Creation (23 page)

Darius indicated the large leather purse that Scylax was carrying in one hand. “You’ve brought it. Good. I’ll get mine.”

Darius pushed aside a tapestry depicting Cambyses hunting deer. Curiously enough, I recall no tapestries of Darius in any of the palaces. But Cambyses was everywhere. As far as I know, there is only one tapestry of Cyrus at Susa; it is in the queen’s hall—a crude piece of work which moths have not improved.

Behind the tapestry was a deep niche in which was set an ordinary wooden chest of the sort that merchants keep their money in. Darius lifted the lid and rummaged for a moment. Then he produced a small copper shield. Meanwhile, Scylax had removed a similar shield from the leather purse.

I had never before seen a proper traveler’s map. In fact, the only map of any kind that I had seen was the somewhat fantastic one that covers an entire wall of the new palace at Babylon. In rare stones, the cities and ports of Babylonia, Asia Minor and Egypt are depicted as they were at the time of Nebuchadnezzar. Since the Babylonians are good mathematicians, the distances are supposed to be accurate.

Darius himself placed the two copper maps of India side by side on the table. Then he began to point out significant differences between his map and that of Scylax. “We are only agreed on the Indus River, which you mapped for me.” Darius indicated the long line of the river that runs from the high mountains east of Bactria down to a complex delta that empties into what is called the Sea of India.

Scylax said that his map was the most recent. But he agreed that neither map could be trusted.

Suddenly Darius threw the red silk square onto the floor so that the Indian eunuch could read it. “Who is this message from?” he asked. “And where is it from?” He turned to Scylax. “How much of India did you actually see?”

“The river, Lord. Parts of the delta. The city of Taxila in the north.”

“That’s mine, isn’t it?”

“Yes, Lord. The whole valley to the east of the Indus is now your twentieth satrapy. The border is about here.” Scylax touched a spot on the map. “To the east is the land of the five rivers which the Indians call ... what?” Scylax looked at the floor where the eunuch was busy reading the message.

“The Punjab, Lord Admiral.”

“The Punjab. Then, in the north, there is the kingdom of Gandhara ...”

“My kingdom.”

“The king pays tribute to you, Lord,” said Scylax tactfully. Then he traced the wriggling length of the Indus River from north to south. “Thirteen months it took me, Lord, from the high mountains to the delta. But at the end, all this was yours.”

“Not to mention an annual tribute of three hundred and fifty gold talents in the form of gold dust.” Darius positively smacked his lips, a vulgarity denied the rest of us. “That is the largest annual tribute of any of my satrapies, including Egypt. So just think what the yield would be from all this!” The square hand brushed from left to right, from west to east, across the copper disk. Then Darius frowned. “But
what
is all this? My map shows two rivers and three cities whose names I can’t read. And then ... well, look at the shape! My India is like a round disk. Yours is a sort of peninsula. And what happens over here at the farthest edge? Is there a sea? Or do we fall off the end of the world?”

“There is another sea, Lord. There are also high mountains, jungles, and then a great empire, or so they claim.”

“Cathay. Yes, I have heard the name. But
where
is it?”

“In the reign of Cyrus, Lord, there was once an embassy from Cathay. They came to us with silk and jade.”

“I know. I know. I’ve seen the inventory. I want to trade with them. But it is hard to deal with a country whose whereabouts is unknown. Oh, Scylax, I dream of cows! I lust for cows!” Darius laughed.

Scylax smiled, though he did not dare laugh.

I was mystified. I had no idea what the reference to cows meant. Later, in India, I was to hear the phrase a thousand thousand times. Cows were the measure of wealth for those Aryan tribesmen who conquered Persia as they conquered Assyria and Greece and India. Although we no longer measure wealth in cows, the highly civilized Indian heirs of those long-dead cattle thieves still say “I dream of cows” when they mean that they want wealth. As a true Aryan chieftain, Darius never ceased to dream of cows—an expression as common to the Achaemenids and to the Indian Aryans as it is obscure to the rest of us.

“Well, Scylax, the time has come for us to acquire more cows. Apparently, we’ve been asked to pay” a visit to the cattle pen. From ... Where is that place?” Darius stared down at the eunuch.

“Magadha, Great King. The message is from its king, Bimbisara. He sends you greetings from his capital city at Rajagriha.”

