Memnon (34 page)

Memnon stepped forward. His chest tightened as he answered. “I do. I am Memnon, son of Timocrates, his brother.”

The old Magus continued. “Who speaks for this bride, Barsine, daughter of Artabazus?”

“I do,” Artabazus replied. “I am Artabazus, son of Pharnabazus, her father.”

“In the presence of this assembly,” the old priest said, his hawkish face shifting to stare at Memnon, “that has met together in Sardis on the twentieth day of Tashritu, in the Seventeenth Year of His Majesty’s Accession, say whether you have agreed to accept this maiden, Barsine, daughter of Artabazus, in marriage for this bridegroom, in accordance with the will of blessed Ahuramazda and the laws of our Reverend and Exalted Majesty.”

She is his prize, his spoil of war.
“I have agreed,” Memnon said, clamping his jaw shut.

The Magus fixed Artabazus with his rheumy gaze. “Have you and your family, with righteous mind and truthful thoughts, words, and deeds, agreed to give, forever, this bride in marriage to Mentor, son of Timocrates?”

Artabazus, his eyes moist, nodded. “I have agreed.”

Hobbling forward, the old Magus reached out, grasped Barsine’s hand, and placed it in Mentor’s scarred fist. “Then I say these words to you, bride and bridegroom! Impress them upon your minds: May you two enjoy a life of goodness by following the will of blessed Ahuramazda and the laws of our Reverend and Exalted Majesty. May each of you clothe the other in righteousness. Then assuredly there will be a happy life for you.” The old priest bowed to the Great King.

Ochus stood and descended from his dais. He placed his hand on theirs. “May the merciful God bless your union and keep you long happy, long healthy, and long fertile. Rejoice!” With that, the crowd of guests erupted. Horns blasted a triumphal song, competing with applause and shouts of health, virility, or long life. Both families surged together, Persian mingling with Greek; Artabazus embraced his daughter and her new husband, and thanked the King for his blessing.

“Had I known your garden hid such exquisite beauty, my old friend,” Ochus replied, clapping Artabazus on the back, “I would have pardoned you long ago!” The King’s eye lingered on Barsine as his courtiers coaxed him away.

With gracious ease, Memnon chatted with the swirling tide of well-wishers, allowing their flux and flow to draw him from the bridal couple. Over their heads, he spotted Barsine as she glanced about for him; Mentor, too—no doubt craving a word with his brother before retiring to the nuptial chamber. Memnon, though, let the crowd force him to the periphery of the celebration.

Here, Khafre found him, standing beneath the spreading boughs of an immense plane tree, watching as Mentor escorted his bride back up the processional staircase. Khafre leaned against the tree bole.

“That could not have been easy,” he said.

“What do you mean?”

The Egyptian edged closer. “I know of few men who could have given their heart’s desire to another and still maintained their poise. I cannot imagine the effort it required.”

“Don’t be absurd,” Memnon said. He scuffed at a tree root with his sandaled foot. “She’s my brother’s wife.”

“And so?” Khafre smiled and shook his head. “You have forgotten a lesson from years ago. Though a slave no longer, I yet possess eyes and ears. If they are kept open and the mouth shut …”

“Wondrous things may be learned,” Memnon said, closing his eyes. “A plague on sharp-eyed Egyptians, who are the most cunning of men. Who else knows? Has my perfidy become fodder for the rumormongers and the fools?”

“I may be sharp-eyed,” Khafre said, bristling, “but I am no tittle-tattle. Knowledge of your plight goes no further than from me to you.”

Memnon sighed. “Forgive me, Khafre. I didn’t mean to impugn your discretion. How did you discover …?”

“I know my friends, and I know when my friends are in agony. What can I do?”

“There’s nothing for it,” Memnon said, shrugging. “But, you can drink with me. Drink with me until there is no more wine left in Sardis.” The Rhodian motioned for one of the servants to bring them a jug. “I want this evening to be a blurred memory.”

 

I
T WASN’T THE MORNING SUN FILTERING THROUGH THE LEAVES OF THE
plane tree that woke Memnon, nor the ripping snores of his fellow revelers. It was the none-too-gentle prodding of a sandaled foot in his ribs. He pried his eyes open and cursed as he rolled from his belly onto his back, his limbs stiff and unresponsive.

Mentor stood above him. “Rise, brother,” the elder Rhodian said. He wore a plain soldier’s kilt under an open black robe, his silver-furred chest bare.

“What goes?” Memnon croaked. He hawked and spat, clearing his throat.

“Come, get up. We need to talk.”

