Creation (51 page)

“The last part is all too true. Lord Mardonius will not lead the Great King’s forces. But there
will
be a war. The decision has been made. The command will be divided. I tell you no state secrets for if these were indeed high secrets, how would poor Shirik of the house of Egibi know them? One commander will be Artaphrenes, the son of the satrap of Lydia. The other will be Datis the Mede. Six hundred triremes will rendezvous at Samos. They then will sail for Rhodes, Naxos, Eretria, Athens. But you know all this, Lord. You take pleasure in allowing a humble old man to make a fool of himself by telling you what is known to all who attend the Great King’s councils.”

I did my best to pretend that I was indeed a repository of state secrets. Actually, I was entirely taken aback. Although I was not surprised that the banker might know things that I did not, I was fairly certain that Mardonius knew nothing of the spring campaign, and I was entirely certain that Xerxes was ignorant of his father’s plans. If Shirik was correct, then, for reasons unknown, the Greek faction had once again persuaded the Great King to commit himself to a war in the west.

I agreed with Shirik that embassy and caravan should travel as one, and I said that I would propose myself to the Great King as ambassador. But as we made our plans I could think of nothing but Darius’ duplicity. He had promised me an invasion of India. Naturally, Great Kings are not obliged to honor promises made to their slaves. Yet by Darius’ own admission, Persia’s interest was to the east. Why had he changed his mind?

In those days Xerxes liked to wander about Babylon in disguise. He would wear a Chaldean cloak in such a way that the hood covered the telltale square-cut beard. With face covered, he looked like a moderately unsuccessful young merchant from some upriver village. When Atossa remonstrated with him about these adventures, he would say, “If they are going to kill me, they will kill me. If it happens, it happens.” Eventually, it happened.

In our youth, thanks to Atossa, Xerxes was never entirely on his own. Wherever he went, guards were always close at hand. Even so, I must say that those expeditions always made me uneasy. “Why expose yourself like this?”

“I enjoy it. Anyway, since no one ever knows in advance just when I plan to vanish—including me—that rules out ambush, doesn’t it?”

Xerxes and I vanished the day after my conference with Shirik. My heralds and guards were dismissed, while Xerxes’ personal guards were dressed to resemble farmers come to market. Then, contentedly, Xerxes led me through the quarter of those privately owned brothels which are far superior to the temple establishments. In a good private house, it is possible to dine well, listen to music, enjoy the resident girls who come from every part of the world. The girls are often lovely; and always clean.

Xerxes’ favorite house was in an alleyway between the back wall of the temple of Ishtar and the camel market. The owner and mistress of the revels was a bewhiskered woman who had no idea who we were. But she always remembered with simulated fondness the handsome gray-eyed young Persian who paid her well and made no trouble. At the door she greeted us with her usual “Gallant young princes, you are like the sun in a dark place! Enter, enter!”

Somewhat incongruously, she spoke the language of the old Babylonian court, where she had spent her childhood as, she claimed, a concubine of Nabonidus. But the other house owners in the district assured us that she had been not a concubine but a cook. Babylonian malice is always elaborate and amusing if one is not the butt.

“By now,” said an aged competitor, “the old thing really believes that she was queen of Babylon. But she was the lowest of the low. I can’t think why you nice lads go near her place. She has every sort of disease. And, of course, she’s a eunuch. Didn’t you know? Haven’t you noticed the little beard?”

As always, we paid in advance, which delighted Xerxes. He enjoyed pretending that he was an ordinary mortal. As always, I paid for both of us. The crown prince may not carry a purse. We were then shown into a large room at the top of the house, where we lay side by side on a low divan.

Remembering Xerxes’ preference for Helbon wine, our hostess sent us a dozen flagons. Each was delivered by a different girl—an amiable way of showing us the house’s wares. In another room, Phrygian music was played. When the last girl had set down the last flagon of wine and departed, I told Xerxes about my visit to Shirik.

Xerxes lay back on a cushion, cup in hand; he shut his eyes and murmured, “No.”

“Didn’t the Great King tell you?” I asked. The room was warm and the smell of frankincense permeated everything, including the wine. I cannot think why people are so attached to that cloying scent. I suppose because it is so rare. The satrap of Arabia provides the Great King with more than sixty thousand pounds a year, as tribute.

