The King and the Slave

by Tim Leach

  There could be no question of trust. Not even of Croesus. He must never let anyone know he was afraid, must not even think it. He could imagine no worse thing than being condemned to death, than living knowing that others were planning your end, and he promised himself that he would never let it happen.

  The priest’s voice rose in one last high chant, the watching crowd raised their hands to the watching stars. It was finished, and he was a king.

  Unheard over the roar of the crowd, Cambyses gave the smallest gasp, the kind of sound a man makes on first hearing of the death of another. One small breath filled with pain.

  He closed his weak eyes tight for the space of three heartbeats, listening to the syncopated rhythm of his heart, tried to find some comfort there. He opened his eyes again, and looked out on a new world, one that had, from that moment, changed for ever. A world that he did not want. A world that belonged to him.

  3

  A king lives by ritual. It is what marks him out from other men.

  The coronation was only the first of many. The next morning, in the great, high-columned audience chamber of Pasargadae, Croesus watched the presentation of the gifts. Emissaries from distant lands, members of the noble families of Persia – all came, one by one, to offer the rarest of treasures to the new king.

  Croesus recognized many of the gifts, for once they had belonged to him. When he had been a king he had assembled the greatest collection of rare antiquities in the world. Since they had been taken from his treasuries two decades ago, they had passed from one man to another to buy favour or forgiveness for a slight. Now they had been brought to Cambyses, for him to distribute in turn when he needed to buy favour himself. The treasures had become symbols of the shifting allegiances that stretched across the empire, and whatever inherent beauty they had was long forgotten.

  One visitor from a distant land presented an enormous emerald, and Croesus remembered every side and cut of the gem – he had handled it many times before, as he thought of embedding it into a piece of jewellery for his wife. Another brought a sword from Troy, a city fallen eight centuries earlier. Croesus recognized the handle from the time it had spent in his own treasury, but saw that the blade had been broken by a careless owner, reforged and weathered to give the illusion of age. It was a skilled forgery; Croesus was the only man who could have told the difference. Then again, perhaps the blade that he had known had simply been another imitation.

  After the gifts were taken away, the throne room fell quiet. The time had come for another ritual.

  The king’s brother entered the chamber. As with many brothers, they had an uncanny almost-resemblance, like looking into a reflection in a fast-running stream, a mirrored distortion that never seemed to settle. Bardiya’s shoulders were broader than his brother’s, he stood a little shorter, but their faces could easily have been mistaken for one another.

  Bardiya came forward alone, a step too close to the king, and did not bow – a small gesture of treason, a justification for what was to follow. Cambyses held out a hand, and took the sword that was passed to him. Its handle was patterned with gold, its cutting edge rounded away. An empty weapon of ritual. The king laid the blunted blade against his brother’s throat, and held it there a moment. He drew it across the neck, and Bardiya dropped to one knee, bowed his head and spread his arms wide, his fingers to the sky. He held that pose for a moment – an image of utter submission, a mimicry of death. Then he looked up, and smiled at his brother.

  Cambyses cast the sword aside, laughed and clapped his hands. He beckoned his brother to his feet, to come forward. They embraced, and gentle applause passed through the court. There had been a time when all brothers of a king would have to die, when the ambitions of men could not be trusted, when kingdoms were too fragile to allow even the possibility of a filial contender for the throne. Such brutal practices had fallen away, leaving merely the ghost of a ritual behind it.

  Then it was time for Parmida, the king’s sister, to submit to her ruler. She was no danger, no rival who would have to go through a ritual death – it was only through marriage to the wrong man that she could become a weapon laid at the king’s throat. She simply came forward and offered her hand to the king. He kissed it, and looked at her with such honest affection that Croesus felt some of his fears recede. He watched as she took her place at the king’s left hand, Bardiya at his right.

  Croesus looked at that new king, sitting hunched on the throne and leaning forward to try to see those who came before him more clearly. He watched, like a nervous father, to see how the new king would rule. He tried, above all, not to think of Cyrus’s dream.

