The Last King of Lydia Read online

  She shook her head. ‘For what?’

  ‘What is more real than this? What matters more than a war?’ He paused. ‘I wish there could be something else. But there is not.’

  ‘My father once told me that only a fool chooses war,’ she said. ‘He said that in peace, sons bury fathers, but in war, fathers bury sons.’

  ‘We buried our son in peacetime.’

  ‘And now you ask others to bury theirs.’

  ‘Perhaps you are right,’ he said quietly. Then: ‘I wish I still had a son.’

  ‘You have a son.’

  ‘But not an heir. I want to make a mark on this world, before I leave it.’ She opened her mouth to speak, but he continued: ‘Lesser men can be content with . . . I don’t know . . . I honestly don’t know how a slave or a common man can look back on his life and feel it worth anything. Fifty years of scratching at a field, haggling in the market. But I can do something remarkable.’

  ‘We could be happy,’ she said. ‘Did you think of that? We have all the wealth of the world. You could spend it on anything you like. Why spend it on a war?’

  ‘What could we buy that we do not have already? Spend it on the people? The greatest festivals are soon forgotten, and even if I were to make the streets of Sardis run with gold, what difference would it make? There’s no glory in throwing money to the poor.’

  ‘And there is in this?’

  ‘People remember wars, don’t they?’

  ‘A name on a map, Croesus. That’s all you’re fighting for.’

  No,’ he said. ‘It is a signature written on history. It lasts for ever. Atys should have been my legacy. I shall leave an empire behind instead.’

  She sat in silence. At last, very quietly, she said, ‘Do as you please. When this war is over, if you are still unhappy, come to me again. Perhaps then you will see how wrong you are. Perhaps it is only then that you will try and find a way to be happy with me. And your son.’

  She stood, and before he could find another word to say, she walked away into the women’s quarters, the one place in the palace where he could not follow her. He listened, and thought he heard laughter from somewhere within, before all sound of her was lost.

  He waited on the couch for a time, to see if she would return. When she did not, he rose and walked back out onto the balcony.

  The sun was low in the sky, the red light echoing the carnage of the sacrifice. The stone floor of the balcony had been scrubbed clean and no trace of death remained, but when he looked down at his hands he found blood dried beneath his fingernails. He picked at it and rolled it to powder between his fingers, and then looked down on the streets below.

  He saw a fire burning in the centre of the square, ringed by a dozen priests in heavy white robes. Piled beside them were the fat and bones of the twelve thousand dead – a mountain of offerings over which the flies swarmed in a cloud of black motion. All around the square, the people of Sardis had returned to the rooftops, having shed their bloody tunics for their finest clothing, ready to observe the next stage of the sacrifice.

  For over an hour, the priests fed the offerings to the Gods. The unburned bones piled thickly around the fire, and it came to resemble one of the mass funeral pyres that are to be found at the end of a great battle. The crowd watched in respectful silence as each sacrifice was offered, though here and there he saw mothers hushing bored children with sharp warnings and slaps. The only other sounds were the roar and crackle of the fire, and the deep, throaty chants of the supplication the priests made to the Gods.

  When all of the meat had been offered up to the fire, the time came for the second sacrifice: the gift of gold.

  Croesus watched as the gates of the palace opened beneath him, and a convoy of a dozen carts rolled out, each one piled high with wealth from the heart of the palace, much of it from his own private quarters. Gold cups and silver-edged plates, elaborately crafted wooden chairs, heavy weaves of rare fabrics that had travelled from half the world, gilded couches studded with jewels. Each cart held more wealth than most of the people of Sardis would have seen in a lifetime.

  The priests cleared a path for the carts, until the convoy was at the edge of the fire. The men with the first cart crouched down and laid their hands upon it, rocking it back and forth on its axles once, twice, three times. The third time, they gave a wordless cry and thrust it forward, their legs pushing hard against the stone and driving the cart towards the fire. They released it a few feet from the edge and skidded to a stop as the cart plunged forward, rocked up over the wood at the edge, tipped to one side and fell into the heart of the fire.

