The King and the Slave

by Tim Leach

  ‘No,’ Parmida said. ‘Do not even think of that.’

  ‘You are sure?’

  ‘We cannot. We are Cyrus’s children. We must protect each other. We must not turn against each other. No matter what happens.’

  ‘Yes,’ Bardiya said. ‘You are right.’ He sighed then, and some hidden tension seemed to unravel from his shoulders. ‘I am glad that you said that. I was so afraid, that I might have to . . . But I could not bear it.’

  ‘Will you sit with me?’ Parmida smiled at her brother. ‘You have chased away my slaves. I do not want to be alone.’

  He sat beside her and looked outwards. They both knew that, if the army did return, he would be the one to see it first. Unlike his brother’s, Bardiya’s eyes had always been strong.

  They let the silence return, and stared together into the desert.

  2

  ‘Horsemeat. Disgusting.’

  Croesus flinched as the bone, still half covered in meat, clattered back to the plate. The king wiped the grease from his fingers onto a piece of cloth, and Croesus felt his eyes linger on each brown mark on the pale fabric. The words fought to be spoken, the words begging the king not to waste the slightest smear of food, and he swallowed them down, hating himself for it.

  The king finished cleaning his hands, and looked down at the meat. He hesitated, shrugged, and picked it up once again. ‘But I am hungry,’ he said, laughing as he tore a fresh strip from the bone, ‘so I shall not complain.’ Croesus felt a sigh escape his lips, beyond his power to restrain it, and heard it echoed by the others. They had all wanted, more than anything, for Cambyses to leave that food untouched.

  Each night the king would dine, and once he had retired, Croesus and the other members of the council would feast on the food the king had rejected. They did not brawl for it, not yet at least; they silently divided it amongst themselves equally, for what happened around the campfires at night had given them a fear of the rule of force. The food was not much; every waking moment Croesus felt the yawning, dulling hunger that left no other thought behind it, and each night he dreamed of nothing else. But they had not yet had to make the terrible choices of the other men.

  Cambyses did not know what was being done for him. When he rode out at the centre of the army, his failing eyes could not see the starving men who surrounded him, growing thinner, growing fewer. He had not even noticed the sudden disappearance of his cavalry, two weeks into their journey, not connected that with the sudden preponderance of horsemeat. When the killing began at night, a general would gesture to the musicians to strike their drums and sing. Usually it was loud enough that they heard only the occasional, solitary scream, but Croesus had come to hate and fear that music. It was like perfume covering the smell of a corpse.

  He looked around the circle, in the half-light of the fire, to see if, at last, any man would speak out. General and councillor and slave alike all looked to the ground. They waited, tense and miserable, for some miracle to free them. Only Psamtek looked calm, and did not seem to care. Perhaps he had already resigned himself to death.

  ‘Why do you not eat, Croesus?’ the king said.

  ‘I am not hungry, master,’ Croesus said dully. It was the same response he had given for days, now. He listened, for a time, to the sound of the king eating. ‘I must speak to you, master.’

  The king did not notice the shiver of tension that passed through his council. Nor did he stop eating. He waved a hand to Croesus, gesturing for his slave to speak, and continued to tear meat from the bone with his teeth.

  ‘The men are starving,’ he said.

  ‘We are all starving,’ Cambyses said, gesturing to his plate. ‘You call this food? But we will be through the desert in another two weeks, I am certain of it. We will find supplies on the other side. These Ethiopians cannot live on air, can they?’

  Croesus looked again at the others. They said nothing. A few muttered their excuses and hurried towards the entrance of the tent, not wanting to be present for what was to come.

  ‘It is worse for the men, master,’ Croesus said quietly.

  ‘I should certainly hope so,’ the king said, continuing to eat. ‘I would have you all put to death, if the common men were eating better than their king.’

  ‘They are feeding on each other, master,’ he said.

  A silence.

  ‘What?’

  ‘They draw lots. Some do, anyway. They all have different ways of deciding. It has been been going on for many days now.’

