The Assyrian (39 page)

“You did well,” he said, his eyes idly
searching the horizon—it is a habit which is common enough in old
commanders. “There will be other journeys, and these, I think, the
king can trust you to make on your own. The nation is like a bride
and must accustom herself to the sight of the husband her father
has chosen for her.”

“But Ashur has not chosen, has he? Not
yet?”

“No, but the king has chosen.”

“I thought you favored Esarhaddon and the
orderly succession.”

“I favor the king’s will, Tiglath.” He turned
to me and showed his teeth in a weary smile—the lines about his
eyes and mouth were like scars. “And, on reflection, I agree with
him that you will sit easier on the throne than your brother. But
the god will have his way in this, for all that the king or I may
ponder it, and, as you say, the god has not chosen. Not yet.”

He glanced back over his shoulder, but the
soldiers of our escort were riding some twenty paces behind us, so
we might as well have been alone.

“The king listens to women,” he went on at
last. “Women, when they wish a thing, sometimes cause a man to
imagine he has the power to make all happen according to his
will.”

“But the woman in this case—and I assume you
refer to the Lady Naq’ia—wishes by all means that I not succeed my
father.”

“Yes, what you say is true. But the effect is
nonetheless the same, for she fosters in him the belief that this
will be resolved, one way or the other, by some choice of his. That
is the danger. And, of course, there are other voices besides that
of the Lady Naq’ia. The Lady Shaditu, you have no doubt observed,
strives with all her considerable power to ingratiate herself with
those of the blood.”

From the tone of his voice, and the rather
pointed way in which he seemed to look at nothing, I was left in no
doubt about his meaning. What had he heard? What rumor could have
reached him? The turtanu saw into everything, so what chance had
Shaditu of hiding her conduct from his eyes? Still, of my own
involvement. . .

“Lord, I have had no such commerce with my
sister.”

He turned to face me, twisting about on his
mount, and his expression registered genuine surprise.

“No, Tiglath,” he said, “it was not of you I.
. . It is perhaps best if you forget I spoke at all.”

“As you will, Lord.”

We rode in silence for several minutes. There
was no sound save that of stone hardened hoofs against the bare
ground. And then, all at once, as if to announce the conclusion of
some inner dialogue, the Lord Sinahiusur cleared his throat.

“Nevertheless,” he said, reaching across to
put his hand upon my arm—his eyes were dark and serious, like those
of a man who has discarded his illusions one by one. “Nevertheless,
it would be well, I think, if in the next reign the Lady Shaditu
were put to death.”

. . . . .

The Lord Sinahiusur was right when he said
there would be other journeys. I went to Calah, to Arbela, to
Arrapha, and Balawat. I worshiped at their shrines and ate at the
tables of their great men. I visited the garrisons at Zakho and
Aqra and Hajiya. I listened to soldiers’ stories and told lies of
my own. And everywhere I was treated as the king’s heir and
favorite and men loved me because they saw it was my father’s will
that they should.

And the envoys of foreign kings came to me
and I spoke to them such words as they desired most to hear, how I
would protect them from their enemies, how I held their masters to
my heart as I might my own brother. These, of course, they did not
believe, so I bribed them with gold and silver, and they sent
letters home speaking of me as one who must be accorded honor.

Nor did I neglect the Lord Sennacherib’s
great capital of Nineveh, my home since boyhood, though it had
become little more than a place where I stopped, now and then, to
wash my face in cold water. In Nineveh there was wealth, which was
a power I had learned not to despise, so I courted the great
merchants, who lived like lords, and the traders and the lenders of
money—though not directly, for that would have been unseemly in a
prince of the blood.

Thus I sent for my slave Kephalos, saying,
“The men of substance in all the Lands of Ashur, the men of other
lands who dwell here in the city and deal in metal and wood and all
precious things, to these you are no stranger. Speak to them for
me. Say I wish them well, for they make the land flourish. Tell
them I mean to bring peace and order with me when I come to the
throne.”

But Kephalos pulled at his beard and
frowned.

