Tyrant t-1, page 18
part #1 of Tyrant Series
Kineas wanted to go. He wanted free of the alien tent and the alien he-woman and he wanted to be spoken to in proper Greek. He was very near the edge of panic. He stared at Ataelus — familiar Ataelus, his prokusatore, searching for stability.
She snapped the drum up into the air and said a long sentence. Ataelus said, ‘She says, I find you in the river, I bring you home. Only for you. Only for Baqcas. No warrior is — was — will…’ Ataelus sat and struggled with language, and suddenly smiled: ‘ Should be alive. She say, this for most important thing. Yes? You know what I say?’
Kineas turned away, unable to understand past the sheer barbarity. ‘Tell her I thank her,’ he said and pretended to fall asleep. Soon, he was.
9
The next day he was stronger and they moved him. The move cleared his head and his glimpse of the outside world, even amidst the snow, cheered him; there were dogs and horses and men wearing skins and fur, women in trousers and heavy fur jackets, gold rings and gold decorations everywhere. He had been in the tent of the Kam Baqca, he now understood, and now they took him to a tent set aside for him. He had piles of furs and two gold lamps, rugs and mats and several Thracian cloaks for good measure. Philokles led the move and all of the boys were there, fighting for a place in carrying his litter, arranging his furs, his blankets, getting him hot wine.
It was deeply touching and he enjoyed it. And the conversation with Kam Baqca seemed less alien. Perhaps he had still had a touch of fever, but it was gone now.
‘I take it you are all waiting for me to recover,’ he said to Philokles. The rest of the boys had cleared out, led by Ajax, to join hunters from the Sakje.
‘Yes. The king wants to speak to you before he moves. To be frank, I suggested we leave you with his people and I lead the escort back to Olbia, but he thinks that you are a person of consequence.’
‘Ares’ balls. Why?’ Kineas snorted. Many things had gone below the threshold of worry during the last days, but they were all back now — his alienated employer, the factions, the city.
‘Lady Srayanka — I mentioned her. The king’s niece, I think, although they have a different word for every degree of relative.’
‘Like the Persians.’
‘Just so. She’s a niece, or maybe a sister’s adopted child, but she’s someone with power and she’s our girl from the plains. She claims you are a man of importance. Ataelus says it’s a warrior thing.’ Philokles shrugged. ‘I gather you killed someone important — or perhaps just at the right time? Or — Eumenes says this — avenged somebody here by your act and that gives you status.’
Kineas shook his head. ‘We’re a long way from home.’ He felt an excitement — our girl from the plains. Now I’ve learned her name. Srayanka. It seemed an absurd thing for a grown man to be so pleased by, but he was pleased. He repeated it over and over, like a prayer.
Philokles sat on a pile of furs. Kineas realized with a start that Philokles was wearing leather trousers. It was so un-Greek; so unlike a Spartan, however exiled. Philokles followed his gaze and smiled. ‘It’s cold. And someone made them for me — Eumenes said it would be rude to refuse. They are warm. They rub the parts.’
‘If the Ephors could see you now, you’d be an exile for ever.’ Kineas began to laugh. It hurt his chest, but it felt good. He was speaking Greek to a Greek. The world would be right soon enough.
Philokles laughed with him and then leaned over. ‘Listen to me, Kineas. There’s more to this than you know.’
Kineas nodded.
‘No, listen! These people — they hold the military power on the plains. They don’t need hoplites or walls. They’re nomads — they just move when they want. They hold the power here. They have the ability to stop Macedon on the plains. Or not.’
Kineas sat up. ‘Since when do you care so deeply what Macedon does?’
Philokles stood up. ‘This is not about me.’
Kineas lay back. ‘It is. It is about you.’ There was something nagging at the edge of his thoughts, some connection. ‘You wanted to be here. Here you are. Macedon? Are they really coming here? Do I care? I’ll get the company clear before-’
‘NO!’ Philokles leaned over him. ‘No, Kineas. Stay and fight! All these people need to hear is that Olbia and Pantecapaeum will stand and fight beside them, and they will assemble an army. Srayanka says so.’
Kineas shook his head and said slowly, ‘This means a great deal to you, Spartan. Is this why you came? To make an alliance against Macedon?’
