Storm of arrows t-2

by Christian Cameron

  Diodorus went so red that he turned away, and even Kineas had to stifle a guffaw, while Banugul blushed a little, but she didn’t flinch. ‘Implying that harlotry takes all my time?’

  ‘I said nothing of the sort,’ Philokles said, drawling the words.

  ‘Pederasty, more like,’ said Therapon quietly, but his voice carried.

  Kineas stepped between them. ‘Philokles, the lady is not a target for your wit.’

  ‘I can protect myself, Kineas,’ Banugul said. ‘By all the gods, I see now what I missed by staying in my citadel. And I see now why Kineas can parry any little wit I may employ if this is his daily sparring.’

  ‘More than sparring,’ Therapon said broadly. ‘Perhaps they entertain each other exclusively.’ He leered.

  Philokles seemed to ignore the Thessalian’s jibes until later, when the Olbians were showing the queen and her entourage around their log-built gymnasium. Philokles had the queen’s arm and her ear, and he spoke of Greek wrestling and of pankration, their unarmed combat sport, until she clapped her hands.

  ‘I would love to see that,’ she said. ‘I have read so much about it.’

  Philokles smiled, and the warrior that lurked under the skin of the philosopher came to the surface. ‘I would be pleased to show you, my lady,’ he said. ‘I’m sure your Therapon would be delighted to fight me chest to chest.’

  Therapon was not the kind of man to refuse a challenge, and he stripped. ‘I’m not likely to let you behind me,’ he mocked. ‘I know what naked Greeks do.’

  ‘We fight naked,’ Philokles said to the queen, by way of apology.

  ‘My harlotry extends to male nudity,’ Banugul replied.

  Philokles dropped his heavy cloak and pulled his wool chiton over his head, exposing the body of a statue. Therapon was heavier and had the start of a gut, although his arms were longer and immensely strong. Kineas tried to catch his friend’s eye.

  Banugul put a hand on Philokles’ naked shoulder. ‘I would take it amiss if you hurt my captain,’ she said. Her nails brushed Philokles’ chest as she withdrew her hand. Her smile was a private one, for Philokles alone, and Kineas was appalled to find within himself a tingle of jealousy at their intimacy.

  Then the two men were circling on the sand, bent low, intent. They circled long enough for the queen to grow bored and smile self-consciously at her host, when suddenly some shift in posture or intent brought the two contestants together, arms locked high, feet well back as they heaved against each other’s strength. Muscles stood out in strain and, despite the cold, a sheen of sweat covered both men.

  Banugul leaned forward, her hands on her hips. Kineas watched her as she watched the contestants.

  Philokles changed his weight suddenly, as if surrendering to the Thessalian’s embrace, but he got his body turned as he stepped in. One arm moved and he struck the Thessalian in the head with his forearm and suddenly Therapon was on his back and Philokles landed on him, driving the air from his lungs.

  ‘He does that to me all the time,’ Kineas said ruefully.

  Banugul turned to him, eyes alight with mischief. ‘The things I could imply,’ she said. But she reached out a hand to his chest and shook her head. ‘I am too crude for words. I mean no hurt.’

  It was the first time she had touched him. The warmth of her palm on his chest seemed to light a small fire there. She withdrew the hand while he was still surprised by its presence.

  Philokles swung to his feet and offered Therapon his hand, but the other man didn’t take it. Instead, he stood brushing sand off his sweat, glowering. Philokles held his eyes. ‘Another throw?’ he asked.

  ‘Perhaps another time,’ the Thessalian said, and reached for his chiton. Kineas disliked the look the Thessalian gave his friend. It boded ill.

  The queen’s tour started a new round of visits between camp and citadel, and the new ties between them did not make Kineas entirely happy. The first thing that annoyed him was Darius, whose skill with the bow and willingness to learn had endeared him to the Olbians. Kineas was becoming used to seeing his officers in the corridors of the citadel from time to time — Banugul had made it clear that they were welcome. But Kineas saw Darius too often, almost every day, and Kineas worried, both for the Persian boy and for his loyalties.

  ‘You spend a great deal of time here,’ Kineas said, several weeks after the queen’s visit to the camp.

