Tyrant (43 page)
Authors: Christian Cameron
Marthax spoke in Sakje, and Eumenes translated. ‘That’s why you’re the expert.’
Kineas held up his hand. ‘Last year, I rode from Tomis to Olbia by the same route that Zopryon must use. It took me thirty days. It will take his army fifty. If he marches tomorrow, the best he can do is to reach Olbia at midsummer.’ He paused to let Eumenes’ translation catch up. ‘If we destroy the ferry at Antiphilous, we add at least two weeks to his journey. If the men of Pantecapaeum stand with us, and their fleet will serve our need - then we will strip his triremes off his army, and slow his march still further. He intends to build forts as he marches - he is wise enough to know that his road home needs protection - which will slow him longer.’ Again he waited for Eumenes to catch him up. ‘We will then be past the new year - past the month of games, past the summer festival, and we will not yet have shown our hand.’ Kineas looked around the circle. ‘You know why he is coming here?’
Srayanka answered, ‘To conquer us.’
Satrax shook his head. ‘In the long run, the result would be the same. But he seeks our submission to prove his worth. As a feat of arms.’
Srayanka’s face at the translation of the word ‘submission’ had a look that Kineas hoped was never directed at him.
Kineas took a deep breath. ‘When he is sixty days from home and not yet at the Borasthenes River, we have a choice.’ He tried not to look at Srayanka. ‘The simplest choice would be to offer submission.’ He shrugged. ‘He won’t have time to press the siege of Olbia by that point. He won’t have the time to march here, and it would be suicide to march to this place leaving Olbia in his rear, astride his road home. If we offer him the tokens of submission . . .’ He paused again, and sighed, still avoiding Srayanka’s eye.
Satrax nodded. ‘You think like a king.’
Kineas glanced at Philokles, who gave a slight nod of recognition. Srayanka was boring holes in his head with her eyes. She sprang to her feet. ‘This must be your Greek
discipline!
’ She glared around the council. ‘What are we - a nation of slaves?’ she asked in Greek. To the king she said, ‘Will we beat our warriors into submission for this Macedonian beast? Are we so afraid?’
discipline!
’ She glared around the council. ‘What are we - a nation of slaves?’ she asked in Greek. To the king she said, ‘Will we beat our warriors into submission for this Macedonian beast? Are we so afraid?’
Kineas dropped his eyes. He had hoped . . . it no longer mattered what he hoped.
Marthax spoke. ‘The other choice?’ said Ataelus.
Kineas breathed in again. ‘We strike his march columns every day over the last hundred and fifty stades to the great river. The Sakje - who won’t have shown themselves yet, except in handfuls, groups of scouts - appear as if by magic. They kill the stragglers and the foragers. A handful of warriors strike their camps at night.’
Marthax spoke again, as did most of the Sakje. Out of the babble, Ataelus translated. ‘Marthax says that more for liking him.’
There was a brief silence, and Philokles leaned forward into it and said, ‘But of course, each of those attacks will work just once.’
Kineas nodded.
Satrax leaned forward into the circle, pulling at his beard. ‘Yesterday you sounded as if you could pick his army to pieces like a flock of vultures. Today you say every trick will work only once. Why will the attacks work only once?’
Kineas glanced at Philokles, but Philokles shook his head, declining to take up the argument. Kineas looked at Srayanka, who continued to avoid his eye. He determined not to look at her again. ‘Macedon has good officers and excellent discipline. After we hit their column once, there won’t be any stragglers the next day. After we kill their foragers, the next day they will forage by regiments, with the whole army standing to arms.’ He looked around the circle, avoiding her but willing her to listen. ‘With discipline, they can minimize our advantages of speed and stealth.’ He gave a hard grin. ‘Of course, every measure they take to minimize our advantages will slow them.’ He finished the cider in his cup. ‘And we will not take heavy losses to do it. The cost in money to Macedon will be staggering. And Zopryon will never have a chance to try again. He will be disgraced.’
Kam Baqca nodded slowly, and then shook her head. ‘But of course, Lord Zopryon will know all this.’
Kineas nodded. ‘Yes.’
