Creation (56 page)

Xerxes had made an office for himself in what is known as Darius’ annex, even though it was built entirely by Xerxes when he was crown prince. Callias tells me that this graceful building is currently being copied by Phidias. I wish him luck. The annex was the first building in the world to have a portico on each of its four sides. Democritus doubts that this is true. I would have doubts, too, if I spent my days with philosophers.

Shortly after the visit to Cyrus’ tomb, Xerxes sent for me officially. Aspamitres met me in the vestibule of the annex. As always, he was eager to please. In fact, thanks to Aspamitres, the indolence and bad manners of Darius’ chancellery clerks had been transformed overnight. The clerks were now helpful and eager and they remained helpful and eager for almost a year, when they became—yes, indolent and bad-mannered. But that is the nature of chancellery clerks, not to mention eunuchs.

I was led past worktables that had been arranged in rows between bright-colored columns made of plaster-covered wood, much the cheapest way to build columns; also, plaster is more easily decorated than stone. I am told that Phidias intends to make all his columns from pure marble. If he is indulged in this folly, I predict an empty treasury for the Athenians. Even today, the granite columns in the main buildings at Persepolis have not been entirely paid for.

Charcoal-burning braziers made Xerxes’ room comfortably warm; incense from a pair of bronze tripods made it uncomfortably smoky. But then, incense always gives me a headache, doubtless because I associate it with devil-worship. Zoroaster inveighed against the use of sandalwood and frankincense on the ground that these perfumes are sacred to devils. Although our Great Kings profess to believe in the unique Wise Lord, they allow others to treat them like gods on earth. I find this paradox unpleasant. But it is easier to change the sun’s course than to alter the protocol of the Persian court.

Xerxes sat at a small table in the windowless chamber. For an instant, in the lamplight, he looked to my somewhat awed eye like Darius. I fell forward. In a high voice Aspamitres recited my names and titles. Then, quickly, he slithered from the presence.

“Get up, Cyrus Spitama!” The voice was that of the old Xerxes. I stood and stared at the floor, as is the custom.

“The king’s friend may look at his friend. At least when we’re alone.” So I looked at him and he looked at me. He smiled and I smiled. But nothing was the way it was, nor would it be, ever again. He was king of kings.

Xerxes came straight to the point. “I must compose my autobiography before I go to Egypt, which means I haven’t got much time. I want you to help me write the text.”

“What does the king of kings want the world to know?”

Xerxes pushed toward me a tattered sheaf of papyrus, covered with Elamite writing. “This was the only copy of Cyrus’ autobiography that we could find in the house of books. You can see it’s almost worn out. Apparently he never got around to rewriting it. The text hasn’t been changed since the year I was born. I’m mentioned, by the way. Anyway, we’ll have to work from this as best we can.”

I looked at the Elamite text. “The language is very old-fashioned,” I said.

“So much the better,” said Xerxes. “I want to sound exactly like Darius who sounded like Cambyses who sounded like Cyrus who imitated the Median kings and so on back to the beginning, whenever and wherever that was.” I remember thinking that although Darius had invariably talked about the pseudo-Mardos as a predecessor, Xerxes never mentioned him.

The Great King and I worked for three days and three nights to compose his official autobiography. When we were finished, copies were sent to every city of the empire as a tangible expression of the sovereign’s will and character. In the first person, Xerxes described his ancestry, his accomplishments and his intentions. This last part is particularly important because the Great King’s personal testament can be used in any court of law as a supplement to the official law code.

We Worked like this. Xerxes would tell me what he wanted to say. I would then make notes for myself. When I was ready to dictate, the secretaries were summoned. While I declaimed in Persian, my words were translated simultaneously into Elamite, Akkadian and Aramaic, the three written languages of the chancellery. In those days, Persian was seldom written down. I must say that I always marveled at the speed with which the chancellery secretaries are able to render Persian sentences into other languages. Later, translations would be made for the Greeks, Egyptians, Indians, and so on.

When the entire work had been recorded, it was then read back to Xerxes in each of the three chancellery languages. He listened carefully. Then he would make changes and clarifications. Ultimately, the most important task of a Great King is to listen to each word of a chancellery text. At the beginning of Xerxes’ reign, not a word went out in his name that he had not carefully examined to make sure that it was indeed true shadow to his meaning. At the end, he no longer listened to anything but music and harem gossip.

