The Great King (37 page)

Xerxes smiled at me. ‘Be my guest.’ He sat back and a slave put a cup in his hand.

Mardonius nodded affably at me. ‘Is it true you were born a slave?’ he asked.

I shook my head. ‘No.’

Someone had given him the wrong information.

‘You were a slave to Artapherenes,’ he said.

I bowed – again. ‘No, my lord. My lord is misinformed.’

I thought he’d explode. His tanned skin flushed with blood so fast I suspected it would burst from his eyes.

‘You have been a pirate?’ he began again.

I ignored him. ‘Great King, King over Kings, I am here as a representative of the peoples of Plataea and other places in Greece, to speak of matters of peace and war. I am not here to discuss my personal life with your servants, however charming.’

All throughout the hall, there was a rush of muttering like the first gust of wind in leaves.

But the Persians are brave men, and they detest cowardice as everyone does. Cultures are different, and my feeling, since youth, has been that they mistake our Greek love of talk for a form of fear – they think that our negotiation and our business dealings and tendency towards both argument and compromise are signs of weakness.

And we, in turn, think they are a nation of slaves, heedlessly obedient to the whim of one tyrant.

I doubt we, either of us, see the other clearly, but one thing I knew from having served Artapherenes, and that was that the Persians prized straight talk, bluntness and boldness.

At any rate, the mumbling went on, and Xerxes raised three fingers, and the hush that fell was absolute.

‘Yet,’ Xerxes observed – genuinely curious, I think – ‘yet you have been a slave. You admitted it to me.’

I nodded. ‘Great King, out beyond the rule of laws that makes your empire great, there is a wide world with no law. If a man is to sail the seas and trade, he must needs run the risk of slavery and death. I have been a slave twice.’

‘No man born a slave can speak in this assembly, and to do so invites a charge of impiety and sacrilege in the king’s sacred presence.’ Mardonius was a hothead, I could see.

I thought of Heraklitus and his views on slavery. I managed a smile, even though I was growing afraid that Aristides and I were to be the sacrifices at this feast. ‘My lord, I was not born a slave, nor am I one now as I address your king. Yet to us, lord, you are but a slave. You do what your king orders you – every one of you. You have no assembly in which to vote and not one of you plays a part in the creation of your laws. To a Greek . . .’ I shrugged, knowing from the rumbles that I had offended nearly everyone present. But the voice of Heraklitus in my head pressed on, and I said his words. ‘And – taken another way – what man here present is anything but a slave – to time, to the gods, to his own appetites and desires?’

Aristides put a hand on my shoulder.

I braced for the spear point. But I’d rather be slaughtered as a lion than a lamb, and I had a feeling that Xerxes was a man for a big gesture.

Xerxes sat back – and smiled. ‘Artapherenes chooses his friends well,’ he said. ‘Go back to Greece and tell them to submit and I will be merciful. But my armies are formed, and my will is set. I will march.’

I bowed, but I stood my ground. ‘Merciful, Great King? To Sparta – and Athens?’

He shook his head. ‘No,’ he said. ‘For them, nothing but salt and ash. I vow – before the gods, and may my crown be taken from my head—’

An older man emerged from the right of the throne. ‘Stop! Great King, I beg you not to swear.’

The Great King glared at his counsellor. I didn’t know who the man was, but he was beautifully dressed.

Mardonius looked at the man as if a heap of dung had materialised at his feet. ‘How dare you interrupt the king?’ he hissed.

‘An oath to the gods is not like a statement of policy, my lord,’ the old man said. ‘It has effects that ripple through all of the universe. I beg you not to push the king into such an oath.’

Mardonius put a hand to his chest like a bad actor. ‘The king but reacts to the arrogance of the Greek ambassador! I have nothing to do with this sort of manipulation.’

For less than a single beat of a desperate man’s heart, Xerxes’ eye caught mine. A hint of amusement – and fear. It was not all pomegranate juice and slave girls, being the Great King.

I watched them – and managed to glance to my right and left, to see the courtiers around me, the palace officers, the soldiers. In a single sweep of my gaze, I saw the depth of the central division in this court. I had no idea what had caused it, what factions existed, but I could see approval and disapproval, anger and fear and outrage and hope, writ all about me. There was a war party and a peace party – that much was clear.

