by Andrew James
Three cedarwood doors lay ahead, edged in gold. The middle one was large and ornately carved. Steadying his breathing, Darius reached out. Almost before he touched it, it flew open. Through swirling incense he saw Pharaoh and a man in the regalia of the Great Chief of the Desert Lands offering bread to the gods: ram-headed Ammon, ibis-headed Thoth, Khonsu, with the disk of the moon on his head, lion-headed Tefnut, spear-wielding Onuris. At the far end of the sanctuary something flashed gold with terrible brightness. Eyes dazzled and head reeling, Darius heard a voice.
‘Born of kings yet not a king. Does it gall you, son of Hystaspes?’
‘Yes,’ he admitted.
‘King of Kings, yet no leader of men. Does Cambyses irk you?’
‘Yes.’
‘He shamed the God’s Wife in Thebes. Ammon has had his revenge, not once but twice. One army fell in the sand. A second has fallen by the Nile, Cambyses’ men eating each other’s flesh. But Ammon’s revenge is not yet complete. Do God’s work, Darius. Kill him!’
From somewhere came the screech of a storm. The moaning wind, the soughing over the dunes, the shrill sound in the desert when Phanes’s army died. With the hairs on the back of his neck standing on end Darius ran back out the door, through both halls and the entrance, out into the open air. It was calm and still. No storm, no shrill moan, just Vinda and Dadarshi standing by the fluted columns in easy conversation.
‘This must be the Oracle Temple,’ Dadarshi suggested blandly, looking up at the stone building.
Vinda took Darius’s shoulder and looked into his eyes. ‘Where did you get to? My dear fellow, what is the matter? You look as though you have just seen a ghost.’
Winter turned to spring. The days were blue-skied, the nights soft. Pomegranate blossoms hung like crimson jewels against impossibly green leaves, dragonflies were flashes of sapphire or ruby darting through the date gardens, the dates were swelling buds on the palms. Whenever she sent a summons, Darius waited till dusk then crept dutifully along the dusty track to Dakrur, slipping into Turquoise’s darkened house where the door was ajar. Each time she devoured him, her hunger unabated. Early the next morning he would rise before the first hint of pearl lightened the dawn. Darius took little pleasure from his visits, thinking only of the day he could leave. When he pressed her about helping she promised him: ‘Before the autumn harvest my father will ride west to raid the Nasamones. He will take many warriors. You must leave when he is gone.’
‘How long will he be away?’
‘Over a month. You will be halfway to the Nile before he returns.’
After one visit, unable to put the strange voice in the temple out of his head, Darius asked her whether people ever heard Ammon speak.
‘Occasionally someone claims to.’
‘Only occasionally? Then how does Ammon deliver his oracles?’
‘He appears to the Prophetess, who writes them down.’
‘That must give her great power?’
‘Of course! People come from across the world to consult her. Particularly from Greece, where they worship Ammon as “Zeus”. The Great Chief envies her, for she is far richer and more powerful than him. That is why the temple is built of stone and the palace largely of mud, and why the temple is full of gold and jewels, and the palace is not.’
‘He never tries to steal her gold?’
Turquoise laughed. ‘He is greedy enough, but the people would turn against him. They revere the Prophetess. Fortunately for him, she rarely interferes in the running of the oasis. Whole seasons pass without anyone even seeing her, but she is always there. People say that from inside the temple she can see everything that happens in the oasis, and far, far beyond.’
‘Do you really believe that?’
‘Of course! She has great powers.’
Had it been this mysterious, powerful and reclusive Prophetess who had commanded Darius to take revenge on Cambyses? If so, did it mean she expected him to return to Persia? The thought gave him comfort as a spell of hot weather brought the first hint of the approaching ferocious summer heat. On Turquoise’s farm, bee-eaters arrived with their gaudy plumage and liquid, ringing calls, long beaks tap-tapping off trees and gateposts. At dusk, the geckos clambered up walls, and spiders as large as his hand ran hunting through the hot nights. The vines were already heavy with early grapes. The olives were still speckled green, and hard. The dates were also green, but swelling fast.
