Harvest - 02 - Harvest of Gold

by Tessa Afshar

  The thought pierced him with the sharpness of one of his newly acquired arrows. Then he remembered the endless games he would play with his companions and forgot the fear of being apart from his mother.

  “Rachel, shall we go and fetch—” said a deep voice from the door before breaking off into a deep, rumbling laugh. “I should have known the little rascal would be out of bed. Normally six trumpets and a rabid dog couldn’t drag him awake this early in the day.”

  “Father!” Darius exclaimed with delight. “Look at what Mother gave me for my birthday.” Fetching his bow and arrows, he brought them to Lord Vivan for his inspection.

  His father examined first the bow, then the arrows with an experienced eye. “Straight shaft, sharp edge, tight string. An admirable weapon. I know my son shall prove worthy of it.”

  Darius felt his chest expand until he thought he would burst with joy. His father’s approval always had that effect on him. “I will, Father.”

  Lord Vivan placed a hand on Darius’s shoulder. “I suppose now I should present you with a gift.”

  Darius bit back a smile. “It is customary. I am seven today, you know.”

  “You amaze me. Truly? You are seven? Rachel, did you know this?”

  “It comes as something of a surprise to me as well, my lord husband. Feels like only yesterday that he came into the world.”

  Lord Vivan approached his wife and took her into his arms. “How time flies with you, love.”

  Darius rolled his eyes. “It’s my birthday, not hers.”

  “Did you want a cuddle too?” Vivan asked, and, without waiting for an answer, grabbed Darius into his wide embrace and threw him high in the sky. Before his son descended perilously close to the ground, he caught him up in his arms again and turned him upside down, holding him by the ankles. Darius, half blinded with the hair that streamed into his eyes, felt offended by a game that had always thrilled him before today.

  “Put me down, please!” he demanded. “I’m not a baby anymore.”

  “I beg your pardon. Right you are.” His father set him back on the floor, his blue eyes staring down at him with a serious expression.

  Darius straightened his clothes and tried to recapture his injured dignity. “I used to like that. But now, I think I would prefer to play other games with you, Father. Perhaps you can take me hunting instead.”

  His father bit his lip. Darius scowled, trying to discern if Lord Vivan was laughing at him. But his father nodded, and reaching into his pocket, drew out an ornate box. “Perhaps this will help with our new game. Happy birthday, my son.”

  Darius forgot his injured pride and grasped the box. Made of light olive wood, the box had been carved into a long rectangle. Inside, he found a dagger, crafted from bronze, with a hilt slim enough to fit into a boy’s hand. The dagger boasted no ornamentation. It was a young man’s weapon, not a showpiece.

  Darius beamed, delighted. He clasped the box with the dagger, and his bow and quiver of arrows to his chest. The new treasure trove barely fit in his arms. “I love my dagger. Thank you, Father. Let’s go try everything out.”

  “I suggest we have breakfast first,” Lord Vivan said. “Breaking in fresh weapons is hungry work.”

  Darius curbed his impatience as he ate with his parents. After all, eating breakfast with his father presented a rare opportunity. As customary with aristocratic Persian men, Lord Vivan had a large household. With two other wives besides Darius’s mother, three concubines, two half-brothers, two half-sisters, and a baby on the way, Lord Vivan’s domestic time remained limited. Darius’s mother was his favorite by far, and the one woman he truly loved. Yet for the sake of family harmony he could not spend too much time with Lady Rachel and Darius. So rather than complain about the delay in learning how to handle his new weapons, Darius decided to enjoy this precious visit.

  The breakfast spread boasted a variety of hot breads and soft cheeses. There were fig preserves and—his mother’s favorite—bergamot jelly, as well as fresh eggs with yolks the color of the setting sun. Darius rolled a large piece of warm bread with thick sweet cream, topped it with grape jelly, and stuffed a huge bite into his mouth, noticing that his father was engaged in the same activity at exactly the same time.