If I had five years and a million darics to spend, I suspect I could have exploited it. But I had neither.

The Great King sat back and raised his hand for silence. ‘Very well, old friend. I will not swear to the gods. I will merely state the obvious – my armies are ready to march, my ships have been summoned to their duty, and there are stockpiles of food throughout my realm. Let Athens and Sparta shake with fear, for my hand is not light. My spear is long, and I will take my bow in my hand and my chariot wheels will roll over their armies as a farmer threshes wheat.’

It seemed to me a dismissal, and I stood straight – waiting for the blow, or the motion of his hand – whatever it might be.

But as the silence lengthened, I realised that they were all waiting for me to speak in reply.

I had in my hand the caduceus – the bronze staff of a herald.

I did not bow.

‘Great King!’ I said. ‘I have come seeking peace, and been promised war. So be it. My land is poor and yours is rich, and your reach is long. You have a thousand thousand slaves and fertile land that stretches away with uncountable riches, and my land is girt by the sea and has little to offer but rock and stone.’

I held my staff over my head. ‘But before the immortal gods, Great King, Greece is far, the world is wide, and we, too, have spears.’

I threw my staff on to the marble. It rang like the hammer of Hephaestos on the anvil of the gods.

Then I turned on my heel and strode from the hall. Aristides walked by my side. We expected to be cut down at every step, and no one would meet our eyes, but behind us, the king was silent.

We didn’t make it out of the second hall. We were moving swiftly when a dozen guards – fully cloaked and with their faces covered by the tails of their headscarves – surrounded us with spears. They didn’t even speak.

My knees grew weak. Why not? My friends, I was unarmed, and these men were in armour, and I knew I was going to be executed in some back hallway.

I was terrified, but I knew I had to do something or die, so even as they moved in around us and directed us toward a side corridor, I began to look at them with professional desperation. I was looking for an ill-hung sword, any available weapons – a spear I could seize.

I jostled Aristides with my hip and our eyes met.

We were taken into another, even smaller corridor, and I was lost – I think we were in a servants’ area, but there were no frescoes.

I heard the sound of running footsteps, and the guard nearest me – not a royal guardsman, unless he was wearing a disguise – turned to look.

I hit him in the ear with the palm of my hand – very hard – grappled close, and grabbed his spear. Without stopping, I turned the shaft to kill the man behind him, but the man had also started to turn to see who was running up behind, and my spear’s metal butt caught him in the head and laid him out.

Two down and ten to go.

Aristides got the second man’s spear before his body hit the floor.

The guardsman closest to me was very good – he dropped his spear and drew a short akinakes from his belt – he was inside my spear – and cut at my head. Aristides saved my life by covering me with his spear shaft.

But that one attack wrecked any hope we had of escape, and we were two men surrounded by ten.

‘Stop!’ ordered a voice. ‘Stop!’

It took me a whole ten heartbeats to realise that he was shouting in Greek, and it was Cyrus.

He appeared around the last bend in the corridor, and his eyes took in the scene.

‘Hold!’ he roared in Persian. ‘Stop! Put your weapons down!’ he then said in Greek. He knelt by the two men I’d felled and put a hand to their throats.

‘No one is dead. No one
needs
to die.’ He looked back and forth. ‘These are the Queen Mother’s men, and they have orders to protect you.’ Cyrus turned to the man with the drawn sword. ‘He speaks Persian – why did you not speak to him?’

The man looked at me with undisguised hatred. ‘It never occurred to me that he and his companion were so uncivilised as to use violence in the Royal Palace.’

Cyrus looked at me.

‘I thought we were about to be murdered,’ he said.

Aristides laughed. ‘As did I, Lord Cyrus. Come – if we are all friends, here is my spear.’

He handed it to the captain of the guard, who glared at him – and took the spear.

‘The queen will not thank you for mistreating them,’ Cyrus said, but we were prodded – almost beaten. Our guards were angry and afraid, and men were left to look after the two men we’d put down. I took a number of knees and fists in the dark corridors, and then we emerged into the light, and I was blind. Cyrus walked between us, a hand on his sword.

‘This is not going well,’ he admitted.

