‘Standing around and cheering, I suppose. I think I find it more heroic than standing in a square and hiding behind another man’s shield. Still, victory is better than heroic defeat, don’t you agree?’
‘I prefer to be on the winning side.’
‘Very sensible. So in this phalanx, the man on the far right has no protection?’
‘No. That’s the weakness of the formation.’
Croesus smiled. ‘It’s more than that. It’s the flaw in their thinking. Who ends up on the right, do you think?’
‘I think-’
‘I will tell you,’ Croesus continued, gesturing his slave into silence. ‘Sometimes it will be the unwanted, the weak. They will be pushed to the right and left to die by the others. But it won’t just be them. It will be the powerful and ambitious men as well. There’s no room for the great man in their world, or the wretched one either. Mediocrity is what they aspire to. Distinguish yourself in any way, for good or ill, and soon enough you will find yourself out there without protection, and you’ll feel that spear in your ribs.’
Isocrates said nothing, and Croesus gave him a knowing glance.
‘You have many different kinds of silences, you know,’ the king said. ‘An entire language of taciturnity. I recognise this particular silence. You have something more to say?’
‘Just another possibility that you might not have considered.’
‘Which is?’
‘They might consider it an honour to be the man on the right. To be the one who is sacrificed so that the battle may be won.’
‘You may be right. Still, I wouldn’t want to be that man — would you?’ Croesus leaned back in his chair and rubbed his eyes.
‘You are tired, master.’
‘Yes. Tired but content. This war will change the world. That’s something, isn’t it?’
‘Of course, master.’
Croesus nodded slowly. ‘Leave me. No, wait. Isocrates?’
‘Yes, master?’
‘Will you send for my wife?’
Isocrates clasped his hands behind his back, and looked away from his king. ‘I should think she will be in the women’s quarters, master.’
‘How I hate that place being out of bounds to me. This ridiculous charade.’ He shook his head. ‘You can send your wife in to find her, can’t you?’
‘Yes, master.’
‘And Isocrates, there’s something I have been meaning to discuss with you. About Maia.’
‘Master?’
Croesus said nothing for a time. ‘Do you beat your wife?’ he said at last, speaking quietly.
Isocrates went quite still. ‘Master?’
‘I have seen her several times with bruises on her face. She has told me that Gyges is not responsible, and I believe her.’ He paused. ‘It is your work, I take it?’
The slave stood in silence for a time. ‘She is beaten, master,’ Isocrates said eventually.
Croesus looked away. Such behaviour was hardly unusual, but he found himself disappointed. ‘It is a husband’s right, I suppose,’ Croesus said, ‘But it does not please me. If I ask you to restrain yourself, will you?’
‘I will try, master,’ Isocrates said softly.
There was something strange in the slave’s tone, and it did not sound like the anger or shame of a guilty man. For a moment, Croesus pondered whether or not to question his slave further, but decided against it. He would get the answer to this some other time.
‘Go and send for my wife,’ he said.
‘Yes, master.’
Croesus waited alone, listening to the sound of the torches that lit the room. He blinked away his tiredness and tried to order his thoughts.
After a space of time that could have been a moment or could have been hours, he looked up, and saw his wife standing in the doorway.
‘Please. Sit down.’
‘I asked you not to come to me,’ she said as she approached him.
‘I didn’t, did I? You came to me.’
‘You are the king. I cannot refuse your requests.’
‘Yes, I know. But I wanted to see you.’ She said nothing.
‘I had a response from the oracle, you know,’ Croesus said after a moment’s silence.
‘A blessing for your war. The whole city knows that. I do hear things, you know.’
‘But did you know the oracle had answered two more of my questions? The responses reached me yesterday. No one knows of them but me. And now, I would like to share them with you.’
She sighed. ‘And what did the oracle tell you?’
‘I asked for how long my line would rule.’ She shook her head. ‘You think me vain,’ he said. ‘But listen to her reply. She said that my people would rule until a mule sat on the throne of the Medes.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘Exactly. It’s nonsense. My line will rule for ever.’ Hesitant, he took her hand and cradled it his palms. ‘Do you know what that means?’
‘I suppose you will tell me.’
‘It means we will have another child. Another son. And our son will have sons. That is wonderful, don’t you think?’
She smiled sadly, but kept her head low. ‘I am glad you have hope.’
‘You will believe in it too. When I come back, after the war, all things will be different.’ He leaned forward and kissed her softly on the forehead.
She looked up at him. ‘You mentioned two more questions, Croesus. That is only one answer.’
‘I asked if Gyges would ever speak.’ He paused. ‘But it doesn’t matter now, knowing that we will have other sons.’
‘What did she say?’
‘She said that if Gyges ever spoke, I would regret it.’ Croesus hesitated, then shrugged. ‘I don’t know what that means.’
She nodded to herself, then left to return to her chambers. He watched her, and did not try to stop her. He waited until he was certain that she had returned to the sanctuary of the women’s quarters and would not return. He stood, and made his way down to the lower treasury.
The room was not as impressive as it had been. The gifts to Delphi had cost him greatly, and the fortress of his wealth had lost some of its former grandeur.
A part of him wished that the room could have remained as it was before: a place of glorious, unspoiled potential. Once he had seen a different vision each time he descended into the treasury. He had seen enormous theatres, vast temples and funerary mounds, fleets of trading ships that would map out every corner of the unknown world. He had dreamed an infinity of forms that his wealth might take.
Now, he saw only an army. An army of flesh and leather and iron and bronze that would spread the kingdom of Lydia across half the world. An army whose marching feet would write his name into history for ever.
He would have to be content with that.
7
Far to the east of Sardis, a village lay on the banks of the Halys river. Its clustered huts were of many different kinds, relics of all the tribes who had lived here at one time or another. Some were made from river reeds lashed together, others had been fashioned from mud or clay, others were wooden frames covered with animal hides. The fishing was good enough to support a few families, the soil too poor to allow the village to grow beyond that, and so the settlement never became larger than a village. None of the people who had ever lived in this place felt a need to give it a name, and so it did not have one.
There was only one thing that distinguished it from the many other villages by the Halys — the bridge that passed over the deep river a short distance from the huts, the bridge that at this time corresponded to a line inked on to a map. It marked the border between Lydia and Cappadocia, the easternmost point of Croesus’s empire.
It was still early in the morning, while the fishermen were beginning to lay out their nets, that the first signs came. The observant noted the birds that flocked overhead in larger numbers than usual, all of them flying from west to east. Soon after, to the west they saw a dust cloud rising as though a tornado were making its way towards them. Then, confirming what they all knew by then, they heard the steady, thudding sound of an army on the move.