‘Look at those cowards,’ Theron said. Indeed, the cream of Eumenes’ Macedonian cavalry were rallied off to the far left in an old river bed. Many of the units were formed up as if on parade, but they weren’t moving forward.
‘Difficult to tell the difference between cowardice and treason,’ Philokles said. ‘Is it our responsibility to tell Eumenes that his camp is attacked? Or even that his phalanx is still in the game?’
‘What of your friend Diodorus?’ Theron asked.
At their feet, a short column of horses and mules was already formed and moving south. ‘Diodorus planned against this,’ Philokles said. ‘As did Sappho.’ He shook his head. ‘Diodorus needs to know that this has happened. Will you go, Theron?’
Theron looked at the maelstrom of churning salt dust and bronze. ‘I don’t even know who I’d be looking for,’ he said. ‘No. Not my game.’
‘I’ll go,’ Satyrus said.
Philokles didn’t even look at his student. He was looking at the camp. ‘I need to repay an old debt. You stay with the children. Diodorus is a big boy.’
‘I’ll go,’ Satyrus said again.
Already, the word of the catastrophe was spreading and refugees were pouring out of the camp, heading south. To the north, the Bactrians were already in the horse lines, taking remounts. The Saka were riding to the east, coming around the tangle of tents that would impede their horses.
‘What old debt?’ Theron shouted. ‘Ares, man, you can’t go into that!’
‘Banugul,’ Philokles said quietly. The name didn’t mean much to either of the twins.
‘Mum used to talk about her,’ Melitta said. ‘You used her as an example once, of a woman of power.’
Philokles didn’t take his eyes off the onrushing enemy. ‘You really do listen to everything I say,’ he said.
‘Aunt Sappho said that she ought to be our ally,’ Satyrus said.
‘Your father saved her life once,’ Philokles said, his eyes on another fight, far away in time and place. He reached up under his arm and loosened his sword in its scabbard. ‘You children go with Theron. Down to the column and go to the rally point. I’m going to save a gilded harlot.’
The twins looked at each other. A message passed between them, but they mounted with Theron and started down the back of the bluff, both of them watching Philokles as he mounted and vanished over the camp-side crest.
‘Is he insane?’ Theron trotted ahead, muttering.
Satyrus turned to his sister. ‘I’ll ride to Eumenes,’ he said quietly. ‘And to Diodorus.’
She nodded. ‘Good. I’ll help Philokles.’ She looked at his borrowed dun gelding. ‘I wish you had a better horse.’
‘Me too,’ Satyrus said. They exchanged a smile, and he glanced at Theron and pulled his horse off to the left. On a dun horse, helmetless, with a dun-coloured cloak, Satyrus vanished in the dust as soon as he turned his horse. He was away, back up the slope of the bluff, until he had a view over the worst of the dust and down into the salt plain.
Eumenes’ silvered helmet was a flash of white light, just a stade or so to the north. Satyrus pointed his gelding’s head at the general and tapped his heels for speed, and they were away
Melitta watched her brother turn his horse. She reached down and checked her bow case. Theron turned in his saddle. ‘This way,’ he called.
Melitta followed obediently for another minute, and then, as they entered the dust of Sappho’s column, she shouted, ‘Where’s Satyrus?’
Theron turned in his saddle, retying his chlamys over his face against the dust. ‘Where’s he gone?’ Theron asked. ‘Ares!’
‘He was right there,’ Melitta said.
‘Go to Sappho,’ Theron said, turning his horse. ‘Satyrus!’ he bellowed.
Melitta didn’t answer – she just rode towards where Theron was pointing until the dust swirled around her. Then she slipped her Sakje tunic off her shoulder so that her right arm and shoulder were bare and pulled Bion around in a short turn. Dust didn’t bother her – she’d ridden in the drag position with the maidens and the boys on summer marches with the Assagatje. She wrapped a scarf over her mouth as she cantered back towards camp.
The dust was thick, and the Saka were close – she could see them shouting to each other just to the east. She waved her bow over her head at them and they shouted. Then they were gone in the dust.
She had a good idea where the enormous red and yellow tent stood, so she rode on instinct, trusting Bion to move carefully in a forest of tents and stakes and ropes. She didn’t ride fast, but she took the straightest line she could find.
She terrified a great many camp followers, emerging from the curtain of dust. She looked like a Massagetae. Under her mask of dust and her head scarf, she smiled wickedly, gave a shriek of joy and terrified them a little more. It would only move them faster. That might save their lives.
Twice, Bion stumbled, catching a leg on a tent stake or a rope, but both times they recovered without a fall. ‘Good boy,’ she said in Sakje, patting his flanks. She was speaking Sakje and thinking in Sakje, and the Greek of the terrified women around her was almost incomprehensible to her. She felt Bion’s weight change and she got up his neck for a jump – he was up and over, and she never knew what they’d just jumped. Then the gelding turned under her and she almost lost her seat, and they were cantering again.
She caught a flash of colour to her left, and then another, and beneath Bion’s hooves she was looking at fruits. They were in the agora of the camp, and close to Banugul’s tent.
Now, where is Philokles? she asked herself.
Satyrus rode easily, leaning well back as they slid down the face of the bluff and then shifting his weight forward as they got the hard ground of the valley under them. He let his horse have his head, and they were off at a gallop. Satyrus trusted his seat, so he used the gallop as a smooth platform to get his chlamys off his waist where he’d tied it and to wrap it around his head.
He had just got the length of wool around his face when he burst into a crowd of Bactrians. He knew them from their long burnooses and their trousers, and then he was through them, moving so fast that they had little chance to catch him. His heart raced and for the first time the foolishness of what he was attempting rose with his gorge to choke him.
I could die doing this, he thought. It was very different from being hunted by assassins – this was a risk he had incurred at his own will, and it felt stupid. It’s not even my battle! some part of his mind shouted at him. Too late now! another part answered, and he came out of the protective wall of salt dust as if shot from a bow.
Instantly, he felt naked. There was a breeze here, and it had ripped the veil of salt asunder and left him riding alone with a thousand Bactrians in full view to the west, less than half a stade away. His bare legs proclaimed him a Greek and probably an enemy, and a dozen of them turned their horses and came for him with a series of shrill whoops.
Ahead he saw the body of men he was aiming for – Macedonian cavalry in white leather spolades and bronze helmets. The man at their head had a silver helmet, but at this range it was obvious that he was not Eumenes. He was ten horse-lengths away, and he was shouting orders in a voice as young and shrill as Satyrus’s own. His cloak was purple.
Satyrus got up on his knees, pressed his heels into his gelding’s flank and raced for the narrowing gap between the Macedonian cavalry and the Bactrians. Behind him, a dozen Bactrians were down on their horse’s necks, calling to one another in hot pursuit, but he was a lighter rider on a better mount. It occurred to him that he ought to shoot at them, but he didn’t have the nerve to spare. He was too busy being one with his horse.
The young officer whirled around, and Satyrus passed him at javelin-toss. The pin on his purple cloak would have ransomed a small town.