‘So that, as soon as the raids start, he will immediately recognize our strategy and he will react like a desperate, wounded animal.’ She looked, not at Kineas, but at Philokles. And then at Srayanka.
Philokles met her eyes. ‘Yes. It will perhaps take him a few days to pass his desperation to his officers. But yes.’
‘So he will
not
retreat to disgrace. He will lash out. He will, if he can, force us to battle.’ Kam Baqca sat up on her knees. ‘Even if he must take reckless gambles with his men and his supplies.’
not
retreat to disgrace. He will lash out. He will, if he can, force us to battle.’ Kam Baqca sat up on her knees. ‘Even if he must take reckless gambles with his men and his supplies.’
All the Greeks nodded.
She also nodded, as if to herself. ‘It is the wounded boar who kills men. It is the boar with no hope who gores kings.’
‘Ouch,’ muttered Niceas.
Srayanka bowed her head to Kam Baqca. ‘Honoured one, we need not fear him. With our full muster—’
Kam Baqca reached out and touched her face. ‘We might still lose. Every person in this circle might lie broken under the long moon . . .’ She stopped and closed her eyes.
The king watched her closely. ‘Do you prophesy?’
She opened her eyes. ‘It is on a sword’s edge. As I have said.’
Kineas spoke with all the conviction of a man forced to speak against his will. ‘We will not win such a battle.’
Srayanka spoke - not angrily, but with great force, and the king translated for her. ‘You sound as if he is Alexander!’ he said, mimicking Srayanka’s gesture. ‘What if he makes the wrong choice? What if he retreats?’ Kineas watched her face while the king translated her words. ‘You have never seen us fight, Kineax. Do you think we are cowards?’ She clenched her fist and held it up. ‘Perhaps we lack the discipline you have, but we are strong.’
Kineas shook his head. He was not doing well at avoiding her eyes, but when he spoke, he was controlled. ‘Zopryon is no Alexander. Praise the gods, he is an average commander with no particular gifts. But the worst commander in Macedon knows how to conduct this kind of campaign. In Greece, we have books to tell us even if we don’t have veterans to tell us how to do it.’ He frowned. ‘I have never seen you fight, but I know you to be brave. But no amount of courage will break the front of a taxeis.’
The king translated his reply and then looked at both of them. ‘Kineas, my father’s sister’s daughter has more merit in her argument than you might think. You have never seen us fight. You don’t know what we can muster.’ He turned to Srayanka. ‘Yet as I first said, Kineas thinks like a king. Battle is a risk. War is a danger. Why chase fortune’s tail?’ He looked at Marthax, who nodded deeply, so that his grey and black beard rode up and down on his chest.
‘I hadn’t thought to destroy the ferry at Antiphilous,’ the king continued. ‘And I didn’t know how great Zopryon’s fleet might be. But in other respects, is this not the plan as we discussed it all winter? And you, my lady - did I not warn you that Kineas would bring even more reasons to be wary?’
Marthax drained his cup and belched. ‘Better,’ he said, and Kineas understood before Ataelus translated. He went on. ‘When he reaches some agreed point we harry him. And then, unless he retreats, we offer submission.’ He grinned. ‘Only a fool would reject us.’
Kam Baqca sat back on her heels and sipped a cup of wine. ‘He will reject us,’ she said. ‘I have seen it.’
Srayanka’s head snapped around. She spoke at length, and with the kind of vehemence that Kineas associated with reprimands to errant troopers. She spoke quickly and her voice rose in pitch, so that he couldn’t even pick out words.
Eumenes shook his head, lost by the fluidity of her speech. Even Ataelus hesitated. The king came to their rescue. ‘She says that if Kam Baqca has already foreseen the rejection, we can save ourselves the shame of offering the submission and concentrate on proving Kineas to be a fool about the battle.’ He avoided looking at Kineas. ‘She said some other things best left between her and Kam Baqca. But I will answer her.’ He spoke briefly in Sakje, and then said, in Greek, ‘I am king. Kam Baqca is often correct, but she herself says that the future is like the wax of a candle, and the closer it gets to the flame, the more malleable it is. She has been surprised. I have been surprised.’ He turned to Srayanka and spoke in Sakje, and she put her hands to her face - a girlish gesture Kineas had never seen her use.
