by Tim Leach
In the long winter months she had to watch him closely, as he felt neither cold nor pain. In years past, when she had been less familiar with his habits, he had come close to frostbite, walking barefoot in the snow until his feet were hard and white. She remembered the hours he had screamed as the guards held his feet in warm water; he rebelled against their touch far more than the pain of his thawing skin. Now, she observed him carefully, always ready to coax him indoors to play by the fire when he had been outside for too long.
As she watched him pace around the courtyard, she heard footsteps approaching, an unfamiliar combination of weight and pace on the stones. In the long years of silence spent with Gyges, she thought she had become familiar with the footsteps of every inhabitant of the palace, but these were alien to her. She wondered if it were some new slave passing through, or visitors from a distant land who had been trapped in Sardis by the winter. But when the owner of the footsteps came into view, it was someone she recognized.
‘My lady.’ Maia bowed. ‘How can I be of service?’
Danae looked at her in silence. ‘I wanted to see my son,’ the queen said eventually. ‘It has been a very long time since I last saw him.’
‘Of course. He will be glad to see you.’
‘Will he?’ she said absently. Maia could find no response to this, but the queen did not seem to expect one. She stepped through the snow until she stood by the slave, and watched her son in silence as he wandered aimlessly from one corner of the courtyard to another. Maia noted that Danae had no attendants with her, not a single slave or bodyguard. How the queen had managed to dispose of them and wander the palace alone, Maia did not know.
‘Has he ever spoken to you?’ The queen’s words summoned Maia from her thoughts.
‘No, my lady,’ the slave said. ‘He has never spoken to anyone.’
‘You’re sure of that?’
‘As sure as I can be.’
‘He is deaf, then?’
‘No. He can hear. Those scholars that the king commissioned, they tested him; clapping their hands by his ear, knocking over a chair on the other side of the room. He responded to them. I wonder . . .’ She trailed off.
‘Please. Go on.’
‘I sometimes think that he does understand us.’
‘You think he chooses not to speak?’
‘I don’t know.’
Danae nodded absently. ‘How do you stand it? Living with his silence.’
‘It is not so difficult. It gives me time to think.’
‘What does a slave think of ?’ Danae said, then put her hand to her face and turned away. ‘What a foolish thing for me to say. I am sorry.’
‘Not at all. Will the king be coming here as well?’ Maia said. ‘He used to see us often. Gyges misses him, I think. He would be glad to see you both.’
‘My husband does not know I am here. I have no wish to see him.’
Maia said nothing.
‘Do not worry, Maia. You do not have to say anything to that. What is there to say?’
They watched Gyges in silence. He gave no sign that he knew or cared that he was being observed. He ended his absent wanderings in the snow, and retreated to a corner of the courtyard that was covered by a small awning. A brazier burned there, and he sat on a pile of rugs and stared at the embers.
Looking at him, Maia wondered how long ago it must have been that a man first stared into a fire and sought to read his fortune in the reddish embers and turning flames. She wondered how much longer it would be before the last man, if there ever were such a thing, stared into a fire as the world broke apart, and thought of the countless people who would sit and consider the flames in the time between, connected across time only by a moment’s peace, a point of heat. At least in this act of contemplation, if in so little else, Gyges seemed to belong in this world, and not another.
‘Perhaps I could try with him,’ Danae said.
‘My lady?’
‘Try and get him to speak, I mean.’
‘Of course,’ Maia said. ‘If anyone could convince him to speak, surely it is you.’
She looked at the slave. ‘If that were true he would have spoken by now. You are more of a mother to him than I am.’
Maia bowed her head to avoid the queen’s gaze. ‘Would you like me to go? Perhaps you would like to be alone with him?’
‘No. Please stay.’ Danae hesitated. ‘I wish that I saw more of you. That I had you at my side, as the king has your husband. But I don’t suppose my husband will ever release you from this duty.’
