The Godless Man

by Paul Doherty

Genres: Historical Fiction; Historical Mysteries; Traditional Mysteries

Synopsis

Can the mysteries of Ancient Greece, and Alexander himself, be unravelled? Alexander the Great faces the challenge of the Persian Centaur in The Godless Man, the second novel in Paul Doherty's magnificent series. Perfect for fans of Gary Corby and Margaret Doody. '[Paul Doherty's] Alexander is a loyal friend and likeable rogue intent on gambling everything to achieve his dreams of world conquest' - Times Literary Supplement Alexander has smashed the armies of the great king Darius III and is roaming the Western Persian Empire like a hungry predator, living up to his nickname of 'the Wolf of Macedon'. Arriving in the great city of Ephesus in 334 BC, his campaign is threatened by a series of violent murders carried out by a high-ranking Persian spy known as 'the Centaur'. Worse, one of Alexander's old tutors, Leonidas, is found face down in a pond at the House of Medusa. Alexander's friend and physician, the level-headed Telamon, must set about unravelling this mass of blood-strewn mysteries. As always one of the biggest obstacles is Alexander himself, a consummate actor whose lust for power and glory matches the carnage and intrigue that dog his footsteps like the Furies themselves. What readers are saying about Paul Doherty: 'Paul Doherty has the rare talent of making you feel as though you are there, be it medieval England, or battling with Alexander. The sounds and smells of the period seem to waft from the pages of his books ' '[You] lose yourself in the story' ' Five stars '

Release date: June 6, 2013

Publisher: Headline

Print pages: 303

Sample

Mathilde of Westminster

THE CUP OF GHOSTS

THE POISON MAIDEN

THE DARKENING GLASS

Sir Roger Shallot

THE WHITE ROSE MURDERS

THE POISONED CHALICE

THE GRAIL MURDERS

A BROOD OF VIPERS

THE GALLOWS MURDERS

THE RELIC MURDERS

Templar

THE TEMPLAR

THE TEMPLAR MAGICIAN

Mahu (The Akhenaten trilogy)

AN EVIL SPIRIT OUT OF THE WEST

THE SEASON OF THE HYAENA

THE YEAR OF THE COBRA

Canterbury Tales by Night

AN ANCIENT EVIL

A TAPESTRY OF MURDERS

A TOURNAMENT OF MURDERS

GHOSTLY MURDERS

THE HANGMAN’S HYMN

A HAUNT OF MURDER

Egyptian Mysteries

THE MASK OF RA

THE HORUS KILLINGS

THE ANUBIS SLAYINGS

THE SLAYERS OF SETH

THE ASSASSINS OF ISIS

THE POISONER OF PTAH

THE SPIES OF SOBECK

Constantine the Great

DOMINA

MURDER IMPERIAL

THE SONG OF THE GLADIATOR

THE QUEEN OF THE NIGHT

MURDER’S IMMORTAL MASK

Hugh Corbett

SATAN IN ST MARY’S

THE CROWN IN DARKNESS

SPY IN CHANCERY

THE ANGEL OF DEATH

THE PRINCE OF DARKNESS

MURDER WEARS A COWL

THE ASSASSIN IN THE GREENWOOD

THE SONG OF A DARK ANGEL

SATAN’S FIRE

THE DEVIL’S HUNT

THE DEMON ARCHER

THE TREASON OF THE GHOSTS

CORPSE CANDLE

THE MAGICIAN’S DEATH

THE WAXMAN MURDERS

NIGHTSHADE

THE MYSTERIUM

Standalone Titles

THE ROSE DEMON

THE HAUNTING

THE SOUL SLAYER

THE PLAGUE LORD

THE DEATH OF A KING

PRINCE DRAKULYA

THE LORD COUNT DRAKULYA

THE FATE OF PRINCES

DOVE AMONGST THE HAWKS

THE MASKED MAN

As Vanessa Alexander

THE LOVE KNOT

OF LOVE AND WAR

THE LOVING CUP

Kathryn Swinbrooke (as C L Grace)

SHRINE OF MURDERS

EYE OF GOD

MERCHANT OF DEATH

BOOK OF SHADOWS

SAINTLY MURDERS

MAZE OF MURDERS

FEAST OF POISONS

Nicholas Segalla (as Ann Dukthas)

