by Tessa Afshar
Darius’s opponent was distracted for a moment by the noise of his companion dropping to the ground. It was the opening Darius needed. The thought of what this man could do to his wife gave Darius the strength to get back on his feet, ignoring the fire in his ribs. Taking advantage of his opponent’s slack-jawed surprise, he landed his elbow into the man’s belly and knocked him in the side of the head with a double-handed punch. The man staggered to one side. Darius swept a kick against his knees in the opposite direction and his opponent toppled. On the ground, he was unable to use the staff. Sama joined the melee, and finally between the two of them, and Sama’s flat rock, they were able to subdue the adversary, who lay unconscious, a thin trickle of blood falling sluggishly from his fast swelling lip.
They rushed to help Meres; Darius was relieved to note that although the others in the gang of attackers were good fighters, they were nowhere near as extraordinary as the man whom he had faced. Within minutes, Meres’s two challengers were quashed, tied with severe knots that held them helpless against one another. The other three men in the gang who were in various stages of unconsciousness were restrained in similar fashion.
Sarah ran to his side. “Are you all right?” She was unable to hide a small quiver in her voice.
“You were supposed to wait until I called you.” He tried to sound stern, but heard relief drown out every other emotion in his words.
“They can’t pose much danger now, unconscious and tied up as they are. You took a few hard hits. Anything broken?”
Barefoot as she was now, the top of her head came to his chest. Her hair, wild from sleep and her haphazard run, tangled about her face, and her full mouth, trembling with fear only moments ago, was now flattened into a stubborn line. He found her utterly beautiful. “I may have a few cracked ribs.”
“And your cheek is bleeding. It will probably scar. Too bad. You won’t be nearly as good looking as Meres anymore.”
Darius swallowed a smile. “Then you’d better attend me, woman. Or will you faint at the sight of a little blood?”
He would have laughed at her offended expression if the moan of one of the captives hadn’t forced him back to the present situation.
“Search them,” Darius said through gritted teeth as Sarah bound his ribs with bandage. “Strip them naked if you have to. I want to know who they are and why they attacked us.”
Arta, who had regained consciousness and was nursing a prodigious headache, growled. “Thieves and rascals—that’s who they are. Looking for our silver, no doubt.”
Darius made a noncommittal sound in his throat. The five men did not strike him as thieves. They fought like professionals, not bandits. Their high-quality horses were well cared for. He could still picture the unusual moves of the slim man he had fought; if not for Sama’s help, he had no doubt he would have lost that clash. Those were not the combat moves of a common thief.
He deliberated for a moment on whether to take the time and solve the puzzle of this mysterious attack, or bundle the culprits on their horses and deliver them to the magistrate in Susa and let him untangle this enigma. After all, the king, who had summoned him and Sarah for a special audience, expected their speedy presence in Susa. No doubt after months of respite in honor of his new marriage, Artaxerxes had decided that he had shown enough grace; the empire required the services of all its able men if it was to function properly.
Something about these men nagged at him. He felt uneasy at the thought of leaving the investigation to someone else. There was a great puzzle here, and he needed to solve it, even if it meant a delay in meeting with the king.
The sun had risen high by the time his men made a small hill of their attackers’ belongings in the middle of the campground. Darius picked up the white staff and examined it. It was made of a kind of wood he had never seen. He flexed it in opposite directions several times. It gave with incredible ease, bending in ways that would have broken any other wooden staff. He wondered what the stave was made of to have at once the solidity of wood and flexibility of leather. He threw the stave aside and began to go through the pile of sacks and parcels in front of him.
At the top of the pile rested a flawless box, carved from ivory. Inside, Darius found a dagger decorated with exquisite jewels. He hefted it in his hand; it was a ceremonial piece, more for show than real battle. Nonetheless, this was no ordinary dagger. The consummate craftsmanship and the rare jewels used in its creation marked it a worthy offering for a nobleman of high rank. Darius examined it a moment longer, looking for identifying marks or clues to its ownership. Finding none, he replaced it in the box and set it aside.
Unlike the dagger, everything else in the pile was ordinary and well used. Extra clothes, coins, a couple of jars of oil for the treatment of leather and metal, camping gear. Wine. Dried date cakes. Nothing incriminating. At the bottom of the pile, a sealed leather pouch caught his eye. He did not recognize the seal; the palm tree and stylized lion motif weren’t Persian. He showed it to Sarah. “Do you recognize this?”
She studied it before shaking her head. “It’s unfamiliar to me.”
“Can you break the seal, but retain the integrity of the design? I need to figure out its source once we arrive in Susa.”
“I think so. It depends on the quality of the wax.” She pulled out her knife and drew a careful line into the seal. With a delicate snap, she broke it into two undamaged sections.
“What do you think you’re doing?” The voice was deep and calm. Darius turned and found the broad-shouldered man who had attacked him first regarding him through intelligent brown eyes.
“Ah. Awake at last. Did you have a pleasant nap?”
“You better leave that missive alone.”
Darius’s smile was ironic. “You aren’t in any position to make demands, are you? Who is it for?”