  Embarrassed, the young Persian shrugged. He smelled of perfume. ‘I like to hear Persian spoken sometimes,’ he said. ‘They are not unlike my people,’ he went on in the tone of outraged adolescence. Despite his upright carriage, he had the whine of the young to him when he replied, and it annoyed Kineas still more.

  ‘You are on the duty roster today,’ Kineas said.

  ‘Only for the reserve,’ Darius said. He shrugged. ‘They won’t be called out. What, is Alexander coming through the snow?’

  Kineas tried to decide whether what he felt was jealousy at the smell of her perfume or annoyance at the tone of bratty innocence and justification. ‘Why don’t you make your way down to camp and take a spell on the walls while you consider the difference between insolence and disobedience?’ Kineas said.

  Darius was not a fool. He saluted and left. Later inquiry showed that he had spent the entire shift on the walls. Kineas dismissed the incident.

  Four days later, Darius was in the citadel again on his duty day, and Kineas barely restrained his temper. He felt that his orders were being flouted — worse, he suspected that he was himself being unjust. He visited the citadel, and he was the commander, the most responsible man of all. A poor example.

  However, despite his own transgressions — perhaps because of them — Kineas lost his temper. ‘March your arse down to the duty office and wait there!’ Kineas barked.

  Later that evening, Kineas found Darius sitting in his megaron ‘You are banned from the citadel until further notice,’ Kineas said.

  ‘Oh, that’s fair,’ Darius said with fluent sarcasm.

  ‘One more word and you can shovel snow for the rest of the winter,’ Kineas said.

  Darius looked as if he wanted to say more — a great deal more. When the Persian marched out, his silence made Kineas feel like a bully, the more so as Darius cast such a look of supplication at Philokles, who was just coming in, that Philokles put his arm around the young man’s shoulders and stepped out into the snow to talk to him. When Philokles came back in, he was shaking his head.

  ‘ You go to the palace, Strategos!’ Philokles said.

  ‘I am the commander, and responsible for our relations with the queen.’ Kineas offered the Spartan a cup of wine.

  ‘Ares and Aphrodite, and you call me a sophist?’ Philokles grinned. Then he stopped smiling. ‘Listen, I’m here for something serious. Have you watched Leon and Eumenes? Together?’

  Kineas made a face and shook his head. ‘Should I? What, are they lovers?’

  ‘Ares, you’re blind as a bat. No, much the opposite. They’re facing each other like armed camps on a plain.’ Philokles drained his wine. ‘You need to keep them apart.’

  ‘What’s it about?’ Kineas asked.

  Philokles narrowed his eyes and frowned. ‘I may spy for you from time to time, or for my homeland. I don’t carry tales about my comrades. ’ He turned the cup upside down and stomped out.

  Alerted, Kineas couldn’t miss the growing competition between Eumenes and Leon. Kineas didn’t know where it had started or what it was about, but it was out of hand. The incident that brought their misdeeds to light for Kineas was a torch-lit horse race on the snow, where the riders competed to bring fire to the altar of Demeter at the spring equinox, a tradition that Olbia shared with Athens. The competitors raced around the circuit of the camp and finished at a gallop down the main street, riding flat out for the building that served as a temple for all their gods. Eumenes lost when his horse, tearing around the corner of one of the soldiers’ cabins, slipped and fell. The young man broke a rib and walked with a
limp for two weeks, and his horse slid on the ice, limbs flailing, and ended up injuring a dozen bystanders. Kineas saw the turn and saw the rough play between Leon and Eumenes in the moments before the fall.

  When Kineas inquired, he received the kind of knowing looks that told him that most of his commanders already knew that something lay between the young men, and weren’t going to inform on them. When Kineas confronted the two combatants, they glared at each other like a pair of fighting cocks. When he upbraided them in private, they wore looks of humiliation and apology.

  It was a week later, when he saw Leon talking to Lot’s surviving daughter, Mosva, that Kineas began to see how the winter wind blew. Because even as he watched Leon, who lost all of his courtly polish in her presence and had the body language of a young dog, shifting, shrugging, rolling and hanging his head, he also saw Eumenes watching the two of them, his face a thundercloud.

  Aha! he thought. But it didn’t resolve the issue.

  It was about the same time that Kineas went up the hill to see Banugul about a matter of logistics and found she was not available to receive him. Darius’s pale roan horse was in the citadel stables. Kineas rode back down the hill in a foul temper. He called for Diodorus.

