by Tim Leach
Behind them, the chamber door swung closed, and, from the inside, they heard the bar come down.
*
Hours passed, and the hours became days. The king would not leave his chamber.
Courtiers came, one after another, to beg with the king through the closed door, but he would not receive them, nor even speak a word. The king’s world, which he had already reduced to the size of a palace, now measured nothing greater than a single room.
The government continued like a beheaded animal, with lurching, senseless motion. But soon the empire would be paralysed, no man wanting to take a decision that the king might countermand, if and when he returned from his isolation. None wanted to think of what might follow, should the absence of command persist.
On the third day, Croesus went to sit outside the king’s chamber. He saw a pair of slaves already stationed there, ears pressed to the door, no doubt put there by Prexaspes. Every breath and cough, each bout of weeping or muttered word, would be passed on to their master, who would try to find some pattern, to understand the mind and will of the king.
Croesus sat and spoke at the king’s door for many hours. He pleaded, reasoned, and flattered, but received nothing but silence in return. At last he stood, the wooden stool scraping across the floor, and something stirred within the chamber. Croesus heard bare feet padding across stone, and the door creaked as weight was pressed against it from the other side.
‘Send Psamtek to me.’
Then, not waiting for a response, Croesus heard the sound of the footsteps moving away again.
The following day, Croesus found himself summoned by royal command. He assumed he was being called on to reason with the king, as he had done the day before. Yet the man who led him did not turn towards Cambyses’s quarters.
When he passed through the unfamiliar door, he found the king’s sister waiting for him. He had not seen Parmida for the better part of a year, yet she seemed to have aged much more than that span of time would suggest. She was still beautiful, but her eyes were sunken, deeply scored with lines of grief. She had a face that had forgotten how to smile.
Parmida marked his arrival with a blank gaze, then turned to her personal slaves. ‘Leave us,’ she said. They hesitated for a moment, glancing at Croesus doubtfully. But, after brief and silent deliberation, they seemed content to leave their lady alone with him. Perhaps they thought an old man as safe as a eunuch.
‘What has happened to him?’ she said.
Croesus did not reply for a time. ‘I wish that I could say that he was mad,’ he said quietly. ‘But if that is true, it is only part of the truth.’
‘They say such terrible things about him. About what he has done. Are they true?’
‘Yes. They are.’
She covered her face with her hands. ‘I love him,’ Croesus heard her say. ‘But I do not know if I can ever forgive him.’
‘You must try.’
‘Why must I?’
‘Because someone has to. And I cannot.’
‘You will not have to live to see what he will do.’
‘So others have told me. That is little comfort. You may live to see the end of this. I will not.’
‘Perhaps none of us will.’ She paused. ‘I have heard from him.’
‘You have seen him?’
‘No. But he sent a message to me. To reassure me, I think. I don’t know.’ She stared down at her hands, which, as if of their own accord, had resumed their ceaseless motion. ‘He is going to war against the Ethiopians.’
‘Why?’
‘He says they have insulted him. That they have shamed him, worse than the Egyptians ever did.’
Croesus tried to smile, to give some gesture of reassurance to her. ‘You must not worry. He means to march through the desert next next summer, I take it? We will have the harvest. With the supplies from the Nile—’
‘Croesus, he says the army must march tomorrow.’
Croesus did not reply. He turned the news over in his mind, to see exactly what it must mean, to see if he could be mistaken, if there were any other way that this plan of the king’s would end. And then he felt the sudden, aching relief of a man relieved of a burden, who has had a terrible decision made for him.
‘Will you do something for me?’ he said.
‘What is it?’
‘There are two slaves. I will give you their names. Would you keep them here, with you? I fear he will take them with the army, old even as they are.’
‘They are friends of yours?’
‘They were once.’
She hesitated. ‘It is much to ask. I do not know what he will do.’
‘You will be safe. He loves you, Parmida. And they will serve you well.’ He paused. ‘Be kind to them, will you?’
‘What will happen in the desert, Croesus?’
He did not reply for a time. ‘Your brother once wanted to go and live with the people of the desert,’ he said, ‘and asked me to go with him. I had hope that I could take him away, that he might find some peace there. But in his sickness he forgot this wish. He wanted us to live in the desert. If we march tomorrow, we will die there instead.’
She nodded dully. Croesus reached forward, parted her restless hands, clasped them in his own. She did not show any surprise or outrage at this forbidden gesture, except to close her eyes. He held her hands for a moment, still, as if they were both in prayer together.
Distant, he heard the beating of the drums, like the great heart of a monster. All over the city, the spearmen and archers and horsemen would be taking up their weapons and marching to their places, hearing the call to war once again.
When the army gathered outside Memphis, the mood amongst the men was relaxed. They laughed and joked and sang their songs, surprised by the strange and sudden command to gather and march, but not fearful. They believed, with the trusting hope of a soldier for his commander, that there must be something that they did not know, that a caravan of supplies would greet them at the southern border, or that the land to Ethiopia was not impassable desert as they had heard, but land rich in grain and wine. They had crossed a desert before by using a trick – there must be another prepared. It must be so, they said to each other, for otherwise to march south would be madness. The king would not make so foolish a mistake that a spearman could see the error.
