“Two nights ago,” the governor said, “one of my spies informed me that he saw Pactyes meeting with a few Samians.”
Pactyes, a Lydian, was the newly appointed Overseer of the Imperial Mint and Gold Refineries, a position bestowed upon him by King Cyrus. Although Mazares had counseled the king against such an appointment, Cyrus insisted that a Lydian figurehead was necessary to prevent the newly conquered Lydians from revolting once the Persian army left. “You’re certain of what you saw?”
“I am. I even conducted a surprise inspection at the mint yesterday morning, but I found nothing amiss.”
Mazares and Artaban exchanged glances. One of the rebel fires was near the mint.
“Get dressed! Order your grooms to ready your horse,” Mazares said.
“For what purpose?” Tabalus asked, descending the throne.
“To confront Pactyes.”
“He will only deny everything, as he did with me.”
“Then we shall determine what is truth and what is not,” Mazares said, a feeling of dread coursing through his veins. “To the Royal Mint.”
Less than ten minutes later, Mazares and his men, along with Tabalus, rode down from the acropolis and out of the razed city to confront Pactyes.
In all his years commanding King Cyrus’s cavalry, Mazares had never seen anything to match the wealth found in King Croesus’s treasury, and he was amazed once again by the vast quantities of gold as he and his men entered to inspect the mint.
Just as Tabalus had said, all seemed in order—except for the fact that Pactyes was not at his post.
“Why set the fires and raise a sham revolt?” Artaban asked.
Mazares turned back to the brass-bound coffers of coins in the treasury, opening the lid of one. The gold Lion’s Heads of Croesids gleamed despite the half-light.
He picked up a coin, feeling the weight of it in his hand—alarmed when he realized it could not be solid gold. He rubbed the coin on a nearby touchstone, the gold plating scraping off, revealing a center of lead. He tossed the coin, then plunged both hands deep into the chest, through the golden surface, and came up with handfuls of lead tokens.
He ordered his men to open every chest in the Royal Mint. Each had the same layer of gold Lydian Croesids on top, the coins all lead-filled. And beneath, nothing but lead. Lead coins stamped with Samian boar’s heads.
Pactyes had fooled them all.
He turned to Artaban. “Ready the cavalry. We ride for the coast. If fortune smiles upon us, we’ll get there before Pactyes flees with the gold.”
“At once.”
Mazares dumped a handful of lead-filled gold coins in Tabalus’s hand. “Find me enough gold for smelting,” he ordered as he strode out. “When I find Pactyes, I intend to force open his mouth and pour molten gold down his throat.”
PROLOGUE II
Korseai
546 B.C.
The long shadows of the rising sun cast a trembling fear in the two boys as they pushed their small boat into the Aegean Sea. If all went well they’d be back in two days’ time.
Xanthos, fifteen, with a final glance back to make sure they hadn’t been seen, held the boat steady for his ten-year-old brother, Agathos. “Hurry.”
Xanthos took up the oars. Only when the small craft was far enough from shore did he think of his mother and her heartbreak when she found them missing. It had only been a few months since their father had disappeared at sea. He murmured a prayer to Zephyr and raised the sail. It snapped, then billowed, the west wind blowing them out into the deep waters as the dawn-washed sky turned blue.
The sun had almost finished its course by the time the boys caught sight of the forbidden island. It was a monumental pyramid rising out of the sea, with three long sharp rocky pinnacles reaching to the heavens. Silhouetted against the setting sun, they resembled gigantic spires.
Both boys stared in awe. They’d reached it. Poseidon’s Trident.
“Do you think it’s true?” asked Agathos. “Will Poseidon really hear us?”
“I hope so.” Xanthos lowered the sail, took the oars, and rowed toward a breach in the rocks, which concealed a small inlet.
“But where’s his ear? I don’t see any cave. How do we talk to him?”
The cave, they’d been told, was somewhere on the north side of Poseidon’s Trident, and reached only by boat. It was a good thing, too, since setting foot on the sacred island was forbidden. “We’ll have to look in the morning. It’s too dark now.”
When they reached the shallows, Xanthos dragged at the stone-filled net attached to a rope and pitched it over the side to anchor the small vessel near the shore. They ate their supper of olives and cheese, drank from a flagon of water, then settled down for the night, allowing the gentle water to sway them to sleep.
Xanthos awoke to a sudden tilt of their boat and a vise-like grip on his shoulder. A fierce, bronzed face stared directly into his eyes. Before he had time to realize what was happening, two men were hauling him and his brother out of the little boat and into the shallow water. Agathos dug in his heels, his screams piercing as he cried, “No! No! No!”
“By all the gods,” came a voice from somewhere on the beach, “silence that shrieking harpy.”
One of the men raised his hand to strike the small child. Xanthos darted forward, tried to stop him, and was struck instead. “He’s afraid,” Xanthos said, ignoring the pain in his jaw. “It’s forbidden to set foot on the island.”
“Is it?” The burly man picked up Agathos and tossed him onto the gravel in front of the tallest and fiercest of the group.
He looked down at the boy, his dark eyes narrowing. “You’re very small for such a loud harpy.”
Agathos stilled, his eyes widening as the bare-chested man took a step forward, the morning sun hitting the tattoo of an angry boar’s head on his shoulder and the deep scar on his forehead. Someone had branded him with the letter D, signifying that he was, at least at one time, a slave. “What’re you staring at?” the tattooed man said. His heavily accented Greek frightened the boys even more knowing he must be from the island of Samos.
Agathos looked down, edging his way toward Xanthos, who recognized the lot for what they were. Pirates. Their father—before he was lost at sea—had warned Xanthos about the men who sailed the Aegean in a red ship, plundering and enslaving all they came across. “Please. If you let us go, we won’t tell a soul we saw you here.”
“To be sure,” one of the men said, grabbing Xanthos by the scruff of his neck. “Pactyes will want to see the fish we’ve caught before we put them on a spit and roast them.”