‘You are awaiting an attack,’ Kineas said flatly.
The captain shrugged. ‘Not my place to say. The queen will receive you, if you are coming in. Your men must wait in the courtyard, disarmed. ’
Kineas shook his head. ‘No. I’ve been in the citadel a dozen times and my men have never been disarmed.’
The captain shrugged. ‘Then they wait out in the wind,’ he said.
Kineas turned to Sitalkes. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘It’ll be cold. I’ll see to it as soon as I speak to her.’
‘Never mind us,’ Sitalkes said. ‘Take Carlus, at least.’ Carlus was the tallest man in the army, two hands taller than Kineas. He rode big horses and men got out of his way wherever he went.
Kineas turned back to the captain. ‘One bodyguard,’ he said. ‘Armed.’ He handed the man a silver owl.
The captain grunted and took the money. ‘Whatever the fuck. One man. It’s cold — let’s go.’
Kineas gave his horse to Sitalkes, who threw a blanket over her. They waited in the icy wind on the gravel road under the walls and Kineas passed inside, into the sensuous warmth, led by one of her slaves.
Carlus grunted twice — once when the warmth of the floors penetrated his sandals and again when he saw his first oiled slave girl. Other than that he was silent. Kineas left his cloak and his sandals in the outer rooms. Carlus followed him silently.
Kineas could see the tension in every visible ligament on the slaves. He followed the slave into the throne room.
It was much the same as his first visit, except that she was back to wearing the clothes of a Persian matron, and most of her male courtiers were in armour. They fell silent as he entered. There was a man in silvered scale mail standing at her shoulder, who looked like a prince. His face was covered by the nasal on his helmet. He looked familiar.
‘You are a fool to come here, Kineas of Athens,’ she said.
Kineas agreed. The man at her shoulder was Darius. Kineas felt foolish — he’d seen all the signs that the Persian was changing sides, but he’d ignored them. ‘I come with an agreement about the spring campaign,’ he said, still thinking to buy her complacence. Perhaps it was just another round in their game. The fear round.
‘You are a fool, Kineas,’ she said, and this time she sounded sad. ‘The spring campaign is already over. I have need of your soldiers. And if I can’t have them, no one will.’ She looked to be on the verge of tears, but she steadied herself. She motioned at Darius. ‘Kill him.’
Carlus gave his third grunt. Kineas whirled to see the giant Kelt with a dagger rammed through his cloak into the armour on his back. He was wearing a heavy cuirass made of layers of linen quilted together, half a finger thick, and the dagger skidded off the armour and ripped across his neck. The Kelt grunted a fourth time and ripped his heavy sword from its scabbard. He killed two men in as many blows and scattered the guardsmen, forcing their captain back as if he was a giant in a riot of children.
Kineas was unarmed and unarmoured, but he knew where the alcove was. He leaped back from the first rush, grabbed a bronze platter and stopped a killing blow from the man concealed there and another from one of the courtiers nearest the throne. Darius was down from the dais and moving towards him.
‘Philokles!’ the Persian shouted, and ripped a sword from another courtier and threw it at Kineas.
Kineas rammed the edge of the platter into a man’s nose. Then he took the man’s arm, whirled him and broke it, so that he screamed like a wounded horse. Kineas swept his feet and pushed him flailing into the line of guards, kicked with his bare feet, set his back against the wall and grabbed for the sword as it bounced off the wall. Philokles? he thought, and his right hand closed on the grip of the sword, a back-curved hanger like a small machaira, with a heavy guard that completely covered his hand. His left hand had the platter by one of its gryphon-head handles, and he hurled it like a discus at the crowd by the throne. The men facing him fell back a step.
Carlus was bellowing like a bull. There were three men in the blood at his feet and two more clutching wounds and none of the guard would come near him.
Darius dispatched one of the courtiers with a thrust to the chest — no wasted effort. The two survivors by the throne turned to look at him and Sartobases yelled ‘traitor!’ at him in outraged Persian.
‘Philokles!’ he shouted again.
Women were screaming and the smell of death and offal carried across the warm, moist air. He glimpsed Banugul moving away from the throne, one hand pointing at Darius.
Darius cut down another man and joined Kineas at the wall. ‘I work for Philokles!’ he said as if a battle cry, and the words penetrated Kineas’s brain. He laughed and attacked the men in front of him. They scattered and he cut one down in his retreat, but then the front of the hall began to fill with the queen’s guard.
‘Follow me!’ Darius called. He slipped behind a drapery.
Kineas would not so lightly abandon his bodyguard. ‘Carlus!’ he yelled. ‘On me!’
The Kelt swung his sword wide, so that the blade was a blur — back and forth — and then sprang away, the two great swings covering his retreat. He knocked a slave girl flat, smashed his fist into a man’s face, scattering teeth, and ran across the slick floor.
A guardsman threw a javelin. His aim was true and it struck Carlus in the back, but it lacked power and the cuirass held it. Still, the giant stumbled a step. The guards gained heart and charged.
Kineas ripped the hanging off the wall — a Persian procession of conquered peoples carrying gifts — and ducked through the concealed door. ‘Follow me!’ he shouted. He could feel Carlus pushing through the door behind him. They were in a dark corridor. Behind them, Therapon’s voice was calling for archers.
They turned sharply right and the corridor climbed a flight of stairs, lit by pitch brands. ‘Hold them here,’ Kineas said to the big Kelt, who was panting with exertion, fear and pain. ‘Never let their archers get a shot at you. Use the curve of the wall. Understand? I’ll be back for you!’
Carlus placed his back against the wall. He pushed himself to a full standing position. ‘Aye, lord,’ he said. He grinned. ‘Aye!’ His effort to push himself erect left a smear of wet blood on the plaster. The whole stairwell stank of burning pitch and the sweat of fear.
Kineas turned and followed Darius again. ‘Where are we going?’ he asked.
‘Postern gate,’ Darius said. ‘Been trying to tell you for three days — she means to attack the camp. Tonight.’
‘She’s insane! We’d kill her!’
Darius sagged against the landing and Kineas could see he was wounded, the flowing blood black in the fitful light. ‘You’d have killed her men — except that you came here. And she owns some of your new recruits. Or thinks she does.’ The man was pale with fatigue.
‘Let’s get to this gate!’ Kineas said.
They went through a door, into a rich apartment and then down a long curve of steps set into the outer wall. The stairwell was pitch-black and cold as the outer wells of Hades, with a thin cold wind coming in through the arrow slits. Outside, Kineas could hear Greek voices — probably his bodyguard demanding news. The sounds of fighting could be heard right through the walls. Carlus was killing men, roaring his challenge.
They went down, and down again, and through a door.
There were a dozen men waiting for them.
‘Fuck!’ said Darius in Persian, and his sword flashed as he cut at a man. ‘Run, Kineas!’
It was too late to run. Kineas pushed up beside the Persian and killed a man with an overarm thrust. The blade went right over his shield and into his eye — Kineas was using the bend in his own blade to baffle his opponent in the torch-lit dark. The man went down like a sacrifice and Kineas sank to one knee and swept his blade under the shield of Darius’s opponent. Even with his shorter, lighter blade, the cut severed the man’s ligaments just below the knee. He fell backwards, fouling his mates and buying Kineas a few seconds.