by Tim Leach
Croesus cried out as his weight came down on his feet, and curled up against the wooden chair. He looked up at the soldier who had freed him. ‘I can’t walk,’ he said. The guard frowned. Irritably, Croesus jabbed at his feet with a finger. The soldier nodded in understanding, and, passing his spear to one of his companions, he knelt and picked Croesus up, one arm under the crook of his legs, the other around his back. The Lydian closed his eyes against the shame of it, and put his arms around the Persian’s neck, letting himself be carried down and placed on the cold ground.
Cyrus walked down the stairs and across the courtyard towards his defeated enemy. His pace was unhurried, like a man taking an idle stroll at dusk to enjoy the last of the daylight. He stood over Croesus for a time, his entourage of advisors, slaves and bodyguards gathered behind him. The two kings looked at each other in silence.
‘So,’ Cyrus eventually said, in gently accented Lydian, ‘tell me about Solon.’
Croesus stared at Cyrus and then at his interpreter. Then he shook his head. ‘Why?’
‘Because I am curious.’ Cyrus glanced at the pyre, still pouring smoke into the air. ‘When they first lit the pyre, you had the face of a man hurrying towards death. When you said that name, it seemed to me that you changed your mind.’
Croesus looked at the ground. He spoke slowly. ‘He was an Athenian who came to my court. I had been on the throne a year. I had my wealth, and my family. So I asked him if I was the happiest man he had ever met.’
‘And?’
‘He said no one was happy until they were dead. Until then, you are just lucky. He claimed that it was only when he had seen a man’s entire life, and the way he met his death, that he could say whether or not that man had lived a happy life.’ Croesus shrugged. ‘I thought he was a fool.’
‘I see,’ said Cyrus. ‘That is all?’
‘Yes. I thought of him, up there. I thought of what he had said to me, and thought what an awful thing it was to die, having wasted your life.’
‘Your life has been a waste, then?’
‘Yes.’
There was silence for a time. Behind him, Cyrus’s entourage began to fidget and shiver in the cold. The general, Harpagus, tried to catch his king’s eye, to seek some direction or order, but Cyrus seemed to be in no hurry to do or say anything.
Eventually, Croesus looked up and asked, ‘What are your men doing in the city?’
‘I should think they are taking everything you own.’
‘No. I own nothing now,’ Croesus said, absently. ‘They are robbing you.’
Cyrus laughed. ‘True enough. I hadn’t thought of that. What should I do?’
Croesus looked up at the king, expecting to see a mocking smile on the other man’s face, but Cyrus seemed quite serious. ‘You cannot simply take it from them,’ Croesus said. ‘They might rebel against you. And you can’t let them pillage as they please. One of them might grow rich and powerful enough to be dangerous to you.’
‘A conundrum.’
‘Yes. So put some men you trust at each gate of the city, and as your men leave with their treasure, demand that they donate a tenth to the Gods who have given them victory. That is what I would do. They can’t argue with giving a share to the Gods.’
‘And should I take this gold that they surrender at the gates for myself?’
‘That is your decision. I don’t know how pious you are.’
Cyrus smiled, a fractional lift of one corner of his mouth. ‘You chose poorly in going to war against me,’ he said. ‘But, still, I think you are wise.’
Croesus shook his head. ‘You are wrong. No wise man chooses war.’ He looked away. ‘In times of peace, sons bury their fathers. In times of war, fathers bury their sons.’
‘Perhaps your war has taught you something, then. You could be of use to me.’
‘As a slave?’
‘We Persians aren’t as fond as you are of taking slaves. But there are exceptions. You are a danger to me as a free man.’ The Persian paused. ‘Perhaps one day you will earn your freedom again.’
Croesus said nothing in response. Cyrus continued: ‘I will grant you a boon of your choosing.’
‘Why?’
‘It is the custom. I even granted Astyages a boon when he entered my service.’
Croesus looked up sharply, and Cyrus nodded to him. ‘Yes, when I overthrew your brother king, I spared his life, despite all he had done to my people. He too became my slave.’
