Authors: Christian Cameron
Tyrant (39 page)
‘Not for leaving,’ Ataelus said heavily. ‘For
waiting
.’ He shook his reins and touched his riding whip to his pony’s flanks, and he was gone over the grass, leaving Kineas to worry.
waiting
.’ He shook his reins and touched his riding whip to his pony’s flanks, and he was gone over the grass, leaving Kineas to worry.
Philokles joined Kineas as the column started forward. ‘What was that about?’
Kineas waved dismissively. ‘Our Scyth is in a state because we’re late.’
‘Hmm,’ said the Spartan. ‘We are late. And the lady doesn’t strike me as the sort of commander who likes to wait.’
Kineas rode out of the column, signalled to Leucon to join him, and barked out a string of commands that set the whole troop into an open skirmish line two stades wide. When the rough line was moving well, he rode back to Philokles, who as usual took no part in the manoeuvres.
‘She’ll understand that I was delayed,’ Kineas said. ‘So will the king.’
The Spartan pursed his lips. ‘Listen, Hipparch. If you were waiting for her, and you’d sat for two weeks while she drilled her cavalry . . .’ He raised an eyebrow.
Kineas was watching the skirmish line, which was sticking together pretty well. ‘I don’t—’
‘You don’t think of her as another commander. You think of her as a Greek girl with some equine skills. Better get over that, brother. She’s had to put up with two weeks of ribbing from her troopers about waiting like a mare in heat for her stallion - that’s my guess. Look how well you handle
our
teasing.’
our
teasing.’
The left half of the skirmish line was bunching up as the young troopers chatted while they rode. Riding with a horse length between each file pair took practice, and the line was starting to fall apart.
‘Sound HALT,’ Kineas bellowed. To Philokles, he said, ‘She may not even want me.’
The Spartan didn’t blink. ‘That’s a whole different problem - but if she didn’t want you, chances are Ataelus wouldn’t be looking so worried.’
Kineas watched the outer arms of his skirmish line galloping to the centre to form on their commander. ‘As always, I’d treasure your advice.’
Philokles nodded. ‘Make the same apologies to her that you’d make to a man.’
Kineas scratched his beard. ‘Kick me when I go wrong.’ He cantered for the command group to discuss the skirmish line.
They saw the first scouts by mid-morning - dark centaurs on the horizon who vanished between hoof beats. They found the camp in the afternoon, as Ataelus had predicted. Kineas’s stomach turned over at the sight of the wagons, and he clenched the barrel of his horse between his knees until the animal began to curvet and fidget. There were a few riders at the edge of the camp, and a mounted group was gathered at the edge of the river.
The riders came to them at a gallop - two young men resplendent in red leather and gold ornament flashing in the sun, who raced by the head of the column, waved, and raced off again yipping like dogs. They ran their horses right in among the crowd at the edge of the water.
Kineas led his column through the tall grass to the edge of the camp and ordered it to halt. He sat at the head of the column, feeling foolish because he didn’t know what to do. He’d expected that she’d come out and meet him. Instead, he saw that there was some sort of archery contest going on.
‘Shooting with bows,’ Ataelus said at his side. ‘Lady shoots next. See?’
Kineas saw. How had he missed her? Srayanka was seated on a grey mare at the edge of the water with a bow in her hand, her jacket half off so that one breast was bare in the warm spring sun, the sleeve falling free, one shoulder bare to the gold gorget at her neck. Her hair was bound in two heavy braids and as she turned her head, he saw her heavy brows and the focus of her expression.
That’s what she looks like, he thought. Yes.
‘Wait here,’ he said to Niceas. He motioned to Ataelus to attend him and touched his horse with his whip - her whip - and cantered across the grass to her.