  ‘Let us begin,’ said Cambyses.

  At the very end of the day, when the courtiers were yawning openly and Croesus was fighting to keep his eyes open, one last visitor came into the audience chamber. He was not an emissary nor a general, a satrap nor a priest. He was a physician. The small, black-robed Egyptian slowly made his way up the length of the audience chamber. Clay pots clinked together at his waist, the bare essentials of his trade, and at the entrance to the audience hall, Croesus could see a small cart piled up with wicker baskets of herbs and bones and ointments. The man bowed, and greeted the king. His name was Chephren.

  Later, Croesus would learn that the Egyptian had come expecting to meet Cyrus. It was the previous king who had summoned him, and in the many months it had taken him to travel from Egypt to Persia, the physician had not heard of the death of the king. Only an intervention at the last moment from an astute courtier prevented the Egyptian from making a dangerous blunder in court. They would not always be so successful. For months after, the court would receive emissaries and messengers who came responding to commands and delivering messages for Cyrus, as if his spectre haunted the throne, refusing to accept the succession.

  The Egyptian introduced himself – a practised speech in which a recitation of his years of study were mixed with spells and blessings from the thousand gods of Egypt. Cambyses listened to this, in patient incomprehension, and when Chephren had finished, he said simply, ‘Why have you come here?’

  The man bowed again. ‘Great king, your father asked me to come. I am a physician of many talents.’ The Egyptian paused. ‘But above all, I am an oculist. A doctor of eyes.’

  A shiver passed through the king, and the court went still.

  Cambyses stood up from the throne and hurried down to the floor of the audience chamber, tripping slightly on the lowest step. The king stopped in front of the Egyptian, still leaning forward slightly to give his dying eyes what advantage he could, and stared into the other man’s face, the way one would examine a horse that one wanted to buy, to look at its teeth and coat and the muscles of its flanks. Cambyses judged the colour of the iris, the clear whites, the way the pupil contracted to the light and moved and tracked any motion near by. He wanted to see proof of the man’s art written on his eyes.

  Then the king reached out – the unsteady hand of a child afraid it will fall.

  ‘Can you make me see?’ he said. ‘I am afraid to be blind.’ His voice cracked slightly. ‘Do not let me become blind. Will you help me?’

  The Egyptian gave one long blink, his only sign of any surprise at the king’s question. Then he clasped Cambyses’s hand, the simple touch that he had no doubt given countless times before to the sick, the dying. ‘Yes,’ the oculist said. ‘I will make you see.’

  Cambyses smiled shyly. He turned his back and waved a hand to dismiss his guest, then sat down, and continued with the business of the court as if nothing strange had happened. The Egyptian went quietly from the throne room, and Croesus watched him go.

  *

  At the end of the day, as he made his way back towards the slaves’ quarters, Croesus heard a pair of footsteps following him. The quick, steady tread of a man eager for company, yet too proud to run.

  ‘What did you think?’ Harpagus said, when he had caught up with the old slave.

  ‘He did well,’ Croesus said. ‘He
seems content to ask for help. That is good.’

  ‘He did not call on me.’

  ‘Harpagus—’

  ‘It matters not. He has young men now to tell him what to do. They are the ones he wants to listen to. What young king wants old men like us to advise them? Except for you, of course. He still looks to you to tell him what to do. I cannot think why.’

  ‘I suppose he is sentimental.’

  Harpagus laughed. ‘Yes. He overflows with sentiment.’ He paused. ‘Did you enjoy your little feast in the gardens last night?’

  ‘You know about that,’ said Croesus. ‘I should have known there would be no secrets from you.’

  ‘Oh, I do not have as many spies as I once did. They report to other men now. But I still know some things. Do not worry. You shall not be punished.’

  ‘How kind of you.’

  ‘It is no kindness. I need you to keep an eye on that Egyptian fraud for me.’

  ‘Chephren? What harm can he do?’

  ‘You saw how Cambyses fawned on him. He will have noted that well. He will do whatever it takes to become the king’s favourite pet.’