‘That is true.’ She smiled carefully. ‘But if it pleases you, perhaps you may come here again, my lady.’ She nodded to Gyges. ‘He won’t mind. I love your son, but I would welcome more talkative company.’
‘Perhaps I will. My thanks.’ Danae looked back to Gyges, and the smile slowly fell from her lips. Slow and hesitant, as if cornering a skittish animal that might startle and bolt, she approached her son.
He ignored her, staring into the fire like a priest seeking a sign from the Gods. She sat down, waited beside him patiently, and then began to try and convince him to speak.
‘There was no trouble settling our debts, Isocrates?’
‘No, master. The allies are pleased. There was plenty to distribute from Pteria.’
‘Good, good,’ Croesus said. It was late, and most of courtiers had retired for the evening. Only Isocrates and a few guards remained. The throne room was dimly lit, and now Croesus wished he had commissioned more torches for it – it was hard to read the face of his slave in the shifting play of shadows. ‘Will they all return next year?’ Croesus continued.
‘Who can tell what the Thracians will do from one year to the next, master?’ Isocrates said. ‘But I expect they will be back, for the gold if for nothing else. The others certainly have no cause to complain at their share.’
‘Very good. Send some offerings to the Spartans as well. Enough to let them know we bear them no ill will. They did say that they could not join us this year. But enough to let them know we expect them promptly next spring.’
‘I will see to it immediately, master. Is there anything else you wish me to do?’
‘Send an emissary to Babylon. I have heard Nabonidus fears the
Persian. Perhaps he will join us as well.’
‘Yes, master.’
Croesus slipped one of his rings from his hand and rolled it between his fingers. ‘When this business is finished,’ he said, ‘I will go to Babylon. We will go to Babylon, I mean. I shan’t go travelling without you again. Wouldn’t you like to see the city?’
‘I will go where you will it, master.’
‘They say it is the greatest city in the world. A city of marvels.’ He thought for a time. ‘I would like to see it,’ he said quietly. ‘They claim to have invented writing. We may have invented money, but to be the first people to write, that would have been remarkable.’ He paused again. ‘It is the oldest city I know of. Surely, if anyone has the answers, they must. Don’t you think?’
‘Answers to what?’
Croesus did not reply, and stared absently into space.
‘Is there anything else, master?’
‘No. Go.’
Isocrates bowed and went to the door, but as soon as he placed his hand on it, he heard the king speak again.
‘Isocrates. Wait.’ It was the tone that the slave feared from his master, more than any other. Doubt.
He turned back. ‘Master?’
The king smiled at him hesitantly. ‘Is it right that I do this?’
‘Forgive me. I do not understand.’
‘The war, I mean. What do you think?’
‘You can do whatever you want, master,’ Isocrates said. ‘You are the most powerful man in the world. Doesn’t that make you right, whatever you do?’
Croesus’s mouth twisted, and he felt the blood rush into his cheeks. He beckoned Isocrates forward, and when the slave was before him, leaned in close until he was only a few inches from
the other man’s face.
‘I wish you would not talk like that,’ Croesus said. ‘Do you not have a voice? A mind of your own? You offer me nothing but sycophancy? What use are you to me?’
‘Master—’
Croesus hit him; the clumsy, open-handed slap of a man unused to violence. Isocrates took the blow without complaint, running his tongue over his lips to check for the taste of blood. Croesus slumped back and turned from his own action in disgust.
‘Can I speak freely?’ Isocrates said after a moment.
‘I wish you would. Just for once.’
Even with this permission, it was a long time before the slave spoke again. ‘I wish,’ he said, ‘that you had asked me that a long time ago. I wish I could have told you not to go to war.’
‘But you could not speak without being asked.’
‘No, master.’
‘Perhaps you are right. Maybe we should not return.’ He stared at Isocrates. ‘And I think I may have to free you, if your slavery means that you must keep your thoughts from me. Would you still serve me, if I gave you the choice as a free man?’