‘I don’t see him with you today. Did he displease you? I don’t think I will last long in this court of yours. I would rather die now, than have you keep me like a dog and murder me on a whim.’
‘You are mistaken. He did not die by my hand, but by his own.’ Cyrus shrugged. ‘I gave him no reason. So long as you are loyal to me, Croesus, you shall live. Come, what favour can I grant you?’
Croesus thought. He thought of his treasury, that all those years before had once contained an infinity of desires. He had never thought he would be reduced to one command, to have the power to perform just a single action before his freedom was taken. And yet, now it was offered to him, there was only one thing he found that he wanted.
‘Let my wife be spared slavery,’ he said eventually. ‘And take good care of my son.’
‘You would like her by your side, I presume?’
‘No. Let her go to the temples, or marry again if that is what she wants. I want her to be free. That is all I ask.’
Cyrus nodded, and conferred with his advisors. One of them glanced uneasily at Croesus, shook his head, and leaned in to whisper a message to the Persian king. Croesus watched, and covered his face with his hands.
‘I will take care of your son, Croesus. Your wife is dead,’ Cyrus said.
‘How?’ Croesus said, without raising his head.
‘She jumped from the palace walls as the city was being taken.’
‘Yes,’ said Croesus slowly. ‘She would choose that.’ He shut his eyes against the tears, but they still flowed through.
Cyrus paused. ‘Have an hour. Then you may request another boon.’ The Persian king looked Croesus over. ‘Did the fire hurt you?
Croesus reached a hand towards his burned feet. ‘Yes, a little,’ he said.
‘Who was your personal slave?’
‘He is called Isocrates. I don’t know if he survived the fighting.’
Cyrus smiled. ‘Slaves are great survivors; they tend to outlive their masters in a time of war. That is how they became slaves in the first place – by living when they should have died. I shall see if he can be found.’
Cyrus turned and spoke to his servants in Persian. One of them bowed, and pointed to the other side of the courtyard. Cyrus laughed, and turned back to Croesus.
‘He is here. You see? Already he is making himself useful to me. A clever slave indeed.’ He glanced over his shoulder. ‘Isocrates!’
Croesus watched the slave come forward and bow at another man’s command. ‘How can I serve, master?’
‘Tend his wounds.’
Isocrates bowed again. ‘Yes, master.’
Cyrus turned to go, but looked back, snapped his fingers to one of his guards and beckoned him forward. He took the man’s cloak from him, tossed it to Croesus, and began to walk away.
‘Cyrus?’
The Persian king turned back. ‘Yes?’
‘What will you tell them? The people, I mean. As to why you put out the pyre. Won’t they take your change of heart as weakness?’
‘You are correct.’ Cyrus looked up at the clear sky and smiled. ‘We shall say a god put the fire out. Who could argue with that? I think it might even be true.’
Croesus wrapped the cloak tightly around him, for the comfort as much as for the warmth, and watched his new master walk away.
‘I shall not dress your feet for you,’ Isocrates said after the king had gone, ‘because I’m not your slave any more. Do you understand?’ Croesus stared sightlessly at the smouldering pyre, and nodded.
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br /> ‘You must learn to understand and to act quickly,’ Isocrates continued. ‘Things will not be repeated for you. If you make the wrong choice, or you don’t understand, you will die.’
‘You make it sound like being a hunted animal.’
‘That is not far from the truth.’
‘What were you doing here, when Cyrus called for you?’
‘Pouring sand on that fire.’
‘So you saved my life?’ Croesus shook his head. ‘How touching.’
‘I also helped stack the wood this morning to burn you. So don’t be sentimental.’
Croesus looked down at the marks the heated chains had left on his arms. ‘Will I always be marked like this?’ he said.
Isocrates looked briefly, with little interest. ‘No. They will heal.’
‘But I will always be a slave.’
‘Yes. You serve at the pleasure of your master, now. Don’t forget it.’ Another man came with a poultice and bandages, and Isocrates took them from him. ‘Now,’ he said to Croesus, ‘watch what I do.’
