The King and the Slave

by Tim Leach

When it was over, when the people cried out in celebration and the drums began to beat, Croesus saw, before the king and his wife disappeared from the chamber, a first moment of intimacy pass between them. He saw Cambyses shyly reach out and take his wife’s hand.

  Later, Croesus would return to this moment. He would look back on it and try to remember if there had been any warning there, the sense that a mistake had been made, that disaster would follow. But in that moment, looking at Cambyses he could only feel a weary content, the way he had felt when his own son had taken a wife.

  He watched Cambyses disappear with his wife, a new life about to begin.

  When they came at last to his bedchamber, Cambyses let his wife go in before him. He hoped that she misread it as a kind of courtesy, rather than what it truly was.

  Nitetis entered the room, her movements as confident and easy as his were hesitant. She wandered from one corner to the next, giving little touches to the fabrics and the walls, perhaps her way of marking it as a new home. He looked at the interplay of the fine muscles of her back and shoulders, and felt the ache of desire. Yet he did not move.

  She stood still for a moment, almost at the centre of the room, her back to him. He felt a vain, foolish hope that she might stay that way for ever, that she would never turn around. But when she did not feel the king’s hands on her back and lips on her neck as she had perhaps anticipated, Nitetis turned around and stared at him. Waiting. Expectant.

  Under that gaze, Cambyses felt a slow shame binding around his heart.

  He had never been with a woman. As a young prince, many had been offered to him. Time and time again, Cyrus had selected one of his most beautiful courtesans and sent her to his son. Cambyses had taken these women to his chamber or his tent, sat silently beside them for a time, then sent them away again. They, puzzled and grateful, never told anyone of this.

  Had he ever been asked why he did not act as a man should, he did not know what he would have said. It was not that he longed for a man, the way he heard some did. He desired women, and yet he found they terrified him. They demanded some kind of action, an invasion that he was afraid of. More than this it was their fear of him, which they tried to hide but which he could always sense, that silenced any desire he might have felt. He wanted to be desired honestly and truly, but this, it seemed, was impossible for a prince, who saw only concubines and slaves. He had never met a woman who looked at him with longing.

  He now regretted the painful brightness of his private chamber, that left no shadow for retreat. He should have taken her to a labyrinth for their wedding night, where they could have chased each other until dawn without once meeting, always divided by a stone wall, an impossible sequence of turns. But there was to be no hiding from this.

  He had accomplished so much as a king through pretence, acting the part that was given to him and hoping that none would expose his fraud. He would stay one step ahead of them all for the rest of his life, and never let them know how afraid he was. But this was not something he could overcome through trickery or false confidence. The simplest of acts, and he did not know what to do, could not act as a man should. They shared no language, and even if they had, how could he possibly explain this aberration? She would laugh at him if she knew. He felt the tears come, and bowed his head in shame.

  He felt gentle hands on his shoulders. They moved to his chin, tipping his head up. He shook his head, his eyes still closed. Then, for the very first time, he felt a woman’s lips against his.

  He stood still, then found the courage to answer her kiss. He found that he understood, that the knowledge of this waited in his body, had been waiting a long time. He felt that this was something that he could learn. That he was not broken. That he might come to understand what it was to love.

  He opened his eyes, and looked at her face. Before, he had not come close enough to truly see her. Now he saw that she was as beautiful as they had all said.

  She smiled at him, and took his hand in hers. Another man would have wondered at her confidence, her knowledge of an art that should have been forbidden to her. Cambyses never thought to question it. He was only grateful that, at last, this part of his life could begin.

  He closed his eyes again, and let her take him to the bed.

  5

  ‘Croesus.’

  A woman’s voice that he did not know called to him from behind. He wondered at first if it was the king’s wife, for he had yet to hear the Egyptian speak. But when he turned to see who had followed him in the corridors of the palace, it was the king’s sister, Parmida, her servants trailing her like the wake of a ship.

