The Gates of Athens

by Conn Iggulden

  The causeway was perfect, though it had cost the lives of more than seventy men in its construction. The first attempt had been anchored to piles driven into the seabed from above, using huge frames and logs dropped and raised on pulleys. Yet it had been too rigid. Storms had come rushing down the Hellespont. Xerxes had read reports of how the section over the deepest part had risen and fallen well enough, but one of the anchored ends had torn free. The entire bridge had flailed like a whip then, smashing a hundred precious ship hulls to splinters. None of the guards stationed along its length had been found.

  The broken vessels had been pillaged for firewood, of course. There was no sign of old failures as Xerxes reached the centre point and paused, taking in the view on both sides. He had beheaded the engineers responsible for the disaster, as a warning to the rest. The new teams had worked night and day to fling another chain across the strait in record time. A few more workmen had fallen in and been drowned, but the rest had laboured on.

  Two priests waited for Xerxes at the centre of the road over the waters. They lay on sun-bleached wood, both men prostrating themselves as the Great King dismounted. The crowd’s roar was a distant hiss out there, like the crashing of waves.

  ‘Up, gentlemen. Be about your task. Bless me in my endeavours, and in my father’s memory.’

  Xerxes ignored them then as they set about chanting prayers of good fortune, sprinkling him with fresh water taken from the deepest wells in stone, where no light had ever shone. Xerxes looked out on a view that had not existed the year before. On one side, Persia vanished into the distance, the greatest empire the world had ever known.

  On the other, Thrace, with its hills and mines, its farms and villages, its hunters and warriors. Xerxes smiled at the thought. To those primitives, his army must have seemed like statues of gold and iron, like angels walking the earth. The Thracian women were comely enough. A few had been taken up by his officers, though they tended to kill themselves, or occasionally the man who snored alongside.

  Xerxes shook his head. It had looked for a time as if the tribes of Thrace would rise up and resist. He had sent imperial messengers to the towns and villages there, giving them a stark choice. Even then, he had been forced to make an example of one gathering of kings determined to refuse his authority. They had not stood a chance against his Immortals. It was all so unnecessary! He had no quarrel with them. Like the boats that groaned under his feet, they were just a bridge to lands beyond. Xerxes smiled at that thought.

  Beyond Thrace, the mountains of Macedonia rose like blades on the maps. Persian merchants had visited the towns along his route for years, learning all they could. Xerxes himself had never seen those lands. The kings there were said to be warlike and to field armies of spearmen, clad in bronze like the men of Athens. Xerxes wondered if they would stand in the path of General Mardonius when he marched half a million men through their heartland. They too were the bridge. He cared nothing for Macedon, not that season. Greece was his prize – the Athenians and the Spartans who had scorned him, like a wound that would not heal.

  Xerxes listened as the priests invoked his father’s support in heaven. He closed his eyes for a moment, joining the chant in rhythms he knew from childhood. The repetition calmed him, bringing him peace. In the breeze that touched his skin, he thought he could feel his father. More, he thought he could hear the voices of children, laughing and calling to one another.

  Xerxes breathed in sharply, filling his lungs with cold air. If the Great King had come to see his son’s creation, Xerxes would carry his spirit as a noble breath – right to the cities of Greece. It was a glorious concept and he felt certainty take hold. Not even the priests would understand, he realised. Other men dreamed, only to see their dreams made dust. Xerxes was not of their kind. His hopes became bridges. His dreams became vengeance, an arrow sent from his father’s bow that had been in flight for a long time. It would land in the heart of Athens.

  When the priests had finished and lay quivering on the causeway, Xerxes let them both take his hand, granting them honour. The younger one held on for a beat too long, whispering prayers and benefactions, his mouth wet as he kissed the royal knuckles.

