The Last King of Lydia by Tim Leach Page A

spear had left his hand. He had seen Atys on the far side of the boar even as the shaft slipped through his open palm, and had
closed his hand again in an attempt to summon back the death that he had thrown. He had grasped only air. Atys had spat blood and screamed as he died. Adrastus thought of his brother, how his face
had turned from laughter to horror when Adrastus had slipped and the sword slid home, all those years before.
    Adrastus put his hand to his chest, feeling for the heartbeat to fix its location in his mind, running his fingers over the ribs that were his obstacles. He clasped the sword in his hands, his
arms shaking. The guards stopped their game to watch, but made no move to stop him.
    Life called out to him, and he wavered for a moment longer. He thought of the things he might do, now that he had no fear of death. Perhaps he would take a wife. Perhaps in love he would find
forgiveness.
    He leaned forward and thrust the sword into his stomach, wrenched it loose, and fell.
    The blood flowed thickly and freely, but not swiftly enough. He cried out with the pain, but death did not come to him.
    The two guards watched without expression. After some time, one of them came forward and knelt beside him. He leaned down close and whispered a question in his ear. Adrastus nodded weakly in
response. The guard stood up, reversed his spear so that the tip pointed straight down. With a single thrust he ended the life of the man who could kill no one, not even himself, except by
chance.
    In the palace, in his favourite garden, Croesus sat on a bench with his wife, lit only by the flickering torches. They sat close but did not touch, both of them far beyond
tears.
    ‘Do you know,’ Croesus said, ‘I don’t think I would have minded. His death, I mean. If he could have given me a grandson.’
    ‘You don’t mean that.’
    ‘Don’t tell me what I mean.’
    The silence grew between them.
    ‘I remember you asked me once,’ he said after a time, ‘when I would stop worrying about him?’
    She nodded dully. ‘I remember.’
    ‘I told you that I would stop worrying when I was dead. But I meant I would stop worrying once he had given me an heir. How terrible that is.’
    She said nothing, and in the quiet he thought of all the memories he would have to uproot and destroy. Memories of Atys when he was born, tiny and silent, filled only with possibility. As a boy,
roaring and charging around the gardens of Sardis, tripping and crying, then standing and running once again. As a man, his character shaping and forming like iron in a mould, becoming something
remarkable. Each memory had been a treasure to him, now a splinter in his mind. He would have to forget them all, he thought. There was no other way.
    ‘I’m sorry,’ Croesus said eventually.
    She looked him in the eyes. ‘What do you have to be sorry for?’
    ‘I don’t know.’ Croesus swallowed deeply, but the tears would not come. ‘I was weak,’ he said. ‘I loved him too much.’
    ‘Croesus . . .’
    ‘I will never love that way again.’

The King
552 BC

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    Even as a child, Croesus had loved to play at being king.
    It was a part that he liked to play only when he was alone. Croesus had no shortage of slaves and other children to keep him company, all of them happy to play any game the prince chose. But he
would not play at being a king in the company of others; if the game were even referred to, he would blush, then shout and scream until he had driven them all away. It was a secret fantasy that
Croesus liked to explore when alone, and, for him, solitude was as much of a luxury as company is to the lonely child.
    Whenever he could escape his army of helpers and drive away the children who were assigned to play with him, he would run to some abandoned room in the palace and there hold court. As soon as he
was sure he was quite alone, he would construct a throne: an upended wicker basket, a chipped stone step, an old, high chair that he had to