‘I came to see the world. I am an exile and a philosopher.’
‘Bastard! You are an agent of the kings and Ephors, and a spy.’
‘You lie!’ Philokles snapped up his cloak. ‘Rot in hell, Athenian. You have it in your power to do good, to hold the line and save something — bah. Like an Athenian — save your skin and let the others rot. No wonder the Macedonians own us.’ He pushed out through the flap, bruising snow off the roof and leaving a gap where an icy wind crept in. The fire began to smoke.
Kineas climbed out from underneath his furs and made his way to the door. It wasn’t as bad as he had feared — just cold. He tugged at the heavy felt flap until it fell into place across the door, and he pushed on a stick sewn into the felt until it closed just right — sealing the door. An inner curtain fell over the whole. He was warmer immediately. He found dried meat and apple cider by his bed and tore into them — the meat was softly seasoned, almost tart, and the cider smelled of Ectabana. He drank it all.
Then he had to piss. He was naked in his tent, and there was nothing like a jar or a chamber pot.
He wondered what had led him to accuse Philokles and he shook his head at the hypocrisy of his accusation. He had to piss and he needed someone to help him. That revealed to him how foolish he had been to antagonize the Spartan — and for what? He was suspicious of the Spartan’s motives — he always had been.
‘Who cares?’ he asked the tent flap. He had no clothes and it would be cold as hell outside, and he needed to piss. ‘Who gives a shit?’ which under the circumstances, seemed funny.
The flap rustled and Philokles’s head appeared.
Kineas smiled in relief. ‘I apologize.’
‘Me, too.’ Philokles came in. ‘I antagonized a very sick man. What are you doing out of your blankets?’
‘I have to piss like a warhorse.’
Philokles wrapped him in two Thracian cloaks and led him out in the snow. His feet hurt from the cold, but the relief of emptying his bladder trumped the pain of his feet and in seconds he was back in the furs.
Philokles watched him intently. ‘You are better.’
Kineas nodded. ‘I am.’
‘Good. I have found someone more persuasive to make my argument. Lady Srayanka will be here when the hunt ends. She will make the case herself.’
Kineas cast about the tent again. ‘Where are my clothes?’
‘Don’t be a fool. This is not a mating ritual — I imagine the lady is well wed. This is diplomacy and you have the advantage of illness. Sit and look pale. Besides, you’ve seldom been lovelier. Eumenes pines for you when he isn’t pining for Ajax.’
Kineas glanced at him and realized that he was being teased. ‘Cut my beard.’
‘An hour ago I was a coward and a liar.’
‘No, a spy. You said liar.’
The possibility of real enmity hung in the air between them, just a few words away from the raillery. Kineas made a sign of aversion in the air, a peasant sign from the hills of Attica. ‘I have apologized, and I will again.’
‘No need. I’m a touchy bastard.’ Philokles looked away. ‘I am a bastard, Kineas. Do you know what that means in Sparta?’
Kineas shook his head. He knew what it meant in Athens.
‘It means you are never a Spartiate. Win at games, triumph in lessons and still no mess group will welcome you. I thought that I had escaped from the weight of the shame — but apparently I brought it here with me.’
Kineas thought for a moment, sipping more cider. And then he said, ‘You are not a bastard here. I’m sorry for the word. I use it too often. It is easy — I’m well born, whatever I am now. But I say again — you are no bastard here, or in Olbia. Or in Tomis, for that matter. Please forgive me.’
Philokles smiled. It was a rare kind of smile for him, free of sarcasm or doubt — just a smile. ‘The Philosopher forgave you when I walked out the tent.’ He laughed. ‘The Spartan needed a little more combat.’
Kineas rubbed his face. ‘Now trim my beard and comb my hair.’
And Philokles said, ‘You bastard.’
It was long after dark when she came. Kineas and Philokles had spent the afternoon talking, first in a gush and then comfortably, by topics, with silences. Twice, Kineas went to sleep and awoke to find him still there.
The snow had finally ceased. Eumenes said so when he came back with an antelope he’d knocked over with his own spear, proud as a boy reciting his first lines of Homer, ‘These barbarians can ride! My father calls them bandits, but they are like centaurs. I’d only seen them drunk in the town — and my nurse, of course. Not like they are here at all!’