  Xerxes reached for the knife on his belt, but the priest had the sense to let go and fall flat. For a long moment, the king looked down on him, considering whether he should bless the bridge in blood. Xerxes could feel spit drying on his hand and it would have been a fitting sacrifice. God stood with him. His wife Amestris had borne him a son and crown prince, named Darius, of course, after his father. That final piece of the plan allowed Xerxes to leave on the campaign at last, his succession secured.

  He had health and strength, and perhaps, the voice of his private thoughts whispered, perhaps his father’s reign had been mere preparation for this. Xerxes had lashed the sea and bound it with a ribbon across its surface. Oh, it was true the fishermen and merchants had complained. It had not been possible to leave a gate in his floating bridge of ships, so that those on the west had no way through to the eastern part of the Hellespont strait. Some of the richest traders had ridden as a group into the new city, full of pompous indignation as they made demands of his governor.

  Xerxes glanced back to where they swung in the breeze. They looked like little brown birds from where he stood, hanging on strings. The imperial governor of Byzantium had chosen to remind all the rest that they served, they lived, only at the whim of the Great King. There had been no more complaints after that.

  Xerxes felt calm and purpose flood through him, the mark of his father’s spirit, he was certain. He left the priests to their trances and whispers and mounted again. Almost in answer, the causeway shifted, rising with some great surge of the waters below. It was… oddly discomforting. His engineers had said it was three thousand paces from one side to the other, a wonder and a marvel that had allowed his army to cross over the previous weeks. He could almost imagine the sight as if he flew above, or stood again on the high crag. It would have been like watching sand or a wineskin draining, one side to another. Hundreds of thousands of men, carts and horses had made the crossing. They waited at that moment, on another continent.

  Xerxes rode slowly on. He kept his horse on a tight rein as the animal began to step high and snort at this strange road that lifted and fell with the sea. In reply, Xerxes dug in his knees and trotted the last part, slowing only to let his mount step gingerly down onto steady ground. For an instant, that too seemed to rise and fall, then settled.

  Ahead of him, imperial regiments stood in perfect array, long banners flapping in the breeze. They had remained in place as the sun appeared on the horizon and the Great King had begun his crossing. Even as he watched, one of the men fainted in the heat and stillness, left where he lay with Xerxes looking on.

  Mardonius and more than ninety senior officers formed their own square by the ramp to the bridge. The administration of such a host required clerks and written orders, a second army almost, just to administer the first. The simple task of feeding so many, or replacing worn kit and weapons, required another town to follow, with cooks and trades and slaves of its own.

  Each one of his generals had been trained by his father, proving both their competence and their ability to survive. Many were also the sons of his father’s most trusted friends. In the presence of Xerxes, they dismounted and stood with bowed heads, the reins in their hands. They could not lie flat without letting the horses go loose. Xerxes noted that fact with a shiver of anticipation. This was life on the march, already beginning. Rough and simple, it excited him.

  Xerxes trotted his mount towards them. Mardonius did come forward and knelt in the dust, his haunches in the air. Xerxes rewarded the man with a smile, gesturing for him to rise. Mardonius would not speak first, of course. It meant that silence stretched between them. Xerxes turned his horse in place while a breeze blew from over the waters.

  His father had always found it easy to converse with such men, from the lowliest soldier in the ranks to a veteran g
eneral of thirty years’ experience, warriors of flint and dust and iron. If the old man’s spirit resided in him that morning, it was quiet. Xerxes felt he lacked the same ease of manner, retreating instead to formality and stern orders. Still, as long as they obeyed, it did not matter.

  ‘I am pleased, Mardonius,’ Xerxes said at last.

  He waved a hand at the standing squares stretching into the far distance, but his gesture took in the bridge itself. He felt his breath catch as he saw both its importance and its fragility. What if another storm came while he was away? His army would be stranded. There were far too many for the mere land to feed. They were a capital city on the march, without half the chains of food and water that allowed such a city to survive.