A TIME FOR THE DEATH OF A KING

THE PRINCE LOST TO TIME

THE TIME OF MURDER AT MAYERLING

IN THE TIME OF THE POISONED QUEEN

Mysteries of Alexander the Great (as Anna Apostolou)

A MURDER IN MACEDON

A MURDER IN THEBES

Alexander the Great

THE HOUSE OF DEATH

THE GODLESS MAN

THE GATES OF HELL

Matthew Jankyn (as P C Doherty)

THE WHYTE HARTE

THE SERPENT AMONGST THE LILIES

Non-fiction

THE MYSTERIOUS DEATH OF TUTANKHAMUN

ISABELLA AND THE STRANGE DEATH OF EDWARD II

ALEXANDER THE GREAT: THE DEATH OF A GOD

THE GREAT CROWN JEWELS ROBBERY OF 1303

THE SECRET LIFE OF ELIZABETH I

THE DEATH OF THE RED KING

The House of Macedon

PHILIP King of Macedon until his assassination in 336 BC. Father of Alexander.

OLYMPIAS OF MOLOSSUS (Born Myrtale): Philip’s queen, Alexander’s mother. Co-Regent of Macedon during Alexander’s conquest of Persia.

EURYDICE Philip’s wife after he divorced Olympias: she was niece of Philip’s favourite general, Attalus. Eurydice, her baby son and Attalus were all executed after Philip’s death.

ARRIDHAEUS Philip’s son by one of his concubines, poisoned by Olympias. He survived but remained brain-damaged for the rest of his life.

The Court of Macedon

BLACK CLEITUS Brother to Alexander’s nurse: Alexander’s personal bodyguard.

HEPHAESTION Alexander’s boon companion.

ARISTANDER Court necromancer, adviser to Alexander.

ARISTOTLE Alexander’s tutor in the Groves of Mieza: Greek philosopher.

SOCRATES Athenian philosopher. Found guilty of “impiety”, forced to drink poison.

PAUSANIAS Philip of Macedon’s assassin.

APELLES Ephesian artist, court painter to Alexander.

Alexander’s Generals

PARMENIO, PTOLEMY, SELEUCUS, AMYNTAS, ANTIPATER (left as Co-Regent in Macedon), NEARCHUS, ADMIRAL NICANOR.

The Court of Persia

DARIUS III King of Kings

ARSITES Satrap of Phrygia. Persian commander-in-chief at the Granicus: executed afterwards by Memnon.

MEMNON OF RHODES A Greek mercenary in the pay of Persia, one of the few generals to defeat Macedonian troops.

CYRUS AND XERXES Former great Emperors of Persia.

BAGOAS Formerly Vizier, executed by Darius III.

The Writers

GREEK PLAYWRIGHTS Aeschylus, Aristophanes, Euripides, Sophocles.

HOMER Reputed author of the two great poems the Iliad and the Odyssey.

DEMOSTHENES Athenian demagogue, ardent opponent of Alexander.

HIPPOCRATES OF COS Greek physician and writer, regarded as the father of medicine.

The Mythology of Greece

ZEUS Father god.

HERA His wife.

APOLLO God of light.

ARTEMIS Goddess of the hunt: Ephesus was regarded as the centre of her cult.

ATHENA Goddess of war.

HERCULES Greek man-god. One of Alexander’s reputed ancestors.

AESCULAPIUS Man-god; a great healer.

OEDIPUS Tragic hero, king of Thebes.

DIONYSIUS God of wine.

EYNALIUS Ancient Macedonian god of war.

CENTAURS Half-men, half-beasts who allegedly ravaged Thessaly and Thrce before crossing the Straits to Asia. They were, according to legend, wiped out by the man-god Hercules. Nessus was the last of their tribe.

HYARA Poisonous snake of Greek legend.

MEDUSA A fearsome goddess of Greek legend.

The Gods of Persia

AHURA–MAZDA The All-Creator, Lord of the Fire, of the Hidden Flame.

AHIRMAN The Power/Lord of Darkness.



