The King and the Slave

by Tim Leach

  ‘What will you do?’

  Cyrus paused. ‘I wish I knew how to be a better father for him. I have conquered more cities and peoples than I can remember. But I do not know how to raise a son. A thing that the simplest man can do well, and I cannot master it.’

  ‘I do not think that is true, master.’

  ‘I am a better king than I am a father. You, I think, are a better father than you were a king. Will you promise me you will serve him as well as you have served me? That you will teach him how to be a king?’

  ‘I am an old man, Cyrus. I will be dead long before you are.’

  ‘Indulge a king. Promise me anyway.’

  ‘Very well,’ Croesus said. ‘I can promise you that. I will serve him, and teach him, as best I can.’

  ‘You must do something else for me.’

  ‘Of course, master.’

  ‘I want you to take my son,’ the king said, ‘and cross back over the river.’

  ‘Tonight?’ Croesus said.

  ‘Yes. Get him away from here. Get yourself away from here too.’

  Croesus felt a sudden fear, the kind of fear that he would have taken for an omen in other times. He wondered if there were aspects of the dream that Cyrus had not told him.

  ‘I will,’ he said. ‘Good luck, Cyrus.’

  ‘And to you,’ the king said. Then he turned away and lay down, and curled up in his blankets like a child.

  Croesus lifted a hand, almost touched the king on the shoulder. He tried to think whether or not, in all the years he had been a slave to Cyrus, they had ever exchanged a single fraternal touch. He did not think so. He wanted to offer him some simple piece of human comfort, but knew that he could not. The barrier remained between them, inviolable. Master and slave.

  He leaned forward and cast a handful of sand out on to the fire. He stood and made his way from the tented chamber, back out into the night.

  Cyrus stared at the wall of the tent, his eyes wide open, and made no attempt to return to sleep. He thought only of his dream.

  It was an unnatural thing, to be out on the water at night, something only for skilled or foolish sailors. As the boat moved across the channel, Croesus thought of the stories of the Hellenes, of the crossing of the river of the dead, the meeting of the ferryman. He thought of drowning in darkness, then tried to turn his mind elsewhere.

  Light glimmered off the shifting black water, as though the stars had fallen into the river or as if he were travelling across the night sky, the way the messengers of the gods were said to. He wondered if that was what Cambyses saw, with his faded view of the world.

  The prince did not seem to share his fear of the river. He sat in the bow of the boat, leaning forward and easily keeping in balance with its shifting motions. Occasionally he dipped down to let his hand trail in the water, and Croesus fought the urge to reach forward and steady him.

  ‘Why did he send us away?’ said Cambyses. ‘Have I done something wrong?’

  ‘No, master.’

  ‘Then why? Is it because you displeased him?’

  ‘Now, that may be true. But the king wished for us to be safe. That is all. It is an honour for him to think of us so, don’t you think?’

  ‘It does not feel like an honour. Sneaking away in the night with a slave for company. I have disappointed him again, have I not?’

  ‘No, master.’

  ‘I have not deserved this. I wanted to see the battle.’

  ‘I have seen more than enough battles, master. You will grow tired of them soon enough.’

  ‘No. I do not think that is true,’ Cambyses said. He smiled. ‘I think I would like to see them for the rest of my life.’

  Croesus prepared to speak again, to begin, he thought, weaning the young man away from such things. But when he looked at Cambyses’s face he felt the words ebbing away. He tried to think of a dozen different ways of presenting his argument, but that face seemed to defeat them all without a single word being spoken.

  The air suddenly grew lighter, and he saw the western shoreline drawing close ahead. The sun had risen behind them, and Croesus turned to face it. The Yakhsha Arta lit up under the glare, as though it had caught fire at the first touch of light. He thought he could hear the crying of the horns, the rattle of iron against bronze, the first screams, all echoing from the east. Faint, like the sounds from a memory, or a dream, but he was certain they were there.