A man was shooting. As Kineas reined in, the man kneed his horse into motion, first a canter and then a gallop along the flat grass at the water’s edge. He leaned out over his horse’s neck and shot an arrow into a bundle of grass. A second arrow appeared in his fingers and he shot it point blank, leaning so far down off his pony that the head of the arrow almost brushed the target as he released, and then he was past, turning in the saddle with a third arrow nocked, and he drew and released in one smooth motion. The last shot hung in the wind for a moment, the arrow visible as a black streak, before burying itself in the ground an arm’s length beyond the target. The other Sakje hooted and cheered.
Kineas looked back to Srayanka, and she took a deep breath, her whole body focused on the target of grass the way a hunting dog would watch a wounded stag. Like a man, Philokles had said. Her visible breast and the line of her muscular shoulder to her neck were like a Phidian status of Artemis, but the Athenian sculptor would never have known a woman’s face to have such an expression - set and hard with purpose.
Kineas stayed silent.
Without another glance she tapped her heels against her mare, and the horse leaped straight from a stand into a gallop. Her first arrow was in the air with the horse’s first full stride. She had three more in the fingers of her draw hand, and she flipped one like a conjuror, drew and shot, leaned out close to the target just as the man had done, her whole body at an impossible angle to the horse, her braided hair straight out behind her head, the muscles of her arm standing out with the strain of drawing the bow, her hips and legs one with her mount.
Kineas couldn’t breathe.
She put the last arrow on her bow and turned back so fast that her body seemed to rotate free of her waist and shot again, her arrow invisible until it punched through the grass target. And then, as the horsemen began to cheer, she drew a fifth arrow from the
gorytos
at her waist, whirled again and loosed, her upper body straining to the heavens like a priestess offering a prayer to Apollo. The arrow lofted up and up into the blue sky and hung as if caught by the god’s hand at the top of its arc before plummeting to the earth where it transfixed the bundle of grass. Before the arrow hit, she had slowed her horse as she turned to be greeted by the roars of all the warriors and the Greeks up the ridge.
gorytos
at her waist, whirled again and loosed, her upper body straining to the heavens like a priestess offering a prayer to Apollo. The arrow lofted up and up into the blue sky and hung as if caught by the god’s hand at the top of its arc before plummeting to the earth where it transfixed the bundle of grass. Before the arrow hit, she had slowed her horse as she turned to be greeted by the roars of all the warriors and the Greeks up the ridge.
The sound went on and on, though there were just fifty or so of them, with a high crescendo of screams - yeeyeeyee - from the women, and bass barking from the men. Several stepped forward, raising their hands in obvious congratulations, and an older woman - her trumpeter - rode up close and embraced her.
She handed the trumpeter her bow, turned and put her arm down into her sleeve and shrugged the jacket back over her naked shoulder. She walked her horse toward Kineas empty handed. He was still bellowing his appreciation like a good guest at a symposium. Behind him, the other Olbians were cheering, too.
He fell silent as she rode closer. Her eyebrows were just as he remembered, her nose long and Greek, her forehead clear and high. How could he have forgotten how large her eyes were? Or their brown flecks within the dark blue?
He couldn’t think of anything useful to say. He had to say something. ‘Tell her that’s the finest shooting I’ve ever seen,’ he said. His voice came out clear and calm. He was surprised he got it out at all.
Ataelus spoke in Sakje. Kineas knew the words enough to know that his compliment was passed unadorned.
She raised an eyebrow and replied to Ataelus without taking her eyes off Kineas. ‘She say she shoot bow much when she has long wait.’ Ataelus sounded more nervous than Kineas. ‘She say she packed wagons for leaving. Saw us coming. She say, are you ready to ride, or need more rest?’
Kineas didn’t take his eyes off hers. ‘Tell her I’m very sorry we are so late.’
Ataelus spoke. This time he spoke at some length. She raised a hand and silenced him. She pressed her mare forward.
Kineas’s stallion rolled his lips back from his teeth and sniffed, his neck extended as far forwards the mare as he could manage despite Kineas’s rock hard hand at the reins.