Philokles smiled. ‘I fancy you are seeing a different type of Sakje altogether.’
‘Noble ones. I know. The lady — she rides like Artemis herself.’
Kineas started before he realized the boy must mean the goddess. He made the avert sign — women who rivalled Artemis seldom came to a good end. But his Artemis had been a fine rider, in many different ways. He smiled to himself. He was becoming an old fool.
Eumenes continued. ‘She killed twice, once with a bow and once with her spear. A woman, sirs, imagine? And the men — so courteous. They found my buck. I was nervous — what if I failed my throw right there, surrounded by barbarians?’
Kineas laughed aloud. ‘I know that feeling, young man.’
Eumenes looked hurt. ‘You sir? I saw you throw in the hippodrome, sir. But anyway — I’ll never let my father call them bandits again.’ Philokles ushered him out.
‘I gather Lady Srayanka has gone to dinner.’
Kineas was disappointed. He was shaved and under the furs he had a good linen tunic, now somewhat creased from being napped in. But he smiled. ‘You are good company, sir.’
Philokles flushed like a young man. ‘You please me.’
‘Socrates said there was no higher compliment. Or maybe Xenophon. One of them anyway. For a soldier — but why hector you about what soldiers think? Have you made a campaign? Is it not something about which you will speak? I mean no insult.’
‘I made a campaign with the men of Molyvos against Mytilene. It was my first, for all my training.’
‘Why did you leave?’
Philokles looked into the fire. ‘Many reasons,’ he began, and there was a stir at the door cloth.
Lady Srayanka entered alone and without fuss, sweeping the door aside and closing it with a single sweep of her arm. Having entered, she walked around the fire, brushed her long doeskin coat under her knees and sat in one fluid motion. She flashed a brief smile at Philokles. ‘Greetings, Greek men. May the gods look favourably upon you.’
It was delivered so well, so fluently, that only later did Kineas realize it was a practised phrase learned off by heart.
Philokles nodded gravely, as if to a Greek matron in a well-ordered house. ‘Greetings, Despoina.’
Kineas couldn’t help but smile. The head was the same, although the face was less severe. Still the same clear blue eyes and her ludicrous, heavy brows that nearly met in the middle of her face. He was being rude, staring into her eyes — and she was looking back at him. The corner of her mouth curled.
‘Greetings, lady,’ he said. It didn’t sound as stumbling as he had feared.
‘I desire — to send — for Ataelax. Yes?’ Her voice was low, but very much a woman’s.
‘Ataelax?’ asked Kineas.
‘Ataelus. His name as it is said here, I gather,’ Philokles explained as he opened the flap and called.
Ataelus came in so quickly it was obvious he had been waiting nearby. The moment he entered, something changed. Until then, her eyes were mostly on Kineas. Once he was through the flap, they were everywhere else.
‘For speaking,’ he said.
Kineas decided that he would pay some teacher in Olbia to improve on the cases of the Scyth’s nouns as soon as possible.
Lady Srayanka spoke softly and at length. Ataelus waited until she was completely finished and then asked her several questions, then she asked him a question. Finally, he turned to Kineas. ‘She says many fine things for you, you birth, and how to say? Hearting? Brave. She say you kill a very big man Getae. Man kill her — for special friend, and for dear man. Yes? And other thing. For other thing, all good. Then this — sorry she take tax on plain for her, from us. Make trouble with stone houses; make trouble for horse people Sakje. She say, “You never say Olbia!” and I say, “You never ask!” but truth for truth, you never tell me, or maybe I for understand. Or not. Yes?’
Philokles leaned over. ‘I’ve heard this before, Kineas. This Getae you killed — he had killed someone important to her. Not a relative. Not a husband. A lover? I don’t think we’ll get to know.’
Kineas nodded. Praise was praise when you valued the giver. ‘Tell her I am sorry for the loss of her friend.’
Ataelus nodded and spoke to the lady, who nodded too. She spoke, tugging one of her heavy black braids. ‘She say, “I cut these for loss.” So not now, but long ago, I think.’
She went on, gesturing with her hands. She was wearing a different coat and her golden breastplate was not in evidence, but this coat was also decorated in dark blue lines, abstract patterns from the middle of the sleeve to her wrist, and it had the same cones of gold foil wrapped around hair that tinkled and whispered as she moved.