  It was a horrible image, of regiments slowly starving. He had used every old ship in the fleet for the first road and its replacement. The hulls he had employed all needed to be baled as it was, with slave boys living beneath the main causeway, working all day just to keep the seawater from rising. He thought he had heard their voices as he’d stood with the priests. If a storm battered them apart, or if the waters rose too fast and some of them sank, the great floating road might break again. He would…

  ‘Your Majesty? It will be all right,’ Mardonius said.

  He had seen the sudden change of mood in the young king, as he had a thousand times before in the previous months. Xerxes worried about everything, where his father had been content simply to trust his wishes would be fulfilled. Perhaps it was the lot of a son trying to follow in his father’s greatness; Mardonius did not know. His own four sons were competent soldiers, rising in the ranks of the Immortals with very little supervision from their old man.

  For a moment, Xerxes closed his eyes, overcome by the simple words from his general. He felt tears sting him and blinked them away.

  ‘What if the bridge sinks or breaks again, Mardonius? How will you come home then?’

  ‘When victory is ours? We’ll have the fleet, Majesty. If you wish, you could order those captains to form a bridge. If there was no longer any danger, no need for them at sea, you could have all our ships lashed together and planked over in days, weeks at the most. We could leave the masts in, perhaps, or cut down the cross-yards to use as…’

  ‘Yes, I understand,’ Xerxes said.

  He felt peace run cool in his veins once again. His father’s spirit. He had forgotten for a moment that he carried the old man. There were no problems that could not be overcome, not in that perfect union.

  ‘From this moment, Mardonius,’ Xerxes went on, ‘as I set foot once more on the land across the bridge, you are in command here, with my blessing. You will come from the north; I will come by ship. We will meet in Athens, as God wills.’

  Mardonius lowered himself again to kiss the young man’s royal sandal. The general’s heart filled with pride, for his people, for Xerxes and for the army he loved. They had been formed for this, as a potter shapes clay. In the years since Marathon and the disaster of that fool General Datis, Mardonius had trained them and hardened them and armoured them. The gold of the Achaemenids had flowed in a torrent and if any softness, any weakness, yet remained in his men, it would be burned out in the mountains and hundreds of miles ahead.

  ‘I swear it, Majesty. We are your sword. We will not let you down.’

  Xerxes allowed his general to cup hands to help him remount, then rode back across the bridge. On the other side, his fleet waited at sea, already raising anchor as they watched his progress. Sails were filling out in the bay, while thousands of oars dipped and swung.

  Only his flagship still waited on the docks, Immortals in white cloaks on deck to salute his arrival. Xerxes breathed deeply as he watched his horse taken up in a sling, whinnying piteously as it was swung on board. He had planned the campaign for years, every detail. He had lived and breathed the destruction of the Greeks. For his father, for the insult of Marathon, for how they had scorned his offer of earth and water – but also for himself, for his own need to burn their cities to ash.

  ‘I will make an ending,’ he whispered in a personal vow.

  The coolness he felt could only be his father’s spirit in his veins. He had known that creeping cold many times before, when he had drunk an infusion of poppy to help him sleep. Yet this time he was invigorated.

  ‘Thank you, father. I will be the glad shout, the battle roar. I will be your answer to them – and my own.’

  Xerxes walked over planking to join the crew, accepting the ceremonial sword of fleet admiral as his feet touched the deck. He would command at sea, as Mardonius commanded on land. They would strike Athens from both sides and his enemies would understand at last what they had done.

  29

  Themistocles wondered if there would be blood spilled that evening. When the arguments grew heated, it was an easy thing to imagine. Yet they had come, at his formal request. Though nine-tenths of the delegates he’d sent had returned with a refusal, thirty separate cities and regions had answered Athens. Perhaps hundreds of small fish had not, but those who had travelled to the neutral ground of Thessaly, to the city of Larissa, were among the most powerful of the Hellene states. Sparta had come, the linchpin, along with representatives of Megara, Chalcis, Sicyon, Arcadia, Corinth and two dozen others. It confirmed Themistocles in his belief that Athens could be the leader of all Greece, with the right men to guide her. With himself to guide her.

