Creation (86 page)

Amestris entered Atossa’s bedroom without ceremony. “It has begun,” she whispered. Then she saw me. “Who’s that?”

Atossa was bland. “He is your brother-in-law, Cyrus Spitama. At least he used to be. He was married to Parmys.”

Amestris ordered me to rise. I found her polite, even shy. “We have followed your adventures in the east with much interest.” She spoke formally. “You must attend us in the third house, and tell us more.”

Amestris not only has a first-rate set of spies, she has an excellent memory. She knows exactly who is good for what and how best to use him. In Amestris’ eyes, I represented the eastern policy—and Zoroaster. Since neither subject has ever interested her, I am not close to her—a good thing, in my view.

Atossa sent me from the room. I waited in the long hall where Atossa’s secretaries prepared her correspondence. Then, an hour later, I was summoned to the bedroom. Amestris was gone and Atossa’s white enamel mask looked like a shattered bowl. She told me what had happened. Then she said, “My son is mad.”

“What can be done?”

Atossa shook her head. “Nothing. He will go on. But
his
son hates him now, which is dangerous. And Amestris hates the girl, which is dangerous—for the girl. For the mother, too. Amestris holds the mother responsible. I don’t. I said, ‘I know the wife of Masistes and she is not like other women. When she said no to Xerxes, she meant it.’ But Xerxes is stubborn. He had hoped to win her over with this marriage and he failed. So now he’s in love with the daughter. Amestris says that the moment he welcomed the girl to his son’s house, he wanted her. And now he has got her.”

Atossa sank back onto the bed’s mound of small pillows. The red eyes glared at me, like the Wise Lord’s fire. In a low, hard voice, she pronounced an epitaph: “I speak in the presence of Anahita, the true goddess. There will be mourning for the dead in this house.” Atossa looked up at the face of the goddess. She murmured a Chaldean prayer. Then she looked at me. “I have just asked the goddess to grant me a wish. The next person to be mourned in this house that my father built will be me.”

Anahita answered Atossa’s prayer. Two days later the old queen died in her sleep. Since the court was about to leave for Persepolis, everyone commented on her thoughtfulness. Thanks to the timing of her death, there would not have to be a special expedition to Pasargada for the funeral; instead, the body would travel with the court, as if she were still alive.

XERXES WAS MORE SHAKEN BY ATOSSA’S DEATH than I might have expected. “She was our last link with the beginning.” Xerxes was seated in his gilded wagon. As king’s friend, I rode beside him. In front of us were the purple gorges that mark the boundary of holy Pasargada. “As long as she lived, we were safe.”

“Safe, Lord?”

“She had power.” He made some sort of magical gesture. I pretended not to notice. “As long as she lived, she could keep the curse at bay. Now she’s gone ...”

“The Wise Lord will judge each of us in his own good time.” But my invocations of the Wise Lord’s mercy and wisdom made no impression on Xerxes. As he grew older he reverted more and more to devil-worship. He even moved Atossa’s statue of Anahita into his own bedroom, where it did not look at all out of place beside the gold plane tree. Ultimately, I failed Hystaspes. I never did convert Xerxes to the Truth.

I have just figured that Atossa could not have been more than seventy years old at the time of her death. This comes as something of a surprise to me, for she always looked and acted as if she had been present at the creation of the world. As the years passed, Atossa did not age so much as dry out, like a papyrus leaf on a rock in the sun—a leaf on which was written most of the story of the Persian empire.

The death of Queen Atossa cast a shadow over the new year’s celebration. Xerxes was gloomy. Queen Amestris was withdrawn. Masistes looked apprehensive. The crown prince glowered at one and all. According to Lais, only the crown princess was contented. Lais often visited the second and first houses of the harem and, with some wonder, she told me that the girl was envied by all the women. The girl was as good-looking as she was stupid. Through stupidity, she made a fatal error. This is what she did. Amestris had woven with her own hands a robe for Xerxes. The girl fancied the robe and begged Xerxes to give it to her. Like a fool, he did. The crown princess wore the robe on a visit to the third house of the harem. Amestris received her graciously, even tenderly. She pretended not to recognize the familiar robe. I should note here that it is never possible to know what Amestris thinks or feels. A compassionate smile can precede summary execution, while a scowl may be the signal that one is about to get one’s heart’s desire. But it took no special wisdom for everyone to realize that, sooner or later, Amestris would avenge herself for this insult.

