Tyrant: King of the Bosporus

by Christian Cameron

  Again, the boy walked over. This time he chose a bigger branch. He put it in the fork of the tree and waited for her to join him, and together they pushed. It took several tries, but they broke the branch, and then reset the shorter pieces and broke them again. Then Scopasis went and got another branch without being prompted.

  Scopasis worked steadily for over an hour, until Tameax rode up and laughed. ‘You got the boy to do some work!’ he said.

  Scopasis dropped the branch he was carrying, leaped on to his horse’s back and rode away without a word.

  Melitta walked up to the baqca. ‘Never let it be said that you see everything in the future,’ she commented. ‘You just undid an afternoon’s work.’

  Tameax shrugged. ‘Bah – if he’s so thin-skinned, he’s useless.’

  ‘That is why you are a baqca and not a king. Go and find him, apologize and bring him back.’ Melitta smiled. ‘Please.’

  ‘Why?’ Tameax asked.

  Ataelus watched, his axe raised.

  ‘Because I ask,’ Melitta said.

  Tameax narrowed his eyes, and suddenly Melitta understood what she saw there. ‘Don’t be a fool, baqca,’ she shot at him. She walked up closer. ‘I do not need to walk the spirit world to see that you are jealous. Jealous that I cut wood with an exiled boy?’ She walked up close to him, and then closer, and he stepped back. ‘You presume, baqca. Your feelings are a presumption. Perhaps you are too small a man to be my baqca, eh?’

  Tameax’s face filled with blood and a vein on his temple throbbed. ‘I cannot help my feelings,’ he said.

  ‘You remind me of that boy,’ Melitta said. ‘He cannot control his feelings either. The difference is that he’s been mistreated his whole life – for being the smallest, I expect. What is your excuse?’

  Tameax made an effort – an effort that showed through his heavy furs in every line of his body. He stood straighter. ‘I’ll go and fetch the boy,’ he said, his face still red.

  ‘Good,’ Melitta allowed, and went back to breaking wood.

  That night, Ataelus and Samahe’s son Thyrsis came in with a dozen more warriors – all young men and women, from a mix of tribes, although Standing Horses seemed to predominate.

  Thyrsis was a handsome young man with excellent manners and the kind of physique that boys his age dreamed of. He excelled at games, he had killed Sauromatae on raids, and his brown eyes were capable of assessment and analysis – she’d watched him consider how to mend a scabbard, his careful cutting, his fine work with a sheet of scrap bronze.

  In fact, his superiority in all things was obvious, and all the young warriors of both sexes accepted it apart from Scopasis. Scopasis, though younger, would accept no order from Thyrsis, nor ride with him.

  Thyrsis came and sat by Melitta, who was adding scales to the shirt that Samahe had made her, putting shoulder-plates on the yoke. Her back was to Nihmu, who was sewing a soft deerskin shirt. They leaned their backs against each other for warmth and stability. On the other side of the fire, Ataelus went through his arrows, peering along their lengths, while Coenus cast lead sling balls in a stone mould and the metallic tang of the hot lead filled the yurt.

  Samahe had scouted all day, well ahead of the clan, and now she was asleep in her furs and blankets.

  ‘Greetings, lady,’ Thyrsis said, respectfully. He was a very polite young man.

  Melitta made room for him. There was something about him – perhaps his respect for her – that made her feel much older than him.

  ‘I brought new warriors,’ he said, looking at his father.

  ‘And no meat,’ Ataelus said wryly.

  ‘Word of your coming is spreading like flame on dry grass,’ Thyrsis said. ‘If you would ride two days to the Grass Cats’ winter town, we might raise a hundred riders – or twice that.’

  Melitta smiled, coughed when a gust of wind somewhere managed to push smoke into her eyes and mouth, and shook her head. ‘And then?’ she asked.

  ‘Why, then we can fight Marthax,’ Thyrsis said.

  ‘Marthax has half a thousand knights, every one of them with three warhorses as good as Gryphon or your father’s charger, Eagle. The last thing I want is to challenge him to battle.’

  Thyrsis shook his head and began shedding fur – a minute by the fire and outdoor clothes caused a sea of sweat. ‘Then what do we go for? Will Marthax cravenly hand you the kingship?’

  ‘Why would that be craven?’ Melitta asked. Behind Ataelus, the tent flap opened and Scopasis entered. He went and sat by Ataelus. Melitta turned back to Thyrsis. ‘Perhaps Marthax will do what is best for the people. He has no other heir.’

