The King and the Slave

by Tim Leach

  Cambyses finished his speech, and, as one, the watching crowd went to their knees and pressed their foreheads to the ground. Croesus did the same, and felt Isocrates kneel beside him. Then they stood, shaking the dirt from their clothes and wiping it from their foreheads.

  ‘Will you love him?’ Isocrates said again.

  ‘I will try,’ Croesus said. He yawned, and pinched his eyes.

  ‘Go and rest. You will not be missed.’

  ‘There is someone else I want to see first.’

  ‘Oh? Who?’

  ‘Your wife, of course. Where is she?’ Croesus looked around. ‘I would have thought that she would be here.’

  ‘She is in paradise now, Croesus,’ Isocrates said softly.

  Croesus turned, startled. Isocrates looked back at him, blank faced for a moment. He raised an eyebrow, and smiled gently.

  ‘The gardens, Croesus.’

  Each nation has its own vision of paradise. Some say it is an infinite city, filled with the chattering souls of the dead. Others believe it to be a silent desert, where we travel ceaselessly in wordless bliss. For the Persians, it is a walled garden, filled with trees and running water.

  When Cyrus had begun to plan the work at Pasargadae, he had wanted to conjure grass and trees from the pale, dry ground, to make his home in this world a paradise, a vision of the afterlife.

  Croesus remembered the long hours into the night spent planning this place with the king, remembered Cyrus debating aesthetics and practicality with his architects, choosing the stone for the columns of the palace, sketching ideas for the gardens that would surround it. He should have known that this was where Maia would find her place. Many years before, he had wandered the gardens of Babylon with her, that perfect Persian garden built to appease a broken-hearted princess who missed her home. Maia had looked at that place with the eye of a craftsman, mapping the layout and noting the principles of design and irrigation. Once, she had baked bread, watched over royal children, tended to the mad. Now, she was a gardener.

  He wandered the orderly paths, moving under the shade of cypress and pomegranate trees, and found that a part of him did not want to find her, would be content to be searching in this place for ever. Perhaps the Persian vision of paradise included this sensation, that of searching for a friend on a warm day in a garden, listening to the running water of the canals and fountains.

  He found her standing in front of a row of box trees, working on one with steady, thoughtful motions of her hands, cutting it back to some aesthetic principle that he did not understand. He watched her, without making himself known.

  She had been his slave once, she and Isocrates both. He had paid her little enough attention when he had been a king – she had not been amongst the beautiful ones who caught the eye. Hard working, and plain faced, she had been just another slave of the palace. He had not thought that she would mean anything to him, back then.

  After he had watched her for a time, she stood straight, her greying hair falling back over her shoulders. She moved slowly, for she was growing old too, he realized. Without turning towards him, she said: ‘I know you are there.’ She looked over her shoulder, and he saw that she was smiling. ‘You are never as stealthy as you think you are. Even back in Sardis, I always knew when you were lurking.’

  ‘My apologies.’

  ‘Do not apologize.’

  She knelt down and patted the grass next to her.

  ‘I saw Isocrates,’ Croesus said as he sat down. ‘He said I would find you here.’

  ‘He missed you, you know. He will not say it, but he did.’

  ‘And you?’

  She rolled her eyes. ‘Sleepless nights. Weeping and wailing. That kind of thing.’

  ‘I suppose I asked for that.’

  ‘Of course I missed you. Does that please you?’

  ‘It does,’ he said. ‘You know that they buried Cyrus today?’

  ‘Yes, I know. It was his time, I suppose.’

  ‘No. I do not think it was.’ Croesus looked around the gardens, at the play of early evening light on the water and through the leaves. ‘He should have grown old here. Just as I should have died a much younger man. Before I ruined my life.’

  ‘Well, I am glad you did. Ruin your life, I mean.’

  ‘You are?’

  ‘Of course. Otherwise you would not be sitting with me now.’ She laughed, but he did not join her. ‘I know you counted him as a friend,’ she said.