  ‘Have the fucking Persian dismissed. He has disobeyed me for the last time.’ Kineas was so angry he spilled wine.

  Philokles came in through the multiple blankets that now made the doorway. ‘Problems?’

  Kineas was silent. Diodorus raised an eyebrow. ‘Kineas’s Persian boy has become a little too popular in the palace,’ Diodorus said. He made a face.

  ‘Fuck you,’ Kineas said. ‘I gave him a direct order and he disobeyed. I am ordering him dismissed.’

  ‘You’re over-reacting,’ Diodorus said. ‘He’s an excellent horseman and a top-notch fighter. You’ve said yourself he’s a better swordsman than you, and you’re the best I know. I’m ready to put him up for phylarch.’

  ‘Dismiss him,’ Kineas said, voice hard.

  ‘Don’t be an ass,’ Diodorus said.

  Philokles shook his head. ‘Probably better if you dismiss him,’ he said after a moment.

  Diodorus looked hurt. ‘The strategos is thinking with his little head,’ he said.

  Philokles raised an eyebrow. ‘I say that it is for the best.’

  ‘Fine!’ Diodorus said. ‘I’ll obey. I think you’re both idiots, though.’

  Kineas didn’t see the Persian again, but the rumour mill said that the young man had immediately taken service in the citadel, with the queen’s guard.

  Kineas felt like an idiot, but it didn’t cause him to apologize. Winter was taking its toll. And despite his best efforts, he wasn’t able to stop his own visits to the citadel. Kineas tried to limit them to matters of business, but he was aware that he stretched those boundaries to fit his needs. As winter howled outside his megaron he admitted to himself that, like a wine-bibber denied his tipple, four days of snow had denied him his addiction and he was growing fractious. He decided to punish himself for the dismissal of Darius by avoiding the citadel. He snapped at Philokles on the fifth day of imposed abstinence from Banugul’s charms and the Spartan grinned.

  ‘I can find you a nice clean Hyrkanian girl who’ll reduce that swelling in no time,’ he quipped.

  ‘Keep a civil tongue,’ Kineas barked.

  ‘“The situation swells to greater tension. Something will explode soon,”’ Philokles quoted, laughing. ‘Aristophanes covers almost every sexual situation, I find.’

  ‘Go fuck yourself, Spartan,’ Kineas said.

  ‘The same might be suggested to you, Strategos.’ Philokles ducked a blow and slipped out of the door.

  Two days later, Leosthenes the Athenian paid another visit and Kineas felt himself excused to climb the hill. It was early evening by the time he was admitted and Banugul was reclining on a couch, alone, with a dozen guests on couches eating a banquet. Darius was nowhere to be seen.

  ‘Dear Kineas,’ she said. ‘I would have invited you, but I feared your rejection. Please join us.’

  She was modestly dressed in an Ionic chiton that left her shoulders visible. The wool was fine and pure white, and her skin stood the comparison. She rolled from a reclining position to sitting and clapped her hands, and a pair of male slaves rushed from the room.

  ‘Sit by me, Strategos,’ she said, patting her couch. She waved a languid hand at her guests. ‘Do you all know Kineas of Athens?’ she asked. ‘Sartobases was a loyal officer of my mother’s family and has followed me here.’ The Persian, obviously uncomfortable on a couch, rose to a sitting position and bowed from the waist. ‘Philip serves in the household of my sister Barsine,’ she said, indicating a Macedonian just out of boyhood. Alone of the men in the room, he seemed comfortable on his couch.

  ‘I congratulate you on crossing the passes in this weather,’ Kineas said.

  ‘I had good guides, sir,’ the young man said with enthusiastic courtesy. ‘And every reason to reach my goal!’

  Kineas smiled at the young man’s earnestness. ‘Well done,’ he said. ‘You came from Ecbatana?’ he asked, as if uninterested.

  ‘Oh, no,’ Philip said. ‘The king is at Kandahar, and so is my mistress. Parmenion holds Ecbatana.’

  ‘Kandahar in Sogdiana?’ Kineas said.

  ‘Perhaps you could show a little more interest in your hostess and a little less in spying on Alexander,’ Banugul said lazily. To Philip, she said, ‘My good strategos is taking a small army east to make war on your master.’