In 336 BC, Philip of Macedon died swiftly at his moment of supreme glory, assassinated by a former lover as he was about to receive the plaudits of his client states. All of Greece and Persia quietly rejoiced – the growing supremacy of Macedon was to be curbed. The finger of suspicion for Philip’s murder was pointed directly at his scheming wife – the “Witch Queen”, Olympias – and their only son, the young Alexander, whom Demosthenes of Athens dismissed as a “booby”. Macedon’s enemies quietly relished the prospect of a civil war which would destroy Alexander and his mother and end any threat to the Greek states as well as the sprawling Persian Empire of Darius III. Alexander soon proved them wrong. A consummate actor, a sly politician, a ruthless fighter and a brilliant general, in two years Alexander crushed all opposition at home, won over the wild tribes to the north and had himself proclaimed Captain-General of Greece. He was to be the leader of a fresh crusade against Persia – fitting punishment for the attacks on Greece by Cyrus the Great and his successors a century earlier.

Alexander proved, by the total destruction of the great city of Thebes, the home of Oedipus, that he would brook no opposition. He then turned east. He proclaimed himself a Greek ready to avenge Greek wrongs. Secretly, Alexander wished to satisfy his lust for conquest, to march to the edge of the world, to prove he was a better man than Philip, to win the vindication of the gods as well as confirm the whisperings of his mother – that his conception was due to divine intervention.

In the spring of 334 BC, Alexander gathered his army at Sestos while, across the Hellespont, Darius III, his sinister spymaster the Lord Mithra and his generals plotted the utter destruction of this Macedonian upstart. Alexander, however, was committed to total war.

He crossed to Asia and shattered the Persian army at the battle of the Granicus. He marched south, capturing vital cities but searching for a port his fleet could use. Alexander then took “Golden Ephesus”. Like many Greek cities, both on the mainland and in the Persian Empire, Ephesus was riven by partisan politics: the rich, conservative Oligarchs supported Persian rule and bitterly opposed the Democrats. Alexander entered this maelstrom of violence, blood-chilling intrigue and treachery. Darius and Lord Mithra watched: perhaps Alexander would become enmeshed in Ephesus’s bloody politics as well as forget his warlike dreams amid the luxury of that opulent city. Persian and Greek secretly conspired against each other. Darius hoped to trap Alexander once and for all and utterly destroy him, while the Captain-General of Greece plotted his own way out of the net closing around him . . .



“Alexander reached Ephesus within three days . . . The people of the town, freed from the fear of their political masters, were eager to put to death the men who had called in Memnon.”

Arrian, The Campaigns of Alexander,

Book I, Chapter 18

Ephesus the Magnificent, the city of Artemis of the Greeks and the Persian goddess Anahita, had become the house of mayhem and murder. Once described as “a silver jewel under a golden sun”, Ephesus was now the camp of Ares the god of war. Soaring columns of black smoke rose up against the blue sky, spreading out like a pall of mourning over this great city of Darius, King of Kings. A time of settling accounts, of resolving grievances and grudges, of gruesome killings and senseless slaughter. Corpses littered the broad avenues fringed by plane and olive trees. The grey-green sheen of its cypress groves was tarnished by flickering flames and acrid smoke. No place was safe. The living even settled grievances with the dead – in the great cemeteries to the west of the city the gorgeous tombs, ornamented with brazen bulls or long-necked marble jars, were ransacked and pillaged. Corpses were dug up to be burnt or hanged from the nearby trees. Hate lapped like a river through the city. The powerful ones, the Oligarchs, barricaded gates and fortified the high walls of their mansions. Others, putting their trust in the gods, fled into the places of sanctuary, up the steps through the porticoed entrances of temples: they threw themselves before the statues of the gods, who gazed stonily down at these refugees fleeing from the malice of their fellow citizens. The dry market stench of fruit and meats, spices and herbs, mingled with the iron tang of blood and decomposing flesh. Houses lay empty: the doors to their courtyards hung open. Looters and ransackers bathed in their fountains or rested beneath their vine-covered columns.

