The Last King of Lydia (23 page)

‘What did Harpagus say to that?’

‘He swore in some language I didn’t understand. Then he walked away. I don’t think I have ever seen him so angry.’

‘All the servants are scared of him. They say Death took him over a long time ago. When you look into his eyes, you see Death looking back at you. Not a man.’

‘He scares me too. Sometimes I see him watching me at court. I asked Isocrates if I should be concerned, but he said there was no danger there.’ This was, in fact, only a partial
truth. Isocrates had told him not to be concerned, but there had been a doubt in his voice. When Croesus pressed him, he had said nothing more.

‘I feel ashamed at what I have done to my home,’ Croesus continued. ‘But they will survive as free people. That is something.’

‘Why be ashamed?’ She smiled archly. ‘I think it will be an improvement. The world would be a better place if it were filled with soft men.’

‘That’s not the world we live in.’

‘So men like you always say. Are you to be rewarded for your work?’

‘I am. I can’t stay long. Cyrus has invited me to his private quarters tonight.’

‘Such an honour!’ she said. ‘You have done well. I don’t recall that Isocrates ever received such an invitation from you.’

Croesus shook his head. ‘That is more a reflection of my ingratitude than his lack of service.’

She laughed, and they fell together into a comfortable silence. He found that this love of silent company was shared by both Isocrates and Maia, and he wondered if they spent what little time
they had alone together in wordless communion. It was alien to him, and at first he had always tried to fill such silences with idle talk. Now he let them continue unbroken.

He remembered the first time he had spoken to her as a slave, not long after Isocrates had come to give him his lesson in servitude. She too had taught him much, though not in the direct and
practical fashion of her husband. She led by example, teaching him to take rest and pause whenever he could, to rediscover the value of laughter, for a slave a more unusual treasure than any other.
The first time they had spoken he had asked her about Danae. Afterwards, when she had told him what she had seen, he wished he had not asked, that he did not know of the chase through the palace,
the desperate plunge from its highest point on to the rocks below. He could have imagined a better end for her. Now, when he did not dream of fire, he dreamed of his wife, falling away from
him.

He looked at the sky, and saw that the moon was up. ‘I must go. The king expects me.’

She nodded. ‘If you have a favour to ask him,’ she said, ‘will you—’

‘I know what you are going to ask.’ He paused. ‘If the king permits me, I will go to see him.’

‘It has been so long. They won’t allow me to go. I worry about him.’

‘I know, Maia. I will ask. I am sure Cyrus will let me. He is a good man, I think.’

She rolled her eyes. ‘Well, you know my thoughts. I don’t trust any king. He should spend some time in the kitchens or the fields, to teach him the meaning of hard work.’

‘He did, when he was younger. He was raised by farmers, or so the story goes.’

‘A story he cultivates to win favour. I don’t imagine that pampered man has worked a single day in his life.’

Croesus winced. ‘I don’t suppose I would want to know the kind of things you said behind my back, when I was still a king.’

‘No. You wouldn’t,’ she said.

He rose to go, but hesitated. He could see, though he did not want to, a fresh bruise on her cheek.

He remembered that he had spoken to Isocrates about those marks, when he was still a king. He had not found the courage to do so again as a slave.

He turned away from Maia, and tried to forget his cowardice.

When Croesus stepped into Cyrus’s tent, he crossed the threshold by only a few feet before he stopped and stared at the ground, awaiting instruction.

‘Relax,’ he heard Cyrus say. ‘You are here to be rewarded. Look around you.’

Croesus looked at the walls of the tent. Each was divided into dozens of panels, each panel embroidered with a different image. Cities, seas, farms, deserts, castles and temples. Some of them he
recognized – the city of Pteria, now destroyed, living on only in this image. The sea view from Phocaea. He felt a coldness settle on him when he saw Sardis on its steep-sided hill, its
buildings a mixture of Lydian and Persian design: the city as it would be rebuilt in a generation’s time. In this tent, Cyrus could look on his whole empire.

Half the panels were still blank.

‘Much work to be done,’ Cyrus said. ‘With your help, of course. Come.’ He beckoned Croesus into the next chamber.

The king’s personal tent, a vast construction when viewed from the outside, seemed even larger from within, a honeycomb of fabric chambers, a palace that was built anew every night.

The next chamber was a small one. In an ornate wooden chair, studded with precious gemstones, a woman sat, two children at her feet.

