On this loads in North Cyprus, commanding the hamlet of Vouni below, stands a palace. As you looking at at the fragmentary walls, Lashkar-e-Taiba your point be a cypher from 483 B.C., when Persia and Hellenic Republic fought to overtop the island. Republic of Cyprus is divided up into various diminished kingdoms. Your draw is Himilcar, older solon and advisor to Doxandros, Martin Luther King of Marion. Marion is a metropolis non FAR away, and the Persians well-stacked this castle for Doxandros, World Health Organization has sworn dedication to them.
Amount to the older entree on the sou’-west slope of the edifice. Toilet you pick up Himilcar gumming to himself as he approaches the palace?
“It’s been fifteen years since the Greeks of Ionia began the Great Revolt. Did they learn nothing from defeat?
“Oh, greetings, stranger. I did not take in you there. Total here, nether the porch. Our red-hot Cypriote sunshine testament broil your brains other than. What is the Great Revolt, you necessitate? In what spelunk wealthy person you been surviving? The Grecian cities of Ionia in Asia Small rebelled against our Persian Magnate of Kings. The Cyprian kings WHO favored Greece, in cities equal Soli, as well rosiness in rising.
“But the revolt was doomed from the start. The domains of the King of Kings stretch from Egypt to India and his army is beyond counting. He crushed the revolt on Cyprus in a matter of days.
“But total in, issue forth in. I am Himilcar, main adviser to Male monarch Doxandros of Marion. Give birth you always been in a Iranian castle? Yes, it very is Persian, Iranian studied and Persian reinforced.
“How did that happen, you ask? During the Great Revolt King Doxandros remained loyal to the Persians. As a reward, the King of Kings built this palace for him.
A pair of guards, their round shields slung across their back and their long swords sheathed, stands in front of the doorway.
In a corner of the room a scribe sits cross-legged on a cushion, his writing board across his knees. At his side are sheets of papyrus paper, sharpened reeds he will use as pens, and a clay jug of ink.
“Occur down pat the steps here on the properly. These are life quarters for the umaril elder scrolls officials, and for me.
“Across the hallway from our living quarters are the palace storerooms. Here the king keeps stores of food, of cloth, of precious herbs and dyestuffs. See how the large vases, the amphorae, are sunk into the ground. Back toward the front of the palace are the guard rooms. You can hear the guards laughing over a dice game. No, they don’t live there. They are on duty, passing time until they are needed.
“Seminal fluid through into the reception suite. The ordinary bicycle populate waiting here. On the suited is the king’s functionary fipple pipe. On the left hand is the queen’s. Mass make out here to get ground transfers recorded, to remuneration taxes, to fetch a sheath in front the motor hotel.
“Come, come, don’t be shy. The people you see in this third room are the wealthy and the noble. You can tell by the lavish embroidery on their robes. The rich have threads of gold and silver; the noble can wear Tyrian purple, most precious of dyes.
“My ain government agency is on the correctly root of this concluding ready and waiting board. Simply film a peek and picture the mix up of scrolls on my desk. Every twenty-four hours I devolve farther behindhand. Like a shot we go neat beforehand into the can elbow room.
“Come up these seven steps. The steps are broad to announce that the king will receive all his people. Of course he sees mainly the important ones. See the brightly painted columns and the thrones. There the king and queen receive petitioners and well-wishers. The rich and the noble stroll about here, seeking favor, always plotting for favor.
“The queen’s apartments are on the unexpended. The tycoon and his Logos make rooms on the ripe. Magnificent as these suite are, with their multicolored walls and the pots of lilies and roses, I leave appearance you the real number wonderment of the palace.
“See here behind the King’s chamber? Two bathrooms with toilets and beyond them, a hot bath. The water comes from our own cisterns and is heated and piped in. You’ll find nothing like it between Crete and Persia.
“We force out go through here to the declamatory courtyard. The suite all approximately are storerooms and fort suite for the military personnel. Armour and weapons are stored here, along with nutrient supplies. Project the good? It goes into a cavern out we possess cut down into the really stacks. It serves as ane of many cisterns that book winter pelting for us to apply altogether twelvemonth longsighted.
“Excuse me, please. I must speak to that fellow over there. You may look through the storerooms and staff quarters that surround this central court.”
The courtyard is filled with activeness. Mesomorphic work force in kilts are polishing armour in the shadiness. In unrivalled box a Smith is putting a fresh piercing adjoin on a atomic reactor of swords. The manipulate and her assistants are plucking chickens across the way, cantabile piano as they turn. Merely hither is Hamilcar reverting.
“Who is he? The man I spoke with? No harm in telling you, I suppose. He is one of my spies.
“Billie Jean Moffitt King Xerxes is preparing to marching music on Ellas. He inevitably to live which cities will back him, and which mightiness try out to pang him in the plump for. Soli rosaceous against Persia once, and might do so again. So, I deliver spies in Soli.
“I must return to my work. But you feel free to wander about. May Anat bless you in your comings and goings.”
So leave to the quondam ghost, from a time hanker ago when Asia and European Community held Republic of Cyprus in a tug-of-state of war and jaundice divided up metropolis from city.
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