The source of all this horror was the abrupt flight of the Persian garrison. Messengers had arrived, covered in dust, shouting that Alexander of Macedon, the barbarian from across the sea, had annihilated a Persian army at the river Granicus. The victor had swaggered south along the Ionian coast, taking one city after another. Sardis, with its massive walls and soaring bronze gates, had fallen like a ripe fig: its Persian commander had gone out to meet the conqueror, offering him the keys to both the city and the imperial treasury.

News of all this had swept like a storm through the city of Ephesus. Alexander, King of Macedon, Captain-General of Greece, conqueror of Persian armies, was coming to claim his own. The rivalries and tensions had surfaced like dirt in clear water. The two great political factions had emerged like swordsmen, eager to settle accounts. The rich and powerful, the Oligarchs, who had collaborated with their Persian rulers, had to confront the fury of the Democrats, who believed their hour had come. Two years earlier Parmenio, a Macedonian general, had been despatched by Philip, Alexander’s father, across the Hellespont to establish a bridgehead. Parmenio had launched a lightning attack on Ephesus, removed the Oligarchs and put the Democrats in power. He had raised a statue to Philip in the half-finished Temple of Artemis, but then withdrew when the Persians counter-attacked. The Oligarchs had resumed power: Philip’s statue had been destroyed and bloody reprisals carried out against the Democrats. Now fortune had spun its wheel again. Macedon’s hour had finally arrived. Once the Persian garrison had gone, the cry of “Eynalius! Eynalius! Eynalius!”, the name of the ancient Macedonian god of war, rang through the streets of Ephesus. Hidden weapons were dug up, the mob from the slums armed, and retribution began.

The eye of the storm, the place of bloody execution, was the broad agora, the main marketplace. At one end stood the half-finished Temple of Artemis, which had been mysteriously burnt down on the night Alexander of Macedon had been born. On the two sides, the meeting-house and civic halls of the city. At the other end, the great portico, the Painted Colonnade where, in calmer times, the Ephesians would walk and enjoy the perfume of the flower baskets, admire the ornamental pools glinting in front of their marble buildings and savour the fragrance of the lotus blossom. All this had gone. Corpses, blood gushing from their wounds, bobbed, face down in the pools of purity. Cadavers, necks twisted, swung from the iron brackets which had once held flower baskets. The market booth and stalls had been cleared away, a tribunal of summary justice set up. In the Painted Colonnade leaders of the Democrat party, Peleus, Agis and Dion, sat enthroned behind a broad trestle table: further down, armed with bronze stylus and folding pad of black wax, sat their principal scribe and clerk Hesiod, a powerful silversmith now called to record the judgments of this court. The sun-swept square below the steps was packed with a mob which served as both jury and executioner. The three judges sat behind their table while ruffians from the city dragged up prisoners. The trials were both short and brutal.

“This man,” an accuser would yell, “supplied the Persians and the Oligarchs with food and wine!”

No proof would be needed, because the victim’s name had been long recorded on a secret list: death was a foregone conclusion. The principal self-appointed judge, Agis, would rise to his feet, a powerful, bull-necked man with the voice of a born orator. He would scream at the mob: “How say ye? Guilty or not guilty?”

The answer was always the same – “Guilty! Guilty! Guilty! Death! Death! Death!”

The unfortunate would be hustled away to be hanged from one of the iron brackets, beheaded at the foot of the steps or, depending on the whim of the executioners, have his throat cut and his corpse thrown on to a pile of others or into one of the pools of purity. The executions had begun just after dawn. One of the ledges in the Painted Colonnade was already lined with severed heads, and the pile of decapitated corpses stank under the midday sun. Blood flowed everywhere, dark pools trickling down the steps, following the line of the paved stones of the agora, staining the sandals and bare feet of the mob.

The executions were watched by a unit of Macedonian guardsmen in their silver corselets, red tunics, great rounded bronze shields with greaves of the same colour. They wore Phrygian helmets, their high coned tops decorated with white plumes, a sign they belonged to the elite unit of the Royals. They did not interfere or move from their vantage point on the steps which swept up to the Temple of Artemis but stood in battle order, shields up, lances half-lowered. On either side of them were ranged two units of Alexander’s mercenaries, their ornate Corinthian helmets decorated with red horsehair plumes: the ornamental face-guards revealed nothing but staring eyes, moustached mouths and bearded chins.