  His mother laughed. “Look at the two of you. No mistaking you are father and son. Except that you are fair-haired and blue-eyed, Vivan, and Darius has my dark coloring and green eyes, you are practically identical. Same straight nose, same long mouth, same grooves in your cheeks as you smile. And the same sweet tooth.”

  “You like sweets too, Mother. Even more than Father and me.”

  “No I don’t,” Rachel said before reaching a long arm and grabbing an almond cake from Darius’s plate.

  “That’s mine! Give it back!”

  His mother stuffed the round cake into her mouth until her cheeks puffed up like a squirrel. “Come and take it,” she said through her full mouth.

  Darius and his father dissolved into peals of laughter. With sudden clarity, Darius remembered his earlier concern. “Even though I’m almost grown up, I can still come and visit Mother whenever I wish, can’t I, Father? It wouldn’t be good for her to be alone too often.”

  He noticed the sheen of tears in his mother’s large, dark eyes before she lowered her lashes. With a sticky hand he reached out to pat her arm.

  Lord Vivan pushed away his golden plate and sat back. “You can’t live in the women’s quarters anymore, son. Now that you are seven, you need to start your education as befits a Persian lord. And that can only be done properly at the palace.”

  “Of course. I look forward to it. I can’t wait to become a great warrior just like you, Father. But when I come home at night, after my studies are finished, may I still come to visit Mother?”

  “You won’t come home at night. You’ll be living in Persepolis, in a dormitory with other boys your own age.”

  Darius went still. “I won’t live with you and Mother anymore?”

  “Once a month you will be allowed to visit us at home for two days. You will also come to us for a month during the New Year holidays. I have made arrangements for your mother and me to meet with you privately each week. You must not mention this to the other boys, however. I’m bending the rules, and they won’t like it.”

  Darius gulped. He hadn’t fully grasped what it would mean to see his parents only once a week—to be away from home for such long stretches of time. But he did know that the thought of that separation filled him with an aching fear that made him want to cry like the baby he had claimed he no longer was. He swallowed his tears and vowed in the silence of his heart never to shame his parents by blubbering like a coward.

  Forcing his head to move down in a nod of assent, he said, “As you wish, Father.”

  *426 BC

  Dawn remained a long way off when Darius jerked awake, thanks to the blaring clamor of a brass instrument. He groaned. He had slept less than six hours, having been awake late into the watches of the night, cleaning and oiling swords and daggers for the older boys. Ignoring the exhaustion that never seemed to leave him since he had arrived at Persepolis a month ago, he pushed himself out of his pallet and washed with cold water.

  He had scant minutes to be dressed and ready for their daily morning run, led by two of the older boys. They would run for over an hour, covering almost two parsangs* before returning for a grueling round of lessons.

  The first week, Darius had vomited more than once before they returned to their dormitory. He was not the only boy; most of his company of fifty new apprentices were similarly afflicted. Their commanders merely allowed them to fetch water from a freezing stream afterward in order to clean up before returning.

  Life in the palace turned out to be nothing like Darius’s imaginings. His world did not resemble an endless round of fun games. The physical training proved arduous, pushing him beyond his strength. He was being taught endurance, and the only way to learn that particular lesson was to endure no matter what kind
of hardship he faced.

  His treasured birthday gifts from his parents had been put away unused; his teachers considered him too young for sword-play and archery. Instead, they gave him repetitious exercises that left his muscles sore and aching. Some days, he had to hold up a stone for long silent minutes at a time, until his arm began to burn.

  Another common exercise required him to crouch until his thighs gave out. Several times a day he found himself carrying heavy equipment for the older boys who were more capable of carrying their own gear than a seven-year-old. Yet this too was deemed an important means of building up his strength in preparation for the time when his combat training would begin in earnest.