Croesus recognized Cassandane, one of Cyrus’s wives, and as beautiful as they all were, with golden eyes set high on a heart-shaped face, silver bracelets moving against dark, delicate
wrists. Beside her, the two young boys knelt on the floor playing knucklebones. The younger played with a carefree ease, whilst the elder was hunched over, his eyes intent, the way children see
significance in a game that no adult can understand. By them, a wax tablet lay untouched. A lesson ignored for a game.

Cyrus cupped his wife’s face in his hands and kissed her. ‘I have missed you,’ he said.

She accepted the kiss, then looked at him archly. ‘It would have been better if you paid more attention to me than to that Egyptian who shares your bed at night,’ she said.

He shrugged. ‘She pleases me.’

‘And I?’

‘You please me also.’

She shook her head, and her smile lay somewhere between anger and tolerance.

The older boy glanced up. ‘An Egyptian has hurt you, Mother?’

‘No, Cambyses,’ she said, ‘it isn’t like—’

The boy reached out and put a finger to her lips. He nodded gravely. ‘Don’t worry. When I am king, I shall destroy Egypt for you. Would you like that?’

‘You are your father’s son, you bloodthirsty beast,’ she said, laughing. She examined her visitor. ‘Cambyses, Bardiya. This man serves your father.’

‘You mean he is a slave?’ said Bardiya.

‘Yes. But an important one.’

‘There are important slaves?’ Cambyses said dubiously.

She looked Croesus over. ‘So some say.’

Croesus knelt down beside the boys. He remembered what it was he had loved about his own children when they were small. Like a coin, a child was all possibility. He smiled at Cambyses, the heir
to the empire, charmed by the boy’s bright eyes. He stretched out a hand to touch the child on the head.

The boy bit him.

Croesus yelped and stood, shaking his hand. Cyrus laughed, and reached for his son. Cambyses tried to bite him too, and Cyrus slapped him for it. The king pointed a warning finger at his son,
leaving it a testing distance away from the boy’s mouth. Cambyses did not move, standing in silence, the red weal rising on his face.

‘Good,’ Cyrus said. He turned to Croesus. ‘He has spirit. He will make a good king, don’t you think?’

Croesus stared at the boy for a time, and Cambyses gazed back, undaunted. ‘Yes,’ he said.

‘Come, there is one more thing that I want to show you. Your reward.’

They moved into the depths of the tent, passing through a dozen different chambers. Croesus saw a map room, and then an exotic armoury, filled with strange weaponry from distant lands that the
empire had yet to conquer. They passed through one chamber that was thick with a bitter smoke that made Croesus feel light-headed after a single breath. Another was unlit, filled with the scent of
musky perfume. Reaching out to guide himself in the dark his hands touched naked flesh.

Finally, they arrived at their destination – a treasury. Candlelight danced on golden cloth walls that were stitched with pearls, and fell on the tables topped with rare artefacts from
across the Persian empire. Croesus recognized a few choice items taken from his own treasuries.

‘You have good taste,’ he said.

‘I envied you your treasures, Croesus. They were quite remarkable. It is a shame I cannot take more with me. It would take another army to carry it all.’

‘They were always for show,’ Croesus said, running his fingers over the familiar, useless relics that decorated the room, the crowns of forgotten kings, the sculptures of fallen
cities. He turned back to his king. ‘I always preferred the coins, myself.’

‘I know,’ Cyrus said. The king’s palm opened, and a flash of light against metal passed through the air. Croesus caught it and looked down.

From the face of the coin the Lydian lion looked back at him. He ran his thumb over its surface, a single touch enough for him to know if one or a thousand hands had held the coin before him
then cocked his head, confused.

‘This is new,’ he said. ‘Newly minted. I don’t understand.’

‘I considered having the new coins marked with the emblem of my empire,’ Cyrus said. ‘But I think I’ll keep them as they are.’ He smiled at Croesus. ‘What do
you think of that?

Croesus studied the coin, sitting heavy in his palm as if he were a god holding the entirety of the cosmos in his hand. Perhaps this was what he had sought before, when he stood and dreamed in
his treasury all those years ago. The dream of an empire that lived only in the mind, that had no borders or boundaries or kings to rule over it. A kingdom of wealth, unconquerable and eternal. The
ultimate ruler of men.

‘Thank you,’ Croesus said.

