by Oden, Scott
Ariston sat while his eyes, watering from the brazier’s smoke, adjusted to the gloom, allowing him to pick out the small reminders of forgotten triumphs littering the room. Nicanor’s armor, his battle-scarred cuirass, greaves, and a Thracian-style helmet with an elaborate faceplate, sat in the corner gathering dust, cobwebs, and corrosion. The chair that creaked under the Macedonian’s weight was of Egyptian cypress, stripped of all gilt and glitter, while the upper edge of the smoldering bronze brazier bore a sootstained declaration:
To NICANOR, SON OF AMYNTAS, FOR BRAVERY
The old soldier noticed Ariston’s interest. “Alexander gave me that,” he said, “full of gold, after I lost my leg at the Hydaspes. Unfortunately, the King died and I pissed away the gold, but that thing still helps keep my stump warm on cold winter nights. What do you want, boy? I know you didn’t come down here just to gander at my trophies.”
“Actually, your trophies are a part of why I’m here,” Ariston said. “You’re the only Macedonian veteran I know, and I need to plumb the depths of your memory for a name, Nicanor. Do you recall a Persian satrap named Artabazus?”
“Aye. He entered Alexander’s service in Hyrkania, after Darius died. Brought the last of the Greek mercenaries with him. Aye, I remember Artabazus.”
“Excellent.” The Rhodian saw a glimmer of hope. “He had a daughter—”
Nicanor gave a short bark of laughter. “The randy old goat had ten daughters.”
“Was one of them captured with the baggage at Damascus, after Alexander’s victory at Issus?”
Nicanor scratched his neck, his craggy brows drawn together in thought. “The whole gods-be-damned Persian court was captured after Issus, not just the baggage. That bugger, Darius, couldn’t take a proper shit without omenreaders, water-carriers, towel-bearers, perfume-sprinklers, and a dozen fat eunuchs to wipe the royal arse.”
“But what of the court women?” Ariston said.
“Oh, aye, they were there, too … Darius’s wives and daughters. For the love of Zeus! The man dragged his gray-haired old mother with him on campaign! Expected his nobles to do the same. After the battle went against them, the men skinned out and left the ladies to our tender mercies. Hades’ teeth! Those so-called lords of Asia should have thanked their heathen gods it was Alexander who led us and not Philip. The old King would have taken the best for himself and given the rest to us. Not Alexander. He let them alone and made sure we kept our grubby hands off them, too.” Nicanor tossed back his wine and poured himself another. “There was one, though. She’d caught Alexander’s eye years ago, I heard tell, when her family came to Philip’s court seeking asylum.”
“Could she have been a daughter of Artabazus?”
Nicanor cocked his head to one side, struggling to remember tiny details fogged by the passage of years. “You know, she was one of his girls. I had forgotten that. But she wasn’t half-Greek like his other daughters. No, not her. She was all Persian, with hair of midnight silk and a body to shame a Melian Aphrodite. She didn’t speak that heathen jibber-jabber, either. Her Greek was flawless, better even than Alexander’s. Buggering Zeus!” Nicanor rapped his knuckles against his skull. “What was she called?”
Ariston rocked back in his seat. Could the answer have been plainer, more evident? A daughter of Artabazus, he thought, and an intimate of both Memnon and Alexander! “It’s her,” he said, his voice an incredulous whisper. “Barsine.”
“Aye, that was her name.” Nicanor gave a wet, wine-laced sigh. “You know, she might have been just his concubine, but that woman would have made a better queen than the Sogdian whore he married, that’s for certain. I had a tent-mate back then who was sweet on one of the Royal Pages—a chatty lad from Emathia, but a bitch in heat once you got a little wine in him—anyway, he told us that even Hephaestion was fond of Lady Barsine, and that bastard was never one to willingly share Alexander’s affections.” The old Macedonian drained his cup.
“What became of her?”
Nicanor hiccupped and poured himself another. “Alexander sent her home before he crossed the Indian Caucasus, if memory serves. Last I heard she’d settled in Pergamum with a son she claimed was Alexander’s rightful heir. Admiral Nearchus was the only one who believed her, but he was more of a wine-sot than I am.” He hiccupped again. “What’s got you so curious, boy?”