“Master, what if you do not come to the
throne after all? Will not then your brother the Lord Esarhaddon
remember that my voice spoke for you in the bazaars? He loves you,
as you say, but he does not love me!”

“Then would it not be safer to help me to be
king?”

At last he agreed, and he did not stop at a
few words in the ears of rich foreigners but sent out storytellers,
hired with his own money, to make the common people marvel at the
glory of my deeds. For Kephalos understood his own interests and
was ever my friend.

Thus I worked, and dreamed of becoming
marsarru—not from the desire to be king but because I loved
Esharhamat, who must be the next king’s wife. And because I had
convinced myself that I followed the god’s will.

I hardly saw Esharhamat in those days, but
she registered no complaint for she understood what I was about. We
loved each other and tried to wait in patience, believing that
patience was all that was required to make us happy. Many times it
entered my mind that if I were to ask the king for her hand he
would very probably not have refused—he would no doubt think it a
wise stroke of policy, to make my selection seem all the more
inevitable. The king was no obstacle now. Yet I did not ask. I kept
remembering the Lord Sinahiusur’s words: “But the god will have his
way in this, for all the king and I may ponder it.” Like a pious
man, or a coward, I hesitated to tempt the hand of heaven. I did
not ask. And Esharhamat and I met furtively when we could at the
house on the Street of Nergal, as if in shame, as if already she
were another man’s wife and we guilty lovers who feared to be taken
in adultery.

And all this time the god kept his own
counsel—or spoke in riddles. This I learned from the priest Kalbi,
an honest fool who had never learned to let his tongue be guided by
the times and could thus be trusted. Of course it was his fate that
none listened who had a hand to turn aside his unhappy prophecies.
This is how the gods jest with us, by dressing truth as folly.

Kalbi visited me only once. I never saw him
again, but the impression he left with me has endured from that day
to this. He was a strange little man—short, sudden in his
movements, with unkempt appearance and eyes that bulged out of
their sockets as if they were being pushed from behind. His father
had been Nergaletir, chief baru in Great Sargon’s time, and he was
descended from the true line of prophets and seers.

It was in the month of Siwan, when the floods
were subsiding and the land was coming to life again under the hot
sun. He came to me at my palace in Nineveh, where my servants
brought me word of him upon my return from a day of hunting with
the king. I was tired and not in patience to listen to the chatter
of priests, but it would not have done to send away one to whose
family the gods had entrusted their confidences for a thousand
years. So I sent him word that I would see him as soon as I had
washed myself, and my servants showed him into my presence at the
evening meal.

“My apologies for making you wait, Honored
Priest. Please—come, sit. Do me the kindness of dining with
me.”

But Kalbi stood his ground in the center of
the floor, bent slightly forward at the waist, his right hand
plucking violently at his tunic while his protruding eyes blinked
with painful intensity, as if he were warding off a blow.

“I—have not come to dine, Lord. I thank you,
no.”

“Then at least sit. Take a cup of wine, at
least. No? Nothing?”

But he would not move. He seemed rooted to
the spot—or perhaps merely determined to be rude. I could not
tell.

“I am not accustomed to the usages of
princes, Lord.”

He waited in silence, expectant, almost
tranquil, as if this should be answer enough. But my servants too
were waiting, and the meal my house steward had put before me was
doubtless growing cold, so I decided I would not starve to death
merely on a point of etiquette and began eating.

“Then I wonder what could have enforced this
visit upon you,” I said at last, smiling none too kindly—the man
was beginning to make me feel uneasy.

“I come bearing messages,” he said,
apparently relieved that the subject should at last have been
mentioned. “Strange and contradictory messages—riddles, in fact. I
am at a loss to untangle them. Lord, and wondered if you might
know. . .”

“I?” I allowed myself to laugh, although I
felt very little in a humor for jests. “I have no skill in these
things. Why would you have come to me?”

“Perhaps because you are most closely
concerned, Lord. It is said by many that you will be the next
king.”

“By many, but not, I take it, by the
god?”