On the night of the third day the final texts were read to Xerxes, who personally affixed his seal to each version. All in all, I think that our work was superior to Darius’ vainglorious and inaccurate account of his usurpation.

After Aspamitres and the secretaries withdrew, Xerxes clapped his hands. The cupbearer materialized like a swift ghost or mirage. He poured the wine; drank from Xerxes’ cup; left as swiftly as he had appeared. Xerxes was always amused by the cupbearer’s ritual. “Everyone thinks that if the wine’s poisoned, the taster will drop dead immediately. But suppose the poison’s effect is slow? It could take the two of us months to die.”

“Isn’t the ritual supposed to discourage the cupbearer from poisoning the sovereign?”

“Yes, assuming he has no antidote. But a clever assassin could kill us both so slowly that no one
would know.” Xerxes smiled. “Look at the way Lais kills people with those Thracian mixtures of hers.”

I am always embarrassed by any reference to Lais’ reputation as a witch and murderer. Actually, I cannot think of anyone that she herself ever killed. But I do know that she used to make up all sorts of potions for Atossa, and it is hardly a secret that any harem lady who displeased the old queen was bound, sooner or later, to suffer from some mysterious and satisfyingly terminal illness.

“It is strange to be here.” Xerxes was unexpectedly melancholy. “I never believed that it would happen.”

“But it was quite clear that Darius was dying.”

“Of course. But I never believed he ...” Xerxes twirled the red-and-black cup back and forth in his hands like a Samian potter. “I am too old.”

I stared at him, amazed and speechless.

Xerxes removed the heavy golden collar from around his neck and let it fall onto the cedar tabletop. Idly he scratched himself. “Yes, I’m too old to ...” Again he paused. He seemed to be speaking not to me but to himself. “I have had no victories. No real ones, that is.” He tapped his copy of our handiwork. “I have put down rebellions. But I’ve not added so much as a handful of earth or a cupful of water to my father’s realm. All I have done is build.”

“You are the greatest builder that ever lived!” I did not exaggerate. I believe that Xerxes is—was—no,
is
the most splendid creator of cities and buildings that ever lived, and I include those provincial savages who assembled Egypt’s profoundly dull pyramids and pylons so many ages ago.

“Is that of any real account?” Xerxes was wistful. I had never seen him in so defeated a mood. It was as if the gift of all the lands had given him not joy but pain, and apprehension. “I think that my life was entirely wasted. All I’ve ever done is wait and wait, and now I am thirty-five ...”

“Hardly old! Look at Mardonius.”

“I have looked.” Xerxes smiled. “He staggers about like an old man. No, this”—with a swift gesture Xerxes drew in the air the crown—“should have come ten years ago, when I was the same age as Darius when he killed the Great King.”

“Great King?” I stared at Xerxes. “You mean the usurper Gaumata?”

“I mean the Great King.” Xerxes finished the cup of wine and dried his lips with the back of an embroidered sleeve. “You don’t know?”

I shook my head.

“I thought you did. I know that Atossa told Lais. Obviously, your mother is more discreet than mine. Anyway, it’s time that you knew the high bloody secret of our family.”

The prince who confides a secret often passes, simultaneously, a sentence of death upon the hearer. I suddenly felt very cold. I did not want to hear what I heard. But I could not stop him. He was eager that I should know what only a handful of people at that time knew.

“Darius was never the Achaemenid. He was distantly related to the family. But so is every Persian clan leader. When Cambyses left for Egypt, he made his brother Mardos regent. It was agreed that should anything happen to Cambyses, Mardos would become Great King. In Egypt, Cambyses was poisoned. I don’t know by whom. Cambyses himself thought that the local priests were responsible. Anyway, the poison worked slowly. He suffered terribly. Much of the time he was deranged. But whenever he was himself, he was perfectly lucid.” Xerxes paused; idly he rubbed the edge of the gold collar with his thumb. “Despite what we have all been taught, Cambyses was quite as great a sovereign as his father, Cyrus.”

I listened, hardly able to breathe.

“When word came up to Susa that Cambyses was ill, Mardos made himself Great King. When Cambyses heard the news, he promptly denounced his brother Mardos and started for home. En route, Cambyses was again poisoned, this time by someone close to him. If you remember, he is supposed to have cut himself with his own sword. I think that part of the official story is true. But the sword had been rubbed with a fatal poison, and Cambyses died. Mardos was now the legitimate Great King. He had no rival. He was popular.