  ‘Isocrates said the same thing. He did not seem troubled by Cyrus’s death. You are not either, I think?’

  She shook her head.

  ‘One king is much the same as another to you?’

  ‘You were different, Croesus.’

  ‘How so?’

  ‘You were a good king, but you never quite looked as though you belonged there. I think you belong with us.’

  ‘I suppose you mean that kindly.’

  ‘Of course. Kings are the worst of all people.’ She paused. ‘What is Cambyses like?’

  ‘Intelligent. Anxious. Uncertain. He is still like a child. And I have forgotten what it is to teach a child.’

  She said nothing, and Croesus immediately regretted what he had said. She had never been able to have children. He reached down to the ground, felt the long rushes beneath his hand, like the hair of a lover. He let the silence grow past the point of pain, until it had become something healing instead.

  ‘Are you happy, Maia?’ he said, sometime later.

  ‘Oh, I do not think of things like that. It is good to work on something that you will not live to see finished. It is a bit like raising a child, I suppose, tending my gardens.’

  ‘Your gardens?’

  ‘You might say that they belong to the king. But I think a garden belongs to those who look after it. I tend them, so they are mine.’

  ‘I envy you. I wish I could say the same thing.’

  ‘I’ll teach you, if you like. You see this branch—’

  He waved her into silence. ‘I am a little old to start learning.’

  ‘We must teach you other things, it seems,’ she said. ‘Come back here tonight.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Oh, that is a secret.’

  ‘Cambyses will be acclaimed as king tonight. I must be there.’

  ‘No one will miss an old slave like you. Least of all the king.’

  ‘Very well. Where do I meet you?’

  ‘Just come back here, after dark. You will find us easily enough.’

  He stood up, one hand staying down low, ready to pluck a few rushes up to toy with on his walk back to the palace. She gave him a look of gentle rebuke, and his hand came back up empty, the fingers spread wide in apology. She turned back to her work.

  He remembered, a long time ago, when he had granted Isocrates a kingly boon, a favour to his favourite slave. Isocrates had asked for a wife, for Maia. He had not understood then what lay behind the slave’s desire, and he did not know now. In all the years that the three of them had been slaves together, the mystery of their marriage, whether it was lust or alliance or companionship or something else entirely, was one that he had not unravelled.

  He watched her for a moment longer, then turned away, and went to lose himself in the gardens once again.

  2

  That night, Pasargadae was a sea of fire.

  All throughout the grounds of the palace and the gardens, there was row upon row of torches, their spiked ends driven into the earth, each one standing as tall as a man. An army many hundreds strong, standing rigidly at attention and raising a flickering salute to their commander. In the sky, there was no moon to give a competing light, merely an absence. A new moon for the new king.

  There was only one place that the light did not touch, a black hollow shape on the raised ground overlooking the palace: the tomb of Cyrus, watching from the shadows to see another king born into the world.

  On the steps of the palace, Cambyses stood alone. Two steps beneath were the priests of t
he Magi, a step beneath them the bodyguards, and beyond that, standing in rows a dozen deep, were the noble families of the Medes and Persians. Beyond them all, by the farthest rank of torches, Croesus watched the ceremony unfold.

  It was not yet time. Croesus did not understand the ritual, but he knew that there would be no blessing until the priests of the Magi allowed it. He watched as the Magi consulted charts marked on clay tablets, looked up and waited for some co-ordination of stars above, for the spinning sky to lock into place.

  They waited in silence, and there was no restlessness in the crowd, just patience, and trust in the gods. The only sounds were the uneven crackle of the torches, and the occasional, angry lowing of the great white bull who was tied to a pillar near by, the creature sounding his irritation at the crowd and the rope that held him, ignorant of how close he was to death.