  The battle had begun.

  6

  Cyrus stooped on one knee. He could hear the sound of the battle being fought around him, could smell it, could even taste it. But he could not see. There was blood in his eyes. Slowly, carefully, his fingers shaking, he wiped and blinked the blood away. He lifted his head and looked around the battlefield, what little of it he could see from where he knelt. It took him only a moment to know that he was going to die.

  He had long since learned that battles were not fought the way they were in stories. Fine swordplay was near useless, individual heroism a dangerous liability. For the most part, it was a matter of weight. One great mass of men pushing against another, searching for the angle of pressure that would shatter the opposing formation.

  A single touch on the back of the man in front of you or to your side, connected you to the rest of the army, all the way up to those who struggled and died at the front line. With enough practice, you could read the course of the battle in that single touch, the way a rider feels the mind of his horse through the reins and against his knees.

  The battle against the Massagetae had begun as a thousand battles had before. The careful, courteous advance of two armies in open ground, neither trying to gain a dishonest advantage. They drew closer, until the two front lines could see each other quite clearly, each man perhaps marking his opposite number, the warrior he would seek and kill when they closed. Then they stopped, and the barrage began.

  The air had grown dark with arrows and stones and javelins. When supplies had been exhausted, the armies closed and grappled like two colossal wrestlers. Cyrus had dismounted, rested a hand on the man in front of him, and felt the changing tides of the distant battle.

  Suddenly, the weight of the army had shifted. It happened impossibly fast, as though the laws of nature had been suspended, as if, for a moment, his forces had become entirely insubstantial. Faster than had ever happened before, the weight had collapsed backwards towards him.

  He had had a moment to wonder if it was his fault, if his fear had spread through the army like an infection. Or perhaps, in the countless battles he had fought and won, his generalship had meant nothing. It was chance, or fate, all along. He had opened his mouth to issue an order, as if a few words of his could turn back the tide of men that was headed towards him. Then the wave of the Massagetae had broken over him, and he was lost beneath a screaming sea.

  He had been submerged in the mob, with some unseen knee or hard piece of armour pressed into his chest and choking his lungs, his helmet pulled back and its strap cutting into his throat; he had thought that he would drown there. But he had fought his way out, more like a swimmer than a warrior. With no room to swing a blade, no room even to stand, he had worked his hips and shoulders against the bodies of the living and the dead, until he was born again at the edge of the mob, on his knees and without breath.

  They had reached the point in battle where more men died from being trampled and crushed than from the weapons they carried, where survival depended less on skill and discipline, but simply on breathing through lungs scorched from exhaustion, standing on legs that ached to fall. You stood and lived, or fell and died.

  Close to him, almost close enough to touch, were the Massagatae. They did not come forward, and he could hear them sobbing with exhaustion. If he could have found the strength to run, Cyrus could have escaped, but he did not. He did not have the strength to stand.

  Tears flooded into his eyes for a moment, but he blinked them away. Someone might see him, he thought. One of the Massagetae, or one of his own men who might
flee and survive the battle. They would know that Cyrus died on the ground, defeated. More than anything, he wanted to lie down. More than anything, he wanted to die against the earth, to escape into memory or dream in his last moments. But he would have to die on his feet.

  With a gasping cry, he stood. He heard the horns of the Massagetae braying in victory, saw the warriors rallying themselves to stumble towards him and kill him with clumsy, exhausted hands. He lifted his useless sword high in the air, answering the call of the horns, and took a last step forward.

  The Massagetae closed over him.

  ‘Pasargadae.’

  ‘Master?’

  ‘That is what I will call it, Croesus. The capital of the empire. The home of Cyrus the Great.’

  ‘Cyrus the Great?’

  ‘That is what they call me, here in the streets of Babylon. What do you think?’

  ‘Of the name? A little grandiose.’

  ‘Of building a new city, Croesus.’

  ‘I think it will be expensive.’

