by Tim Leach
The captain looked at each man in turn and nodded, giving an order and asking a question in one gesture. Hyroeades found himself nodding back, giving his consent without thinking. They stood and touched their swords together, then charged out into the corridor.
The two Babylon guards turned to face them, their faces frozen in shock even as they set their spears. The two Immortals in front, the captain and his second in command, died on those iron points. They must have known they would, pitting swords against spears, buying victory with their lives, and before the Babylonians could withdraw their weapons the others were on them, striking them to ground, their swords falling, rising dark with blood.
The others hurried into the king’s chamber, but Hyroeades remained at the entrance. He knelt and looked back to the stairwell, listening to the muffled screams from within as the king died.
He had been in Cyrus’s army for almost a decade, but he had always tried to find his place away from the fighting. Who knew how many deaths he had caused, leading the Persians into Sardis. But he had never killed a man with his own hands. And he would not kill one now. It was not much of an ambition at the end of a life, he thought. He wished he could have done something else, something better. He wished that he could have lived differently.
He heard the sound of feet pounding up the stairs, echoing louder as they drew closer. A dozen Babylonian guards came into view, their faces marked with the blood of his companions. They looked at him with death in their eyes.
As he saw them, saw their eyes fix on him, a terrible relief struck him. He knew then that he was going to die, that the time for choices was over and only one path lay ahead of him. He understood, at last, what courage was – when there are no choices but one. His dreams had given him other paths to follow, his hopes had made him a coward. Now, at the end of all hope, he knew he could be brave. He knew he could die well. He ran forward, his sword held high, and hoped that they would kill him quickly.
The gates opened, and the Persians entered Babylon.
Marching in close order, row after row of spearmen and archers went into the city. It was one of the largest armies that the world had yet seen, but it had almost met its equal in this vast labyrinth of streets. It was as if the city had been designed to provide a last line of defence if its people failed to protect it, built to swallow up armies like some beast of the ancient times.
The Persians filtered through the city like a medicinal compound absorbed by the blood, past gardens and towers and temples, spreading to every corner of Babylon, as if it were only by traversing every street before the dawn came that the city would be conquered. They wandered, less as warriors now, in the absence of any army to oppose them, and more as curious travellers to a strange and alien place. Gradually, disbelieving that the city could be taken so effortlessly, the Persians were drawn by the sound of the drums to the heart of Babylon, and once there, they gazed on a spectacle that they could never have dreamed they might see.
Perhaps a hundred thousand people filled the main square, equal at least in number to the army that came to conquer them, moving to music that seemed to shake the earth. They gathered in small circles around elderly storytellers, swam like clumsy children in the diminished waters of the Euphrates, made love openly on the ground. They drank and danced, and shouted their welcome to the new arrivals.
If they were aware that their city was being taken, that these were invaders come to impose a foreign rule over them, the Babylonians gave no sign. Even when a regiment of Persian spearmen marched into the square, in a confused and unnecessary show of force, the people of Babylon seemed as delighted by the newcomers as by the arrival of a troupe of acrobats or a great musician from the east. They held up their hands, and asked the Persians to join them, for on the night of the festival they understood the irrelevance of kings and slaves, of cities and empires. They knew that the world would be reordered in the morning, but it did not matter. For one night alone, there was nothing but the dance.
The Persians laid aside their tall spears and wicker shields, their decorated quivers and curved bows. They called for drums and flasks of wine, and came forward unarmed into the square, not as conquerers or liberators, but as revellers.
They drank and danced together under the stars, until the dawn came to banish them all back to their homes the way thought banishes a dream, and time destroys all things.
The sun rose, the people slept, knowing that when they awoke they would be ruled by a new king. They slept contentedly, and dreamed deeply, for they knew that this did not matter. They knew that it changed nothing.
Babylon
1
‘What do you make of it?’
‘Master?’
‘The city, Croesus. What do you think?’
Croesus hesitated. He did not know what to say.
Cyrus had entered the city that morning to find Babylon still sleeping after the evening’s revelry. The few who were still awake, blinking at the harshness of the light and heavy-headed with drink, had come out on to the streets to meet their new king.
Cyrus installed himself in the palace even as the slaves still scrubbed blood from the stone floors. It had been the only battlefield in the conquest of the city. There had been no looting and no other bloodshed. It was the most peaceful conquest that Croesus had ever known. The city taken for the price of fifty dead.
Cyrus rested his chin on his hand, and smiled at his slave, reading his silence.
‘You are disappointed with Babylon?’
‘No, it is undoubtedly beautiful.’
‘You do not sound particularly interested.’
‘I used to live for wonders, and if one lives for wonders, one must come to Babylon. Now that I am here, I am not so sure.’
‘What do you live for now, then?’
‘I do not know.’ Croesus shrugged. ‘I’m hoping I will find out. Before I die.’
‘What a morbid thought. Perhaps I should ask myself the same question. The wonders don’t move me either. What is my excuse?’
‘You too are old, Cyrus.’
