The Falcon of Sparta

by Conn Iggulden

  ‘It is forgotten,’ Cyrus said, though they both knew it was not. ‘Please return to your men. Tell them your courage impressed me.’

  The Spartan general went down on one knee. Clearchus moved stiffly, accepting his garments and helmet from the wide-eyed Persian officer who held them. He returned to his men and they marched back across the field without a word.

  Tissaphernes watched them go, his expression sour.

  ‘I wonder if such as they are worth the river of gold you have spent on them,’ he said.

  ‘I believe they are,’ Cyrus replied, shaking his head in disbelief at what he had witnessed.

  ‘Hmm. I find I am weary after so long in the sun. I have new trade concerns in the city here, gifts from your brother’s hand in reward for my years of service. I will visit them tomorrow, before I return to his side.’

  ‘Like an old family hound,’ Cyrus said. ‘Toothless and blind and creaking in the joints, but still, somehow, alive.’

  ‘Oh, not blind, Highness,’ Tissaphernes said, flushing. ‘Not blind at all.’

  With elaborate courtesy, the older man prostrated himself fully on the ground, waiting in stillness until Cyrus bade him rise. Neither man seemed happy with the exchange as they parted and the gossiping crowds began to drift away.

  11

  As the sun rose into an empty blue sky, Tissaphernes and his retinue rode into the centre of the city. The Persian was accompanied by so many horns, drums and flying pennants, it looked almost like a royal visit. Entire districts of Sardis ground to a halt to see the great lord of the east who had deigned to come amongst them.

  Cyrus came onto the high balcony of his palace rooms in response to the cheering. In the distance, he caught a glimpse of Tissaphernes before he passed out of sight. The Persian rode a grey horse and had slaves tossing silver pieces to the crowd, while Immortal soldiers marched in uniforms unmarked by anything like fighting or hard labour. Cyrus clenched his jaw, hearing his teeth creak as he rested his hands on stone and breathed in the cool air. He had no doubt by then that spies were watching him, but with his manservant Parviz he went down to the stables, where the sound of the city and its rapturous welcome were more muted. When Cyrus had mounted up and settled himself, it pleased him to turn left out of the stable gates, heading away from Tissaphernes to the barracks on the other side of the city.

  There was a very different mood in that quarter of Sardis. The guards at the gate stood back for him with bowed heads and Cyrus rode into a near silent compound. Just a few young warriors could be seen. They stopped their exercises in the yard to watch him dismount. Parviz sensed the threat in the air, but he had vowed to protect Cyrus and the little man glared like a bantam cock, though any one of them could have taken his sword from him.

  Cyrus held his head high under their hostile scrutiny. If they challenged him with their stances and glares, he reminded himself of what Clearchus had said, that all young men are fools. Perhaps if they were lucky, they would live into their forties or fifties, to wish they could exchange all their wisdom and experience for just one day of that glorious, reckless youth once again.

  Passing into the gloom of the interior, Cyrus paused, letting his eyes adjust. The walls had been washed in lime, so that the barracks had a light feel. It was clean and smelled of straw and some of the rubbing ointments Cyrus knew the Greeks used on bruises and wounds. He heard a groan in the room ahead and nodded to two Spartans who sat at a stone table. Each of them carried a small cup and he saw dice strewn across the surface, as well as piles of copper coins. Neither man moved to rise in his presence. They merely watched. Cyrus felt his right fist close. Some impulse made him stop and face them, leaning over the table.

  ‘Do you not give honour to your officers any longer? What would General Clearchus say if he saw such insolence?’

  The two men exchanged a quick glance and stood, the game forgotten. Cyrus brushed past as they began to dip down.

  He stopped at the threshold of the room beyond, seeing a young woman drawing a thread through the general’s back so that the skin wrinkled like cloth. She had already stitched a dozen neat black lines, like worms across the flesh.

  Clearchus turned to see him. The movement caused him to hiss through his teeth.

  ‘I thought Spartans don’t feel pain,’ Cyrus said as he came further in.

  Clearchus groaned and scratched the stubble on his cheek.

  ‘Who told you that? Are we made of stone? Of course we feel pain! We do not show we feel it. Not in front of enemies, at least.’