  “You have no muscles, boy,” one of his masters had told him more than once when his arms began to tremble during weight training. “How can you be so puny?” Unaccustomed to indiscriminate criticism, Darius had locked his jaw, determined to hold up the heavy weights for as long as necessary. He never wanted to be considered puny again.

  To his disappointment, the masters frowned on attempts at friendship. He had noticed that the boys who had been at the palace for several years seemed to have fostered deep connections. But new arrivals like him were expected to grow used to a solitary existence.

  Their combat and sports instructors were hard and distant. The magi—Persian scientists, astronomers, and religious leaders—had begun to teach his company of fresh recruits about the virtues of honesty, loyalty, and gratitude. They demonstrated indiscriminate kindness to the boys. But they tempered that kindness by an impersonal manner that discouraged any form of attachment or warmth. Darius had no one to talk to.

  Life in the palace had turned out to be a disappointment. It was lonely, exhausting, and tedious. Darius had seen other boys cry tears of solitude. Tears of pain. He resolved not to give in to such an outward show of weakness—to swallow the storm of his emotions and show nothing of his feelings. He simply had to push through.

  He determined to make his father proud. But he missed home so much that sometimes his body trembled with the strain of it. It wasn’t the physical hardship, the tasteless food, the endless chores that felt unbearable to him. He could endure all that. It was the isolation that gnawed at him. His life before now had been filled with love and companionship. The sudden and intentional loss of every form of meaningful relationship felt heavier than any of the weights he had to carry for training.

  At night when he crawled into his lumpy pallet, bruised and spent, he would pull the scratchy blanket over his head and think of home. He would smell the delectable hot food served to him at his whim. He would feel the softness of his linen sheets. He would relive the warmth of a cozy fire.

  He didn’t dare think of his mother’s voice or embrace often, afraid that he would lose control and demand to be sent home. But sometimes, when he lingered somewhere between sleep and wakefulness, he sensed her presence with him—the loving presence that seemed to make every hurt disappear. And he clung to that sensation even though he knew it wasn’t real.

  Darius was pulling on his trousers when another boy from his company named Cambyses walked past him. Without a word, he aimed a vicious kick against Darius’s shins. Darius lost his balance and fell hard. He didn’t cry out. Instead, he pushed himself up, and finished dressing with the economical movements of a soldier, which he had already learned.

  “I saw that,” a boy named Arya said. A couple of other boys added their assent. “He’s a blockhead,” Arya added.

  Darius nodded. Cambyses had been born the son of a satrap—the governor of one of the largest territories in the empire—an accident of birth that had pumped him full of self-importance. He had taken a dislike to Darius when Darius beat him in their first race. Now Cambyses tormented him every chance he found. Because the boys were encouraged never to tell tales, Darius chose not to complain. But Cambyses’ increasing bully tactics were becoming a real nuisance. Darius added that to the list of things he had to do something about.

  At least he would be going home this afternoon for a two-day visit. His first in a month. A few more hours and he would be home. Home.

  His father came personally to fetch him. When he entered the enclosed carriage, he saw his mother waiting for him with open arms. Darius hesitated for a fraction of a moment before catapulting himself, body and soul, into her welcoming embrace. His mother wept. That carriage ride was the first time in a month that Darius felt something like peace.

  That peace helped him make an important decision. He had formed a plan over the past few weeks. An escape route. A way of pleasing his father by fulfilling his responsibilities as a Persian nobleman, while at the same time surviving the experience. He had not been sure that he would approach his parents with his proposal. He did not wish to worry them by saying too much about the misery of his life. But he decided during the carriage ride, with his father’s arm around his shoulder and his mother’s smile enveloping him like a warm blanket, to speak to them.

  A private dinner was served in his mother’s apartments. His parents were full of questions. Although they had visited him each week, their time together had been stifled by the need for secrecy and haste. Now they showered him with every manner of inquiry, especially his mother to whom his new world was a complete mystery. Darius tried to keep his responses light. He noticed a softening in his father’s gaze as he painted an insouciant picture of his life. His father, he realized, must know from his own experience that the training of young Persian boys entailed more than fun races and hilarious lessons in the recognition of edible wild plants.

