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It began, as most things do, with hope.
Syennesis Bakhtyar had forgotten how to hope, before. He remembers how his gut had twisted as he watched his wife Epyaxa nearly fall from the chariot in her haste to reach him, remembers knowing the news she was bringing must be dire. And dire it was: Cyrus the Younger's armies waited outside his gates, five days distant, and, worse still, Menon's army was already in Cilicia behind his walls. He remembers a feeling like the trees and vines of his city shriveling up, the fields growing barren.
He remembers the stomach-sickness that came from knowing that he must lose everything, his kingdom or his people, for he could not defend against an army that had already passed through his main defenses without effort.
But as Epyaxa had continued, he had found a way to breathe again. She had given a great gift of money to Cyrus after his humiliation at Artaxerxes's hand-- an act that she expected Syennesis would thoroughly scold her for later, she added with an insolent half-smile, but it had been the only kind thing to do, to show him that he was not entirely without friends. As a result, Cyrus knew that they were his loyal allies, with much invested in his cause. If they left a clear path through Cilicia for Cyrus's armies, and no people for him to conscript into his service, he would leave them and their rule alone in the hopes of keeping good relations with his allies. But they must flee.
And flee they had. Much to Bakhtyar's relief, Epyaxa's tactic had proved wise: in ordinary circumstances, the city would have been looted and eventually absorbed into a satrapy, though whose satrapy Bakhtyar was not inclined to guess. The outcome of Cyrus's war against Artaxerxes was one of the many uncertainties of Fortune. Now, though, they had a chance at keeping their independence, and he of keeping his rule. And they would succeed. They must.
Bakhtyar and his people have been in the hills for three days, and their supplies are still holding. There is ample coin, clothing, weapons enough to protect them if Cyrus chooses after all to march his army to their hiding place, and a few chickens and goats for food and barter. All they lack is wine for his guardsmen, for the tavern-keepers of Tarsus had refused to leave, hungrier for the coin of soldiers and Greek mercenaries than they were for freedom.
It is a grave misfortune that they had to desert their city, but thanks to Epyaxa's cleverness and compassion, a temporary one. Cyrus does not truly want the throne; Cyrus's desire for peace and his reputation for honesty and charm is well-founded, but Bakhtyar knows the man well and closely from his many visits to Artaxerxes's court. Cyrus has a stubborn, prideful streak that was inherited from his father; the true reason he was marching on Artaxerxes was to seek revenge for Artaxerxes having had him jailed for treason. The only true surprise was that Artaxerxes had taken the rude, inhospitable Tissaphernes's word over that of his own brother.
Cyrus, for all his faults, is the one Bakhtyar wishes to have as the King of Kings. He is the one whose word Bakhtyar can trust.
"Bakhtyar." The woman's voice, pitched no louder than a whisper, interrupts him from his reverie. He turns, smiling, for he knows already precisely who speaks. Only Epyaxa dares call him by his given name; even his sons call him Syennesis.
"My love," he says, daring since none of his courtiers can hear him. "Returning so soon?"
Theirs had been an unlikely alliance. She hailed from Egypt, and had wed him bare months before Egypt became an independent nation. He had thought that she would return to her homeland, but each time he asked, she shook her head. "My place is here," she said. After some time, it no longer surprised him that she stayed: she shared his pride in the independence of Cilicia, as well as the Cilician peoples’ stubborn character.
"A messenger has found us.”
"Again?" Bakhtyar is afraid that the smile on his face is nearly dazed by this point. "After the welcome we gave him the last time, and the message he left with, I am surprised."
She does not smile back, which is a rare enough occurrence that he takes note. "It is a new messenger," she says, not looking away from him. "You should listen to what this one tells you, and before you give him a message to take back, I would request to speak with you."
"I would be unwise to do otherwise," he says, and not for the first time. "No man has ever had so devoted a wife."
Epyaxa studies him, still unsmiling. Bakhtyar smoothes down the edge of his tunic, which seems uncommonly heavy on his shoulders. "Let him enter," he says.
The man who comes into his tent is, as Epyaxa had said, not at all the usual messenger. He is young, hardly a boy; younger than Bakhtyar had been when he married Epyaxa, and nervous to the point of trembling. Cyrus had clearly sent this one to be disposable.
"What news?" he says, misliking the harshness in his own voice.
"S-Syennesis," the boy stutters, making an effort to rise to his feet.
"Stay where you are," Bakhtyar says. "What news?"
The boy swallows, but sinks back to his knees, and his eyes grow distant and focused in the way of those whose lives depend on their memories. "You told the last messenger that you 'had never put yourself into the hands of anyone who was your superior, nor were you willing to accede to the proposal of Cyrus now.' Cyrus implores you to reconsider."
Bakhtyar leans forward, putting on the sternest look he can manage through his exhaustion. "And to what end would I reconsider?"
Now the messenger is looking down: "The mercenaries are restless. They have pillaged the city and the palace."
Only long years as a ruler keep Bakhtyar from flinching. "Cyrus does not trust our loyalty." Epyaxa's plan has failed: Cyrus does not care if they are allies or friends; he has shown that his loyalties do not lie in those names. He has put them in an impossible position, and is telling Bakhtyar to make an impossible choice. He can give Cyrus Cilicia's loyalty for the cost of a horse with a gold bit, a golden scimitar, a necklace and a bracelet of gold, and the slaves that Cyrus's mercenaries had stolen from him, but if Cyrus fails, he will be lucky to be removed from his position and banished. He can refuse to fight, and have Cyrus eventually take the city by force, but so many lives and livelihoods would be lost in the process. Or he can let his city be destroyed.
