Creation (88 page)

“I have a plan, Lord.”

Themistocles was the most subtle Greek I ever met. Whatever he wanted to do, he found a way to do—at least once. He was a true Odysseus. But before he revealed his plan to the Great King, he asked for one year in which to learn Persian because “Your language is like one of your extraordinary carpets, intricate, subtle, beautiful. I cannot express myself through an interpreter, no matter how able.”

The Great King gave Themistocles a year. He also gave him a fine estate at Magnesia. Then he gave him the long hand to kiss, and sent him away.

After Themistocles had left the royal presence, Artaxerxes clapped both hands, turned very pink and shouted, “I have him! I have the Greek!”

As it turned out, Themistocles had no specific plan, other than to wait for the inevitable ostracism of Cimon, which came four years later. During those years Themistocles not only learned to speak Persian without accent, he was given the governorship of Magnesia. He was also charged with the building of a new navy and with the training of our sailors in the Greek fashion. In those days Persian ships were floating fortresses, unwieldy in battle and highly susceptible to fire. Themistocles made modern the Persian fleet.

Would Themistocles have led an expedition against his own people? The conservatives here at Athens think that that was his intention. Certainly, Elpinice is convinced of his treachery. But she is dedicated to the glorious memory of her brother Cimon. It is my view that Themistocles wanted nothing more than to live and die in peace and comfort, which is what he did. Five years after his arrival at court, Themistocles died. Some say that he killed himself. I am sure that he did not. It is a general law that great men do not live long once they are separated from the people whom they ennobled.

During the ten years that Cimon was ostracized, Athenian power deteriorated noticeably. An attempted invasion of Egypt was crushed by Megabyzus. In fact, everything that the so-called party of the people has undertaken has failed, excepting the conquest of the nearby island of Aegina and a victorious skirmish or two in the environs of Athens. Without Themistocles and Cimon, Athens was—and is—of no particular consequence in the world.

When Cimon returned from exile, he was given command of the fleet. But he had lost his best years. Worse, the Athenians had lost those same years, too. When Cimon died at Cyprus, the Athenian empire ended and the Persian empire was secure. Ephialtes and Pericles are poor substitutes for such heroes.

Do not, Democritus, repeat these thoughts to those who might disagree with an old man who has seen more of this world than he ever intended—much less wanted—to see.

MY LAST YEARS IN PERSIA WERE, I thought, simply my last years. I enjoyed retirement. I never went up to Susa. I busied myself with making notes for the second room of the chancellery. I wrote about the silk road, Cathay, Ajatashatru. My notes were politely acknowledged, and promptly consigned to the house of books.

I often met with the Zoroastrian community. Now that I was old, I was treated with reverence. But I could never interest the Zoroastrians in any of the ideas of deity or non-deity that I had come across in the east. I also noted with more resignation than alarm that the simplicity of the Wise Lord is being fragmented. The old devil-gods are returning in the guise of
aspects
of the One who is Two but will be One again at the end of time of the long dominion. Devil-gods do not give up easily. Recently the Great King erected an altar to Arta, or righteousness—as if that
quality
were some sort of god.

The ostracism of Cimon had one good result—for Persia, that is. When Cimon reigned at Athens, there was not a chance of peace between the empire and the Greek allies. But when Cimon was brought down, the democratic leader Ephialtes promptly restored power to the people’s assembly. When Ephialtes was assassinated for his pains, the leadership passed to the young Pericles, whose first move was to make peace with Persia. He sent an embassy to Persepolis, headed by Callias.

So it was that, in my sixtieth year, I was commanded to attend the Great King, at Persepolis. I was serene. But then, I am no longer distressed or fearful when summoned by anyone in power, and that includes our local potentate General Pericles. Death is near, kings are far, to paraphrase Confucius.

I had not visited Persepolis since the time of Artaxerxes’ coronation. When I presented myself at the winter palace, I found that I was unknown to all but a few of the eunuchs in the second room of the chancellery. They wept when they saw me. Eunuchs tend to get sentimental with old age. I don’t. Rather the contrary. But it is quite true that we aged creatures are all that remains of the reign of Darius, and of the high noon of Persia. We have a lot to gossip about—if not to weep for.

