Garden of Madness (35 page)

He did not pull his gaze from the window. “Trust me, Tia, I have thought of little else all night. I have sought the wisdom of Daniel and have prayed for guidance.”

“And what have you decided?” Her heartbeat hung suspended.

“I have no decision.”

She breathed out the tension and turned to the door.

“Tia—” He grabbed her arm and pulled her into his embrace, his face against her hair. “My family, my people, my duty—they are all here. But you are mine as well.”

She could hear the pain in his voice but could do nothing to rid him of it when her own heart was breaking. “Perhaps there are more sacrifices to be made.”

She knew not what she meant by the words. For whose sacrifice did she call? The look in his eyes was unbearable, and Tia pulled away and escaped the chamber, then fled through the silent halls to her own rooms.

Only a few hours remained before daylight. Tia would spend them in her bed, trying to gain strength for what lay ahead.

CHAPTER 40

Their final day in Babylon dawned scorchingly hot, the strange and heavy moisture lifted at last. Omarsa roused Tia well past daybreak, concern straining her features. She had not heard Tia slip in only hours before.

“Are you well, Princess?”

How is that question to be answered?
Tia nodded, then turned her head and breathed in the morning air. Where would she be when tomorrow dawned?

The palace was in full uproar this morning. Between the festival and her marriage, the corridors buzzed with the frantic activity of slaves intent on meeting expectations. The frenzy was the royal family’s ally—much of their own activity might be hidden by it.

By prior agreement they did not meet together this morning, any of them. Each knew his or her assignment for the day, and less attention would be drawn if they did not interact. Somewhere outside the palace, in a stable yard nearby, six wagons and their horses were readied for a long journey, and here inside the palace, clothing and provisions were secreted out by two of the slaves they had decided to take—her nephews’ nursemaid and a trusted cook who could keep them from starvation.

Tia took her morning meal in her room, then dressed and left to do her part. She wandered through the lower corridors, trying to appear relaxed, as though the muscles across her upper back were not strung tight with tension and her stomach knotted with the unknown.

She passed her older sisters in the east wing, each carrying a basket. Had she ever seen them carrying anything themselves? Tia gave them a strained smile, but they passed her with wide eyes, as though the revelations of the night had changed her into something other than their overlooked youngest sister.

She felt the eyes of the palace on her as she strolled toward the main arch. Slaves peered at her from lowered eyes, harem women stared boldly. But it was the magi and diviners clustered in courtyards and whispering in corridors that quickened her pulse with their suspicious watching, watching, always watching. She crossed the final courtyard and fought an involuntary shudder at the antagonism directed toward her back.

The city pulled Tia into its heat, but the air of frivolity common to a festival day did nothing to relieve her apprehension. She must be seen attending to her horses this morning. Lack of attention before a chariot race would be noted and perhaps passed along to those who would ask questions. She looked them over, patted heads, spoke with the stableman, but her heart was not present. He’d have them ready for tonight, but did she even care?

Back in the palace she had one more task for the day, but she delayed until the afternoon was well spent. Instead, she had Omarsa and Gula help her pack her belongings—the city still believed she would marry the Median prince tonight and be taken to her mother’s homeland—and the women seemed genuinely saddened to see her leave. Though Tia had determined to take Omarsa with her when they escaped, she would not tell her until the time drew near.

Finally, there could be no more putting off, and she braced herself for one more encounter with Shadir.

My father
.

Revulsion coursed through her, a wave of disbelief and anger that sickened and weakened. But she could not afford weakness. Not today.

Yahweh, give me strength to face what is next, to walk boldly into Your plan
.

As expected, she found him in the Hall of Magi. But she would not enter. Not today and never again.

She waited at the columned entrance, gazing down into the chamber, waiting for him to notice her presence.

As though they were connected in some perverse way, he lifted his head from his charts and returned her attention.

“Princess.” His lips seemed to hardly move. A chilled perspiration rose on her neck.