  Silence came again. Cambyses looked down at the piece of horseflesh in his hand, as if seeing it for the first time. He dropped it back down again, and stared at the plate for a long time.

  When he looked back up at Croesus, his eyes were lost.

  ‘What do I do?’ he said softly.

  Croesus had been ready for disbelief, and rage. He had even been prepared for some kind of regret. But this, seeing his king utterly at a loss, looking for someone else to guide him and to take control, he had not expected.

  Another voice filled the silence. ‘Men die in battle in their tens of thousands, master,’ Psamtek said. ‘What does it matter if a few thousand more die to get us to the battle? It is a sacrifice the men are happy to make for you, my king.’

  ‘Do you think so?’ said Cambyses.

  ‘I have heard that they weep with joy when they are chosen for the fires,’ the Egyptian said. ‘Remember the Ethiopians. Will you really let them shame you? Will you shame yourself, by running from battle?’

  Cambyses bent to the ground and tore at the carpet with his long nails, strings of fibre collecting under his nails like ripped flesh. He howled, and the others affected to look elsewhere. They stared at the ground, or their hands, or closed their eyes, and waited for it to be over.

  At last, the king sat upright once again. ‘Croesus?’ he said. ‘Tell me what to do.’

  Cambyses would be the last man left, he thought, if they continued. Croesus had believed that the king would be the first to die when the men began to starve. But some strange, impossible loyalty bound them to him. No mutiny would come, and when the last of the horsemeat gave out, the men would begin to give themselves up to feed their king. His entire army consumed, he would march on; one man, blind and ragged and almost starved to death, coming alone out of the desert against the Ethiopian army.

  It would mean the death of the mad king, at the very last. But he thought of the army, the tens of thousands of men who remained, and he knew that he could not give them that death.

  ‘We cannot win this war, even if we stay,’ said Croesus. ‘The men can barely stand, let alone fight. We will all die out here. Unless we turn back.’

  Cambyses said nothing, staring down at that torn carpet with his dull, near-blind stare, weighing up the shame of living against a fear of dying.

  ‘We will turn back,’ he said.

  The council, so long dormant, returned suddenly to life. Orders were prepared and dispatched, plans laid for the return to Memphis, all seeking to forget the horrors they had seen in practical action. Croesus remained still, and let the words of others wash over him like water.

  When, at last, he raised his head, he found Psamtek staring back him. The Egyptian’s face was unreadable.

  The sun rose again on the desert, and the men of the army rose with it. No man would look at the one who stood next to him. What had been done at night was not spoken of in the day, and none liked to read his own guilt in the eyes of his companions. They bent over, slow and sighing like old men, and took their weapons from the ground. Weak as they all were, no fighting man would willingly leave his weapon behind – he would leave his honour in the sand with it. The pack animals had long gone, and the cavalry marched awkwardly beside the infantry, unused to walking. But all men now stood equal on the desert sand. All men except for the king.

  The rumour spread – first to two men, then ten, then two hundred, until every one of the thirty thousand men that remained were speaking the same thing. Tha
t today, they would march with the rising sun at their right hand, not their left. They were going home.

  They broke from their ragged formations, massing in a great mob around the king’s tent. When Cambyses emerged, to see what remained of his army gathered before him, he turned his face away, and wept. Still not looking at them, he raised his arm, and extended a single finger towards the north. As one, what remained of the army gave a ragged, exhausted cheer. They had forgotten, or forgiven, that he had brought them to that place. They knew simply that he was the only one who could save them. He had done so, and they loved him for it, as they loved him for his tears.

  The king mounted his horse, the sole one left in the army, and turned its head to the north, back towards Memphis. He rode out, and the soldiers marched behind him. Each man with the bone of a comrade in his pocket, to suck and chew on during the long journey home.