I was given an extremely cold and uncomfortable room in Xerxes’ palace, which was—and no doubt still is—unfinished, while my servants were quartered in the shantytown that has grown up outside the walls of the royal enclosure.

I must say that I half hoped that I might be put to death for some imaginary crime. For one thing, my sight was going, which means one is obliged to listen carefully to others—the ultimate cruelty. For another ... my day was done. Unfortunately, I was in high favor.

I was sent for not by the Great King but by the queen mother, Amestris. She had furnished most splendidly the third house of the harem. Although the rooms are small, she has managed to make them opulent. In the room where she received me, the walls are entirely covered with plates of gold leaf, fashioned to imitate the leaves of the lotus. She herself seemed to be wrapped in the same material. Once the ushers had withdrawn, we were alone. I took this to be a tribute to my advanced age.

“You are the last,” Amestris whispered; and blushed.

After three days at court I was quite used to hearing myself acclaimed, reverently, as the last. I made a number of aged rumbles to demonstrate to the queen that not only was I the last but, very shortly, the last would be gone, too. Who, I wonder, is next to last? Perhaps Amestris. She had not aged well, I thought. She has become very thin, and the once pretty face is heavily lined. Yet she wears almost no paint on her face. I suppose the grotesqueness of Atossa’s face during the final years had a cautionary effect on her daughter-in-law.

“Do sit,” she said, proving that in her eyes I was plainly near extinction. Since I was—am—rather lame, I sank gratefully onto a stool beside her ivory chair. She smelled of myrrh. This most expensive unguent was kneaded so heavily into her skin that the wrinkled sallow skin had a curious nacreous glow.

“You loved my husband the Great King.” Tears came to her eyes. I think that she was quite sincere. After all, it is possible to acquiesce in the death of someone that you love. I could not. But the Achaemenids can—and do. “We are the last—who loved him.”

At least I was now able to share my terminal status with someone else. But I chose tact. “Surely, our Great King and his brothers and sisters—”

“Children do not feel what we feel,” she said sharply. “You knew Xerxes as a man and a friend. I knew him as a husband.
They
knew only the Great King. Besides, children are heartless. Hasn’t that been your experience?”

“I do not know my children.”

“You mean those two sons that you left in India?”

“Yes, Great Queen.” As with everyone else at court, the house of books contains all sorts of information about me, amassed over the years by secret agents. Suddenly
I
wondered why Amestris had gone to the trouble of looking me up. I was mildly uneasy. Although I long for death, the actual business of dying can have its unpleasant side.

“They were alive as of last year. The chancellery received a fairly detailed report from our trade mission at Shravasti. But your wife Ambalika is dead. Women don’t last long in that climate.”

“So it would seem, Lady.” I felt nothing. Ambalika had died for me at our last meeting when she had so briskly arranged my official death.

“Ambalika married her brother after you left. I must say I can’t fathom their customs. I mean, she was still your wife. Of course, girls are always the worst.” With a frown, Amestris reverted to the subject of children. She had her own very much in mind. It was common knowledge that the queen mother hated her daughter Amytis, whose passionate affair with the beautiful Apollonides was well known even then. After much reminiscence of Xerxes, Amestris came to the point. “The Greeks want peace. Or so they say.”

“Which Greeks, Great Queen?”

Amestris nodded. “That is always the problem, isn’t it? At the moment, there are two separate embassies here. One is from the Greek city of Argos, a place much loved by Xerxes, if one can love anything so ... shifting as a Greek city. The other comes from Athens.” I must have looked surprised.

Amestris nodded. “We were surprised too. We
think
that they come to us in good faith. But who can tell? The Athenian ambassador is Callias, the brother-in-law of Cimon.”

“An aristocrat?”

“Yes. Which means anti-Persian. But whatever he is, he was chosen to negotiate with us by the present government, which is democratic.” Amestris could be specific in a way denied the Great King, who must at all times be rather like the deity, permeating each atom of a discussion without ever making a specific distinction. On the other hand, Amestris is rather like a superior eunuch, the sort that never stops reading chancellery records, and knows a thousand and one details about a thousand and one things, often without grasping the main thing, as Atossa always did.

