The Assyrian (41 page)

“Get out.”

Esarhaddon glared around him, and the
laughter ceased at once.

“Get out. Leave us—now!”

Like a covey of startled quail, they
scattered in all directions. Esarhaddon and I were quite suddenly
alone.

“Then my mother’s oracles were right,” he
said.

“Yes, Lord. They were right.”

Lord. I saw the way my brother’s face changed
when he heard me call him that—the word seemed to come as a
disagreeable shock.

“The king. . . he sent you to tell me?”

I shook my head, struggling to seem blank, a
mere messenger. There was now so much I could never say to
Esarhaddon, whom I loved, who could never be quite my friend
again.

“The king will be brought to see things as
they must be seen,” I said, not looking my brother too directly in
the face. “The summons will come and with his own hand he will lead
you to the house of succession, but—and be guided in this—you must
give him time. Stay within the walls of your house, seeing no one,
until he sends for you.”

He watched me through narrowed eyes, as if
half suspecting some treachery, but at last Esarhaddon nodded.

“What you say is wise, Tiglath. It shall be
as you advise. And now—come, sit down by me and take a cup of wine,
like a brother. Or have you learned so quickly how not to love
me?”

There was that in his voice to tell me how I
would have wounded him had I denied his wish, so I did as he asked,
letting him fill my cup, although I thought I might choke on
it.

“It cannot be as it was between us,” I said
finally. “You will be king in the Land of Ashur, and I will be your
subject. It is best if we both understand as much, Esarhaddon. And
there are other reasons as well.”

“You mean, of course, the Lady
Esharhamat.”

“I will never see her again. She will be your
wife and give you sons to follow you.”

“Tiglath, my brother, for all I care you may
have her and welcome. By the sixty great gods, I give her to you!”
He put his hand on my arm, gripping me with strong fingers as if
this were something we could settle between us.

“Would that it were so easy, brother.”

“Then I will make it up to you—see if I
don’t. I will give you back like for like, double, triple! You may
have Leah, and the Egyptian sisters—the pick of my women. Only
leave me the Babylonian twins, I beg you. A man must have some
pleasure in his life.”

And the touching thing was that he meant it,
every word. I knew then I could never make him understand. I could
only shake my head.

“I will leave Nineveh tonight,” I said. “I go
to the north to make war on the mountain tribes. It is better
thus.”

Esarhaddon withdrew his hand from my arm.

“I think you are jealous, Tiglath—jealous and
spiteful. The very command I had asked for. I, who never wanted
more. What he withholds from me, he gives to you with an open
hand!”

“You had Sumer.”

“Sumer!” His face wrinkled with disgust. “I
was a herder of sheep in Sumer—a man could die from lack of
exercise ruling in Sumer. The king gives you this command only to
show his contempt for me.”

“He gives me this command because I asked for
it”

“Then it is you who despises me.”

“You know that is a lie.”

For a moment, while he seemed ready to rise
from his seat and strike out, I thought all friendship might be
over between us. But then, the struggle within him over, Esarhaddon
grew calm.

“Yes, I know it.”

“Things have not turned out as we would have
wished—that is all.”

“Yes. That is the way of it.” He peered into
his wine cup as if looking for something. “Do you suppose this
could be the mongoose’s alu working itself out?”

I did not know what answer to make, so I said
nothing.

For a long time we sat together in
silence.

“When do you leave? Tonight?” Esarhaddon
asked finally, as if of a thing which had slipped his mind.

“Yes, tonight.”

“Then you will miss the ceremony of my
elevation—I am sorry for that. But perhaps it would give you scant
pleasure.”

“I would see that, brother, with an easy
heart and gladly. But I would not be present at your marriage.”

“Women—they are a curse.” He shook his head,
vexed, it seemed, by this insoluble difficulty. “You are sure you
would not take a few of mine? Not even Leah?”

I could not answer him—in such matters my
brother’s head was filled with mud. I rose from the table. He rose
with me and, when I tried once more to bow, took me in his arms and
embraced me. He knew as well as I that, in some sense, we were
parting forever.