If he closes his eyes, he can see the crops of his city burning, the walls of the palace shattering.
"Bakhtyar," Epyaxa murmurs, just loud enough for his ears. With an abrupt strength that startles him, Bakhtyar hates. Not Cyrus, not Artaxerxes, not even the loathsome Tissaphernes, though he will always feel anger at Cyrus's hired mercenaries from Greece. Rather, he hates the disbelief, for he has always wished to pursue the truth above all else; he hates the sudden loss of his faith in the goodness of kings and queens and friends.
Bakhtyar bows his head. He has been left with few options, but he will give Cyrus more money-- no soldiers, but money enough to buy the soldiers away from his land. He will send his sons, one to each leader, and he will attempt to appease them both, for fate is always uncertain. But he no longer wishes Cyrus as his ruler, and any assurances are likely to do little good when each doubted his loyalty and Cyrus was forcing Cilicia into complicity with his plot. He can do nothing but hope, and he is beginning to once more forget what that means.
"If his men are restless, then tell Cyrus to take them and begone," he says, instead of anything that is in his mind.
"I think," the messenger said carefully, "you will find we cannot."
----
It unfolds as he had feared, but worse. Cyrus falls, which he had almost hoped for after the position Cyrus had put him in, but with him falls Bakhtyar’s eldest son. He scarcely has time to mourn before Artaxerxes arrives to depose him. Worse than he had expected, Artaxerxes tells him the kingdom will become nothing more than a satrapy. That he is to leave Persia before Artaxerxes changes his mind and has him killed-- and Bakhtyar knows he only lives because Syennesis no longer has any real power. Bakhtyar has neither the charisma nor the money left, after funding Cyrus's war, to raise new forces or hire someone to kill Artaxerxes in turn. It is a small consolation to him that his son has found favor in Artaxerxes's court, and will not hunger or thirst.
What breaks his despair down to numb resignation, though, is what happens when he makes to leave the palace.
Epyaxa is sitting on the bed when he arrives, fingering one of the hangings on the wall. She had always liked it, both for the unfamiliar smoothness of the fabric and the fineness of the embroidery. He hates to leave it behind, for her sake, but he does not doubt Artaxerxes can change his mind.
"You know that we must go," he says, and she looks up, then quickly back down at the hanging. "Come."
She does not move. She does not smile.
"Epyaxa?"
And she does not look at him.
He feels it again, the stomach-sickness that tells him he is to lose everything. Only this time, the sickness does not leave him.
"You will not come."
"I cannot," she says.
"Why?" The word feels as if it is torn from his flesh, as if it is the only vital thing remaining to him.
"You know now how it is to be of a country that was once free," she says. "I come from a place that was a satrapy and now free. It is not in me to run away from the shame of having lost Cilicia: I must return there and live with it."
"And I cannot come with you?"
She hesitates. "No one will stop you if you wish to come. But they will wonder what kind of king would flee to his wife's homeland."
Bakhtyar closes his eyes, because she looks anxious and he cannot bear to see it. She should never look anxious.
"As you will. Only..." His voice breaks, and wishes to flee the room, though still not his country. Never his country. "Look after my son."
At that Epyaxa frowns. "He will not go with you?"
"He is favored by Artaxerxes now," Bakhtyar says. "I would not take his life from him." He does not say "as the life of my other son was taken from me," but the words resonate in the silence nonetheless.
---
After he has left his-- the city of Tarsus, Bakhtyar goes to the tavern and buys food and drink with some of the little money left to him. He does not know what else to do, and of all the things he can think of to do, it is the one with the most purpose, though he thinks it an irony that once again there is no one left to him but the tavern-keepers. He has nowhere to go. He has no one to go with, no one with whom to lie together and share warmth in the night. Everything he has done, everything he has labored and strived for, belongs to the man who would be satrap of his beautiful city, not knowing what he has-- no, everything he has labored and strived for is nothing now. It would be vanity to believe otherwise.
Still, he muses as he forces himself to take another bite, it had been beautiful, for a time.
He does not know whether it is the food or the drink or the reminder of beauty, but he thinks of the day he married Epyaxa, and, though his mind tries to shy away from the thoughts, they keep coming. He remembers the sense that everything in his life was coming together, that everything would be more meaningful from now on. He remembers that these thoughts had brought him to a panic.
And he remembers, as he had not for many years, the Jewish courtier at his wedding feast who had laughed at his fear. "Some few hundred years back, my people were slaves in Babylon," the man had said. "You are to be married. Do not confuse the two."
When Syennesis had buried his head in his hands, the man had continued. "Marriage is like the holy city Jerusalem: it is a place that you can dwell in with a sense of awe. Go forth: I will not say do not fear, for there is in all awe fear, as there is in all joy sorrow; all things must be. But go forth, even if you fear, and eat and drink. There is nothing worthier than this."
He leaves the tavern in more of a daze, more full of hurt than he had been when he entered it. Then, lacking any other ideas, Bakhtyar, no longer Syennesis, lifts his bag back to his shoulder and begins to follow the wind to Jerusalem.