The Last King of Lydia (19 page)

As she explored the palace, she stayed away from the treasuries. Even at a distance, she could hear the cacophony of another battle being fought, as slaves and citizens killed each other for
riches that they would never get the chance to enjoy, just to possess them for a moment before they died.

Away from the treasuries and the women’s quarters, the palace was at peace. She did not see many others – mostly single figures running down the corridors, or cowering in isolated
hiding places. The epidemic of rape did not seem to have spread beyond the women’s quarters.

She searched for Croesus and Gyges in bedchambers and dining halls, kitchens and armouries. Emptied of people, and with much of the furniture and decorations already taken or destroyed, the
palace was like a place half remembered and recreated dimly in a dream. She fancied that if she pushed her hand up against one of the walls her flesh would penetrate it, like a hand pressed into
water.

Eventually, she found her way to her husband’s deserted bedroom. She sat on the bed for a time. As she waited there, wondering where she should go next, a man came into the room. She
looked up hopefully, but it was not her husband or her son. It was a nobleman whose name she should have remembered.

He started in surprise to see her there, then grabbed a handful of the jewels and rings that lay openly on a table. He backed out of the room, his eyes still on her.

As soon as she heard the door close, Danae realized where her husband must have gone. She left the bedroom, and moving at a half-run, as though afraid she would forget the sudden insight that
had come to her, she went to the stairs and began to ascend to the upper levels of the palace.

‘Danae?’

The queen started and turned, hoping to find her husband, but Isocrates and Maia stood a short distance away. ‘What are you doing here?’ the queen asked them. ‘This part of the
palace is forbidden to slaves.’

Maia tried to smile at her. ‘Come with us. We’re going to—’

‘Have you seen my husband?’ Danae interrupted.

‘No,’ said Isocrates. ‘Please, you have to come with us.’

‘Don’t worry, I know where I can find him. Him and my son,’ the queen said.

Isocrates exchanged a look with his wife. ‘Come with us,’ Maia said again, ‘please. We can keep you safe, but you have to do as we say.’

Isocrates began to walk slowly towards Danae. ‘The king asked us to find you. We are glad to see you. Please,’ he said, offering her his hand.

She smiled at him, and began to reach out to him. As she did so, she saw him tense his body. Only a shiver of tension, but enough to let her know what he intended to do.

She turned from him, and began to run. Behind her, she could hear the shouts of Isocrates and Maia, imploring her to wait. Husband and wife together, she thought, and she knew where to find her
family. They had bled into the ruins of the city to escape the Persians. They would live there for ever, in dream, myth and memory. She had to find a way to join them.

Passing through the dark rooms of the upper palace, she thought she would never escape the labyrinth of bedrooms and antechambers that seemed to continue without end. But then she saw a glimpse
of the fire on the horizon, caught sight of the open air, and she went towards it.

She came out on to the balcony overlooking the city, where her husband had spoken with a philosopher all those years before. She wished that Croesus could have been there with her.

Danae stepped up onto the ledge, and looked down on Sardis one last time.

Most of the Persians passed straight by Croesus. Perhaps, caught up as they were in the slaughter, where all that was forbidden was permitted and encouraged for a single night,
there was no pleasure in taking life from a man who wished for death.

At last, a warrior stopped and looked at the king. The Persian, a heavy-set man with a thin beard, was tiring of the killing, and was now more interested in gold than in blood. He would have
passed Croesus by like the others, but his eye was caught by a gemstone brooch that the king wore.

Their eyes met, and Croesus saw that the man would give him what he was after. He turned to Gyges. ‘Go, now,’ he said, but his son gave no sign of understanding. Croesus placed his
hands on his son’s chest and pushed him. Gyges tottered a few steps backwards, but did not turn away or leave.

Croesus felt a heavy sense of despair. He had brought his son with him, this man who didn’t even know him as a father, because he was afraid of dying alone. What few extra minutes or hours
might his idiot son have lived if he hadn’t taken him from the palace. Perhaps it might even have been years – the Persians might think it a bad omen to kill a madman.

It doesn’t matter, Croesus thought. There is nothing I can do to save him now. He won’t understand what’s happening, anyway. I can be thankful for that, at least.