The soldiers waited beneath the burning sun. Some propped their wicker shields up to make shade to sit beneath, and stacked their spears in piles. Others sat cross-legged and took arrows from their quivers, inspecting fletchings and straightening bent shafts. They passed around wine and bread, eating and drinking freely. More supplies would soon be given to them, they said to each other – no need to march on an empty stomach. The captains gave no sign that anything was amiss. They knew that to admit the slightest doubt could not be countenanced, for nothing was so destructive as doubt to an army. Up to the very last moment, they would say nothing except give the lie of assured victory. They looked towards the walls of the city with the opposite hope to that of the men they captained. The ordinary spearmen hoped that their wait could be over soon and the march begin. The captains prayed silently that the king would never come.
But, at last, the king did appear, riding a white horse, and the army roared its acclaim. He shyly raised his hand to acknowledge them, and they roared again. The men had heard the rumours of his seclusion, yet it seemed to them more proof that their war would be blessed with good fortune. He had brooded on his own and communed with the gods, and now he was here to lead them to victory once again.
There were some who noted that Prexaspes was not there beside him. A few wondered why. If he were out of favour they would have heard of it; he must have chosen to remain behind. But Psamtek was there, and Croesus as well. They looked at the old slave, the lucky charm of Persian kings. No army had been defeated with Croesus as a part of it, and when Cyrus had sent him away, the Massagetae had killed him. They believed in Croesus even more than they believed in the king. They lo
oked at him and saw his blank face, took it for confidence, for faith.
The soldiers picked up their shields and their weapons, and formed into their ranks. Forty thousand men, marching to the beating drums began the long march south, into an empty land.
‘It is war again, then?’
‘Yes.’
‘You were right, Croesus. You said he would not stay in Babylon.’
‘He lasted longer than I thought he would. I only wish we had been given more time here.’
‘Well, I have never seen the plains. Neither has Maia. We shall see them together.’
‘No.’
‘No?’
‘You both go west. With the stonemasons, to Pasargadae.’
‘Your doing?’
‘No. I would rather you rode with us. But Cyrus needs good workers to finish the palace. You have earned that reputation. You and Maia both.’
‘That I have.’
‘I suppose I may not see you again.’
‘That is true.’
‘Isocrates—’
‘There is no need to speak. I know what you want to say. You can hide nothing from me.’
‘And yet I can see nothing of you, beyond what you choose to show me. I wonder if that is why Maia agreed to marry you. To know your secrets.’
‘You invent mystery in me where there is none. That is your way, I suppose.’
‘You say you know me. I still do not know what you think of me. Whether I am a fool who keeps you entertained, or some kind of brother.’
‘Do not talk this way, Croesus.’
‘I am sorry. But if I live through this war, I shall not be parted from you and Maia again.’
‘Then I must pray to the gods of the Massagetae to grant them victory, it seems, to finally be rid of you.’
‘You see? Perhaps you truly mean that, I do not know.’
‘A poor joke. Come, enough of this. You are not a fool or a brother. You know you are a friend to me.’
‘Thank you.’
‘You must go. The king will be waiting.’
‘Yes. Good luck, Isocrates.’
‘Croesus?’
‘Yes?’
‘I will see you again.’
‘I hope so.’
‘You hope. But I know.’
The City of the Dead
1
Out in the Ethiopian desert, the men gathered around the weak fire, huddling close with their arms around one another. A few thin pieces of wood, mummified by decades beneath the sun, burned reluctantly, giving smoke but little heat. These men were lucky. Few in Cambyses’s army had even this scanty fuel for their fires. They were burning other things now.
Beneath their armour, their ribs were pressed tight against weak skin, like those of cattle in a drought land. Their muscles had wasted down to tendons, barely strong enough to hold their starving bodies together, and their faces were so deeply sunken that, in the light of the fire, they had only shadows where their eyes should be. They sat, silent together, and waited for someone to have the courage to begin.
Finally, one man lifted his helmet from the ground beside him. Another man handed him a bag of small pebbles. He counted them out, one for each of the men left in the circle. One pebble was unlike the others; the same shape, but entirely black in colour. He lifted this pebble up between his thumb and forefinger, and showed it to every man in the circle. The others nodded to him, and he cast the black stone into the helmet. He shook it, and listened to the gentle rattle of stone against stone and stone against metal, like the breaking of the waves on a pebble shore.
Around other fires in the Persian army, the decision was made by brute strength, or by allegiances and factions that shifted and changed every night. But these men, who had fought together in a dozen nations and shared everything equally together, could not break their brotherhood. All was decided by the lot.
Each man assumed that if the black stone fell to him, he would meet his end well. Not like the others who had been taken before. Yet none could truly believe, or allow themselves to believe, that when they reached into the helmet they would draw their death out of it.
