Cyrus, Prince of Persia: A Novel (eBook)

Alexander Jovy (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2018 | 1. Auflage
200 Seiten
Eucalyptus Media Group (Verlag)
9781635820010 (ISBN)

Infos

From the Academy Award-nominated film director and producer of Holiday Romance, Alexander Jovy, comes the stunning and gripping debut novel, Cyrus Prince of Persia. Cyrus the Great has been hailed as the first charter of human rights and a replica of his cylinder can be found at the United Nations Headquarters in New York City. The lives of most of us are brief flames soon extinguished by the vastness of eternity. Yet there are some who, thinking no effort too much, no sacrifice too extreme, save their souls from obscurity by their deeds here on earth and are remembered forever. This is the story of one such man. His name was Cyrus. In time, he became known as Cyrus the Great. Having abruptly woken from his sleep, King Astyages believes his dream to be a symbolic one-a great warrior and enemy leader of distinct features winning power and command over Media, his kingdom. In an act of greed and self-service, the king sends word that his newborn grandson, who is baring a prominent birthmark of the same distinct features, should be destroyed, in the belief that he must do so in order to protect his throne. Day after day the tireless efforts of Cyrus built the world's first great empire, freed forty thousand Jews from their plight as slaves, and conquered the hearts of wildly beautiful warrior Roxana and the exquisite Cassadane.

Textauszug

FIVE

THE KING’s NIGHTMARE

ASTYAGES, WHO HAD reigned over the kingdom of Media for thirty years, screamed as he lurched awake in his bedroom in the palace at Ecbatana.

He sat up in bed, panting, and wiped the cooling sweat from his face with a corner of a bedsheet. He was wearing a thick black cotton sleeping garment; it was early spring, and the Median capital was cold at this time of year.

He glanced with contempt at the woman sleeping by his side. She was Azara, a gorgeous black-haired concubine, one of his favorites from what was known as the Palace of Queens, the community of slave women who lived in a special part of the palace at Ecbatana. Azara had been granted the privilege of sharing the king’s bed that particular night.

Astyages’ hawklike features soured. He shook her awake. She’d had the audacity to sleep through his scream, his scream. Her cotton sleeping robe was white, and fragrant with the myrrh she liked to wear in bed. Her lips and teeth were still stained red from the strong Persian wine she and her master had drunk before, during, and after their exertions.

Smiling drowsily, she reached for his manhood. “Sire … do you want me again?”

“Be silent, foolish whore,” Astyages replied, abruptly pushing her hands away from him. “Fetch Farna-zata. Fetch him, if you wish to live to see the dawn.”

Azara roused herself, hastily got out of bed, slipped on a light blue silk robe, and hurried out of the bedchamber.

The kingdom of Media had been created more than two centuries earlier by Deioces, a Median general. Astyages, who had by now ruled Media for three decades, was only fifteen when he was crowned, yet an expert warrior even at that age. As a boy of twelve, armed with a spear, he had killed his first man—a servant who had enraged Astyages’ father, King Cyaxares. Astyages had had his first woman, a beautiful seventeen-year-old chambermaid, when he was thirteen. On ascending the throne he gained access to the women of the royal harem, and he had not stinted himself.

Inevitably there had been some who thought a boy of fifteen too young to rule Media. Such a view turned out to be fatal to those who held it. The boy-king had spent a pleasant sixteenth birthday afternoon supervising the beheading of his regent and three of his tutors. The young king had come to suspect the regent of incubating kingly ambitions. As for the tutors, Astyages had tired of them, and readily believed rumors that they’d been involved with the regent in his scheming.

Besides, Astyages had found the demise of all four men immense fun to watch. There was something about a suddenly headless neck spurting blood that appealed to the young king’s delicate tastes.

Nowadays, six feet tall, blessed with excellent health, a fine head of black hair, a vigorous black beard, and eyes full of intelligence and cruelty, Astyages loved his life. Forty-five was an age few of his poverty-stricken subjects ever attained, but good food, wealth, and nights of passion supplied by beautiful slave women utterly devoted to his pleasure had kept him young. Astyages was still a man of immense physical strength, energy, and vigor, as his numerous concubines—and the ghosts of his many victims—could have testified. His scribes and poets wrote sycophantic prose and verse narratives in cuneiform about his exploits. Yet not even the most fawning chronicler of the king’s life could have had a higher opinion of Astyages than he himself.