The mare shied a step, and then, fast as thought, her head came round and she nipped Kineas’s horse on the neck with her teeth and he shied, stepped back, and Kineas had to struggle to keep his seat.
Srayanka spoke. Kineas caught words he knew - mare and stallion.
The Sakje warriors laughed. One of them laughed so hard that he fell to the ground, and pointing at him led to more laughter.
Kineas got his stallion in hand and turned to Ataelus. He could feel the heat of his face. She was laughing too. ‘What did she say?’ he asked.
Ataelus was laughing so hard that his eyes were closed and both of his hands were wrapped in his horse’s mane.
‘What did she say?’ Kineas demanded again, this time in his battlefield voice.
Ataelus wiped the grin off his face and sat straight. ‘She made for joke,’ he said after some hesitation.
The Sakje were still laughing. Worse yet, someone who had some Sakje had translated the joke to the Olbians. The older men were trying to hide their laughter, but the younger were unable to control themselves.
‘I can see that,’ Kineas snapped.
She turned away from him to her trumpeter and snapped a string of orders, and then she turned her head back to him and he caught the flash of deep blue as her eyes sought his and she smiled. Don’t be an ass, he thought to himself. But he was boiling inside, and he couldn’t manage to return her smile.
‘Tell me this joke,’ he said to Ataelus.
Ataelus was struggling to restrain laughter. He panted like a dog, slapped his horse, finally gave up the struggle and dissolved into laughter with his arms crossed over his chest.
Kineas glanced after Srayanka’s retreating back - she was gathering riders and shouting orders, and a group of younger men were harnessing oxen to the wagons. Most of the laughter had stopped among the Sakje, but it was still spreading among the Olbians as the joke was translated and passed from file to file.
Kineas trotted over to Niceas, who sat on his charger fingering his amulet with a fixed and dutiful expression that Kineas knew all too well. Kineas spoke quietly, firmly, as if nothing untoward had happened. ‘Get everyone off their warhorses and on their riding horses. Water all the animals at the river - bread and cheese in the saddle.’
Niceas nodded, as if he didn’t dare speak.
Philokles had a broad grin on his face. He pulled out of the column as Niceas began to shout orders. Leucon rode by, red-faced, avoiding Kineas’s eye. In fact, none of the men met Kineas’s eye. Eumenes was still laughing.
Ataelus reached out and touched his elbow. He was smiling. ‘She say - maybe mare . . .’ He began to laugh again. He managed to croak out, ‘. . . In heat - two weeks ago.’
Kineas had to work through the words in his mind, and then a slow smile punctured the grim mask of his face.
Before the sun had moved another hand across the sea of grass, the whole column, Sakje and Olbian, was mounted and heading north. Kineas changed horses and cantered up the column to where Srayanka rode with her trumpeter, a hard-eyed older woman with skin like leather and bright red hair like Diodorus, whom Kineas remembered from the summer before.
Srayanka smiled as he rode up - the best smile she had ever given him. She nudged her trumpeter and spoke to Ataelus. Behind him, the lead Sakje tittered.
‘She say - where your stallion, Kineax?’
‘Tell her my stallion is too sad to be ridden. In despair - can you say “in despair”?’ Kineas was at a heavy disadvantage in translation.
Ataelus shook his head. ‘What’s despair? Something bad?’
‘So sad you can’t eat,’ Kineas said.
‘Ah. Lovesick!’ Ataelus laughed, and then spoke quickly before Kineas could stop him.
The Sakje tittered again, and a big black-haired man behind Kineas leaned out and slapped his shoulder.
Srayanka turned and brushed a hand against Kineas’s face. The motion took him by surprise - she was that fast - and he squirmed and almost missed her touch.
Ataelus laughed with the rest of the Sakje, and then said, ‘She say - not worry. She say,’ and he broke off a while to laugh again, ‘she say - maybe mare in heat again - in about two weeks.’
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