Croesus watched as Isocrates demonstrated how to apply the poultice and the bandage, listened as the slave described what herbs went into the wrapping and what they did. When the other man had finished, he made a passable effort at wrapping his feet himself. The bandages were clumsy, but they did not unravel, and he repeated the effects of the herbs first time. He winced at the pain as he wrapped his feet, but did not cry out.
Isocrates nodded in approval. ‘Not bad. And that is good enough. For now, at least.’
‘Cyrus thinks I am a wise man,’ Croesus said. ‘That is why he is keeping me alive.’
Isocrates said nothing.
‘I am not a wise man, am I?’
‘No, Croesus. You are not.’
‘What do I do?’
Isocrates stared at him, and shrugged.
‘Learn quickly,’ he said.
The Slave
545 BC
1
The Persian army slept.
From a distance, the torchlit gathering of men could be mistaken for a city. Eyes would play tricks, connecting the disparate points of fire to form impossible architectures, conjuring a city of the mind out of nothing. It was only on drawing closer that one could see past the fires to the outlines of tents and sleeping pallets stretched out in every direction. A hundred thousand souls, sleeping and dreaming in a land that was not theirs. Small fires ringed the edges of the encampment where sentries fought to stay awake, watching the stars and counting away the time until they were relieved, and could rejoin the dreaming army.
At the heart of this gathering, this temporary city of the plains, Croesus, a torch dripping sparks in his hand, moved through the tents and sleeping men towards the place where Cyrus held court that night. He looked warily into corners where men might be hiding in ambush, watchful of figures that might lurk in the darkness. In his first few months in service to the Persian king, some of the servants had found pleasure in beating this slave who had once been a king. They called him to some quiet corner on a false errand, knocked him to the ground, and whipped him with their belts until his tunic was stuck to his back with blood. He had learned to be cautious.
No one stopped him on his journey across the camp, the few sentries he passed nodding to him without interest. They were used to the king’s slave being summoned at all hours, day and night. Distant at first, then drawing closer, he saw the ring of torches that identified the king’s open-air council for that night.
Cyrus ruled a nomad’s court, and whether it was in a forest clearing or the burned-out palace of a conquered king, he did not seem to care. He had spent his life as a king travelling at the head of an army, never remaining in the same place for more than a few days, for Cyrus was the only centre the kingdom had, his army its capital city. Not content with the half-dozen throne rooms that Croesus enjoyed in Sardis, he travelled through his empire scattering thousands of them, seeding the earth with ghostly courts that were used once and never again, marking his kingdom like an animal.
Cyrus’s court that night was bounded by a circle of tall torches thrust into the ground. At the edge of this circle, his bodyguards slouched on the ground like idle dogs, as if mocking the rigid attention of the ordinary soldiers. Croesus had seen them move fast enough to know that their indolence was merely an act. In the centre, a leaning stone the height of a small child served as a throne: the only feature that marked this circle out from the arid plains that stretched out in every direction.
When Croesus had left the court a few hours before, dismissed by the king to go and sleep, the gathering had been relaxed. A few issues of future strategy lightly discussed, without any sense of impending catastrophe. But there was now an air of near panic. The men of the court spoke over and across each other all at once. Some shouted each other down, others gathered at the edge of the circle and whispered to one another. Only Cyrus was calm, waiting patiently and silently in the middle of the circle like a man waiting for a storm to blow itself out. He alone noted Croesus’s arrival.
‘Ah, Croesus,’ he said, his slightly raised voice a sign for the others to fall silent. ‘How good of you to join us.’
All eyes turned to Croesus. He dropped his eyes to the ground. ‘You sent for me?’
‘Yes I did. Cyraxes? Tell him.’
The old man cleared his throat. ‘An emissary from Sparta has reached the camp,’ he said. ‘We didn’t know he was in the country, let alone this close to us.’ He shot a glance at Harpagus. ‘Our spies, it seems, are not as infallible as some have claimed.’