  Cyrus found himself pleased he was not considered an enemy. He smiled and Clearchus chuckled, though he closed his eyes as he did so, looking tired.

  ‘Paniea here has been working all night on my patchwork. I hope your friend was satisfied.’

  ‘Tissaphernes is not my friend,’ Cyrus said seriously. ‘I doubt he ever was. Look, I came to thank you. I don’t know if he simply wanted to hurt me, or to show me his new degree of status. He used to be a mere teacher of princes. Now he is a trusted companion of the Great King. At the same time, I am cast down, allowed to keep my life and my work, but nothing else. Tissaphernes wished me to understand the scales had swung against me. If you had refused …’

  Cyrus glanced at the young woman, seeing her silent concentration. Clearchus saw the look and shook his head.

  ‘Paniea is deaf, Highness. She cannot hear you. She does, however, have great skill with needle and thread.’

  ‘I think I will cut her throat even so,’ Cyrus said, drawing his knife.

  The young woman did not react and he put it away again. Clearchus raised his eyebrows and the prince sighed and went to close the door behind him, pulling up a chair.

  ‘You bought me a few days, general. Yet I do not think we have that year you wanted, truly. Tissaphernes leaves tomorrow – and what he will report, I cannot say.’

  ‘Have him fall from his balcony,’ Clearchus said.

  ‘He has already sent reports with birds he brought from Persepolis. At such a distance, no one can be sure they will reach their destination. Equally, I cannot be sure they will not. Either way, I cannot know how my brother will act until Tissaphernes reaches his side. For personal reasons, I would love to see that old fool fall from a great height, but I need even the three months or so it will take him to return to …’ He caught himself in an old habit. The heart of the empire was not known in the west and it took an effort to name his brother’s capital in front of an outsider. ‘To Persepolis. I should be thankful he is not a young man. He will move slowly along the Royal Road.’

  The woman patted Clearchus on the shoulder and indicated by mime that he should lie on his stomach. As Cyrus watched, she poured red wine over her stitching, cleaning the dried blood from her handiwork. She took a square of cloth and pressed it over the black lines, patting the general like a favourite dog. Clearchus smiled at her and Cyrus wondered if they were lovers. He knew the Spartans were open about such things, recognising half a dozen kinds of love. In that way, they were very different from Persians, with all the taboos Cyrus had drawn in with his mother’s milk.

  Clearchus looked once more a general of Sparta as he rose to his feet and tested the range of movement in his arms, finally nodding to Paniea and passing her a gold daric.

  ‘Very good,’ the Spartan said to her.

  She seemed delighted and bowed deeply. Both Cyrus and Clearchus took the opportunity to look at her breasts as they were revealed by the motion.

  When they were alone, Cyrus too came to his feet.

  ‘Tissaphernes is my enemy,’ he said. ‘If I was not certain before, I am now. No matter what he believes I am doing here, even if he suspects nothing of my plan, I think he will still whisper into my brother’s ear that I should be replaced, perhaps by himself, or one of his favourites.’

  ‘Then you have a simple choice to make,’ Clearchus said. ‘You could give up this enterprise and accept a simpler life, in Athens or Crete, say, or somewhere else far
from Persian influence. Or you summon the regiments you have already gathered and go early. If you are right about Tissaphernes, and if you wish to see it through, you will have to push the men hard. Your brother commands vast forces, Cyrus. It is my belief we can beat them, but I would prefer them not to know we are coming. Surprise is worth ten thousand men.’

  Cyrus fell silent for a time in thought. When he looked up, it was with a wild look in his eye. Clearchus hardly had to ask which way he had chosen to jump.

  ‘My father was not the oldest son, have I ever told you?’

  ‘I believe you mentioned it, yes. Three times that I can remember.’

  ‘He was not even the second son. That second son murdered the first – and then my father stepped out of the crowd with a bronze sword in his hand, seeking vengeance. That is all I ask, general. Justice and vengeance. And the throne. I do not think it is too much.’

  ‘Very well, Highness. I will have every archer and falconer we have in rings around Sardis, ready to bring down any message birds Tissaphernes may have left behind for his spies to report. I’ll have every room in the city searched to seek out their cages. And all the while we will bring in the armies we have gathered in your name. Greek and Persian both, from all the cities of Greece, from Lydia and Egypt, they’ll take ship to join you.’