Isocrates looked at the ground. ‘I don’t know, master.’
‘Ah. An honest answer. Thank you.’ Croesus paused. ‘I am sorry I struck you. It was a mistake.’
‘You never have to apologize to me.’
Croesus turned away. ‘I wish the winter was over,’ he said. ‘I can’t stand to be trapped in this city any longer.’ He closed his eyes. ‘You’re still here?’ He waved a hand at the slave. ‘Go.’
10
Afterwards, as always, there would be stories of omens. Of horses consuming snakes in the fields, of sacrifices that went rotten in moments on the altars, and of predictions that had been made five generations before. But, in truth, there were no signs. When it came, it came as all true disasters do, with no warning at all.
A farmer beneath the walls of Sardis saw it first. He was cutting wood on the outskirts of the city, working fast to keep warm in the cold winter air, when the wind blew against his back and brought with it some strange fragment of sound. A distant voice in a foreign tongue, coupled with the sound of metal on metal.
He assumed at first that it was some trick of the wind, and continued cutting. The sound came again – stronger, more insistent, like the repeated calling of a name. He placed his axe to the ground, turned and looked to the east. It was there that he saw the unimaginable.
A numberless mass of men sprawled across the land to the east, consuming the horizon. Even then, confronted by the sight, he could not understand what he was seeing. His mind refuted it. It was not until he looked more closely, saw the horsemen whose steeds snorted frost, the spearmen with heavy sheepskins slung over their necks and rags wrapped around their hands, that he believed it.
The farmer looked on the legion who had done the unthinkable, marching for days and nights on end through a foreign land in winter, faster than any messengers who might have been sent riding ahead of them. Surely no army had ever achieved its like before. Even at this distance, he could see the alien banner under which they marched; the towering eagle that held a globe in each talon, as though even the conquest of one entire world would not be enough to satisfy the king who marched beneath that banner. It was the flag of Cyrus, and of Persia.
‘No army marches in winter,’ Sandanis said at last, to fill the terrible silence.
‘What?’ Croesus said.
‘No army marches in winter.’
‘Is that your excuse?’
‘I was—’
‘Why not? Custom again, I suppose?’
The general said nothing. Croesus looked away in disgust.
They were in the emerald throne room, its pillars studded with jade, green silks falling from the ceiling, and the king wished they had moved to some private meeting room when the news had come. It was no place for a council of war. Croesus felt like a man pretending to be a king.
He turned back to Sandanis. ‘Can we defeat them?’
Sandanis hesitated. ‘Perhaps.’
‘That is all you can say?’
‘Yes. That is all.’
Croesus looked around the room again, and the men and women of the court regarded him silently. Defeat hung heavy in the air around him.
‘Gather the army,’ he said at last.
Sandanis bowed, then looked up at the king again.
‘There is something more?’
‘You will have to come with us, sire.’
‘You think I will inspire the men?’ Croesus said bitterly.
‘Yes, my lord.’
He stared into space. ‘Isocrates?’ he said.
The slave stepped forward. ‘Yes, master?’
‘I left you behind before, and it was a mistake. You must come as well.’
For a moment, Isocrates said nothing – a half-beat of disobedience. ‘As you wish,’ he said.
The Persians waited, with a strange courtesy, for what remained of the Lydian army to take up position. In spite of their winter march, it seemed that they still had some regard for the habits of war.
Croesus watched the Lydian cavalry move to the vanguard, and despite the great numbers that stood against them, he let himself feel some small hope. He told himself that the Persians must be exhausted by their forced march across the continent. Perhaps it was here, beneath the walls of Sardis, that he could win his greatest victory.
Before he could speak and order the attack, a series of horns sounded from the Persian army. Every other man on their front line stepped to the left, exposing a series of empty columns. Through these gaps, strange figures advanced, bulky creatures that seemed to have two heads and six legs. Croesus wondered if the rumours were true, that the Persians had tamed monsters as part of their army. Then his eyes began to make sense of what he saw and recognized the figures for what they were. They were camels, being led by servants to the front line.