“My father tells me nothing. We talk about building. We talk about”—Xerxes made a large gesture to indicate the satrapy of Babylon—“all this, and how it
should
be governed, as opposed to the way I govern it. He finds fault.” Xerxes sighed. “Dads is no threat But my cousin Artaphrenes ...” The voice trailed off.

“Let’s hope he’s inherited his father’s military prowess. I was there when Sardis burned, thanks to the old man’s negligence.”

“Gobryas was never good at war, and look at
his
sons.” Suddenly Xerxes smiled for the first time since I told him the news. “Well, at least Mardonius will not be in command.” Xerxes clapped his hands, and a girl appeared in the low doorway. “I want Lydian music,” he said. “And Lydian food.”

In no time at all, we were provided with both. While course after course was brought us, melody after melody was played us on twelve-string harps. Between courses, we were able to talk.

“I did my best,” he said. “I told Darius we should go east next spring.” Xerxes plunged his hand into an earthenware pot filled with honeyed kid and pine nuts.

“What did he say?”

“He agreed. He said, ‘Yes, we should go east.’ That’s his way, of course. He said should and made me think that he had said would. But ... something’s odd. He really was excited by what you told him.”

“Then why—”

“I don’t know why. I never know why. Obviously, the Greeks at court have been to work on him. Particularly Hippias. He has some hold over my father. I can’t think what. Yet every time the old man says, ‘By Athena and Poseidon, I swear that I shall once again make sacrifice on the Acropolis’ ”—Xerxes mimicked to perfection Hippias’ sonorous voice, in which an old man’s quaver had only recently begun to sound—“Darius gets tears in his eyes and swears to help him.”

“What about the king of Sparta?”

“Ask your mother.” Xerxes was sour. “I’ve had no dealings with him. I suppose he wants us to restore him to power. What else? He’s supposed to be a good soldier. Let’s hope Lais teaches him to bathe occasionally.”

“Lais and I have quarreled.”

“Over the Greeks?”

I nodded. “And you. And Mardonius.”

Xerxes raised himself up on one elbow. He pulled me so close to him that the side of my face was pressed against the soft curling beard, and I could smell the sandalwood scent of his clothes and feel the warmth of his lips as he whispered into my ear, “Is she poisoning Mardonius?”

I drew back. “No,” I said in an ordinary voice. “I don’t think that the girl loves him at all.”

“But I was told that she does, that she pines for him, day after day, a drop at a time, in the cup.” Xerxes was amused at our game.

“I think that the girl wants certain people to
think
that she is in love when she is not.”

Xerxes nodded. “I understand. Even so ...”

To my delight, a pair of Indian dancers performed for us. Twins from Taxila, they were astonished when I addressed them in their own language. I asked them to perform the famous nautch dance, and they obliged. Xerxes was fascinated at the way their bellies moved first in one direction and then in the other. During the intervals between the dances, he told me that he was still not entirely certain of the succession.

“There is no way that you cannot succeed.” I confess that I was somewhat bored with what I took to be groundless fears. Xerxes had been crown prince for several years. He had no rival.

“Gobryas still wants his grandson to succeed,” Xerxes was obsessed. “And Artobazanes has never forgotten that once upon a time, he was crown prince.”

“I must say I’d almost forgotten.”

The court had been at Ecbatana when Darius suddenly announced that he was leaving for the northeast frontier and since Persian—actually, Median—custom requires that whenever the ruler leaves the country, an heir must be designated, he chose his eldest son, Artobazanes. At the time, Xerxes and I were perhaps thirteen or fourteen years old. I thought nothing of the announcement until Lais asked me how Xerxes had reacted. When I said not at all, she shook her head. Years later Xerxes told me what an effort it had been for him to disguise his terror. “After all, if Darius had not come back from the frontier, Artobazanes would have been Great King and all of Atossa’s sons would have been put to death.”

As we finished flagon after flagon of wine, Xerxes spoke of his brother Ariamenes as a potential threat. Ariamenes was also satrap of Bactria, a territory prone to rebellion. “Spies tell me that he plans to take my place.”

“How?”

“Poison. Rebellion. I don’t know.”

“What does Atossa think of this ... son of hers?”