  The general stopped then, a shadow passing over his face.

  ‘What is it?’ Cyrus asked him.

  Clearchus shook his head.

  ‘I believe you when you say they trust you, these men, that they know you of old. I have seen enough of you to be sure you are correct. They will lay down their lives for you because you ask them to – but also because of who you are. You command, in part because you are a prince of Persia, a trusted son of your family.’ He paused and took a deep breath. ‘When you ask such men to stand against the throne itself, some of them will mutiny. Be in no doubt about that. I can work to prepare for that moment. I can salt regiments with officers I trust, who have taken personal oaths to you. I can even spread the story of how your father took the throne from an older brother. But there will come a day when they understand there are no Pisidians, no hill tribes, or at least not that we care about – that the enemy is the rose throne and King Artaxerxes himself, commander of a great host of their own people. We could lose it all before a single arrow is shot, before one sword is drawn. Those are the stakes, Highness. Perhaps you should give a little more thought to retiring to some fine estate to raise horses and sons. As I say it aloud, it does not sound like such a terrible dream. Many men would not think twice about accepting a path that leads them to peace.’

  Cyrus smiled, a little sadly. The white-walled room had seemed cool at first, but with the door closed, it had grown stifling.

  ‘I am not many men, general. I am a prince of the house of Achaemenid. Most importantly, I have judged my treacherous scholar brother as unfit to sit on that throne. I was loyal to him my whole life. No longer. I will bring him down. I am the rightful king. That is my decision.’

  ‘Very well, Highness,’ Clearchus said. ‘Then I shall gather your armies.’

  Tissaphernes sat comfortably in the private office of the richest moneylender in Sardis. Two enormous imperial soldiers flanked him as he tugged the robes at his knee, settling them along a crease.

  The man who faced him was a distant cousin through marriage to the royal house. Tissaphernes had never met Jamshid before, though he believed he knew the type. The man had used his relationship to the throne to build a trading empire that spanned all the way from India to Egypt. Trusted by the crown, Jamshid had amassed a vast fortune, merely from the fees for government contracts. From ships to grain to gold coins themselves, some part of every deal stuck to his fingers. Entering his sixties, it was rare enough for Jamshid even to conduct business on his own behalf. He usually left it to one of six sons and nephews, but news of Tissaphernes’ arrival in the offices had reached him and he’d hurried across the city to accommodate a man who spoke with the king’s tongue.

  The royal seal lay on the table between them, drawing the eye and the light so that it seemed to glow. The symbol was a combination of a mounted nobleman and the eagle of the royal house. If there was any doubt, the presence of Immortal soldiers from Persepolis was proof enough of royal favour. Jamshid could hardly restrain his excitement at the thought of what deal might require his personal presence. He had to wait as his servants brought wine for Tissaphernes and a steaming glass cup for himself, redolent with a fragrance that filled the office.

  Tissaphernes accepted a full goblet of the red wine, then passed it back to be sipped by one of his companions. The merchant pretended not to notice, though he felt the insult as a sting. He knew very well that this was the man who had ordered a Spartan general whipped – the whole city was alive with the news. It seemed the Persian was a wasp, of sorts.

  To cover his discomfort, Jamshid indicated his own, steaming cup.

  ‘Herbs for my digestion, which has been very poor recently. A brick of medicinal leaves came from the Yunnan province of China, along with forty bolts of red silk, fit for the emperor himself.’

  ‘That is very generous, Jamshid,’ Tissaphernes said smoothly. He smiled as the merchant failed to hide his dismay at the slip. ‘His Majesty, King Artaxerxes, will be delighted at such a gift.’

  ‘Of course,’ Jamshid replied. A wasp indeed, to have such a sting! The merchant sipped at his cup and hissed to himself as he discovered it was still too hot. He watched as Tissaphernes drained the wine and had it refilled from the same jug. Both men sat back and smiled, watching each other closely.

  ‘The gossip of the markets is that you will return east tomorrow,’ Jamshid said.

  Tissaphernes inclined his head.

  ‘The wisdom of the market is … rarely wrong.’