Memnon struggled into a sitting position. His breastplate was gone and his tunic clung to him, still damp from some foolish escapade involving serving girls and the garden fountain. Memnon recalled nothing with clarity. Around him, some of the other revelers stirred. He knew a few of the faces; most, Memnon could not place. Amid the roots of the plane tree, Khafre cursed the sun’s rays in his native Egyptian; Aristonymus, draped across one of the few divans they were able to procure, belched and swatted at a fly that bedeviled his ear. Pharnabazus lay wrapped in the embrace of two serving girls, while Thymondas sat with his back to the garden wall, his head tilted forward with his chin resting on his breast. He muttered drill commands in his sleep.

“You arranged quite a
symposium
last night,” Mentor said, glancing at the sprawling bodies. “Though I doubt Spithridates approved of you corrupting his house girls or using his azalea bed for a piss bucket. A pity I had to miss out on the merriment.”

Memnon experienced a flash of alarm. “Where’s Barsine?”

“She’s already up and about,” Mentor said. “Good cousin Simmias offered to escort her, Deidamia, and the children down into the markets so they could experience the wonders of Sardis firsthand. I sent a pair of guards along, to be safe.” An odd expression crossed Mentor’s face. “She is … unlike other women I’ve known.”

“You mean educated?”

Mentor grinned, reached down and hauled his brother to his feet. “I see exile didn’t cure you of your sharp tongue. Perhaps a task will prove more therapeutic.”

Memnon steadied himself on his brother’s shoulder; he staggered over to the fountain, knelt on the curb, and splashed handfuls of water in his face. “What task?”

Mentor shook his head, indicating the men scattered about the garden. “Walk with me, brother.” Memnon followed him to the garden wall. A flight of steps led to the parapet.

In the bright morning sun, the whole of the Hermus Valley stretched out below them. The upper slopes of Mount Tmolus were terraced with vineyards and orchards; its lower slopes with crooked streets and mudbrick houses. The Pactolus split Sardis in two, flowing through the heart of the agora and into the business district. Here, potters turned the river’s red mud into the terracotta tiles Sardis was known for, and merchants arranged shipping overland or by water to the Ionian coast and the Aegean. Ironically, many of the potters’ own houses had roofs of mud and thatch.

Memnon inhaled the pleasant north breeze. “Do you fear prying ears?” he said.

“One can never be too cautious,” Mentor said. “The King’s gone to Zeleia, to hunt, and he’s taken most of the Persian lords with him. Artabazus, too. I’ll have to leave out today to join them unless I want those parasites he calls satraps to defame my good works. The lot of them would argue how best to pour piss from a boot and not a one would think to look for instructions on the heel.”

“I’m surprised a king with Ochus’s reputation tolerates that sort of infighting,” Memnon said.

“Tolerates it? That gold-shod jackass encourages it! He believes if his courtiers spend their days conspiring against one another, they’ll be too busy to conspire against him. It was the same in the days of Artabazus’s father, I’m told.”

“Xenophon wrote a great deal concerning old Pharnabazus and the rivalries of the Persian satraps, though how accurate his portrayal is I cannot say. What about this task you mentioned?”

Mentor leaned against the battlements and peered out through an embrasure. “We’re beset by our own Agesilaus, it seems. Philip’s close to sewing up Thrace and then he’ll move against the Chersonese. I wonder, will he content himself with the European shore?”

Memnon shook his head. “Why should he when he can have the Asian Greek lands, as well? He will cross the Hellespont, brother. Make no mistake. And he’s no Agesilaus. He’s not going to march here and there until he tires, or until we pay his enemies to have him brought home. Philip’s coming for land, for gold and for blood.”

“Then we must be prepared,” Mentor said. “Cousin Aristonymus has pledged his city to our cause; to him I’m giving the task of subduing the rest of Lesbos. Thymondas I’m sending to Taenarum, in the Peloponnese, with enough gold to hire every disaffected Greek between there and Thermopylae.”

Though likely his by-blow nephew, Memnon had not spent enough time in Thymondas’s company to gauge his character. A dishonest man with that amount of bullion could wreck untold havoc on Mentor’s plans. “You trust him?”

Mentor nodded. “I’ve also instructed him to get word to Patron at Syracuse. That Phocaean bastard’s been out there diddling Carthaginian whores long enough. Time he came back and partook of some real work.”

Memnon smoothed his beard; his eyes were fixed on something beyond the distant horizon as his mind worked through problems of logistics and supply. “You’re going to need more than mercenaries if you hope to give Philip pause,” he said.

