Christian Cameron: Storm of arrows

The young man bowed his head and said nothing, but he glared.

‘We welcome your words, Graethe.’ She pressed a strong hand on the young man’s shoulder, and he sat. One of Srayanka’s young leaders, Bain, laughed and gave a wolf call, and Graethe flushed.

Srayanka turned and glared at Bain. ‘Silence,’ she said.

Bain’s face burned with adolescent wickedness. But he subsided when Urvara rose to her feet. Daughter of Varo, the lord of the Grass Cats who had died in the great battle, Urvara had her own scars — she was a bow-maiden, and Kineas could remember her rallying her people to support his final charge. She was just sixteen or seventeen, with heavy brows and full lips and arm muscles like the cords on a siege engine. Bain loved her.

‘The Grass Cats look to the rising sun,’ she said, pointing her riding whip out to the east. Her voice was deep and calm for such a young girl, and Kineas had to admit that Srayanka was no fluke — the Sakje formed remarkable women. Amazons, he thought.

‘We will go east to the rising sun and lend our aid to the keepers of the eastern gate,’ she said simply.

‘Your clan lands are to the east,’ Marthax said without rising. ‘Your homes are on the way.’ His tone was dismissive.

‘We came here,’ she said simply. ‘My father died for the king of the Assagatje. I know what you think, Marthax. I care not.’ She sat.

Srayanka’s eyes turned to Kineas, and he rose. Most of the men around Marthax made growls in their throats.

Before he uttered a word, Marthax rose as well. He was almost a foot taller than Kineas. ‘You have no place speaking here,’ he said.

Kineas caught his eye and held it. ‘My “clan” is the largest here,’ he said. He looked around the tent. Some eyes were openly hostile — Graethe’s, for instance. Others were friendly — Parshtaevalt of the Cruel Hands nodded, as if to make him speak.

Kineas stepped up to Marthax. ‘We died for you,’ he said. ‘We stood at the ford and held Zopryon until you came. My people died. My friends died.’ He raised an arm that was covered in scars from his part in the fighting and looked around the tent. ‘My city is still held by the tyrant and his garrison of Macedonians, and I must see to it, or my “clan” will be living among you for ever.’ He shrugged and turned his back on Marthax, which made the skin between his shoulder blades itch as he faced the crowd, and he thought, When did I cease to trust the warlord? ‘We must be allowed to go and reclaim our city before the citizens despair and take a rash action.’ He whirled on Marthax. ‘And you cannot pretend to give me orders and then silence me in council. You were Satrax’s warlord. Who are you now?’

Marthax had not expected Kineas to attack him. Nor had Srayanka, who had the worried look of a woman who doubts her man’s wisdom. Marthax stepped back as if stung, and his face became as red as his jacket.

‘Who am I?’ Marthax asked. ‘I am the king of the Sakje!’ he bellowed.

Pandemonium. The clan leaders all rose to their feet, some denouncing, others cheering or shouting to be heard.

Marthax seized the moment. ‘I am the cousin of Satrax, and I was his warlord. I have commanded all the tribes in battle, and emerged victorious in every contest. I led the expedition against the Getae, when we slaughtered them in battle.’ He reached behind him and brandished his shield. ‘I am the strong shield of the Sakje!’ he roared.

It dropped to pieces in his hand, and silence fell on the tent — the silence of terror and omens.

A high voice came from behind Marthax, like a man’s falsetto, or the voice of a young child.

‘ You may be king until the monster is dead, and the eagles fly,’ it said.

Marthax threw the shards of his shield to the ground and reached for the girl, but she rolled under the edge of the tent and was gone.

‘ You are beautiful,’ Srayanka said. She was stretched by his side in a welter of furs. Rain made a seashore sound on the roof of her wagon, and her calloused hand stroked him with lazy familiarity.

The language barrier kept him from responding in kind. He could tell her that she was beautiful; he could say that her breasts were beautiful, her legs were beautiful, a catalogue of physical attributes; but none of them would catch his meaning. In Greek, he would say that her beauty amazed him every time he saw it unveiled, that he would never tire of watching the complex curves where her hard stomach met the rise of her hips, that the lush velvet of her skin and its contrast with the fighting leather of the palms of her hands excited him as no other woman ever could — but her Greek was still limited to fifty verbs and a few hundred nouns, and the sort of subtlety that made compliments accurate and personal was as far beyond her as the comedy of Aristophanes — so far.

Their lovemaking was occasional, often hurried and always secretive. That they were partners was suspected — and resented — throughout the dwindling camp. And especially tonight.

The Sakje were riding away. The council had ended in division and anger before Srayanka had been formally recognized to speak so that she could lay her own claim to kingship, but the sides were drawn.

All of them together — the Sakje and the Olbians — had fought a great battle, the greatest battle any of them could remember. Ten stades north of the wagon-yurt where Kineas lay entwined with Srayanka, the field of the Ford of the River God was still an unquiet grave three full weeks after Zopryon’s army had died on it. More than twenty thousand Macedonians and their auxiliaries and allies had perished — and almost a third that number of Sakje, and a thousand Euxine Greeks. The dead outnumbered the living, and the rain that fell like the tears of repentant gods rotted the corpses so fast that men feared to touch or lift them. Carrion creatures still thronged the field, feasting on the Macedonian dead who lay defenceless, their armour stripped off.

Men said the field was cursed.

Kineas felt it like an open wound, because the unburied dead haunted his dreams, demanding burial. It was beyond his experience, that one army might be exterminated and unable to bury its dead. It frightened him. As did the voices of the many dead.

‘What are you thinking, Airyanam?’ Srayanka asked. She propped herself on an elbow. She was naked in the damp heat, and not so much shameless as unconscious that anyone would wear clothes on such a hot night. Inside her wagon, she disdained clothing as long as the damp and the heat prevailed.

Kineas forced himself away from the battlefield in his mind and back into the wagon with her marvellous, god-given body and her ambitions and her caprice. But he was honest. ‘I’m thinking of the unburied dead,’ he said.

‘Food for crows,’ she said with a shrug. She made a gesture to avert unwelcome attention from the creatures of the underworld. ‘Naming calls, Kineax.’ She put a finger to his lips. ‘Don’t speak of the dead so lightly. They were enemies. Now they have passed beyond. The field is cursed, and the Sindi will avoid it for a generation. And then the grass will grow greener for the blood, and then the grain will grow. That is the way. And the Mother will take their unquiet spirits down to her breasts, and in time, all will be healed.’

He watched her, sitting like a statue of Aphrodite, ticking off her points about the dead on one hand as if she was a scholar in the agora. ‘You should be queen,’ he said. ‘You have the head for it.’ He rubbed his untrimmed beard and scratched his head. ‘I should not have spoken today. I spoke out of turn and I fear-’

‘Hush,’ she said. She shook her head, her unbound hair swaying. ‘Marthax is stronger than I, Kineas.’ She watched him for a moment in the light of the single oil lamp. ‘I will not lead my people to war against each other. Marthax will not be a bad king — you know him. He does as he thinks he must.’ She sighed. ‘I worked hard to prepare the people to accept you as my consort.’ She shrugged, and her heavy breasts rose and fell, and the sheath of muscle moved from her hips to her neck, and he wanted her. But he was a disciplined man and he kept his hands to himself.