  He began to bow, but she lifted her palms, gesturing for him to stay upright. ‘There is no need for such ceremony,’ she said.

  ‘Many thanks, my lady. You are kind to an old man, and his aching limbs.’

  ‘Oh, I do not think that is true. You seem to be strong enough. I think you may outlive us all.’

  ‘You are kind to say so. What may I do for you?’

  She hesitated, looking up and down the corridor.

  ‘Perhaps you would extend your kindness further,’ Croesus said, ‘and permit me to sit down somewhere? That is, if you can forgive a slave for asking such a favour.’

  ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘of course,’ and her eyes thanked him.

  She led him to a private chamber, thick with throws and cushioned seats, where they would be overheard by none but her personal slaves. He knew that she need have no fear of them. They had no ears to hear unless she willed it.

  She turned back to him, and her smile had gone. ‘Will you dine with us, tonight?’ she said. ‘At the king’s table?’

  ‘I will do whatever you command.’

  ‘It is not my command. It is my wish.’

  ‘I obey those too, my lady. Though rather more gladly.’

  At this, she seemed to relax a little. She looked away, through the stone pillars and out towards the gardens, lost in her own thoughts for a time.

  ‘Is my brother a good king?’ she said.

  Croesus thought on this for a time. He wondered if there was anyone else to whom she could have asked such a question. Any other man of the court would have passed her some platitude, any younger slave would know better than to answer at all. This is what I am to these people, he thought. Someone to whom they can speak without fear, like an ailing grandfather whose mind is starting to drift away, or a wandering holy fool.

  ‘I do not know that I can answer that,’ he said.

  ‘I think, sometimes, that . . .’ She trailed off. Even the king’s sister had to be careful not to speak treason.

  ‘Do not be afraid,’ Croesus said. ‘Your father built a great empire from nothing. Now we must merely tend to it.’ He spread his hands wide and gestured outside. ‘Like a garden.’

  ‘Yes. You are right, of course. You will help him?’

  ‘I promised your father that I would help him. We will both help him.’

  ‘I hope so.’

  In spite of her words, she still seemed afraid. This was what Pasargadae has become, Croesus thought to himself. A palace filled with frightened children.

  ‘You seem sad, my lady.’

  ‘I miss my father,’ she said simply. ‘My mother too.’

  Croesus said nothing. He remembered thinking that he would go mad with the grief when his own mother and father had died. Now he could not even remember what it had been like to live with such certainty of love.

  ‘It passes,’ he said eventually, ‘though I suppose it is little comfort for me to say it now. You will build your own family soon, your own life. And the pain will pass.’

  ‘I think that you are wise, as people say.’

  ‘They still say that? Well, I suppose that all old men are wise in one way or another. We try our best to remain foolish, but I suppose some knowledge grows over time. Like skin healing over a stubborn wound. I am glad to be of use.’

  ‘Thank you, Croesus.’ And, to his great surprise, she reached out and
took his hands in hers. ‘I will see you tonight.’ Then she stood, and was gone in a moment.

  What happened after that meeting, whether he spent the day running errands at the king’s service, waiting patiently to be called upon, or dozing at leisure in some quiet corner of the palace, he could not afterwards remember. He would have thought, would have hoped, that he might recall how it had passed, that last day of peace. Instead he let it slip away, unnoticed and unremarkable, until the evening came.

  There was no light in the king’s dining chamber. No windows to grant the setting sun admission, only a pair of tiny braziers as a bare concession to those, unlike the king, who still lived through sight. From time to time, someone’s words or breath or motion would dismiss the light of one of these little fires. A stillness would descend, none wanting to eliminate the last source of light, none feeling they could act to repair the flame. At last, the long-fingered hand of the king would emerge from the darkness, take a burning taper from one brazier and relight the other, and all could move and speak a little more easily again. Croesus did not know what desire of the king led him to seek blinding light in his private chambers, and darkness for when he dined. But he knew better than to question such a whim.