  Thyrsis watched the fire. ‘But – I promised them a fight. They are young and hot.’

  Melitta glanced at Ataelus. Being the lady was already far more complex than she had expected, and she wished her brother, who thought deeply and read people well, was there with her. ‘You want a fight,’ Melitta said. She tried to keep her voice kind. ‘You recruit young fighters because you want to be a chief, like your father, and lead them in war.’ Melitta sighed. ‘We will have war soon enough.’

  Thyrsis nodded. ‘Will you ride with my young warriors tomorrow?’ he asked.

  ‘I look forward to meeting them, Thyrsis,’ Melitta said. ‘But I am here to be the lady of all the Assagatje, not just the young.’

  Scopasis watched her the way an eagle watches a rabbit. Annoyed, she went back to her armour, carefully running a fresh thong through the next scale and fixing it in place, then tying the knots. No one else spoke.

  ‘How much further to Marthax?’ Nihmu asked.

  ‘Ten days’ ride, and then some searching to find him. He may be at the Royal Winter Town, and he may not.’ Ataelus shrugged.

  Melitta had never come so far west in her youth. ‘He must have word of us by now,’ she said.

  Ataelus nodded. ‘You said to go straight to him,’ he answered.

  Mere days from meeting the king of the Assagatje, Melitta’s doubts rose like a choking cloud to overwhelm her hopes. ‘So I did,’ she said.

  ‘It is not too late to turn south and find Urvara,’ Ataelus added. ‘She would escort you with a thousand warriors.’

  Melitta shook her head. ‘In the spring. No one can ride with a thousand warriors in the winter unless they have Greeks to supply them. And my brother will come in the spring – I can feel it, as if I can see his mind. We must be ready when he is ready or we’ll both fail. I must unite the Assagatje before the snow melts and the ground hardens.’

  ‘You take a mighty risk,’ Ataelus said.

  Melitta looked up to find Scopasis’s eyes on her. ‘Yes,’ she said.

  The next day, Scopasis emerged from a snow squall, riding hard. ‘Horse men behind us,’ he said to Melitta, and then to Ataelus. ‘Moving fast. At least fifty.’

  Ataelus rubbed his scraggly beard. He raised an eyebrow.

  Melitta shrugged. ‘Who can it be, coming from the south, except Urvara?’

  Ataelus said, ‘You don’t want Urvara?’

  Melitta shrugged right back. ‘Perhaps the gods have taken that decision from me,’ she said.

  They formed up anyway, the bulk of the warriors under Ataelus’s wolf’s-tail banner, three crisp ranks. Ataelus had served for years with Greek commanders, and he had learned a great deal of their ideas on shock, on tactics, even formations. His clan of outcasts was yet a formidable fighting force. So they formed at the lip of a snow-covered ridge, and the other party rode slowly up the ridge, their horses black against the white snow until they were quite close.

  Scopasis had pushed his warhorse in behind Melitta in the formation. Now he leaned forward. ‘That is Urvara,’ he said.

  ‘Do you hate her?’ Melitta asked without turning her head.

  Scopasis paused. ‘No,’ he said, with no tone at all. ‘No. I killed the man. What other sentence could she give?’

  Melitta wondered. Scopasis was no ordinary killer. Two days had sufficed to teach her that.
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br />   No time to consider him now. ‘Stay here,’ she said to the boy. The last thing she needed in a parley with the biggest clan on the steppes was one of their own angry exiles at her side.

  She collected Nihmu and Coenus, Ataelus and Samahe by catching their eyes, each in turn, and then she cantered Gryphon down the hill, snow flying around her, until she reached the tall blonde woman who sat under the Grass Cat banner in a scarlet cloak of Greek wool, trimmed in ermine. She looked like a queen. At her side sat a man who could rival Coenus for his Hellenic stubbornness, in a Thracian cloak and wool chiton, boots and no trousers.

  Urvara didn’t hesitate, but pushed her horse forward and embraced Melitta as soon as she picked her out – and then the queenly woman embraced Nihmu with the same savagery.

  ‘Eumenes!’ Melitta said. Eumenes was a fixture of her childhood – and her adolescence. ‘Aren’t you supposed to be in the field with Diodorus?’ Only after she said the words did she realize that she hadn’t spoken Greek for a month.

  Eumenes laughed. ‘I might ask you the same! I feel like a slave sent to fetch the master’s truant boy from the agora. Sappho sent me!’