The men walked forward hesitantly, dressed in ragged clothes, their heads bowed. The ungainly pack animals, still heavily loaded, bleated stubbornly and spat at their handlers. They seemed to be aware that they were being taken somewhere they did not belong.
‘What are they going to do,’ Croesus said, ‘charge us with their baggage train?’
There was no response from Sandanis. He saw the general’s mouth open a bare fraction in disbelief. ‘Sandanis?’ Croesus said, suddenly afraid. He felt a wind blowing on his face from the east.
With that wind, a wave of madness passed through the front ranks of the Lydian cavalry. The horses reared and bolted, twisted and fell. He heard the animals cry out in fear and all Croesus could think, at that moment, was how human their screams sounded.
He saw riders falling from their saddles and kicked to death, saw others jumping clear and running, and soon every horse was free of its master. They broke in every direction at first, then gathered together, re-formed into a herd like wild horses in the plains. They galloped away to the north, and were lost from sight.
A thick, heavy stench came through the air, diluted by distance, but still powerful enough to make his own mount stamp and toss its head. Croesus looked up at the strange, humped animals, led by slaves and laden with supplies, that formed the unlikely vanguard of the Persian army. He closed his eyes.
‘No,’ he said.
‘Their horses must travel with the pack animals,’ the general said, his voice dull. ‘They are used to the smell.’ He shook his head. ‘Quite brilliant.’
Croesus heard the horns sound, and saw the Persian army begin its advance.
‘We have to retreat,’ the king said.
‘No, my lord.’ Sandanis’s voice was firm.
‘Without the cavalry—’
‘Yes. We will be defeated.’
‘Then—’
‘You must go back to the palace. The rest will stand here and fight. It is too late to run. If we retreat now, our army will scatter and they will take the city.’
Croesus thought of the thous
ands of men who were about to die for him, of how their last thoughts would be of their king and how he had betrayed them. ‘It isn’t fair,’ Croesus said, barely louder than a whisper. ‘I won’t do it.’
Sandanis leaned in towards the king, his voice close to anger. ‘It is their fate to die. It is our fate to live, and rule over them.’ He placed a hand on Croesus’s shoulder. ‘Go now. I will give the orders, and then I will follow you back to the palace.’
Croesus felt the touch of a hand on his arm. It was Isocrates. The slave said nothing, and his face gave no sense of what was in his mind, whether he wanted his king to retreat, to live, or to stay and die. But in the silence of his slave, as he had so many times before, Croesus let himself find some kind of forgiveness. Croesus bowed his head, and turned his horse back towards the city.
He heard the first screams behind him. He looked over his shoulder and saw the great Persian army spill forward like a flood. He watched the unhorsed Lydian cavalry, their lances gripped like spears, run out to meet them.
Then he turned away. He did not want to see any more.
11
Sardis waited.
On the fourteenth day of the siege, Croesus finally found the courage to go out on to the city walls and look down on what had once been his army.
He imagined that those more familiar with such matters could inspect the pattern of the dead and reconstruct the battle from it; where the first men had fallen, where the battle had turned, when the losing side had tried to run. He stared at the heaped mound of Lydian dead on the plains beneath Sardis, not a horse amongst them, and he wondered if they had tried to surrender and had been butchered even as they threw down their weapons, or if they had died fighting to the last man, waiting for a relief that was never going to arrive.
It seemed likely, he thought, that the city would now die too, just more slowly. A death by encirclement that would take months, rather than hours. On its sheer-sided hill, with only a single path leading up to it, Sardis looked like a city that could wait for a thousand years, if only it were manned by automata, and not by men. Without a harvest or foreign traders to supply it, Sardis was not a fortress. It was a tomb.
