But Aristides leapt to my defence. ‘What else could he say? We hoped for some private talks with the king or his people. None were offered.’
‘Mardonius had had you followed night and day — you, and me, and every one of my men. One of my men was killed in a brawl that has no obvious cause — when I was attempting to send him to the Queen Mother.’ He shrugged. ‘Mardonius will stop at nothing to provoke this war. He is to be Satrap of Europe. The war is his reward for service and his stepping stone to empire.’ He frowned at me. ‘Some of us think he covets the empire for himself.’
‘By Hermes!’ I said. ‘Why am I only finding this out now?’
Aristides frowned. ‘Yes,’ he agreed. ‘It is late to have the politics of this court revealed. A week ago we might have done something. Or prepared different speeches.’
Cyrus shook his head. ‘Meeting the Queen Mother was to fix everything. Now — I’m sorry — I think we have been sold to Mardonius. I don’t know why. I regret that my death will lead to open conflict within the empire, but my father will not leave me unavenged. I have sons.’ He smiled. ‘I cannot regret having been your friend, Arimnestos.’
The door opened.
I prepared myself to die.
But the world is never that simple, and instead of executioners, there were three slaves. They had clothes — fine clothes, all Persian. And food.
We ate.
After some discussion, we changed into Persian dress. We were dressed as guardsmen, in the hideous trousers and the long jackets. I felt like some sort of effeminate, and Aristides was worse — his long legs were too long for his trousers.
The lead slave wrapped our heads in coverings and pulled the ends over our faces, and we were out the door. There were spears leaning there and we took them and followed the slaves across the courtyard we’d crossed earlier.
At the last moment, there was a shout, and the slaves froze. Two soldiers — Immortals — ran up, swords drawn.
‘Don’t you know that all movement is forbidden?’ one growled.
The slaves flinched. ‘My mistress. .’ the lead slave whimpered.
‘Dog of a Mede!’ I snapped. I used Mardonius’s northern Persian accent. It sounded barbarous. But I knew the Immortal was not a Persian. ‘Be about your business, or let us go to Lord Mardonius and see who has the right to give orders.’
The two Immortals looked at each other.
‘Move!’ I said to the slaves, and pointed my spear imperiously.
They let us go. They didn’t love us, or even — quite — believe me, but we moved quickly and they didn’t choose to arrest us.
And then we were in the women’s palace. I knew what it must be as soon as we were in the doors — women smell different from men, and I don’t mean perfume. It was a different reek — laundry and kohl instead of sweat and leather.
We were taken down a short corridor and up two narrow flights of stairs where our spears were very inconvenient, and then into a room where we were in the presence of a dozen masked guardsmen. The room was lit by a hundred oil lamps and the walls were frescoed with pictures of bulls.
The guard parted to reveal Atosa, the Queen Mother.
I bowed to the floor, complete with my hand touching the stone.
She smiled, and her face was beautiful. She must have been only slightly older than forty, with access to every refinement, and she was lithe and smooth skinned. She wore long robes of silk, in layers, and her face was bare. She wore a silk tiara edged in gold and silk trousers that disguised very little of the shape of her legs, and behind her, on pillows, were a dozen of her ladies, each prettier than the last, with arched eyebrows and straight noses and sparkling eyes — I doubt that in fifty years of sailing the bowl of the earth I’ve seen so many beautiful women in one place.
Despite which, my eyes were only for the Queen Mother.
She stood looking at me. She gave me a small smile and the most fractional inclination of her head, and then she turned to Aristides.
‘You are the great lord of Athens, whom my son has chosen to ignore?’ she asked.
Aristides bowed. ‘My lady, I am an exile.’
She nodded. ‘I lack the time to play this kind of game, Athenian lord. My son is on the edge of a great error, and he is badly counselled.’
Aristides was not at his best with women. He was on edge — but he rallied. ‘My lady, I cannot pretend to negotiate for Athens,’ he began.
She snapped her fingers. ‘I do not care a fig for Athens,’ she said. ‘It may endure my son’s wrath or it may go on to future greatness, and it is all one to me, if only my son does not fritter away our birthright and our empire on overextending his power.’ She looked at me. ‘Mardonius intends to take you and murder you — tonight. His people and mine are playing a deadly game of hide and seek even now.’ She smiled. ‘My two unfortunate men are both making good recoveries. May I say that — despite any consequences — had you killed them, I’d have fed you to the dogs.’
I nodded. ‘I think your dogs would have found me stringy,’ I said.
‘I’m a little past my prime, myself,’ Aristides said — you can tell the depth of his discomfort by the fact that he actually managed a witticism.
She waved our attempts at lightness away. ‘I will not allow Mardonius any more power over my son.’
I had to try. ‘O Queen of Persia, is there any way in which we can — by explanation or discussion — prevent this war?’
She pursed her lips. ‘I do not want my son to commit an act that might damn him with our gods,’ she said. ‘And I would do much to help Artapherenes, who stood by my husband at all times. But please do not imagine that I wish to see anything but the destruction of Athens. Let every stone be torn from every other stone. Let her temples be destroyed as ours of Sardis were destroyed.’
So much for peace.
Only then — in the Queen Mother’s apartments in Susa — did I fully understand that we’d never had a chance. The Ionian Revolt, the burning of Sardis, the destruction of Euboea and the Battle of Marathon were like stepping stones across a raging torrent — and each step took us closer to the moment when the Great King’s armies marched.
‘I will save your lives,’ she said. ‘But I will applaud when I hear that the Acropolis is afire.’
Aristides bowed. ‘O Queen,’ he said, ‘Athens has done nothing but defend herself and her people from your husband and now your son. I am sorry for the wreck of Sardis. It was ill done. I was there, and I would have prevented it if I could have. Your own sometime subjects, the Ionians, were the guilty parties. And I stood on the plains of Marathon and did my best to stop Datis and his army from sacking Athens — after seeing how he destroyed the cities of Euboea and sold her citizens into slavery.’
She cut him off with a wave of her hand. ‘Please. Save your breath. I care nothing for your arguments, nor am I here to negotiate. I had you brought here because Mardonius would never dare search my apartments. Now you can escort me to my summer palace, and I will, I hope, never have to see you again.’
Cyrus bowed. ‘Great Lady, what of my men, and the other Greeks?’
She smiled. I suspected she would make a terrible enemy. ‘I have them all safe,’ she said. ‘The Spartans were taken on the very steps of the throne room. Your men, their horses and all their kit await you in the mountains.’
Aristides nodded. ‘Then, Great Queen, what can we do but offer our thanks — as enemies?’
Her eyebrows raised. ‘Ah! Nicely said. Let us go. I have been pining for the mountains.’
We moved fast, and I have very little to relate beyond a tale of fatigue and near-complete disorientation. We filed down the main stairs and formed the escort around her litter, and she was carried in state across four courtyards to the royal stable block, where, to my astonishment, she mounted a horse.