“If a man is found among them,” Ketu said, very seriously, “he is dismembered, a little at a time, over many, many days. They start by cutting off his testicles.”
That silenced their jokes, but only for a few moments.
“Might be worth it,” one of the men muttered, “if you can work your way through forty or fifty of ’em before they catch you.”
“Yah,” said another. “By then your balls would be all worn out anyway.”
To my surprise, Ketu asked me to come with him when he was granted his audience with the Great King.
“I want Dareios to see the kind of men that Philip has serving him,” he told me. Then his face relaxed into a warm smile. “Besides, my friend, I think you are burning with desire to see the man who rules this mighty empire.”
I had to admit that he was right. Another blow to my progress along the Eightfold Path.
Three days after we had arrived in Parsa, we were called to the great audience chamber of the hundred pillars. Ketu wore his best and most colorful robe, a striking pattern of bright red against lemon yellow. I had polished my bronze breastplate until it glowed like the sun. No weapons were allowed in the presence of the Great King, although I wore my dagger beneath the skirt of my chiton almost without thinking of it, it had become such a part of me.
There was enormous formality to an audience with the Great King. All morning one of the king’s masters of protocol, an elderly man with shaking, palsied hands, instructed us on how we were to prostrate ourselves before the throne, how we were not to look directly at the Great King, what forms of address we were to use. Actually, I was to use no form of address at all; Ketu was to do all the talking.
We were marched to the great audience hall by a full squad of soldiers, gleaming with gold and silver. At the enormous double doors, four times higher than my head, heralds announced us, an honor guard in golden armor formed up ahead and behind us, and we paraded through that forest of obsidian pillars toward the distant throne. A throng of noblemen stood watching, their robes resplendent, pearls and jewels gleaming from necklaces and earrings and bracelets. Most of them wore rings on every finger of both hands, even their thumbs.
As we walked the endless distance toward the throne, I saw that it was of carved ivory in the form of a peacock, with jewels in its tail glinting in the sunshine from the great skylight above it. The man sitting on it seemed small and slight against that magnificent throne. His robe was heavy with gold thread, jewels bedecked him, and he wore a massive crown of gold and still more glittering gems. His black beard was curled and oiled. His slippered feet rested on a special stool, since the Persians believed their king’s feet must never touch the ground.
Once we reached the foot of the throne the chief herald, standing to one side of the dais, spoke our names aloud once again. On that cue, we laid ourselves face down before the Great King. It rankled me to abase myself, but I reasoned that when in Parsa one does as the Persians do. I smelled great decadence here; all these jewels and formalities and shows of pomp spoke of the trappings of power rather than power itself. Philip’s court, in contrast, was about as formal as a group of friends meeting to discuss the price of horses at the marketplace.
“The Great King Dareios Codomannus, lord of all the world from the rising to the setting of the sun, conqueror of…”
It took the chief herald several minutes to speak all the titles and honorifics of the Great King. His voice was powerful, and he gave each title a dramatic intonation. At length he said to us grandly, “You may rise and gaze on his magnificence.”
Of course we had been instructed specifically not to look directly at the Great King. I clambered to my feet and gazed slightly off to his left, close enough to see him clearly.