‘Now she say other thing. She say you airyanam. Yes? You know this word?’
Kineas nodded, flattered. The Persian word for aristocrat, old noble, and also for good behaviour. ‘I know it.’
‘So she say, you this airyanam, you big man for Olbia. She say, Macedon walks here. She say, Macedon kill father, brother. I say this — big battle, ten turns of the moon. Years. Ten years. Yes? In the summer. Sakje fight Macedon. Many kill, many die, no win. But king, he killed. Me, far away on the plains, care nothing for this king, nothing for Macedon, but I hear this, too. Big battle. Big. Yes? So — so. Her father this king, So I say, not she — she big woman, big she, like I think first time. Yes?’
Philokles glanced at her and said, ‘You think her father was the king who died fighting Macedon? In a big battle ten years back. You weren’t there, but you heard a lot about it. And you think she is very important?’
‘Good for you,’ said Ataelus. ‘For me, she big. Yes? And she say, Macedon walks. She say, hands of hands of hands of men walk for Macedon, like grass, like water in river. She say, new king good man, but not fight. Or maybe fight. But if Olbia fight, king fight. Otherwise, not. King go off into plains, Macedon walks to Olbia.’
Kineas nodded that he understood what had been said. He was sitting up, watching her. She ignored his regard, concentrating on Ataelus. Now, she was passionate, her hands flashing in front of her as if she urged on a horse by pumping the reins. She was loud.
Ataelus continued. ‘She say, you big man for Olbia, you man airyanam, you make for her.’ Although Ataelus was just starting to translate her most impassioned speech, she was finished, and she sank back with her head against the tent’s central pole, her face turned up to the smoke hole, her heavy lashes covering her eyes — as if she couldn’t bear to watch the result of her words. Kineas realized that he was watching her so intently he was missing the translation of her speech.
‘You go, bring Olbia, make Olbia fight. War down Macedon. Make Sakje great, make Olbia great, break Macedon, everybody free. She say more — all word talk. And Kineax — she like you. That she not say, yes? I say it. Little childrens ouside yurt say it. Yes? Everybody say it. King poke her with it. So you knowing this, I say it.’ Ataelus was smiling, but he had forgotten that the lady spoke some Greek. Like an arrow from a bow, she rose to her feet, glared at him, struck him with her riding whip — a substantial blow that knocked him flat — and vanished through the door flap.
‘Uh oh,’ said Ataelus. He got to his feet unsteadily, holding his shoulder. Then he pushed through the flap and called out. A steady stream of obvious invective greeted him. It was quite loud, fluent, and went on for long enough that Kineas and Philokles exchanged glances.
Kineas winced. ‘Very like a Persian. I think she just said that he could eat shit. And die.’
Philokles poured himself wine. ‘I’m happy that your romance is flourishing, but I need your brain. You understand her words about Macedon?’
Kineas was still listening to her. She was running down, using words that he didn’t know. They all seemed to end in — ax. ‘Macedon? Yes, Philokles. Yes, I was listening. Macedon is coming. Listen, Philokles — I’ve made seven campaigns. I’ve been in two great battles. I know what Macedon brings. Listen to me. If Antipater comes here, he’ll have two or three Taxies of foot — half as many as Alexander has in Asia. He’ll have as many Thracians as he can pay and two thousand Heterae, the best cavalry in the world; he’ll have Thessalians and Greeks and artillery. Even if he only sends a tithe of his strength, these noble savages and our city hoplites wouldn’t last an hour.’
Philokles looked at his wine cup and then held it up. It was solid gold. ‘You’ve been sick a week. I’ve been talking to people. Mostly to Kam Baqca. She is their closest approach to a philosopher.’
‘The witch doctor?’ Kineas said with a smile. ‘She scared me last night.’
‘She is a great deal more than a witch doctor. In fact, she is so great that her presence here is probably more important than the king’s. She speaks some Greek but — for her own reasons — seldom uses it. I wish I spoke this language — everything I think I know comes through the sieve of other men’s thoughts. Kam Baqca scares Ataelus so badly he can barely keep his thoughts in order to translate for me.’
