Destroyer of Cities t-5 Read online

  Melitta leaned forward and pointed her sword at the second merchant. ‘You could just tell the truth,’ she said in Greek.

  Gaweint, one of her knights, and the one whose Greek was best, translated this sally for the audience, who roared with appreciative laughter.

  The merchants glared around.

  ‘Come forward. Talk to me,’ Melitta said. ‘How many children did the man have?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ admitted the merchant. ‘He only worked for me this one trip.’

  ‘And if I give you horses, will any of them go to his wife and children? Where was he from?’

  ‘Far, my lady, by the great salt-’

  ‘Spare me, Syrian. I grew up in Alexandria and I’ve ridden a black-hulled ship into every port on the Syrian coast.’ She laughed at their discomfiture. ‘You people need to do more research before you come to the Sea of Grass. Now, no horse shit — do you even know where he’s from?’

  ‘No,’ admitted the Aramaic merchant. He shrugged expressively. ‘No. But that shouldn’t mean your man gets off free.’

  ‘How much merchandise did the man lose? Really lose?’ Melitta asked.

  ‘About ten good horses’ worth,’ the merchants admitted, after a whispered discussion.

  Melitta nodded. ‘Kairax, step forward. Here is my judgement. Each of these two,’ she pointed at the two Cruel Hands tribesmen, ‘will give five good horses to these merchants. Yes?’

  Both men nodded, although the bigger man — the poorer — grew pale.

  ‘Drakas will pay ten horses each to me and to Kairax for his breach of the lady’s peace.’ She looked at Drakas.

  He jumped forward. ‘Where is the fairness in that, lady? Alkaix here did the same as me-’

  ‘You struck the killing blow and you, the nobleman, led him into this crime. Did you not?’ she asked.

  Drakas mumbled something.

  ‘Twenty horses will not break you, Drakas. But it ought to remind you to keep your temper in check.’ She motioned him forward. He came to her side, and she gestured for him to kneel so that she could speak into his ear.

  ‘You desire to be treated as a nobleman, do you not?’ she asked.

  Drakas nodded. ‘I have-’

  ‘Spare me. What do you have for armour?’

  Drakas shrugged. ‘A good helmet.’

  ‘Noble status cuts both ways. Arm five men as knights, mount them yourself and bring them to me, and I will see to it that Kairax grants you your due. See to it that one of them is your friend here. Otherwise shut up and obey your betters.’

  ‘Yes, lady!’ he said.

  ‘Anything further?’ she asked of the assembly when Drakas had backed away.

  Silence reigned.

  ‘I have spoken my will. Will you see it carried out?’ she asked the assembly.

  Men — and women — nodded. Many voices were raised in assent. Kairax gave her a nod. Scopasis gazed at her with adoration.

  She felt a certain satisfaction. Giving justice well was a good job.

  ‘Next,’ she said.

  Scopasis stepped up. ‘Astis daughter of Laxan the farmer requests that the lady and Lord Thyrsis help her achieve revenge.’

  Astis was a strong-looking woman with a square face and blond-brown hair. Her nose had been recently broken and her eyes had the look that hunted animals and damaged people hold. But she stood erect in front of the assembly of the people in a good Parsi coat of blue wool and deerskin trousers.

  ‘Who speaks with her?’ Scopasis asked.

  Thyrsis stepped forward. Melitta thought of Thyrsis as the Achilles of the Assagetae. His father, Ataelus, had been her father’s right hand on the plains, his chief scout and a hero of every battle he’d ever fought. After her father’s death, Ataelus had served her mother. When she was murdered, he’d held the high plains to the east against the Sauromatae in a six-year campaign of raid and counter-raid. In the process he’d built a mighty clan out of broken men and outlaws from both sides of the Assagetae-Sauromatae divide. Thyrsis was already a famous warrior — handsome, tall and utterly honest; loyal, strong in battle, clever in council. Too good to be true, really.

  Both of his parents had died preserving her kingdom; his mother in the battle, his father shortly after, and he had a special call on her attention. Many Assagetae felt that she should marry him.

  He and Scopasis hated each other, but both adored her.

  They glared at each other for a long moment.

  Melitta laughed. ‘Hey, stallions!’ Melitta called. ‘The mare is waiting.’

