Creation (22 page)

I found Atossa unchanged. But then, how can a white enamel mask change? She was attended by a deaf-mute, always a good sign. We would be able to talk freely.

I was allowed the privilege of the footstool.

Atossa came straight to the point. “I suspect Gobryas of magic. I think Darius has been bewitched. I do what I can, of course. But I cannot undo spells that I have no knowledge of. So I appeal now to the Wise Lord.”

“To me?”

“Yes, you. You’re supposed to be in communication with the one and only god—other than all the other gods of earth and sky. Well, I want you to invoke the Wise Lord. Xerxes must be Great King.”

“I shall do what I can.”

“That won’t be good enough. I want you in authority. I want you to become the chief Zoroastrian. That’s why you’re here. Yes.
I’m
the one who ordered you home to Susa. In the name of the Great King, of course.”

“I didn’t know.”

“You weren’t supposed to know. I have told no one. Not even Lais—who did give me the idea, I’ll admit. She’s talked of nothing else since I’ve known her. Anyway, I’ve instructed the Magians—yours as well as mine. I mean ours. If you say the word, your uncle will step aside. They’re all afraid of you and it. is even possible that they might be just a bit afraid of me.” Atossa’s lips had been painted a somewhat gaudy coral pink. Briefly, a smile cracked the white enamel.

“And I’m afraid of the Great King.”

“Darius likes you. He would have no objection if you became chief Zoroastrian. We’ve already discussed it. Besides, it is not as if he were losing a great general.” Atossa’s cruelty was never entirely leashed.

“I do my duty ...”

“And your duty is here at the court. As chief Zoroastrian you will have the Great King’s ear. Since he pretends to follow Zoroaster, he will have to listen to you. That means you’ll be in a position to influence him against the enemy.”

“Gobryas.”

“And Gobryas’ grandson Artobazanes and Gobryas’ son Mardonius, the whole lot of them. Darius is bewitched and we must exorcise whatever demon controls him.” Atossa clenched and unclenched her hands. I noted that the statue of Anahita was heavily burdened with chains and odd devices. Plainly, the queen was laying vigorous siege to heaven. Now the Wise Lord himself was to be importuned.

I did not dare say no. If Atossa was a dangerous friend, she was a lethal enemy. I told her that I would go to my uncle. “I’m not sure what he’ll say. He likes being chief ...”

Atossa clapped her hands. A door opened and there was the chief Zoroastrian. He looked terrified, as well he ought. He bowed low to the queen, who stood, out of respect for the Wise Lord.

My uncle then began to chant one of Zoroaster’s most famous hymns: “ ‘To what land shall I flee? Where bend my steps? I am thrust out from family and tribe ...’ ”

Thus Zoroaster addressed the Wise Lord at the beginning of his mission. I allowed my uncle to continue well into the text despite the restlessness of Atossa, who preferred unequivocal statements from gods to questions from prophets.

Then I broke in with the exultant promise, the supreme coda, the words of the prophet himself: “ ‘Whoever is true to me, to him I promise through good mind, that which I myself do most desire. But oppression to him who seeks to oppress us. O Wise One, I strive to satisfy your wish through righteousness. Thus the decision of my will and of my mind.’ ”

I cannot think that my uncle took any of this very well. He was the prophet’s son. I was the grandson. He came first; I came second. But only two men that ever walked this earth have heard the voice of the Wise Lord. The first was murdered at the altar in Bactra. I am the second. Will there ever be a third?

When I had completed the hymn, Atossa turned to my uncle. “You know what is expected of you?”

The chief Zoroastrian was nervous. “Yes. Yes. I go home to Bactra. I shall take charge of the fire altar there. I’ll also be busy at work transcribing the true words of my father. On cowhide. The best cowhide. That’s after the cow has been killed during a proper sacrifice, where the haoma is drunk
exactly
as Zoroaster told us it should be drunk, not a drop more, in that sunless place ...”

“Good!” Atossa’s voice arrested my uncle’s tendency to babble. She told him that I was to be installed immediately. “Whatever ceremonies are necessary will take place at the fire altar here in Susa.” Then the chief Zoroastrian was dismissed.

“We shall ... surround the Great King,” said Atossa.