The king laughed. ‘I should have you beheaded for that. But that’s not it. As a symbol, Babylon means everything to me. As a city, it is a troublesome prize. It will make one of my governors over-powerful, and the rest jealous. I desired the essence of Babylon. To be the man who rules the greatest city in the world. The reality is rather tedious.’
Croesus shook his head. ‘And they called me a dreamer when I was a king.’
‘Perhaps that is my secret. I can dream greater than those I conquer. Including you.’ Cyrus toyed with a silk curtain that ran from the ceiling and trailed beside his new throne.
‘Babylon,’ he said. ‘I came to this city not knowing whether I wanted to possess it or destroy it. I almost burned it to the ground.’ He turned back to Croesus. ‘Would that have been a terrible thing?’
‘You would have destroyed a place of beauty.’
‘Yes.’ Cyrus thought to himself for a moment. ‘I had in mind to write something. A proclamation. It is the custom here. First, the king must go north to a temple and perform a ritual of theirs. I have sent Cambyses to take care of that. Then, each new king of Babylon writes of his ambitions on a clay cylinder, declares them to the people, and buries the cylinder in one of the walls.’
‘What will you write?’
‘Some of it will be straightforward enough. I have to vilify my predecessor.’
‘Will you enjoy that?’
‘It is hubristic to enjoy it too much. That is the fate of kings like us. Gods whilst we live, objects of mockery the moment we die. I have to win over their Gods as well, proclaim myself as their champion.’
‘You aren’t afraid of blasphemy?’
‘There is only one God, Croesus. He takes many aspects. This Marduk is just another one.’
‘What else will you say?’
‘I don’t know. I have yet to decide how to rule this city.’ He turned to face Croesus again. ‘I was hoping f
or a little help from you.’
‘I am not much of a man of words.’
‘I have scribes for words, Croesus. I am interested in your ideas.’ He leaned forward. ‘What do you think makes people happy?’
Croesus said nothing at first. He looked at Cyrus’s face, that ageless face that had conquered countless nations, but saw no sign of mockery there. ‘Master?’
‘What makes people happy? Not men like you and me. Ordinary people.’
‘How can I answer that?’ Croesus thought for a time. ‘By the river, Isocrates told me he is happiest when nothing is changing. He just wants to be left alone by his master.’
‘I wouldn’t have called him an ordinary man.’
‘No?’
‘Perhaps you don’t see it, having known him for so long. But it is an interesting idea. Being left alone. I shall think on it.’ Cyrus yawned. ‘You may go,’ he said. ‘I will summon my scribes to begin their work. I will be curious to see what you think, when we are done. And I have a reward for you.’
‘What’s that?’
‘I want you to take a day of freedom,’ Cyrus said. ‘You and your friends. Isocrates and his woman. Explore the city, and see if you change your mind about it.’
Croesus stared at the king for a moment, unsure if he had heard correctly, if Cyrus had really uttered that old, now unfamiliar word. ‘Freedom?’
‘Yes. No soldiers to escort you. No one will summon you to serve them. You shall have free passage throughout the city.’ He paused. ‘I will be disappointed if you run from me. I will punish you if I catch you. But do as you will.’
Croesus laughed. ‘I am an old man, Cyrus. Where would I run to?’
‘Thank you, Croesus. Enjoy your freedom, for a day at least.’ He paused. ‘I can never free you fully,’ he added. ‘I am sorry for that.’
‘I know.’ Croesus tried to smile. ‘It doesn’t matter. I don’t care any more.’
He left the king and passed down through the palace, searching for Isocrates.
Everywhere he went, he saw Cyrus’s people at work, once again trying to understand the business of a flawed, alien government. Through doorways that had been carelessly left open or torn from their hinges in the attack, he saw ministers hunched over desks with translators at their sides. Some studied the treaties the city had signed with its neighbours, trying to untangle the knots of alliances and enmities that had built up over centuries of war and diplomacy. Others wrestled with the city’s strange, obscure, and barbaric system of justice, noting down laws that should be repealed and those that needed to be enacted to establish Babylon as a civilized part of the empire. The most harassed-looking Persians were those who examined tax receipts and records of expenditure, where, inevitably, the latter was greater than the former by several orders of magnitude. They shook their heads over the profligacy of their predecessors, trying to draw the numbers closer together, to prevent the indebted city from collapsing in on itself.
Elsewhere, guards explored the corridors of the palace and recorded its layout on wax tablets, identifying the paths that an assassin might take, the positions that soldiers could hold secure in the event of invasion or insurrection, the routes by which a monarch could quietly slip out of the palace if it became necessary to make a discreet exit: the palace redrawn as a labyrinth of potential violence.
Croesus observed Persian servants talking animatedly to Babylonian slaves, unable to speak each other’s languages yet communicating their needs through tone and gesture. He almost laughed when he saw one give an unmistakable, uncanny impersonation of Harpagus. He imagined the essentials were simple enough to communicate without words. Good masters, cruel masters, stupid masters. The rest was just so much detail.
Several times he stopped and asked the Persian servants to help him find his friend. They stared at him in silence, and the Babylonians mimicked this unspoken aggression. That he was not one of them, that he was neither a master to command nor an equal to be aided, was, it seemed, another concept that could cross the boundaries of language.