He turned back, and watched the warrior come forward, slow and cautious, unable to understand why Croesus did not run or beg or fight. He reached forward with his left hand and grasped the
king’s tunic. Still, the king did not move. Satisfied with Croesus’s inaction, no longer suspecting a trap, the soldier raised his sword and aimed the blade at the king’s
throat.

‘Do not kill Croesus.’

Croesus and the soldier both flinched at the words, and turned to face the speaker.

‘Do not kill Croesus,’ Gyges said again, in the same soft, clear voice.

The Persian soldier understood only one word. The name. He stared at Croesus, but the king ignored the soldier. He looked only at his son.

Gyges stared back at him, and for the first time his eyes seemed to look upon the same world that Croesus saw. If his son could teach him to look on the world with those eyes, the king thought,
perhaps he might be able to salvage something from the ruins of his life. He could find his wife, and together, before the end, they might have a chance to learn from their son.

For a moment, standing on the narrow ledge of stone high above the dying city, Danae hesitated.

She thought of the past, of all the ways that she could have acted differently. Those moments when she could have changed the course of her life, changed the destiny of this city, her family,
and her husband. The hundred things that she should have done or said in order not to have found herself here, at this worst of all possible endings.

She heard the pursuing footsteps behind her, and she knew she had no time left to think.

She stepped into the air, and the ground reached up to embrace her.

Cyrus woke.

From the fields beneath Sardis, he could not hear the cries that echoed through the broken city. He had retired to his tent as the attack on the wall began and told his commanders to wake him if
he were needed. They had not woken him, and the silent air was rich with victory.

The king of Persia, Media, and now of Lydia cast off his blankets and rose naked from the pallet. He moved with an almost artificial grace, like a rehearsed dance that gives the illusion of
perfect spontaneity, and his face was ageless. He could have been younger or much older than his thirty-three years; it was as if he had decided, through sheer force of will, to refuse to accede to
ageing, as if it were merely a convention.

He glanced at the half-dozen bodyguards in the tent, and they nodded silently back to him, their eyes bright from the herbs that they chewed to ward off sleep. Even when he made love to one of
his wives, they never let him out of their sight. Occasionally, in an idle moment, Cyrus would try to remember the last time he had been entirely alone, but he could never recall it.

He let his servants dress him in his ceremonial armour, raised the flap of the tent, and stepped into the cool dawn air.

The city on the cliffs cast its shadow over the western part of the camp. Looking on Sardis, he took as much pleasure in the sight as another man might take in a beautiful sculpture, admiring
every curl of smoke, every fiery point of light, each hint of distant movement from the dying city. For a few moments, he stood in the quiet and enjoyed his victory.

The silence was broken. He heard a barked curse, followed by two shouting, familiar voices. He turned and entered the tent next to his.

‘Our warriors have ended their war,’ Cyrus said as he entered, ‘but I see that between both of you the battle continues.’

The two men turned to face their king. The first bowed awkwardly, with the slow and heavy movements of an old man. His name was Cyraxes, a Persian courtier and counsellor who had served
Cyrus’s family for decades. Now in his sixtieth year, he moved stiffly, but his mind showed no sign of following his body into decay. The other man, a Mede general called Harpagus, dipped his
body sharply and briefly, the action of a man more used to receiving such gestures than performing them.

Cyrus nodded to them then sat cross-legged on the ground. ‘What matter requires my attention?’ he said.

‘We were debating what to do with Croesus,’ said Cyraxes.

‘Ah. Debating. So that’s what the shouting was.’

‘Forgive us.’

‘No forgiveness is needed. I appointed you both to argue with each other. The attack was a success, I see?’

Harpagus nodded slowly. He was younger than Cyraxes by a decade, and, looking at him, few would have thought that he was much older than Cyrus. Only his eyes, deep and blank, like the eyes of a
dead man, revealed that he had lived to see half a century of war and politics. ‘Yes. Our scouts took the wall, and by the time the Lydians were alerted, we already had enough men over the
wall to hold the battlements.’

‘And they took Croesus alive?’

‘Yes. They found him with his son.’

‘His son? Is he a threat to us?’