The night was airless and almost moonless. A flaming African sun had just set in a riot of colour. Sweat poured off Darius’s body as he jogged through the trees, breathing hard in the heat. The groves and gardens were quiet apart from the howling of a pack of wild dogs and the rhythmic pounding of his sandals. As he passed each spring, pockets of cool air refreshed him as though running through cool water.
In the dark he smelled manure, which told him he was near the barn. He followed the track towards the house, a black shape silhouetted against a sky swirling with stars. As he stepped into the walled garden a faint, persistent sob reached his ears. He trod softly, and found the door ajar. In a room furnished with low stools and soft cushions, lit by the clear, steady light of an olive-oil lamp, Turquoise was hunched on the floor with her head in her hands. Darius knelt down and lifted her face. Tears glistened on her cheeks.
‘My time as tamza is coming to an end. My father sent a message. He has chosen me a husband. I must re-marry.’
‘Is that so bad?’
‘Yes!’ Her fierceness surprised him. ‘Men here are hypocritical. They keep us locked away in case we should see a man we like, but on my wedding night, after my husband had finished with me he dragged me down from the roof by my hair and offered me to his guests. It is the custom. They stood in a circle and held me down. Anyone with warrior feathers in his hair could have me while the others cheered. The things they did … they were animals.’ She turned her head aside and spat. ‘I cursed them and hoped they would die. When my husband was killed I sacrificed a sheep and a goat to Ammon for answering my prayers. I won’t go through all that again.’
‘Then why not refuse?’
‘I cannot refuse!’ Her voice was bitter. ‘A woman here is nothing on her own. Without a man I cannot even sell the crops from the farm.’
Darius shook his head at the backwardness of the oasis dwellers. ‘In Persia noblewomen own land in their own right. Women buy and sell like men. They can even be employed as stewards and run workshops.’
‘Here we are cattle. You must have seen how we are carried on the backs of carts like baggage, faces and hands covered for fear of being shamed. Men and women live separate lives. We only come together …’ she smiled, grimly, ‘at night. We give them sons as warriors for their raids, and daughters as breeding mares. Other than that we are not important.’
Her tears stopped suddenly. She dropped her chin and widened her eyes. Taking his hand she placed it around her waist. ‘The marriage cannot be until after the autumn harvest. Before then I will gather a caravan for you as I promised, and you can leave. So, you see, you need not worry.’
He squeezed her waist in thanks. She arched her back and pressed against him. Darius felt the urgency in her body as she pulled him to her and kissed him on the mouth. After a moment she broke the kiss and stayed in his arms, smiling up at him. ‘For my help, you must give me something in return.’
He was instantly wary. ‘What?’
‘I have no wish to become some pig of a warrior’s chattel again. You are of royal blood. In your land I would have status. If you want to leave, you must take me with you, as your wife.’
Suddenly everything became clear to Darius. He saw she had planned it all from the start. All the talk of helping him to escape was simply because she needed somewhere to go. With understanding came anger, and the sense of being manipulated made him pull violently away. ‘I am already betrothed,’ he said harshly. ‘I always made that clear.’
She forced her wide mouth into a smile. ‘Can a man not have more than one wife?
’
He shuddered at the thought. Parmys had been raised to expect him to consort with other women, she would be surprised if he didn’t. But she would never forgive him marrying one.
Turquoise leant forward, right hand twisting the heavy silver bracelets on her left wrist. ‘Do you not want me? I am fine as a plaything while you are bored, but you wouldn’t want a desert savage as a wife?’
Remembering how she had forced herself on him the night she came to his bed with the wine, and his own reluctance, his voice was cold. ‘I do not love you. You knew that.’
She grew shrill. ‘Love?’ She pushed back her shoulders, threw back her head and laughed, a harsh, scornful sound. ‘Who cares about love? We had a bargain.’
‘That didn’t include marriage.’
