He rode away after an hour and returned with Srayanka, who rode with them the rest of the day, naming things in Greek as Kineas named them in Sakje. She continued to command the column while she practised her Greek, and Kineas had an opportunity to observe her at work.
She was a fine commander. He watched her separate two men who were fighting over a haunch of venison, her eyes blazing in contrast to her calm, level voice. They shrank down as if struck. She moved around the column, she knew the state of every horse in her considerable herd and her scouts were always alert. In the evening, she spoke to her people when they won contests and when they lost them. That much he gleaned just from watching her. But he learned more from watching her warriors — the respect, almost awe, with which they treated her could be seen in every interaction. She never shied from a contest, and although she didn’t win them all, it was a matter for boasting for the victor when she lost any of them. She was first in the saddle at the start of the day and last in the saddle when the column halted. She had a different face and a different voice for every warrior in her band, man or woman — to some, she explained using her hands to emphasize a point, whereas to others she simply directed.
And all her people loved her.
He talked to Parshtaevalt through Eumenes on the sixth day, when she had ridden away from the language lessons to question a scout. Parshtaevalt now rode with Niceas and Eumenes most of the time, asking questions of the younger man as quickly as he could think of them. When Parshtaevalt mentioned a raid he had been on the year before, Kineas asked, ‘Did Srayanka lead the raid? Against the Getae?’
Ataelus passed the question and then rolled his eyes at the answer. ‘He say — fucking Getae. They burning towns — three towns. For killing every man they found.’
Kineas nodded to indicate he understood. ‘How many actions has she fought?’ he asked, pointing at Srayanka. ‘Raids? Battles?’
Eumenes phrased the question. His Sakje was better every day.
The black-haired man looked down at his reins and then up at the sun, as if looking for inspiration. ‘As many as the days of the moon,’ he said, through Eumenes.
‘Thirty?’ Kineas said aloud. ‘Thirty actions!’
Philokles, who always rode to the sound of a good conversation, appeared from the Sakje part of the column. ‘More than Leonidas,’ he said.
‘More than me,’ said Kineas.
‘More than me,’ said Niceas. He gave Kineas a grin. ‘I’ll be more respectful.’
On the seventh day, the scouts found a herd of deer, and a mixed group of hunters, Sakje and Olbian, rode away to procure fresh meat. They returned with six big carcasses, and Kineas stood beside Srayanka as they ordered the division of the meat. The youngest warriors of the Sakje were skinning the animals, and the Olbian’s slaves were breaking the joints and butchering.
Srayanka watched two young women skinning the biggest buck. Kineas watched her. He could see her desire to say something, or perhaps take the chore herself, although he couldn’t see that they were making any error.
A trio of Olbian cavalrymen, younger ones with no immediate duty, had gravitated to the sight because the two Sakje women had stripped naked to do the bloody work.
Srayanka glanced up from her own concerns when one of the Olbian men said ‘barbarian’ a little too aggressively. She turned to Kineas and raised an eyebrow.
Who needs language? he thought. He walked over to the knot of hippeis. ‘If you gentlemen don’t have anything better to do, I expect I could teach you to do some basic butchering.’
The mouthy one — Alcaeus — shook his head. ‘That’s slave’s work,’ he said. ‘We’re just watching the amazons bathe in blood.’
‘They’re skinning the buck to get the skin, not to impress you with their charms. Move along, or I’ll put you to butchering.’ Kineas kept his voice low. He didn’t want to advertise the poor behaviour of his men. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Srayanka’s trumpeter and a half-dozen other Sakje, watching and flicking their riding whips.
Alcaeus put his hands on his hips. ‘I’m not on duty.’ He tossed his head arrogantly. ‘I can watch the barbarians show their tits if I want.’
His companions both moved away from him as if he had the plague. Kineas glanced around for Niceas or Eumenes — he would have preferred that this obvious indiscipline be dealt with by someone else. But they were both busy.
Still keeping his voice low, Kineas said, ‘No, you can’t. Don’t be a fool. Go to your horse and curry him. Then join the sentries until I order you in.’
The man looked affronted rather than sheepish. ‘I take my orders from Leucon,’ he said. ‘And besides-’
‘Silence!’ Kineas said in his battlefield voice. ‘Not another word.’
Alcaeus shifted his gaze to look past Kineas at the two women. He glanced at his two companions with all the arrogance of an adolescent assuring himself of an audience. He smirked. ‘You’re blocking my view,’ he said lazily.
Kineas lost his temper. It happened in a moment — he felt the flood of anger and then he had knocked the stupid boy unconscious with a single blow. It hurt his shoulder and split a knuckle. He turned on one of the man’s companions. ‘Roll him in his cloak and put him by his horse. Both of you stay with him until he wakes, and then help him curry his horse, mount it, and the three of you go on sentry until I recall you. Do you understand?
They all nodded, their eyes as round as Athenian owls.
When he returned to Srayanka and Ataelus, she shook her head. ‘For what you hit the man?’ she asked in passable Greek.
Kineas turned to Ataelus. ‘How do you say disobey?’
Ataelus shook his head. ‘What is disobey?’
Kineas breathed out slowly. He was angry — too angry. ‘When I give an order, I expect the man to obey. If he won’t, he disobeys.’
Srayanka turned her head back and forth between them. Then she asked a short question in rapid Sakje. Kineas caught his own name and nothing more.
Ataelus shook his head, glanced at Kineas, and spoke at length, making gestures of riding and sleeping. To Kineas, he said. ‘She ask me, for how long am I with you? And I tell her. And she ask how often you hit men, and I say not so much.’
Srayanka’s eyes locked with his. They were like the blue of the Aegean when the sun returns after a squall. He was taller than she by half a head. She was standing quite close to him. She spoke directly to him, speaking slow, careful Sakje.
He didn’t understand a word.
Ataelus said, ‘She say — if I hit one man for hurt — if I hit one, I kill. Or he ride away or make for enemy.’ He stopped, looked back and forth, like a trapped animal. Finally he said, ‘Then she say — man watch girls. Men all fools when women show tits. So what? Why hit?’
Kineas was not used to having his judgement questioned in matters of command. He was not used to being questioned in public, through an interpreter, or by a woman.
Like a man, Philokles had said. But she could have had a man flayed to ribbons with a riding whip and he wouldn’t have questioned her authority.
He could feel the red in his face, feel his temper, rarely unleashed, building. He could feel his mind in revolt against the unfairness of it, against the censure in her eyes. He breathed in and out several times. He counted to ten in Sakje. Then he gave her a nod. ‘I will explain,’ he said in Greek, ‘when I am less angry.’
‘Good,’ she said, and walked away.
That night he related the incident to Leucon, Eumenes, Niceas and Philokles. They sat by a small fire, distant from the Sakje, who were quiet and kept to themselves.