He was profoundly superstitious, of course, yet no more so than any of his countrymen. Was not the world, after all, full of terrifying mysteries? Were not human beings only granted by the god Mithra the most limited privileges of understanding the world he had created for them?

Dreams made Astyages even more superstitious than usual. Being king, he regarded his own dreams as especially rich with meaning.

Astyages broke wind loudly, grabbed a black velvet cloak, and hurried through a narrow entrance from the royal bedchamber into a sort of reception room with all types of weapons and elaborate shields adorning the walls. It was here that he met his own loyal advisers. Of these, none was more illustrious than Farna-zata, grand vizier of Media.

Farna-zata arrived a few minutes later, bowing low before his great master. A wavy-haired man in his forties whose wealth was second in Media only to the king’s, Farna-zata was wearing his crimson robes of state. He had not been to bed that night. He was breathless from running from a room in the far wing of the palace, where the unclean act of giving birth had taken place.

The grand vizier paused only briefly to catch his breath. “Your Majesty, I greet you! At your behest mountains cleave themselves asunder, your enemies’ armies tremble, and—”

“Be quiet. Is my daughter’s child born?”

“A short time ago. I would have woken you, but I know that Your Majesty hates being disturbed at night, so I thought—”

“Is it a boy?”

“Yes … yes, sire. But how did you know?”

“I am king. A king knows everything. And there is a purplish birth-mark that somehow looks like a lion’s paw print on his right shoulder, is there not?”

“Sire … yes. You … you know that too?”

“I do, Farna-zata; indeed I do.” Astyages nodded meaningfully at the grand vizier. “Kill him.”

“Is … Your Highness serious?”

“Hear me. I have just woken from the worst dream of my life. But I praise Mithra for the dream, for in it he has told me what I must do to safeguard myself and my kingdom.”

“What did you see, sire?”

“I saw a king in all his splendor and power. Farna-zata, I know that my daughter’s boy shall become the king I saw in my dream. I know this king shall win power at the expense of my throne!”

“May Mithra prevent that, sire!”

“We cannot rely on Mithra to protect us. As the magi are always telling us, the ways of the gods are mysterious. No, we must grasp fate ourselves. The boy cannot be allowed to become a man. Do you understand?”

“Yes … yes, sire,” Farna-zata murmured.

“He must die this very morning.”

“But sire, Cambyses shall hate you. The Persians will bay for blood.”

Astyages gave a contemptuous snort. “Let them. Much good may it do them. Persia is weak; the Persians are ignorant pigs. Frankly, I am surprised my son-in-law Cambyses, imbecile that he is, managed to impregnate my daughter at all. I had always suspected him of being a eunuch. As for him, my daughter, and the Persians, they will believe what they are told.”

“Yes, of course, sire,” Farna-zata said, “but … still, there is no need for … unnecessary dissent in the southern part of your territory, especially when such dissent can be avoided by a mere …” the grand vizier paused, then murmured his favorite word, “stratagem.”

“Well? What do you suggest?”

Farna-zata went over to Astyages, placed his right arm around him, and paced slowly about the room, now accompanied by the king. “A terrible tragedy, Farna-zata!” the grand vizier exclaimed, as if he had suddenly been transformed into Astyages himself. “Oh, it is in vain to console me, for my grief is too fresh!”

Astyages gave a faint smile. “Very good. So … tell me, what fate befell my newborn grandson?”

“Oh, Farna-zata,” returned the grand vizier, “this very night, this new prince of Persia, a child so precious he might have been my own son, was snatched by traitors from the arms of the midwife while she was taking the boy for his first bath. She, poor woman, was slain by the bandits who stole my prince!”

The smile on Astyages’ own face deepened. “You are as ingenious as ever, you scheming fox.” The king smiled wryly. “There is treachery everywhere, is there not?”

“Alas, yes, sire,” said Farna-zata, with a pretense of piety. “But we shall scour the kingdom to return the boy to you and find the traitors. When we do, they shall be executed slowly and painfully.”

Astyages suddenly stopped pacing about the room alongside Farna-zata. Now his expression was instantly serious. “The brat must be buried far from the walls of this palace, you understand?”

“Yes, sire.”

“His body must never be found. If ever it is, Farna-zata, it is you who shall be executed slowly and...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 11.5.2018
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Historische Romane
• ISBN-13: 9781635820010 / 9781635820010