“No, Lord.” He shook his head. The blinking
had by now achieved a mechanical regularity and seemed to jolt his
head, as if his eyelids were boxes being slammed shut and the sound
startled him. “I have asked the god many times. I have prayed to
him to know; but he keeps your simtu hidden.”

“But he speaks to you of other matters?”

“Yes—two. The reign of darkness that is to
come, and the black bird which circles over the Lord
Esarhaddon.”

I pushed the plate from me, for suddenly I
had lost all hunger.

“Take care, Priest. The Lord Esarhaddon is a
fine soldier who is not to be insulted. He is also my brother, whom
I love, so take care what you say of him.”

“It is not what I say which matters, Lord,
but the god. The god does not favor him but puts him under a bad
sign. The Lord Esarhaddon will never reign with the god’s
blessing.”

“Then he will never reign.” I took a sip of
wine, feigning a calm I did not feel.

“Then why, Lord, does the god show me a
valley of shadow which is to come? There will be evil times ahead
for the Land of Ashur—this I know.”

And Kalbi spoke of omens, of children who had
been born with the organs of both men and women, of tremors of the
earth, of black clouds hiding the peaks of sacred mountains, of the
deaths of stars, of sightings, in the west, of the moon dripping
blood.

“There is a woman, Lord, in the temple of
Ishtar, who falls into a trance that the Sacred Lady may use her
tongue. She is an old woman who has lived within those precincts
since girlhood, and the goddess has borrowed her voice only four
times before. Last night was the fifth.

“But the goddess hides the truth—did I not
speak of riddles. Lord? She puts a question: ‘Why must the blood
star go down beyond the western waters, to rise again, and then to
eclipse forever that the land may wither under the sun?’ It
occurred to me that you might know the answer, Tiglath Ashur, since
the god has marked your body with the sign of a blood star.”

“I know no answers. Leave me now,
Priest—leave me, for you trouble my mind.”

“One question more, Lord, and then I will
leave you. Is there one known to you who is blind and yet
sees?”

“What do you. . . ?” I stood up so quickly
that the table before me jumped away, sending my wine cup
clattering to the floor. “What do you know of him? I. . .”

“Nothing, Lord. I, nothing. It is said that
there is a blind maxxu who comes to you. What does he tell you,
Lord? Does he speak of a dark time?”

“I know nothing of such a person. He has
never spoken to me.”

We stared at each other across the empty air.
The wine was spattered over the floor like blood—I could not seem
to take my eyes from it.

“Then good night to you. Lord.”

He was gone. I glanced up to speak to him but
he was already gone.

. . . . .

Thus I had many things to occupy my mind
while I traveled in the king’s name and waited with the whole
nation for the god to make known his will. It was in the month of
Ab that the oracles were to be read, and as the season approached I
received a letter from Esarhaddon announcing that he planned to
return to the city for the occasion, bringing his mother with him—I
fancy it was rather the other way about, since nothing could have
kept Naq’ia from Nineveh at such a time.

The day he arrived was the hottest of that
summer—the very bricks of the city wall bubbled in the sun like
roasted fat. I did not envy my brother his journey, for in Sumer
the heat could only have been worse, but when I visited him at his
palace it was not the discomforts of travel which occupied his
mind.

I found him sitting in his garden, under such
shade as a sickly olive tree might offer, afraid to go inside and,
already then, at hardly an hour past noon, too drunk even to
remember to cover his head.

“Come into your own rooms,” I said, standing
over him—he looked up at me with wide, anxious eyes, as if he
couldn’t remember who I was. “Come, brother. In this heat, and with
such a quantity of wine in your belly, you are likely to have a
stroke.”

He shook his head and then dropped his gaze
to his feet.

“By the great gods, Tiglath, I might count it
as a blessing if I were to die quietly in my own garden. It is
terrible, terrible. The worst of misfortunes. I fear I am doomed to
live a blighted life if this alu cannot somehow be turned
aside.

I took the wine jar from between his hands
and sat down beside him.

“What misfortune?”