The Assyrian (65 page)

“Look here, Rab Shaqe—we’ve found one still
alive and kicking,” a soldier shouted to me. “Look, hardly a mark
on him!”

I went over to see, making my way carefully
across the web of sprawled corpses, and it was true. A Median
cavalryman, his forehead grazed by an arrow, had probably been no
more than stunned by the blow. He was awake now; crouched on the
ground, looking around with fierce, frightened eyes at his captors,
who surrounded him with drawn swords, grinning, looking forward to
the sport of finishing him off.

But, as it happened, I had other plans for
him.

He was a handsome man, and as brave in the
face of death as anyone had a right to expect of him. He was young,
no older than myself, so it was hard for him. Doubtless he had seen
how prisoners were treated among his own people and thought he knew
what to expect.

“Do you understand me?” I asked, in
Aramaic—he looked well born, so there was the chance that some
attention had been paid to his education.

He nodded. Yes, he understood.

“Then look.”

I squatted on the ground beside him and held
my hand up before his eyes so he could see the birthmark across my
palm. He knew then who I was—he recognized the blood star, the mark
of Sargon. I could read all that in his expression.

“When you find your way back,” I said, “go to
your shah and ask him why he thought I would fall into the same
trap twice.”

Never have I seen such fear in a man’s eyes.
He believed, I think, really believed that he had come face to face
with a living ghost. I was not the Lord Tiglath Ashur to him. I was
the wrath of the dead.

I rose and looked about me, seeming not to
care that I was on a field carpeted with corpses.

“Shall we kill him now, Rab Shaqe?” the
soldier asked. I felt almost sorry for him, for he was so looking
forward to it.

“No—find him a horse. He is going home.”

Chapter 24

Thus was born the legend of Sargon’s return
to the Zagros. We unfurled the banner of the blood star and it
waved before us on the standard of the king’s army, just below the
winged disk of Ashur, striking terror into the hearts of our
enemies. I was the old champion reborn. I would avenge him. The
Medes believed all this—may the god forgive me, I half believed it
myself.

For the next month our march followed the
northern slope of the mountains. We accepted the surrender of many
hamlets and towns, taking hostages, horses, food, whatever we
needed. The village people, who are always the prisoners and main
victims of war, sometimes met us with offerings, casting flowers in
my chariot’s path as if I truly were some angry demon whose wrath
could be thus softened. Sometimes their priests tried to drive me
off with strange rites and mantras. I had become a figure of myth,
and it caused a giddiness in my mind such as a man suffers when he
stands at the river’s edge in flood time and feels the dark waters
beckoning to him. It was thus with me, this feeling, like a
sickness, of having trespassed. I addressed prayers to Ashur and to
the sedu of my grandfather, begging forgiveness if this ruse of
mine offended against the divinity of either, but these afforded me
no comfort.

Only twice in that time did the Medes take
the field against us, and only then in small surprise attacks
easily repulsed. They fought bravely, leaving many dead behind
them, but it was as if they were testing us, feeling for some
weakness. And the great, decisive battle never came.

But the days were not wasted. Our scouts
ranged wide, and with them went the map makers and the scribes, who
recorded all they saw and heard. The lands of the Aryan were
becoming something more than simply a great blank emptiness, and
when I returned another day with yet another army—and this I knew I
would do—I would not then be groping my way in the dark.

By the first dawn of the month of Elul we
were within ten days’ march of the city of Ecbatana, the goal I had
set myself, and still the Medes fled before us into the safety of
their mountains. I took no comfort in the ease of these
conquests.

One cannot conquer the land—only nations can
feel the yoke. The land is always the same, no matter who stands on
it, and if I held so and so much territory today, it would revert
to itself the moment I left. And leave I must, for I had no
intention of establishing garrisons where there was nothing to
guard except rocks and grass and crooked little riverbeds that were
dry two thirds of the year. I did not want to own this place. I
wanted only that its inhabitants should never think to leave it for
the rich plains of the Land of Ashur. And to achieve that I had to
give them such a taste of defeat that they would never risk
another. And to achieve that I had somehow to make them fight, for
victory is always a collaboration between the conquered and the
conqueror. But in this they would not oblige me.

We had taken over a village that was well
placed for watching the approaches of Ecbatana. Its inhabitants had
already deserted it by the time we arrived; in a few of the houses
the embers from the cooking fires were still warm. Here my officers
and I began drawing up the final plans for our assault on the city,
the capital of Ellipi, whose “kings” had already made their
submission to Sargon in the last reign and who would therefore be
regarded as traitors. It would be a costly triumph and by no means
a decisive one, for what is a city after all except brick and
stone?

It was here that I received the report that a
sentry had seen a lone rider approaching the village, and that he
carried a banner of truce.

“Let him pass,” I ordered. What harm could he
do?

Within two hours I found the Uqukadi noble
called Upash bowing before me like a carpet peddler.

“Blessings on you, Mighty Conqueror, before
whom all the world. . .”

“Yes—very well,” I answered, gesturing to him
to rise, for such servility filled me with impatience and a gnawing
suspicion that this oily savage was trying to make a fool of me.
“What have you come here to say, barbarian?”