“But then rumors began to circulate. It was said that Mardos was not really Mardos. It was said that Mardos had been murdered by a pair of Magian brothers and that one of them, Gaumata, was impersonating the dead man. As all the world knows. Darius and The Six killed the pseudo-Mardos, and Darius made himself Great King. Then Darius married Atossa, daughter of Cyrus, sister and wife of Cambyses, sister and wife of the so-called pseudo-Mardos. As a result, Darius made his son, me, the legitimate Achaemenid.”

Xerxes clapped hands. The cupbearer appeared. If he had overheard, he made no sign. But then, he would not have dared.

When the cupbearer was gone, I asked the obvious question. “Who did Darius kill?”

“My father killed the Great King Mardos, the brother of Cambyses, the son of Cyrus.”

“But, surely, Darius
thought
that he was killing the Magian Gaumata, the pseudo-Mardos ...”

Xerxes shook his head. “There was no Magian. There was only the Great King, and Darius killed him.”

In silence, we drank our wine.

“Who,” I asked, knowing the answer, “was the man who poisoned the sword of Cambyses?”

“The Great King’s spearbearer.” Xerxes spoke with no particular emotion. “Darius, son of Hystaspes.” Xerxes sat back from the table. “Now you know.”

“I did not want to know, Lord.”

“But now you do.” Again, I was struck by Xerxes’ sadness. “Now you know that I am who I am because my father killed both my uncles.”

“How else are thrones gained, Lord?” I gabbled. “After all, Cyrus killed
his
father-in-law and ...”

“That was war. This was—unholy. Treacherously and with no motive other than to rise, a Persian clansman struck down the chieftains of his own clan.” Xerxes smiled, lips shut. “I thought of my father when you told me about those two Indian kings who were killed by their sons. I thought, Well, we are no different. We are Aryans too. But we know, as those Indians must know, that whoever breaks our most sacred law is cursed, and so are his descendants.”

Xerxes firmly believed that he would be punished by fate for what his father had done. I disagreed with him. I told him that if he were to follow the Truth, it would make no difference to the Wise Lord that his father had followed the Lie. But Xerxes was haunted by all those devils and dark powers that my grandfather had tried to banish from this world. Xerxes believed that whatever the father had not been obliged to pay for in blood, the son would be forced to pay. Sooner or later, Xerxes believed, the old gods would avenge the murder of two Great Kings; and only holy blood can wash out the stains left by holy blood.

“Did Hystaspes know?” I asked.

“Oh, yes. He knew. He was horrified. He hoped that by devoting himself to Zoroaster he could expiate the crime of Darius. But that’s not possible, is it?”

“No,” I said. “Only Darius could have done that, with the Wise Lord’s help.” I was too stunned to be reassuring.

“I thought not.” Xerxes turned his cup upside down on the table. He was finished with the wine, and he was sober.

“Well, there is blood upon my throne. Atossa thinks that that is normal. But she is half-Mede, and they are not like us in these matters.”

“When did you learn all this?”

“As a child. In the harem. The old eunuchs used to whisper. I would listen. Finally I asked Atossa. At first, she lied. But I was persistent. ‘If I don’t know the truth,’ I said, ‘how will I know when to seize the awesome royal glory for myself?’ Then she told me. She is a ferocious woman. But I don’t need to tell you that. She saved your life. She saved my life, too, and she put me here.”

“How did she manage to save
her
life?” I asked.

“With cunning,” said Xerxes. “When Darius killed Mardos, he sent for Atossa. He intended to put her to death because she alone knew for absolute certain that the man he had murdered was indeed her husband and brother, the true Mardos.”

“Didn’t the rest of the harem know?”

“How could they? While Cambyses was alive, his brother Mardos was regent and the regent is not expected to make himself at home in his brother’s harem. But when it was known that Cambyses was finally dead, Mardos quickly married Atossa, to her delight. He was her favorite brother. A year later, when Darius came up to Susa, he spread the rumor that Mardos was not Mardos but a Magian impersonator. Then Darius killed the so-called impersonator. Now there was only one person left on earth who knew the truth. Atossa.”