by Tessa Afshar
I took my leave of Nebo more troubled than when I had first arrived. This mystery grew increasingly complicated with every step. I knew my lady had put her seal to no such document. I needed to speak to Frada, but it would take more precious hours to summon him than I had. I decided that I would have to content myself by sending a message. In the meantime, there was this conscience-stricken fellow, Gaspar, to find.
The dinner hour had long passed when I found one of the queen’s couriers and entrusted him with a letter for Frada, impressing on him the urgency of the situation. The speed of Persian couriers was legendary. The Achaemenid kings seemed to know of every important occurrence throughout their far-flung kingdom almost the moment it happened. Their secret was in part the dazzling speed of their messengers. But even that legendary swiftness might not be enough to give me my answers in time.
It had been a grueling day, but I was too fretful to think of sleep. My grumbling stomach reminded me that I had not eaten since breakfast. I made my way to the servants’ kitchens in the women’s quarter, knowing there would be little to choose from this time of night. I managed to scavenge a large piece of Lavash bread and a generous slice of sheep cheese. In the herb garden I spied some mint in the dark and rolled it into my bread with the cheese. I sat near a clump of tarragon and chewed thoughtfully. Water trickled soothingly somewhere near. The scent of mint and tarragon filled the air. All appeared to be well with the world. My mind knew better.
I wondered what would happen if I could not find the answers to this riddle in time. I knew my father feared the worst—feared that by involving myself in a political intrigue I had endangered my life. This, I realized, was not my fear. Damaspia was not a violent woman, nor was she in the habit of killing servants who disappointed. She did demote them with rapid decisiveness, however. Or, like my predecessor, got rid of those who ceased to please her. The idea of such public shame made me break into a cold sweat. The thought of failing to win her approval—failing to accomplish what was required of me—was enough to reduce me to a shaking mass of nerves. I could not bear the weight of failure.
With a sigh, I retired to my narrow, windowless chamber. My three roommates were already asleep when I came in, an unhappy but regular circumstance, as I still needed to unroll my bedding and would probably raise their ire with the noise I was bound to make. To my surprise, I found my bed already made. At the foot slept my temporary servant, Pari. I blessed her under my breath as I crawled under the fresh sheets. From somewhere, she had acquired essence of orange blossoms and had scented my bedding. I decided that I could grow accustomed to having a servant of my own, and before long, fell into a deep and dreamless sleep.
I woke up to a headache and Pari’s unsmiling face. “You’re in trouble, mistress,” she said.
She made it sound as though this was a personal reflection on her. Alarmed, I said, “What?”
“The cook says you took food without permission last night.”
I sighed with relief. “Is that all?”
Yawning, I reached for my tunic at the foot of my bed where I left it every night, and found it missing. I looked about me, puzzled.
“You need a fresh one, mistress,” Pari said in her soft voice. “This one needs to be washed.”
“It’s fine.”
From behind her, she pulled out the disputed garment. “I will show you: these are sweat stains, you see? Here is a dried-up crust of food from two days ago; I recognize the sauce from the dinner in the servant’s dining hall. And here, I think, is plain dirt, from sitting on the ground.” She sounded shocked at the idea.
“Oh. I hadn’t noticed.”
Pari was too polite to scold me. “Where do you keep your clean ones?”
I showed her the chest that contained all of my worldly goods. She rummaged for a few moments and handed me a long white cotton tunic. I felt too embarrassed to tell my borrowed servant that the dress was tight and forced myself into it like a stuffed grape leaf. Pari sighed when she saw the results and went off to wash my clothes.
I found a scarf and wrapped it around my shoulders for modesty and retired to my office. Setting the Persian tablet before me, I sat and stared at it again, trying to pry out more clues. If only I could convince Damaspia to give me a little more time. If only I could find this man Gaspar and force him into confessing the truth. If only Frada could unlock the key to the source of the parchment bearing the queen’s seal. My life hung in the balance of too many if onlys.
One of two assistant scribes who reported to me sat studying a parchment on his cramped desk opposite me. Letting the parchment roll, he turned to me. “I cannot work out this payment for the queen’s records.”
The queen’s records! Of course! Meticulous records were kept of every transaction made to or from members of the royal household throughout the years. In those records, one could sometimes find precious details about the servant who was being recompensed.
“You are a genius,” I cried as I flew to find my way to the hall of records, leaving my assistant shaking his astounded jowls in my wake.
It took me three hours to locate the documents pertaining to Gaspar. Most of them referred to him as a resident of the village where he worked. My persistence finally paid off, however, when one of the earlier records gave me enough details to locate his parents.
Conveniently, they lived not far from the palace walls. Although technically Persepolis was a sprawling collection of palaces, gardens, and pavilions as well as the administrative nerve center of the Persian Empire, it was also surrounded by a city and several villages, which had sprung up to accommodate the thousands who worked in conjunction with the palace. The name of Persepolis invoked all these things: capital; palace; hunting grounds; city; the most magnificent structure the world had ever known.