  One by one, the remaining eleven carts followed, and the fire flared up, brighter than before. Soon, the cushions of the couches were blackening in the heat, the wood popping and cracking, the inlaid gold melting and running in priceless rivulets down to the bloody ground. Golden goblets warped and melted, finely worked leather belts cracked and disintegrated into ash.

  Croesus watched as each family came forward in turn to make an offering of its own. The poor could offer only the crude clay pots and bowls that they had used for decades of simple meals, an old blanket for the cold winter months, the small, crude smock intended for a child that had been stillborn. Merchants offered the fine wines that they had hoarded for a day of celebration or for the bribery of a stubborn official, pulled the gold rings from their fingers and hurled them into the hungry, wasteful flames. Old men threw in the iron spears they had kept to remember their glorious, younger days, and children were encouraged to donate the toys and trinkets that were their own personal treasures. Many of the people burned too much, burned away their legacies of golden cups or silver jewellery that they had spent a lifetime trying to acquire and pass on to their children. Dozens of families ruined themselves for generations, infected by the sacred destruction of so much wealth. Within an hour, a tenth of the wealth of the city had been burned as an offering to the Gods.

  After it was done, the people of the city returned to their homes, moving slowly through the crowded streets. Croesus waited, and soon pale smoke began to rise as they lit thousands of fires. The rich scent of cooking meat clung to the smoke, and the separate tendrils intertwined and thickened in the air until a single cloud hung over the entire city. A traveller viewing Sardis from a distance would have thought that it must have been burning under the torches of a foreign invader. The city had never known a festival like it.

  Croesus waited on the balcony, until the stars were clustered thick in the clear sky, and he could identify the constellations of the Gods whose favour he sought to buy with blood and gold. After a time, he became aware of another presence behind him. He turned quickly, hoping that it would be his wife come to ask forgiveness.

  But it was Isocrates. The slave looked weary, and had permitted himself the luxury of leaning against a wall as he waited. He gazed at his master with attentive eyes, ready to serve.

  ‘Of course,’ Croesus said. ‘Everywhere I turn, there you are.’

  ‘Would you like me to leave you alone, master?’

  ‘No. Please, stay.’

  Croesus looked down on the square, empty of people, filled with ashes and blood. ‘Can a god be bought?’ he said. ‘Or is it men that I buy with this sacrifice?’

  ‘Does it matter?’

  ‘Quite.’ Croesus hesitated. ‘My wife hates me, I think.’

  Isocrates said nothing. A moment later, Croesus continued.

  ‘No, she doesn’t hate me,’ he said. ‘But she has closed herself to me.’ He leaned forward slowly, rested his forehead against the stone lip of the balcony. He straightened up a moment later, as the weakness passed.

  ‘You are well, Isocrates?’

  ‘I have no complaints, master.’

  ‘You never do. It is remarkable. And your wife?’

  ‘She is well, master.’ The slave paused for a moment. ‘She says she has not seen you for some time.’

  ‘I have no time for Gyges,’ Croesus said. ‘Not now,
in any case. But I am sorry not to have seen Maia. You heard about the statue?’

  ‘I did, master. You honour us too greatly.’

  ‘No, I don’t think that I do.’ The king turned to face his slave. ‘I trust no one but you now. Isn’t that strange?’ Without waiting for a reply, he brushed past his slave and disappeared into the darkness of the palace.

  Isocrates waited until his master’s echoing footsteps had fallen silent. Satisfied that he was alone, he walked forward and looked out over the balcony, resting his elbows on the edge where his master’s arms had rested only moments before. Had any citizen been gazing up from the streets below and seen the distant figure looking down over the city, they would have thought Isocrates was the king, watching over the people he ruled and weighing the fates of nations. Not a slave whose life depended on the whims of the man who owned him.

  He looked down, and watched another convoy leave the gates of the palace. The third sacrifice, the gifts that had taken months to produce, taking their first steps towards the oracle at Delphi. The sacrifice of the animals and the burning of the people’s treasures had been but a prelude to this, the great gift to the Gods.