Harpagus ignored him. ‘I still think we should dispose of him. We have nothing to fear if he doesn’t report back to his master.’
‘Kill an emissary? Can you think of a more foolish idea?’
‘He knows too much.’
‘And whose fault is that?’
‘You don’t have to repeat what we all know,’ Harpagus said. ‘If you have nothing else to say, keep quiet.’
‘It is your failing that—’
‘Enough.’ Cyrus did not raise his voice, but the word cut through the air and brought silence with it. The king turned to Croesus and smiled thinly. ‘So. The Spartans are considering an expedition across the sea.’
‘What happens if they do?’
‘They will join with the Ionians, and we cannot stand against such an alliance. If they come, I expect we will fight a bloody war and be destroyed, Croesus. More fathers burying sons, as you once said.’
‘What can I do?’
Cyrus pointed to a place beside his throne. ‘Kneel at my side, and don’t speak unless I tell you to.’
Slowly, his body still unused to responding to such commands, Croesus did as he was told.
‘Good.’ Cyrus looked at Harpagus. ‘Admit him to our presence.’ He looked around the circle. ‘And the rest of you, be quiet. You stink of fear. If you can’t control yourselves, then leave.’
The court settled, and a single figure approached from the darkness. The bodyguards gave him the briefest of glances as he passed them, but Croesus saw them tense, their hands disappearing into the folds of their robes.
Croesus looked at the emissary, and recognized the man. It was Lakrines, the Spartan who had come to his court, many years before, when he was a king who could still dream of empires. The Spartan’s hard face had not changed, though now he wore his hair long, down far past his shoulders, and Croesus wondered what strange new custom had prompted the change. He dropped his head and studied the ground, but Lakrines paid no attention to a slave. He had eyes only for Cyrus.
The Persian king looked at the emissary and said nothing, stretching out the silence at his leisure. ‘You bring a message?’ he said at last.
‘I do.’
‘And what is it?’
‘The kings of Sparta command you to withdraw from these lands, and return to the east, Cyrus. That is all.’
Cyrus stared at him blankly for a moment. Then he asked, ‘Who are t
he Spartans?’
The emissary must have anticipated many responses, but not this one. Eventually, he smiled thinly. ‘You are joking, I think.’
‘I have never heard of you.’
‘We are the greatest warriors in the world, Cyrus. The most powerful of the Hellenes. You would do well to listen to us.’
‘Your fame, I’m afraid, has not crossed the sea to reach me. I think you are a long way from Sparta, to be giving commands to a king.’
‘I have seen your army. We have little to fear from you.’
‘Perhaps you should speak more carefully.’
‘We both know you won’t harm me, Cyrus.’
‘Do we?’ Cyrus looked off into the distance and said nothing for a time. Without looking back at the emissary, he said, ‘Tell me, what lies at the centre of your city?’
The Spartan narrowed his eyes. ‘A market square, where the tradesmen gather. What does that matter?’
‘I thought so. You see, in Persia, we have no such thing. We do our business behind closed doors. We do not make a god of trade. You claim to be great warriors. I do not know your people, but I have no fear of a nation of men who have a place to meet, swear this and that and spend all day cheating one another. Yours is a nation of merchants, not warriors.’
‘You cannot frighten me with insults, Cyrus. We have the blessing of the Gods. Our oracle says that we will win a great victory if we fight against Persia.’
‘Really?’ Cyrus said. ‘Tell me, did they say when you would achieve this great victory?’
The Spartan hesitated. ‘No.’
‘Croesus, look up,’ Cyrus said. ‘You recognize this man, Spartan?’
‘Yes.’ Lakrines inclined his head slightly. ‘I am sorry to see you this way, Croesus.’ He looked back to the king. ‘I suppose it is true what they say, if you would treat Croesus like this.’
‘And what do they say?’
‘That every man in Persia is a slave to the king.’
Cyrus laughed. ‘Tell this man of prophecies, Croesus,’ he said. ‘Tell him about the favour you asked from me, two years ago, when I made you my slave.’