Free Tyrant: Storm of Arrows by Christian Cameron Page B

his dreams since he came to the plains. She was dressed in a peculiar garment, a bell-shaped skirt and a tight jacket that bared her breasts. Kineas had seen such a costume on a priestess once, and on old statues.
    ‘State your choice, Goddess,’ Kineas said.
    She laughed when he called her goddess. ‘If you remain here, you will be king. You will rule well and wisely, and your city will be the richest in the circle of the seas.’
    Kineas nodded.
    ‘If you travel east, your life will be short—’ she said.
    Kineas interrupted her without intending it. ‘This is Achilles’ choice?’ he asked. ‘If I go east, I will live a short life, but a glorious one? And all the world will know my name?’
    She smiled, and it was an ill smile, the sort that terrified men. ‘Do not interrupt me,’ she said. ‘Hubris has many forms.’
    Kineas stood in silence.
    ‘If you go east, your life will be short, and no one but your friends and your enemies will know your name.’
    Kineas nodded. ‘It seems like an easy choice,’ he said.
    The goddess smiled. She kissed his brow . . .
    He awoke to ponder the meaning of the first dream - a true one, he was sure. He needed Kam Baqca to interpret it, but it occurred to him that Helladius was not such a fool as he sometimes acted. The second dream needed no interpretation.
    Kineas arose with the kiss of the goddess still lingering on his forehead and a sense of well-being, a very different mood from the day before. The sun was shining on the sand of the hippodrome. And down the hall, Sitalkes sat up in his bed and Coenus asked for a book, and the mood of the barracks changed as if the sun had come inside. Indeed, Kineas wondered if men were simpler creatures than he had supposed, that a day of sunshine could so change their mood, or serve to mend wounded men who had abandoned hope and turned to the wall, expecting to die. Men recovered in the citadel, and in their homes, as if the touch of the sun on their skin carried the healing of the Lord of the Silver Bow.
    Kineas had a morning meeting arranged with the Athenian captains in his role as the acting archon, but well before that he donned his second-best tunic and a light chlamys and slipped out of the barracks alone. He purchased a cup of fruit juice from a stall in the agora, ate a seed cake in front of a jeweller’s stall, purchased a fine gold ring for Srayanka and then climbed the steps of the temple of Apollo just as the morning prayer to the sun was finished.
    Kineas waited until the last of the singers were clear of the vestry before he approached the priest, and he was surprised to see the young Sakje girl walking with the maidens.
    The priest was putting away his shawl, examining the fine wool for cleanliness as he folded it.
    ‘Helladius,’ Kineas said. ‘The Lord of the Silver Bow has seen fit to restore the sun.’
    Helladius nodded. ‘My lord withholds his anger.’
    Kineas raised an eyebrow. ‘Anger?’
    Helladius shrugged. ‘Who can know the thoughts of the gods?’ he said. ‘But I imagine that my lord was less than pleased at the unburied bodies at the Ford of the River God and withheld the sun, just as the Lord of Horses sent his waters to cover the death at his ford.’
    Kineas nodded slowly. His mother and his uncles had been such believers - those who saw the hands of the gods in everything. ‘It might be as you say,’ he admitted.
    ‘Or not,’ said Helladius. ‘I commit no hubris. What brings you here to honour my morning prayers?’
    ‘Who is the Sakje girl?’ Kineas asked.
    ‘Her father was a priest - a great seer, despite being a barbarian. His daughter is always welcome here.’ Helladius smiled at her retreating back.
    ‘You knew Kam Baqca?’ Kineas asked.
    ‘Of course!’ Helladius said. ‘He travelled widely. He wintered here with us on several occasions.’ He took Kineas’s arm and led him into the temple.
    ‘I think of Kam Baqca as a woman,’ Kineas said.
    ‘We knew him before he