  At the entrance, Croesus closed his eyes, and tried to hear as the king would hear, to know who was gathered around the table that night solely through the interplay of voices. Above the rattle of bowls and silver cups, he could hear the sharp, abrupt tone of the king’s voice, the softer echo of his brother Bardiya’s. Then two voices together, one after the other: the king’s wife Nitetis, speaking in her native tongue, and the translator who spoke half a beat behind her. Once or twice he thought he could hear Harpagus speaking, but he could not be certain. There were others in the darkness whose voices he did not know well enough to place.

  He entered, stepping into a small patch of light by the doorway, and bowed. He heard the voices fall silent.

  The king leaned forward into the sparse light. ‘A slave at the king’s table?’ he said.

  ‘It is my request,’ Croesus heard Parmida say, and was glad to know that she was there.

  ‘If it is your request then it must be done. Sit, Croesus. Sit with us.’

  He felt his way with the backs of his hands, the edges of his feet, not willing to risk touching his betters with his fingers or his palms. After only a moment of this hesitant fumbling, he felt a servant’s hand close around his shoulders and lead him to his place. His guide moved so confidently that Croesus imagined that he must have lived his entire life in darkness. Perhaps they raised slaves for this very purpose, born in some blackened chamber, raised in shadows, serving at a midnight table until he found his way, stumbling and old, into a dark grave, never once permitted the dangerous luxury of light.

  At first, Croesus sat quite still, listening to the others talk. They spoke in ebbs and flows, for there were many who sought the cover of other conversations to speak a little more freely. There would be near silence for a time, then a great flood of words, everyone talking over each other. After a time, one conversation would pause and halt, then another, and then all the rest, exposed by the quiet, would recede back into silence. Only Cambyses spoke when and how he willed it, and it was in one of these sudden silences that Croesus could hear the king being pressed by his brother on some point of governance.

  ‘You say that we must send grain to the Ionians?’ he heard the king say.

  ‘There is no “must” for you, my king. But I suggest that you do. Their harvests have been ruined by the floods,’ Bardiya replied. ‘We should act now, if we are to assist them.’

  ‘Even so . . . I think perhaps I will not.’ The king’s voice had the beginnings of finality. ‘I am not so fond of charity.’

  A pause. ‘They will starve, Cambyses,’ Bardiya said softly.

  ‘They will starve?’

  ‘Yes, my lord.’

  There was a stillness. Cambyses leaned forward into the light again, trying to imagine this, to conceive of a world where one could die for want of food. A world so very different from his own.

  The king let his blank gaze rest upon the table in front of him, as if in the whorls and cracks of the wood he could imagine a land of flooded fields and rotten crops, could see starving children looking to their mothers in silence, too weak to cry out for them. Then the king gave a little shrug. When he spoke again, Croesus knew that though he had tried, his imagination had failed him. This idea was beyond him.

  ‘Very well,’ the king said. ‘If you say that it should be done, then let it be done.’

  ‘Your people will be thankful.’

  ‘I do not act for them. I do it for you,’ Cambyses said with a simple honesty that would brook no argument. He sat back in the darkness, and Croesus heard a rustle of cloth, the sound of hands clasping. ‘This family means all to me. Parmida, Bardiya. And now Nitetis.’ He paused, and Croesus heard the translator speak this words in the Egyptian tongue. Silence followed his words, and Cambyses laughed. ‘I have embarrassed you, perhaps,’ he said. ‘Come, let us eat.’

  The meal came, those same confident hands bringing strong wine, and strange meats that he could not identify. Croesus could not help remembering the stories he had heard, of men being fed their children under the cover of darkness, in the most brutal, blasphemous act of revenge. He had no relations left, but the thought would not leave him, and he found he had little appetite.

  ‘We were speaking of the peace of the empire, before you came, Croesus,’ the king said.

  ‘There is no trouble on our borders?’

  ‘No. All is quiet.’