  Then the moment came. Far above, some ancient star reached the right position, and a priest threw his hand up in the air. As one, the crowd flinched as though struck, a wave of sharp energy passing though it, the collective will being surrendered to the new master. In spite of himself, and all the rituals he had lived to see, Croesus shivered at the power of it. He could remember, dimly, what it was to be the focus of such an event.

  He heard a great bellowing cry. The bull, its throat cut, stumbled to its knees and then to the ground, the thick blood running out over the ground like slow waves. As the bull’s cries faded and died away, it was replaced by the words of the priests. He listened to the Magi speaking, pronouncing what fate they had read in the stars for the new king.

  He looked around, over the faces of the crowd, and saw that no one was looking at him. All eyes were on the king, and he knew that it was safe for him to slip away.

  He made his way back out, moving quickly and softly like a thief. He left the palace behind, walking down the long, wide path to the gardens between the rows of torches. Flanked by so many sources of light, they cast his shadow in eight different ways at once. He imagined each shadow as some other version of himself who had taken a different path, a different life, and wondered which of them had chosen better than he had in this world.

  There was light ahead. Not the controlled single points of the torches, but something larger and wilder, filtering through the leaves, along with the smell of smoke, the roar of fire.

  Deep within the gardens, he saw the campfire burning. Shapes of men and women moved around it, silhouettes at first, flat like shadows cast against the wall of a cave, but it did not take long for him to pick out the broad shoulders of Isocrates, Maia’s distinctive profile.

  There were others there as well, men and women that Croesus did not know. Friends of Isocrates and Maia, he supposed, slaves and servants from many different nations, brought together far from their homes to serve the court of Persia. Isocrates moved amongst them, dispensing the occasional word in the ear or touch on the shoulder as if he were the patriarch of a great tribe, keeping the peace amongst his followers. That is what he should have been, Croesus thought. Isocrates would not have wanted to be a king or a general, for it was not his way to command his inferiors. But to lead his equals, that was something he could do.

  When Croesus reached the edge of the light, Isocrates saw him and beckoned him forward. They all turned to face him, rose to greet him as though he were a king once again. He looked at the fire and meat and wine, and realized that it had been prepared for him, that they had saved or stolen what wine they could, and sneaked away from their duties to welcome him home.

  He bowed his head, and a moment later felt arms wrap around him. He could not tell if it was Maia or Isocrates who had greeted him so. Perhaps both of them. He kept his eyes closed against his tears, and let those same arms guide him to the ground.

  When he had breathed away his tears, he opened his eyes to look at the preparations going on around him. One of the men – Croesus supposed him to be one of the kitchen slaves – attended to the cooking meat. A brace of small creatures turned on a spit over the fire; birds brought down by a sling stone, or rodents snared in the garden. It was probably best, Croesus thought, that he did not know what it was. He watched it turn and brown, listened to the drops of fat hissing in the fire. The others watched with him, all silent with respect for the gift.

  When it was ready, they cut the meat into pieces. Before they touched any for themselves, Isocrates wrapped the fat around the tiny thigh bones, small enough to be held between a thumb and two fingers, and made an offering to the gods in the way of his people. Then the meat was divided equally, wrapped in leaves and passed around the circle. Croesus ate the thin slices, and broke off chunks of flatbread when it was passed to him. He drank the wine, and wondered when he might taste it again. Perhaps never, and so each time he raised the skin to his mouth, he tried to remember everything about it. The heavy weight of it as it rested on his tongue, the slow, easing warmth that passed through him with each sip and swallow.

  He waited for someone to speak. Occasionally one of them would hum or sing some small fragment of an old song or a poem, but for the most part they sat in silence.

  The fire began to die down. One by one, the others began to stand up and leave, until only Maia, Isocrates and he were left. He waited for them to stand, to leave him to sit and think beside the fire alone, but they made no move to go.

  Isocrates yawned, sudden and broad mouthed like a cat, and Maia laughed at him. Croesus watched as the other man rested his head on his wife’s shoulder, and he felt an unfamiliar surge of longing for his own wife, decades dead and buried half a world away.

