15 Cleanse 14
'I am informed that Amestris, the wife of Xerxes, when she had grown old, made return for her own life to the god who is said to be beneath the earth by burying twice seven children of Persians who were men of renown.'-Herodotus
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Screams and wails broke the sleepy inner palace's calm, Artaxerxes was one of the many awoken by these disturbing sounds.
"What's going on?" Artaxerxes asks a guard stationed outside his door, one of the Immortals, "I'm not sure my Prince, but it seems there's been a commotion down the hall."
---gory trigger warning---
Curious, Artaxerxes walked down the marbled tiled hall and out into the inner palace courtyard, and what he saw was horrifying. Soldiers from the royal guard had dragged a woman into the courtyard leaving a trail of dirt and torn-up grass in their wake. The woman was beaten, her nose, ears, and lips were cut off, and her tongue was torn out. The type of punishment typically dolled out on traitors.
Impaling, burning, cutting off limbs, branding, flaying, crucifixion, and skinning alive were all part of the Persian system of torture, and the sex of the victim did not act as an excuse for lighter chastisement.
As Artaxerxes watched in horror as his mother was standing behind the royal guards who had dolled out the punishment, she spoke, "Feed it to the dogs." Almost as if she had just spoken of tossing out the trash, she sentenced the woman to a fate worse than death.
The guards, obeying the Queen, began feeding the woman's body parts to the dogs before her eyes. Her husband Masistes, had just arrived and became a part of the growing crowd witnessing this gruesome display.
Enraged and humiliated at seeing his wife mutilated and fed to the dogs like waste, Masistes wanted nothing more than to kill Amestris then and there. However surrounded by powerful guards and in the center of Achaemenid military power, Mesistes held himself back.
Masistes along with those loyal to him, without a word, fled the scene. Most likely, in Artaxerxes' view, to rebel against the crown for this humiliation.
'Holy shit, mothers lost it' Artaxerxes thought, as he saw his mother effortlessly mutilate someone, the only reason he hadn't vomited or straight-up pissed himself was because he had grown dissentisized to violence at court having already witnessed a few executions himself.
However, this took the cake, Artaxerxes had never seen an execution, no, torture, so gruesome.
Realizing his mother may not have been the woman he always knew, Artaxerxes approached Amestris. Noticing her son, Amestris beckoned for her guards to make a way in the perimeter and bent down to his level, giving him a kiss on the forehead as per usual, "Arta, what are you doing out of bed so late?" Amestris asked with concern, completely glossing over the pool of blood and body parts near her feet.
Artaxerxes, hesitant, spoke, "Mother... are you okay?" He genuinely wanted to know, after all, what he had seen was something only an insane person wouldn't flinch at.
Smiling at her son's concern, Amestris said" Of course, I'm fine Arta, I'm fine, after all, the weeds have been rooted out..."
Artaxerxes, fairly certain the roots, as a matter of fact, weren't, rooted out was concerned. He wouldn't be surprised if Masistes and his posse were already marshaling armies to overthrow the ruling dynasty.
Noticing her son's doubt, she said," All in time, Arta, all with time..." And with those words Amestris caressed Artaxerxes face, stood up, and then walked back into the inner palace, followed by her royal bodyguard.
Artaxerxes now alone, stood in the courtyard. With a moonless night sky and the Milky Way galaxy in full view, the setting may have almost been romantic had there not been blood stains and the stench of blood.
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In the following weeks, Artaxerxes, rather than hearing of rebellion, nothing came to pass, and the eastern satrapies did not rise up in revolt. Masistes, his sons, and his followers, simply disappeared.
This included his daughter, Artaynte. All of them had just gone 'missing' on the way to Bactria. Though it didn't take a genius to find the real conclusion, the court turned a blind eye and continued on to more important business.
Like the huge vacuum in power with the satrapy of Bactria without a governor. Though that didn't take much effort to fix. The King of Kings appointed his second eldest son, Hystaspes who already had experience in the region, to govern the satrapy and officially become the satrap of Bactria.
Artaxerxes, for a time unsure as to how to look at his mother after such an ordeal realized something, he had still been looking at the situation through the lenses of a soul from the modern era. In the ancient dynastic context, routing out the insurrection brewing in Masistes household, was the welfare of the state and ultimately secured the continuity of Xerxes' reign and the succession of Prince Dariaios.
Amestris acted in order to maintain her supremacy at court, as Persia's First Lady. She acted also for the security of the crown itself. That is why her revenge knew no limits.