  Urvara looked at them both. ‘There will be time for this later. Melitta, none here will stand against your claim. I will put my hands in yours this minute – but why would you not come to me?’

  Melitta took both of Urvara’s hands – hard and soft, like Samahe’s and her mother’s. ‘I do not want war with Marthax,’ Melitta said. ‘I want him to give me his title without war.’ Melitta shrugged. ‘He hates you.’

  Urvara shook her head. ‘Bah – Marthax and I have cooperated well enough for ten years, although there is little love between us.’

  Melitta brushed snow from her hood. ‘If I arrive at his camp with a thousand horses, he will have no choice but to fight. If I arrive with fifty horses, he will talk.’

  Urvara shook her head. ‘No, my dear. I’m sorry – but no. He’ll just kill you and hide the body. He is not the man he once was.’

  ‘And yet you say you cooperate,’ Melitta shot back.

  ‘He cooperates with me because he needs my warriors. My tribe has grown – thanks to my Eumenes and his Olbians, we are rich, we have children and we grow.’ She reached out a hand, and Eumenes took it.

  Melitta shook her head in frustration. ‘So?’

  Ataelus shrugged. ‘For riding,’ he said in his usual broken Greek. ‘For snowing.’ Ataelus pointed at Urvara’s escort, fifty knights in full armour. ‘Not enough for making war, but enough for making peace,’ he said, his pronunciation of eirene almost comical.

  Eumenes nodded. ‘Marthax won’t dare murder you with us as bodyguards,’ he said.

  Melitta couldn’t help but feel relieved. ‘Let’s ride, then!’

  They camped that night on the Borysthenes, just twenty stades from the battlefield at the Ford of the River God. There was wood aplenty.

  Eumenes watched with Melitta as the camp went dark. Tonight, there was no question of her breaking wood. Her status had changed again with the addition of Urvara.

  ‘How do you come to be here?’ she asked him in Greek.

  Eumenes snuggled deeper into his cloak. ‘I was wounded in the summer fighting and Diodorus sent me back to Alexandria with his dispatches. It was all luck – I arrived to find you and Coenus two weeks gone, and a letter from Lykeles asking me to come to Olbia if I was available. I was – so I followed you out.’

  Coenus appeared as if cued by his name. He had killed a buck and the dead animal was roped to the rump of his horse. ‘What did Lykeles need?’

  Eumenes grinned. ‘Me. He’s been archon three times, as has Clio. And Urvara wanted me home.’ He smiled. ‘I doubt I’ll campaign again, Coenus. I’m archon of Olbia.’

  Coenus grinned back and embraced the younger man. ‘Your father’s dream,’ he said.

  ‘My father was a traitor,’ Eumenes said. There was little bitterness in the statement, just cold fact.

  Coenus shrugged. ‘He sought power and failed.’ Coenus shook his head. ‘The wheel turns, eh?’

  Eumenes shook his head. ‘Not far from here, Kineas taught me to fall off a horse without hurting myself.’

  ‘We should ride to the battlefield tomorrow,’ Coenus said. ‘We should make a sacrifice.’

  Eumenes brightened. ‘That is a noble idea,’ he said.

  ‘I’m a noble man,’ Coenus answered. He laughed.

  Melitta watched them with pleasure. ‘He’s still here, for you, isn’t he?’ she asked Coenus.

  But Eumenes answered. ‘Every day. He formed us – really, he formed all of us. I hear him in your voice – sometimes in Urvara’s. He made her the lady of the Grass Cats, just by refusing to accept her contenders. He made me a troop commander. He made Petrocolus the head of the Kaloi in Olbia. His hand is still on every part of our lives.’

  Melitta felt tears fill her eyes. ‘That. I know all that. But it is in the way you mock each other – and yourselves.’

  Coenus nodded. ‘Odd, as we seldom teased him. But true, nonetheless. You are wise.’

  ‘I’m working on it,’ Melitta said.

  Over dinner they agreed to go together to the battlefield and offer sacrifices at the shrine and the trophy, despite the weather. Tameax felt that such respect for the past would please the spirits, and Coenus insisted the Greek gods and heroes would have the same opinion.

  The next day they were up early, the wet yurts stripped off their poles in the dark and made into ungainly bundles. Horses struggled to drag the travois made of tent poles, and Coenus led a party of hunters away upstream before the last animal was packed. He returned in the first light of dawn with another buck on a spare horse, and with a pair of goats in baskets from the Sindi village at the river bend.

  ‘There wasn’t a village there twenty years ago,’ he said to Eumenes, who was adjusting his girth next to Melitta in the early light.

