Creation (32 page)

The old queen wore an elaborate headdress of pearls strung on what looked to be threads of silver artfully intertwined with her own white hair. She wore a mantle of peacock feathers. She looked most distinguished, even intelligent. For a time I thought that she might be the Indian equivalent of Atossa. After all, she was Bimbisara’s chief consort as well as the sister of Pasenadi. But in a court where women are not totally sequestered and where, perhaps more to the point, there are no eunuchs, power is exercised entirely by the king and his councilors. The harem has practically no influence.

To the king’s right was Prince Ajatashatru. The heir to the throne was definitely and admirably—by Indian standards—fat. He had the face of a huge baby, whose three soft chins produced as a crop one fine tuft of pale-green beard. The prince smiled frequently, and sweetly. The lobes of his ears were weighted down with diamond earrings, and the thick waist was cinched in by a wide belt of gold links. He had surprisingly muscular forearms.

King Bimbisara was an old man with a long violet beard. I never saw the hair on his head—if he had any—because I never saw him without the elaborate turban of gold thread that is the equivalent of the Persian cidaris. Bimbisara was tall and sinewy, and one could see that in his day he had been a physically strong, even formidable man.

Since I was the shadow, no matter how dim, of the Great King, I did not prostrate myself. But I dropped to one knee. Meanwhile, my escort was opening the chests that contained Darius’ gifts to Bimbisara. There were a number of mediocre jewels and several exquisite rugs from Lydia and Media.

When I finished my opening speech, I gave Varshakara the letter that the Indian eunuch had written in Darius’ name. With a flourish the chamberlain gave the letter to the king, who did not even look at it. Later I was told that Bimbisara could not read. But he spoke very well indeed, and he used not the old Aryan of the court and the temples, but the modern dialect.

“We welcome you as if you were our brother Darius, whose deeds are known to us, even at this great distance.” Bimbisara’s voice was as harsh as that of any cavalry commander. He spoke to the point. He never hesitated for a word.

“We are happy that he has received our letter. We are happy that he has sent us you, a holy man as well as a warrior.” Actually, if I were Indian, I would not have been of the warrior class. I would have been a Brahman. But I was quite happy to accept Bimbisara’s ennoblement because, almost without exception, Indian rulers are of the warrior class and constantly challenge their nominal superiors, the Brahmans.

“We will show you what you want to see. We will exchange our iron for your gold. We will deal with you as if we were indeed brothers and as if only a river separated us instead of all the world.” There was more in this strain.

Finally the long day ended with a series of religious sacrifices to those Aryan gods who are as well endowed with extra arms and heads as they are with magical powers and arcane duties.

We were then invited to the king’s apartments for a feast, whose first course coincided with the appearance above the palace roof of a full moon, which rested, for one lovely moment, like a golden shield on the steep tile roof.

We dined on a broad verandah that overlooked the king’s private gardens. This was a great honor, Varshakara was quick to point out. “Only the royal family and the hereditary ministers are invited here. The king has indeed accepted your Darius as a younger brother.”

I was a diplomat. I did not mention the fact that many of Darius’ twenty satrapies are richer and larger than Magadha. On the other hand, none has as much iron or as many elephants. I confess that I saw myself as satrap of the sixteen Indian kingdoms—and the nine republics, too! Why not? I wondered what to call my satrapy. Greater India? The Gangetic States? I dreamed of empire, as everyone does in youth. I also realized that the man who makes a single empire of all those states will be a rival to the Great King. As a result of my embassy, it is now Persia’s permanent policy to make certain that no Indian state becomes so large that it will absorb the others. After all, as Darius and Xerxes dreamed of conquests in the east, there is no reason why India might not one day produce an emperor who will look enviously to the west.

At the time of my embassy, not only was Bimbisara the most powerful king in all India but he had come very close to being the local lord of all the lands. Through his wife he had obtained a considerable portion of the Koshalan state of Kasi. Since Varanasi is the capital of Kasi, he had hoped that the horse sacrifice would give him an excuse to annex that ancient city. Now he would need a new pretext.