“I’ve lobbied the King for permission to bring a fleet from Cyprus into the Aegean. So far, though, I’ve been blocked by Spithridates and Rhosaces—those meddlesome sons of bitches!” Mentor spat over the parapet, his darkened face screwed up in a rictus of disgust. “Zeus, protect me from their incompetence! They’re the reason I need you up north, in the Troad. Cut out those little kinglets my fellow satraps have so graciously allowed to prosper, the ones most liable to side with Philip. That way, the Macedonian can’t seize piecemeal what he could never hope to win as a whole. The Troad must be brought to heel!”

Memnon looked away north, his eyes narrowed to slits as a plan of action coalesced in his mind. “I know just where to start.”

16

 

T
HE GALLEY PITCHED LIKE A DRUNKARD, ROLLING IN THE SWELLS OFF
the northern tip of Lesbos. Methymna lay astern; across the straits, seven miles away, a gray veil of rain obscured Assos and the Asian shore. In the whistling wind, icy and sharp, the
auletes
dispensed with his flute and kept the oarsmen in rhythm by marking cadence on a hide drum. Memnon watched their exertions from the comparative shelter of the deckhouse.

Though the arrival of winter with its frequent storms and contrary winds beached most ships, the sailors of Methymna routinely made the short run to Assos and back—a journey of less than an hour in fair weather now trebled by a foul squall howling down from the north. “Thetis will guide us,” the captain had said, blowing a kiss at an image of the sea goddess carved into his sternpost. Memnon prayed he was right. A mischance at sea would wreck his delicate plans …

“You’ve done it, “Aristonymus said, brandishing a letter brought to Methymna by a fast courier ship. Memnon broke off his contemplation of a map he had made of the Troad and glanced up. “The eunuch has taken an interest in you. He sends his compliments and invites you to join him in Assos next month to celebrate the Lenaea.”

Memnon stroked his bearded jaw. “He’s taken the bait, to be sure, but what piques his interest more, I wonder? That I am a fellow devotee of philosophy or a former rebel and soldier?”

“Does it matter?” Aristonymus said, frowning. “You belabor this whole affair with your plots and your secrecy. Dionysus rules the Lenaea. The eunuch will conduct the god’s worship from the theater. He’ll be exposed, affable, and fuddled with drink. All you’d need is one courageous fool with a knife …”

“If control of Assos was my only concern, cousin, then perhaps you would be right. But, knifing the eunuch during a chorus of
Lysistrata
won’t win us Atarneus, Sigeum, Troy, Abydus, or the dozen other towns under his thumb. Murdering Hermeias will gain us nothing but civil discord and outright war—the very things Mentor wishes to avoid.”

Aristonymus grumbled. “It would be easier.”

“The easy route,” Memnon replied, “is not always the most prudent.”

The Rhodian braced himself against the deckhouse door as the galley pitched forward, lunging into a trough between the swells. The seas washed over the bow, drenching the rowers. They redoubled their efforts; the captain’s trust in the goddess seemed well placed when, as the ship crested the wave, Memnon observed the first glimmers of Assos through the mist.

Homer called it ‘steep Pedasos,’ though what man, Titan, or god carved a city out of the rocky crags overlooking the Bay of Adramyttium was unknown even in the Poet’s day. Walled on three sides, its fourth guarded by the sea, Assos was a place of shelves and terraces, of narrow streets connected by stairs beyond number and public buildings of gleaming marble. At the pinnacle of its fortified acropolis, some thousand feet above the harbor, the temple of Athena Polias kept unending vigil.

Within the hour, Memnon’s galley wallowed into the calmer waters of the mole-protected harbor. Triremes were drawn up on shore and protected for the winter by timber sheds; smaller craft rode out the weather on the water, moored to stone bollards lining the mole.

The Rhodian emerged from the deckhouse as the galley docked. Beneath a black wool cloak, heavily embroidered in gold thread, the Rhodian wore a
chiton
of similar material cinched by a thick leather belt. A sheath hung from his left hip, a long knife with a silver pommel. Memnon waited as two sailors wrestled the boarding plank into place. A third fetched the Rhodian’s travel chest and deposited it on the mole.

“My thanks, Captain,” Memnon said, glancing over his shoulder at the shipmaster standing atop the deckhouse.

The captain grinned. “I told you the goddess would watch over us.” He turned and raised his hands to the carved sternpost. “Thrice-blessed mother of Achilles, gold-wreathed mistress of the Nereids …”

Memnon disembarked as the crew joined their captain’s
paean
to Thetis.

