The Great King (35 page)

‘Good steel,’ he said.

Before the gods, the Immortals made the Spartans happier than Arwia’s beauty and all her wit. Bulis called to me – in Greek – his voice full of life, lilting like a boy’s.

‘These are worthy men.’

By which, if you haven’t figured out the Spartan mindset, he meant – these are men worth matching spears with.

In truth, the Great King’s palace at Susa was splendid, and had I seen it before Babylon, I would have gaped. But I’d been to Babylon, and Arwia’s great hall with its winged lions and green marble columns was – truthfully – grander than Darius’s palace at Susa. And when you left the temple-like hall for the guest quarters – it was more like a stone-built barracks, which, in fact, it was. The Great King had almost a thousand guests, and we were packed in like travellers in the caravanserai along the Royal Road, with Indians and Bactrians and Jews . . .

At the same time, the guest barracks was wonderful, because we all mixed together at mealtimes as if we were some kind of exotic army, and the conversation was a delight. I didn’t meet a fool there, and I met many men far better travelled than I. Aristides all but held court – his wisdom was apparent to all, and he quickly gathered a group of high-minded men who discussed issues like the value of excellence and the purpose of human life.

I don’t want to suggest that I wasn’t interested. But I was in the capital of the greatest empire on the aspis of the world, and I was there to learn all I could about the enemy, not about the mind of man. Each day, when the sun was halfway to the middle of the sky and the shadow of the horse statue in the Foreigners’ Courtyard reached a certain point, the palace major-domo would come and announce the list of guests who would be received by the Great King. And as soon as this ceremony was performed, Brasidas and I would pack ourselves cloaks and hat and go out into the agora. We visited Cyrus at his father’s house and had a tremendous meal with a man who had ridden with Cyrus the Great and had, himself, been to the borders of India. He was a courteous, dignified old gentleman who was nonetheless not too fine to flourish his akinakes and show us just how he slew a prince of the Scythians.

We went with Cyrus to the barracks of the noble cavalry and watched them at exercise.

Cyrus said, ‘It might seem foolish of us to show you everything – our armament, our tactics. But the Great King believes that if other nations see our power, we can avoid bloodshed by your submission.’

In truth, just on the plains around Susa, the Great King had more – and better – cavalry than all of Thessaly and all of Greece could ever raise, better mounted, better equipped, with bows which none of our horsemen had. One day, Cyrus took us to see Persian archers.

I grew up watching Persian archers, but the Spartans had not.

Brasidas stood silently while twenty men lofted shafts so fast that the third one was in the air before the first struck. And when they struck, they struck deep. Persian bows were bigger and more powerful even than Scythian bows, as those of us who had faced noble Persian archers at sea had every reason to know.

And Cyrus embarrassed me by telling the men on the archery range that I had charged Artapherenes’ guard at Sardis – and lived.

‘Tell us!’ men insisted, so I told the story, hiding, as much as possible, the fact that there had been only ten of us in the charge.

‘And Marathon?’ asked another. ‘The battle on the plains of Athens? Were you there, as well?’

I admitted I had been, and then we were swapping lies – or at least half-truths – because he had ridden with the cavalry at our end of the line.

In the end, we agreed that no two men see a battle the same way, But I agreed with him that, had the ends of the Greek line not pressed forward so fast, the Persians would have triumphed. This seemed to satisfy him that I was a reliable witness.

They served us wine, and we were like comrades.

The next day, in the market, a street sweeper – a low-caste half-Mede – told me that soon I would have his job.

‘Now you are an ambassador,’ he said. ‘Soon, you will be a slave, lower than me. I see it every day. Put your neck under his foot and get it over with!’ The man laughed a gap-toothed smile. ‘I need the help.’

And that day or the next we were invited by Shahvir and Mayu – I think I have those names correctly, they were officers of the Anûšiya – to a mess dinner at the barracks. I was enjoined to bring all the Spartans, and I did.

Shahvir was a fine companion, but as soon as we’d had a cup of wine, he showed us several sets of Greek panoply. ‘You have seen us ride and shoot,’ he said. ‘Let us see the Greek way of war.’

I protested that he must have seen hoplites – in Babylonian service, if nowhere else.

‘I myself have fought the Ionians several times,’ he said. He shrugged. ‘Too much armour, too little training.’

I turned to Bulis. ‘He’d like us to demonstrate the phalanx.’

