Free Tyrant: Destroyer of Cities by Christian Cameron Page A

only after a pause. ‘No, Scopasis. I don’t want to rule in that way.’
    Scopasis hadn’t been in her bed for five nights. He turned and looked at her for a long time. ‘You are angry at me because I am who I am,’ he said. ‘What I have to say will not make you love me better.’
    ‘You might be surprised,’ she said.
    ‘You cannot be the Lady of the Assagetae and let this woman defy you,’ he said.
    She shook her head. ‘I can. And I will. Do not – I repeat, do not – take action against her.’
    Scopasis turned his head to watch the sun setting on the plains. The grass rolled away in waves like the sea, a carpet of fresh green that went north as far as the eye could see, and west into the setting sun, which turned the seed heads of the new grass a ruddy gold. He watched the sunset for a while.
    ‘Would you like me to ride away?’ he asked, after a while. ‘I would be gone, and never trouble you again.’
    Yes and no both crossed in her head. ‘You must do what is best for you,’ she said carefully, hating the foolish sound of the words, and the pomposity with which she said them. In a moment, she saw what Xeno’s death had spared her. ‘Can you be my guard captain without being my lover?’ she asked – and was proud that she’d said it.
    Scopasis groaned. When she turned to look at him, he was weeping.
    ‘Are you a child?’ she asked, suddenly angry. ‘Grow up!’
    So much for mature reflection. She was glad she was riding to war in the east. She felt as if killing someone might make her feel better. She wished that Scopasis was less of a foolish man, so that she could have his long, hard body next to hers and not be lonely at night. The truth was that picking a lover was a hard task for the Lady of the Assagetae –and it would be easier to keep the one she had.
    She feared he would do something stupid and dramatic.
    ‘I want a gallop,’ she announced to the air, and turned her horse’s head and started away across the grass.
    She saw him look at her, as if tempted to follow.
    But he didn’t.
    Two days later, she cut her time at the spring Tanja short, gathered her warriors and headed east. She had more than three hundred riders – she even had twenty-five of Temerix’s people on ponies, big bows on their shoulders and jars of grain in their wagons. They had fifty wagons. The grass was green and fresh, and the game was plentiful as soon as they rode clear of the circle of the Tanja where everyone had hunted everything.
    Listra came along with her young cousin, Philokles of Olbia, and a dozen of his friends – Olbian gentlemen, members of the new aristocracy, part Sakje and part Greek that was the legacy of constant intermarriage. They had been at the Tanja and now they rode east, as if it was the most natural thing in the world. She was glad to have them – they were well-armoured, capable men who, despite their youth, had already made a campaign or two.
    Tuarn of the Hungry Crows came in person as well, riding a black stallion of magnificent size.
    She admired the horse and called out to praise him, and he rode out of his part of the column. ‘When you are lord of the Hungry Crows,’ he joked, ‘you had best ride a good black horse.’
    ‘Why have we not been friends before?’ she asked him.
    He made a face. ‘You always speak your mind like this, lady? I thought that childhood among the Greeks would have made you … subtle.’
    ‘Much the opposite,’ she said. Her eyes happened to stray across her guard – and there was Scopasis, in his place, wearing his armour – and she found that her heart gave a little leap.
    ‘I was Marthax’s man,’ he said. ‘Sometimes I represented him to Eumeles. I didn’t expect you to forgive me.’ She digested this.
    ‘You didn’t know,’ he said.
    ‘No,’ she allowed.
    ‘Shall I ride away?’ he asked.
    She shook her head. ‘No. No, let’s share this little war, and be friends.’
    He nodded. ‘This bluntness has its benefits, I