  The darkness was almost impenetrable, and the convoy had lit no torches to illuminate their way, but Isocrates thought that he could identify the glinting outline of a golden statue of his wife in one of the carts below.

  He imagined the journey that the gifts would take. He thought of the carts rolling along the clear, wide merchant’s road along the banks of the Hermus to Phocaea. They would spend at least a night there, the convoy guards drinking and whoring in the port taverns, brawling with sailors who had come from half a world away to trade for the golden coins of Lydia. Then they would roll onto a ship and sail out upon the deep Aegean, its colour that of the sky in another, perfect world. They would travel past the islands that loomed in the distance like mountain peaks above a sea of clouds, past solitary merchant vessels and the pirate ships that hunted them, until they made landfall at Phaleron and continued to Athens. The excisemen of Athens would extract double the usual levy from the foreigners, and the Lydians would pay gladly, the bribe a mere fraction of the riches they carried with them.

  On dry land once more, the convoy would pass along the good, clear path to Thebes, the soldiers doubling their sentries at night to guard against the bandits who were always watching the road. Then it would ascend the steep mountain paths, to Delphi itself. The Lydian offering would join a gallery of riches, the only place in the world that could perhaps overshadow Croesus’s treasuries. There were gifts from Croesus’s father there, and from the kings that had ruled Sardis before him, four generations of Lydian kings who had sought to buy favour at a temple that none of them had ever seen. Their offerings joined gifts from dozens of kings, given over centuries, each ruler seeking the favour of the Gods.

  Isocrates had never seen these places. He imagined the journey through lands that he knew only from travellers’ tales. Perhaps along the way, he thought, they would have reason to put in at one of the islands as they crossed the Aegean. Bad weather, or sickness amongst the crew might lead them to a friendly harbour. Perhaps the winds would drive them far, far south, like wandering Odysseus, and of all the places they might put in, they might find themselves landing on the island of Thera – the one place, apart from Sardis, that Isocrates had seen with his own eyes. Dimly, he remembered red cliffs and black beaches, the songs his father sang as he laid out the fishing nets, the smell as his mother baked bread. It was the land he had been taken from as a boy, could now no longer clearly recollect, and would never see again.

  Isocrates yawned and pinched the bridge of his nose. He went inside to find his master.

  6

  The answer from Delphi came swiftly.

  With hesitant hands, like a shy lover, Croesus unrolled the parchment. On it were written four simple lines of prophecy:

  If you wage war against Persia, mighty Croesus,

  Then know this: you will destroy a great empire.

  You must ally yourself with the strongest Hellenes

  To earn the favour of the Gods.

  Croesus thought of the wealth that had bought each stroke of every letter. The hundred gold ingots that had acquired the first letters of Persia, the colossal golden lion that had perhaps been enough to purchase the words great empire. He wondered which stroke his wife’s necklaces and girdles had earned. What power there is in words, he thought. The force of these words is enough to win me an empire.

  He turned to the messenger. ‘This oracle, she is remarkable. Do you think that she would answer another question of mine?’

  ‘Such was the generosity of your gifts, I cannot think that she would refuse you.’

  ‘Good. Ask her for how long I will reign.’

  The messenger nodded. ‘It shall be done. Is that all, my lord?’

  Croesus hesitated, and Isocrates, who stood at the king’s side, looked at his master closely. It was the first time in months that he had seen Croesus show anything approaching doubt.

  ‘Ask her one more favour for me,’ Croesus said. ‘If the oracle will permit it.’

  ‘What should I ask?’

  Croesus turned his head, and looked into the corner of the room. On the floor sat Gyges, idly running a piece of embroidered cloth through his hands. Since the day of the sacrifice, he had spent much of every day in Croesus’s company. He followed the king silently but paid no apparent attention to him, retreating to some isolated corner of the room, toying with some piece of jewellery or fabric, and plunging deeper into whatever world his mind inhabited. Croesus could not imagine what prompted this behaviour, what it might mean. Occasionally he wondered if it amounted to some kind of reprimand, or warning. But for the most part, he thought it signified nothing.