  That got a roar of approval from the crowd.

  Thyrsis stepped forward. ‘Lady, this woman is the daughter of Laxan, who served with the archers at the Battle of the Tanais. I have this word from the smith, Temerix, on her behalf. Her people settled the upper Tanais high ground, east of the Temple of the Hunting Goddess, and her father’s father held land by Crax’s fort.’

  Melitta nodded to the woman. ‘You are welcome, and doubly welcome for the service of your father.’

  ‘Thank you, lady. Temerix and Thyrsis both say you are the Lady of the Dirt People as well as the Sky People, and I pray this is true.’ Her eyes were slightly mad, and there was something flawed in her voice, as if she was afraid to talk and afraid to be silent.

  ‘I am here,’ Temerix said. He was a giant of a man, his shoulders as broad as the full length of a child, his arms heavy with muscle like the roots of a strong oak. He was a master smith, and his best work could rival that of the Aegyptian smith-priests or the best ironsmiths of Chaldike or Heraklea. He was another fixture of Melitta’s childhood, having served her father.

  This no-account Dirt People woman had two powerful advocates. That was interesting.

  ‘Speak, daughter of Laxan.’ Melitta smiled at her, trying to disarm the tension in her shoulders and the fear in her face.

  ‘Lady, raiders came to our farm and killed my family.’ She laughed — a terrible sound. ‘They took me and my sisters. I lived with them — almost a year.’ She took a deep breath. ‘Last autumn I took a horse and rode away. I would not be one of them. I ask that you. . ride against them.’

  The broken nose and the odd motions of her face told that this was a woman who had been beaten — many times. ‘Who are they?’ Melitta asked.

  ‘Sauromatae?’ asked Scopasis. The Sauromatae had become the enemies of the Assagetae, but it had been three years since their defeat and now many of the beaten tribesmen had simply moved into the tribes of the victorious — as was always the way on the plains. Many of the men and women gathered around the assembly were Sauromatae, but they were no longer the ‘people of Upazan’, the leader who had ridden to defeat and death. Now they were her own people. Scopasis’ failure to understand these things was one of the reasons he could never be her consort.

  ‘They were not Sauromatae,’ Astis said. She gave her curious laugh again. ‘In the year of the War, Sauromatae came and burned our farm and my father took us and led us into the woods. I killed a Sauromatae. I know what a Sauromatae looks like. I know a Sauromatae horse from an Assagetae horse, although I am a farmer.’

  That provoked a growl from the assembly.

  ‘What clan would dare to breach the peace and kill your father?’ Melitta asked. This is bad, she thought, and inwardly she cursed Scopasis for not bringing her this in private — and Thyrsis for not bringing the matter to her attention before the assembly. If one of the clans had done this. . so much for her pleasant spring progress.

  ‘No clan of Assagetae,’ Astis said.

  Now she had silence. Every ear was turned to her. Melitta found herself leaning forward.

  ‘They call themselves Parni,’ she said. ‘Big men with yellow hair from the east. What they speak is like Sakje, but not Sakje. I heard them say that after they take Hyrkania, they will come here.’ She looked around. ‘I went with them, east of the Kaspian Sea. Twenty days east of the salt water.’ She raised her mad eyes and Melitta looked into them — into a yea
r of horror, slavery, beatings and rapes, degradation. ‘I ask for revenge — for my father and brothers, for my sisters who died under them.’

  Melitta rose. ‘Astis, you have suffered, and we will discuss your revenge, but this is not a matter for the assembly. I cannot offer a single judgement on this, the way I might on the murder of one man by another. If we are to punish these Parni, it would require the agreement of a dozen clan leaders. But when we meet, I will ask you to speak.’

  A hundred heartbeats later, in the relative privacy of her own tent, she turned on Scopasis.

  ‘Why was I not warned?’ she asked. ‘This is a matter for all the Assagetae!’

  Scopasis shrugged. ‘A woman was taken in a raid,’ he said. ‘These things happen.’

  ‘Artemis! Gentle lady, deadly archer — Scopasis, are you a fool? This is not a simple abduction. That woman has been used — brutally. And not by some tribal youngling with a delusion of power — this is some clan about which we know nothing, attacking our high-plains farmers!’