She stepped towards him and flung out her hand. ‘Your precious princess will either have to share you or lose you, because I won’t help you leave for the sake of some spoilt Persian bitch. Without me she would have nothing. Remember that I am the one who nursed you when you were ill …’
‘But not out of kindness.’ Darius’s voice was as brittle as cold bronze. Outraged at her brazenness and her insult to Parmys, he felt angry words forming in his throat. He couldn’t stop them bursting out. ‘Even then you were scheming, weren’t you? From the very first day you knew you would have to remarry and saw me as your escape. You are your father’s daughter through and through, deceitful to the last!’
Startled by the truth, her jaw gaped open, but she couldn’t find words. Hot with hatred, she came at him and lashed out, her nails raking for his eyes. His head flew back, but too late. Feeling their bite on his cheek his arm flashed up, caught her wrist and held it away. Blood dripped onto his shoulder. Fighting to control his temper he put his hands beneath her arms, lifted her up and hauled her aside, before striding to the door.
Turquoise came screaming after him, voice dripping with hatred and contempt. ‘All this time I’ve wasted. If you will not marry me then get out, Darius! Go, and never dare return.’
Jogging home in the dark, Darius was relieved to have escaped from her insincerity. It was only as he neared the palace that he realized his angry outburst had destroyed his last chance of escape.
The summer heat was relentless. When an embassy arrived from nearby Barca the small palace became overcrowded and the Persians were moved to a house in the village of Aghurmi. It had the usual tiny, shuttered windows, low doorway and thick mud walls, and a reed-thatched roof where the camel spiders and scorpions dropped down at night. Inside it was dark, dingy and dusty. But sitting outside, the heat was unbearable and the flies swarmed around them, crawling into mouths, ears, eyes and noses with a persistence which drove Darius to fury.
Months of captivity had frayed their tempers, the relentless grinding heat making them fractious. Just as bad was the isolation, not having the faintest idea what was happening in the Empire. At times it was so intense it drove one of them to the edge of panic. Normally Dadarshi, who missed his family terribly. ‘Two young sons, sir. Twins. Strong lads, they should be learning to fire their first bows now … But I’m not there to teach them.’
One evening, half a month after moving into the house, they sat drinking rough wine beneath a date palm. No sooner had the grey horseflies of the day stopped biting, than the dusky mosquitoes of night took their place. Floating across the oasis came the sound of distant drums. ‘Not off to see your woman?’ Dadarshi asked listlessly, having to raise his voice to be heard over ear-splitting crickets and rasping toads.
Darius told them what had happened.
‘You fool,’ Vinda said angrily, the imperiousness returning. ‘You should have agreed to take her. We could always have left her in the desert or slit her throat.’
Darius gave him a withering look, but Vinda refused to back down. ‘You and your bloody scruples! We’ve tried every peasant in this godforsaken oasis. No one will sell us animals or act as guide. Without her help we’re stuck.’
Darius wanted to get angry. But Vinda was right; he shouldn’t have lost his temper with Turquoise. He threw up his hands. ‘All right. I’ll go back.’
The summer grew hotter and hotter. At noon, the desert shimmered white. By the time the sun set each evening, the walls of the house had soaked up so much heat they were baking hot inside. At night the stored heat escaped, making the rooms stifling. The Ammonians slept on their roofs. Darius tried it and retreated in the face of swarms of vicious mosquitoes.
By midday the oasis was always deserted. The afternoon sun was too fierce to go out, the light too bright, the sand hot enough to scorch feet even through sandals. But at dusk Siwa came alive. The pounding of drums and exuberant shrieks of dancing drifted across the oasis as men gathered on the edge of the desert, squatting around fires to drink and sing.
Midsummer passed. Obsessed with escape and increasingly desperate, four times as night fell Darius jogged over to Dakrur to try to repair the damage with Turquoise. But always there were torches burning and guards outside her house. Each day the figs grew plumper, the pomegranates a deeper rust-red, the shadows a little longer as the sun started tilting back into the southern sky.