Bulis nodded. ‘With three men and a foreigner?’ he asked. Note that well, friends – we were in Susa, in Persia, and he called me a foreigner. It is hard to love the men of Lacedaemon. At any rate, he shook his head at me.

‘You do not know our dances,’ he said.

‘I know the seventh dance,’ I said. ‘I learned it from Sparthius.’

Sparthius nodded. ‘He’s better than most boys,’ he said. ‘I say let’s do it. With four of us we can look like something.’

Brasidas looked as displeased as I. ‘I am a Plataean,’ he said.

In that moment, I loved him.

Bulis didn’t change expression. ‘Of course. Your view is noted. Will you dance with us, Plataeans?’

I looked at Brasidas, and he nodded. ‘Yes,’ he said.

It is one thing to dance the Pyricche in the agora of your city, or some clear space under the walls. At Plataea, we dance it at the corner of the enclosure of Hera, and the goddess herself, I think, watches us when we are at our best.

But even when we stumble or miss the time, we dance for three thousand men and women, and we know them all by name. When a young man is particularly skilled or good, women – and some men – cry, ‘
Kalos! Kalos!
’

It is different, when you dance the war dance for enemies. And you must believe me, friends. By that night in Susa, we knew that we were a few Greeks in a sea of enemies. They were good men and women – decent, honourable – but they were – from the Great King we had not met to the meanest slattern – cocksure that they would conquer us and make us slaves.

Nor was the armour good stuff, nor did it fit well. In the end, I asked Mayu for his scale shirt – we were of a size.

‘But it is not like your gear,’ he said.

‘I have one just like it hanging from the rafters of my house,’ I said.

‘Where from?’ he asked.

‘Marathon,’ I said wickedly. No one should ever have sent me as a diplomat.

Bulis commanded us. He made us stand perfectly still and simply tap the floor with our sarauters for what seemd like an eternity. He wanted us to have the rhythm correct.

I have said that the Spartan Pyricche is not like ours. I’ll say more now. In Sparta, they have ten – or, for all I know, fifty – Pyricche, not just one. Each dance has a particular storyline, and each dance teaches a set of lessons to a boy – or a man.

So the seventh dance of the Lacedaemonians is the dance of the shield press. In it, the two lines exchange thrusts, but only to offer the opportunity to use the aspis as a weapon. It is the one I chose to learn because it teaches the lessons so well – how to turn your aspis like a table, how to cut with the outer rim, how to break an opponent’s body-structure with a push offline.

For a moment, as we stood ready, I couldn’t think of the opening sequence, and so I was late – terribly late – entering the first step.

Hah! But after that, I was into the rhythm of the thing, and we were like gods.

There is a moment – just as in the Plataeans’ Pyricche – where we all step together, stomping our right foot heavily as we push. Our four feet were like one foot – or like hundreds, all together.

And on the last step, we stopped. All together, and no shuffling.

The Persians applauded us. Mayu hefted an aspis and made an odd motion with his head. ‘You couldn’t do any of that in combat, of course,’ he said. ‘You’d be too closely pressed together.’

I translated for Bulis, who shrugged. It was a shrug of contempt. ‘Only militia and slaves huddle together,’ he said. ‘Our men keep their places in the line.’

Quite a long speech for him.

I’d like to say that the Persians were so impressed with us that they stayed home and didn’t invade Greece. But we all know that’s not what happened. Instead, Mayu made it clear that he thought our dance was pretty, but nothing to do with war, and over food and wine, Shahvir explained to me that Marathon had been a fluke caused by the unreliability of some of their Greek subjects.

Well.

Bulis sat in silence, and Brasidas asked for translations, and sometimes smiled. Sparthius looked angry, and drank too much. I suspect we were sullen – I was surprised at how hostile the Anûšiya were, and as we walked home, Cyrus apologised.

‘They are not gentlemen. Merely warriors. I see what your dance teaches.’ He shrugged. ‘I suspect in time, Mayu will see, too.’

We cooled our heels for two weeks. It was a glorious time, and if I hadn’t been pining for Babylon, I suspect it might be one of the favourite times in my life. Everything at Susa was an adventure, and I tasted saffron, drank rare wine, eyed noble beauties, and saw the most beautiful horses I’d ever seen.

Really, Persia is a fine place.