  ‘That is well. A tribute to your fine rule, master.’

  ‘Perhaps.’ The king leaned back in his chair, into the shadows, and Croesus heard him sigh. ‘I sometimes wish for more to do.’

  ‘You have lands enough, don’t you think?’

  ‘No.’ The word came out of the darkness flatly. ‘There must always be more. Is that not what makes a people great? What makes a king great? My father, what made him great?’

  Silence fell again. Cambyses took up one of the braziers, and held it close to his face, looked at each of the people at the table in turn. None could hold his gaze. He reached out and took his wife’s hand, kneaded it with an insistent, possessive kind of affection.

  ‘Croesus.’

  ‘Yes, master?’

  ‘My father. He liked to tell a story about you. I want you to tell it to me yourself.’

  ‘I am not much of a storyteller, master.’

  ‘I do not believe it. How many years have you lived?’

  ‘I have lived for almost seventy years, master.’

  The king laughed. ‘I did not know that men could grow so old. I thought that only trees and rocks and seas could live such a span. There is some touch of the gods on you, some blessing. Or perhaps a curse, do you think?’

  ‘I do not know, master.’

  ‘You must have plenty to talk about. Tell this story.’

  ‘Of your father?’

  ‘No, I do not wish to hear of him. Tell me of Solon.’

  Croesus felt a cold touch on his heart, the touch that the gods are supposed to give in warning or prophecy, as he thought of that Athenian philosopher. It had been almost half a life ago that he had spoken with Solon. It was a different man who had lived then, with a face that resembled his and a name that they shared, but little else in common. He had forgotten most of that life. But this story was something that he could not forget.

  ‘Your father spoke to you of Solon?’

  ‘I was raised on that story. He gave it to me at night, as though giving me some treasure of the mind. A gift, though I never understood why he placed such value on it, why he told it to me again and again. He wanted to teach me something, but I never understood the lesson. Perhaps if you tell it to me, I may understand it better.’

  Croesus looked around, as if looking for help. But all the others at the table withdrew silently into the shadows and
waited for him to begin.

  ‘There is little to tell,’ he said. ‘When I was a king—’

  ‘As wealthy and powerful as me?’

  ‘Of course not, master.’ More so, he thought to himself. ‘None who have come before can compare to you, but I was well regarded in my own time. A philosopher came to my court. Accounted a wise man, so I had been told. He was certainly an old man. Perhaps even as old as I am now.’ Croesus paused. He had not thought of this before.

  ‘Well?’

  ‘We spoke for a time, and I asked him who was the happiest man he had ever met. He did not say me.’ Croesus let his gaze drift to the fire closest to him, his eyes following its wandering, flickering flames. He spoke again. ‘He told me that no man was happy until he was dead. That a whole life is what matters, not the contentment of a moment. That when you see a man die, and know what he has done with all his time, that is the time to decide whether he lived well or not, whether one could call him happy. I thought I was happy, thought him a fool, and sent him away. You know yourself what happened to me next.’ Croesus paused. ‘I think now that he meant happiness does not exist.’

  There was silence when he stopped. Croesus, still lost in memory, did not attend to the quality of this silence. There are many kinds of wordlessness that can follow the telling of a story. That of respect, or of confusion. Or of fear. At last, when the silence did not pass, Croesus lifted his eyes and looked at the king. He understood then why the others did not speak.

  Cambyses was hunched forward like a man in pain, so that his face hovered over the two braziers, illuminated by the fire. His palms were flat upon the table, his weak eyes half closed. His teeth were bared, and the look on his face was that of a man at some great and terrible act of labour, the effort of thought physically rendered.

  For a moment, Croesus thought that he might be on the brink of some kind of understanding. A moment when an imagined world opened before him, where he could see some idea that was beyond himself. Then the world closed shut. The grimace went from his face, and the king relaxed, sank back into his chair. Not with a satisfied air, but with the weary, resigned posture of a man who has fought and been defeated.