The man said nothing. Darius unrolled the leather and found a short letter inside. “Not very illuminating,” he said after he read it.
“What does it say?” the man asked, shifting against his tight bonds.
“You don’t know?”
“I just carry them. I don’t read them.”
“How noble.” He held out the letter to Sarah. “What do you think?”
She studied it in silence for a time. “Interesting.”
“Really? I found it disappointing. Carry out the instructions I am sending you. You will be safe and well rewarded. How is that of any help? What are the instructions, that’s what I need to find out.”
“Your problem is that you don’t know your grammar. You see the way the author of the letter has used the verb send?”
Darius shifted from one leg to another. “Are you trying to put me to sleep?”
Sarah hit him in the shoulder. “Listen, your lordship, and you might learn something of benefit. The way the author has used this verb indicates that the instructions are not coming later. Nor have they been sent ahead. Whoever wrote this letter is saying that the instructions should be delivered at the same time as the missive, which strongly indicates that these gentlemen have them hidden somewhere. Possibly on their persons.”
Darius pulled down a lock of Sarah’s hair, which was sticking out at an awkward angle, and twirled it around his finger. “That is an excellent grammar lesson.” He turned to the intruder. “Impressive, isn’t she? Would you like to tell me where these blessed instructions are?” He sighed as the man stared back mutely. “I didn’t think so.”
He bade his men to search the intruders again while he went through the pile of their possessions once more. There were no other items of interest in the remaining pouches-nothing that pointed to the missing instructions. With sudden insight, Darius began to search through the piles again. This time, he wasn’t trying to find something, but to ensure that something crucial was missing.
“Where are your travel visas—your viyataka?” he asked.
The man’s head snapped up. “What?”
“Your permits. You can’t be traveling on the ki
ng’s roads without the required documents. Yours seem to be missing.”
“Must have lost them.”
Darius kicked the pile in front of him. “I don’t think so. I think that’s what you were after when you attacked us. There happen to be five men in our party and five in yours. It was too convenient a coincidence for you to overlook. You are travelling the back roads, so your chances of running into the king’s soldiers are diminished. But to enter a large city like Susa, you will certainly be asked for your viyataka. Much easier to enter the city with the appropriate documents than to try to sneak in without them, which must have been your original plan.”
“You forget—you also have a woman, which we don’t. So you see, your travel documents would be of no use to me.”
Darius knelt in front of his captive and poked him in the chest with his index finger. “You underestimate yourself. It would be easy enough to pay a woman at the gates of Susa to pretend to be of your party.”
The man turned his face away from Darius’s penetrating gaze. “So what?”
“So, this proves that you aren’t simple thieves looking for money. You are on a mission of some kind—a mission secret enough to prevent you from applying for travel documents. Would you care to share what that mission is?”
The man snorted. “Would you care to share yours?”
Darius sighed. “You insist on making this difficult.”
By now, his men had searched the intruders and their horses down to the skin, but found nothing. The whole troop had regained consciousness and sat quietly brooding in their ropes, but made no move to resist the thorough personal examination.
Suddenly Sarah stood and walked over to the owner of the staff. “That’s an unusually short haircut,” she said.
Darius frowned. It wasn’t like his wife to be fashion conscious, or to make public statements about someone’s lack of style. He edged closer to her, not liking her proximity to the exceptional fighter in spite of the fact that he was bound.
“You must have cut it recently,” Sarah continued, refusing to budge from the subject. “Shaved it even, I would guess, from the way it has grown back.”
Darius gave his wife a sidelong glance, before bending to examine the man’s scalp. In the bright light of the sun, the skin shone white beneath the covering of hair. Then with bewilderment Darius noticed black marks on parts of the scalp. “Tattoos. You have tattoos on your scalp.”
The man turned to Darius and gave him a pleasant smile. “First your woman, now you. Are you people obsessed with scalps?”
Darius restrained the urge to give him a good kick and signaled Meres to shave the man’s head.
“Leave my head alone!” the man yelled, but was helpless, trussed up as he was, to prevent Meres from completing his task.
His head was shaved in a matter of moments. Meres wiped the blood that flowed from several shallow cuts, a consequence of the man’s useless struggles. A short message written in Aramaic became legible on the white scalp, tattooed in black ink.
Sarah gasped as she read it. “That’s about the king!”
“What?” The man twisted his head to address Darius. “What’s it say?”
“You don’t know?” Darius asked, skepticism dripping from his voice.
“Can’t read my own head, can I? What does it say? Tell me.”
Darius, who had grown rigid after perusing the strange missive, emptied his voice of all inflection and began to read the tattoo aloud. “Rub the poison you have upon one side of the dagger. On New Year’s Day, present it to him along with a roasted pigeon as the gift from our satrapy. He will have you cut the bird in half with the dagger, and consume a piece, as assurance that it is not poisoned. Offer him the flesh of the bird touched by the poisoned side of the dagger.”
Darius’s men looked at one another, puzzled. Arta scratched his wounded head. “What does that mean, besides the fact that some poor sod is going to get murdered?”