Ariston shrugged and forced a lopsided smile. “Where the Muses lead, the artist can only follow.”
Nicanor chuckled and hoisted his cup. “To the Muses.” “To Melpomene,” Ariston replied.
ARISTON RETURNED TO THE OAKS IN THE GRAY LIGHT OF DAWN, HIS PURSE depleted and his hair damp from a last-minute detour to the balaneion. There, in a terracotta tub filled with warm water, the young Rhodian had scrubbed the stench of the harbor district from his body while one of the bath-man’s slaves cleaned his sandals. As he soaked, in the back of his mind he chided himself for not accepting more of Harmouthes’ silver. If he had, perhaps he could have done something about his ragged cloak and his faded saffron chiton. One should not approach the great-granddaughter of a Persian king looking like a vagabond. Still, he reckoned they would do for now.
He left the balaneion and hurried back to the estate, slipping quietly through the door and entering the peristyle. He could hear Harmouthes moving about in the kitchen. Ariston padded down the hall to the Lady’s room, gave a brief knock, and let himself in.
She sat in a chair by the hearth, a bundle of cloth in her lap. Outside, light strengthened, though the sun itself stayed wreathed in clouds. At the sound of the door closing, the Lady glanced up from her contemplation of the flames and gave Ariston a weak smile.
“You are early,” she said. “I take it your business in Ephesus went smoothly?”
“It did.” Ariston came to stand by her chair. “Did you sleep well, Lady?”
Her eyes strayed back down to the cloth in her lap. It was a scarf of some kind, Ariston could see, made from a diaphanous weave of linen, edged in silk and sewn with seed pearls. “I no longer sleep well,” she said. “But I slept, yes.”
“Madame,” he said, his voice trembling with barely suppressed excitement. “It is time we were properly introduced. I am Ariston of Lindos and I am pleased to make your acquaintance, Lady Barsine.” He bowed low.
A slow smile crept across her face. She inclined her head, accepting his identification of her. “Memnon always said the men of Rhodes were the shrewdest of Hellenes. Perhaps he was right.” Her smile faded. “Sadly, you are only partially correct. I was Barsine, yes, but no longer. Barsine died at Pergamum, poisoned after Herakles,” her voice caught in her throat, “after her son by Alexander was executed on the orders of Kassandros. Barsine is a restless spirit in an unmarked grave. I am Melpomene.”
Ariston nodded. “The tragic Muse.”
“I am glad we understand one another. So, now that you know my secret, what will you do with it?”
“Do?” The young Rhodian frowned.
“I daresay Kassandros would pay well to learn how his murderous henchmen lied to him about my death,” she said. A round of wracking coughs reduced her to breathlessness.
“I’m no partisan of Kassandros’s,” Ariston said, taking a seat opposite Barsine. “Though, if you fear further retribution from him, why not seek asylum inland with Antigonos, or at Alexandria with Ptolemy?”
“To what end?” she croaked. “I have no political currency with any of the Diadochi, and they owe me no favors. Why should they trouble themselves over my plight?”
“If for no other reason than to honor Alexander, who held you in esteem.”
Barsine made a dismissive sound. “None of them came to Olympias’s aid and she was his mother. No, my young friend, such nobility rightly belongs in the sphere of imagination—or in the past. I fear neither Kassandros nor his followers,” she said. “So in Ephesus I will remain, though not, my heart tells me, for much longer.”
Ariston reached out and took her hand. It seemed so pale, so fragile,
and he held it as one might a statuette carved of delicate alabaster. “Then,” he said, “it would be my honor to remain with you, for so long as you require my services.”
“The honor will be mine,” she said, giving his hand a squeeze. Her eyes returned to the scarf in her lap.
“It’s beautiful,” Ariston said. “A shawl?”
“A veil,” Barsine replied. “I wore this the day I married Mentor …”
THE TROAD
YEAR 3 OF THE 109TH OLYMPIAD
(342 BCE)
15
THE CITADEL OF SARDIS STOOD ATOP A PRECIPICE, A SPUR OF MOUNT Tmolus that dominated the fertile valley of the Hermus River. Behind triple walls of dark stone and russet mudbrick, palace gardens once belonging to Lydia’s last native king, the ill-fated Croesus, were awash in the glow of gold and silver lamps. Carved cedar poles upheld awnings of purple linen, their electrum-crusted tassels faceted to reflect a thousand points of light. Incense and perfume drifted through the cool evening air.