He eventually found Isocrates in one of the cellars. After Croesus had told him of Cyrus’s reward, he sat down on a sack of barley. He did not speak for a time.
‘I don’t want to go,’ he said quietly.
‘What? You must be joking.’
Isocrates offered him a thin smile. ‘I don’t know what I would do as a free man,’ he said. ‘I am not scared of much. But that does scare me.’ He laughed. ‘A day without being at another’s command? I think I might go mad.’
‘I don’t believe that. You are not as weak as that.’
‘No. Perhaps you are right. Perhaps I am afraid that I would like it too much. If I can have only one day of freedom, I would rather not have any at all.’
‘You are sure?’
‘I am quite sure.’ He hesitated.
‘Something more you want to say?’
‘Yes.’ But he paused for a long time before he spoke again. ‘Take Maia, will you?’
‘Maia?’
‘Yes. Take her out into the city.’
‘You don’t think she will feel the same way as you?’
Isocrates smiled. ‘No. She is stronger than I am. Smarter, too. She will take it for what it is. A day of freedom. Nothing more.’
‘Very well.’ Croesus gestured to the heavy bags that filled the cellar. ‘You have plenty of work ahead of you, anyway.’
‘Yes. A grain counter in the most fertile land in the world.’ He laughed. ‘How could I take a day off? There is more wealth in bread here than you ever had in gold, Croesus. I could count it for the rest of my life and still not finish before I died.’
Croesus hesitated, struck by a thought. ‘How old are you, Isocrates?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘How can you not know?’
‘You forget what I am.’
‘And what is that?’
‘Irrelevant,’ he said. ‘No royal celebrations marked my birth, Croesus. No priests inscribed the date in their annals. I honestly don’t know how many years I have lived. I am a little younger than you, perhaps, but not by much. We are both getting old now.’
‘That is strange,’ Croesus said. ‘Perhaps I envy you. All I see is my age increasing. The time that remains to me ebbing away. Knowing the date of your birth is almost like knowing the day you will die.’
‘Well, you have one day back. A day of freedom. Go and enjoy yourself, Croesus. There won’t be any more after this one.’
‘How do you know? Perhaps Cyrus will reward us again.’
Isocrates paused. ‘I had a dream last night.’
‘I thought slaves didn’t dream.’
‘I don’t, usually. Perhaps I knew this reward was coming, this little piece of freedom, and took it in my sleep instead.’ He picked a handful of barley from the sack at his side, and let it run through his fingers like sand. ‘Do you believe in the truth of dreams?’
‘I don’t know. What was your dream?’
‘I dreamed that I was back on Thera. I wish I could show my island to you, Croesus. The red cliffs, the way they plunge straight down, like a diver into the sea. When the sun sets, it is like watching a great golden coin melting into the water, and the sky seems to catch fire. I’ve never been anywhere more beautiful than that.’
‘When were you taken from there?’
‘When I was a child. In my dream, I was in my village in the west of the island. The cliff below my village is near vertical, but there are steps, cut or worn by gods or men, that go down to the water. And down there is the port. My father was a fisherman, I think. He used to take me there and teach me knots.’
‘Were you a boy in this dream?’
‘No. I was as I am now. I went down the steps, but there were no ships in the bay, no fishermen sorting nets or dogs begging for rotten fish. There was only a woman, bathing naked. She was beautiful. A goddess, I suppose. I apologized for interrupting her—’
Croesus laughed.
‘It’s true, I promise you,’ Isocrates said. ‘What else can you do if you come across a goddess bathing? But she just looked at me in silence. She seemed to be waiting for me to ask her something.’
‘What did you ask her?’
‘I had the feeling that whatever question I asked her, she would answer it truthfully. And I knew that there was some question, the right question, that I should put to her. But I couldn’t think of it. All I could think to ask, standing beneath those cliffs, was whether or not I would ever find my way back to my village in the waking world.’
‘What did she say to that?’
‘She looked a little disappointed. She smiled nonetheless. She told me that I would live long, and travel far, but that I would never see my home again.’
‘And that was the end of your dream?’
‘Not quite.’ Isocrates turned to look at his companion, a smile playing on his lips. ‘I told her I had a friend,’ he said. ‘I asked her if she had anything to say to him.’
Croesus laughed, a soft and rueful sound. ‘Now I don’t know whether you are lying to me or not. I can never tell. If it is true, I wish you hadn’t, I haven’t had much luck with oracles in the past.’
‘Don’t you want to hear what she said?’
‘Very well. What did this naked goddess have to say about my future?’
‘She said that you would live long as well. But that you would never be happier than this day that is to come. That is when I woke up.’ Isocrates waited for Croesus to reply, but the other man said nothing. ‘What if that were true? What would you do then?’
‘I don’t know,’ Croesus said. Then he remembered Solon, remembered the words they had traded almost twenty years before. He knew then what he must do on his last day of freedom.
2
In the communal room he had been assigned to, he placed his bedroll so that he would be woken first by the sunrise. It was not a hard position to secure, for most of the slaves were keen to sleep far from the light of the sun, to remain in their dreams for as long as possible.