  Thyrsis pushed into the tent behind Scopasis. Melitta’s main tent space was big enough for four men on horseback. She waved her hand automatically, inviting him to sit. ‘Wine for my guests,’ she said to her servants. She and her brother had outlawed slavery in the city of Tanais — but the Assagetae had paid no attention at all. They had slaves, especially after a successful war.

  ‘Pardon me, lady,’ Thyrsis said.

  ‘And you!’ she turned on him. ‘If he’s a fool, you’re two fools — once for not warning me in advance, and again for not sending her to Tanais.’

  Scopasis was angry, she could see that. No man enjoys being called a fool in front of a rival. But Thyrsis bore her anger easily.

  ‘Lady, this woman presented herself to me just yesterday, when I came into the camp. She travelled far to the north, and came among us with the Standing Horses, even though she is one of ours. And she is from far to the east, lady — I’m not even sure that she can claim to be one of our people, except that her father served with Temerix — and I did not even know that until she brought the smith to me this morning. Then this one,’ Thyrsis pointed at Scopasis, ‘told me that it was a matter of little moment, and that you would deal with it in due time.’

  Melitta turned on Scopasis. He shrugged. ‘I was wrong, it appears. I cannot always be correct.’

  Melitta drew breath to speak her mind — and all but bit her tongue. The Lady of the Assagetae was not the same person as Melitta, lover of Scopasis, nor yet again the same person as the warrior Smells Like Death. In Assagetae terms, these were different people who shared her body — a belief that would have angered Aristotle, she thought. Regardless, if she unleashed her rage on Scopasis-

  ‘We will talk of this later,’ she said. ‘In the meantime, you can best serve me by summoning the clan leaders.’

  The Tanja was the largest in years — so most of her clan leaders were readily available. Parshevaelt of the Cruel Hands, with Kairax, were close by, and came to her tent before the wine was poured. Urvara’s daughter Listra Red-Hand was just sixteen — but Urvara had inherited the Grass Cats from her father at a young age, and Listra had already killed men in battle, led the great hunts for which her people were famous and was undisputed lady of the clan.

  The lords of the Silent Wolves and the Hungry Crows were harder to find, and were less her men. Their clans had come late to the great fight at Tanais River — perhaps due to some treachery, and perhaps not. Her decision to give them only small shares of the spoils had been popular with her other clans — but not with them.

  And in truth, clans came and went from the great tribes such as the Assagetae in the same way that warriors came and went from clans. The People of Ataelus now numbered more Sauromatae than Assagetae — while the Grass Cats had absorbed many of the former Standing Horses, and the current Standing Horse clan was a pale shadow of its former numbers although its new lord, Sindispharnax, was rebuilding. He had so few warriors that he might not have warranted a place in her council but he was a member of her household, one of her own knights, and he was already present. Besides, she wanted him to succeed in rebuilding what had once been the greatest of clans, after the Cruel Hands.

  To foreigners, the Horse People — the Sky People, as they called themselves — were a mass of faceless nomads with an alien, impenetrable, unchanging society. The Greek called them the Royal Scythians. But Melitta knew that they were as changeable as the sea, as different, tribe by tribe, as Athenians and Spartans.

  Tuarn of the Hungry Crows was next — small, dark-haired and bearing an uncanny resemblance to his totem animal, from his stooped shoulders to his beak of a nose. He took his wine with a good grace and his eyes twinkled.

  ‘I gather we have a border problem,’ he said.

  Scopasis stood stiffly by his side. ‘I explained,’ he said, like a man who fears that anything he does will prove to be wrong.

  Kontarus was last, lord of the Silent Wolves. He was old and bent, and his tanist, a tall, thin woman with remarkably red hair, stood at his arm, supporting him. He glanced around, refused the wine and grunted. ‘Saida,’ he said, pointing at the red-haired woman. His tone suggested that he was not pleased to be summoned.

  Melitta couldn’t decide whether Saida was haughty or merely nervous. She’d never been introduced. Melitta crossed the carpet to her and offered her hand to clasp. ‘Saida, I’m Melitta,’ she said with deliberate informality.

  ‘Yes,’ Saida said. ‘I know.’ She took the hand clasp as lightly as possible, as though Melitta’s touch held some disease.