In the hallway that led to the front
entrance, that door on which in less than an hour the people of
Nineveh would vent their wrath, where now a bustle of ambitious men
was already gathering, I met Naq’ia.

“Then you have not come to murder my son,
Tiglath Ashur?” she asked, smiling at her own witticism—she was
radiant with triumph. I could not help thinking that she looked
like a cat playing with a crippled mouse.

“No, Lady. He is my brother and my lord.”

“But now, I gather, no longer your
friend?”

“May a king have friends, Lady? If he may,
then I am still his friend.”

“Your behavior is all that it should be,
Tiglath,” she said, holding out her hand to me. “But that was ever
so. I congratulate you on the steady nobility of your
character.”

I knew she was mocking me, but I took her
hand and touched it with my forehead, for she was now the mother of
the future king and deserved this show of respect. But in my heart
I hated her.

I looked around at the men who watched us
from the walls, not daring to venture too close—yes, of course,
they all knew. The whole city knew by then. But Naq’ia had always
known. I could see that in her face.

“The god’s will has been accomplished,” she
said, as if in answer to the question which had hardly shaped
itself in my mind.

Yes, of course. She had always known
precisely how it would end. I could not help but ask myself how
that could be, but the answer was not something I really desired to
know—I had a sense, even then, that such knowledge as this it would
be a blessing never to possess.

On my way home, as I passed through the house
of war, I stopped by the barrack of the quradu and found Lushakin,
my old ekalli.

“Have you the stomach for another
campaign?”

He regarded me for a moment, scratching the
chin of his beard absentmindedly. Like everyone else, he had heard
the rumors.

“Against whom do we fight?” he asked—it was
not such an impertinent question. “If it be not against the king, I
am your man, Prince, even into the mouth of death.”

“No, Lushakin, my old comrade, I do not
invite you to civil war. My brother Esarhaddon will not lose his
chance at the throne by any action of mine.”

“Then it is true, Prince, that you will not
be marsarru?”

“The god has chosen elsewhere.”

Lushakin was not a fool, so he said nothing.
But the way he wrinkled his face suggested clearly enough that he
might favor another explanation just as well.

“What would you have me do?”

“Just this—gather twenty men who are weary of
peace. Tell them to make ready to leave tonight, but say nothing of
me. The city is uneasy enough—I would slip away and have no man
know of it. Tell them we will make war against the tribes of the
northern mountains, but nothing else.”

“It shall be as you say, Prince.”

I had but one more thing to do, and I would
be free of all entanglements—as free as if I were dead.

I had not slept since my interview with the
king, but I cannot really account for my state of mind on that day
by reference to the lack of a night’s sleep. Everything had taken
on a peculiar air of unreality—this was no longer my life that I
was living. It was as if all these things were happening to someone
else, and I was merely the helpless witness. Or, perhaps more
accurately, it was like one of those nightmares in which one knows,
even while it is going on, that one is dreaming, that it is, after
all, only a nightmare.

“Presently I will wake up,” I kept thinking.
“I will wake up and find myself in my own bed. I will be six years
old again and safe in my mother’s room in the house of women. My
life cannot possibly have come to this.”

The house on the Street of Nergal looked
dead, like a long neglected tomb. Had it really been only yesterday
that I had seen Esharhamat here, had held her in my arms, full of
hope? It seemed impossible. No one had entered this dwelling in
centuries. The room that held our bed

was like the scene of some terrible
misfortune, the memory of which hangs over it as a kind of curse so
that people shun that spot and allow it to fall into decay.

“I will be here,” I had told her, “even if I
die for it.” “I will never see her again,” I had told Esarhaddon.
Both of these seemed to involve an absolute moral claim—I could not
but have made both promises, and yet each seemed to exclude the
other. I sat down on the edge of the bed, overwhelmed, my head
throbbing, my breast feeling as if it might explode. For some
reason I had left my javelin at home, and it was just as well. At
that moment, in the extremity of my despair, I might have used it
to tear open my heart.