That year at Persepolis the new year’s day celebration was unusually magnificent. During the long procession I myself led the empty chariot in which sits, if he is so minded, the Wise Lord. Although the great hall of the hundred columns was still unfinished, Xerxes held court there and all the satraps from every part of the empire, as well as the nobles, officials, clan leaders each paid him homage with a flower.

Later, in private, among close friends and family, the Great King anointed his head, according to custom. This is the occasion when those present have the right to ask him for whatever they want, and whatever is asked for, he must grant. Needless to say, the requests are seldom excessive. After all, one is forever the Great King’s slave.

This particular ill-omened year, the ceremony of the anointing of the Great King’s head proceeded as usual. There is always a bit of comedy when the king’s friends gather about. This time the amusement was provided by Demaratus. He was drunk and more than usually flowery—not to mention bold. He asked the Great King for the right to enter Sardis in state, wearing a king’s crown, “as I am forever king of Sparta.”

For an instant Xerxes was taken aback by the sort of effrontery which, on any other occasion, would have been a capital offense. Luckily, Megabyzus saved the day by remarking, “Demaratus hasn’t brains enough for a crown to cover.” Everyone laughed, and the crisis passed.

As Xerxes moved among his friends, he gave nothing that he would not ordinarily have given on such an occasion, and everyone was pleased. Then he withdrew to the harem. Incidentally, he was entirely sober when he left us.

Lais was in the harem; and told me what happened next. “Queen Amestris was all smiles. She kissed the Great King’s hands. Then she whispered what seemed to be endearments in his ear. He looked terrified. Said ‘No!’ in a loud voice. She said ‘Yes’ in that sweet child’s voice of hers. The two left the room. No one knows what they said or did. But when they returned Xerxes was white; and Amestris was smiling. She had asked Xerxes for the wife of Masistes, and Xerxes was obliged to grant her wish.” Amestris was shrewd enough not to ask for the real offender, the crown princess. The girl was royal; the mother was not. More to the point, Amestris believed that the mother was entirely responsible for the liaison between Xerxes and his daughter-in-law.

Xerxes sent for Masistes and begged him to divorce his wife. He even offered Masistes one of his own daughters to take her place. Since Masistes had no idea what had happened, he told Xerxes that it was ridiculous for him to give up a wife who was also the mother of his grown children.

Xerxes was furious, and the brothers quarreled. When Masistes withdrew, he said, “Lord, you have not killed me yet.”

When Masistes got home, he found his wife. She was still alive. But her breasts had been cut off, her tongue torn out, and she was blind. Masistes and his sons fled to Bactria, where they went into rebellion. But they were no match for Megabyzus. In a matter of months Bactria was subdued, and Masistes and all his family were put to death.

It is not generally known that Xerxes never again spoke to Amestris or set foot in the third house. But, curiously enough, this in no way affected the queen’s power. She continued to involve herself in politics. She continued—continues—to govern Persia. Odder still, she was soon on excellent terms with the crown princess. But then, Amestris could charm anyone, particularly her three sons. And of the three sons, she made herself most agreeable and useful to the second, our present Great King Artaxerxes. All in all, Atossa chose her own successor well.

THE NEXT DOZEN YEARS WERE THE HAPPIEST of my life. Admittedly, I was middle-aged. Admittedly, my friend Xerxes had withdrawn from the world. Even so, I still think of that time as curiously splendid. There were no wars of any consequence, and the life of the court was more than ever delightful. Never before or since have the harem ladies enjoyed so much freedom. Those who wanted to take lovers had no very great difficulty. In some curious way, I think that Xerxes was amused by all the intrigue. Certainly, as long as no lady’s behavior was blatant, he was complaisant.

Only Queen Amestris was above suspicion. That is to say, she never had an affair with a man. She was far too shrewd to give Xerxes any cause for invoking the law of the Aryans. But she did conduct a long and highly discreet affair with the eunuch Aspamitres.

The queen’s daughter Amytis was not so wise as her mother. Openly, she took a succession of lovers, which infuriated her husband Megabyzus. When he complained to Xerxes, the Great King is supposed to have said, “Our daughter may do as she pleases.”

Megabyzus is then supposed to have answered, “And if it pleases her to break our oldest laws, you will let her?” And Xerxes said, “Since she is an Achaemenid, she cannot break our laws.”

