The Last King of Lydia Read online

  He heard a noise behind him and turned, his hand reaching for the spear at his side. Atys threw his hands up in the air in mock surrender, a wineskin slung over his shoulder, his legs still unsteady from his exertions at the fire.

  ‘May I approach and sit, fearsome sentinel?’ he said.

  ‘Of course. My apologies.’ Adrastus spread his cloak out on the ground, knocking the dust from it with a few strokes of his hand, and Atys sat down beside him.

  ‘You should not talk to me, you know,’ Adrastus said. ‘None of the others do. They know I am bad luck.’

  ‘If you were bad luck, you wouldn’t have found your way to Lydia. You wouldn’t have had the fortune to have a man like my father take you in.’

  ‘And I wouldn’t have a man like you as my friend.’

  ‘That as well. Come,’ Atys said, ‘join us by the fire? It makes me sad to see you out here.’

  Adrastus smiled. ‘No. I wouldn’t want to make the others uncomfortable.’ He looked over his shoulder. The music had ended, and the men sat watching them. ‘You see, they observe us. Don’t stay too long, or they will think that I am drawing your good fortune from you, like an evil spirit. But I thank you. You are kind to me.’

  ‘You are a friend to me, Adrastus. When I am king—’ He checked himself.

  Adrastus laughed. ‘Don’t stop. There’s no harm in it. What prince doesn’t dream of being king one day? You would be a poor son indeed if you lacked ambition.’

  ‘No. It’s bad luck to speak like that. But there will always be a place for you at my side.’

  ‘Thank you, Atys.’

  They sat in silence for a time.

  ‘Did you have a wife, back in your homeland?’ Atys said.

  ‘Yes, I did.’

  ‘Do you miss her?’

  ‘A little. We were never in love. Not like you and Iva. But she was kind to me, and fond of me, I think. She wept when I left, and they were tears for me, not for her. You understand what I mean by that?’

  ‘Yes. You should marry again. There are plenty of women who would be honoured to have you for a husband. You are in the king’s favour. I could ask—’

  ‘No.’ Atys started at the interruption. ‘You may not believe that I am cursed,’ Adrastus continued slowly. ‘But I am glad that I have no children. I did a terrible thing, and that is my punishment. To live alone, and have no children to follow me.’

  Looking at him, Atys suddenly felt like a boy again, a boy who knew nothing of grief. Adrastus gave him a companionable touch on the shoulder. ‘Good night, Atys. And don’t drink too much of that stuff, or you’ll feel rotten tomorrow.’

  ‘I’ll bear it in mind. Sleep well, Adrastus.’

  In a dark, peaceful part of the palace in Sardis, Maia allowed herself the luxury of leaning against a wall to rest her tired legs; she watched Gyges as he knelt on the ground and traced patterns in the dust.

  He had been at work for perhaps an hour, tracing a complex sequence of symbols, then standing and scuffing the marks out before kneeling and beginning over again. Once, many years before, Croesus had summoned scholars to examine the marks his son made in dust and sand. He had hoped that they might divine some trace of meaning there; the boy worked with such fixed intensity that it seemed impossible that the symbols he drew could mean nothing. For a time, the king had spoken of how he and his son would soon spend hours side by side, talking silently together in the dust, once his men had solved the riddle of the script.

  The scholars studied the boy’s work for many months, trying to deduce what Gyges could possibly be drawing. From the images, they tried to extrapolate an alphabet, numbers, some sequence or sign. All had reached the same conclusion. There were no patterns there. They were simply the idle scratchings of an idiot child.

  Maia became aware of a presence at one entrance to the room. She did not have to turn towards it to know it was the king. He came more often now, since Atys had left for the north. She sometimes wondered what strange need he satisfied when he came to see his second son; whether, in the lines of Gyges’s face, he saw some shadow of his other child.

  Most days, he tried to remain unseen, though the king was not as adept at hiding as he thought he was. She always affected not to see him, unless he came forward to speak. She did not know whether Gyges mimicked her pretended ignorance or whether he genuinely did not notice his father, but either way, he never gave any sign that he registered his father’s visits.