Despite the weather a knot of men made their way down the mole to where Memnon stood. Some might have had business with the pious shipmaster, such as small cargoes from Lesbos to claim or letters to deposit for the return trip, but Memnon could tell that the fellow leading the group, a servant dogging his steps, was there for him. The man’s cloak billowed out behind him, revealing the polished bronze breastplate and leather kilt of a soldier. He stopped at a respectful distance and raised a hand in greeting.

“You are the Rhodian called Memnon?”

“I am.”

“Very good! I am Kritias, a captain of the
Basileus’s
Guard. My lord has instructed me to escort you to his palace.” The officer motioned for his servant to take Memnon’s chest. “Follow me, sir.” He abruptly turned and marched back the way he had come, scattering those men who had been in his wake.

With courtesy, if not actual friendliness, Kritias led Memnon up from the harbor and through the lower slopes of Assos. Though years had passed since his last visit, a brief stop on his way north from Phoenicia to Macedonia, he could discern little in the way of change. Even in the throes of winter the city buzzed with life, like a beehive tipped on its side by a careless gardener. Citizens and foreign residents scurried on their errands, pausing at stairheads and on street corners to share the latest news—from Philip’s victory in Thrace to Athens’s decision to dispatch its most popular general, Chares, to the aid of Diopeithes in the Chersonese. Memnon shook his head.
Chares.
With that fool in the region instances of piracy in the Aegean would soar but he expected little else would be done.

Memnon trailed Kritias across the agora—its crowded public spaces constructed on the Doric order rather than the Ionic—and up another flight of steps. Once atop this next terrace, the Rhodian paused and looked away to the west. An offshore wind ruffled his hair and cloak. From his vantage point, halfway up the hillside between the harbor and Athena’s temple, Memnon could see down to the twin turrets of the Lekton Gate; beyond them, he caught sight of the necropolis, a monumental park thick with sculptures and
steles
—his father’s among them.

Are you proud of us, Father? Are you proud of your sons?

Ahead of him, Kritias stopped and turned. “Sir? What is it you see?”

Memnon stirred at the sound of his voice. “A memory, nothing more,” he said, motioning the captain to continue on to the palace.

In truth, Assos had no residential buildings deserving of the term ‘palatial.’ Most of the houses in its terraced neighborhoods were squat and unlovely, built of mudbrick and clay covered in thick lime stucco. Some had touches of color—yellow and red-striped awnings above the door or a window box overgrown with herbs—but the rest formed an indistinguishable warren with boundaries dictated by the demands of the landscape.

Hermeias’s palace was only called such because its occupant styled himself a king; it lacked extravagance because he also styled himself a philosopher, molded in Plato’s image. His palace sat at the center of the terrace, surrounded by offices of the court functionaries who governed the city in the king’s absence. Save for a columned portico guarded by bronzeclad pikemen, it looked identical to every other block of houses.

“I must ask you to surrender your knife, sir,” Kritias said as they neared the portico. Memnon did so willingly. “It will be kept safe and returned to you once you leave. My duty also requires that I search you for hidden weapons. I mean no disrespect. If you will permit me?” Again Memnon acquiesced; indeed, he expected no less. Despite his philosophical pretensions, Hermeias’s rise to power involved the murder of his predecessor, Eubulus—a very anti-Platonic solution to the removal of a tyrant with Persian sympathies. Memnon held his arms away from his body as Kritias ran practiced hands up his flanks in search of hidden blades.

“Does Hermeias fear for his life?”

“Our
Basileus
is a cautious man,” Kritias replied, “and no matter how benevolent the ruler, there are always those envious of his position and desperate enough to contemplate murder to achieve their ends. For my part, I would not want the example of the Athenian tyrannicide to be repeated in fair Assos.”

Not again, you mean,
Memnon thought.

Finding nothing amiss, the captain nodded and gestured for the door wardens to allow the Rhodian entry. Memnon was ushered into a stonetiled vestibule, where a courteous slave took his cloak, and thence into a long, narrow room full of natural and artificial light. Shelves lined the walls, partitioned into niches holding countless scrolls. Clerks bustled between the shelves checking and double-checking scroll tags. Some they removed from their niches and carried to a table for a trio of scribes to fair-copy.

At the far end of the room, a dark-haired man sat behind a desk of polished wood, a crackling fire on the hearth behind him. He raised a sheet of parchment up to the light and read aloud in a clear voice: “ ‘Consider further what a disgrace it would be to allow Asia to be more successful than Europe, non-Greeks more prosperous than Greeks, to let the dynasty of Cyrus, a foundling, win the title of Great King, while that of Herakles, a son of Zeus, is given a humbler style. None of this can be permitted. It needs to be altered to the exact opposite’.”