  3

  An army of the dead, skeleton men with a little flesh stretched over them, marched out of the desert. On the outskirts of Memphis they passed the stone tower that had once witnessed the humiliation of the Egyptians. There were no farmers working in the outlying fields, no children playing in gangs on the fringes of the city. Even the ditches were devoid of beggars. Confronted with the deserted city, in the fevered minds of the soldiers a fantasy began to take hold. Perhaps they truly had died in the Ethiopian desert and were returning to some mirrored Memphis in the afterlife. If they marched to the graveyards, they might discover the cemeteries teeming with ghosts to welcome them to their new home. If they broke into one of the pyramids, they would find themselves not in a tomb, but received in the splendid court of one of the hundred Egyptian kings who ruled in the city of the dead.

  Deep within the city, they heard the sound of music, the sound of laughter. Some of the men broke away, to raid the houses and scavenge for food. Their captains let them go, too sick with hunger to call them back to order. The rest of the army stayed in line and marched on. Unified by their suffering, they moved through the empty streets, towards the source of the sound.

  It was a festival.

  The starving, cannibal army marched into the centre of Memphis to find the Egyptians in celebration. The whole city was gathered there, and many more besides, from the towns and villages for miles around, every one of them dressed in their finest clothes, dancing and singing. And above it all, pervading every corner of the city, the air was filled the familiar smell of cooking meat.

  The people of Memphis stared at the arriving army in surprise, but not in fear. At first, they wondered if this horde of men was, in some way, part of the festivities. A parade of new slaves, starved for the march to weed out the weak. They stood on their toes and climbed on top of market stalls, looking behind to see the army that was driving this new force of slaves before them. It was only when they saw Cambyses on his solitary horse that they realized this was the Persian army, defeated by the desert, enslaved by hunger.

  Cambyses stared out over the crowd. Gradually, silence fell, and the Egyptians gathered and stared at their ruler, more in curiosity than in fear, waiting to see what kind of a show Cambyses and his army would put on for the festivities.

  When Cambyses spoke at last, it was in the quiet, steady tones of a man contemplating murder.

  ‘You dare to hold a festival?’ he said. ‘We march out of the desert, like this, and you celebrate?’ His face went pale. ‘I will kill you all,’ he whispered. ‘I swear it.’

  A shaven-headed Egyptian priest came forward from the crowd. Croesus recognized him – the high priest from the temple of Ptah – and felt fear tighten around his chest.

  The Egyptian bowed deeply. ‘Forgive our celebration. It is not to do with you, my king.’ He smiled. ‘Our god has come to us in the form of an animal. Only once each generation are we so fortunate. Perhaps,’ he added, ‘it is to welcome our great king back to Memphis. To give you his blessing. There could be no greater honour.’

  ‘Is this true?’ Cambyses said, turning to Psamtek. ‘About this god?’

  ‘A foolish superstition, shared only by the ignorant people of my country. They should have shown more respect.’

  Cambyses nodded, and looked back to the priest. ‘Bring it to me.’

  ‘Master, I—’ Croesus began.

  ‘Bring it to me,’ Cambyses said again. ‘This animal. This god. Let me see your god.’

  The priest bowed again. ‘As you wish.’

  The first hints of nervousness passed through the Egyptian crowd, at the thought of the king encountering its god. The soldiers broke order. Some lay down and slept in the street like stray dogs, too exhausted even to eat. Others busied themselves with gathering all the food, wine and water that they could. Some hesitated over the cooked meat, but ate it all the same, hunger overcoming their memories of the desert.

  After a time, there was a clamour at the back of the Egyptian crowd, and the sea of people parted reluctantly to let the procession through. The god approached.

  It was a black bull calf. It walked without a halter, flanked by a dozen priests who guided it with respectful taps on the rump and gentle clicks of the tongue. Even at a distance, Croesus could see the holy marks upon it: the perfect white diamond on its forehead, the eagle shape etched in white hairs along its back, like the blazon of an army. Had either of these marks been imperfect, it would have been just another animal for meat, breeding and labour. But they were flawless – mathematicians could have applied their instruments to the diamond to confirm its perfection, the most exacting artists could not have faulted the symmetry of the eagle. As the god came forward, the crowd, glancing nervously at Cambyses, reached out to it with quick, hesitant touches, seeking the blessing of their god, fearing the retribution of their king.

