"Master Myron!" shrilled a eunuch. "You must leave your robe of audience!"
Myron tore off the white robe, threw it at the eunuch, snatched up his plain brown cloak from the bench, and ran on. At the bottom of the main stair he looked about for a horse, mule, or cart, but none was in sight.
He ran westward, taking what he hoped was the shortest route. Persepolis was beginning to stir for its day's work. Myron dodged slave girls walking towards the town well with jars on their heads.
In a narrow alley he found himself behind a huge dark-brown two-humped camel, whose coat of winter wool was peeling off in patches. The beast plodded slowly on, filling the alley. The cameleer, a turbaned Arachosian in baggy trousers and sheepskin coat, looked down impassively from atop a pile of merchandise.
"Get that abandoned beast out of the way!" cried Myron, waving the seal ring. "I am on the king's business!"
The cameleer spat and looked away. The camel ambled on.
Myron drew his knife, reached up, and jabbed the beast in the haunch. The camel gave a bubbling roar and broke into a jouncing trot, banging its load against the house fronts. The load began to slide. The cameleer grabbed for handholds, shrieking curses in the names of Imra, Gish, and other elder gods who reigned before the coming of the Aryans. At the next corner, Myron slipped past, dodging a kick that the driver aimed at his head.
Myron ran on. His breath began to labor; he had not run like this for years. The universe swam before his eyes.
Soon he reached the wall. This was a small wall as such things went: a mere ten or twelve feet of mud brick, counting the parapet. At the Shushan Gate, a flourish of the ring got Myron past the sentries. He ran out upon the Shushan road, through a scattering of houses and plowed fields. Ahead, he saw a multitude gathered at the drill field, some holding umbrellas and some with hoods pulled over heads.
As Myron drew near, he was vastly relieved to see that the execution had not yet taken place. He pushed roughly through the crowd to the front, ignoring curses and threats from those whom he elbowed aside.
On the ground, a dozen paces in front of him, lay Bessas of Zariaspa, naked and bound. A few feet away rose the stake. It had been rammed into the earth at a low angle, so that its point, gleaming with the creamy hue of freshly whittled wood, was only a foot above the earth. Two great gray oxen stood, one on each side of the stake. The crew were tying Bessas' ankles to the harness of the beasts, one to each ox.
When the point of the stake had been inserted, the oxen would pull Bessas until the point had pierced upward into his vitals for a little more than a foot. Then the tackle would be removed from the victim and attached to the stake itself, so that the oxen could pull the stake and its victim into an upright position. It would then be wedged into place.
Myron faced an Immortal, who held a spear level to keep back the crowd. Waving the king's ring, Myron tried to talk but could not get his breath.
"You—the king—pardon—" he gasped. Then he went into a fit of coughing.
"Stand back and stop pushing, you!" said the soldier.
The executioners finished tying Bessas' ankles. One grasped each ankle and began to haul the prostrate man towards the stake. Bessas jerked a leg loose, whereupon another executioner kicked him in the ribs. More hands seized his legs and pulled until the point of the stake touched his flesh. Those holding the oxen pulled them forward, to tauten the ropes running back from them to the victim, and lined the animals up. The chief executioner, a brawny, bare-armed man in brown leather, raised an arm.
"Commutation of sentence!" gasped Myron. "Let me through, in the name of the king!"
"Let a Hellene through with such a tale?" said the soldier. "We all know what liars—"
Myron ducked under the spear and ran towards the executioners. The soldier shouted angrily over his shoulder but did not leave his post in the line for fear that the whole crowd would surge through the gap thus opened. The other Immortals took up the shout. An officer started towards Myron, half drawing his sword.
The chief executioner lowered his arm. The men tending the oxen stepped back and raised their whips.
Myron ran in front of the oxen, unfurled his cloak, and flapped it in the animals' faces. With startled snorts and rolling eyes, the beasts gave back, turning in their traces.
"Cut down that madman!" shouted a voice.
The officer came close, sword out. Myron thrust the king's ring into his face, shouting:
"Behold the king's seal! The sentence has been commuted!"
When Myron said it for the third time, the officer grasped the idea. Soon Bessas' ankles were unbound, though his wrists remained fettered. An angry mutter arose from the crowd.
"My trousers, curse you!" roared the prostrate man in a Bactrian accent.
Soon Bessas was on his feet again. His teeth flashed through a mass of dirty black beard. "Good old Myron!" he cried. "When I'm free, I'll buy you enough wine of Halpa to drown an elephant in!"
Bessas son of Phraates towered over all the rest. Zarina's baby was a heavy-featured man, six and a half feet tall and massively muscled. Under a disordered mop of black hair were a broad forehead, heavy black brows, deep-set brown eyes, wide cheekbones, a long nose (which had been straight until a sword cut had put a kink in it), and full lips. A short beard masked his massive jaw. But for the pocks that marked his face, he would have been handsome in a rugged, somber way.
Although but thirty, Bessas bore the scars of a veteran. One ran from the left temple down into the beard, another across the right cheek, and others were to be seen on neck and arms and running through the mat of curly black fur that covered his chest.
In stripping the Bactrian, the executioners, not daring to untie his hands, had cut his jacket to pieces. So Myron cast his cloak over Bessas' bare shoulders.
"I do not mind the rain," said Bessas. "It might wash some of the muck off me. You there!" he snarled at the head executioner. "Will you keep us standing here all morning? You stinking slob, haven't you heard that the king awaits me?"
The executioner tightened his lips and took a step forward as if to punish the Bactrian's insolence. Bessas bared his gleaming teeth. The executioner turned away to supervise the packing up of the stake and its gear. Soon spectators, soldiers, executioners, Bessas, and Myron were all slopping through the mud back towards the city.
II—The Rim of the World
While the king's barber and bath attendant made Bessas presentable, Myron talked with his former pupil. Since he was sure the attendants did not know Greek, he spoke in his native tongue.
"... so you will be liberated on condition that you procure these two rarities," said Myron. "How does it strike you?"
"It sounds like a quest for the fabled castle of Kangdiz," said Bessas in slow, heavily accented Greek, "but it's better than being buggered by the Ionian." He called the stake by its Persian nickname. "I am no puling infant but, by Mithra, the touch of that damned toothpick unmanned me!"
"Your Greek has deteriorated," said Myron. "It's mè, not moi."
Bessas gave a low rumble of laughter. "Same old Myron! It is well that you're not going on this journey. Else, when some savage chieftain is making up his mind whether to chop our heads off, you would correct his speech and get us slain for sure."
"Oh, but my dear fellow, I am too going!"
"What?"
"Yes; the king has already given his permission."
Bessas groaned. "What in the name of the Seven Guardian Stars put that thought into your mind?"
"For nearly thirty years I have taught in Shushan and other cities of the Empire: first as Arsaces' slave, then as a freedman. You, who are young enough to be my son, have undergone desperate adventures all over the eastern marches of the Empire. Before I die, I intend to experience some action and adventure, also. And I mean to see some far countries and learn new truths, that the Milesians shall remember my name. To the crows with trying to beat culture into these insolent brats!"