  Perhaps understanding this, Maia waved a hand at him, gesturing for him to come closer to them. When he hesitated, Isocrates grunted irritably. He leaned forward, grabbed Croesus by his shoulder, and pulled him close until they sat side by side.

  They lay down together, kept warm by the heat of the dying fire. Isocrates lay on his left and Maia on his right, the way a husband and wife will hold a child between them, lulling it to sleep, and he smiled at the thought. Perhaps they thought of him as a child they had raised, and could be proud of. They had taught him to be a slave, and he had lived to grow old. Slaves have no money or children, no way of measuring the value of their lives as others do. If they live, and are in favour, they have done well.

  Tomorrow would be another day of service to a new king, but that did not seem to matter. He did not think he would live to see another night like this, but that seemed to matter even less. He crooked one arm beneath his head and looked up at the sky. He let himself drift, slowly, towards his dreams.

  Standing on the palace steps, Cambyses could not see the faces of the people who had come to offer their allegiance, the gestures of the priests or the face of the bull as it died for him. He saw only a mass of light and shadow and shape, like some dream half forgotten.

  He closed his eyes tight and opened them again, though he knew it would do no good. He could not stop himself from hoping that one day he would see the same world as everyone else, that the secret sickness that was taking his sight from him could be blinked away like tears.

  But it did not matter that he could not see, and that he knew only vaguely what was required of him. Occasionally one priest or another would lean forward to whisper in his ear, to tell him what it was he had to do, what old words to speak or gestures to perform. For the most part, the ritual proceeded around him, without him. They wanted a king, that was all. They did not care what he thought, so long as he did not disturb the ritual.

  Beyond those closest to him, the mass of guards and priests blended together. He tried not to look at them, for crowds had always frightened him. Because he was unable to pick individuals out, they congealed together in a sinister mass, a monster with many faces. He tried to push his fear aside, and looked for Croesus.

  If he could look on that face, have him near, he felt that he could be brave. The old man had loved his father, and Cambyses had inherited that love; he’d found it second-hand, but he would use it, twist
it and keep it for himself. He knew that he was not a man to whom love was given freely. He had to beg and steal it where he could, because there was something wrong with him.

  If Croesus were here, then he would know what to do, what to say. Where was he? Cambyses wanted to call to him, but knew he could not. What would they think of him, a king crying out for a slave?

  He thought of his father. A great king, an impossible man to follow. He looked towards where he knew his father’s tomb was, the shadow on the hill. He felt his father’s eyes on him, disappointed even in death. Disappointed, because he knew that Cambyses did not want to be king.

  The thought had been hiding in some corner of his mind for a long time, but it was a thing that Cambyses had never been able to admit to himself until now, when it was too late. Perhaps it would have changed everything, if he had said this before. He could have passed the throne to his brother, and lived his life in peace.

  Now there could be no escape. Who could imagine a king putting aside his crown? The divine succession would shatter, the ties of belief that held the empire together would come apart. No matter what he did or said, they would not let him step aside. He would be a king until he died. To say that he did not want to be king was to invite death.

  He thought of the course the conspiracy would take, when they knew of his weakness. The plotting in the corners of the palace, first whispered in coded secrecy, then spoken of almost openly. His guards bribed, his courtiers turned against him. He saw the daggers and garrottes coming to find him in the night, the poison in the food, heard the tread of impostors mounting the steps to take his throne.

  He would know beforehand. That would be the worst part of all: that he would know for days or weeks or months that his death was coming, that the conspiracy had advanced too far for him to stop it, that even if he were to kill one or a dozen or a hundred or a thousand, the mind of the people had turned against him; that the killing stroke would find him eventually, and all he could do was fight to delay it. He felt the panic rising in his body, like a shaking sickness, and knew that, now he was a king, he was truly alone. And he always would be.