“What extraordinary names they have! Worse than the Greeks. Well, Scylax—Greek that you are—where is Magadha? It’s not on my map.”

Scylax pointed to a long river that ran from the northwest edge to the southeastern edge of the map. “That is the river Ganges, Lord. Here, to the south of the river, is the kingdom of Magadha. Rajagriha must be about here. None of it is properly marked.”

“I shall want a perfect map of all India, Cyrus Spitama.”

“Yes, Lord.” I was excited at the thought of the adventure, and appalled at the vastness of India: thirteen months simply to go
down
a river!

“What else does this ... Indian have to say?”

“He says that his grandfather exchanged ambassadors with the Great King Cyrus. He says that he himself is in close communication with the kingdom of Gandhara ...”

“
My
kingdom.”

“Yes, Great King.”

“But this Bimb—whatever—does not acknowledge my sovereignty?”

“All the world does!” The eunuch was trembling uncontrollably.

“But
he
does not. That means we have work to do. He wants to trade with us?”

“Yes, Great King. He mentions iron. Teak. Cotton. Rubies. Monkeys.”

“Everything that the heart desires!” Darius struck the map with his forefinger. The sound was like that of a miniature gong. Then he took the red silk from the eunuch and held it close to his face. In old age, Darius was extremely short-sighted. Carefully he detached one of the gold letters from the red silk. Then he put the fragment in his mouth and, like a jeweler, he bit the metal. “Gold,” he said happily. “The best quality, too.”

Darius spat the gold onto the floor, and gave the eunuch a playful kick. “You will prepare a message to this Sarabimba. Tell him the Great King, the lord of
all
the lands, the Achaemenid, and so on, looks with affection upon his slave and condescends to send him, as ambassador, one close to his bosom, Cyrus Spitama, grandson of Zoroaster, the Aryan prophet—emphasize Aryan, and the fact that we are all one race, separated only by geography. A separation that I personally find intolerable. No, don’t put
that
in the message. We don’t want to alarm him. Tell him that we will pay for iron in gold coins—if they use coinage—or in kind if they don’t. Make the usual list of what our warehouses have to offer. You’re an Indian, you know what they’ll like. Where are you from?”

“Koshala, Great King. It is the most ancient and glorious of the Aryan kingdoms. It is north of the Ganges.”

“Who is your ruler? I can’t really call him king. There is only one king on this earth.”

“If he still lives, Lord, it is Pasenadi, a holy and good man whose sister is the chief queen of Bimbisara of Magadha and the mother—”

“Spare me the details. But give them all to my ambassador.” Darius smiled at me. Dreams of cows made him appear youthful. The straggling gray hair looked almost blond, and the blue eyes were bright. “You must prepare yourself, Cyrus Spitama. And you, down there, must teach him to speak whatever it is they speak in that part of the world. You will travel with my ambassador.” Darius gave the eunuch a farewell kick. “Prepare a similar message to this ruler of yours. Introduce my ambassador, and so on.”

When the eunuch was gone, Scylax and Darius began to plan the journey—
my
journey.

“You will take the post road to Bactra. That should be nice for you,” said Darius to me. “You’ll see your old home. I was there last year. It’s been entirely rebuilt.” He traced a line on the map. “Then you can go along here, by way of the Oxus River to the high mountains. Cross through this pass, which probably doesn’t exist. They never do when you need them. Then you’re in Gandhara, where you can travel luxuriously down the Indus River as far as ... where?” Darius turned to Scylax.

“Taxila. From the Indus River it’s three days’ journey to the city where all the caravan trails converge.”

“Trails? Are there no roads?”

“Properly speaking, no, Lord. But the country is flat and the trails are well defined. On the other hand, the jungles are dense. There are many wild beasts, bandits. We’ll need a company of soldiers. There are also five rivers to cross before you get to the Yamuna River. Then boats or rafts will take us down into the Gangetic plain to where the sixteen kingdoms are.”

“How do you know all this?” Darius was staring at Scylax with some wonder. “You’ve never been east of the Indus delta.”

“I, too, dream of cows, Lord,” said Scylax. “In your name, of course!”