  Melitta refused to act like a boy. ‘You are the daughter of Kontarus?’ she asked.

  ‘No relation at all,’ the woman replied with cold finality. ‘Not really your business.’

  Melitta wanted to roll her eyes. Rudeness like this was not acceptable. It had political overtones. ‘My dear,’ she said, switching to a Greek approach, ‘if you are not a relation of the lord of the Silent Wolves, then you can’t expect us to play twenty questions until we discover how he came to name you his heir. And it is, in fact, my business, as I am your lady — the lady of your clan and all the clans.’

  Saida didn’t quite meet her eyes. ‘As you say,’ she pronounced. ‘My relations are my business. I’m his heir. No one need know any more than that — lady.’

  Melitta shrugged and marked the woman for a later conversation. This sort of thing she knew how to handle. Uppity girls — no problem.

  ‘Lords of the horses, we have a problem,’ Melitta began. As quickly as possible, she outlined the story as told by the woman Astis, and then she sent for the woman to tell her own story.

  When she had told her story and gone again, leaning on the strong arm of Temerix the smith, Melitta looked around.

  ‘I would value your thoughts,’ she said, and was greeted by silence.

  Oh, how I miss Ataelus and Urvara, she thought. The two older leaders had supported her — and taught her a great deal. Even Geraint — the former lord of the Standing Horses, dead at Tanais River like his former rivals — had taught her, sometimes merely by the way he opposed her. Her new horse lords were as young as she was and, in some ways, even less trained.

  It was the Hungry Crow, Tuarn, who broke the silence. ‘We can’t fail to act,’ he said. When no one commented, he shrugged. ‘This is how the fighting with the Sauromatae started, back when Marthax was king. The rest of you are probably too young to remember, and the lady wasn’t among us. The Sauromatae were once strong allies, eh? But Upazan came to be their lord, and his young men pounded away at our eastern valleys. And we did too little.’

  ‘That is not the way my people tell the tale,’ Thyrsis said. ‘Among Ataelus’ people, we say that we fought, and no one came to our aid.’

  Tuarn refused to be offended. ‘Young man, is that any different from what I just said? I did not mean that some of the Assagetae didn’t fight. I mean we didn’t act together. And later, we paid.’

  ‘Of c
ourse, some of us paid more dearly than others,’ Listra said. She was standing with Parshevaelt and Sindispharnax — all three veterans of campaigns with Melitta. The positions in which they were standing — closer to Scopasis, her bodyguard — said a great deal.

  ‘And some of you profited a great deal more than some of us,’ old Kontarus added.

  ‘Those who fought were rewarded.’ Melitta was tired of this foolishness. ‘Those who did not fight were not so rewarded. That is the way of the people.’

  Saida shrugged. ‘Perhaps it is time we found our own way,’ she said.

  ‘That is a discussion for another time,’ Melitta said. She schooled her face carefully. ‘Or not. If you decided to ride the Sea of Grass, none of us could stop you, or would. It is the right of any of the people — to ride away. In the meantime, let us keep to the issue at hand.’

  Scopasis nodded. ‘I agree with the lord of the Hungry Crows,’ he said.

  Melitta glared at him. He was a former outlaw and the captain of her knights, not one of her lords. But among Sakje, a warrior included in a council always felt he had the right to speak, and she was in danger of thinking like a Greek.

  Thyrsis laughed. ‘At last we find something on which to agree, outlaw!’ he said.

  ‘Arrows on the wind,’ agreed Scopasis. The Sakje had a saying: if you shot a hundred arrows into the wind, at least two would fly together.

  Listra looked around. ‘We have had too much war,’ she said.

  Every one of the clan leaders nodded at that. The population of the Sakje — even with the addition of new people from the east — was down. In three generations they had fought four great campaigns, and the results were obvious in every camp.

  ‘We don’t even know who these people are,’ Melitta said. ‘I have a mind to go myself. To see them.’

  That shocked them, but Melitta saw something on Saida’s face that she didn’t like. She glanced at the red-haired woman, but her face had closed again, and Melitta went on:

  ‘My thought is to ask every clan for fifty warriors — your best, with five horses each. Together, we would ride east, as quickly as the wind blows in the grass, and find these Parni. To talk — or to kill.’