King of the Bosphorus

'I will order a cup of wine from a slave. I will not order the slave to face a cavalry charge.' Coenus smiled. 'I'm not even a good phylarch. I end up pitching the tents and cooking the food – myself.'

'I would give you a command,' she said. 'I would form a group of my own knights, and have you as my commander.'

Coenus nodded. 'For a time,' he said. 'For this summer, I would be honoured. But when you are victorious, I will take my horses and go and rebuild my shrine to Artemis. I will tend my wife's grave, hunt animals and die content. I am tired of war.'

She smiled. 'I must be content, too. From the warriors now in the camp, find me a trumpeter and five knights – just five.'

Coenus nodded. 'As you command, lady.'

She frowned. 'And Nihmu?' she asked.

'Nihmu struggles,' Coenus said.

Melitta crossed her arms. 'I was not asking about her… spirit.'

Coenus shook his head. 'If you are asking about our sleeping arrange ments, I can only suggest that it is none of your business. Lady.' He held her eye effortlessly. 'And it is not your business.'

Melitta actually shook with the repressed urge to stomp her foot. 'Very well,' she said archly. 'You are dismissed.'

'Have a care, lady,' Coenus cautioned. 'Sakje rulers do not "dismiss". That is for Greek tyrants and Medes.'

Melitta slumped. 'Point taken.'

Coenus nodded. 'Good.' He slipped through the flap, and was gone. Just after the golden rim of the sun crossed the horizon the next morning, they left the camp. Hundreds of tribesmen still milled about. More than a few mounted and rode alongside the column, but Melitta could see that they were not packed to travel, so she ignored them except to accept their good wishes. Urvara and Parshtaevalt had twenty-five knights each, and a few more riders as heralds and outriders – strictly speaking, neither had exactly obeyed.

Ataelus had twenty-five riders, precisely, and he grinned at her and invited her to count. Instead, she embraced him on horseback.

Coenus led six knights of his own choosing. The only one she knew was Scopasis, who wore a new scale shirt, a little big, but a beautiful piece, and a bronze Boeotian helmet that he hadn't had the day before. All six of her knights could be identified by the crown of fir tree wrapped around their helmets, which gave them a curiously organic appearance – but made them appear as a unit. They fell in around her and rode at her side.

'Introduce me,' Melitta said to Coenus.

Coenus nodded. 'My phylarch is Scopasis. He is an outlaw, and has no other loyalty. He is your man. Besides,' Coenus flashed a smile at the small man, 'I like him.'

Scopasis spoke up from under his new helmet. 'I will follow you to death, lady.'

Melitta grinned. 'That's not exactly my plan. But I, too, like Scopasis. And the others?'

'Laen here is actually your cousin – the son of Srayanka's half-sister Daan.' Coenus pointed Laen out. He was a tall young man with a gilded-bronze muscle cuirass and an ancient, and beautiful, Attic helmet with silver mounts. 'Nihmu chose him – they're related. I could have had fifty men if you'd wanted so many. There was a disturbance!' Coenus laughed. 'Nearly a melee. I wish I could have held games. This young troublemaker with the blond moustache is Darax, and the one whose nose scrapes the sky is Bareint. The two hiding in Bareint's mighty shadow are brothers from the Standing Horse tribe – Sindispharnax and Lanthespharnax, or so I understand their names. Sindi and Lanthe, to me. The lanky one with the extravagant moustache is Agreint.'

Melitta's head whirled at so many new names. 'Sindispharnax?

' 'Lady?' the warrior asked. He pushed his horse forward.

'Hardly a Sakje name?' she asked.

'My mother was a Persian captive,' he said proudly. 'She sits still with the elder matrons, and she gave us Parsae names.' He leaned forward. 'My father served yours on the Great Raid east, lady.'

She nodded. To Coenus, she said, 'So, how did you choose them?'

'I asked any man who wanted to join your escort to meet me at my yurt with his best horse,' he said. 'I simply inspected the horses. I chose the six best. Their riders came along for the ride, so to speak.'

She curled her mouth and made a face. 'Perhaps we should be more attentive to men?'

Coenus leaned close. 'Am I the commander of your knights, lady?'

'You are,' she replied. And nodded. 'Point taken. And my trumpeter?' she asked.

'Unless you take Urvara's, there's not a trumpet in the camp.' Coenus flicked a Greek salute. 'Take Marthax's.'

She nodded. 'Good thought.' That night they made a cold camp, and Melitta regretted that she hadn't a sleeping companion to keep her warm. She piled every fur and blanket she owned on a cleared place in the snow, and eventually, after walking until her feet were warm, she got to sleep.

In the morning they rode on, into the north. It snowed twice, the first a matter of little moment, the second putting a fresh layer on the grass as deep as the hocks of a horse. None of the horses were struggling yet, but a few more inches on top of what had already fallen and travel would begin to become dangerous.

Ataelus went out with scouts as soon as the sky was grey. His riders and Samahe's came in all day, reporting on the distance to Marthax's camp. At noon, when the sun was a pale silver disk in the sky, Ataelus came in himself.

'Marthax awaits us on the Great Field,' he said. 'I saw him, and he saluted me. We did not speak. He and all his knights are armed.'

'How many?' Urvara asked.

'All of his three hundred,' Ataelus said, with a significant look at Melitta.

'We have fewer than a single hundred,' Parshtaevalt said.

'We won't need them,' Melitta said, and hoped that her voice carried sufficient authority. 'Ride on.' She motioned to Ataelus to stay at her side. 'What is this Great Field?' she asked.

Ataelus laughed. 'Here in the north is the city of the Sakje, yes? You know it? Not a city at all – some temples, mostly built by Greek craftsmen, and the houses of the big traders. And walls, and corrals – pasturage for ten thousand animals in time of war, all closed in walls. The Sindi dug it for us. And outside the main gate is the Great Field, where all the people gather sometimes.'

'To name a king?' Melitta asked. Her stomach was turning over, and she felt the same ice in her spine that she'd felt in her first fight – and the first time she made love to Xenophon.

Ataelus shook his head. 'To talk. To trade. Sometimes to fight.' He shrugged. 'I am from the east, lady. We have different ways. Your people inherit the rulership – mother to daughter, father to sister's son. Mine fight for it.'

'We are not so different,' Melitta said. Her hands were cold. The sun had gone well down the sky when their column arrived in the Great Field. Immediately, her clan leaders formed their knights. She was in the centre, with hers, and she put Ataelus on the far right, Urvara on the right and Parshtaevalt on the left. They formed their line a stade apart, and Marthax's riders watched them. Most of them weren't even mounted – they stood by their horses, blowing on their hands. Melitta slipped off her riding horse and climbed up on to Gryphon.

'We should all change to our chargers,' Coenus said.

'No,' Melitta said. 'They're not mounted on chargers. Only Marthax. And me.'

Coenus grunted. 'Would it be so wrong if we had some advantage? They outnumber us three to one.'

'Yes,' Melitta said. She was cold right through, and her hands were shaking. It all came down to this, and suddenly she was robbed of her certainty. All these people – people she loved, for all she quarrelled with them – had followed her to this field, with the icy north wind blowing horse-tails of snow. What if she was wrong?

'I wish I had a trumpeter,' she said, and rode forward alone. After two paces, she pulled up and turned. 'No one is to follow me!' she called, her young voice carrying on the wind.