Harvest of Gold (7 page)

He grabbed her hand, bringing his giant of a horse near enough that their thighs touched. It had been many days since he had drawn so close to her. The rigors of outdoor travel and the constant presence of others had kept them apart since they had left Persepolis. He seemed uncaring of curious eyes now.

“Some elaboration might be in order,” he said, bending his face close to hers so that she could feel his warm breath tickling her ear.

Sarah leaned forward to caress her horse’s neck, hiding her face from Darius’s scrutiny. “I was thinking of how well you fought.”

“You were thinking how close I came to being killed.”

“That too.”

“I’m sorry you saw that, Sarah.”

She felt the heat of tears pricking the back of her eyes. Turning her head so that Darius’s sharp gaze would not notice her distress, she focused her attention on the Babylonians. The brothers were trussed up like roasted lamb, and could only manage a plodding gait on their horses.

She asked in an undertone only Darius could hear, “Do you believe their story?”

He leaned back in the saddle. “It’s a wild tale. And yet it rings true. I’ve heard of private couriers. There aren’t many of them. Understandable, since the empire frowns on their trade.”

“I believe them too, in spite of their shady occupation.”

When Niq had attacked Darius, she had been desperate to rush out of her hiding place to lend a hand, terrified lest Darius be hurt. Beyond that mind-numbing fear, however, she had been shocked at the instinctive rage and violence that overcame her. She would have torn Niq apart if she could. Only a dread of her husband’s wrath had kept her obedient to his demand that she stay hidden. Now that the danger was past, the flood of her violent emotions had ebbed. She had no desire for revenge. The sight of the brothers, bound up and helpless, roused her pity.

“What will happen to them, do you think? If they can prove that they are innocent in the plot against the king, I mean.” If they were guilty, they would die under horrible conditions. The punishment for dabbling in murder through the use of poison was severe in Persia. The punishment for attempting to kill a king, worse.

“Even if they are not assassins, they are still lawbreakers. They aren’t going to walk away free men.”

“It’s a pity. They aren’t ordinary thieves, you have to concede.”

Darius laid his hand against his side and stretched in the saddle. “Apart from being more charming than most criminals, what recommends them to you?”

“They seem to have a certain code of honor. You said yourself they went to some lengths to avoid seriously injuring any member of our party. Niq, you said, would have defeated you in the first pass if he weren’t being careful of your life. I don’t believe they are truly evil.”

“Perhaps it would be a waste to stuff them in a mouse-infested prison somewhere. I admit, Niq shows interesting potential. His unique fighting skills might benefit the empire.”

“Or think of the many contacts Nassir must have made during years of working on the underside of the law. Such connections are bound to prove useful.”

Darius swatted away at a family of gnats congregating near his face. “
Such connections
are called treason in some circles. In any case, at the moment I need them in order to solve this plot. If they are telling the truth, only Niq and Nassir have ever seen any of the men connected to the conspiracy. Without them, I have no way of breaking through this case and securing Artaxerxes’ life. Whether I trust them or not, I have to work with them for the time being.”

A shiver went through Sarah as she realized the danger Darius was courting. Someone brazen enough to plan to kill the king would not balk at killing his cousin to maintain anonymity. “Cold?” he asked.

“No, my lord.”

He reached over their horses to hold her hand. “You need not worry, Sarah. I have survived graver dangers than this.”

She wondered if
he
worried for his own safety. Did he ever struggle with fear or self-doubt? He was not in the habit of sharing his deepest feelings. She sensed that he would spurn such questions. Sometimes she hungered to touch the recesses of his heart—those places he guarded and hid with long-practiced ease. She desired to know the man, stripped bare of his defenses. But he never invited that depth of intimacy.

She forced herself to give a smile. “So, how are you going to catch this assassin?”

“I’ll begin by setting up a trap for his agent in Susa. We know the time and place for the rendezvous. That’s a fortunate development. We will capture him and make him spill what he knows.”

“Sounds simple enough.”

He rubbed the back of his neck with the flat of his hand. “It does.”

Somehow she was even less reassured by his agreement. “At least you’ll be able to put Artaxerxes on his guard. That should protect him from harm.”

Darius met with Artaxerxes within hours of arriving in Susa. Thanks to his personal connection to the monarch, he secured an immediate private audience, a privilege that could take weeks to arrange for most officials. The king paled as he heard Darius’s news. Artaxerxes was no stranger to assassination plots. His own father, King Xerxes, had been killed by the treachery of Artabanus, the commander of the royal bodyguard.

If it were not for the intervention of the great general Megabyzus, Artaxerxes would have fallen prey to the same plot and be occupying a royal grave instead of a golden throne. On any given day the king of Persia lived one betrayal away from death, one ambitious man away from mutiny.

Artaxerxes subjected Darius to an intense but silent scrutiny. Darius knew that his loyalty was being weighed. How much could the king trust him? With an important mission? With the discovery of a complex secret? With his very life? The fact that they were related was of no consequence. Plenty of dangerous plots were hatched by blood relatives far closer than a second cousin. What mattered to the king was Darius’s heart. Darius hoped he had proven himself trustworthy through the years. But he was also honest enough to recognize that he could not guarantee the safety of the king. He might fail to fulfill this mission, not due to duplicity or incompetence, but simply by virtue of unforeseen circumstances. Even the most well prepared plan could go awry. The responsibility of the king’s life weighed heavy on him.