A little less than two weeks after we’d arrived, Brasidas disappeared. He left a note to say that he was going to visit a friend. Bulis and Sparthius looked . . . knowing.

And told me nothing.

A few hours after he left us, Hector brought me a message he’d received from a slave.

‘A Greek slave,’ he said.

It invited me to a meeting at a time and place. There was no signature.

I have been a slave, and that gives me a natural tendency to caution in these matters. Besides, after our somewhat hostile reception by the Anûšiya, I had become aware that I was sometimes followed.

I shrugged. ‘No,’ I said.

The next day, a helot – I’d know those Messenian features anywhere – plucked at my elbow in the Foreigners’ Courtyard of the palace.

I ignored him.

‘Just come with me?’ he asked.

‘No!’ I said. It had to be a provocation. They’d pretend there was a slave revolt, or ask for money – we all knew our turn with the Great King was coming, and we all knew about Xerxes’ little ways. He tested his guests. And then killed a few.

‘My master asks to see you,’ he said.

‘Who is your master?’ I asked.

‘Are you dense?’ he spat, in a very unslave-like way. ‘Demaratus!’

I presented myself to the former King of Sparta in an olive grove six stades south of the city. His helot had taken me out of the palace grounds to a brothel. I chose a girl – none of your business – and was escorted to a room, from which I was then escorted out through another door to a waiting donkey, and we rode out through one of the military gates past the great bridge. That’s all I remember of the route.

Demaratus, contrary to the propaganda of the last few years, was a handsome, older man, did not have a hunchback or a limp, and looked like what he was – one of the greatest aristocrats in the world. He was richly dressed, even in an olive grove. Brasidas sat under a tree, with a scroll, looking for all the world like an Athenian gentleman reading philosophy.

I didn’t bow. He wasn’t my king. But I did present my wax tablet. ‘From Gorgo,’ I said. ‘Wife of—’

Demaratus laughed. ‘I know whose wife Gorgo is,’ he said. ‘Are you ready to see the Great King?’

I believe I shrugged.

‘I have spent a week flattering him into letting the two fool Spartiates live,’ he said. ‘The murder of his father’s envoys was an incredible insult at the time. Even today, it is widely remembered.’

‘And Aristides?’ I asked.

‘Athens is doomed,’ the former King of Sparta said. ‘Everyone in this city lost someone on that beach. Athens will be destroyed. All the omens foretell it. But I would see Sparta saved.’

I frowned. ‘Aristides will be killed?’ I asked.

Demaratus looked at Brasidas reading. ‘If I have my way with the Great King, all of you will be loaded with presents and sent home,’ he said. ‘He is . . . mercurial. Curiously not in control of himself, for a man with such power. Oddly in need of the good opinions of others.’ Demaratus shook his head. ‘He is not Darius, but then, almost no one is.’

I must have looked surprised. He raised his eyebrows.

‘Not what you expected, Plataean?’ He shrugged. ‘I can never go back to Sparta. I was treated worse than a helot. But I will not be an agent of my city’s destruction.’ He waved the tablet at me. ‘With your permission, sir?’

I stood back and watched him turn away. He went to Brasidas, and they talked for a moment – there was a loud snap – and then both of them were looking at something. The former king nodded.

‘I broke your tablet – foolish of me. I’ll send a new one with you. For Gorgo, you understand.’ He nodded.

I nodded in turn. It’s not always good to tell people everything you have guessed.

‘May I ask one more question?’ I asked.

He laughed. ‘Plataean, I am retired – an old man. I have nothing but time.’

‘Is there anything we can do to induce the Great King to make peace?’ I asked.

He didn’t hesitate. ‘No,’ he said. ‘The coin is tossed. The soldiers are ordered and the fleets are gathered. Your arrival at this time is viewed as a piece of foolish effrontery. A year or two ago – perhaps. Now – if it were not for me, you’d have been refused, seized as enemies, and crucified.’ He shrugged. ‘Perhaps not you. Artapherenes got you a safe conduct by name. That means something here.’

As always, Artapherenes saved my life.

I nodded. ‘I never thought we could make peace,’ I said. ‘But it seemed worth a try.’

Demaratus scratched his beard. ‘I truly doubt that Xerxes can move an army from here to Corinth and then seize Corinth – much less reach Lacedaemon,’ he said. ‘But Athens will fall. Sparta . . . can hold.’