Alexander’s soldiers were growing impatient with the bloodletting. When a young woman was led up to be accused and, after a short while, taken away to be strangled, a murmur of protest swelled from the Macedonian ranks. Their general Amyntas, however, was under strict orders.

“If I’ve told you once, I’ve told you for the thousandth time,” he whispered to a grumbling staff officer, “the king’s orders are quite specific. Let the blood-letting continue. Only intervene at his command!”

The staff officer, suitably rebuked, stepped back. Amyntas, cradling his helmet, stared cold-eyed as one judicial murder followed another. Macedonian troops had reached Ephesus the night before: Alexander now lay camped outside the city walls. He had been greeted with fruit, wine, garlands and the bloody demands of the Democrat leaders. Vengeance was the meal they had been yearning for, and vengeance would be served. Amyntas only hoped Alexander would not wait too long, otherwise the mob would get out of control. Amyntas did not relish a fight to regain the city, a bloody hand-to-hand struggle as they fought for one house after another.

“Occupy the temple!” Alexander had ordered, his different-coloured eyes gleaming passionately. “The Temple of Artemis is sacred to me, traitors aren’t. Blood must flow, so flow it will. Only intervene when I send Telamon.”

Amyntas licked dry lips. He only hoped the black-haired, dark-faced personal physician of Alexander would not tarry long. One of Alexander’s most trusted counsellors and confidants, Telamon had been present when the order was issued. He, like others, had protested, but the king was insistent: punishment would be carried out and only end on his orders. Amyntas felt the burning heat and squinted up at the midday sun. He had drunk and eaten more than he should the previous evening and, beneath the cuirass and the leather war kilt, his body was soaked in sweat, wafting away the perfume he loved to wear. He walked over to stand in the shade of a column, shielded his eyes and stared across the square. This time an entire family were on trial.

“When will he come?” The rebellious staff officer had followed him over.

“If you don’t shut up . . .!” Amyntas growled. The staff officer fell quiet.

Across the square another figure, hidden in the shadows, watched the grisly executions. He was dressed in a beggar’s garb, a ragged tunic covered by a patched military cloak, its hood pulled well across his face. To any passer-by who might be curious, he was just one of those road wanderers, covered in dust, who came to beg or filch what they could. Only the silver chain round his neck, hidden by the thick serge cloth of his tunic, betrayed his true status. The chain carried a silver wasp, the emblem of the centaur, that mythical half-man, half-horse creature wiped out by the god-man Hercules, who had a temple in this very city.

The Centaur, as he called himself, studied the executions, his face betraying no emotion. He did not flinch as the men, women and children in the Oligarch’s family were all found guilty and thrust down into the square for summary execution. He only had eyes for the judges. From his vantage point he could study their faces. The scribe Hesiod, fat and sweaty, those black eyes hidden in rolls of fat. Agis, in his white tunic, the silver rings on his fingers and wrists glinting as he gesticulated for a fresh batch of prisoners. A tall man with a beak-like nose and sunken cheeks, Agis had his head shaved, a sign of mourning for those wasted years, bowing to the Persian rulers and their collaborators among the Oligarchs. Next to him, Peleus, with his thick shock of black hair, cruel eyes, podgy nose and full fleshy lips, a man who revelled in these slayings – Peleus’s kinsmen had been butchered by the Oligarchs only two years previously. Finally Dion, the lawyer among the group, with his clever face and deep-set eyes. A young man with powerful ambitions. He too had lost kinsmen in the Persian blood-letting. Dion was present to give these hideous proceedings a legal facade.

The Centaur scratched at the sweat on his neck and wondered if his master was one of those bloodthirsty judges. He moved and stared across at the Macedonian soldiers. He was about to go back to his original vantage point when a group of horsemen debouched from an alleyway. The Centaur narrowed his eyes. The cavalrymen ringed a man in a white tunic and blue mantle, a red-haired woman riding next to him. The Centaur had been out to the Macedonian camp and recognized the new arrivals. Alexander had sent his physician Telamon into the city. The killings were about to end. The Centaur bit his lower lip: Alexander would not get off too lightly. Darius, King of Kings, and Lord Mithra, the Persian ruler’s keeper of secrets, had not yet finished with Ephesus, and neither had the Centaur and his master.