  Unfortunately, whatever spirit of cooperation had brought them to that place was fraying even as he watched. Perhaps the wine was part of it, or arguments that seemed nothing more than idle discussion. He’d heard better on any single day listening to the Assembly in Athens. Only the Spartans kept their eyes down, Themistocles noted, placing their hands over wine cups whenever the tavern slaves approached to refill them. They looked about as sour as he might have expected. At home, he’d heard each Spartiate warrior had seven helot slaves to tend him at all times, to treat him like a god. Themistocles wondered if arrogance was the result. They could not all be masters.

  He watched as the Spartan Cleombrotus clapped another Greek on the shoulder, approving whatever he had muttered. There was something coiled in the Spartan group, though there were just four of them. They were powerful figures, but so were many of the men there, at least those who had known a life of hard physical labour. Themistocles had noted the Spartans all bore a lattice of pale scars on their arms, testament to thousands of hours on the training field or perhaps in earnest, in full battle against other men. Cleombrotus was in his forties or fifties at a guess, lean and powerful across the shoulders, younger brother to the battle king of Sparta. Themistocles had never met King Leonidas, a name that meant ‘son of the lion’. He thought it was a sign of trust that the man had sent one of his own family, or at least he hoped it was. The Spartans had two kings, each to act as a balance for the other. It was not quite the tyranny of so many states, but neither was it the free votes of the Assembly. Themistocles knew the Spartans saw Athens as ruled by the mob, a city of constant argument and chaos. That was fair enough. He thought of Sparta as a backward place, a joyless military camp where they let their women run with the men.

  Cleombrotus sensed his scrutiny and looked up. The man raised his eyebrows in silent question, calm and unworried. Themistocles inclined his head, giving the man honour. Presumably, Cleombrotus could speak for his brother. He too bore scars on his bare arms, pale against the deep tan of a life spent outdoors. The Spartans were survivors, Themistocles could see, veterans who had faced enemies and survived. He needed them.

  The plates were taken away and the tavern servants retired. Themistocles had ordered it so and brought his own house servants to tend anyone who needed more wine, grapes or figs. He rose from his place and silence came quickly enough. They had spent the day discussing what they would do, but he sensed he had not carried them all. Crucially, the Spartans had not yet committed to the work ahead. It was one thing to attend a meeting of Greek states called by Athens under truce, quite an
other to agree to follow them into war.

  Themistocles cleared his throat.

  ‘I have spoken to you, in groups and as individuals. I have shared the intelligence that found its way to Athens, on fishing boats, in messages from trusted merchants, from spies and friends on the Ionian coast. I think you know by now that the Assembly of Athens would never have sent this call unless we understood the threat to be grave and real… and immediate.’

  Not even the chairs creaked as they listened, hanging on every word.

  ‘The fate of Greece will be decided in this room,’ Themistocles went on. ‘I wish it were an exaggeration, but we know the Persians are coming. The only reason they have not marched before was the time it took putting down the revolts. You know how King Xerxes responded to those. Thousands were butchered: in Egypt, in Libya, in the Ionian cities. The rebellion spread far and, for a moment, some of us thought Persia might even break apart.’ Themistocles shook his head. ‘It was not to be. He has bound them together, even more strongly than before. Xerxes is young – and as ruthless as his line. The examples he has made… are deliberately savage. Every report that reaches us says the same thing. Persia is at peace once again, while blood and tears dry.’

  Someone leaned over to a friend and whispered a few words, resulting in a chuckle. Themistocles nodded and smiled.

  ‘Athenians, eh? Always talking. It is our way, though I fought at Marathon.’

  He watched the Corinthian flush at being singled out, but nodded to him. At least he had come.

  ‘I have faced these same Persians on the field of war,’ Themistocles said. ‘For months afterwards, we kept finding jewels, or pieces of gold and silver. Even their dead carried fortunes. When we made a great fire to burn the bodies, we had boys sifting the ashes for droplets of gold for a month, bringing back their finds to the city.’