28

Xerxes rode onto a wonder of the world, the hooves of his grey gelding making a hollow sound in the silence of a spring morning. Guards stood at attention on either side of him, so that they looked like statues lining the halls in the palace at Persepolis. Crowds had gathered all along the shore at Abydos. Readying his army for the great enterprise had drawn thousands of workers and their families to the area. Gold, silver and his imperial will had created a new city in that place. Now there were cobblers to make shoes and farmers bringing grain to sell in markets. New homes had sprung up on every hillside. The crowd filled the banks and hung in the trees like flapping pigeons, just to catch a glimpse of the king. They had cheered themselves hoarse when Xerxes had first appeared, praying with the priests on the shore as they dedicated the campaign to Ahura Mazda, god of gods, as well as Xerxes, king of kings.

Xerxes could feel the breeze increase in strength as he walked his horse across the wide causeway they had laid. The planks creaked in the sun and with the movement of water below. He had chosen the gelding for its placid temperament, over the stallion he preferred to ride. It would not do for his army and his people to see their king pitched into the sea by a nervous horse.

The causeway was perfect, though it had cost the lives of more than seventy men in its construction. The first attempt had been anchored to piles driven into the seabed from above, using huge frames and logs dropped and raised on pulleys. Yet it had been too rigid. Storms had come rushing down the Hellespont. Xerxes had read reports of how the section over the deepest part had risen and fallen well enough, but one of the anchored ends had torn free. The entire bridge had flailed like a whip then, smashing a hundred precious ship hulls to splinters. None of the guards stationed along its length had been found.

The broken vessels had been pillaged for firewood, of course. There was no sign of old failures as Xerxes reached the centre point and paused, taking in the view on both sides. He had beheaded the engineers responsible for the disaster, as a warning to the rest. The new teams had worked night and day to fling another chain across the strait in record time. A few more workmen had fallen in and been drowned, but the rest had laboured on.

Two priests waited for Xerxes at the centre of the road over the waters. They lay on sun-bleached wood, both men prostrating themselves as the Great King dismounted. The crowd’s roar was a distant hiss out there, like the crashing of waves.

‘Up, gentlemen. Be about your task. Bless me in my endeavours, and in my father’s memory.’

Xerxes ignored them then as they set about chanting prayers of good fortune, sprinkling him with fresh water taken from the deepest wells in stone, where no light had ever shone. Xerxes looked out on a view that had not existed the year before. On one side, Persia vanished into the distance, the greatest empire the world had ever known.