“You have won, Shadir.”

“I did not realize we competed.”

“I will marry Amel-Marduk as you wish. I have sent the Median prince away in the night, though it is to be kept secret until the festival.”

Shadir used long fingers to push his hair from his face, but his expression remained unchanged. “You have shown wisdom, Princess.”

“I will tell you again, my family is to be kept safe.” A useless injunction.

He nodded, slowly, twice. As though he carefully considered her request and had acceded. “Whatever you say, Princess.”

It was enough to put him off for the day. To allow them their preparations. She lifted her chin, threw him a hateful glance, and left the Hall.

The hours crawled until nightfall. It seemed impossible that with her life on the precipice of great change, she should spend the afternoon in her chambers letting Omarsa yank a comb through her hair and Gula fuss over the packing of her last few pieces of jewelry. But others were tending to the details of their journey. And to the preparation for removing the king from the Gardens. All would be ready when she would again step onto the stage of this drama, to play her final part.

Through her darkening chamber window, Tia heard the swell of the festival and left Omarsa’s ministrations to stare over Babylon. Thousands took to the streets, to follow the procession of Marduk and Ishtar, their statues carefully guarded in chariots and led through the city to the Akitu House, where their ritual marriage would be performed to ensure the fertility of the kingdom. Drumbeats lifted to her window, each beat louder than the last as though the drummers climbed unseen on steps to the heavens. She could make out the piping of flutes at the head of the procession, but it was chants of people that thickened the air.

What did the One God think of all this celebration?

When the sun had disappeared at last and spreading darkness had reached the western shore of the desert, Tia turned from the window and dressed in her running clothes—the Persian trousers her mother despised, the bindings around her chest and ribs, the short belted tunic. Omarsa caged her hair with gold combs, but she would wear no veil.

Always before a run she steadied her mind, focused her thoughts on the air in her lungs, the muscles in her calves. Tonight, the chariot race called for heightened focus. Instead, her muscles trembled with what would come after.

It was time for the ultimate risk.

Head high, Tia strode through the palace corridors, trailing two guards. They reached the palace entrance, and she paused at the head of the wide stairs that led to the street, drinking in a last look at her city from this familiar perch. Below her, news of her presence lit through the crowd, and a mighty cheer arose. Tia lifted her arm in a salute, and they screamed with accolades. She was a favorite whenever she raced.

The two guards escorted her down the stairs and across the Processional Way, and the people parted before them, leaving a wide swath of stone. They reached the city wall at the Ishtar Gate, climbed the internal staircase, and Tia emerged alone on top of the wall to another shriek from the citizens.

Four chariots, two abreast on the wall, awaited the festivities, their horses harnessed and pawing the stones expectantly. She recognized her own pair of blacks pulling one of the first two chariots. She would race first against Kuri, who was favored to win. But the people would cheer for her. Once, this would have thrilled her. Tonight, she cared for only the race that would occur after this one—the rush to leave the city, the protection of her family.

Yellow torches flamed from the wall’s waist-high crenellations, posted at the space of six strides, from the Ishtar Gate to the Enlil. In the streets below, the people waved pennants from here to the finish, a sea of speckled white in the torches and moonlight.

Even the fields that lay between the double walls held spectators. No one wanted to miss the princess in her final chariot race, nor the marriage that would take place after.

The participants wandered the wall, receiving anxious encouragement from their sponsors, pacing nervous circuits around their gilded chariots.

But Tia’s anxiety was not race-born. The fluttering in her stomach, the clammy chill across her neck, the dryness of her mouth—all these would continue beyond the finish line, until her family fled along the desert road outside the walls.

Until I say good-bye to Pedaiah
.

“Princess, you are ready?” The race master bowed, a small man with a protruding lower lip that made him look sullen.

Tia nodded and tried to smile. There would be time for thoughts of good-byes later. Or perhaps not, which might be better. Never mind that she feared she would be leaving parts of herself in Babylon tonight.

