by Tim Leach
They worked silently at this strange ritual until they were entirely covered in soot, pale eyes blinking out of black faces, a shocking white, like bone amidst ash. After they had finished, Cyrus stood. The men gathered together at his feet, like children listening to their father speak.
‘Some of you will die tonight,’ he said. ‘Perhaps all of you. All who live will be given land and gold enough to ennoble them. All who die will have the honours passed on to their children.’ He paused, and looked at each man in turn. ‘But I am not asking you to risk your lives merely for land and wealth. This is your chance to be a part of something greater than yourselves. To build an empire the world will not forget. To take the city that they said could never fall. To become truly immortal.
‘No one will forget what you do tonight. Know that your king is proud of you. Know that you shame him with such courage. Thank you.’ He clapped his hands once, like a priest completing a ritual, striking soot from his hands in a cloud of black smoke.
They did not cheer. Each man stood in turn, and Cyrus kissed him on the forehead. Then, as one, they bowed to their king, and marched out of the tent and into the night. Almost all of them had gone when the king pulled one aside. ‘Hyroeades, wait,’ Cyrus said. He beckoned Croesus closer, a half-smile on his face, and the slave came forward slowly, studying the face of this other man.
He had touches of grey in his hair and a well-lined face, but he did not carry himself like a veteran. He had the awkward uncertainty of a much younger man, and as he stood in front of Croesus he looked at the ground and avoided the other man’s eyes.
‘Do you know who this is, Croesus?’ Cyrus said.
‘No.’
‘He is the man who found the way into Sardis.’
Croesus stared at him. ‘What?’
‘He climbed the south wall, and led our people in. I thought you might like to meet him.’
‘I see,’ Croesus said. He looked at Hyroeades for a time, but could not think of anything to say.
The other man tried to smile at him. ‘It is an honour to meet you, Croesus,’ he said.
Cyrus laughed. ‘An Immortal honoured to meet a slave.’ He clapped the soldier on the back. ‘Go now. And good luck.’
The man bowed deeply to Cyrus, and then, in an instinctive afterthought, bowed to Croesus as well. Whether it was an honour for his previous station, or some kind of apology, Croesus could not tell. Hyroeades straightened up quickly, as if embarrassed, and hurried out to join his companions.
‘It will be tonight, then?’ Croesus said.
‘Yes. Everything is ready.’
‘They are the ones who will enter the city. When the river falls.’
‘Yes.’
‘Will any of them live?’
‘No. Some of them will make it to the gates. They might even reach the palace. But the Babylonians will cut them down long before we can rescue them.’
‘I see.’ Croesus hesitated. ‘You wanted to see me about some matter?’
‘I only wanted someone else to see those men before they died. So you can help me to remember them, if I should forget.’ The king sighed. ‘You can go now. I wish to sleep.’
Croesus stood on the bank of the Euphrates and looked over the city walls, trying to find the same light that he had watched six weeks before. He could not find it. Perhaps his Babylonian counterpart had gone to the festival and had left his home dark. Even from this distance, Croesus could hear the beating of the drums that summoned the people of the city. Though the citizens of Babylon did not know it, the drummers were calling to the invaders as well.
Croesus took off his battered leather shoes, hitched up his tunic, sat on the river bank, and dipped his feet into the water up to the knee. He shivered at the cold.
He remembered walking with his father on a bridge over the Pactolus, looking down and seeing his fortune glittering there beneath the clear water. He remembered the great Maeander, which had run through his old kingdom like a twisting artery, all the way to the coast. And the Halys which he had crossed, dreaming of empire. The Gyndes, where he and Isocrates had traded their secrets. And now the Euphrates. He had heard that the Hellenes believed that they crossed another river when they died. It seemed fitting, that the land of the dead would lie on the far side of a river. His life amounted to nothing more, he thought, than the crossing of one river after another. The shifting flow of water that was always the same, always different, and ever unchanged by his passage.
Croesus sat by the river, listening to the drums of the distant city beat out their alien, syncopated rhythm. He waited for the water to fall.
14
Hyroeades stood on the bank of the river, and the fifty Immortals waited with him, all of them silent, studying the water, waiting for a sign from the Gods.
Some believed that he, Hyroeades, had the blessing of the Gods. The other Immortals, only half in jest, called him the conquerer of Sardis. He remembered that the moon had been thin on that night too, casting just enough light for him to identify the vertical path of hand- and foot-holds that led him to the top. He remembered his hand shaking as it closed over the stone at the very top of the wall; he had been more afraid of finding a Lydian waiting for him than he had been of falling to his death. But there had been no one there.
He had tied the rope and tugged on it six times, and the army had followed him up. Each man, as he crested the top of the wall, touched a hand to Hyroeades’s forehead and whispered a blessing before moving on. As the Persians advanced into Sardis and the killing began, none had noticed him quietly slip away, down the north cliff to find a place to sleep and wait out the slaughter.