Across the square the Macedonians were now stirring: a soldier ran up the steps gesturing that the summary trial should end. The crowd roared its disapproval, which faded away as Macedonian troops, armed for battle, debouched out of side streets. The watcher in the shadows had seen enough: the blood-letting was over. Those Oligarchs in hiding would now flee for sanctuary to their favourite shrine, the Temple of Hercules. The watcher smiled grimly – that wouldn’t be the end! So much work to do, so much planning, but – he licked dry lips – the rewards would be so great.

The Apanda, the King of King’s Hall of Audience, lay silent. The Immortals, the personal bodyguard of Dairus III, stood like graven images, spear and shield in hand, their gorgeous clothes studded with precious gems in the shape of rosettes or lozenges. They were there to guard the royal presence and the approaches to the Red House, the Imperial Treasury. They stood, eyes fixed on the roaring fire which burnt on its raised platform in the centre of the hall. This was the Holy Fire, the manifestation of Ahura-Mazda, the Persian God of the Hidden Flame. The imperial throne was empty. Courtiers and chamberlains, fan-bearers and fly-swatters, the Carrier of the Imperial Perfume, the Bearer of the Royal Axe, were no longer needed. The hall looked sombre, its wall paintings subdued. These exquisite frescoes proclaimed the glory of the King of Kings, the destruction of his enemies and his adoration by a myriad subject peoples: Jews, Elamites, Medes, Egyptians and even strangely garbed people from beyond the Hindu Kush. One young guard stirred nervously, grasping the long spear with its iron blade, its base shaped in the form of an apple. He peered through the soaring pillars of cedarwood at the corpse stuffed with sawdust which knelt on a footstool; this had been turned so the glazed eyes of the grisly mummy were for ever fixed on the imperial throne. This had once been Bagoas, formerly king-maker in the Persian Empire, Grand Vizier and mighty lord. Bagoas had poisoned the way to the throne for Darius and, when he turned against his protege, had been poisoned in return. Darius would never allow anyone to forget Bagoas’s treachery.

“He wanted glory,” Darius had jibed, “and glory he shall have! He wanted to be a member of my court, and so he shall be!”

Bagoas had been denied sacred burial. Instead, his poisoned corpse had been cleaned and mummified by an Egyptian keeper of the dead, stuffed with sawdust and for ever fixed in a posture of obeisance before the imperial throne.

The guardsman breathed out. He dared not move. He was an Immortal, one of the hand-picked soldiers of the King of Kings, yet he felt uneasy, staring at this corpse with its sightless, glassy gaze. He could make out every feature of the grisly cadaver: tufts of hair springing up as in life, the scrawny moustache and beard, the dark eyes and high cheekbones. The corpse knelt, head slightly forward, hands joined as if in eternal prayer. The more the guardsman stared, the more certain he became that the corpse had a life of its own. Hadn’t the head moved? The eyes flickered? The lips begun to speak? The guardsman shifted his gaze as he heard the soft footsteps of his officer, who walked up and down guarding the gallery leading down to the Red House where Darius, King of Kings, sat closeted with his Keeper of Secrets, the Lord Mithra.

“Are you nervous, man?”

The officer was now standing just behind him. The guard nodded imperceptibly.

“Don’t be,” the officer reassured him. “This is a divine place, the Holy of Holies. Nothing of evil can walk here. The divine flame purifies all and keeps the demons at bay.”

Inside the Red House, Darius would certainly have disagreed with this. He sat in the principal office of his treasurer, behind the green baize-covered table where the accounts of his empire were drawn up, staring across at Lord Mithra, his thin bony face shrouded in a cowl. Darius usually felt comfortable here, among the wealth and power of his empire, but today he did not. The doors were firmly closed and their bronze sheeting glowed like bars of gold in the dancing light from the oil-lamps. The walls of the treasury were of carved limestone with a facing of blood-red enamel brick which gave the place its name. A place where no eavesdropper or spy could enter. Darius himself had constructed the treasury, to guard not only his wealth but also his secrets: now he regarded it as a place of refuge from the terrors which haunted him. He stared up at the star-studded ceiling, supported by columns, their capitals carved in the shape of bulls’ heads, their bases strange winged creatures, a hybrid of lion, dragon and griffin. Leading off from this chamber were the vaults containing sixty thousand talents in gold ingots, thirty thousand in gold darics, coffers and caskets full of jewels and precious stones, Median shekels, every type of coin in the empire. Darius picked up the royal seal and stared at it as he reflected on what Lord Mithra was saying. The seal was emblazoned with the God-King’s sign of the sun-disc borne by eagle wings.