Faintly, as things happening at a great
distance, I could hear the noises from the street below my window,
from the street beyond that street, from that quarter, from the
whole city. The life of Nineveh went on, precisely as if I did not
exist—as if it did not matter that Tiglath Ashur must lose the
sweetness of his own life. As if that life had never been
lived.

I have no notion how long I sat there like
that. Or, at least, notions of time did not seem to enter into it.
And then, quite unexpectedly, came the sound of a tiny hand rapping
on the door in the wall this house shared with the one behind it.
Tap, tap, tap. A pause. Tap, tap, tap.

“Tiglath, are you there?” came her voice at
last.

I tried to speak. I opened my mouth and then
closed it again, unable to utter a sound. I could not even rise
from the bed—it was as if all power over my body had left me.

“Tiglath, answer me. I know you are there.
Let me in.”

Silence. Then the sound of her fist beating
on the door, louder this time.

“Tiglath, let me in. Tiglath!”

I waited. I could not seem to breathe. “What
if she went away?” I kept thinking. I would never hear that voice
again. She would be lost to me forever. And yet I could not
answer.

Now, as if in a fury, she pounded against the
door—as if she wanted to break it down. I could see how it shook on
its leather hinges as she kicked at the base with her sandaled
feet.

“Tiglath—TigLATH! I know you are there—you
would not have stayed away, not when you promised. Can you not see
that we have both been tricked? Let me in, let me in, let me in,
let-me-in, in, in, in, in!”

The words tumbled together until they were no
longer words. She was only sobbing now, and I could tell from the
sound that she must have been kneeling in front of the door. She
sobbed and sobbed, pounding on the rough wood hard enough to make
her hands bleed. Finally, she had discovered her helplessness. Like
a captured bird beating its soft wings against the bars of its
cage, until the wings break and the heart bursts. . .

And then she stopped, and the only sound I
could hear was that of her weeping, a low wail, like that of an
exhausted child. And then nothing—a blank, an emptiness.

In a long life a man does many things the
memory of which afflicts him with remorse. All the acts of spite or
cruelty or cowardice collect in the soul like the tiny cracks one
sees in the glaze of an old pot. I have committed many wicked and
craven acts in my time on this earth, but none which fills me with
more shame than my silence while Esharhamat cried out to me to be
admitted one last time into my embrace. I was simply afraid, and
that fear was more terrible than the fear of pain or even death. I
could not have borne my life another instant if I had seen her—not
when I knew I would never see her again—and I had not the courage
to tell her so. The sound of her weeping beyond the door, that was
my last link with our love. I could only listen, helpless, and pray
she would not leave me in darkness too soon.

At last I could hear her rising from her
knees. I could hear the soft sound of her hands against the door as
she steadied herself against it. Would she leave now? Could I stop
her? Had I even courage enough left to try?

Her voice, when she spoke again, was calm.
There was still the rasp of tears in it, but it was calm enough. It
was cold, like spring water in winter, filled with ragged ice.

“Tiglath, I know you can hear me,” she said,
seeming to measure each word. “I know you have turned your back on
me now, and I do not forgive you. I know you love me, and I would
gladly have died to hear you say it one last time, but now I hope
your love is a curse to you. I hope it haunts you until you die, as
it will haunt me. I hope it drives you mad.”

“Try to understand,” I thought. “Try, my
love, try to see that I am without choice or will. Try, try to
understand.” But she would not even wish to understand. Why should
she? She was right to hate me for this betrayal.

“I will marry Esarhaddon,” she went on. “I
will give him the sons a king must have, and I will try to find
pleasure in his bed—not love, for all love is dead within me, but
pleasure if I can. Remember, all your life, each night, that I will
be in Esarhaddon’s bed in the house of succession. It will be his
arms around me, not yours—not yours. It will be. . .”

That was the end, except for the sound of her
footsteps as she ran away. When I knew she was gone, then—only
then—could I bury my head in my hands and weep.