Hyroeades had felt that he deserved no glory. He had merely followed what he had seen another man do. He had to catch himself each time he was fêted, restraining himself from praising the Lydian who had first made the climb. After the city fell, he had been summoned by Harpagus to receive his reward. He had hoped they would free him from the army, give him enough land or money to live free of the wars, to take a wife, grow crops, raise children. Instead, they offered him a place in the Immortals, the highest honour a common soldier could hope to receive. He had taken it. There seemed no way to refuse.
Downstream, the captain of the Immortals dipped a long reed into the water. He did so every few minutes, always with the same practised motion, the backhanded, downward thrust of a finishing blow. It had developed the quality of ritual.
When the river fell, it fell slowly, like a man sitting upright who only slowly drifts off to sleep, summoned by his dreams. At first Hyroeades could not be sure that the falling water level was the consequence of their work. He had been fooled several times already by the random ebbing and flowing of the water. But eventually, there could be no doubting it. Now, each man watched the reed as it descended into the river, the water covering less of it each time.
They had asked for fifty volunteers for the attack by the river, and Hyroeades had no intention of volunteering. But when the ten thousand had stepped forward as one, he could not remain behind. What were the odds that he would be chosen, he thought, and so, half a step behind the rest, he too stepped forward. But when they drew the lots from the helmet, his name had come up.
He wondered if his lot had been fixed. If they had ensured that he would be sent inside to help take Babylon, believing his luck would let them take a second unconquerable city. And afterwards, when he saw the relief in the faces of those who had not been chosen, he wondered how many others had thought as he had, how many had come close to not stepping forward. They had been trapped by ideas of honour and duty, unaware that it was dissent that brought the blessing of the Gods, not blind obedience.
For the tenth time, the captain thrust the reed into the Euphrates. This time, he did not pull it out again. He opened his hand and cast it into the river, and the reed moved slowly with the now sluggish water, leading the way into city. The captain’s empty hand rose, and gestured them forward. As one, the Immortals stepped into the wat
er.
Hyroeades kept his eyes fixed on the walls, but saw no sentries there. The few who remained would be high up in the distant watchtowers, cursing that they had drawn sentry duty on the day of the festival. They would be watching for some massed, sudden assault on the gates. None could have suspected that it would be the river, the flowing artery of the city, that would betray them.
They reached the base of the wall where the river met the city, and gazed into the tunnel ahead. The ceiling was low, but there was still enough room for their heads and shoulders to remain above the water. The captain paused for a moment, peering into the tunnel, perhaps thinking that it was a bad place for a warrior to lead his men, his instincts rebelling against the possibility of a trap. He waved his hand again, stepped forward, and disappeared into the blackness. Hyroeades and the others followed close behind.
They kept their arms high to preserve the soot on their skins, their elbows up and hands together like men at prayer. The view ahead was obstructed by the men in front of him, and after only a few steps Hyroeades found himself in perfect darkness. He listened to the steady breathing of the men around him, amplified by the stone and water, as though he were sharing the tunnel with some great creature of the river. He thought of what would happen if the water suddenly rose, if some distant downpour half a continent away flooded down through the Euphrates. He thought of them kicking and clawing to get out, of drowning in the dark.
He reached up and felt the stone above his head, still wet from where the river had touched it not an hour before. Hyroeades remembered the feel of the stone at Sardis. Suspended between worlds, he had felt calm and fearless. He had, he thought, never been happier. Perhaps if he had fallen then, he could have died happy.
The quality of the darkness changed, and Hyroeades’s trailing hand touched not stone, but air. They were through the tunnel, and into the alien city.
They gathered together, and the captain counted down the line and divided the group in two, taking one man aside as leader of the second group. Hyroeades watched as twenty-five men left silently behind their new leader, circling west below the city wall. They were the men who would take the north-west gate, and Hyroeades watched them with envy. Some of them might still live to see the rest of the army arrive, he thought. But we won’t.
They headed deeper into the city. Each man, under his breath, repeating the directions they had been given. They had all sat and memorized them the night before, chanting them together like children reciting a song. Two hundred steps south, and then left along the canal. Proceed until the temple of Nabu, then left again, up the steps and into the royal palace. Keep the ziggurat on your right, and do not go towards the drums.
They were on the canal path, heading east, when the captain waved them to the ground, whispering a curse. Hyroeades was near the front of the group, and he could see a Babylonian walking down the street towards them.
It was a young girl, a slave or a daughter running an errand, occasionally stopping to gaze wistfully in the direction of the drums. She reached a small bridge over the canal and stopped, considering in which direction to go. Right, towards the drums and the festival, or straight ahead, towards the Euphrates. She shrugged and turned to her right, stepping on to the bridge. Hyroeades heard the captain exhale slightly.
The girl gave one last look down the canal path, and stopped, one foot on the bridge and one on the bank. She blinked, and peered more closely.
Hyroeades felt the slinger to his left shift his weight. A slap of leather, the sharp crack of rock against bone, and the girl fell.
They came forward, and stood over the girl. She twitched and jerked on the ground, blood pouring from her head, but she still lived, her eyes looking up at the men who stood over her, her mouth struggling to form words. One of the others knelt over the girl, and drew his knife. Hyroeades turned away. She could not have been older than fourteen.