  Finally his mother said, “Enough. The poor boy has hardly had a chance to eat. Let us cease pestering him so that he can taste his food. I had the cooks prepare your favorite dishes, darling. Try the stuffed grape leaves.”

  Darius closed his eyes as he took a mouthful. The stuffing, enriched with the scent of exotic herbs and the flavor of spiced ground lamb, slid down his throat in an explosion of incredible flavors. The grape leaf was tender and surprisingly fresh considering the season. Darius groaned with the pleasure of it.

  Lord Vivan laughed. “What do they feed you? Bread and cardamom and broiled meat?”

  “Barley cakes too, for treats. Morning noon and night, it’s the same fare.”

  “The ingredients haven’t changed since my boyhood, then. I remember those years well.”

  “Did you also live in Persepolis, Father?”

  “Not until I turned sixteen. Back then, only the older boys moved into the dormitories. They didn’t have enough room for the younger ones.”

  Darius had found out this bit of information by happenstance from one of the senior boys. This presented the precise opening he needed to present his plan.

  He drank down a gulp of grape juice to fortify himself, and then launched into speech. “I was thinking, Father, why don’t I do the same? I could attend my lessons at the palace, and then come home to spend the night here, as you did when you were my age. In the evenings, boys my age have no lessons. Instead, we perform chores. Often, we are given the gear of the older boys to clean or oil. Sometimes, we have to write out or memorize an assignment the magi have given us. I could bring my chores home and finish them here, and then ride back to Persepolis very early, in time for our morning exercises.”

  His father went very quiet. “Why?” he asked, after several moments of tense silence.

  “I want to be home, with you and Mother. I will learn everything well, I promise. I will excel at my training. I just want to be home.”

  “No,” his father said, his tone implacable. He offered no explanation.

  Darius was astounded. “But—”

  “No buts. No. That is final.”

  Darius turned to his mother, sure that she would speak up for him. Instead, she turned her face away, staring at the wall. For a moment, he thought he saw a glint of unshed tears in her eyes, saw her fingers tremble before she clutched them into fists. But he must have been wrong, for she said nothing. Not a single p
lea on his behalf. Not one word to show she understood his need to come home.

  Darius tried one last time. He swallowed the bitter taste of pride, something he had been taught to guard since he could remember. Surely they do not understand. If they knew, they would never force me to go back. He said, his voice small and trembling with a childlikeness he hated, “I miss home. I miss you.”

  “That is enough, son. I said no. I meant it. You shall train as other boys your age and station. You shall fulfill your duty to your family and empire. And you shall never try to shirk that duty again.”

  Darius rose from his seat, turning pale. Without a word, he ran out of his mother’s apartment and wound his way back to his own chamber. He climbed into bed fully clothed, hardly noticing the thick luxury of lying in abundant comfort after weeks of a lumpy pallet. His father’s words burned into his mind like a brand. He felt utterly ashamed. Had he really tried to shirk his duty by wanting to remain at home?

  He could not understand his parents’ reasoning. Their response shocked him. He had expected that they would grant his request; their refusal was beyond his comprehension. He never doubted that they loved him. His whole life had been shaped by that knowledge. But he began to realize that being loved did not mean that you would be wanted. Love, it seemed, was powerless to give you what you desperately wanted. It could not fix problems. As far as it concerned his parents, duty overshadowed love.

  He thought of his duty at the palace, the endless round of lessons that challenged his mind and body, stretching him to excruciating limits. And yet, if he didn’t cherish his parents so much, he could tolerate his new life. There would be no longing for them every day. He wouldn’t miss them. He would adjust to his new life without them, the way they had adjusted to their lives without him. He felt crushed at the realization that his parents could let him go with such ease.