I lay on a divan opposite that of the king. Once again, Bimbisara was flanked by queen and heir. A number of court ladies dined alongside the men. Worse, they let fall their upper garments in what seemed the most casual way. Later I learned that the art of public undress is even more elaborate in India than that of dress itself. Many ladies had rouged their nipples. Some even had complex designs on their bellies. At first I thought that these were tattoos. But they proved to be made of colored sandalwood paste. I have never been so shocked.

Another oddity: we were served our dinner by women. Naturally, it is strange for a Persian not to see any eunuchs, but I had not realized how much I had always taken them for granted until I got to India.

I was given a dozen different kinds of wine and of fruit juices. Fish and game and vegetables appeared at regular intervals for what seemed eternity. In the garden, a half-dozen musicians sat in the light of the full moon and played or improvised a number of odd droning melodies, marked by the irregular beating of a drum. Like Greek music, Indian music takes getting used to. The principal instrument is something like the Lydian harp but with ten strings. Flutes are also popular, and cymbals.

The royal figures hardly spoke during dinner. Occasionally father and son would exchange a few words. The queen was entirely silent. Since she ate a very great deal but was not fat, I assumed that she had a wasting disease, which proved to be the case. Caraka had noticed the same thing when he first saw her. “She’ll be dead before the next monsoon,” he said with all the confidence of a physician who is not going to be held responsible for the sick person’s health. Actually, the queen lasted two more years.

A very pretty woman had been placed beside me. She wore a headdress that must have been four feet high, a fantastic arrangement of jewels and hair. Some of the hair was hers, some not. She removed her shawl, and I saw that each breast was circled by a sandalwood-paste wreath of vermilion flowers—exquisitely drawn, I could not help noting. She was the wife of the minister of war and peace. She was discreetly flirtatious, no doubt acting under orders.

“I am told that in your country the ladies are kept locked up and never seen.”

“Except by their husbands—and their eunuchs.”

“Their what?”

I explained to her what a eunuch was. It is disconcerting to watch a strange woman who is naked from forehead to navel blush.

The lady was equally disconcerted. “I am not sure that
that
is a subject,” she said, and primly changed it. “We may dine with men of our own class. Naturally, the women of any household have their own quarters and there is a certain degree of seclusion, which is normal. In the old days, of course, young men and women were allowed to see as much of one another as they pleased. The girls even fought in battles. As recently as my grandmother’s time, ladies were taught poetry and dancing and music. But now only low-class women who cater for the tastes of men are allowed to practice the sixty-four arts, which is terribly unfair, but you know the Brahmans ...”

“They prescribe?”

“Prescribe and proscribe. They won’t be happy until every last one of us is locked up like a Jaina nun.”

It is odd—and charming—to talk to an intelligent woman who is not a prostitute. Although the Indian courts are filled with such ladies, I have known only three ladies—outside India—who were truly intelligent: Elpinice, Queen Atossa and Lais. The fact that I knew the last two at all was entirely an accident. Had I been a properly brought up Persian nobleman, I would never have seen either one of them after the age of seven.

“Is there no problem with ...” I wanted to speak of illegitimacy, the main reason for the sequestration of women. A man’s son
must
be his. If there is any doubt, properties, not to mention kingdoms, are at hazard. I searched through my rather small store of Indian words and came up with “... jealousy? I mean, ladies of the court dining like this?”

She laughed. She was a jolly young woman. “Oh, we know each other too well. Besides, we are well guarded. If a strange man were to be found in the women’s quarters of any great house, much less the palace, he would promptly be impaled on a stake, as well he should be. Naturally, the common people
never
see us, and that includes the Brahmans,” she added firmly. “We absolutely despise them.”

“They are most learned,” I said neutrally. I realized that I was not making much of an impression on her despite my exotic Persian costume. I was also sweating heavily. Before the hot season ended, the Persian ambassador wore Indian clothes.

“Are you married?” she asked.

“No.”

“Is it true that you westerners have many wives?”

I nodded. “Just as you do.”

“But we don’t. Not really. The king is obliged to marry often, for political reasons. But our class seldom marries more than once.”

“Then who are the women in your harems?”