  Philip looked as if a wasp had stung him. Then his face relaxed. ‘My lady is pleased to make light of my youth. No Greek would dare to make war on Alexander.’

  The slaves returned with another couch and placed it by the queen’s. Kineas didn’t notice how close she had been until he was alone on his own couch and the distance seemed like a gulf of stars, but the analytical soldier in his head was already measuring the stades to Kandahar. ‘The king has made peace in Sogdiana, then?’ Kineas said, drawing a glare from Banugul.

  Philip shook his head, making a face to indicate that he was a man of the world. ‘The rump of the Persian empire continues to rebel. Spitamenes — a rebel against Darius, and now against my lord — is in league with the Scythian barbarians on the sea of grass. My lord will punish them soon.’

  None of the Persian men were pleased by this speech, and Sartobases, who had a strong face and might have played Old Nestor in a tragedy, made the motion of spitting. ‘Listen, boy,’ he said. ‘Your master may have won Syria and Palestine and Egypt by his spear, but the land of the Bactrians and the Medae is not conquered.’

  ‘Hush, uncle,’ Banugul said. ‘We are all friends here.’

  Kineas didn’t think so. He looked at Banugul with new understanding. How many plots were in this mosaiced room tonight?

  ‘Do you wish to ask me about Leosthenes?’ Kineas said quietly.

  ‘Why, did he visit you again?’ she asked, her voice light. ‘Wait until we are private.’

  They were educated men and they spoke of astrology, at her bidding, of signs that they had seen come to pass, portents and dreams. Kineas admitted to having god-sent dreams and Philip listened with wide eyes as the youngest Persian told a story of intrigue and murder based on predictions drawn from the stars. Then she had her Carian singer perform. He sang in his own language and then, with a bow to Kineas, he sang the Choice of Achilles from the Iliad, and Kineas applauded him. And then the Carian sang in Persian, a simple song of forbidden love. Kineas’s Persian was good enough to catch the illicit nature of the love but not the details. He was more interested in watching old Sartobases look disapprovingly at Banugul.

  It was nothing like a symposium — no ceremony with the wine, which was served by slaves, no contests and no performances by the guests. Philip watched the dark-haired slave girl who poured his wine like a falcon with a piece of meat, and began to stroke her at every opportunity, until his hostess made a sign and she was replaced. Aside, she said to K
ineas, ‘Do Greek men really allow themselves to be publicly pleasured at parties?’

  Kineas felt himself flush. ‘Young men — hmm. Yes. Not at nice parties.’

  Banugul laughed, her irritation banished by his embarrassment. ‘You’re blushing! You’ve done this yourself?’ She laughed aloud. ‘I can’t picture it.’

  Kineas sat up.

  ‘Don’t be a prude. It’s quite a picture.’ Banugul shook her head. The other guests were disputing Bessus’s right to be King of Kings. ‘You are so reserved-’

  ‘I was young. It was all fascinating. And easy. And I was challenged-’

  ‘Is that what you require, Kineas?’ she asked, rolling closer to him. ‘A challenge?’ Her face was a hand’s span from his. ‘Shall I dare you to pleasure yourself on one of my maids?’ she asked, eyes sparkling.

  ‘I am out of practice at this sort of banter,’ he replied. He rolled on to his stomach for a variety of reasons.

  ‘I can tell,’ she answered, casting him a half-smile of challenge over her shoulder as she turned to address another guest.

  She played the hostess perfectly, demure as a Persian maiden, witty as an Athenian hetaira. All things to all men, Kineas thought. He willed himself to make his report and go.

  But he did not.

  Her guests took themselves off one by one, and Kineas was conscious that he was not leaving and they were — but she had asked him to stay, and the matter of Leosthenes remained between them, or so he told himself.

  Sartobases was the last to go, and he raised an elegant Persian eyebrow at Kineas.

  ‘We have unfinished business,’ Banugul said, indicating Kineas.

  Sartobases shrugged. ‘I can well imagine,’ he said to her in Persian.

  ‘He speaks Persian,’ Banugul said, indicating Kineas.

  Sartobases bowed deeply and flushed. ‘My apologies, lord.’

  Kineas shook his head. ‘None required, lord. We are in the Land of Wolves.’

  Sartobases nodded, his eyes narrow. Then he was gone, and they were alone, except for twenty slaves clearing away the food.