“The message is about the king,” Sarah explained. “He receives gifts from ambassadors around the empire on the first day of spring, which is the Persian New Year. Often the gifts are symbolic: water from a river, to indicate that the whole river belongs to Artaxerxes; earth, to signify that the land itself is offered to the king. A bird would be a pretty way of claiming that the sky is also the dominion of the Persian monarch. A cooked bird would be tasted by the king as a sign of his approval, which ostensibly is why they have included the knife. But the king would take the precaution of sharing food with the one who has brought it in order to ensure that it is not poisoned. However, the person behind this plot has concocted a clever ploy to bypass that difficulty.”
“The king!” Arta almost exploded as he pronounced the word. “Are you certain? I thought the New Year offerings were made in Persepolis.”
Darius nodded. “Usually, they are. This year, the king shifted the usual plans so that he could spend the New Year in Susa. The officials around the empire have been notified; in less than a week, they’ll be descending on the city with their gifts, assuring the Persian Empire that they are still faithful servants. One of them has been planning to use this occasion in order to poison the king. Only an official of high rank would have access to the king on New Year’s Day, so this plot has its origins in a person of consequence someplace in the empire.”
There was a moment of stunned silence in the camp. Then mayhem broke loose as everyone began to speak together. The loudest voices belonged to the intruders, swearing to their ignorance of the plot. Finally a semblance of silence settled over everyone.
Darius crossed his arms, then thought better of it as the movement strained his bruised side. “How can you have the gall to profess innocence? The only thing you are missing for evidence is the dead body of the king himself.”
The man who had forbidden Darius from opening the sealed letter now addressed the party. “My lords, my lady, my name is Nasir, from Babylon. These are my four brothers, Nur, Naram, Nutesh. And that one,” he said, pointing with his chin to the man with the tattoo, “is our youngest brother, Niqquulamuusu. Everyone calls him Niq.”
“What a relief,” Darius said.
“First, please accept our humble apologies for the manner of our introduction.”
Darius noticed Sarah’s mouth twitching at the use of the word introduction. This fellow was entertaining for a cur and a murderer. Nasir continued. “We intended you no harm. You must have noticed that we went to great lengths to ensure no one was truly hurt. We don’t kill people.”
“That tattoo bears witness against your claim.”
“This is a terrible misunderstanding, my lord. Allow me to explain.”
Darius, who now had the task of interrogating the Babylonian brothers, motioned for him to continue, curious as to the story he would concoct.
“My brothers and I are couriers, in a manner of speaking.”
“Couriers work for the empire. I doubt the royal machine hired you and …” Darius waved his hand vaguely toward the group of tied up men. “Your siblings.”
“That is true, sire. Perhaps courier is stretching the word a little. We transport things. As you noted, travel in Persia is guarded by strict regulations. Even mail, if sent without royal approval, is read and destroyed upon discovery. But there are those, who for personal reasons, cannot apply for a travel permit, or entrust their mail to official couriers. Most people have secrets they would rather not share with the king’s bureaucrats, who could sell a juicy morsel for extra money on the side. In my experience, these secrets are often harmless to the empire. They concern matters of a personal nature—inheritance, love, family squabbles. Our rule is that we never look inside the packages and letters entrusted to us. People’s private sorrows and pain are not our concern.”
“How convenient. And you don’t think with such rules you attract murderers and villains of every kind?”
“No sir. Folks who have murder in mind wouldn’t entrust a stranger with their secrets, generally speaking. We
are honest men of business. We have no interest in murder. We merely transport documents and goods from one part of the empire to another for a reasonable fee.”
“Honest men, you call it?” Arta gaped. “My head is still aching from your honesty, you scoundrel.”
“But that was business, sir. It’s not as if we were going to rob you of your gold or silver. As his lordship so wisely deduced, we needed to borrow your travel documents.”
Sarah tried to stifle a snort, but was not successful. Darius dug his elbow into her side and decided to redirect the conversation. “Explain the tattoo.”
“Ah, that. Believe me, my lord, I had no idea what the content of that vile message was or I would never have placed my brother’s scalp at the disposal of such roguery. Here is what happened. A man contacted me and offered a great deal of money for my brothers and me to carry that dagger and a couple of missives into Susa.”
“What man?” Now they were getting somewhere, Darius thought.
“There’s the rub, my lord. He met me at night, wearing a hooded cloak. I hardly saw his face. His only introduction was a bag of gold. He sounded like an aristocrat. But I never found out his name.”
“Where was this?”
“In Babylon. But the man was not Babylonian, I could tell from his accent. He paid extra because he wanted to tattoo his letter on the messenger’s scalp. He said it was the only way he could be certain that it would not be discovered by royal spies.”
“But for my wife’s sharp eyes he might have proven right. How came he to tattoo your head without you ever knowing what the message said?” he asked Niq.
Niq shrugged. “They kept me hidden in a room for a month. Except for the man who shaved and tattooed me, I saw no one, not even my brothers. My room had no window, so I couldn’t send or receive any secret messages. I had no idea what they had written on my head. I was locked in until my hair was well grown out and covered the message beneath. When I find the rascal who marred me with dishonor I’ll squelch him.”