Artaxerxes finally broke the long silence. “So. My fate rests in the hands of two dishonest Babylonian brothers and an anonymous assassin for hire. They alone can point us to the origin of this conspiracy.”

“We also have the seal, Your Majesty.” Darius leaned back against the sumptuous cushion of his couch. His cracked ribs were in agony after the long ride to Susa, and he could not find a comfortable position. “I doubt it will lead us to the man’s door,” he continued. “I believe he is too careful to give himself away by such obvious means. A murderer who goes to the trouble of tattooing his letter on a messenger’s scalp is more careful than the average man. But he has still left us the clue of that seal. Sarah is delving into its origins now.”

The king’s mouth softened at the mention of Sarah. “I always said I should have made her a spy. Discovering that tattoo and its significance was nothing short of genius. I must give her a worthy gift.”

Darius bent his head in gratitude. “Your Majesty, Nassir and his brother are scheduled to meet with the assassin in a public tavern tomorrow. I don’t have enough men in Susa at my disposal to guard the perimeter effectively.”

“I will inform the captain of the guard. You can take your pick of the Immortals.”

The Immortals, the king’s special bodyguard, were famed to be faster, keener, and better trained than any fighting men the world had ever seen. Darius himself had served a stint with them in his younger days.

“My thanks, Your Majesty. I almost forgot. What was the original reason Your Royal Majesties summoned us to Susa?”

Artaxerxes gave a narrow smile. “I felt you and Sarah would both be useful in court. You’ve been away from us long enough. The queen and I merely felt it time you returned to us. And yet, if not for that casual summons, I might have been dead on New Year’s Day.”

Darius knew that the success of his mission lay in the element of surprise. If the assassin grew suspicious, he might bolt before the appointed meeting. He needed men who could lose themselves in a crowd, men who would have no problem looking like the average commoner loitering in a tavern.

Most of the Immortals shouted professional soldier by their very bearing—by their muscle-bound frames and military posture. You could dress them as peasants, smear their fingernails with dirt, and ruin the perfect order of their curled hair and beards. But any man trained for combat would be able to detect twelve such men trying to melt into their surroundings.

When the captain of the guard paraded one accomplished Immortal after another before Darius, he rejected them all. He wasn’t looking for the best Immortal. He was looking for men wily as foxes. From the corner of his eye, he saw a young man practicing archery. His clothes, wrinkled and far from clean, hung about him in loose, neglected folds. He had tied his uncombed hair back with a grey piece of rag. Darius suspected that the man had not bathed for a good many days. His appearance, from the perspective of the captain of the guard, was nothing short of disgraceful, Darius knew. Because of their close association with the monarch, the Immortals were expected to look as elegant as courtiers.

Darius grew absorbed in his study of the young man. He handled his bow with an uncanny precision. The ease with which he loosed his arrows and landed them dead center within their target belied the difficulty of the task. Archery was one of the most admired arts of the Persian arsenal, but few men managed it with the accuracy and distinction of this young soldier.

“Who is that?” Darius asked the captain.

“
Mardonius
? Not worthy of your notice, my lord.”

“He is adept with the bow and arrow.”

The captain crossed his arms. “His skill wins him a place among us. But his manners are deplorable. A commoner, as many among the ranks of the Immortals are. He refuses to learn the ways of the court, however. Just look at him!”

“I
am
looking at him, Captain. Can he follow orders?”

The captain shrugged. “Depends. Orders dealing with battle, always.”

“Then I’ll take him. And any other men like him that you have.”

In the end, Darius left the practice field of the Immortals with eleven men. None of them would have won the prize for top-ranking officer. They had shown formidable talent in various areas of combat, yet had managed to displease the establishment with their idiosyncrasies. As such, they had never been given the opportunity to rise into positions of higher rank or perform the kind of sensitive and crucial service Darius had in mind.

To be chosen as part of an important mission was a new experience for these men. Darius knew being handpicked by him—being considered worthy by a respected leader—was already leaving a mark in them. He would bet a month of his military wages that they were bursting to prove his trust justified. After years of rejection, a superior had
seen
them. Had wanted them. Darius understood that he had won them heart and soul. He needed that commitment. There was too much at stake to settle for less than wholehearted service.

He took the men to his own mansion, built on the outskirts of Susa. For an hour, he debriefed them on the details of their assignment. Then he introduced them to Niq and Nassir, who were also his houseguests, though house arrest was a more apt description of their confinement.

The other three Babylonian brothers were guests of the king at the royal palace—a means of ensuring Niq and Nassir’s cooperation. The brothers swore fealty to the king and promised to do everything in their power to uncover the identity of the man behind this plot, but Darius preferred caution to regret. While he believed them, he recognized the possibility that he might be wrong about the brothers’ innocence.

Darius had spent the better part of an hour debriefing Niq in private as they rode toward Susa. He frowned thoughtfully as he recalled that conversation.