  ‘Maia.’ The king spoke softly, but the sound of his voice, of any voice, was still startling to her.

  ‘Master.’ She turned to face the king, and kept her gaze to the floor.

  ‘You may look up. My son, he is well?’

  ‘Yes, he is,’ she said. ‘He misses his brother.’

  ‘Really.’ Croesus gave a pained smile. ‘How can you tell?’

  ‘Oh, he has his moods, like any of us. I think I can read them now.’ She paused. ‘Perhaps that is presumptuous of me. I speak too much, master. Forgive me.’

  ‘No, no.’ He shook his head. ‘An interesting thought. I should have known you’d be clever, if Isocrates wanted you for a wife. You are a Hellene like him, are you not?’

  ‘Yes. From Phocaea.’

  ‘Do you need anything? Does my son need anything?’

  ‘No, master. We are well taken care of.’

  She saw his eyes wander across her face without interest, then stop and fix on her cheek. He clicked his tongue in displeasure. ‘Did Gyges do that?’

  ‘Do what?’

  He pointed, and she raised her hand, brushing over a small, dark bruise beneath her eye. She shook her head. ‘No, master, he would never hurt me. I fell in the courtyard. That is all.’

  ‘Ah. I am glad.’ He looked at his silent son. ‘It is an onerous enough duty that I have given you without you taking blows for it as well.’

  ‘Oh, not at all. I am happy to take care of him.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘He makes me feel peaceful.’

  The king cocked his head for a moment, as if he expected some trick. Then he smiled. ‘I want to reward you. For taking care of my son.’

  ‘I deserve no reward, master.’

  ‘Oh, but you’ll have one.’ He smiled broadly. ‘You can have children. If you want to. No better gift than that, is there?’

  She stared at him, her mouth slightly parted.

  ‘I imagine you have refrained out of duty,’ he continued. ‘Fear, perhaps, of what I might say. There is no need. When I gave permission for you and Isocrates to marry, I meant for you to have that freedom.’

  ‘Thank you, master,’ she said slowly. ‘But I can’t accept.’

  ‘What?’

  She paused for a moment then spoke again. ‘I am not able to have children, master.’

  ‘I see. I am sorry.’ He hesitated. ‘I must see to my wife. You will tell me if my son needs anything? Anything he wants, it shall be his.’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘And if you need anything. You must tell me that as well.’

  She bowed, and waited until his footsteps had faded away entirely before she straightened again. She turned back to her charge, and, to her surprise, found Gyges watching his father go.

  Just for a moment, she thought she saw him smile.

  8

  On the second day in the Mysian forest, all the signs were that the boar was near.

  The birds had ceased to sing, and they saw no mark of any other animal, for man and beast had both fled the creature in the forest. Sometimes close, sometimes distant, they would hear a splintering crash as a bush or tree was uprooted and torn aside; the sound of the alien animal clearing its path through a forest that was not its home. Soon the air was ripe with the tang of boar; some thought they could taste the rusty, faded scent of blood. The dogs howled and whined on their leashes, tormented by a creature they could smell but not see. The men were silent. None of them had spoken since the forest fell quiet.

  They moved up to a
small clearing. Adrastus went first, peering at the undergrowth. He saw nothing, waved his companions on, and went to step forward himself. Something compelled him to look again. His eyes picked over the trees and thick bushes, and fell on a large shadow in the darkness. It was so still that for a moment he took it for a trick of his eyes, his imagination giving a moment of life to a fallen tree.

  The great shadow blinked at him. Two black eyes covered over with brown skin for a fraction of a second, then opened again. The boar stepped forward into the light, six cubits from tail to snout and tall as a man’s chest, a monster of muscle and scar. It screamed once, as though issuing a warrior’s challenge, and charged.