  ‘He should be careful. Royal pets do not tend to last.’

  ‘What about you? You have lived a long life.’

  There was a tone to the old general’s voice that was unfamiliar. The usual barbs rounded out by something else. Perhaps even sadness.

  ‘I wish Cyrus were still alive,’ Croesus said. ‘That he had lived to see this place. You do as well, I think.’

  Harpagus nodded.

  ‘I think sometimes that it is my fault,’ Croesus said.

  ‘That is not true.’

  ‘It was my suggestion that we fight on that side of the river. I goaded him into it.’

  ‘Did you ever know Cyrus to be goaded into anything? We would have lost wherever we fought. The gods willed it, and it was so.’

  ‘I heard that you rallied the army and led the retreat,’ Croesus said.

  ‘Is that what they say?’

  ‘Some would call it heroic.’

  ‘The poets do not sing of heroics on the side of those who lost,’ Harpagus said. ‘And they are right not to. There is no valour in fighting a losing cause.’

  ‘I cannot agree with that.’

  ‘Of course not, Croesus. Still a dreamer after all these years?’

  ‘You say I seem content,’ Croesus said. ‘You do not.’

  ‘No. You are right.’

  ‘Why?’

  Harpagus looked at him, and for a moment there was a hint of the old life in his eyes. Then it was gone. ‘Because I know I will die soon,’ he said. And before Croesus could think of a reply, the general turned and walked away, with the slow, careful steps of an old man, his ruined arm swinging at his side.

  4

  What did the Egyptian do to the king? Rumours passed through the court, but no one could say for certain. All knew that the king and the oculist met twice a day, at sunrise and sunset, and no one else was allowed to be present. Some said the treatment was a spiritual one, involving sigils carved into clay tablets, demons and spirits and gods invoked in prayer, without a hand being laid on the divine body of the king. Others claimed it was robustly, ghastly physical, that honeyed needles were inserted into the jelly of the king’s eye, that it was removed entirely and left dangling from a knotted cord of flesh, cut open and stitched together at the back where the scars would not show.

  Croesus did not know if there was true healing or magic in what the man did, or whether the Egyptian merely believed so strongly that he could make Cambyses believe too, and heal him with that faith. Whichever it was, the king appeared to see better. His eyes troubled him less, and he began to sit back relaxed in the throne, not hunched forward like a man desperate to witness everything.

  One morning, some months after the king had taken the throne, Croesus was summoned to his chamber before dawn. He assumed that he would have to wait, but no sooner had he taken his position outside, leaning down and trying to rub the stiffness from his knees, than he heard a voice calling to him from within.

  ‘Come in, Croesus.’

  The king’s chamber had a startling, deliberate brightness. Dozens of torches gave the air a heavy, exhausting heat, and they were surrounded by polished stones to magnify the light. Croesus, by instinct, raised a hand to cover his eyes. Perhaps this was the deliberate double purpose – to part blind those who came inside, and to give the king’s fading eyes as much light as possible.

  Croesus saw that the chamber was decorated almost entirely in different shades of yellow. The walls were a rich gold, the table patterned with stripes of wildflower yellow, the bedding dyed a jaundiced hue. Perhaps that was the colour that Cambyses saw most clearly. The last colour he would see, if his vision went from him entirely.

  Cambyses sat in a wooden chair at the centre of the chamber, his head tipped back against a cushion. The Egyptian oculist stood beside the king, preparing some liquid in a clay pot, stirring it with his fingers. His lips were moving, but Croesus could only pick out one word spoken again and again. Sekhmet, Sekhmet, Sekhmet. Some god or spirit of healing.

  When his preparations were finished, the Egyptian lifted the bowl, and slowly, one drop at a time, poured a viscous black and gold liquid into the king’s eyes. It sat, thick and heavy, like oil on water, brimming against his eyelids.

