‘When will we name them?’ he asked, holding his daughter.
‘We will name them at the ceremony. They will be a month old, and that is a good age.’
‘Greek names or Sakje names?’ Kineas asked, trying to sound light.
‘Both, I think,’ she answered. ‘Satyrus — Satrax — for our son. And Melissa — Melitta to Kineas — for our daughter.’
Kineas bowed. ‘Well chosen,’ he said. ‘Just as well I wasn’t involved.’ He smiled at his daughter and gently touched her cheek. ‘Little honey bee,’ he said.
The baby’s eyes snapped open, and her tiny hand grabbed his finger.
‘She has you already,’ Srayanka laughed. ‘And what would you know of choosing Sakje names?’ she asked him. But her eyes danced. They kissed.
‘Your gown is almost finished,’ Samahe said.
Srayanka laughed. She loved looking fine, and she was delighted by the idea of a silk gown. ‘I can’t wait,’ she said. ‘I’ll have to bind my breasts or they’ll leak.’
Kineas handed his daughter to Samahe. ‘Some things are better for a man not to hear,’ he said.
All the world, it seemed, attended their feast. Sauromatae and Sakje, Olbians, Persian traders and even a western Kwin, the purveyor of the silk that made Srayanka’s cream Persian gown, embroidered around the hem and all the seams with Greek and Scythian animals and designs depending on which woman had been available to put her hand to the work. She wore the heavy gold collar of her rank and the high headdress of a priestess, with the green-hilted sword of Cyrus in a gold scabbard at her side. To Kineas, she looked like one of the ancient goddesses he had seen in Ecbatana.
Kineas awoke on his feast day to find that he, too, had a magnificent gift — first, a wool tunic of the finest Sogdian work, made from a pair of matched shawls and decorated more fancifully than an Athenian gentleman would think quite right for everyday wear. His Greek friends had refurbished his red sandals and produced a gold laurel wreath for him to wear in his hair.
But the most magnificent gift sat in front of their wagon on an armour stand for all to view: a Sauromatae-style scale hauberk, the scales in alternating rows of silvered bronze and gilt and blue enamel, carefully fitted with dozens of different-sized scales to cover his torso and shoulders perfectly, the scales sewn to a new leather thorax. The resulting cuirass was heavy, but no heavier than his damaged Athenian breast- and back-plates, and it glowed in the summer sun with gilded Greek leg armour and a matching bridle gauntlet produced by Temerix in secret. His helmet, refurbished, had a new blue plume.
Diodorus fondled the gauntlet as if it was a woman’s arm. ‘They wear them in Italia,’ he said.
‘Craterus had one at Arbela,’ Kineas said. ‘We all admired it.’ He laughed. ‘I don’t suppose it would do to wear armour for my wedding. ’
‘Soon enough,’ Nihmu said, doing a handstand nearby.
There were games — Sakje games and Greek games, with horse races and wrestling and shooting bows for distance and accuracy, but once the wine and fermented mare’s milk began to flow, the contests ran their courses and the contestants hurried to get their share of the drink. Kineas and Srayanka gave prizes to the winners, sitting together hand in hand on a pile of skins in the red sunset, their children in baskets at their feet.
‘Do you remember?’ Kineas asked. ‘On the sea of grass, riding to see Satrax?’
She laughed with him. ‘I didn’t have ten words of Greek,’ she said. ‘But oh, how I wanted you.’ She looked at him under her lashes, a look that was the more beautiful for its rarity, because she was more frequently the cavalry commander than the lover. ‘We held hands, I think.’
They danced and ate and drank wine until the sun set, and then they danced and sang and drank more, strong red wine from Chios that was like berries in the mouth, and they ate venison seasoned with pepper, which was too strong for some of the Greeks but delighted others. They had bread — rich, strong Greek bread, because Coenus had brought Olbian flour all the way across the sea of grass. And the Olbians had strong Maeotian fish sauce, three deep amphorae, to season their bread, and olive oil for the first time in three months, while the Sauromatae and the Sakje tried the Greek foods and passed around their own rich and heavily spiced mutton and foal with flatbreads and honey.
‘I brought cider,’ Coenus said, ‘but it was already turning by the time I reached Crax on the return trip, and we drank it to save it.’ He grinned and spoke slowly, the perfect aristocrat even staggering drunk. ‘We toasted the two of you, of course.’
They had built a bonfire that towered to the height of three tall men, tamarisk and willow and poplar on top, and the fire took with a rush after it had been blessed by a Persian fire priest who had come with the traders, and roared to life so that you could feel it on your back ten horse-lengths away. The burning cedar smell of the tamarisk mixed with the late honeysuckle and the briar roses that bloomed over every thicket in the river valley.
They were toasted and gifted, and they named their children in the last light of the sun at the top of Hirene and Bain’s kurgan, so that the swords of the two dead heroes caught the light and seemed to anoint the heads of the two infants.
Unmoved by all this spiritual glory, the babies roared against their hard fates in being kept up late, and received the plaudits of the crowd despite their ill manners. They were, after all, only a month old.
And then many of the Greek men appeared, drunk, singing obscene songs that Srayanka could only guess the meaning of — not that the guessing was hard, as most of them wore giant erect phalluses strapped to their groins, and they had convinced several young Sakje girls to be lewd. Battering pans and kettles, slobbering well-meant kisses, this raucous crew escorted them to their wagon. The serenade went on until Srayanka said they were waking the children.
‘Don’t hear that every day at a wedding in Athens!’ Diodorus called, and then they were gone.
‘There will be more wine than milk in these breasts,’ Srayanka said when finally they were alone.
‘No reason they shouldn’t share the feast,’ Kineas said. ‘At home, you would have a wet nurse.’
‘At home in Greece? A wet nurse, and slaves, and a life in a few rooms.’ She frowned. ‘I’m afraid you are wed to a barbarian.’
‘Well, Barbarian Queen? What will you have as a wedding present?’ he asked, kissing the side of her neck.
‘Hmm,’ she said. ‘Mmm?’ she whispered. She laughed at him and pushed him away. ‘Remember what happened the last time?’
‘Killers coming through the side of the wagon? By Zeus, that seems a long time ago.’ He laughed and snuggled next to her.
‘Even then, what I wanted was to take my people to war with Alexander,’ she said. ‘That is still what I want. And when we have fought him — win or lose — then we can return to the high ground by the Tanais. We will be king and queen of a united people. Our children will rule after us.’ She kissed his hand. ‘I want you to bring your people to the muster, King Kineas. That is what I want.’
Kineas knew what keeping that promise would mean. He dreamed of the tree and the river almost every night. But he looked into her eyes and thought that some fates were not as bad as they might seem. ‘To Alexander, then,’ he said.
PART V
23
‘ m I surrounded by fools?’ Alexander asked the assembled officers. Silence.
‘This country is not subdued,’ Alexander said carefully. ‘We are at war with every rock and tree. There is no room for weakness or doubt, or slovenly soldiering.’
The Macedonian officers were red with fury and embarrassment. The cadre of Persian and Sogdian officers who were present deepened their humiliation.
Alexander had little time for Panhellenism, but it had its uses. ‘Two thousand Hellenes died at the hands of barbarians. They were not even outnumbered. They were merely careless.’