Garden of Madness (21 page)

Voices approached. Too late for second thoughts. Tia lowered her arms and held her breath. Then forced herself to breathe normally. It would not do to be gulping air once the room was occupied.

Little light filtered to the back of the tapestry. Her eyes adjusted only enough to see yellow threads knotted against the dark background. The smell of dank wool enveloped her.

Then a man’s voice, effeminate and grating—they were still in the hall.

“. . . and there is not much we can say in response.”

A snort, closer. Amytis led the way into the room. “There is always something to say.” Her mother, sharp and impatient. A brighter light surged, and Tia closed her eyes, as if the light would reveal her and she had only to cower from it to remain undetected.

“But my queen, we have been repeating the same story for seven years. How much longer—?”

“Soon, Rabi. Soon it will all be over. It must be.”

The rough underside of the tapestry scratched at Tia’s cheek. Did the hanging move with the rise and fall of her chest?

Another male voice, the tone stronger and more defiant than the first. “Kaldu’s death, my lady—”

“I know this! Do you think me a fool?”

“I think you are an optimist. Believing you can maintain this pretense indefinitely, regardless of circumstance.”

The scrape of chair legs on the stone floor. Were there only three, then? Did they sit in a tight circle, conferring with heads close together? Or did her mother fling herself across a chair, apart from the men, one leg crossed over the other, unaware that her daughter stood only a breath away? More irony, this. Amytis had wished Tia unseen all her life.

“We must maintain it, Dagan. You know this. One slip, one crack, and he will somehow find a way to slither through it.”

“Perhaps my lady gives him too much credit.” The softer voice again. “Perhaps he has nothing. Knows nothing.”

A pause, and she could almost see her mother’s hard eyes dissecting the weaker man. “He knows. Have no doubt. He knows.”

“How can you be certain—?”

“Why else would he have taken the whelp under his wing? In all his years in court, have you ever known him to take a student?” Her voice rose, a wisp of hysteria creeping across the tightness.

A thread tickled at Tia’s lip, and she struggled to rid herself of the annoyance and still give close attention. Did they speak of Shadir? Of Amel? Or was her own suspicion coloring her interpretation?

“My queen, do not excite yourself.” Rabi’s words placated but his tone seemed almost aggravated. “If he
does
know, he has made no move to reveal this knowledge.”

Amytis laughed, a sardonic laugh of condescension at Rabi’s naïveté. “Only a matter of time. He is waiting. For what, I do not know. But this business with Kaldu could be the start.”

“The people will not respond to leadership from a mage.”

Tia chewed at her lip to relieve the irritation. So it was Shadir. A trickle of sweat ran down her spine, though the room was cool. She had come for just this.
Speak on, Mother. Tell me all of your insidious plans
.

“Perhaps not. But if he has proof of the boy’s claim . . .”

Dagan seemed to have all the answers. “We will destroy this proof.”

“You are a fool, Dagan. Kingdoms rise and fall on rumor as much as evidence. With no king to produce, the damage will be done. And then how long do you suppose my family will survive?”

The young boys, Labashi and Puzur? Was this the danger of Amel’s warning?

Neither man answered, and Amytis continued. “I will tell you. Our lives will be forfeit before the next new moon, and that boy will take my husband’s throne.”

“My lady, could we not clean him up a bit?” Rabi offered his timid suggestion in a shaky voice. “Ride him through the city, reassure the people—”

“Stop. Do not speak of it again. I will not have him mocked.”

“Or perhaps you do not wish to see him yourself.” Dagan had more courage. Tia had to agree with him. Amytis had not seen her father in seven long years.

She ignored the accusation. “We will continue with my plan. Zagros will arrive soon, and his marriage to Tiamat will purchase more time and ensure the future.”

A wave of heat began at Tia’s toes and surged upward through her body. To hear her name and
purchase
together confirmed all she believed about her upcoming marriage. Amytis would never let her marry Nedabiah. It would be a waste of a valuable asset.

A scrape of a chair against the floor. Then two more. Her mother had stood, and her advisors had followed.

But Amytis had one more thing to say, the words delivered in the hiss of a threatened animal. “Hear me, both of you. And I swear before the gods. I do not care if that boy
is
my husband’s son.

“Amel-Marduk will never sit upon the throne of Babylon.”

CHAPTER 24

Somehow Tia held her ground until Amytis and her advisors left the chamber, taking the light with them or extinguishing it, she did not know. Stomach roiling, she stumbled into blackness, took three steps, and grabbed at the table. The rough wood splintered against her hand, but she barely noted the pain.

Amel, the son of Nebuchadnezzar? Vying for the throne, danger to her father?

Her
brother
?

In truth, while the threat to her father greatly concerned her, it was this last that set her stomach against her, that flooded her chest with the bitter taste of revulsion. How close to her he placed himself last night! The way he spoke against her ear, pulled her into his quiet confidence. Not the affection of a brother. Something very different.

Tia leaned over the table in the darkness, braced herself with her forearms, and tried to think. Her mother’s perfume still clouded the air, dizzied her.

Did Amel know he was her brother? He certainly must. Shadir’s protégé.

Who was his mother? Not one of the harem women, or his birth would not have been kept secret.

Oh, Father, what choices have you made that will be our undoing?

But it was her choice, her secret feelings for Amel, that sickened her. How could she not have known,
somehow
, that he was her brother?

She needed to be away from this chamber, should one of them return.

Her stomach rebelled when she stood, and she paused and closed her eyes, hoping to quell the nausea. When she felt able, she moved forward with wooden steps, out of the room and down the corridor toward the first courtyard.

