cavalry horse for a bit. He looked sheepish when he was done.
‘Mama says Pater always talked to his horses,’ he said defensively. Then he gave a wry smile. ‘At least Hermes will survive this adventure, if we don’t.’
‘We’re doing pretty well, I think, given the odds,’ Theron said. With a meal in him and a dry chiton, he was a new man.
‘Our father gave his life for this country,’ Melitta said.
‘Not just your father, my dear.’ Philokles managed a smile. ‘A great many men, and no few women.’ He looked back into the rain, and his smile faded, and he seemed to be watching something else, somewhere else. ‘I hate the gods,’ he said.
Coenus shook his head. ‘I hate impiety,’ he said. ‘It’s foolish for a man to hate the gods.’
‘Someone’s feeling better,’ Theron said.
Five fresh horses made all the difference. They rode hard, but the horses were changed regularly. The blankets and clean clothes and the gold pins they were wearing made them look prosperous instead of desperate, although the wiser elders on the road wondered quietly why they were out in the rain at all, or moving at such speed.
They were eight more days from the Hypanis River, and as they trotted over the rain-sodden landscape, Melitta knew that she couldn’t have walked the whole way. And Coenus – despite his fevered wound, was better for the saddle and for sleeping dry. Gardan the Blue had packed them a heavy wool blanket, carefully felted, as big as the roof of a small house – the work of four or five women for a whole winter. It made a waterproof shelter.
They were in better shape when they came down the last slope to the Hypanis, a small party with