  The king turned back to the messenger, licked his lips, then spoke again. ‘Ask her if my son will ever speak to me.’ With that, he rose from his throne and walked away, his head low, declining to meet the gaze of any other in the room. He beckoned to Isocrates to follow him.

  ‘Tell me about Athens and Sparta.’

  ‘Athens and Sparta?’

  ‘You heard the prophecy,’ Croesus said, reclining on a couch in his private chambers. ‘We must have allies for this war. Which is the stronger?’

  ‘Athens is divided,’ Isocrates said, after a moment’s thought. ‘They threw out their tyrant Pisistratus some years ago. But I’ve heard rebellion is coming. Pisistratus may return to power.’

  ‘So Athens is in chaos?’ Croesus said. He thought of Solon’s love for his city, and felt a stabbing, guilty pleasure. ‘What of Sparta?’

  ‘Not as wealthy as some nations, but they are great warriors. I can’t imagine you will find a more valuable ally, especially since their war against Tegea.’

  ‘Strong and stable? Men like you, Isocrates.’

  ‘Perhaps, master.’

  ‘You do not like the comparison?’

  ‘They worship war more than any other people I know. I do not think that is something to be proud of.’

  ‘That makes them ideal for our purpose.’

  ‘True, master. Shall I dispatch the emissaries?’

  ‘Yes, yes. Immediately.’ Croesus turned from Isocrates but the slave felt that he had not yet been dismissed. ‘What a slow business this is,’ the king said. ‘I think I might spend a lifetime at this. Sacrificing to oracles. Sending emissaries. Haggling with my nobles. Assembling the army. I am not sure I have the patience. Then again, Solon . . .’ He hesitated, like a superstitious man who utters an unintended blasphemy.

  ‘Yes, master?’

  ‘Solon told me that he spent a lifetime trying to pass a dozen laws. Laws that were repealed a decade after he left his city. I suppose I should be grateful if I can build an empire in a few years.’ He stared out of a window, towards the east. ‘Still, I wish I could begin my work.’

  ‘Where you lead, we will follow,’ the Spartan ambassador said. ‘We have not forgot
ten your gift of gold for our temple. All we ask is that our sacrifices are not forgotten. Perhaps the wealth and strength of Lydia may come to the assistance of Sparta at some time in the future, when we have need of your help.’

  ‘Of course,’ Croesus responded lightly. The alliance between Sparta and Lydia had been sealed in writing a month before. The appearance of Lakrines, a flint-faced ambassador with close-cropped hair, clad in the red cloak of the Spartan nobility, was a mere formality, a ritual to be concluded. ‘Your two kings send a gift, I presume?’ Croesus said.

  ‘They do. But, there is a greater offering that our craftsmen are working on. A great bronze bowl – we have heard that you love bronze.’ Croesus flinched at this. He had forgotten how far that rumour had spread.

  Lakrines bowed, and continued: ‘But we hope this small token will suffice for now.’ He gestured to one of his helots, who came forward, his eyes down, and presented a small wooden casket to Croesus.

  The king opened the casket and surveyed its contents with little interest. Rough coins of gold and silver that, compared to the craftsmanship he was used to, were like the work of children. Paltry treasures that would occupy only a small shelf in one of Croesus’s treasuries, but he knew that they represented a small fortune to the Spartans. He flipped the lid of the casket shut and smiled politely at his visitor.

  ‘The king of Lydia thanks the kings of Sparta for their gifts, and expects that this is the beginning of a long and mutually prosperous alliance.’ He stifled a yawn with his hand. ‘You may leave us.’

  The emissary bowed again, and Croesus waited until he had reached the entrance of the throne room before he spoke again. ‘Stop,’ the king said. ‘There is one last thing I wish to ask.’

  The Spartan turned back. ‘Yes, King Croesus?’

  Croesus steepled his fingers. ‘Would you mind explaining your insult to me?’

  ‘Insult?’

  ‘You had your helot present your gift to me, rather than offering it with your own hands.’ Croesus smiled thinly, and spread his hands wide. ‘I’m sure there is a reason for this. I just can’t think what it might be.’