In Greek, the king said, ‘We will not have our full muster of strength.
Many horses we should have counted from our cousins the Massakje. Many we should have counted from our cousins the Sauromatae.’ He looked around the circle. ‘This is not for every man to discuss. Alexander is beating at the eastern gates of the grass, just as Zopryon beats at the west gate. The monster is in Bactria, chasing a rebel satrap.’ The king rolled his shoulders and looked very young. ‘Or he has always planned the campaign this way - to have armies enter the plain of grass from either end. Kam Baqca says this is not true - that it is mere happenstance. But it makes no difference to us. We will have only two thirds of our full muster. Perhaps less. The Getae are already marching east, and our easternmost clans will have to protect their farmers.’ He shrugged, spoke a long sentence in Sakje. Kineas understood several words -
no horses
and
Macedon
. In Greek, the king said, ‘Submission alone costs us nothing. There is no shame in it, because we have no intention to submit.’
no horses
and
Macedon
. In Greek, the king said, ‘Submission alone costs us nothing. There is no shame in it, because we have no intention to submit.’
Somewhere in his head, Kineas realized that
nothing
in Greek was indicated in Sakje by
no horses
. Surrender costs us no horses, the king said. Kineas nodded in satisfaction.
nothing
in Greek was indicated in Sakje by
no horses
. Surrender costs us no horses, the king said. Kineas nodded in satisfaction.
‘The grass is growing,’ Kam Baqca said. ‘The ground is almost hard. In a week the last of the heavy rain will pass. In two weeks, he will march.’
Kineas nodded in agreement.
The king said, ‘Where do we appoint the muster? Where do we assemble our army?’
Kineas shrugged. ‘We need to cover Olbia. If Zopryon takes Olbia you will have no choices at all. And if the archon does not feel that you are willing to protect him, he will abandon the alliance and submit - really submit.’ Privately, Kineas thought that the archon might be tempted to make such a submission anyway. ‘The closer the main army is to Olbia, the more reliable will be your alliance with the Euxine cities.’
The king nodded while Kineas’s words were translated for the Sakje. ‘So that my army threatens even as it protects.’ Satrax said. He put his chin on his hand. ‘It will be a month before I have even half my army in hand.’
Marthax spoke. The king listened and nodded. Eumenes said, ‘Marthax says that the ferry will have to be destroyed immediately - that the riders should be dispatched today.’
Kineas looked at Marthax and nodded emphatically. Then he said, ‘Our camp should be on the other bank of the great river, near a ford. If a battle must be fought, we must seize every advantage. Make Zopryon cross the river, if we come to that extremity.’
Srayanka waited for his translation and then spoke, as did several of the other Sakje nobles.
The king said, ‘All of them agree that if we need a ford and a place to camp, the best is the far side of the campsite at the Great Bend. There is water and forage for an army, and supplies can reach us easily on boats.’ He paused, and then said, ‘Let it be so. The muster is appointed for the summer solstice, at the Great Bend.’ To Kineas, he said, ‘You will bring the city troops? We have nothing like your hoplites - and few enough of our nobles have the armour of your cavalry.’
Kineas agreed. ‘I will bring the troops of the Euxine cities to the Great Bend by the solstice,’ he said. He hoped he was telling the truth.
They talked about the campaign for two more days. They planned the muster of the Sakje. Messengers were dispatched to the leading Sakje clans to appoint the muster. They drafted letters for Pantecapaeum and for Olbia. Marthax was to go with sixty warriors to destroy the ferry, a job he felt required his presence in person. Before he departed Kineas took him aside and asked him to spare the farm by the bay where Graccus was buried, and Marthax laughed.
‘Many and many the wine I swill there, Kineax,’ Ataelus translated. Marthax gave Kineas a hug, which he returned. ‘Old man feel no fire from us.’ He gave Kineas a squeeze that threatened his ribs. ‘Worry for less, Kineas. Plan good.’
Kineas extricated himself from Marthax’s hug. The trust that Marthax put in him unnerved him. ‘I am not a commander of armies,’ Kineas said.
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