At the center of the garden, beneath a canopy of silk and gold, the Great King of Persia and Media, the King of Kings, His Magnificence Artaxerxes III, called Ochus, held court, surrounded by the lords of Asia and their retinues. From a distance, Memnon eyed with great interest this stranger whom, until recently, had been his sworn enemy, a demigod of his imagination. In person, the Great King was far less impressive. In his sixtieth year or more, if Memnon’s eunuch servant could be trusted, Ochus was a paunchy man of average height with a sallow face and a weak chin not even his curled, dye-black beard could hide. His eyes, alone, betrayed his storied viciousness—they were pale, never still, and caught the light of the Magi’s sacred flame like razored knife-points.
Crowned in gold and lapis lazuli, clad in richly embroidered robes of Tyrian purple, His Majesty sat stiff-backed, his throne and footstool arrayed upon a high dais of polished porphyry. Four lesser seats rested on the lowest level of the dais; three were occupied. To the Great King’s left sat a pair of lords, one robed in crimson, the other in aquamarine. Memnon knew the man in the crimson robes as their host, Spithridates, satrap of Lydia—a saturnine Iranian with a pockmarked face and thin, humorless lips. Spithridates regarded his companion with barely disguised contempt, and with good reason. The man in the aquamarine robes was no man at all, but a beardless, soft-bellied eunuch.
“That is Bagoas,” one of the other guests had said, answering Memnon’s question as to the dark-haired eunuch’s identity. Bagoas ignored Spithridates; the eunuch laughed gaily, muttering something to the Great King that elicited a grin from the monarch. Ochus turned to listen as whatever Bagoas had said was refuted, without rancor, by the man who sat alone on his right-hand side—a man Memnon hardly recognized as his own brother.
Egypt, despite being the land of his celebrated triumphs, had not been kind to Mentor. His face had grown lean, seamed by the desert wind, bronzed by the relentless sun, and scarred by war. He had only a fringe of hair remaining; like his well-trimmed beard it was more salt than pepper. Though clad in Persian-style robes of white and gold brocade befitting a man of his elevated rank, Memnon could tell his brother had lost much of his bulk. Victorious, the younger Rhodian thought, but at what price?
The final chair, the one beside Mentor, was empty. It would be for his bride. That the Great King chose to remain in Sardis to preside over Mentor’s wedding was a mark of great favor. A lion’s share of the guests, who numbered close to a thousand, saw nothing amiss in the idea of a princess of the royal house being given in marriage to a Hellene (Barsine’s grandmother had been Ochus’s eldest sister); they took it in stride and celebrated with unfeigned happiness. A handful, though—among them Spithridates and his brother Rhosaces, satrap of Ionia—viewed the marriage as one of the many mortal insults they’d been forced to endure of late, with the greatest being the elevations of a eunuch and a foreigner into positions of power surpassing even their own. Memnon wondered how long they would bear it, and who would the brothers recruit into their ranks? Arsites of Hellespontine Phrygia, perhaps? What’s more, he wondered if Mentor knew of their enmity—
A tug on his sleeve ended the Rhodian’s contemplation. He turned to find Khafre standing beside him. The Egyptian wore the traditional dress of his homeland, all swirling linen and heavy gold, with thick cosmetics outlining his eyes. “The Lady would speak to you before the ceremony begins,” Khafre said.
“We must be quick about it, then,” Memnon said. “The priests will be ready to offer their libations, soon.” He gestured toward the altar where a trio of Magi tended the sacred flame of Ahuramazda.
Khafre nodded and retraced his steps. The Rhodian followed him through the garden. Unlike his brother, Memnon decided against Persian raiment—he wore a short white chiton hemmed in blue under a silver-chased bronze muscled cuirass, the whole covered by a cobalt-blue cloak, a khlamys, embroidered with silver thread.