  ‘Croesus of Lydia will lecture me on extravagance?’

  ‘It would seem so.’

  ‘Do you not think I have earned a home of my own?’

  ‘You may do whatever you please, master.’

  ‘Look here, on the map. There. That is where I will build it. A palace, surrounded by a great garden.’

  ‘It is a fine vision, master.’

  ‘It is more than a vision, I promise you.’

  ‘You wish to live there?’

  ‘For a time, perhaps. But I am not building it as a place to live.’

  ‘A place to die? You are a little young to be planning your death, master.’

  ‘I do not want to die at all. But when I do, I will die in a paradise. A paradise that I have made.’

  ‘I will help you design this Pasargadae. But I hope you never see it.’

  ‘Oh? And why is that?’

  ‘Because it will always be perfect, then. One should never go to paradise, to see it fail.’

  ‘You do not want to leave Babylon, do you?’

  ‘No, master.’

  ‘Why is that?’

  ‘Because Babylon is my paradise.’

  ‘And has it failed you?’

  ‘Yes. But there is nowhere else that I wish to see.’

  ‘I will build you a tomb here in Babylon, Croesus, if you will build me one in Pasargadae.’

  ‘A pleasing symmetry. But why so much worry over a tomb?’

  ‘It is how I will be remembered.’

  ‘This is how I want to remember you. Here, in Babylon. A great king in the greatest city, dreaming of your paradise in the desert. You are a marvel, Cyrus.’

  ‘You may keep your memory. I hope it serves you well. But a memory does not keep off the carrion birds. And it does not last for ever.’

  ‘Neither does a tomb. But as you wish. When do we start our work?’

  ‘Immediately. Are there any other messages from the empire?’

  ‘A report from your scouts in the north.’

  ‘The Massagetae have been raiding again?’

  ‘Yes, master.’

  ‘The nomads can wait. Let them keep their tents and horses. I have had enough of war, for now.’

  ‘As you wish, master.’

  ‘Come. Let us begin.’

  A Garden of Paradise

  1

  The tomb was plainly built. Six steps led to four walls of white stone, unadorned but for a small inscription above the entrance. A simple tomb for the greatest of kings.

  Looking at it, Croesus remembered what they said about Cyrus – abandoned at birth, raised by wandering cattle farmers, recognized as royalty. Who knew how much of the story was true? But if it was, Cyrus might have lived and died in a farmer’s hut not much bigger than that tomb, if fate had not conspired to make him a king. Perhaps he would have been happier in that other life.

  The first that Croesus had known of the defeat was some time after midday, when the first boats began to come back across the water. Panicked men came spilling out of them, speaking of disaster on the battlefield, of fighting a retreat back to water and crowding onto the boats. Croesus heard them say that was the worst time of all. Some men went mad as they waited, and threw themselves into the river to drown, choosing to die on their own terms, not willing to let fate decide.

  Of all the men who they spoke to, none could say what had happened to the king. They waited until the last of the boats had crossed, but Cyrus was not with them. Harpagus was on the final boat, one arm hanging uselessly at his side – a parting gift from the Massagetae. When Croesus saw the general, wounded and alone, he knew then that Cyrus must be dead.

  The next day, a small band of cavalry crossed back over the river to search for the body of the king. The Massagetae had gone. The entire army had disappeared over the rolling plains, scattered back into tribes, their rare unity no longer needed now that the invaders had been destroyed. They had left behind a sea of Persian dead. There was not a single Massagetae left amongst them, their bodies taken away and burned or buried, whatever the nomad custom was. Looking at that battlefield, it was as though the Persian army, in a sudden act of madness, had fought only against itself.

  It took them most of a day of searching to find the body of the king. The head had been cut off and left in a clay bowl filled with blood. When he heard this, Croesus remembered what the nomad messenger had said, that they would give the Persian king his fill of blood. That he would drown in it. It seemed that the nomads kept their promises.