In front of him was a dark, narrow alley. He could slip down it, perhaps, while the others were not looking. Throw away his sword and armour, wash the soot from his face, and plunge into the crowds. Who would notice a strange face? Babylon was the city of a thousand languages, he had been told. There was no such thing as a foreigner here. He could find a woman at the festival, and if he married her before dawn her family would have to take him in. He might still live beyond this night, if he could find the courage to take a chance.
The moment passed. One of the other Immortals tapped him on the shoulder, and Hyroeades fell into step with the rest of the men. He kept his eyes open for another moment when his companions would be distracted, when he might have an opportunity to escape. But no chance came, and they were past the temple of Nabu and at the palace gates.
The captain divided them again. Ten men concealed themselves as best they could outside the palace gates, and fifteen were chosen to go inside the palace. The ten were sure to die, buying time for the others, but they took up their positions without question. Hyroeades wondered if it were blind chance that he was chosen as one of the fifteen, or if the captain believed that he had the Gods’ blessing, and wanted to keep him close to the very end. He felt a strange, useless comfort in the thought that at least he would live a little longer than the men outside.
They headed up the steps, expecting at any moment the shout of alarm, the hail of javelins and sling stones that would end their lives. It did not come. Outside the unguarded entrance, they pulled off their muddied boots and cast them aside. Barefoot, like penitents before a temple, they passed through the gates.
The palace was deserted. Almost all of Babylon was attending the festival, but the king, so their spies reported, would not be there. Only he and a few of his guards would remain in the palace that night for, unpopular as he was, he appeared at as few public occasions as he could for fear of mockery. From time to time they heard someone passing through the corridors. A slave on some late-night errand, a wandering guard, a nobleman creeping from one bedchamber to another. In the empty palace, sound carried and echoed to such an extent that they could not tell if they were on the opposite side of the building or only a single corridor away.
Hyroeades found the emptiness unsettling. Great halls, built to hold hundreds, echoed their soft footsteps back to them. Kitchens with dozens of cooking pots and ceilings black with soot were empty and silent. It was as if the palace, perhaps even the entire city, had been abandoned in the wake of some great disaster, or as if the Babylonians, anticipating the fall of their city, had left it for some other world, melting away into the air in an act of collective magic.
Kings had ruled here for thousands of years, Hyroeades had heard. He could not imagine that the world could be so old. He wondered if, in all the centuries, intruders had ever stepped inside the sacred palace walls, if this was the first time armed foreigners had made it this far. Their presence had the feeling of desecration, of blasphemy. Somewhere, he was certain, a god was stirring to punish them. They had only a short time to complete their mission before he came for them.
They reached the stairwell that led to the royal chambers. After a moment’s hesitation, while he listened for some clink of armour above that might indicate that it was guarded, the captain led them up.
They were packed close together in the winding stairwell, designed so that few could hold it against many. A pair of guards above them could have held off fifty men. Hyroeades was reminded of the water tunnel, though now, rather than the smell of the river, the air was rank with the sweat of the men around him. Slowly and silently, they made their way to the highest level of the palace.
They were not alone. Close by, Hyroeades could hear talking in a language he did not understand. Though the tongue was unfamiliar, the tone he understood – bored men passing the time with idle stories. After the long silence it was almost a relief to hear other voices.
The captain looked around the corner and ducked back quickly. He held up both hands and extended all his fingers, repeated the motion. Twenty was the signal. Twenty men guarding t
he king’s chamber. Their luck, it seemed, had finally run out.
The captain pulled the man next to him close and whispered in his ear. The other man listened and nodded, then moved down the line, tapping a number of other men on the shoulder as he went. He hesitated beside Hyroeades, and looked back at the captain, who shook his head. The other man continued down the line, until he had touched nine other men. He beckoned to them to follow him back the way they had come.
The ten made their way silently back down the stairs. The captain, Hyroeades, and three others went into an empty chamber. They waited.
He thought of how easily he and the others would be replaced. The next day, fifty men would be summoned to serve the king. The Immortals, the ten thousand who had worn a hundred thousand different faces, the regiment that could never die. What did his life matter, if his place could be taken so quickly? He thought of how swiftly sons replaced fathers, infants replaced the elderly. Barely had you stopped breathing before you became an irrelevance, as though you had never lived at all. What did anyone’s life matter, king or soldier or slave, if they could be replaced in moments and the world go on without them? Our lives mean nothing, he thought to himself. My life means nothing.
Distant sounds, piercing in the silence, reached him from another part of the palace. War cries, the clash of swords. The other Immortals, he realized, had gone to cause a diversion. Somewhere, Hyroeades could hear some great copper gong being struck. The alarm, summoning the guards from around the palace to defend their king, calling the Gods to let them know there were intruders in a sacred place. Either way, he thought, at the Gods’ hands or the Babylonians’, we will all be dead soon.
They listened as the guards ran past and tried to count how many had gone, how many would remain for them to face. Once the footsteps had faded away, the captain crawled back out to look around the corner again. He looked back, and this time, he held up just two fingers.