‘I am Upazan of the Sauromatae, and I need no permission, Greek. I may ride where I please, raid where I please. Release me, or there will be blood.’
Kineas sipped his own wine and then walked up close to the young man. Upazan was a finger’s-width taller, but they were of a size. Kineas stepped in close. ‘Whose blood, yearling? You cannot mean to threaten to bleed on me.’
The roar of laughter did nothing to quench Upazan’s temper. Even his own followers laughed.
Srayanka handed Lita to Sappho and rose. ‘Upazan, it is agreed by all the people who follow Kineas that they will accept his guidance on matters of war. Prince Lot has accepted. I have accepted.’
Upazan shook his head. ‘I have not accepted. I have not seen any of his great skills.’ He spat and smiled, uncowed by Kineas’s nearness. ‘I will fight you, old man. Then perhaps I will take your horses. I need horses to buy the love of a grass priestess.’
‘She does not want you, Upazan,’ Srayanka said as Lot pushed in under the canopy.
‘It is of little matter to me. I will have her.’ Upazan raised his chin.
Srayanka spoke slowly and clearly. ‘The woman you are speaking of is your mother’s sister’s daughter. She is not for you. She will go to be Leon’s wife.’
Lot interrupted. ‘Your time with the Medes has made you forgetful of our ways, boy. No woman goes anywhere against her will.’ Lot gave a grim smile. ‘She might hurt you.’
Upazan looked around. ‘You are all against me. Very well.’ He crossed his arms. He had dignity for a man so young and with so much anger. ‘Will you fight me, foreigner?’
Leon shot to his feet. ‘I will fight you.’
Kineas handed his wine cup to Leon. ‘This is a matter of discipline, not of revenge,’ he said to Leon. And then to Upazan, ‘Are you ready? The stakes are that when I win, you will swear to honour my orders. If you win, you will still follow my orders.’
Upazan spat. ‘If I win, I will be king of the Sakje,’ he said.
Kineas shook his head. ‘It doesn’t work that way, boy. Are you ready?’
‘Are you ready to be a widow?’ Upazan asked Srayanka.
Kineas laughed. ‘No one is going to die, boy. Ready?’
For the first time, Upazan hesitated — a tiny crack in his facade. ‘Ready?’ he asked.
‘The time is now.’ Kineas took off his baldric and handed it to Leon, stripped his tunic over his head and stood naked.
Upazan stepped back. ‘I have no weapons!’ he said.
Kineas grinned. ‘You challenged me. Among Greeks — and Sakje — that gives me the choice of weapons. And I warned you, boy, that the next time you crossed me, I would beat you like a child. Now, are you ready?’
Upazan narrowed his eyes while the women tittered at Kineas’s nudity. Samahe demanded that Upazan strip, too. ‘There are things Mosva needs to know!’ she called in a voice of brass.
‘This is not the fight I want!’ Upazan said. ‘This is the demeaning squabble of slaves!’
Kineas nodded. ‘It is not the fight you want — I agree. So you may apologize and retract your challenge, or fight.’
Upazan looked around for counsel — for the support of the men who had ridden with him. A few of them had come up, watched by the Keltoi, but their faces were carefully blank. Upazan opened his tunic and dropped it to the rugs. He had thick cords of muscles — even by Greek standards, he had a good physique.
He raised his arms. ‘I am ready,’ he said.
Upazan didn’t lack courage, and he was strong. But he was a poor wrestler and he had never even seen boxing.
Kineas had almost finished before Philokles, a late arrival, finished his wine. Kineas took his time, trying to teach the boy how powerless he was — a life lesson the boy clearly needed. He took a blow — powerful but untrained — on the muscle of his arm and then locked the Sauromatae in a hold around his neck, turned his body so that the younger man had no purchase and then hit him once with his fist on the temple. Upazan fell unconscious from his arms.
The Sakje and the Sauromatae joined in their applause, and Kineas was human enough to enjoy their praise while he strigilled with Philokles’ help, enjoying the clean smell of olive oil on his flesh. Srayanka watched him thoughtfully.
‘You are quite handsome,’ she said with a half-smile. ‘And the oil is strangely attractive.’ Her eyebrows drew together as she frowned. ‘But you would have done better to kill him.’
Kineas shrugged. ‘I can’t kill him and keep the Sauromatae as allies.’
Srayanka raised an eyebrow. ‘You can’t keep them anyway, my husband. And now — now he will be like a serpent.’ She frowned, her eyebrows a single line over her nose. ‘We had this conversation before. I was right then and I am still right.’
Kineas shrugged. ‘Sometimes, you are like a Greek wife,’ he said.
Philokles’ strigil found the bruise on his arm where Upazan had landed a blow, and he winced.
Nihmu watched with ill-concealed glee. ‘Your mercy is wasted on him, lord,’ she said. ‘He has none for others!’
‘All the more reason for the strategos to show some mercy to him,’ Philokles said.
The council gathered as the sun began to go down in the west. The air was almost cool and the dust of the day had settled. Kineas had Nicanor build a big fire in the clear ground behind Srayanka’s wagon and he arranged as many stools as he could find. The tribal leaders came in little knots, gossiping about the feast and about Upazan. Kineas noted that Parshtaevalt came with Ataelus and Leon, while Lot stood apart with Monae, his wife. Upazan did not attend. The Olbian officers were all there.
Kineas rose after Nicanor had poured wine for them all. He made a libation, pouring the whole cup of good wine into the fire, so that a cloud of fragrant steam rose around him in the dark. ‘I begin to sing of Pallas Athena, the glorious goddess,’ he said, ‘bright-eyed, inventive, unbending of heart, pure virgin, saviour of cities, courageous, Tritogeneia. Wise Zeus himself bore her from his manful head, already armed in bronze and gold, and awe seized all the gods as they looked at her. But Athena stood before Zeus who holds the aegis, shaking a bright iron spear. Olympus shook at the warlike ardour of the bright grey eyes, and the earth all around the mountain cried fearfully, and the sea rolled and spat dark waves and foam in sudden torment, until the maiden Athena stripped the glorious bronze from her lovely shoulders. And wise Zeus was glad.
‘And so hail to you, daughter of Zeus who holds the aegis! Now we will remember you.’
Then he turned to his council. ‘It is time for us to go and fight Alexander,’ he said. ‘We are here to discuss who will go, and how we will go.’
‘We’re best off where we are,’ Lot said. ‘There’s no grazing east of here, and I’ve heard that the Massagetae camp and all the Scythians fill the vale of the Jaxartes, eating all the grass. Let us wait here until she summons us again.’
‘We wouldn’t even know if a battle took place,’ Srayanka shot back. ‘Zarina and the Jaxartes are ten days’ ride from here.’
‘Or more,’ said Ataelus.
‘We’re running out of grass already,’ Parshtaevalt said. He had aged quickly during Srayanka’s captivity, and unlike Upazan, he had never had any interest in rulership beyond his own concept of duty. ‘Already the herds are twenty stades from the camp.’ He gave a bitter smile. ‘I send my daughters to fetch my mounts every morning.’
Srayanka nodded. ‘The grass is not of the best.’
Lot glanced at his wife. ‘We are thinking of leaving our young and old with a guard and sending them back to our summer pasture,’ he said. He sounded apologetic.
Srayanka surprised her husband by agreeing immediately. ‘We should do the same. We should transform ourselves into a great war host and not a movement of all the people.’
‘The warriors left behind will be bitter,’ Parshtaevalt said. ‘They will miss the great battle.’
Srayanka shook her head. ‘Let every warrior left behind be one who served at the Ford of the River God,’ she said. ‘And let them console themselves with remaining alive.’