shouted.
'Fuck you, kid,' the voice said. The middle warrior pushed forward. 'Let's get him and run for it,' the voice added. 'No fair fights in the dark, kid.'
Satyrus waited one beat, crouched and then leaped to the right, engaging the man at the end of the enemy group. He landed, put his shield up over his head, leaned low and cut under the man's shield, but his sword rang on the man's greave. Nonetheless, the man stumbled back, and Satyrus pressed him, got his shield up and took a heavy blow on it from his left, then tripped over something on the ground – clang, and he was down in the dirt, his shield face up, arms spread wide.
'Nice try,' the voice said, and Satyrus saw the man stomp on his shield – unbelievable pain in his already wounded arm, a white flare of pain. Satyrus screamed.
Neither Satyrus nor his opponents saw Theron coming, but the athlete knocked clown-voice flat, turned on his partner and dispatched him with two quick spear-thrusts to the face.
Quick as a cat, clown-voice was back on his feet, his spear licking at Theron in the orange light. The fire was starting to spread.
Satyrus got the shield off his damaged arm, and screamed again. He couldn't help it. But he had endured years of pain – of fighting in the palaestra, broken bones and contusions galore – and he somehow stuffed the arm into his sword belt, unable to breathe with the pain, and for the third time that evening he rose to his feet like Atlas shouldering the weight of the heavens. He felt for the dagger that was strapped to the inside of his shield, got his good right hand around it, blood still flowing over his face, and slammed the knife into clown-voice's kidneys while the man had his whole being focused on Theron. The triangular blade punched right through the bronze and sank a hand's depth with the power of Satyrus's blow. Clown-voice stumbled, turned his head and got Theron's spear through the bridge of his nose.
Satyrus sank to his haunches and then fell over, twisting to keep his broken arm off the ground and landing heavily.
'How bad are you, boy?' Theron asked.
Satyrus screamed. 'Arm – broken!' he said, and then crouched on the blood-soaked earth, wishing that he could faint but not quite able to do it. Instead, he vomited.
He lost track of the actions around him, not quite unconscious and not quite able to register anything, floating on a tide of pain like a beached ship refloated on the highest tide. Theron said some things to him, and he found himself explaining that in Olympic pankration, he would never have double-teamed an opponent – he was explaining this to an offical wearing a long white robe and a chaplet of olive leaves, who looked at him with weary distaste.
'We were fighting in the dark,' he said. 'Not the Olympics! The man refused single combat!'
The old man shook his head, and then Theron said something about the ship.
'What ship?' Satyrus asked.
'We have poppy juice,' Calchus said clearly. 'I'll get him some.'
Fire all around him, and then he was walking, hands guiding him, more pain as someone handled his arm and he screamed and fell and the pain almost – almost – knocked him out. Satyrus gasped, gulped air and voices told him to drink, and he drank a thin, milky liquid – bitter and somehow bright.
Then he was cold, and then hot, and then the colour of the fire exploded around him, so that colour defined everything – war and love and missing friends, Amastris's kisses, Philokles' love, all had a colour – and he was swept away on a surge of these subtle shades, lifted and carried, and the pain roared its lavender disappointment and went far away.
8
Against Coenus's judgment, she didn't hide her identity.
The first night, they stopped at a byre, a small stone cottage with fields that stretched away from the track. The people were Maeotae, dark-haired, cheerful, with a yard full of freckled girls in good wool smocks, and two young boys who were sword-fighting with sticks.
Dinner was mutton, served with barley soup on fine Athenian plates. And good Greek wine.
The farmer was Gardan, and his wife was Methene. They eyed the travellers with some suspicion, and spoke quietly at their own end of the great table that dominated the house's one big room.
After dinner – delicious, and doubly so for the cold rain that blew against the door – Gardan moved to their end of the table, the end closest to the hearth, for he was a hospitable man. 'What news, then?' he asked. He was speaking to Coenus.
'We come from Alexandria,' Melitta said.
The farmer gave her a startled look, as if he hadn't expected her to speak. But he smiled. 'As far as that?' he said, but he wasn't very interested.
Coenus sipped his wine. 'Do you care for news from the Inner Sea?' he asked.
The farmer shook his head. 'Not really,' he said. 'Nothing to do with folks hereabouts.' He glanced at their bows, stowed snugly in a hutch by the door. 'Not so many Sakje folk on the roads any more,' he said. And let that sit.
'That's what they said at the Temple of Herakles,' Melitta said.
'Temple has no love for the tyrant,' the farmer said. He looked from under shaggy brows, and the comment was muttered out into the air, as if he could disclaim it, if he needed to.
'Who is this tyrant?' Nihmu asked.
Melitta was disturbed to realize that Nihmu's leg was pressed close to Coenus's under the table.
'Eumeles of Pantecapaeum. He claims all these lands, but mostly, it's Upazan of the Sauromatae who sends his raiders to collect what they call 'tax'.' The farmer shrugged.
'He's no proper tyrant,' Methene said. 'We used to have law.'
'Tish, woman. Not the place.' The farmer gave his wife a mild look and turned back to his guests.
'You will have law again,' Melitta said.
The farmer nodded, as if this was a commonplace, but his wife looked at Melitta and then put her weaving back on the loom. 'Husband,' she said, standing, 'she's a Twin.'
Coenus stood up. 'We don't want trouble.'
Gardan went to his wife. Only when he stood between her and the strangers did he turn. Their children clustered around them, aware that something dangerous had just been said.
'Is that true?' Gardan asked.
'Yes,' Melitta said, ignoring Coenus. 'I am Srayanka's daughter, Melitta of Tanais.'
'By the Ploughman,' Gardan said.
'I knew you in the yard,' Methene said. She shrugged. 'But my eyes is old, and I thought again.' She looked at the three of them, all on their feet. 'You have nothing to worry about in this house,' she said. 'We've sheltered Temerix and his foreign lady many times, and their band, too.'
'Temerix?' Coenus said. 'Temerix the smith?'
Gardan relaxed a little. 'The same,' he said.
'I thought he was dead,' Coenus said.
'Not last summer, anyway,' Gardan said. 'You really a Twin, lady? You three going to raise the Sakje?'
'Yes,' Melitta said.
'Only we ain't seen a Sakje in four years,' he said. 'Word is that the Sauromatae have wiped them off the plains. Leastwise, round here.'
Melitta looked at Coenus, and then at Nihmu.
'If you make war on the tyrant…' Gardan said, and paused. 'He's a hard master, and no friend to the farmers,' Gardan said. He raised his cup. 'But we do well enough. Lady, if you plan to make a war in the Tanais, be sure. Be fucking sure. Because the farm folk will rise for your name alone.' He nodded, emphasizing his words. 'Name alone. I will myself. But if you fail – by the Ploughman, he'll make us slaves on our own farms. What he wants, the bastard. Sorry, wife.'
