Tim Leach - The Last King of Lydia

Their eyes met, and Croesus saw that the man would give him what he was after. He turned to Gyges. ‘Go, now,’ he said, but his son gave no sign of understanding. Croesus placed his hands on his son’s chest and pushed him. Gyges tottered a few steps backwards, but did not turn away or leave.

Croesus felt a heavy sense of despair. He had brought his son with him, this man who didn’t even know him as a father, because he was afraid of dying alone. What few extra minutes or hours might his idiot son have lived if he hadn’t taken him from the palace. Perhaps it might even have been years — the Persians might think it a bad omen to kill a madman.

It doesn’t matter, Croesus thought. There is nothing I can do to save him now. He won’t understand what’s happening, anyway. I can be thankful for that, at least.

He turned back, and watched the warrior come forward, slow and cautious, unable to understand why Croesus did not run or beg or fight. He reached forward with his left hand and grasped the king’s tunic. Still, the king did not move. Satisfied with Croesus’s inaction, no longer suspecting a trap, the soldier raised his sword and aimed the blade at the king’s throat.

‘Do not kill Croesus.’

Croesus and the soldier both flinched at the words, and turned to face the speaker.

‘Do not kill Croesus,’ Gyges said again, in the same soft, clear voice.

The Persian soldier understood only one word. The name. He stared at Croesus, but the king ignored the soldier. He looked only at his son.

Gyges stared back at him, and for the first time his eyes seemed to look upon the same world that Croesus saw. If his son could teach him to look on the world with those eyes, the king thought, perhaps he might be able to salvage something from the ruins of his life. He could find his wife, and together, before the end, they might have a chance to learn from their son.

For a moment, standing on the narrow ledge of stone high above the dying city, Danae hesitated.

She thought of the past, of all the ways that she could have acted differently. Those moments when she could have changed the course of her life, changed the destiny of this city, her family, and her husband. The hundred things that she should have done or said in order not to have found herself here, at this worst of all possible endings.

She heard the pursuing footsteps behind her, and she knew she had no time left to think.

She stepped into the air, and the ground reached up to embrace her.

Cyrus woke.

From the fields beneath Sardis, he could not hear the cries that echoed through the broken city. He had retired to his tent as the attack on the wall began and told his commanders to wake him if he were needed. They had not woken him, and the silent air was rich with victory.

The king of Persia, Media, and now of Lydia cast off his blankets and rose naked from the pallet. He moved with an almost artificial grace, like a rehearsed dance that gives the illusion of perfect spontaneity, and his face was ageless. He could have been younger or much older than his thirty-three years; it was as if he had decided, through sheer force of will, to refuse to accede to ageing, as if it were merely a convention.

He glanced at the half-dozen bodyguards in the tent, and they nodded silently back to him, their eyes bright from the herbs that they chewed to ward off sleep. Even when he made love to one of his wives, they never let him out of their sight. Occasionally, in an idle moment, Cyrus would try to remember the last time he had been entirely alone, but he could never recall it.

He let his servants dress him in his ceremonial armour, raised the flap of the tent, and stepped into the cool dawn air.

The city on the cliffs cast its shadow over the western part of the camp. Looking on Sardis, he took as much pleasure in the sight as another man might take in a beautiful sculpture, admiring every curl of smoke, every fiery point of light, each hint of distant movement from the dying city. For a few moments, he stood in the quiet and enjoyed his victory.

The silence was broken. He heard a barked curse, followed by two shouting, familiar voices. He turned and entered the tent next to his.

‘Our warriors have ended their war,’ Cyrus said as he entered, ‘but I see that between both of you the battle continues.’

The two men turned to face their king. The first bowed awkwardly, with the slow and heavy movements of an old man. His name was Cyraxes, a Persian courtier and counsellor who had served Cyrus’s family for decades. Now in his sixtieth year, he moved stiffly, but his mind showed no sign of following his body into decay. The other man, a Mede general called Harpagus, dipped his body sharply and briefly, the action of a man more used to receiving such gestures than performing them.

Cyrus nodded to them then sat cross-legged on the ground. ‘What matter requires my attention?’ he said.

‘We were debating what to do with Croesus,’ said Cyraxes.

‘Ah. Debating. So that’s what the shouting was.’

‘Forgive us.’

‘No forgiveness is needed. I appointed you both to argue with each other. The attack was a success, I see?’

Harpagus nodded slowly. He was younger than Cyraxes by a decade, and, looking at him, few would have thought that he was much older than Cyrus. Only his eyes, deep and blank, like the eyes of a dead man, revealed that he had lived to see half a century of war and politics. ‘Yes. Our scouts took the wall, and by the time the Lydians were alerted, we already had enough men over the wall to hold the battlements.’

‘And they took Croesus alive?’

‘Yes. They found him with his son.’

‘His son? Is he a threat to us?’

‘Hardly. The man is an imbecile. Almost mute.’

‘That is for the best. Reward the man who captured Croesus, as I promised.’ Cyrus covered a small yawn with his hand. ‘Now, back to your debate. Tell me what I should do with him. Cyraxes?’

‘His people love him,’ the old man said. ‘He knows the region, knows its politics. He will be the perfect satrap for Lydia. Under our close supervision, of course. With his army destroyed, he poses no threat. Why not let him continue to play as a king?’

Cyrus nodded. ‘Very well. And Harpagus? You disagree?’

The general shrugged. ‘People like strong kings.’

‘And?’

‘I don’t think they’ll forgive him for losing a war that he began. These people have no reason to obey us unless they fear us. I can’t see that we will be safe until Croesus is dead.’

Cyrus nodded again. ‘Thank you both.’ He thought to himself for a time, and his advisors waited silently. Finally, he said, ‘The Cappadocian prince. Harpagus, you said you weren’t sure of his loyalty?’

Harpagus showed no surprise at the change of subject, for he was used to the lateral shifts of the king’s conversation. ‘Cappadocia is a burned-out wasteland,’ he said. ‘My spies tell me the people feel they have received little reward from being under our protection, after what the Lydians did to them.’

‘I don’t want to deal with a rebellion there. We have more important things to do than put down the Cappadocians. Let them have some compensation.’

‘If I can say-’

‘Yes, Cyraxes, I have heard what you’ve had to say. Let Croesus live, and I could be facing two rebellions. Cooperative governors are easy enough to find. Rebellions cost much to put down. I have made my decision.’

The older man bowed again deeply. ‘Your will be done. When?’

‘Let’s get it over with. At dawn tomorrow.’

Cyrus spent the night in what had been Croesus’s bedchamber, more out of curiosity than as a symbolic conquest. He knew almost everything about his enemies long before his armies marched to war. His spies reported on the strength and composition of their armies, his emissaries calculated a nation’s wealth, almost down to the last head of grain and talent of gold. He learned everything he could about their weaknesses and fears, their sexual desires and taste in food. Every piece of information mattered, anything that could give Cyrus the measure of his opponent. No detail was too intimate to be found out, except for where the king slept — the only secret that a ruler could maintain.