  Croesus looked around at the thousands of people who had flocked from the surrounding countryside to witness the burial of the king. He had not expected that. He had lived for so long in the closed world of the army and the court that he had forgotten the love the ordinary people had for Cyrus. The king had committed no massacres, had not forced the people he ruled to bend to his beliefs. The nations he conquered were almost unchanged by his passage. All he had demanded was tribute in gold and submission of the will. It had been an empire of peace. And yet the king had shown the world how an empire might be forged, and perhaps the generations who followed would not thank him for that. Who knew what empires would come after? What men would rule them?

  A stirring of the crowd brought him back from his thoughts. The body had arrived.

  Croesus watched as they carried the wrapped corpse up the steps to the entrance of the tomb. He could see the stains where some dark liquid had seeped out into the bandages, and when one of the bearers slipped, the package bent monstrously at an angle that no body could ever have managed.

  We fool ourselves that we are remembered and live on in the minds of others, Croesus thought. Cyrus the king might live on for centuries, in song or in writing. Cyrus the man would be lost in one generation. He looked at the tomb, at the inscription carved above it, and it seemed an injustice that those words would outlive the man.

  ‘What does it say?’ a voice said behind him.

  Croesus felt no urgency to reply. He enjoyed the sound of those words as he would let the taste of good wine linger on his tongue. There were few sounds as sweet as wine, he thought to himself. But the words of a friend from whom one has long been parted were one of them.

  Croesus turned, pulled the other man close, and clasped his arms around him. He heard Isocrates laugh, then Croesus felt his friend’s hands on his shoulders, gently pushing him away. ‘This is a king’s funeral,’ said Isocrates. ‘It is no place for slaves like us to be embracing.’

  ‘Of course.’ Croesus stepped back, wiping a finger across his eyes, and looked again on his friend.

  He was almost as old as Croesus, but Isocrates carried his age better. He looked almost like a retired wrestler with his short legs and thick arms. His face was now creased with age, his small black eyes almost lost in skin, and he still wore his hair shaved close against the scalp, an old slaves’ precaution against lice that Croesus had never been able to commit to.

  ‘You did not
answer my question,’ Isocrates said. ‘What does it say?’

  ‘What?’

  Isocrates tossed his head towards the tomb. ‘The inscription, Croesus.’

  Croesus looked back at the tomb, the deep letters cut into it. ‘Whoever you are’, he said slowly, ‘and from wherever you have come, know I am Cyrus, who gave the Persians an empire. Begrudge me not, therefore, this monument, and the scant earth that covers my body.’

  ‘Your work?’

  ‘Yes. I helped a little with it,’ said Croesus. ‘Do you think they will remember him?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Cyrus, I mean,’ Croesus said. ‘One day, another king from a distant land will come here. He will stop to water his horse at the river, and see the tomb. He will think of passing it by, but, on a curious whim, he will walk up those six steps and read the inscription. Do you think he will count it a marvel, to have come across the tomb of a great king? Or will he shake his head, and wonder what forgotten mad man lies there, claiming to be such a ruler? Will they laugh at him?’

  ‘They will remember him.’ Croesus felt a hesitant hand rest on his shoulder ‘I am sorry, Croesus. I know you cared for him.’

  ‘More than I should have done. It was one of the things you warned me against.’

  ‘Did I say that? When?’

  ‘“A slave loving his master is like a chair loving the man who sits in it.” That is what you said to me when you were teaching me to be a slave.’

  ‘You have a better memory than me,’ Isocrates said. His eyes focused on something in the distance, behind Croesus. ‘Will you love Cambyses in the same way?’

  Croesus followed the other man’s gaze, and saw Cambyses standing on the steps of the tomb. He was giving a speech of some kind, though Croesus was too far away to hear what was being said. The young man looked afraid, like someone playing at being a king. But we all play our parts, Croesus reminded himself. He has plenty of time to learn.