The guards took us across a courtyard I didn’t know and into another palace. A dozen more soldiers surrounded us, and then we were put into a windowless room – quite forcibly. My shoulder was hurt – two men took my arms, and I tried to struggle and failed.

And then we were alone, in the dark. And Cyrus was locked in with us.

‘This is not what was supposed to happen,’ Cyrus said. ‘The Queen Mother wants you to go home alive. Because she does not want Xerxes to be guilty of any more impieties, and because she is an old friend and ally of my master.’ He sat against a wall and fingered his beard by the light that came in around the door. Once our eyes adjusted, it was not so very dark.

‘And those were the Queen Mother’s guards?’ I asked.

‘I don’t know. This is not . . . I have not been here in a long time. Things were not done this way in the time of Great Darius. He was master in his own house.’

We sat in the dark for a long time.

Eventually, Aristides put a hand on my shoulder. ‘You spoke well,’ he said. ‘I particularly liked your piece on slavery.’

‘I don’t think Mardonius liked it,’ I said.

And later, when it had begun to get darker outside, Cyrus told us a great deal about the inner workings of the court.

‘When Lord Xerxes took power,’ he said, ‘he had to make many agreements to win over some of the Persian and Mede vassals. He offended some of Darius’s best officers by promoting younger men. It is almost always the way – so my father tells me. But Xerxes – it is not that he is weak, rather that he is changeable. Today’s alliance may be tomorrow’s enmity. Men say that the only council that he trusts is the last council to reach him.’ He shrugged. ‘This prevarication is not the normal way of a Great King. Mardonius and Atosa the Queen Mother and his brother Haxāmaniš all seek to dominate, him or at least influence him.’

‘And Artapherenes?’ I asked.

Cyrus shook his head. ‘My master is too wise to play these games. He is a loyal man and he rules his provinces, levies taxes, raises troops – and stays away from all this. We thought . . . perhaps you would help us to stop this war.’ He frowned at me. ‘Why make such inflammatory answers?’

But Aristides leapt to my defence. ‘What else could he say? We hoped for some private talks with the king or his people. None were offered.’

‘Mardonius had had you followed night and day – you, and me, and every one of my men. One of my men was killed in a brawl that has no obvious cause – when I was attempting to send him to the Queen Mother.’ He shrugged. ‘Mardonius will stop at nothing to provoke this war. He is to be Satrap of Europe. The war is his reward for service and his stepping stone to empire.’ He frowned at me. ‘Some of us think he covets the empire for himself.’

‘By Hermes!’ I said. ‘Why am I only finding this out now?’

Aristides frowned. ‘Yes,’ he agreed. ‘It is late to have the politics of this court revealed. A week ago we might have done something. Or prepared different speeches.’

Cyrus shook his head. ‘Meeting the Queen Mother was to fix everything. Now – I’m sorry – I think we have been sold to Mardonius. I don’t know why. I regret that my death will lead to open conflict within the empire, but my father will not leave me unavenged. I have sons.’ He smiled. ‘I cannot regret having been your friend, Arimnestos.’

The door opened.

I prepared myself to die.

But the world is never that simple, and instead of executioners, there were three slaves. They had clothes – fine clothes, all Persian. And food.

We ate.

After some discussion, we changed into Persian dress. We were dressed as guardsmen, in the hideous trousers and the long jackets. I felt like some sort of effeminate, and Aristides was worse – his long legs were too long for his trousers.

The lead slave wrapped our heads in coverings and pulled the ends over our faces, and we were out the door. There were spears leaning there and we took them and followed the slaves across the courtyard we’d crossed earlier.

At the last moment, there was a shout, and the slaves froze. Two soldiers – Immortals – ran up, swords drawn.

‘Don’t you know that all movement is forbidden?’ one growled.

The slaves flinched. ‘My mistress . . .’ the lead slave whimpered.

‘Dog of a Mede!’ I snapped. I used Mardonius’s northern Persian accent. It sounded barbarous. But I knew the Immortal was not a Persian. ‘Be about your business, or let us go to Lord Mardonius and see who has the right to give orders.’

The two Immortals looked at each other.

‘Move!’ I said to the slaves, and pointed my spear imperiously.

They let us go. They didn’t love us, or even – quite – believe me, but we moved quickly and they didn’t choose to arrest us.