Tia climbed into the black and gold two-wheeled chariot and unlooped the reins. The wind tugged at her hair and tunic, and the horses snorted and pawed the dusty wall, as though they felt her impatience to be off. The chants of the city pounded upward, a rhythm that infected her blood, set it pounding to match. The reins felt slick in her hands, and she wrapped the leather around each palm twice.

Kuri gained his chariot, and Tia pulled her gaze from him and the city below while she pulled her thoughts from the future and from Pedaiah. She must give herself to the race now, abandon all that she was to this central purpose.

The inner wall of Babylon was wide enough for two chariots to race abreast, but only one could make the turn at the Enlil Gate and circle back, passing the other. If she were not first to the turn, the odds of pulling the lead on the sprint back to the Ishtar Gate were slim. More important, a tight race at the turn might send one of the chariots against and over the lip of the wall. Neither horse nor driver would survive such a fall.

The crowd quieted in anticipation of the start, and the moment suspended, stretched out like the city wall before her, thread-thin and taut. Once the trumpet sounded, there would be no turning back. The events of the night before her would take on life, could not be stopped.

The wind rose against her back, the stars poured silver over her head, and she raised a disjointed prayer to the One God.

Give me the only victory with meaning. The safety of my family
.

The starting trumpet blasted, she flicked the reins in reflex, and the city bellowed their excitement. The horses surged and with them the blood in her veins. They were off!

Stars and torches and blazing city streamed past, a torturous tide of wind and light that threatened to sweep her from her mount. Kuri’s chariot nearly kissed hers, his white horses gleaming, heaving, pounding beside her blacks. The night air tore at Tia’s hair combs, stole them from her, and her hair streaked behind in wild release.

The Enlil Gate, too far to be seen, awaited. And she would arrive there first. Thoughts of escape and family fell away, replaced by the intense ache of competition—that unrelenting drive to win that had always fired her spirit.

The leather reins twitched in her hands and the horses’ hooves kicked dust into her eyes. Tia watched the wall ahead, watched Kuri beside her, heard the roar of the crowd below.

Her chest bindings grew damp, then cold in the night wind. Smoky torches and salt burned her eyes.

“Hyah!” She snapped the reins over her team’s backs, urging them faster. The jeweled bracelets she had donned slid along her forearms to the elbow and pinched her skin.

The pounding, pounding of hoofbeats, the rumble of chariot wheels, the huff of animal and her own beat of breath, all combined into a heady mix that tore a shout of glory from her chest. Sweet victory, bitter defeat—it almost mattered not. All that mattered was this moment, to be alive, to be free, to run.

“To run in the paths He has marked brings freedom and glory.”

Like the chariot race held on the wall. Full life, an adventure lived, but within the confines of these stones. To breach the path would be foolish, deadly. But to remain, to remain was to live gloriously.

The scream in her chest turned to laughter, a laughter that swelled in her lungs until they would burst with it, laughter that burned through all her fear like fire through chaff and left her purified. Purified and ready.

The Enlil Gate grew in the distance, like a date palm tree springing unnaturally toward the sky. Kuri still ground along beside her, eyes bulging and teeth bared.

Time to finish this
.

Torches flashed past in swift succession, as though thrust from the underworld and then extinguished. She leaned into the wind, sang out encouragement to her horses, and felt the chariot pull ahead.

She reached the gate before Kuri. Braced her feet outward against the walls. Leaned into the turn. Tighter, tighter. Chariot lifting to one wheel and horses perilously close to oblivion. Shrieks of the crowd. Did they retreat from the wall in fear of horse and chariot and driver plunging over their heads?

Kuri came up hard and fast behind her turn. Her own chariot barely pulled right before his skimmed in the opposite direction. The scrape of wood jarred her courage, sent her heart clawing upward into her throat.

Headed home
.

All that remained was to outpace Kuri for the thirty ashlû back to the Ishtar Gate. Her arms trembled with fatigue, but her grip remained tight.