I decided to take Pari with me, hoping that the presence of a servant would give me a more official appearance. Excited at the prospect of visiting the town, Pari forgot that I was a cook-displeasing, filth-encrusted, lowly scribe, and looked at me with adoring eyes. Only her threat of giving me a bath and treating my hair with perfumed olive oil and the angels knew what else when we returned home darkened our pleasant stroll. That and the prospect of the upcoming interview.
Gaspar’s parents lived in a rundown dwelling located on a narrow lane. Flies gathered around a dirty puddle next to the front entrance; we disturbed their feasting as we took our places near the mud wall and they began to try to land on us with dogged persistence.
I was waving my arms about in an attempt to discourage them when the curtain was swished open by an old woman with leathery skin. Her eyes widened as she saw Pari and me. I lowered my arms with haste and tried to look dignified.
“I am Sarah, Senior Scribe to Queen Damaspia. I am here on official business.”
She took a step back and placed her hand on her chest. “What do you want?”
I stepped forward. “May we come in?”
She looked around for a minute and stepped aside, allowing Pari and me to enter. After the brightness of the day, it was too dark to see well inside. I waited to be invited to sit as was polite. The invitation never came.
“I am looking for Gaspar,” I said without preamble. “I have some questions I need to ask him.”
She shrugged. “I don’t know where he is.”
I felt sure she lied. “It would be to his benefit to speak to me,” I pressed.
She shrugged a thin shoulder again. My eyes had finally adjusted to the dim light inside and I looked around me. The dirt floor was bare, the mud walls unpainted. The flies outside had many cousins, most of which seemed to live here. Against one wall, I spied a tunic woven in rich wool, with purple and green embroidery at the edge. Not a garment belonging to a poor household.
“Who does that belong to?” I pointed.
The old woman blanched. “My husband.”
“Very fine.”
“Our son sent it to him to keep him warm in his old age.”
“Tell
your son, should you happen to see him, to look for me at the palace. He is in trouble, you must know. I will try to render him what service I can and spare him the worst.”
She glared at me with defiance. I suddenly felt sorry for this woman who was trying so hard to protect the child of her womb. Hanging my head, I thanked her for her hospitality before getting out, Pari behind me.
“You didn’t believe her, did you, mistress?”
“No.” I was squirming inside my mind. What good would come from this crazy chase? Someone was bound to be hurt. Damaspia, Amestris, Frada, Gaspar, that sad old woman whose crime was to love a dishonest son. Me.
We made it to the palace in time to have dinner with the rest of the servants. Afterward, Pari made her threat good and forced me into a bath. Although I was clean, I was no closer to the answers I sought.
Chapter Five
The next morning marked the final day allotted to me by the queen. I rose up with sore legs, realizing that I had walked more in two days than I normally managed in two weeks. My routine responsibilities, neglected for too long, had piled up, awaiting my attention. Distracted, I found myself making slow progress, half my mind on what Frada’s letter might illuminate.
The courier arrived long after evening had fallen. Still covered with the dust of the road, he handed me a leather cylinder. I knew he had neither slept nor enjoyed a respite since starting his journey many hours ago. Expressing my thanks I dismissed him to his rest, knowing I would have none that night.
Inside the leather cover I found a roll of parchment. First, I examined the seal to ensure it was intact. Breaking it, I sat down in my deserted office to work through Frada’s response.
He told me how shocked he was at the allegations raised against him and assured me of his innocence. Regarding his cloak, he said that it had been stolen several months ago, and included the testimony of one of the king’s men as to the veracity of this claim.
He had heard about the theft at the queen mother’s orchard the previous autumn, but knew nothing about it. At the time it had occurred, he had increased the watch over Queen Damaspia’s lands in case other robberies should be attempted. He had thought no more of it after that.
He wrote that two weeks before, Gaspar had left his employ abruptly, without giving prior notice. In the short time he had had to respond to my missive, Frada had searched for clues of Gaspar’s activities before his departure, but had found little worth remark. These few details he described in the hope that they would be of help to me.
Several weeks ago, a young servant boy had been asked by a royal courier to fetch Gaspar. Before leaving the scribe in the company of the messenger, the boy heard the courier announce that he had come from Alogune of Babylon.
I leaned away from my desk. Alogune! She was one of Artaxerxes’ concubines, I knew, and the mother of his son Sogdianus. What had she to do with the queen’s servant? Why would she send him a message?
I returned to Frada’s letter. He explained that the young boy had thought the courier’s visit irregular; village officials were not in the habit of receiving missives from royal households other than the queen’s, and then the letters always came directly to Frada, not to the assistant scribes. Afraid to bear tales against his betters, the boy had maintained his silence, however, until Frada had begun questioning everyone. Unfortunately, he could provide no other details regarding this odd occurrence, such as the reason for the messenger’s visit. He only knew the name of the one who had commissioned the message.
One final oddity: a missing parchment regarding the purchase of a piece of land, originally sent by the queen and bearing her seal. Frada had discovered its disappearance by accident some days ago when he had needed to refer to it.