  The liquid piled higher and higher until it was running down the king’s face in slow, viscous tears. A sickly, poisonous sweetness drifted through the air, and Croesus had to fight the urge to run forward, to push the Egyptian to the ground and wipe the king’s eyes clean. Cambyses endured it, his fingers scratching at the chair, and the cords on his neck standing up, straining like a ship’s ropes in a tempest.

  At last, the king could stand it no longer. He gave a groan of pain, and in a moment the oculist was reaching forward with a piece of white silk, cleaning the thick fluid away. He handed the king a cup of wine, resting a reassuring, intimate hand on his shoulder. ‘Much better, my king. Soon you will be able to withstand it for even longer. Then my work can truly begin.’

  Cambyses nodded absently, blinking the remnants of the substance from his eyes, stared at the ground and breathed deeply, like a man recovering from a trial of strength. The Egyptian bowed to him, gathered his bowls and phials and left.

  ‘Croesus, I will need your help soon.’

  ‘How can I serve, master?’ But the king said nothing for a time. He made a gesture, and a servant parted the pale yellow curtains. Croesus looked out, and saw that under the low light of the morning sun, the dusty plains that surrounded Pasargadae shone like a sea of gold.

  ‘Chephren tells me wonderful stories, you know,’ Cambyses said. ‘Of his home. Of Egypt. A place where all things are reversed – whatever we believe, they believe the opposite. Like something in a dream.’

  ‘A remarkable place, master.’ Croesus hesitated, a sudden fear picking at his mind. ‘Is it your wish to go there?’

  ‘Of course not. It is a place of the dead, and here we are in paradise. A paradise that my father made. What more could I want than that?’ He paused. ‘But I lie. There is something that I want.’

  ‘What is that, master?’

  ‘He has told me another story, as well. The king of Egypt—’

  ‘The Pharaoh, master.’

  ‘Quite right. His name is Amasis. And he has one daughter. Nitetis.’ Cambyses smiled shyly. ‘My doctor says she is the most beautiful woman in the world. I will send an emissary to the Pharaoh, and he will send his daughter to be my wife. I will bring the best of Egypt to me. Is that not wonderful?’

  There was a quiet need in his voice, and Croesus thought once again of his own children. The way the world could turn on their desires, the way they had the capacity to want, and to love, so deeply. ‘Of course, master. Tell me what I can do.’

  After he had been sent away, Croesus thought little of this meeting. In the months since he had taken the throne, Cambyses h
ad formed many such plans, each one born in the morning, reaching fruition by midday, only to be discarded by nightfall once the king had grown bored with it. Wars that he would fight, great temples he would build, innovations of science, problems of philosophy – all had fascinated Cambyses at one time or another.

  It was the ideas themselves that seemed to delight him, the magic of possibility. Carrying them through to fulfilment held little appeal, would be murderous to the imagination. Better to hold all of these possibilities in the mind at once, a selection of possible worlds, than to choose one and obliterate the rest.

  The next day, as Croesus helped the king prepare his message to the Pharaoh, he wondered how long it would take before the king discarded the idea. The long months of messages going back and forth would give plenty of time for the king to hesitate, to doubt, and to let the plan fall to pieces.

  Yet Cambyses persisted, more patiently and stubbornly than Croesus had ever seen him work at any task of kingship. He overcame the Pharaoh’s diplomatic evasions and delays, offering a tempting alliance accompanied by the implicit threat of violence. Croesus sometimes wondered what stories Chephren had told the king, what tales he continued to tell to keep Cambyses so interested in a woman he had never seen. But these were idle thoughts, of no real concern. It was the nature of kings, he reminded himself, to indulge strange fancies. What else was there to do, with no threat to fight against? And so Croesus watched and waited as the marriage was finally agreed, as word came that the Pharaoh’s daughter had taken to her ship and was coming at last to Pasargadae, and he did not speak a word against the plan.

  The day of the wedding came, and Croesus saw that she was beautiful as the stories said. Her eyes were darkly outlined, and her skin painted in the Egyptian fashion. Cambyses stared at her, eyes gaping wide, and Croesus smiled at the sight. One would have thought he had never seen a woman before.