But they were both Aeolian Greeks. As soon as they saw I was Greek, they threw themselves at my knees and begged me to rescue them. It was, just possibly, the most humiliating moment of my life, because I fancy myself the sort of man who rescues the weak, not oppresses them further.
Hector heard their story later. They were a Chian nobleman’s daughters, and they had been ‘employed’ in the satrap’s palace for four years.
In fact, as we moved around the corridors and unpacked, it became obvious that every low-level slave in the palace was Greek.
We met Hydarnes in person just before dinner. He had a great feast prepared — iced wine, whole deer, antelope, and the head of a lion. Whole sheep in saffron and raisins, and a dozen more dishes. It was a dinner for six hundred men — and women.
We could smell the feast, and Hydarnes sat on a low throne flanked by golden statues of the local god. I went first, and I bowed — as an equal to another equal.
He waved a hand, as if dismissing my insolence as puerile. ‘I gather you are guest-friend to Artapherenes,’ he said. He leaned forward. ‘I gather you were once a slave.’ He meant it to put me in my place.
I bowed again. ‘Two years ago, I was a slave of a Carthaginian tin trader,’ I said. ‘The gods decide men’s fates.’ A year of dealing with the bigotries of Sicilians had made me immune to this sort of thing.
He looked at my friends. ‘It is interesting to meet so many free Greeks. I only know them as slaves. Greeks make excellent slaves.’
I nodded. ‘As do Persians,’ I said. So much for diplomacy.
But he threw back his head and roared. ‘Hah! Good for you. Yes — I suppose that if I was taken, I would make a fine slave. I know how to give orders and to take them. This is the power of our empire.’
After me, he was introduced to Aristides. He smiled and rose from his throne and came down to take Aristides’ hand. ‘I understand you have been exiled,’ he said. ‘My king offers you his hand in friendship.’ Aristides took the proffered hand. ‘For myself, I would like nothing better than to be the king’s friend,’ he said. ‘But I remain an Athenian.’
Hydarnes nodded. ‘So few Greeks seems to feel as you do. They come to us and betray their homes for a few pieces of silver. But you are a nobleman.’
Aristides frowned, but Hydarnes went on to the Spartans. ‘And you — men of Lacedaemon! Will you be friends of the Great King? Are you exiles?’
Bulis looked at me. We’d discussed some responses to questions like this. He said, ‘We are heralds of the Kings of Sparta, with a message to the Great King,’ he said.
‘A message of friendship?’ Hydarnes pressed on. ‘From the Kings of Sparta?’
Bulis looked as cold as ice. ‘The message,’ he said slowly, ‘is for the king your master, and not for you.’
Hydarnes frowned.
Soon after, we went into the great hall to dinner. We lay on couches in the Greek manner, but women sat in chairs. There were at least a dozen Persian, Median and Babylonian women. Not many among six hundred men, but enough to draw comment from the Greeks.
Aristides was sharing my couch, and Hector was waiting on us with Aristides’ hypaspist, Nikeas.
I remember that the wine was odd. First, too sour, and then too sweet.
‘You know who would love this?’ Aristides asked me, while using a fold of bread to shove more mutton in saffron into his mouth. He laughed like a boy and chewed politely.
‘Cimon?’ I asked. ‘Miltiades?’
‘Jocasta,’ Aristides said. ‘She craves travel and adventure. For her, this would be like. . meeting Odysseus.’ He leaned closer, as Hector poured wine and thus covered us from observation. ‘Do you think all the Greek slaves are a message?’ he asked.
‘Yes,’ I said.
‘I pray to Zeus you are wrong. And to Hermes, god of heralds and ambassadors.’ He sat back. ‘You no longer think it can be stopped.’
I shook my head. ‘I never did, once Artapherenes said the Great King was determined to make war. He’s already spent the money. Can you imagine how much it costs to have three hundred triremes at sea a year before you plan to attack?’
Greek slaves averted their eyes while serving us, so that we would not look into their faces. But some cried.
One young boy broke down while serving Bulis. Bulis put a hand on his head and whispered something in his ear.
Hydarnes looked at the Spartan from his dais. ‘Come, my friend,’ he said. ‘You must talk to us, and not to our slaves. Tell us all why you men of Lacedaemon decline to say you will be the friends of the Great King. You have but to look at me and my fortune to see that the king knows well how to honour merit. In like manner you yourselves, if you would only make your submission to the Great King, would receive great gifts and land from his hands, seeing that he deems you men of merit.’
Bulis rose to his feet. ‘Hydarnes,’ he said, ‘you understand less than half of the story. You tell me that if I am a good slave, I will be rewarded for surrendering my freedom, and that may have been your own experience.’
I had never heard Bulis speak so well. But Spartans are full of surprises. Bulis’s interpreter stumbled when he reached the insult — the sting in the tail, as we Greeks say. He fell silent.
I stood up and finished Bulis’s statement in Persian.
Bulis raised his voice to continue. ‘I am merely a citizen of Sparta, and perhaps I misunderstand. But it seems to me that you have all your life been a slave to this king, and since you have never been free, you have no idea how sweet liberty might be. Because if you had tasted it,’ Bulis said, and he smiled at the boy who had cried, ‘then, as I see you are a man, you would have fought not just with your spear for freedom, but with axes and knives and even with the nails on your fingers.’
So he answered Hydarnes. As I translated, I was quite sure that I had the same smile on my face that I wear when I fight.
Hydarnes was obviously annoyed, and equally obviously unwilling to show it. But at the end of dinner, he stood and waved at me in a way that had to have been insulting.
‘Tomorrow I hunt lion,’ he said. ‘A great man-killer is preying on my slaves. Come ride with me, and let us see who is a man, and who is a slave.’
He hadn’t included the Spartans. That made sense — as heralds, they were exempt from all challenges and all contests. And sacred.
I was not, so I rose and bowed. ‘I would be delighted,’ I said.
Later that night, I lay in bed and listened as Greek slaves were beaten with rods in the courtyard. I’m sure they beat the boy — he had laughed aloud when Bulis spoke, and Hector liked him.
But there are ways and ways of scoring one’s victories. The next day, I hunted in the mountains with Cyrus and Hydarnes. I could tell that neither liked the other — indeed, I had seen Cyrus grin like a daemon when Bulis’s insult went home, so I understood that we had some latitude here. But I was determined that I would rescue something from here.
My goods — Athenian goods — had fetched shockingly high prices on the wharves. Sekla reported to me in the dawn as we mounted our horses for the hunt, and I knew that I had silver. So, when our dogs had run the lion and it was cornered in a stand of trees — alien trees, of a kind I’d never seen before, with yellow flowers — while the party sorted out their weapons, I turned to Sallis, who was with me most of the time.
‘If I wanted to buy a few of the Greek slaves who have pleased me, what then?’ I asked.
Sallis made a face — the face Asians make when they are prepared to haggle. ‘If they are the Great King’s slaves, we may not sell them,’ he said. ‘If they are my master’s slaves, all is well.’
I described the boy and I named the two Aeolian women — Sappho and Lysistrata.