  The first wave of spears flew forward in a moment of lethal motion, most splintering away from thick skin, some biting and sticking and making the boar’s skin run black with blood. The dogs followed, tearing and ripping at ankles and flanks, and for a moment, Adrastus thought the boar would surely stumble and fall to the ground under their weight.

  But the boar stood firm. It shook the spears from its skin, twisting them loose against trees and hooking them out of its flesh. It turned first on the dogs at its side, crushing them beneath its hooves, spearing them on its tusks, breaking their backs against the trees. It moved slowly at first, then with gathering speed, as if performing some terrible dance repeated over and over at greater pace, each killing blow coming quicker than the last.

  Atys watched, without fear, as the boar tore the life from the dogs. He held the spear high, the shaft balanced against his shoulder to conserve his strength, waiting for a break in the pattern, a second of stillness to see his weapon home.

  It came at last – a moment’s hesitation, as the boar looked up from the dogs and towards the men, as it fixed its tiny black eyes on Adrastus. Atys let his spear fly, saw it split a leg open like a rotten log. The boar dropped to the ground and screamed.

  From the other side of the clearing Adrastus marked the point high on the proud chest where a muscle of hate beat strongly, put there by the Gods to test the world of men. He lifted his spear and drew it back, then cast it into the air with a single turn of his body.

  It seemed as though the boar watched the spear come, as though it had always been waiting to greet that piece of iron. It twisted aside and dropped its shoulder, one final movement of the dance, and let the weapon pass.

  The spear sang through the air, its flight still strong and true, and found a different home in flesh.

  They sent a messenger riding ahead with their two best horses to bring the news to Sardis. The hunters followed slowly, weighed with grief and marching in silence. The corpse was wrapped in hides, preserved with what spices they had. At the tail of the defeated party, Adrastus walked alone.

  When they reached the sight of home, none of the party raised a cheer or made a sound. They could see the gathering at the gate to the city, the tall bronze spears of the royal guard glittering in the sun, and knew that Croesus was there to meet them.

  On the day the messenger had come to him, Croesus did not weep. He had seemed puzzled, his mouth slightly open, like an actor in a play who hears a line that is not his cue, yet is still expected to speak, to respond appropriately to the unknown and unknowable. Waiting, as in a nightmare where death is inevitable yet endlessly deferred. Hoping that the messenger was mistaken, that some other man’s son had been taken, not his. Now the hunters returned with a corpse, not a miracle, the end of hope lashed tightly to the back of a horse.

  Adrastus came forward when they reached the gates, the hunters parting before him. He took his dagger and cut the body loose, took the stiff, heavy weight in his arms and walked to the gates.

  He stood before the king, and waited.

  Croesus said nothing. He made a small motion with his hand, and Isocrates and another slave came forward to take the body away. The king looked back at Adrastus, inclined his head questioningly. Adrastus gave the dagger in his hand to Croesus, knelt and offered up his throat. The king’s hand gripped the dagger, went white. He placed his left hand on top of the kneeling man’s head.

  Adrastus waited for the fingers to curl into his hair to hold his head back, for the blade to bite at his throat. He heard the dagger fall to the ground, felt the fingers moving gently over his face. The touch of a father.

  ‘It’s not your fault, Adrastus,’ he said. ‘It is my fault.’ He leaned forward and kissed Adrastus on the forehead, as he used to kiss his son. ‘You are welcome to stay in the city. I hope you do. But I shan’t see you again. You understand that, don’t you? I cannot stand to look on you.’

  Adrastus watched him go, his eyes empty of hope.

  North-west of Sardis, another city rose from the plains. At dawn or dusk, a lost traveller might have mistaken this place for Sardis itself. He would see towering shapes looming ahead of him, a human order imposed on nature’s formless aspect. It was only on drawing closer that the traveller would realize that he had been mistaken, that he had arrived instead at a silent city of the dead.