“Servants, slaves, concubines. For us the ideal relationship between a man and a woman is that of Rama and Sita.” She named the hero and heroine of their holy book. Rama is a hero somewhat on the order of Homer’s Odysseus, except that Rama is always honest in his dealings with others. But like Odysseus and Penelope, Rama and Sita are essentially monogamous, and that is why, by and large, a man of the Indian ruling class seldom has more than one wife at a time.

After a splendid course of young peacock, adorned with its own tail feathers, King Bimbisara motioned for me to walk with him in the garden.

As we stepped off the verandah, servants removed the tables, and the dinner guests mingled with one another. There was a good deal of breaking of dishes, a sound I was to grow accustomed to in India, where the servants are as clumsy and incompetent as they are agreeable and intelligent.

The palace garden was full of color, even by moonlight. The scent of jasmine filled the warm air. Night birds sang in the tall trees. The palace resembled a silver mountain that had been carefully squared off. The sealed windows added to the impression.

Bimbisara took me by the arm and led me down a path that the moon had turned to purest silver.

“It is good that you are here.”

“I am honored ...”

The old man heard but did not listen: a habit of royalty. “I am most eager to learn more of Darius. How many soldiers does he have?”

I was not prepared for the swiftness of the obvious question. “In thirty days, Lord, he can assemble an army of one million men.” This was more or less true. I did not add that most of the million would be useless village louts. In those days, the Great King’s army was less than one hundred thousand highly trained men.

Obviously Bimbisara divided my figure in his head by the customary ten. “How many elephants does he have?”

“None, Lord. But his Lydian cavalry—”

“No elephants? I must send him a few. I have one thousand.”

I divided by ten in my head.

“Atop each elephant,” said the king, “I place six archers in a metal tower. They are so protected that no one can kill them. They are able to destroy any army.”

“But surely the elephants themselves can be killed?”

“They, too, wear armor. They are invincible.” Bimbisara was warning Darius through me.

At the center of the garden was a small pavilion, containing a large divan on which Bimbisara reclined while I perched on the divan’s edge. Through latticed windows, the moonlight was bright—warm, too, I noticed. India is the only country where the full moon gives off heat. Fortunately, there is always a breeze at night in the hills of Rajagriha.

“I come here often.” Bimbisara combed out his scented violet beard with the fingers of both hands. “We cannot be overheard. See?” He indicated the four arched windows that were the pavilion’s walls. “No one can approach without my seeing him.”

“Surely no one spies on the king.”

“
Everyone
spies on the king!” Bimbisara smiled. In the moonlight he looked to be made of silver. “While the king spies on everyone. There is nothing in Magadha or Koshala that I do not know.”

“And Persia?”

“
You
will be my eyes and ears.” He gestured politely. “I am curious about a king who can put one hundred thousand men into the field at such short notice.” Thus he proved that he had indeed divided by ten. I did not correct him. I started to tell him about all the lands that Darius governed, but Bimbisara stopped me with “My grandfather sent a message to Cyrus, very like the one that I sent Darius. But there was no answer.”

“Perhaps the embassy did not arrive.”

“Perhaps. But a generation later Darius’ army was on the Indus River. Could that have been a ... belated answer, Lord Ambassador?”

“Oh, no!” I spoke of Darius’ love of peace. Admiration for Bimbisara. Troubles with the Greeks. That much was true. As I babbled, the old man sat motionless in the moonlight, a half-smile on the half-face that he turned to me.

The musicians continued to play nearby. Through one window I could see the verandah where we had dined. A company of nude girls was dancing. Eventually, I became a devotee of Indian dancing, which is like no other on earth. For one thing, the dancer’s head moves back and forth upon the neck in a fashion that one would swear was not possible. Meanwhile, the body appears to be quite separate from the head, and the undulations of the hips and belly are marvelously enticing. Many dancers become rich, famous, powerful. In fact, one Magadhan dancer was able to make and keep and administer a considerable fortune without the inconvenience of being anyone’s wife or concubine. Receptions to her house were as much sought after as an invitation to the house of Democritus’ friend, the prostitute Aspasia.