‘Hardly. The man is an imbecile. Almost mute.’

‘That is for the best. Reward the man who captured Croesus, as I promised.’ Cyrus covered a small yawn with his hand. ‘Now, back to your debate. Tell me what I should do with
him. Cyraxes?’

‘His people love him,’ the old man said. ‘He knows the region, knows its politics. He will be the perfect satrap for Lydia. Under our close supervision, of course. With his
army destroyed, he poses no threat. Why not let him continue to play as a king?’

Cyrus nodded. ‘Very well. And Harpagus? You disagree?’

The general shrugged. ‘People like strong kings.’

‘And?’

‘I don’t think they’ll forgive him for losing a war that he began. These people have no reason to obey us unless they fear us. I can’t see that we will be safe until
Croesus is dead.’

Cyrus nodded again. ‘Thank you both.’ He thought to himself for a time, and his advisors waited silently. Finally, he said, ‘The Cappadocian prince. Harpagus, you said you
weren’t sure of his loyalty?’

Harpagus showed no surprise at the change of subject, for he was used to the lateral shifts of the king’s conversation. ‘Cappadocia is a burned-out wasteland,’ he said.
‘My spies tell me the people feel they have received little reward from being under our protection, after what the Lydians did to them.’

‘I don’t want to deal with a rebellion there. We have more important things to do than put down the Cappadocians. Let them have some compensation.’

‘If I can say—’

‘Yes, Cyraxes, I have heard what you’ve had to say. Let Croesus live, and I could be facing two rebellions. Cooperative governors are easy enough to find. Rebellions cost much to put
down. I have made my decision.’

The older man bowed again deeply. ‘Your will be done. When?’

‘Let’s get it over with. At dawn tomorrow.’

Cyrus spent the night in what had been Croesus’s bedchamber, more out of curiosity than as a symbolic conquest. He knew almost everything about his enemies long before
his armies marched to war. His spies reported on the strength and composition of their armies, his emissaries calculated a nation’s wealth, almost down to the last head of grain and talent of
gold. He learned everything he could about their weaknesses and fears, their sexual desires and taste in food. Every piece of information mattered, anything that could give Cyrus the measure of his
opponent. No detail was too intimate to be found out, except for where the king slept – the only secret that a ruler could maintain.

Cyrus had expected much from Croesus’s bedchamber, the private sanctuary of a man who had almost made a religion of his wealth. Here, where no one else could see them, Cyrus had imagined
that Croesus would keep his most beautiful artefacts, but there was something half-hearted about the priceless ornaments that decorated the room, as though they had been placed out of obligation,
rather than true desire.

The morning of the execution, Cyrus rose long before dawn. The servants who came hesitantly to wake him found him waiting for them, fully dressed and reading by torchlight to pass the time. He
accompanied them down staircases that had been scrubbed clean of blood just hours before. At the same moment, somewhere far below, he knew that Croesus was being woken and led to the place of his
death.

Cyrus reached the entrance to the atrium in good time, and waited for the sun to rise. One by one, his advisors appeared and came to wait with him, their faces long with exhaustion. Cyraxes
looked especially tired; grey faced and stooped. Cyrus leaned forward and clapped his hands by the old man’s right ear. Cyraxes jumped in surprise, and the other men laughed, grateful for the
break in tension, before they lapsed back into silence.

The moment came at last, and Cyrus pushed open the double doors, and entered with the sun.

He looked at the pyre, the wood heaped at its base, the high stake and wooden throne, the pale figure tied to it with a single iron chain. A wooden colossus, built to consume itself. He glanced
at Croesus for only a moment before he sat down at the table.

He waited for his taster to sample the food, but when he was at last allowed to eat, he ate lightly – a few pieces of bread, some dates and olives. He took a single sip of wine and gazed
at the prisoner on the pyre.

Cyrus had looked into the eyes of many condemned men. Kings he had conquered, traitors he had executed, criminals on whom he had been asked to give final judgement. He knew that all of them, as
they met his gaze, believed that they were showing him something unique. They were not. There were only a few ways for a man to meet his death, and Cyrus had seen them all many times over. In
Croesus’s eyes, the king saw something familiar. Acceptance.