  A hundred barrows rose from the ground, each white stone tomb covered with a great mound of clay, as if a god had reached from the sky, lifted earth with the palm of his titanic hand, and scattered it over the barrow to honour the dead. The finest Lydian stonework was to be found buried in these great barrows. In this land, the living passed their lives in crude houses of reed and mud brick, the dead lay in flawless marble. What honour was there in building a great house that would change hands with every generation; that would become the prize of some other man, some other king? It was the last home, the one place that truly belonged to only one man, that was most worthy of a great architect’s craft.

  One tomb towered above the rest – the tomb of Alyattes, Croesus’s father. There were those who came from distant lands to stand in the shadow of this great barrow, to marvel at what men had learned to build. Beside this great tomb, as was the custom, lay the tomb for the next royal burial, in the shadow of Alyattes’s, a respectful fraction of the size. Croesus had commissioned it long ago, thinking that it would be his own resting place. He had never thought he would use it to bury his son.

  The funeral procession gathered by the barrow, in a semicircle to the west, facing the setting sun. Looking over the mourners, Croesus could see only a sickly reflection of those who had gathered at the wedding a short time before. Every member of the Lydian nobility was there, some in sympathy, others out of duty or ambition. Danae and Iva clung to each other, the mother and the widow both exhausted by their grief, only together finding the strength to stand. His eyes fell last on Gyges, who had followed them all the way from the city. For once, Croesus did not care what impression his troubled son might make in the eyes of others, but the boy remained still and silent throughout the ritual. Croesus wondered if this was his way of showing grief, if here at last was something of their world that Gyges could understand.

  The priests came forward and made their sacrifices. They lifted the viscera in their hands, weighing them, smelling them, tasting them, and they declared that the auguries were good. They knelt on the ground, and began to chant. They faced west, waiting for the sun to fall from the sky.

  As the sun touched the horizon, the chants grew louder, more forceful. From the base of the barrow, six slaves began to walk up the side of the mound, bearing a casket on their shoulders. They marched towards the mourners, the setting sun at their backs, and laid the casket down. One by one, the nobles came forward to place their gifts in the casket. Last of all, the hunters came forward and laid down their notched and broken weapons.

  The sun sank fully below the horizon, and the slaves came forward again, bearing torches in their hands, as if they had caught some last spark from the fading sun. Just as they reached the bier, as they were about to bend down and set their torches to the wood of the casket, a voice rang out, calling for them to halt. The voice of the king.

  The priests eyed him with uncertainty as he walked to the casket, fearful that the king might commit some sudden
blasphemy. Croesus passed the torchbearers, and knelt. He reached into the pile of hunter’s weapons, shuddering as his hand brushed against the casket, and drew out one of the weapons in particular. A spear. He stood and raised the weapon, gripping it tight enough to feel his pulse echo through the wood and return to his hand, like an answering call. Though the tip had been carefully cleaned and polished, he recognized it for what it was.

  He placed the spear on the ground, and with one stamp of his foot, like a man who breaks the neck of a sick dog, he broke away the point. Croesus picked up the spearhead and placed it within the folds of his robes, close to his heart. He walked away, and listened to the rush of the flames as the slaves cast their torches down, as the fire took what remained of his son. He did not stay to watch.

  The priests made their final prayer, a plea for the Gods to be merciful and accept the prince’s soul, and the crowd gave a single, brief cry, like the first gasp of a child. Some remained for a time to watch the flames, others left immediately and followed close behind the king. One by one, the mourners turned and made their way back towards the city.

  Up on the hills, a single figure watched the procession depart. Watched, and waited for the night to come.

  9

  When, later, Iva entered Croesus’s private chamber, at first she could not see the king. A few small candles, lit and scattered seemingly at random, gave little light. As her eyes adjusted to the near dark, she found him, seated in shadow, so still that she mistook him for a carved sculpture. He gestured silently for her to sit opposite him.

  ‘You asked for me?’ she said.

  ‘Yes, I did. Will you take some wine?’

  ‘I . . . yes.’ He poured out a cup, added the smallest trace of water to it, then placed it on the other side of the table. He did not pour any for himself.