What was Shadir’s plan? How did he intend to place Amel on the throne? Whom did it endanger?

And what could she do to stop it?

After the darkness of the advisory chamber, the courtyard’s harsh sunlight pained her eyes. She sought a shadowy path beneath tangled green vines that arched over plantings of bitter herbs. She could hear the fountain water spurting fitfully beyond the green veil that hid her from view.

A flash of white on the path ahead lifted her eyes.

“Pedaiah!” The word came out in a rush and matched her footsteps. She would speak with him of all she had heard. She trusted him. She reached him in a moment and clutched at the blinding white tunic across his chest. “Pedaiah, I must speak with you—”

He caught her hand and pulled it from him, his face pained. “And I, you, Princess.”

She did not like the way he called her
Princess
. It was his way of distancing himself, and she needed a close advisor of her own today.

She peered through the greenery that sheltered them. Insufficient. “Come, we will speak privately.”

It seemed only natural to lead him to the chamber where he had prayed to his One God over her days ago.

In the dim light she turned to unburden her heart, but he raised a hand. “I must say what I came to say.”

Something about the way he shifted on his feet, or perhaps the way he seemed to labor for breath, closed her mouth.

“Tiamat, I cannot be—part of your life—any longer.” His chin fell to his chest, which rose and fell too rapidly.

“I do not understand—”

“You deserve the truth.” His eyes found hers again, and she saw determination strengthen him. “All these years I have stayed away. Made my home outside the palace, kept some distance.”

“I have always known your feelings, Pedaiah. You were disgusted with Shealtiel’s choice of marriage.”

“Disgusted, yes. Outraged. Even I felt betrayed—that he betrayed our people with such a treaty.”

She struggled to hold her tongue. None of this was new, so why should she argue or defend?

“But more than anything, Tia, more than my aversion, more than my anger, what kept me from the palace, what kept me from Shealtiel, was jealousy.”

Her eyelids fluttered, as though to clear the blurriness of his statement.

“Tia, I have loved you since the day you married my brother.”

What was this? Tia reached a shaky hand toward him, but he backed away. The beats of her heart seemed audible in the echoing chamber.

“You were nearly a child still, I know. But I watched you become—become the woman that you are, and every year my love for you grew stronger until I thought it would consume me.”

“You never said . . .” Her voice was whispery, faint.

“Of course I never spoke of it! How could I? You were married to my brother!” He paced before her, and she could feel his anger. “And beyond that, you are a Babylonian!”

“Yes.”

He stopped pacing and turned on her. “And that remains unchanged.”

She swallowed. “Is that so important?”

“It is everything, Tia! It is why we are here, in this place.” He waved a furious hand at the room, the palace, all of Babylon. “Ripped from our homeland because we let ourselves be polluted by people such as you!”

The sting of his words straightened her spine. “You have always been clear about your own superiority, Pedaiah. The superiority of your God to ours.”

He rushed at her, grabbed her arms, shook her. “How can I make you understand? There is only One God! Your gods are the very demons you fear!” He released her and whirled away. Even in the half-light, his tunic shone white, as though he himself were one of the gods—distant and unreachable. She felt flawed, weak. Mortal.

But he would not like that image. Only One God, he would say, who reaches down to man.

He pounded a fist against the wall. “This is why I cannot see you anymore. Cannot run around the city with you or help you discover what secrets the palace holds.” His hard-edged voice held no mercy.

“Because you fear being with me will leave you polluted.”

He faced her with the simple, devastating answer. “Yes.”

Tia had been a fool to think he had softened toward her, to hope for it, even. She would not show such weakness again. She drew herself up, lifted her chin. “I am sorry, Pedaiah, that I have been the source of so much grief. But clearly your detachment through the years has been for the best, as it will be in the future.”

She hardened her voice, a blade thrust of condescension. “I can tell you that the disgust you feel at the thought of me is quite mutual. I would not have you, with all your arrogance and self-righteous pride, if all other princes of the earth disappeared. You are cold and unfeeling, and you believe your captors should be your servants, that the conquerors should bow to the conquered. We never shall, Pedaiah. Never. Not as a people and not this princess.”

With that she pushed past him and stalked from the room with a prayer to the gods that she should never see him again.

Tia’s feet carried her onward while her mind and emotions careened around a thousand shadowy corners. Down, down into the depths of the palace, then the chest-heaving climb to the seventh tier of the Gardens. The revelations of the morning took their toll. She was strangely winded when she reached the locked door, and her fingers shook so frightfully she could barely get the key into the lock.

She slipped onto the upper tier and let her gaze tumble over the knotted trees and snarl of flowering plants. Her father was not to be seen, and from their vantage points beneath, no guards would see her here. She could be alone with her thoughts.

A measure away from the door, she dropped to the paving stones beside a tangle of wild spearmint and wrapped tight arms around her drawn-up legs, hoping the constricted position would ease the disquiet in her stomach. It did not.

Below her, a pool filled slowly from the rock-cut channel, the water gurgling against a slimy sheen of algae. The odor of fertilized earth hung heavy in the air.

Amel is my brother
.

Enough. She would think no more on what might have been. She had learned the truth before there was anything to regret.

The old gardener, the only one entrusted with the maintenance of the Gardens now, hobbled along one of the lower tiers, his white tunic bobbing, blurring among the plants.

Pedaiah has been in love with me
.

This second revelation, following hard on the first, was no less shocking. She set her chin against her knees and remembered his hateful words. Anger. Aversion.
Polluted
.