  Eumenes yawned and shook his head. ‘No. In another generation, this valley will be full.’

  ‘The Sindi must be breeding like rabbits,’ Coenus said.

  Urvara laughed bitterly. ‘Perhaps,’ she said. ‘But many of those “Sindi” are my people, settling down to farm the soil. Sky people making themselves dirt people.’ She sighed. ‘It has always happened, but never in such numbers.’

  It was mid-morning when they arrived at the shrine. Melitta had heard all her life about the great battle at the ford, but now Eumenes and Samahe, Urvara and Ataelus, Nihmu and Coenus rode her through it as if she had been a participant.

  ‘Here, Kam Baqca rode to glory!’ Samahe said, and Nihmu wept. Melitta noticed that Tameax writhed at the mere mention of the great shaman. Samahe didn’t notice, or didn’t care. ‘She and her knights were like an arrow of gold, and they cut the Macedonians the way that an arrow enters a caribou, and the beast runs on, seeming to be alive, when really it is already dead.’

  And later, Coenus showed them on a field of snow how the last charge of the Greeks and the Sakje had folded the Macedonian flank, so that when Srayanka cut her way through the ford she met Kineas in the middle of the field.

  ‘We penned them against the river, and killed them until the sun slunk away to avoid the smell of death,’ Ataelus sang. It was a Sakje epic. Most of the other warriors knew it, and they sang it as the sun rose.

  ‘Bah!’ Coenus said. ‘Philokles must have stood just here.’ His voice cracked a little. ‘Really, honey bee, your father always said that Philokles won the battle. He and his young men held one of the Macedonian taxeis for an hour – maybe more. With their bare hands.’

  At the trophy, raised by the old shrine to the River God, Olbia had built a marble altar with a relief of a man on horseback and another of a set of arms and a shield with the star of Macedon. Coenus smiled. ‘Nice,’ he said.

  Eumenes nodded back, overcome with emotion. ‘Lykeles ordered it built. I’ve never seen it before. It is well done.’

  Then they all dismounted. Even Scopasis, who did
nothing willingly, slid off his horse. They ringed the Greek altar, and Tameax killed one goat, and Coenus killed the other, and the blood steamed like a new-lit fire that breeds more smoke than flame, rising to heaven in the crisp morning air.

  Coenus made a fire and they roasted the meat, burned the bones and the hide, and then, after Eumenes poured libations, Coenus handed cooked meat to every man and woman. ‘Eat and drink,’ he said. ‘Remember those who died here, and those who stood their ground. Remember Satrax, king of the Assagatje, who died for his victory, and Kam Baqca, and remember Ajax and Nicomedes.’

  The older Sakje cried, and so did the Greeks, while the younger ones looked on, wondering to see so many hard men and women weeping.

  ‘I lost my father here,’ Urvara said.

  Tameax cleared his throat. ‘As did Nihmu,’ he said.

  Nihmu was being held by Coenus.

  ‘As did I,’ Eumenes said. ‘Although he fought on the other side.’ He poured more wine in the snow. ‘Gods, I beg forgiveness for the shade of my father.’ And he wept as well.

  They were gathered like that when they heard hoofbeats. Warriors scattered – no one had kept a watch, their emotions were so high – and knights ran for their warhorses like ants from a shattered anthill.

  Urvara watched the oncoming riders without fear. ‘It was wise to come here,’ she said. ‘This is sacred ground, and it reminds men of who you are.’ She pointed at the riders coming over the river. ‘That is Parshtaevalt, and his banner of the Cruel Hand.’ She looked at Melitta. ‘Whether you wanted us or not, lady, we’ll all go together to see Marthax.’

  And minutes later, Parshtaevalt embraced Melitta. Then he knelt, as Sakje never do, and placed his hands between hers. ‘I am your man, for ever, as I was your mother’s,’ he said. He looked at the remnants of the sacrifice and shook his head. He looked at Coenus. ‘Did you save any for me? I fought here, too.’

  Coenus laughed. ‘Do you still eat whole horses?’ he asked.

  The lord of the Cruel Hands laughed like a boy. ‘This one taught me my Greek,’ he said, pointing at Coenus, ‘when Kineax was too busy making calf-eyes at your mother!’

  Eumenes took meat from the altar and brought it to Parshtaevalt, and he ate it and drank some wine. Then he looked around at all of them, and his own knights. ‘Can you feel the thing?’ he asked, in Greek.