  ‘I hoped you would grace my establishment before today, Lord Tissaphernes. May I say it has been a delight dealing with the factors of King Artaxerxes. The accounts are correct to the last coin, the debts and interest are all paid with exact perfection. The world is set aright after the tragedy of his beloved father’s passing, may he reign in heaven for a thousand years.’

  ‘These debts …’ Tissaphernes said, rubbing the fold of flesh under his chin with one finger. ‘I imagine you have issued gold and silver to Prince Cyrus over the past few months? It is hard to find a merchant house or a moneylender who has not.’

  Tissaphernes watched the blood drain from the merchant’s face, along with his sly confidence. Such a man did not need more than a hint to go running for the hills, with all his slaves and money bags around him.

  ‘My lord, if you have news I should hear, I beg you, please, speak clearly,’ Jamshid said, his words tumbling over themselves. ‘F-from my personal wealth, I have handed over ninety thousand daric archers to His Highness, Prince Cyrus. For anyone else, it would have been impossible, but the prince is commander-in-chief of the Persian army. There has never been a limit on his credit. All his papers have been honoured in the past, all of them! Please, have you heard something? You will earn the gratitude of my house and all the moneylenders of Sardis.’

  Tissaphernes leaned back and sipped at his wine.

  ‘The house of Achaemenid honours its historic debts, of course,’ he said. ‘Yet seasons change and come to an end. The careers of men, perhaps even of princes, rise and fall. It is nothing more than nature, as the days lengthen, or the young grow old.’

  He saw the confusion in the face of Jamshid and sighed elaborately.

  ‘If I must be blunt, there are some who believe Prince Cyrus relies too much on Greek mercenaries, at the expense of our own Persian soldiers. The king will no longer pay such riches straight to the coffers of Greek cities. Are they our slaves, our client states? No. Why then should we fill their mouths with gold? My advice to you, Jamshid, indeed to your brothers in trade, is that you should not reach beyond your grasp. There. I have said too much.’

  The merchant blinked at him. Slowly,
Jamshid rose to his feet and bowed over the table, pressing his forehead to the polished wood. Tissaphernes saw he was trembling.

  ‘Thank you, my lord Tissaphernes. You are a friend to this house to have come with such a warning. A thousand thanks.’

  ‘You have been a loyal supporter of the crown, Jamshid,’ Tissaphernes replied, sweeping up the royal seal. ‘In return for your service – and your silence – you may construct a copy of this seal in plaster and raise it over your door. All men will know you have a patron in King Artaxerxes and the blessing of his royal house.’

  Tissaphernes left the man and his staff prostrated, weeping and slapping the floor in delight. He visited one other moneylender in the city, one whom it was said Jamshid would not have warned, as they hated each other. Every other moneylender and merchant would hear the news before the sun set. Tissaphernes only regretted he would not be there to see the first demands for payment, the first wagons of food refusing to leave their yards. Mercenaries had to be paid. It would not be long before Prince Cyrus would be forced to send his Greeks away.

  Tissaphernes chuckled to himself as he was helped to mount, the servant grunting beneath him as he took the weight of a haunch. His solution to the problem of Prince Cyrus had been a master stroke. It signalled disapproval, without open conflict. Once Cyrus learned there would be no more gold flowing from the Persian treasury, he would have to return to his brother’s court to hear his new status. There would be no more arrogant displays and sneering comments from a younger son. Tissaphernes beamed as he sat his mount and watched the imperial guards form up around him. He looked them over carefully. They represented the throne, as he did.

  ‘Take me home,’ he called, shaking his head in pleasure as he imagined recounting the events of his trip to the king. There was more than one way to bring a dog to heel.

  On the evening after Tissaphernes had left, Cyrus entered the jade dining hall in the palace to find a glum group waiting for him. He knew Proxenus well, and General Netus the Stymphalian. Clearchus was there, along with Cyrus’ manservant Parviz, who clutched a leather wrap to his chest and rocked back and forth on his chair. Menon the Thessalian was one of those Cyrus had recruited over the previous months, a man who seemed content to ask few questions. However, Menon had brought a thousand Greek hoplites and, just as welcome, eighty peltast spearmen. With no armour beyond a small shield, the javelin throwers were all young and fit, and lightning-quick on their feet. Cyrus was delighted, knowing a good unit of peltasts could ruin an armed charge.