Khafre led him, as swiftly as the crowd of guests allowed, up a narrow flight of stairs and through a side entrance into the palace. They crossed the many-columned hall known as the Apadana, where by day the satrap would hold his audiences and by night his banquets, and entered a busy side chamber set aside for the bride’s family to receive well-wishers prior to the ceremony. Beyond it were a suite of private apartments generally reserved for official visitors to the satrap’s court.
Memnon spotted Artabazus, his white hair and beard curled in the current fashion, looking flushed and proud. Soon, flanked by his sons, he would escort Barsine into the King’s presence and present her to the bridegroom. The Rhodian smiled and dipped his head in greeting as he and Khafre passed without comment into the rooms beyond.
Deidamia, swathed in black from crown to foot in emulation of Hades-bound Persephone, met them at the door. She was in a towering rage, her nostrils flaring. “She’s intractable! Refuses to come out until she’s had a chance to speak with you! With you! Blessed Hera! Has she no sense of propriety? Have you?” Deidamia gestured to the heavens.
Memnon caught her flailing hands. “Lower your voice,” he said, cognizant of the noblemen collected in the outer room. “Barsine and I are friends, Deidamia, and friends we will remain, propriety be damned. What’s more, I am her uncle and soon to be her brother-in-law. Why should she not wish a few words with me, or I with her?”
“It’s not the proper way of things!” she hissed.
“Things change. Go,” he said in a tone that brooked no refusal, “take a moment’s rest and gather yourself. I will bring her out.” Memnon crossed the small antechamber with its tasteful rugs and wall hangings; he ignored the audience of perfumers, hairdressers, and bridesmaids as he scratched once at the inner door, then let himself in.
The room Barsine occupied opened onto a broad balcony that faced west. A russet band of light washed over the dark ridges of the Tmolus range, striking fire from the twisted marble columns. In her white gown, her hair exquisitely braided and held in place with combs of enameled silver, the daughter of Artabazus could have been a creature of divine fire, wreathed as she was in sun’s dying light. She stood with her back to the door, turning at the sound of Memnon’s approach.
The Rhodian’s breath caught in his throat. “By the Goddess!” he said. “I have been too harsh in my past judgments of Priam’s son. Were you betrothed to anyone but my brother I would cast aside these bonds of hospitality and steal you away, as Paris stole Helen.”
Barsine blushed. “And I would go, willingly, were I betrothed to anyone but your brother. I am glad Khafre found you.”
“Is something wrong?”
Her brows drew together. “Flagging nerves, but there is nothing for it.” She peered over the balustrade, contemplating the sheer drop. The valley floor was lost to shadows; the onset of night obscured a river whose rocky torrents they could hear even at this height, no doubt a tributary of the wide Hermus. “Does that stream have a name?”
Memnon came abreast of her and leaned out over the railing. “That’s the Pactolus
.”
“Midas’s river of gold?”
“The same,” he said, straightening. “And the source of Croesus’s wealth. It was said in those days that a poor man could ford the Pactolus from bank to muddy bank and when he emerged he would be wealthy from the gold dust stuck between his toes.”
“And now?”
“Now, should a poor man wade the river he will emerge in dire straits, for not only will he still be poor,” he said, “but he will be soaked, as well.”
A ghost of a smile lit Barsine’s face. “Did you or Herodotus make that story up?”
Memnon shrugged. “Don’t dismiss it out of hand. Croesus was fabulously wealthy.”
“And unhappy,” she said, her smile fading. “Tragically unhappy.” Barsine sighed. Her gaze moved from the benighted valley to the ridge to the scarlet-stained sky. “I wish we were back in Pella, Memnon. Just to sit in the garden again, listening to the crickets and the cicadas, watching the fireflies dance through the birch boughs, would be worth a thousand of Croesus’s fortunes.” She bowed her head; her voice dropped to a whisper. “Is it nearly time?”
Memnon felt a pang of sorrow for her. “The Magi were making ready to offer their libations when Khafre found me,” he said. Memnon stepped closer, draping his arm around her shoulder. She welcomed the warmth of his embrace. “I cannot imagine what this must be like for you. A woman’s duty to surrender freedom for the benefit of family requires greater courage than most men can comprehend. But, you’ve nothing to fear. Mentor’s not going to make you a prisoner of the harem any more than your father has made Deidamia. My brother’s too wise for that.”
