The eunuch’s servants laughed at that: they were Persians, too. Polydoros managed a lopsided smile. He was on the quiet side as the four men made their way back to the ruined building in the marketplace.

Once they were there, the Hellene quickly regained his good spirits, for he found he had a chance to gloat. “This building is called the Stoa Basileios,” he said, pointing to letters carved on an overthrown piece of frieze. “The Royal Portico. If we wanted to learn of kings, we should have come here first.”

Chagrin and excitement warred in Mithredath. Excitement won. “Good Polydoros, you were right. Find me here, if you can, a list of the kings of Athens. The last one, surely, will be the man Khsrish overcame.” Which will mean, he added to himself, that I can get out of these ruins and this whole backward satrapy.

Seized perhaps by some of that same hope, Raga and Tishtrya searched the ruins with three times the energy they had shown hunting for potsherds. Stones untouched since the Persian sack save by wind, rain, and scurrying mice went crashing over as the servants scoured the area for more bits of writing.

Mithredath found the first new inscription himself, but already had learned not to be overwhelmed by an idle wall scratching.

All the same, he called Polydoros over. “ ‘Phrynikhos thinks Aiskhylos is beautiful,’ “ the Hellene read dutifully.

“About what I expected, but one never knows.” Mithredath nodded and went on looking. He had been gelded just before puberty; feeling desire was as alien to him as Athens’s battered rocky landscape. He knew he would never understand what drove this Phrynikhos to declare his lust for the pretty boy. Lust-other men’s lust-was just something he had used to advance himself, back when he was young enough to trade on it. Once in a while, abstractly, he wondered what it was like.