But since the walls in Atossa’s apartment always had listening ears, it was Darius who surrounded
us
.
The day before I was to be invested as chief of the order, I was commanded to wait upon the Great King.

I was terrified. One always is. Was I about to be executed, maimed, imprisoned? Or hung about with golden chains of honor? The Achaemenid court has never been a place without surprises, usually unpleasant.

I put on priest’s robes. That was Lais’ idea. “Darius must respect Zoroaster, and his heir.” But Lais was nervous, too.

Silently she cursed Atossa. But I could read her lips. “She is senile, arrogant, dangerous.” Although the old queen was by no means senile, she had been careless. Our conversation had been reported to the Great King.

THE GREAT KING RECEIVED ME IN THE ROOM where he worked. This chamber is still kept the way it was when he was alive. The room is square, with a high ceiling. The only furniture is a table of solid porphyry and, somewhat incongruously, a high wooden stool where Darius liked to perch when he was not walking about, dictating to the secretaries who squatted cross-legged beside the table. When he was not dictating, the clerks would read him reports from satraps, king’s eyes, councilors of state, ambassadors. Those documents that only Darius himself could read were written in a special language with a simplified syntax. All in all, much art went into writing for his eyes. But as I have said, he was more at home with figures. He could add, subtract and even divide in his head without, noticeably, using his fingers.

I was announced by the chief chamberlain, a relic of Cyrus’ time. As I did obeisance to the Great King the two secretaries slithered past me, quick as serpents. I was to be given something unique, a private audience. My heart beat so loudly in my ears that I barely heard Darius’ command, “On your feet, Cyrus Spitama.”

With a sense that I was fainting, I straightened up. Although my eyes were respectfully averted, I did note that Darius had aged considerably in the years that I had spent at Sardis. Since he had not bothered to have the hair of his head properly dressed that day, gray curls escaped from under the blue-and-white fillet that he wore, the only ensign of his rank. The gray beard was a tangle.

Darius stared at me a long moment. Inadvertently my right leg began to jerk. I hoped that my priestly robes disguised the outward sign of a most real inner terror.

“You served us well enough at Sardis.” Darius was curt. Was this near-compliment preface to an ominous but?

“I serve in all ways the Great King, whose light—”

“Yes. Yes.” Darius stopped my ceremonial response. He shoved to one side a pile of papyrus scrolls from the satrapy of Egypt. I recognized the hieroglyphs. Then Darius rummaged through a second pile of documents until he had found a rectangle of red silk on which a message had been painted in gold leaf, a luxurious if impractical form of letter writing.

I could not tell what the language was. Certainly it was neither Persian nor Greek. Darius enlightened me. “This comes from India. It is from the king of some country I’ve never heard of. He wants to trade with us. I have always wanted to go back to India. That’s where our future is. In the east. I have always said so. Certainly there is nothing in the west worth having.” Then, in the same tone of voice, he said, “You are not to be chief Zoroastrian. I have decided.”

“Yes, lord of all the lands.”

“I suspect that you will be relieved.” Darius smiled, and suddenly I was almost at ease.

“It has ever been my wish to serve only the Great King.”

“The two are not the same?”

“The two cannot help but coincide, Lord.” Apparently this was not to be the day of my execution.

“Hystaspes would have disagreed with you.” Then, to my surprise, Darius laughed like a highland warrior. In private, he never resorted to the refined cough of the court. “My father thought well of you. He wanted you to be chief Zoroastrian, as does, of course, the queen.”

I grew tense again. Darius knew every word that had passed between Atossa and me. Idly the Great King picked at the gold letters on the red silk square. “But I have decided otherwise. You lack the vocation. That has always been as clear to me as it has been to the Wise Lord, who is the first of all the gods.” Darius paused, as if expecting me to denounce him for blasphemy.

“I know, Lord, what has always been clear to you.” This was the best I could do.

“You are tactful, which is good—unlike your grandfather. Cyrus would have cut oft Zoroaster’s head if he had ever spoken to him the way he used to speak to me. But I am ... indulgent.” Darius’ warrior fingers played with the illuminated scrap of red silk. “In religious matters,” he added. “In other matters ...” He stopped. I could see that he was trying to make up his mind just how candid he could be with me.