The Lord Mithra spoke, just above a whisper, describing what was happening in the western provinces. Darius tried to control his fear. He stared across at a frieze on the wall, depicting himself offering sacrifice before a fire altar and slaying creatures of the Underworld. The more Mithra spoke the deeper Darius’s agitation grew. He felt hot and stuffy and, without a thought, took off the cidarias, the smooth tiara round his black, curly, oil-drenched hair. He regretted wearing the candice, the beautiful embroidered Median robe of purple and gold satin. Darius wished he were out hunting, riding some fleet-footed horse through the green coolness of his hunting parks. Yet this meeting was vital: the Lord Mithra was saying things which no Persian courtier would even dare think. Darius wiped a bead of sweat from his brow. Lord Mithra finished speaking.

“Is it so bad?” Darius murmured, putting down the seal. “Has the Lord Ahura-Mazda deserted us completely?”

“We have been fooled and misled,” Mithra replied. “We expected the Macedonian to wander about like a child lost in an orchard. Instead he has struck fast and ruthlessly, like a raging panther. Sardis has fallen, other cities are opening their gates. Ephesus is now his.”

Darius picked up the seal and clenched it in his hands.

“The fruits of the Granicus,” Mithra added.

Darius nodded in agreement. “Granicus.” The name haunted his every waking moment and drove his dreams into nightmares. He had ignored the advice of his Greek mercenary Memnon and sent an army out to meet Alexander: the army had been annihilated and Memnon’s mercenaries either massacred or taken as slaves to work in the silver mines of Macedon.

Darius muttered a prayer. He should have followed Memnon’s advice and never allowed his army to meet Alexander in battle. It gave him cold comfort to know that outside, in the place of execution, the Persian commander’s severed head, coated in wax, was thrust on a pole.

“What can we do?” Darius demanded. “If we meet Alexander in battle, a second Granicus? Yet we cannot allow the panther to roam unchecked.”

Mithra studied his master. He felt confident and calm. Darius trusted him completely. Hadn’t he been the one who had discovered Bagoas’s treachery, as well as warned this proud and arrogant King of Kings not to confront the Macedonian in battle? Darius wanted to know the truth, so the truth he must face.

“Alexander is elated.” Mithra leaned against the table, eyes on his master. “He has taken Sardis and its royal treasury. Memnon has withdrawn to the port of Miletus, and the Greeks have no fleet.” He laughed sharply. “Well, none to boast of. Our ships can support Memnon for as long as they wish.”

“But Ephesus?” Darius protested. “Ephesus has fallen, only a few miles from Miletus.”

“My lord,” Mithra replied, “Ephesus regards itself as Greek and the Macedonians as barbarians. The Democrats will seize power, but they want that power themselves. They don’t want to replace one master with another. A Greek poet, my lord, described their cities as beehives: each man has a sting which he uses against his neighbour.”

“I am not interested in Greek poetry,” Darius retorted.

“And neither am I, my lord, but when it comes to taking heads or causing confusion, to stirring up riot and dissent . . .”

Darius leaned forward. “We can do that?”

Mithra gestured around him. “You have gold and silver. Alexander may control the city, but our spies are there.”

“In Ephesus?”

“The Centaur, my lord.” Mithra smiled slightly. “Well, that’s what we call him.”

“You have met this spy?”

“No. One of the few who truly hides in the shadows.” Mithra decided to tell his master only what he had to: the Centaur’s identity was his secret. He would give that secret to no one.

“Why does he take that name?”

“He, my lord? It might be a woman.”

“The Centaur!” Darius sn. . .