I could recall the exact document to which he referred. Damaspia had been in a hurry the day she commissioned it and less patient than usual. She did not wish to wait for us to fill the parchment with other instructions and send it the following day, but urged us to send it immediately to protect the land purchase. This made it an uncommonly short missive, with a wide margin of unused parchment. She had been turned around at the time I placed the document under her hand for her seal. Distractedly, she brought the seal down low on the parchment; with perfect clarity I now remembered the blank space between her seal and the Aramaic text.
I offered God cursory thanks for the exacting Persian procedure of making every document in triplicate form, and the fact that somewhere in the queen’s own records we could find a replica of the original letter that had gone missing. At least we had a minor piece of real evidence.
With painstaking precision, I read the letter twice more, slowly working through the different pieces of the puzzle. Alogune was at the root of everything; Gaspar was an insignificant tool in her hands. With cold calculation, she had set Amestris against Damaspia, and worse, planned to ruin the queen’s reputation. Did she hope to supplant the queen? To turn the king’s affections against the wife he loved so well by making her out to be a common thief and liar? Did she plot to place her own son, Sogdianus, in line to the throne instead of Damaspia’s son? Was that the instigation for all this evil: the dissatisfied ambitions of a woman who already had so much?
I sighed, rolled up the parchment, and began to prepare an oral report for my audience with the queen on the morrow. My only companions for the night were a large platter of meat and chickpea patties, and my own troubled thoughts.
Early the next morning I found Pari had washed and pressed my best robe. I would not submit to her desire to curl my hair, but I conceded to let her gather it into a neat knot at the base of my neck. I knew I failed her high standards and felt guilty for letting her down.
Anxiety made me ravenous that morning, but I dared not eat much under Pari’s worried scrutiny lest I spill anything on my clean garments. After a long wait, the queen called me to her chamber. She was dressed in full royal attire, her green and purple garments richly embroidered with dark purple thread. Upon her brow she wore a fluted gold crown that must have weighed as much as the head of a man. Jewels the size of goose eggs sparkled upon her chest and arms and fingers. She must have just returned from a formal reception with the king, I realized.
“Have you found any validity to your wild suspicions, scribe?” she asked without preamble.
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
She eyed me with her wide blue stare and dismissed her attendants once again. I told her everything I had discovered. When I described the letter bearing her seal, and explained Gaspar’s likely use of it, Damaspia sprang from her gilded chair.
“That slanderous dog! He falsified my letter?”
“Yes, Your Majesty. Although I have not seen it, I suspect he added a few instructions of his own at the end of the parchment, instructions that implicated both you and Frada. This would have been the source of the delay between the robbery, which occurred last autumn, and the queen mother’s lawsuit. After arranging for the theft, Gaspar had to wait to lay his hands on a letter that would suit his purpose. He then showed that letter with the forged addition to Queen Amestris as proof of your guilt. I don’t believe he would have dared move forward with the scheme without the evidence of your royal seal. That is why Queen Amestris did not lodge a complaint until three days ago.”
Damaspia paced with restless steps about her chamber. I watched her silently, giving her time to absorb the enormity of the plot that had been woven around her. “You have done me a good turn, Sarah,” she said with sudden good humor, coming to a stop.
Caught off guard, my jaw fell open. In three years, she had never called me anything but scribe. I was not even aware that she knew my name. Snapping my mouth shut, I bowed.
“I see Pari has even managed to keep you clean. Well, you can hang on to her a little longer, and take your clean self to Queen Amestris and explain the truth to her.”
“My lady?” I squeaked.
“Someone has to speak to her. She still assumes I am the villain who robbed her.”
“But … Your Majesty, surely … If perhaps you were to—”
She began to laugh, her shoulders shaking with mirth. “You will have need of more eloquence than that when you speak to Amestris or …” she made a garroting gesture against her long neck.
I stared at her wide-eyed.
She laughed harder. “You should see your face. Be at your ease. She will not dare touch you. Not right away in any case.”
I collected my tattered dignity about me as best I could. “But Your Majesty, would it not prove more effective if you were to speak to the queen mother?”
“I have not spoken to that woman in ten years and I don’t intend to start now.”
“Consider, Your Majesty, I am a mere”—I almost said girl who can read and write, but feared she might not appreciate my sarcasm and emended my words to “mere scribe. The queen mother will not even deign to see me.”
“Senior scribe. And she will see you because she knows I will have sent you. Her curiosity will get the better of her pride. I cannot risk sending another. You know the details of the matter, and will have the best chance of convincing her. Our trouble is that we have very little hard proof, and she is not an easy woman to sway. You must tread carefully with her, Sarah.
“In the meantime, I will send for Frada and the boy who witnessed the arrival of Alogune’s courier. Their lives are in grave danger. Alogune would have counted on the queen mother and me falling into her trap and blaming one another over this theft. Which we would have, were it not for your sharp eyes. But now that we have unearthed the connection to her, she will need to cover her tracks.
“If Alogune has spies other than Gaspar planted in my household, she will know that her only safety is in destroying the witnesses that can point to her involvement.”
Appalled, I lifted a hand to my mouth. Would my letter to Frada bring about the servant boy’s death?