Darius gave Scylax an affectionate hug of the sort that any of his sons or brothers would have offered at least an arm for. “You shall have your cows, Scylax. Look after the boy.” I was treated offhandedly. “You can have a hundred troops, enough to protect the ambassador but not enough to alarm the cow herders. Also, the usual attendants, map makers, architects, and so on. The eunuch—what’s his name?—will prepare suitable gifts for the two rulers. But nothing too rich. After all, as lord of all the lands, I own their lands by right of—of the Wise Lord,” he added for my delectation.

Then Darius turned to me. I was startled to find that he was my height. I had always thought of him as a physical giant. The Great King looked me straight in the eyes, and I was totally unnerved. It is not allowed, I remember thinking, as those dark-blue eyes, with their slightly red lids, stared into my eyes. “You must not fail me, Cyrus Spitama. I give you a year—two years at most. In that time, I shall want to know all that I need to know in order to mount an invasion of India. I shall want to go as far as the edge of the world—or to Cathay, whichever comes first.”

“To hear is to obey, Lord.”

“I look upon India as my last gift to the clansmen. So you must be watchful, clever, inquisitive. You will preach the way of the Truth but you will not threaten those who follow the Lie.”

Quite rightly, Darius feared the zeal of the true Zoroastrian. He was not about to alienate sixteen Indian kingdoms because of the religious zealotry of his ambassador.

“I shall do as the Achaemenid commands.” To call the Great King by his true name is very nearly the equivalent of swearing an oath to the Wise Lord.

“Good.” Darius gave me his hand, which I kissed.

Thus was I ennobled. I could dine at his table, if invited. As it turned out, I was never invited to do so, but my rank was now secure. I was a Persian noble, and if I survived my embassy, my fortune was made.

FROM SUSA, THE EMBASSY TO THE SIXTEEN kingdoms of India—as we were referred to, rather sneeringly, by the second room of the chancellery—made its way to the Tigris River. Then, on flat-bottomed boats, we descended the river to the delta. Here we found Scylax, and two triremes that had survived the disastrous siege of Naxos. I suppose I should have taken that as an omen. But I was in much too good a humor.

Due to the constant siltage from the rivers, there has never been a proper port at the delta where the Tigris and Euphrates come together in a sort of shallow sour lake. Persians, Babylonians, Assyrians have all tried to establish a port at this most strategic juncture, but the mud that never ceases to flow from the top of the world to the bottom eventually buries each attempt. In the reign of Darius there was a makeshift port at the edge of a salt marsh which could be crossed only if one kept to a series of rafts that extended for nearly a mile over the mud and quicksand. I once saw a camel and its driver vanish beneath the wet sands in less time than it took for the driver to cry out.

Scylax had intended to use the ships for a circumnavigation of Africa. But India now took precedence and I don’t think that he was too displeased, although it was the dream of his life to go all around Africa, something no man has ever done or is likely to do despite the claims of the Phoenicians. To hear them tell it, they have charted every foot of the ocean that girdles the world.

Each trireme needed a hundred and twenty rowers as well as some thirty other sailors, carpenters, cooks. Since these ships are made for war and not trade, there is not much space for travelers as opposed to soldiers. In addition to one hundred troops, I was accompanied by a staff of twelve men reputed to be experts on India, as well as by a valuable gift from Queen Atossa—an Indian slave named Caraka: “He will suit our purposes,” she said; and no more. We were also laden with gifts for the two kings, food for ourselves, and eight horses with grooms. The ships were seriously overcrowded.

To my annoyance, it took Scylax the better part of a week to get us all aboard. But he was right: on long voyages, the initial post assigned each man is all-important. If there is any doubt as to who does what work and where, fights break out and discipline deteriorates. Fortunately, since we were to hug the Persian coastline as far as the Indus River, each night the sailors would pull the ships up on shore and everyone was able to sleep comfortably beneath the stars. Although I did my best to play the part of wise commander, in the most graceful and to me agreeable way, Scylax took command in my name.

I shall never forget the excitement of our departure. At sunrise when the west wind started, Scylax ordered each ship to raise its mast. Then the rowers set to work and for the first time I heard the rhythmic sound of rowers as they chant to the steady beat of the flute player. When this chant coincides with that of a man’s inner pulsing, it is possible to become a part of the ship, sea, sky, as in the act of love.