53

IAGO

7,608 SB, Scythia

690 BC, in what is now known as Ukraine

T he two youths silently approached the boy concentrating on his search for translucent stones by the water’s edge. Nagorno spent his days harassing the goldsmith to teach him his skills so that he would be able to make conical earrings, necklaces, and plaques engraved with animals as gifts for his mother. Olbia, on the other hand, became daily more bitter toward her son, for he showed little interest in devoting hours of training to developing the skills every Scythian male had to master before becoming a man: riding, archery, and the use of the akinakes , or short dagger.

“I have mastered all the skills of a warrior, Mother. Let me spend my time doing what I enjoy. That’s the advantage of being the son of Kelermes,” he always replied, engrossed in the tapping of his little hammer on the gold plaques.

“It’s time for you to take down your first enemy. The next battle we fight, you’ll be expected to come with me. It will be your baptism by combat, and I won’t allow you to return until you have the head of an enemy to flaunt before your people.”

“Mother, stop thinking about the dead. My father concerns himself with that already. You should only be concerned with looking as beautiful as possible. Come, try on these earrings.”

Then, according to Ponticus, Olbia would reluctantly step forward and put on the jewelry that her son, standing on a stool, was offering her.

It had been ten years since Kelermes had marched off, and by now no one believed he would return, so the Scythians were beginning to ask themselves if the boy who showed so little interest in war would make a good chieftain for them. The two sons of Sirgis, who had died of some sort of fever, were already adolescents, and the contrast between their muscles, honed by hours of training, and the still-childish body of Nagorno left no room for doubt as to who was going to be the better warrior. We’d all heard that they used to torment Nagorno, but no slave would have dared intervene.

That morning they’d appeared from nowhere, and they threw themselves on Nagorno, submerging half his body in the river. I was taking care of my aloe plants several yards downstream, almost hidden behind the plants. The sounds of the boy’s fight to free himself of the other two caught my attention, and I cautiously observed the scene. However, when I sensed that he had been underwater too long without a breath, and the young men’s intentions were more serious than in the past, I ran upstream to help him. Before I got there, Nagorno had already rid himself of his hemp jacket and had managed to get free. Half-naked and furious, he confronted the two brothers.

“Leave me in peace,” the boy shrieked. “My father will punish you as soon as he returns.”

“Your father, bastard?” they laughed. “Ask this slave about your father.”

“Why should I do that?” Nagorno asked, bewildered.

“Kelermes has long forgotten the path to your mother’s tent. The brother of this slave, on the other hand, knows it all too well.”

“That’s a lie! I’m the firstborn son of Kelermes, and you’re going to pay dearly for what you’ve said.”

But the young men had already run off, leaving me standing beside a bruised boy who was beside himself.

“Move, slave,” he whispered without looking at me, removing my outstretched hand of assistance with a swipe of his own hand.

“Yes, master,” I replied. I turned and went back to what I’d been doing.

I’d never been so near to the boy before, and I couldn’t avoid noticing the bruises that covered his back.

That same day Olbia summoned me. She’d hurt the sole of her foot on a thorn as she was dismounting from her horse, so I went for some aloe and began to treat her foot in silence. Nagorno arrived when I had almost finished, soaking wet and still upset.

“Mother, they’re going around telling lies about you.”

“Who?”

“Araxes and Aristeas, the sons of Sirgis. They’re saying that Kelermes isn’t my father, that it’s one of the Hellenic slaves. I’m only going to ask you once: Am I the son of a slave?”

Olbia had remained seated while I was adjusting her footwear, but she straightened her back and stood up, and I could see her face had gone so red that her features had become deformed. I swallowed and waited for her reaction, my body tense. She grabbed the boy by the neck with one hand and lifted him off the ground, preventing him from breathing.

“How dare you ask me such a question? You’re the son of Kelermes, and you’ve been named to succeed him. As of now your jewelry making is over. I’ll train you myself day and night until you are a worthy leader whom everyone respects. I’ve been very lax with you, but that’s going to end.”

She let the young boy drop, while I remained with my eyes glued to the ground, kneeling between mother and son. Nagorno coughed until he’d recovered his breath and then clenched his jaw. As of that moment his voice would forever be hoarse and monotonous, and his facial expression lost some of its humanity.

“As you wish, Mother. But let him die, then.”

“Who?”

“The Hellenic slave. If he means nothing to you, let me kill him myself. And his brother, too, this one with the strange eyes,” he said, giving me a kick in the ribs. “I don’t like the way he looks at me.”

I heard the sentence without raising my head from the ground or moving from my forced posture, but I used my eyes to look for any object that might serve me to kill that child and his mother then and there. I came up with a hundred ways to finish them off, warn my father before their bodies were discovered, and try to flee before anyone raised the alarm . . . It would be difficult, virtually impossible, but better to attempt it than to die right there, prostrate in front of them.

“The slave isn’t going to die,” whispered Olbia. “More than that, anyone who hurts the slave will die at my hands, and that includes you. Do you understand? And his brother will live as long as he continues to heal us satisfactorily. Now return to your tent. We ride in the morning.”

Nagorno was silent for a few seconds. And then he answered, “Yes, Mother,” and disappeared without a sound.

The next day Ponticus’s murmuring woke me at dawn.

“It’s incredible how you can sleep. Haven’t you heard the comings and goings during the night?”

“No,” I said, stretching. “What’s happened?”

“Nagorno took his mother two gold-plated skulls,” he replied. “They belonged to the sons of Sirgis. Mayátide, her head servant, told me. The boy said they were two worthy enemies, and that he’s now ready for his battle initiation.”

I looked at him, half-asleep, trying to come to terms with what he was telling me, but I kept quiet because I sensed he wasn’t done yet.

“There’s something else. You should go and check out your aloe plantation.”

I jumped up and ran naked to the edge of the river, where I was cultivating all the aloe plants for the following year. Someone had ridden his horse over all of them, trampling them, and then pulled them up by the roots. I found Hektor there trying to save all the plants he could. I didn’t say anything to him; I was feeling such a rage that I was incapable of articulating a single word. I hastened to gather all the leaves I could and extract the pulp so they wouldn’t dry out.

I could see Nagorno and Olbia on horseback in the distance, riding toward the open steppes. Despite the desperation I felt at that moment, my worst days in Scythia were yet to come.

Not long after this, Nagorno went to the Borystene slave market and returned with an escort of three Sarmatian slaves. They were mercenaries who had lost their freedom because of their crimes. The three were tall and massive, like trees that were centuries old, and for the first time in my life I had to look up to address someone. From their first night in the camp, they were never separated from Nagorno, they never mixed with the other slaves, and I would never forget their sadistic faces.