This time, it was the fifth man to reach in who took the black stone.
He had dreamed of it every night, but had still believed it was impossible that it would ever fall to him in the waking world. He wondered, for a moment, if he was still dreaming. Weakened, almost hallucinatory with hunger, day and night, waking and dreaming, had all long since melded together for him. When he looked up, saw the famished eyes on him, he found that he could not go peacefully. He leapt up, and, with the last of his strength, he tried to run.
They chased him, the starving in pursuit of the starving. They could barely move faster than a walk, all feeling the emptiness within that somehow still had weight, dragging them towards the earth. A few of the pursuers collapsed, unable to go further or unwilling to do what had to be done. The rest pressed on, almost bent double, each folded over his hunger like a dying man over a wound.
At last, the doomed man could run no further. He stopped and went to his knees and bowed his head, and the others fell upon him, in relief more than in anger or bloodlust. One of them leaned in close and murmured a breathless thanks to him.
The daggers rose and fell and came up again, the blood black on the blades under the moonlight. The dying man didn’t have the strength to cry out at their clumsy, exhausted thrusts. He lay mute as they murdered him.
The men collapsed around the body, their hands and faces dark with blood. Like an automaton, the first lifted his helmet again. Each reached inside once more, and the second man to pull a lot out was the one who took the black stone. He wept, as another man handed him the jagged blade. He knelt over the corpse, his knife working in the darkness, taking the body to pieces. The others waited, licking the blood from their hands, each man hating the saliva that flooded into his mouth at the sight of the dead soldier being prepared.
Theirs had been the first killing that night. Now men screamed all across the camp, first one at a time, then more and more, until hundreds seemed to cry out with a single voice.
Then there was only sound and smell of cooking meat. The army fell silent, and began to feed on itself.
The food lay untouched before her. Parmida found no desire for the rich meal that they had brought to her chamber. She had chosen this room in the palace for her own, purely because it faced south. Each day, Parmida sat by the window, pulled aside the thin fabric that covered it, and looked out across the funerary grounds and into the shimmering heat of the red sands, looking towards Ethiopia, waiting for them to return.
Maia sat beside her. The slave should not have taken her eyes from Parmida, while waiting for a command from the king’s sister. But she too looked out into the desert.
‘How long could we stay here, do you think?’ Parmida said.
‘There are stories among my people of those who waited twenty years to see their sons and husbands return from the wars.’
‘It must have been a more patient time. They are gone two months, and already . . .’
‘That is a long time in the desert, my lady.’
‘Twenty years, you say. I could not stand to wait so long. I would go mad. I am afraid of that, sometimes.’
‘You will not go mad, my lady.’
‘If my brother has lost his mind, perhaps I will too. We share the same blood, after all.’
‘That will not be your fate.’
‘And what will be my fate, do you think?’
‘That is not for me to say, my lady. Forgive me. I speak too freely.’
‘I am glad that you do. Your old stories: I suppose they were full of princesses who did nothing but wait.’
‘Only some of them, my lady.’
‘Oh? There is another fate open to me?’
‘I have heard there was a princess who did not want to marry. A great runner, restless and free, who would not wait for anyone. She would race any man who sought her hand, and kill those
who lost.’
‘I like that story. My mother was a good runner, I have always been told. What happened to her? To your running princess.’
‘A man tricked her and caught her and made her his wife, of course. How else would such a story end?’
A noise from behind took their eyes from the desert. At the entrance to the chamber, Isocrates bowed to them. ‘Bardiya has asked to see you my lady.’
‘I wait for one brother, and another comes to find me. Isocrates?’
‘My lady?’
‘Do you think they will return?’
‘I do not know.’
‘Do you want them to?’
He hesitated, caught out.
‘You want Croesus to return, I think,’ she said.
‘I wish he had told me that he was to go, and I was to stay.’ His gaze drifted to Maia. ‘But I do not know if I want him to come back. I wish he could have been braver.’
‘You mean crueller,’ Maia said softly.
‘Yes. Perhaps I do.’
‘Enough of this. I will see my brother,’ Parmida said. ‘Leave us now.’
When Bardiya came in she tried not to flinch at the sight of him – he looked so much like his brother, it was impossible not to think of Cambyses. She knew that Baridya hated the way that people would look at him with fear, as if he were some ghost of the king. Or perhaps it was something else they saw in him – the king as he should have been.
‘Leave us,’ Bardiya said to Maia.
‘I have no secrets from her.’
‘No? But I do.’
When they were alone, she said: ‘There has been news?’
‘No. Only rumours.’
‘How long will the noblemen wait?’
‘They are all too afraid of him. They will want to know for certain.’
‘Are you afraid?’
‘Yes. But I think he will return. He will see sense, and turn back.’
‘I fear he may be beyond that,’ she said quietly.
‘I have heard others talking. Saying the same thing. That Cambyses should not be king. Sometimes I wonder, even if he does come back, if we should—’