“Hippias’ grandson is talking to the Argive embassy.” Amestris gave me her shy smile. “We thought it might be tactless to use the tyrant’s grandson as go-between with the Athenian democrats. So it would please us if you were to deal with Callias.”

I accepted the commission.

From the beginning, Callias and I got on famously. He told me his stories about Marathon, and the first few times I enjoyed them very much. Then I was bored by them. Today I enjoy them again. So little remains the same in this life that one can only take pleasure in a man who persists in telling you, year after year, the same stories in precisely the same words. In a world of flux, the boredom of Callias is a constant.

I showed Persepolis to Callias and the rest of the embassy. They were duly awed not only by the wealth of Persia—for which they were prepared—but by the extraordinary architectural marvels that Xerxes had created. Two of the Athenians were builders. One of the two is close to Phidias and I am sure that just back of this house, amidst all the noise and thievery, a replica of the winter palace at Persepolis is being constructed, as a symbol of
Athenian
genius!

I am not allowed to discuss details of the treaty. They were secret fourteen years ago when the talks began, and they are still a secret now that the peace has been in effect since Cimon’s very timely death in Cyprus three years ago. I
can
say that each party has agreed to keep to its own sphere. Persia will not interfere in the Aegean. Athens will not interfere in Asia Minor. Contrary to legend, there is no signed or sealed treaty because the Great King may deal only with his equals. Since he is king of kings, he has no equals. Therefore, he can only appear to assent to a treaty. Because Persian feeling was still violently anti-Greek as a result of the business at the mouth of the Eurymedon River, negotiations were kept secret. Only the Great King, the queen mother and I know all the details.

Finally, when Cimon was dead and General Pericles was firmly in control of the state, the treaty was accepted by both sides and I was sent here to Athens as the corporeal symbol of our superb treaty. Let us hope that the peace will last longer than the symbol, who has no intention of enduring another winter in this dreadful city, this drafty house, this deranged polity.

You are to bury my remains, Democritus. I want to be restored as quickly as possible to the primal unity. What a curious slip! I am quoting Master Li. I don’t mean primal unity, of course. I mean the Wise Lord, from whom our spirits come, to whom our spirits—cleansed of the Lie—return at the end of time of the long dominion.

For your delectation, Democritus, I should note that during my last audience with the queen mother, I was charmed and delighted by a twenty-year-old eunuch named Artoxares. He was of enormous help to us as we worked out the details of the treaty. If it is true that Amestris enjoys his incomplete favors, I commend her taste. He is not only intelligent but beautiful as well. He is also said to have had an affair with Apollonides, the lover of Amytis. One day, I fear, these two powerful ladies will confront each other. When they do, I shall, for the first and last time, be thankful that I am an exile in Athens.

LAST NIGHT GENERAL PERICLES CELEBRATED the third year of my embassy with an evening of music at the house of Aspasia. Like everything else to do with my seldom acknowledged, much less celebrated embassy, the party took place in relative secret, and at the last minute. Shortly before sundown, as I was getting ready for bed, Democritus arrived with the news that the general would like to see me. We hurried across town, our faces hidden by shawls so that the conservatives might not know that the infamous representative of the Great King was conspiring with Pericles to enslave Athens.

Two Scythian policemen stood guard at the head of the lane—one cannot call it a street—which leads to the house of Aspasia. They asked Democritus our business. He gave them some sort of password, and we were allowed to enter the lane.

I was overheated when we arrived. The summers here are as hot as the winters are cold. In fact, the climate is almost as bad as Susa’s, if that is possible. But then, I am now uncommonly susceptible to heat, cold. Last night I was drenched with sweat when I arrived at Aspasia’s house.

Democritus tells me that the interior is very elegant. But how would you know? Despite your great-grandfather’s wealth, the house at Abdera where you were brought up is rustic—to say the least. Of all the houses hereabouts, only that of Callias seems to me to be both comfortable and splendid. Certainly, I am aware that there are rugs on the marble floors and the braziers burn sweet-smelling wood.