I think that, finally, Darius was as straightforward with me as he could be with anyone. After all, the secret of complete power is complete secrecy. The monarch must be the sole knower of all things. He can share bits and pieces of knowledge with this one or that. But the entire terrain must be visible only to him. He alone is the golden eagle.

“I am not happy with the Greek war. Histiaeus thinks he can put a stop to it but I doubt if he can. I can see now that the war won’t end until I’ve destroyed Athens and that will take a lot of time and a lot of money, and at the end I will have added nothing at all to the empire but some stony bits of the western continent where nothing grows except those filthy olives.” Darius had the true Persian’s dislike of the olive. Our western world is split between those who are nourished solely by the olive and those who have access to a variety of civilized oils.

“I had hoped that in my last years I would be able to move toward the east, where the sun rises. The symbol of the Wise Lord,” he added, smiling at me. If Darius believed in anything other than his own destiny, I should have been surprised. “Well, the Greek wars won’t take us more than a year or two and I believe that I am good for a year or two ...”

“May the Great King live forever!” I gave the traditional cry.

“My sentiment.” Darius was not at all ceremonious in private. In fact, I got the sense with him on those occasions when only the two of us were together that we were rather like a pair of moneychangers or caravan merchants trying to figure out ways of fleecing the customers in the marketplace.

“You can do mathematics?”

“Yes, Lord.”

“Are you able to learn languages quickly?”

“I think so, Lord. I’ve learned some Lydian and—”

“Forget Lydian. Cyrus Spitama, I need money. I need a great deal of money—”

“—for the Greek wars.” I had done the unforgivable. Although I had not asked a direct question, I had interrupted him.

But Darius seemed more pleased than not to have a proper conversation with me. “For the Greek wars. For the work that I am doing at Persepolis. For the defense of the northern frontier. Of course, I could increase the tributes paid me by my loyal slaves, but with the Ionian cities in revolt and Caria confused and a new pretender in Babylon, this is not a good time to increase taxes. Yet I must have money.” Darius stopped.

In a sense, I must have guessed all along why I had been summoned. “You want me to go to India, Lord.”

“Yes.”

“You want me to make trade alliances.”

“Yes.”

“You want me to analyze the nature of the Indian states.”

“Yes.”

“You would like to add all India to the Persian empire.”

“Yes.”

“Lord, I can think of no greater mission.”

“Good.” Darius picked up the red message. “These people want to trade with Persia.”

“What have they to offer, Lord?”

“Iron.” Darius gave me a great, mischievous smile. “I am told that this particular country is
made
of iron. But then, all India is full of iron, from what I hear, and whoever gets control of those mines can make his fortune!” Darius was like a young merchant contemplating a commercial coup.

“You want me to negotiate a treaty?”

“A thousand treaties! I shall want a full report on the finances of each of the countries you visit. I shall want to know the state of the roads, the methods of taxation, and whether or not they use coinage or barter. Study how they supply and transport their armies. Find out what their crops are and how many harvests a year they get. Give particular attention to their gods. It has been my policy always to support those religions that are truly popular. Once you pretend to honor the local deity, the priesthood is immediately on your side. Once you have the priests, you don’t Heed much of a garrison to keep order. This is vital to us. We Persians are few, and the world is vast. Like Cyrus and Cambyses, I govern the non-Persians through their priests. Now this is where
you
can be most useful to me.” Darius became conspiratorial; he even lowered his voice. “I have heard reports that Zoroaster is highly regarded by certain Indians. So you will be not only my ambassador but a priest.”

“As a priest, I shall be obliged to proclaim the uniqueness of the Wise Lord. I shall be obliged to attack the devils that the Indians worship.”

“You will do no such thing.” Darius was very hard. “You will be agreeable to
all
the priests. You will find points of similarity between their gods and ours. You are not to challenge them. One day I shall have to govern India. I shall need the priests. Therefore, you must ... enchant them.” That was an Atossa word.

I bowed low. “I shall obey you in all things, Lord.”

With a loud noise Darius dropped his heavily ringed hand on the tabletop. The palace chamberlain promptly appeared in the doorway. He was accompanied by two men. One was an Indian eunuch; the other was the mariner Scylax, whom I had met at Halicarnassus. The Great King treated Scylax almost as an equal, and ignored the eunuch, who was shaking with fright.