"Tamyra's screams attracted the guards. Their coming sobered Sataspes, for as they entered the chamber he confronted them with a tale of the child's being frightened by a demon. Whilst they, knowing him for an Achaemenid, hesitated, he dashed off and sought sanctuary at our house as an old friend and distant cousin. I was out visiting my gossips. Bessas tried to smuggle Sataspes out of Persepolis, and both were caught."
As Zarina paused, Myron said: "Folly is mortals' self-chosen misfortune. Go on."
"This afternoon past, the king judged the matter. The Daduchids wanted the boats or the ashes for Sataspes. The king had compromised on the stake, when Sataspes' mother burst in. Such shouting in the king's presence has not been heard since Salamis!
"But the king could not turn out his aunt without giving her her say. She proposed that Sataspes earn his life by sailing around Africa and reporting on what he found, as Phoenicians are said to have done in the reign of some old Egyptian king. After more shouting, Bagabyxas and Zopyrus agreed, albeit with ill grace."
"Then what?" said Myron.
"That left my son. Bessas asserts he knew nought of the rape; that Sataspes told him only that the Daduchids had their knives out for him and he must needs flee. I thought that, in view of the king's lenience towards Sataspes, he would let Bessas off with a mere loss of his commission in the Immortals. But, as Bessas has neither wealth nor influence and nobody to plead for him but me, it took the king but ten heartbeats to sentence him to the stake."
"Beshrew me, but this is a dreadful business!" said Myron soberly. "What does my mistress wish?"
"Save him!" cried Zarina. "Save my only son!"
"I? Good gods, how?"
"How should I know? You, Master Myron, are notorious as one of the cleverest men of your crafty race. You can find a way; but save my boy!"
Myron sighed. "You Persians speak of ordinary human intelligence as if it were a criminal attribute. I grieve with you, madam. But I am neither so rich as Croesus nor so brave as Kodros. I am only a poor schoolmaster, with less influence at court than Bessas. I am not even an Aryan, let alone a Persian grandee. Can you give me a logical reason why I should risk my neck in a probably futile effort to save your whipworthy young—"
"May Ghu the demon king boil you in oil, you greedy Greek!" spat Zarina. "So you are fain to be bribed! Here, take my earrings—"
"Mistress Zarina!" cried Myron. "You utterly wrong me! Keep your earrings, pray. I merely asked for a logical—"
"You and your logic!" screamed Zarina, wringing her hands. "Does not your heart tell you what to do? Or have you none?"
An agony of indecision screwed Myron's face into wrinkles. "It is not lack of heart, dear lady, but a certain lingering affection for my own hide. Though others may not think it worth taking off to make wallets of, I like the old thing. Besides, I have no skill at swaying the minds of the mighty."
Zarina leaned towards Myron, to whom her large dark eyes seemed like bottomless pools of blackness, reflecting the wavering yellow flame of the little lamp. "If you must have logic, consider this, good my sir. When one of your former pupils comes to a bad end, it reflects upon your teaching. You claim to impart wisdom; yet events give your words the lie. Had Bessas possessed wisdom, he would not now face a mean and agonizing death."
Myron drew a deep breath as his face cleared. "Your arguments are irrefutable, lady. I will do what I can. How shall we proceed? Let me think."
For a time Myron sat, fingering his short brown beard flecked with gray. The widow fidgeted. At last the Hellene said:
"Why not urge the king to send Bessas on an expedition like that of Sataspes?"
Zarina clapped her hands together. "The very thing! And you can go with him, to keep him out of trouble."
Myron started so violently that he choked upon a drop of spittle in his windpipe. When he had finished coughing, he said: "My hearing must fail me, dear lady! I thought you said that I was to accompany your young hellion on his expedition. Such an absurd idea—"
"Your hearing deceived you not. Think, now! Do you recall the time last year when Bessas brought you to our house to dinner? You talked at length. You told us how much unrelieved school teaching bored you. You spoke of the great explorers, like Skylax and Kolaios, and how you envied them their chance to advance the knowledge of mankind. Remember?"
"Sometimes I talk too much, especially when stimulated by fine Syrian wine. But really, I am a man of middle age! I am past the time for deeds of derring-do—"
"Rubbish, my dear Myron! You are a mere youth in your forties. At my age it were different. But, like the rest of us, you grow no younger by the year. Here is a chance not likely to come again! Will you not hate yourself for the rest of your wretched life if you forgo it?"
Myron sighed. "Madam, in deference to your rank I forbear to use some fine picturesque curses, which I learnt in Babylon. You must be a veritable witch, so shrewdly to divine all a man's secret weaknesses and so mercilessly to play upon them! Though I be the cosmos' greatest fool, I will go if it be possible. Now let us to our next step."
Zarina: "But what step? Midnight has passed. The king sleeps, as do most honest folk. It would take a Scythian invasion to persuade his people to rouse him now. And by the time he rises, my baby will have sat upon the stake."
Myron said: "My pupils bring me gossip, and this gossip says that the king is not so regular a sleeper as that. Many nights he spends closeted with Ostanas. The old he-witch has probably cozened the king into thinking that he can turn excrement into gold—but that gives us one hairsbreadth of a chance. Through whom can we approach the king?"
"I suppose we could appeal to the commander in chief."
Myron tossed his head in the Greek negative. "Artabanus is no more enamored of being aroused from slumber than the king. Moreover, even if we gained his ear, he would extort monstrous bribes and put us off, day by day, before we attained our audience. We must think of something else."
"Oh, hasten!" said Zarina. "Mithra! Will you waste the entire night in talk?"
"Calm yourself, madam. There is no point in rushing heedlessly about the streets and shouting gibberish. Who besides Artabanus?"
"How about Aspamitres?"
"Gods forbid! Once you get into the hands of the eunuchs, they'll bleed you whiter and delay you longer than Artabanus. In the palace, there's a scorpion beneath every stone."
"Have you tutored any of the king's sons?"
Myron pondered. "Not to speak of—I taught the young Darius for a ten-day, and then we parted because I insisted upon classroom discipline and he upon his royal prerogatives. But wait! I once tutored the king's bastard Tithraustes. He is not a bad sort, for a prince."
"They do say the king dotes upon Master Tithraustes, despite the thrashing that the Hellenes gave him in that affair off Cyprus."
"The reason is obvious," said Myron. "Being illegitimate, Tithraustes has no claim upon the throne. So, when he says 'dear Father,' Xerxes knows that he means it and is not using his love as a ruse for slipping a knife into the royal ribs." He rose and took his plain brown cloak off the peg. "My dear madam, I think we have it. I am informed that the bastard prince is a nocturnal bird, who makes the rounds of the taverns until false morn rises in the eastern sky. So let us go to find Tithraustes."
The night was dark with an overcast that promised one of spring's last rains. Myron and his companion went warily, holding two links high, lest some nervous Immortal mistake them for robbers and loose a shaft.
An hour and three taverns after they had left Myron's room, they entered the wineshop of Hutrara on the outskirts of Persepolis. Hutrara, a stout bald Elamite, leaned one elbow on his wine counter and eyed his few remaining customers with patient impassiveness.