“So Harpagus, wanting revenge, engineered a revolt, and I accepted the leadership of it which he offered me.” Denison grinned crookedly. “After all, I was Cyrus the Great, with a destiny to play out. We had a rough time at first, the Medes clobbered us again and again, but you know, Manse, I found myself enjoying it. Not like that wretched twentieth-century business of sitting in a foxhole wondering if the enemy barrage will ever let up. Oh, war is miserable enough here, especially if you’re a buck private when disease breaks out, as it always does. But when you fight, by God, you fight, with your own hands! And I even found a talent for that sort of thing. We’ve pulled some gorgeous stunts.” Everard watched life flow back into him: “Like the time the Lydian cavalry had us outnumbered. We sent our baggage camels in the van, with the infantry behind and horse last. Croesus’ nags got a whiff of the camels and stampeded. For all I know, they’re running yet. We mopped him up!”
He jarred to silence, stared awhile into Everard’s eyes, and bit his lip. “Sorry. I keep forgetting. Now and then I remember I was not a killer at home—after a battle, when I see the dead scattered around, and worst of all the wounded. But I couldn’t help it, Manse! I’ve had to fight! First there was the revolt. If I hadn’t played along with Harpagus, how long do you think I’d have lasted, personally? And then there’s been the realm itself. I didn’t ask the Lydians to invade us, or the eastern barbarians. Have you ever seen a town sacked by Turanians, Manse? It’s them or us, and when we conquer somebody we don’t march them off in chains, they keep their own lands and customs and… For Mithras’ sake, Manse, could I do anything else?”
Everard sat listening to the garden rustle under a breeze. At last: “No. I understand. I hope it hasn’t been too lonesome.”
“I got used to it,” said Denison carefully. “Harpagus is an acquired taste, but interesting. Croesus turned out to be a very decent fellow. Kobad the Mage has some original thoughts, and he’s the only man alive who dares beat me at chess. And there’s the feasting, and hunting, and women.…” He gave the other a defiant look. “Yeah. What else would you have me do?”
“Nothing,” said Everard. “Sixteen years is a long time.”
“Cassandane, my chief wife, is worth a lot of the trouble I’ve had. Though Cynthia—God in heaven, Manse!” Denison stood up and laid hands on Everard’s shoulders. The fingers closed with bruising strength; they had held ax, bow, and bridle for a decade and a half. The King of the Persians shouted aloud:
“How are you going to get me out of here?”
7
Everard rose too, walked to the floor’s edge and stared through lacy stonework, thumbs hooked in his belt and head lowered.
“I don’t see how,” he answered.
Denison smote a fist into one palm. “I’ve been afraid of that. Year by year I’ve grown more afraid that if the Patrol ever finds me it’ll… You’ve got to help.”
“I tell you, I can’t!” Everard’s voice cracked. He did not turn around. “Think it over. You must have done so already. You’re not some lousy little barbarian chief whose career won’t make a lot of difference a hundred years from now. You’re Cyrus, the founder of the Persian Empire, a key figure in a key milieu. If Cyrus goes, so does the whole future! There won’t have been any twentieth-century with Cynthia in it.”
“Are you certain?” pleaded the man at his back.
“I boned up on the facts before hopping here,” said Everard through clenched jaws. “Stop kidding yourself. We’re prejudiced against the Persians because at one time they were the enemies of Greece, and we happen to get some of the more conspicuous features of our own culture from Hellenic sources. But the Persians are at least as important!
“You’ve watched it happen. Sure, they’re pretty brutal by your standards: the whole era is, including the Greeks. And they’re not democratic, but you can’t blame them for not making a European invention outside their whole mental horizon. What counts is this:
“Persia was the first conquering power which made an effort to respect and conciliate the people it took over; which obeyed its own laws; which pacified enough territory to open steady contact with the Far East; which created a viable world-religion, Zoroastrianism, not limited to any one race or locality. Maybe you don’t know how much Christian belief and ritual is of Mithraic origin, but believe me, it’s plenty. Not to mention Judaism, which you, Cyrus the Great, are personally going to rescue. Remember? You’ll take over Babylon and allow those Jews who’ve kept their identity to return home; without you, they’d be swallowed up and lost in the general ruck as the ten other tribes already have been.
“Even when it gets decadent, the Persian Empire will be a matrix for civilization. What were most of Alexander’s conquests but just taking over Persian territory? And that spread Hellenism through the known world! And there’ll be Persian successor states: Pontus, Parthia, the Persia of Firduzi and Omar and Hafiz, the Iran we know and the Iran of a future beyond the twentieth-century… ”
Everard turned on his heel. “If you quit,” he said, “I can imagine them still building ziggurats and reading entrails—and running through the woods up in Europe, with America undiscovered—three thousand years from now!”
Denison sagged. “Yeah,” he answered. “I thought so.”
He paced awhile, hands behind his back. The dark face looked older each minute. “Thirteen more years,” he murmured, almost to himself. “In thirteen years I’ll fall in battle against the nomads. I don’t know exactly how. One way or another, circumstances will force me to it. Why not? They’re forced me into everything else I’ve done, willy-nilly… in spite of everything I can do to train him, I know my own son Cambyses will turn out to be a sadistic incompetent and it will take Darius to save the empire—God!” He covered his face with a flowing sleeve. “Excuse me. I do despise self-pity, but I can’t help this.”
Everard sat down, avoiding the sight. He heard how the breath rattled in Denison’s lungs.
Finally the King poured wine into two chalices, joined Everard on the bench and said in a dry tone: “Sorry. I’m okay now. And I haven’t given up yet.”
“I can refer your problem to headquarters,” said Everard with a touch of sarcasm.
Denison echoed it: “Thanks, little chum. I remember their attitude well enough. We’re expendable. They’ll interdict the entire lifetime of Cyrus to visitors, just so I won’t be tempted, and send me a nice message. They will point out that I’m the absolute monarch of a civilized people, with palaces, slaves, vintages, chefs, entertainers, concubines, and hunting grounds at my disposal in unlimited quantities, so what am I complaining about? No, Manse, this is something you and I will have to work out between us.”
Everard clenched his fists till he felt the nails bite into the palms. “You’re putting me in a hell of a spot, Keith,” he said.
“I’m only asking you to think on the problem—and Ahriman damn you, you will!” Again the fingers closed on his flesh, and the conqueror of the East snapped forth a command. The old Keith would never have taken that tone, thought Everard, anger flickering up; and he thought:
If you don’t come home, and Cynthia is told that you never will… She could come back and join you, one more foreign girl in the King’s harem won’t affect history. But if I reported to head-quarters before seeing her, reported the problem as insoluble, which it doubtless is in fact… why, then the reign of Cyrus would be interdicted and she could not join you.