“I pray I am as eloquent in my dotage as Isocrates is in his,” Memnon said by way of greeting, his face a smiling mask of politesse.

Hermeias, the Troad’s eunuch king, glanced over the edge of the parchment, a twinkle in his eyes. “You recognize the piece from that small excerpt?”

“Isocrates’
Address to Philip,
of course,” Memnon said. “The call of an old sophist for the unification of Hellas and the destruction of Persia. I read it years ago. A remarkable bit of writing.”

“It is, indeed.” Hermeias put the parchment aside. He stood and came out from behind his desk. “Ah, Memnon! It has been too long!” He embraced the Rhodian as though they were lifelong friends.

Gelded in his youth, it was plain Hermeias had mastered his appetites at an early age, avoiding the habit of other eunuchs who let a love of food replace the pleasures of the flesh. He kept himself trim, and thus had aged far more gracefully than other men, even those who shared his condition. Gray frosted his close-cropped black hair, and an old scar cut diagonally across his face, beginning above his left eye, crossing the bridge of his nose, and continuing down his right cheek—a sword cut gained in battle against the Carians, dispelling the myth that geldings lacked martial fire.

Nor did Hermeias’s dress lean toward the kind of extravagance one might expect from a eunuch. He wore a simple Ionic
chiton,
cream-colored, stitched with a border of plain black thread. The signet ring on his right index finger was the only touch of gold on his person; its sardonyx seal bore the carved image of Athena, in her guise as the goddess of wisdom, with an owl perched on her upraised palm.

“I’m amazed you remembered me at all,” Memnon said.

“Who could forget the youngest—and I daresay the brightest—of good Timocrates’ sons?”

“You are too kind,” Memnon replied, sloughing off the needless flattery couched in a lie. In the old days, Hermeias would not have known Memnon if the Rhodian passed him on the street. Mentor and Artabazus, alone, had dealings with the eunuch’s former master, Eubulus, an Ephesian banker turned tyrant—and by extension with the eunuch himself, who was Eubulus’s pet sophist and favorite Ganymede.

“Come,” Hermeias said. “Sit and drink with me. No doubt crossing the straits in midwinter has left your nerves ill at ease. I will have mulled wine brought to us.” He turned to his clerks and scribes and waved them out. “That is enough for today. Have Sthenelos fetch us a good Chian, or is Thasian more to your liking, Memnon? No, no, make it Chian.”

“You have your former master’s palate for fine wine,” Memnon said.

For a split-second, Hermeias’s mask of courtesy slipped, giving the Rhodian a glimpse of the naked rage and ambition lurking beneath. The eunuch mastered these emotions as swiftly as they appeared. “My one indulgence,” he said, his smile returning. The men sat on couches and made small talk as a servant arrived with two steaming mugs of wine. Their conversation resumed after the servant left.

“Your invitation to join you for the Lenaea was wholly unexpected,” Memnon said. “I didn’t think an independent and energetic ruler such as yourself would want to associate with the brother of a Persian officer. By rights, our very positions should put us at odds.”

Hermeias cocked his head to the side. “It would be true, perhaps, if we chose only to approach it from the narrow perspective of possible competitors. But, for all our differences, we—you, your brother, and I—share one inalienable trait: we are Greek. It would be a sad world, indeed, if fellow Greeks could not put aside their differences long enough to participate in the very festivals which bind us as a people.”

“Well spoken,” Memnon said, raising his mug in salute. “It’s that same sentiment that allows the warring factions of Hellas to unite in celebration of the games at Olympia.”

“Exactly!” Hermeias leaned closer, adopting the mien of a conspirator. “I will be honest with you, Memnon. I also wished to speak with you because your brother’s unique position in the Great King’s hierarchy intrigues me. I find the subject of Persian politics to be endlessly fascinating! Perhaps you will share some of your anecdotes with me during the festival?”

Memnon apprehended something in the eunuch’s studied enthusiasm, an implied understanding that their shared Hellenic ancestry trumped any perceived allegiance to a barbarian king. Without realizing it, Hermeias tipped his hand. Memnon’s smile widened and he inclined his head, a gracious guest to his host. “It would be my pleasure.”

“Excellent!” The eunuch clapped and his steward entered. “You must be exhausted. I have taken the liberty of having accommodations made ready for you here, at the palace. Sthenelos will show you to your rooms. I must attend to state business tonight, which unfortunately means leaving you to dine alone. Do you still have friends in Assos?”