“It was Atossa who warned me.” Xerxes shook his head, in a puzzled way. “You know, of all my brothers and half-brothers the only one that I ever liked was Ariamenes, who means to kill me.”

“Unless you kill him first.”

Xerxes nodded. “Unfortunately, Bactria is far away. That is why I had hoped”—he let his hand rest on my shoulder—“that you would take the northern route to Cathay—through Bactria.” Xerxes gave me a slow blink of his cat’s eyes.

I turned to ice. “That is a most ... awesome commission.” How, I wondered desperately, was I going to kill the satrap of Bactria in his own capital?

“Well, you’ve not been given it yet. But bear in mind that you may one day be obliged to demonstrate your love for your brother-in-law.”

Dumbly, I looked at him through the same haze of wine that he looked at me. Then Xerxes embraced me. He was jubilant. “I’ve had it out with the law-bearers. And I’ve won. On new year’s day, you will marry my sister.”

“I am not worthy.” That is the usual response. But, for once, I thought it apt. Who was I to marry a daughter of the Great King? I said as much, and more. But Xerxes ignored my demurs. “We must have you in the family. At least.
I
must have you in the family. Atossa is delighted.”

“What does the Great King say?”

“At first he was not pleased. But then he started to talk about Zoroaster and about what a disappointment he’s been to your grandfather’s followers, whom he values above all the Magians. You know the sort of harangue he gives when he wants to get something for nothing. Anyway, by the time he’d finished, he had convinced himself that it was his idea that you marry one of his daughters in order to mingle the blood of Cyrus the Great with that of holy Zoroaster. Mingle
my
blood, that is, since he’s no more related to Cyrus than you are.”

The rest of the day that we spent in the brothel is something of a blur. I remember sharing the Indian twins with Xerxes. I remember vomiting. I remember that our hostess gave me some powerful potion that immediately cleared my head, which then began to ache.

At sundown Xerxes and I made our unsteady way through the jostling crowds to the new palace. At the foot of the ziggurat I asked, “Which of your sisters am I to marry?”

“You’re going to marry ... uh ...” Xerxes stopped. He thought hard; then shook his head. “I don’t remember. I’ve only met two of the five. Anyway, Atossa says that the one you’re getting is the best of the lot. Why don’t you ask Lais? She knows the harem.”

“I no longer talk to her.”

“Well, ask Atossa. Or just wait and see.” Xerxes grinned in the brazen light. “After all, what difference does it make? You’re marrying an Achaemenid, and that’s all that matters in this world.”

FOR REASONS UNKNOWN, THE GREAT King had turned his face once again to the west. There would be no expedition to the east in his reign. I said farewell, sadly, to Fan Ch’ih. I married, gladly, the Great King’s daughter; and for the next five years I enjoyed various high offices at Darius’ court, including the much-sought-after rank of king’s friend, a title that I still hold but would not dare use at the present court. It has always been my view that one’s title and one’s actual status ought, reasonably, to coincide.

As king’s eye, I was sent to inspect the Ionian cities. I enjoyed that tour of duty. For one thing, I was made much of, not only because of my rank but because I was half-Greek. For another, I was able to visit Abdera, where I met my grandfather, who received me like an only son. He was rich. He was witty. He was a sophist before the tribe was invented. Of course, Protagoras was a young woodcutter on his property and it is possible that he influenced my grandfather. It is equally possible that my grandfather influenced him. I also met my uncle—
your
grandfather Democritus. He was a young man of eighteen. He was interested only in money. I shall not pursue a subject you know better than I.

From Abdera, I set sail for home. This uneventful sea journey ended at Halicarnassus, where we made landfall one bright dawn when the stars were still to be seen in the west. As I went ashore, I half expected to find my younger self gaping not only at his first view of the sea but at the mature specter of the impressive king’s eye that he was to become. But instead of my youthful self, I saw the grown-up Mardonius in the flesh. He was sitting on the end of the mole, surrounded by fishermen unloading their nets.

“Way for the king’s eye!” my herald bawled.

“Way is made.” Mardonius got to his feet and bowed low. “Welcome to Halicarnassus.”

“Lord Admiral!” As we embraced I could feel the fleshless body through his heavy cloak. It had been two years since he was wounded, and he was still not recovered. But though the face was pale, the lively blue eyes reflected with the clearness of a child the morning’s bright sea light.