Slowly the extreme heat faded. Milder weather brought fresh plagues of flies. In the mornings the cobwebs strung across the camel thorn were silvery with dew. The first purple-black olives were picked and salted, while the oil crop were left on the branches to swell. The dates on the Temple Mount turned golden yellow. Then amber. Darius picked one. It was hard and crunchy. Four days later he saw a single date the colour and translucency of honey. He reached up and took it. The flesh was pulpy, moist and sweet. It was ripe. The other dates on the string remained hard. Ten days later, ripe dates speckled the palms and started dropping to the ground. The zagallah came, young men singing loudly in Siwi as they passed from tree to tree with ladders, knives and sticks, cutting the dates. The harvest festival came. At dusk lambs were slaughtered and roasted over smoky fires, and blood was daubed on doorways. The next morning armed men came, rapping on the door with the hilt of a sword. The prisoners were wanted at the palace.
Trudging through the gates behind their armed escort, Darius saw a large caravan of mules tied up outside the palace. They looked dusty, tired and in poor condition from a long desert crossing. Most had empty waterskins hanging slack from their harnesses, but six had leather pouches strapped to their backs. Darius made a quick calculation and knew at once something was wrong. A mule would be hard-pressed to carry more than two talents on a long journey. Which meant there wasn’t enough gold.
After the revelation about Parmys, Darius had no longer trusted Frada. But whatever his feelings about Parmys, surely Frada wouldn’t leave his friend to die? Or so Darius had told himself repeatedly. Now he wondered if he’d been living these past eight months in false hope.
In the outer courtyard, the Great Chief was conferring with his counsellors. He looked over briefly as the prisoners were herded in, then turned away. At last the counsellors nodded their heads, suggesting agreement had been reached. Sutekh-Irdis turned back to the prisoners, his face unreadable. ‘My messengers have returned.’
Dadarshi and Vinda had the relaxed look of men who knew their families would not let them down. Stifling the doubt and emotion that seethed in his chest, Darius kept his face blank.
The truculent counsellor called out in Siwi and the Great Chief turned back to him. Nonchalantly kicking sand into a pile with his feet, Darius flicked his eyes around the courtyard. It was long and fairly narrow. They had come through the gate on the left that led out onto the citadel. A larger double gateway for horses and carts or chariots also opened onto the citadel, but was closed. Three doorways opened into the palace: one into the main hall, one into a corridor and the last into a large chamber far to the right. Guards with spears stood at each exit, watching the prisoners carefully.
The counsellor’s point having been settled, the Great Chief shuffled towards the prisoners and stood three paces away, fl
anked by two of his sons. ‘Your king Cambyses has refused to pay any ransoms.’ His voice was matter of fact and calm.
Vinda stepped back, shaking his head in disbelief. He didn’t need Cambyses’ gold, but the king’s abandonment of his Friend and Companion brought shock and confusion to his face. ‘He can’t have!’
‘He has. But I have here twelve talents of your gold, Vindafrana.’ Vinda closed his eyes briefly in relief.
The Great Chief turned to Dadarshi. ‘The messenger sent to Armenia failed to return. Your ransom has not been paid.’
Dadarshi screwed up his face and clenched his fists. Biting his lower lip, he looked up at the sky then drew back his lips in a tight grimace.
The Ammonian king faced Darius. ‘Dariyavaush, your so-called friend, Frada, has refused to pay your ransom.’
Darius made an effort not to flinch as the pain cut into him. ‘I don’t believe it,’ he said, although in his heart he did. ‘What did Frada say?’
The Great Chief spoke in Siwi. An old, stooped man with a scar above his eye stepped forward and spoke in broken Greek. ‘The man called Frada was tall, thin like he had been ill. I show him your swords. He give them back. He say, “I have no friend called Darius.” Then he tell me to leave.’
Frada’s denial of their friendship reopened a raw, aching wound, but Darius suppressed his feelings of betrayal. If he ever got away, there would be time later to deal with Frada. First he had to survive. Preparing for the inevitable he cast his eyes around the courtyard as casually as he could manage, judging each guard in turn, noting their alertness and strength. He could feel his heart thumping in his chest.
Vinda gave Darius an apologetic shrug. Darius shook his head. Vinda had tried. It wasn’t his fault Cambyses had refused. Looking both desolate and relieved at the same time, Vinda stepped aside. ‘My ransom is paid. I may leave?’