  The calf trotted forward until it stood in front of Cambyses. The priests respectfully suggested that it stop, and it did so, sniffing curiously at the horse, then raising its head to face the king. The calf looked up at him expectantly, with the happy, anxious air of an animal that is made the centre of attention.

  Cambyses dismounted and came forward. He stared into the calf’s deep black eyes, looking, perhaps, for some spark of divinity there. He reached out a hesitant hand towards the diamond mark on the animal’s forehead but stopped before he reached it. He pulled his hand back sharply, as if he had been stung. He screamed, reached down, and there was a flash of sun against bronze. Then the calf cried out, stumbled back with one leg lamed, and the dagger came out of its thigh followed by a flowing arc of blood.

  A sound somewhere between a sigh and hiss broke through the watching crowd. For a moment, when the blade was in up to the hilt, all who were there could pretend that they had not seen what they had seen, could imagine that he had reached forward empty-handed, to receive the blessing of the god as thousands had that day. But the pouring blood confirmed the sacrilege.

  The Persian soldiers locked shields and rapped their spears against them in a show of force, but the Egyptians showed no sign of anger. They looked on their king with pity, as one would look on an imbecile or god-cursed man, as the beast shrieked and hobbled away, dragging its lame leg behind it.

  Cambyses laughed as he watched it try to run. ‘There. This is your god? This shitting god?’ He reached up and wiped away sudden tears. ‘Let us go.’ He waved an absent hand at the priest, almost as an afterthought. ‘Put him to death. Put anyone who continues to celebrate to death as well.’

  The Egyptian priest gave his familiar little shrug, as if receiving a piece of news that was of no real consequence, and went quietly with his executioners. The crowd stood defiantly for a moment in the face of the soldiers who began driving them away, looking at the retreating figure of Cambyses. They marked the image in their minds, then filtered back through the crowded streets to their homes. Every man and woman there, seeing their god defiled, wished Cambyses dead. A wish of ten thousand for one man’s end. Belief that strong can take physical form, like molten iron pouring into a mould. This mould, in years
to come, would take the shape of a blade sliding into the king’s flesh.

  But not yet.

  When Croesus came back to the palace, he walked like a wounded man, staggering, stumbling, almost falling, only somehow to stay upright and take another step. He felt as though he aged with every movement of his body, like one of those men from the old stories who is blessed with eternal youth, merely to have the weight of his years come upon him in a matter of moments.

  Around him, soldiers ran past, breaking order and raiding the kitchens, demanding food and wine from every slave and servant that they passed, but the very sight of food made Croesus retch. His hunger, a constant companion for so long, seemed to have atrophied entirely. It had gone as soon as the blade had struck the bull, as if the blasphemy had taken away some crucial inner part of him, cursing him never to eat again, to starve to death in the most fertile land on the planet. If this were true, at that moment the thought did not have the power to trouble him. He could think solely of the person he must see.

  He went up stairs and through narrow corridors, past armouries and treasuries, until the chamber he had been searching for loomed large in front of him. He lifted a hand, shaking like a palsied man, and pushed the door open. Inside, he saw the woman’s face, her eyes widening in shock. Then the face dissolved into the air around it, and the whole world swam away from him. He felt himself falling.

  *

  Time passed – days or hours, he could not tell. His world was reduced to fever dreams, to warm milk that was given to him by figures he knew but could not seem to name, to crying out in the dark and hearing no answer. He wondered, with the strange, specific clarity that sometimes comes to those struck down by fever, if he would lose a part of his mind to this sickness, the way Cambyses had lost a part of his. They would be a mad king and a mad slave, ruling a kingdom together. Perhaps, if he were to go insane, he would understand his master better. He thought of Psamtek. Then he thought of nothing at all.