Looking back, I realize that this exchange—or something very like it—signified the beginning of the end. Crown Prince Darius hated Xerxes for having seduced his wife. Megabyzus was angry that Amytis’ adulteries were condoned by her father. Also, some years earlier, a member of the royal family had seduced the virginal granddaughter of Megabyzus. On this occasion, Xerxes had taken prompt action. He ordered the seducer to be impaled. But the harem rallied around the offender, a man named Sataspes. To please the royal ladies, Xerxes ordered Sataspes to circumnavigate Africa, something only the Phoenicians claim to have done. For a year or two, Sataspes skulked about north Africa. Then he went up to Susa, claiming to have gone all around Africa. No one believed him, and he was put to death.

Even so, Megabyzus was less than pleased. He had wanted vengeance at the time, not two years later. Finally the queen herself was disaffected, and it was Amestris who finally made it possible for the awesome royal glory to pass to her son.

In the autumn of the twenty-first year of Xerxes’ reign, I was in The Troad with Lais. Xerxes had given Demaratus a considerable estate, and the former Spartan king was now more Persian horse-breeder than Greek conspirator—a change entirely for the better. Although Demaratus and Lais lived together as man and wife, she refused to marry him. She enjoyed her freedom too much. She also did not want to share the considerable fortune that she had amassed over the years, thanks to her friendship with Atossa. “I come and go as I please,” she used to say—and no doubt still says to this day, if she is alive on Thasos.

We were at Demaratus’ stables inspecting a newly arrived Arabian stallion. It was a cloudy gray morning, and the south wind smelled of sand. A servant came to us from the main house, shouting, “He is dead!” And the lovely time was at an end.

As far as I can tell, this is what happened. With the queen’s blessing, Aspamitres and the guards commander Artabanus killed Xerxes while he slept—an easy task, since Xerxes had not gone to bed in years without first drinking a half-dozen flasks of Helbon wine. They also killed his charioteer—and brother-in-law—Patiramphes.

The night of the murder, Crown Prince Darius was at the hunting lodge on the road to Pasargada. When Darius was told the news, he hurried up to Susa—and into a trap. Everyone knew that not only did Darius hate his father but he wanted, quite naturally, to be Great King. So the conspirators let it be known that it was at Darius’ order that Patiramphes had killed the Great King, obliging the loyal Artabanus to kill Patiramphes.

The conspirators then went to the eighteen-year-old Artaxerxes and told him that his brother Darius was responsible for the murder of their father. If Artaxerxes agreed to the execution of his brother, they promised to make him Great King. I have reason to believe that Artaxerxes knew even then exactly what had happened. But Artabanus controlled the palace guard, and Artaxerxes was powerless. He did as he was told. The next day, when
 
Darius arrived at Susa, he was arrested by Artabanus. Condemned as a regicide by the law-bearers, he was put to death.

I have no idea what exact part the queen played in the execution of her eldest son. Although she had agreed to the murder of Xerxes, I cannot believe that she had anything to do with the execution of Darius. I suspect that once events were in train, she lost control. I do know that when she learned through her spies that Artabanus planned to murder Artaxerxes and make himself Great King, she summoned Megabyzus and made a secret alliance with him. As army commander, Megabyzus was even more powerful than the guards commander Artabanus. Although Megabyzus had approved the murder of Xerxes, he was loyal to the dynasty.

With half an army corps, Megabyzus overwhelmed the palace guard and Artabanus was killed. Then Aspamitres was arrested. As the queen’s lover, the court chamberlain expected to be spared. But he had tried to supplant the Achaemenids, and Amestris was in a towering rage. It was the queen who gave the order to put Aspamitres in what is known as the trough, a sort of wooden coffin that covers the trunk of the body while leaving limbs and head exposed to sun and wind, to insects and reptiles. Of all deaths, the trough is supposed to be the slowest and the most disagreeable—next, that is, to old age.

I, Democritus, son of Athenocritus, wish to insert at this point in the narrative of my great-uncle, Cyrus Spitama, a conversation that I had with him an hour or so after he had dictated to me the story of Xerxes’ death. As a good Zoroastrian, he thought that all essential questions had been answered. But he was too intelligent, finally, to ignore contrary evidence. Although I am fairly certain that he would not have wanted me to reproduce his words on that occasion, I think that I owe it not only to his memory but to our joint quest to report what he said.