Later, they sat at a table, deep within the world of the palace tent. Cyrus clapped his hands, and attendants pulled on the ropes that were coiled in the corners of the
chamber. The roof of cloth rolled back, and the stars shone above them, distant and inviting, like the lights of an unconquered city.

Servants brought wine, and the two men sat and drank in silence for a time. Cyrus stared into the distance. Croesus sent the coin dancing over his knuckles like a street performer.

‘Isocrates . . . he is a good slave, isn’t he?’ Cyrus said at last.

‘Yes, he is. Worth more to you than I am.’

‘You value yourself too lightly, Croesus.’

‘I don’t think I’m worth much as your advisor.’

‘No?’

Croesus shook his head. ‘I think I am here to remind you what a king must not do. A lesson in hubris.’

Cyrus laughed. ‘But you have some interesting thoughts. Your answer for Lydia, for instance.’

‘I am still surprised you agreed so easily.’

‘To your unlikely plan?’

‘Yes.’

‘I lose nothing if it fails. We will do as Harpagus wants. But to pacify a nation with music and fine fabrics? It has never been done before. That is something, don’t you
think?’

‘Ah. Now I do understand you. At least in part.’

‘What understanding do you lack?’

‘Why a man as happy as you wants to build an empire.’

‘A king must have his mysteries.’ He smiled. ‘Perhaps I will tell you some day.’

‘Perhaps.’ Croesus drank. ‘Your wife is very beautiful.’

‘She is my favourite.’

Croesus ran his thumb over the edge of the cup, letting the red drops soak into the whorls of his skin. ‘How many do you have?’

‘Only three so far.’

‘It never felt right to me, taking more than one wife at a time.’

‘If I can love more than one woman, why not marry more than one? Desire is not a limited resource, Croesus.’

‘Not for you, perhaps. The rest of us hoard what we can, and dole out our love piecemeal, like stingy merchants. It seems Cassandane would rather you loved a little less
broadly.’

‘I will not be possessed by anyone, Croesus, least of all a woman. Isocrates has a wife, doesn’t he?’

‘Yes. Maia. She has been a good friend to me.’

‘Beautiful?’ Cyrus said.

‘No. Homely. A peasant. She smells of rosemary and mint.’

‘I see. The smell of the kitchens is off-putting to you?’

‘No. The smell of the dead,’ Croesus said, thinking of Atys.

‘The smell of the dead?’

‘They wrap the dead in rosemary and mint. You do not know this?’

‘You have buried more family than I have, Croesus.’

‘That is true.’

They shared a silence.

‘Would you like a woman, Croesus?’

‘What?’

‘A woman. Or a boy, if that is your taste. I could arrange it for you. As a reward, for your good service.’

Croesus hesitated. ‘No,’ he said.

‘No? How old are you, Croesus?’

‘Fifty. An old man.’

‘Not old enough to forgo the pleasures of a woman. I don’t understand.’

He thought for a time. ‘What have I to give to a woman?’ he said.

Cyrus tilted his cup and turned it slowly, watching the last drops of wine circle their way around the bottom. ‘Do you have a favour that I
can
grant, Croesus?’

‘Yes,’ Croesus said. ‘Will you let me see my son?’

Cyrus paused and looked at him. His face was unreadable.

‘Of course,’ the king said. ‘And I will ensure that you can see him when you want, from now on. Will you accept that, as a reward for two years’ service?’

Croesus blinked at his tears, sharp and sudden. ‘Thank you,’ he said.

He looked away, and listened to Cyrus disappear to his bedchamber, somewhere even deeper within the labyrinth of cloth that few were permitted to see. Then he stood and followed a guard out of
the maze, and towards a place where no other man would wish to go.

It was a small gathering of pale-coloured tents, ringed round with rows of black cloth staked to the ground, and separated from the main encampment by a clear expanse of
unoccupied land. Every man who walked past did so quickly, head down, muttering a prayer and reaching for any personal charm he carried. None wanted to linger near the place where the sick were
taken, and the wounded went to die.

Some had been dragged there from the battlefield, hacked and bleeding from a dozen wounds, and later recovered, knotted with scars like blessings from the Gods. Others would arrive with the
slightest of wounds, a puncture from a nail or a bite from a dog, laughing at their clumsiness. They would burn with fever and die in days. The surgeons who worked in these tents were all too aware
of the uncertain science they practised. Shunned by the rest of the camp as traders in death, they were solitary, and darkly superstitious.