If he was discomfited by this reception he
gave no sign, but fell back at once into the attitude of amused
contempt he had shown me at our first meeting, five years before.
His hand went up to secure the leather cap that fitted so tightly
over his close-cropped hair, and he smiled.

“I bear a message from Daiaukka, shah of all
the Medes. He would parley with you, Lord.”

“There can be no objection to this. I will
grant him safe passage if he wishes to come to me here.”

“Alone, Lord—and in some place of safety. He
trusts you no more than you do him.”

I shrugged my shoulders, having expected
nothing less.

“Very well, then. Let him meet me tomorrow,
one hour after midday, on the plain half a day’s ride north from
this village. I will carry no weapon and will bring an escort of
twenty men. Let him keep to the same terms, and I will speak with
him—alone.”

“‘To this he will agree. And now—if we might
have a private word?”

He glanced around at my officers, as if his
meaning had not been clear enough, and I dismissed them and then
sat down on the room’s only chair, drawing my sword from its
scabbard and laying it on the table before me lest my visitor
harbor any ambitions concerning revenge.

“You misjudge me, Prince,” he said, his eyes
fastened on the sword as if to measure its length. “I am not your
enemy.”

“You are my enemy—men like you are every
man’s enemy.”

“Perhaps. I have lived long enough, Young
Lord, to have lost most of my illusions and, in any case, men with
high ideals are rarely useful to conquerors.”

He smiled, as if we had already reached an
understanding.

“Then you have come, I take it, to sell me
your present protectors like so many baskets of dates?”

“What loyalty could I owe to the Medes,
Lord?” He made a gesture with his left hand that seemed to dismiss
the very possibility of such an idea. “Please remember that I have
seen you make war before and I know that you will be the victor
here, not Daiaukku—now or later, it must happen. A man may be
allowed to be practical.”

“Very well, then. Tell me what you want and
what you can offer in exchange.”

We struck our bargain, then and there. I did
not like this man and had no reason to trust him, but, yes, I would
make him great in the lands of the Aryan. And for this he would be
my eyes and ears in the councils of Daiaukka’s nobles. He would
tell me the numbers of horsemen and foot soldiers commanded by each
of the parsua of the Median tribes, of the limits of their
loyalties, of the jealousies among them, and the weaknesses of
each. He would play the perfect traitor. He would make himself very
useful, for a conqueror rules not through men’s virtues but through
their defects. Nevertheless, I did not like this man.

“And what of this meeting? What does Daiaukka
want? Is it a trap?”

“It is not that, Lord, for Daiaukka has said
that it is not and these people never tarnish themselves with lies.
Perhaps he hopes for an honorable peace.”

That I did not believe. But Daiaukka had been
right not to open his mind to this man, so perhaps he was wise. I
would know soon enough.

. . . . .

Daiaukka, shah of all the Medes, rode a fine
black horse that stood at least two spans higher at the shoulder
than that of any of his companions. This horse, as I had been told,
was his single indulgence, for his was a nature of the most perfect
integrity, possessed of neither avarice nor greed nor fear. He
never lied but still contrived to be as cunning as an adder. Both
cruelty and pity were unknown to him, since both only deflect a man
from his purpose, and his will was as unbending as granite. It was
his will that the Medes should be a great nation, as his father
Ukshatar, who had died in exile, had envisioned them, and that he
should be their master. It was his will that the Medes should one
day be masters of the world, the inheritors of the race of Ashur,
whom he regarded with unconcealed contempt.

As I watched him across those two hundred
paces of whispering grass, noting the skill with which he managed
his skittish, high spirited horse and the graceful economy of his
every gesture, I began to realize that this was probably the most
dangerous enemy a man could have. I respected and admired him, and
hoped that he might die here, in his own mountains, and by my hand.
It was my prayer to Holy Ashur that he might spare the world from
the purity of men like Daiaukka, shah of all the Medes.

“It could be a trick,” Lushakin murmured—he
had insisted on leading my bodyguard, saying that a foolish prince
needed a wise rogue to watch his back.

“It is not a trick, for he has given his
word.”

“Then be not yourself so scrupulous. Take
your javelin and, as soon as he comes within range, plant it in his
belly like a garden stake. He is all that holds their confederation
together—kill him and the Medes will quickly fall to quarreling
among themselves again.”

“Until another rises to take his place.
Besides, Lushakin, I too have given my word.”

“All you high born nobles have mud for
brains.”

I laughed, and pricked my horse forward,
leaving Lushakin and his hand-picked escort of quradu behind.
Daiaukka met me in the center of the plain.

For a moment neither of us spoke. Our mounts
sniffed at each other nervously, as if they understood the
antagonism existing between our races, while shah and rab shaqe
took each other’s measure. It was an interesting silence.

Daiaukka was then perhaps thirty years old,
but for full half his life he had been at war, rebuilding the
alliances that had fallen apart after his father’s banishment, and
every day of that long struggle showed in his face, which was as
brown and weathered as his old leather coat. He seemed ageless,
almost indifferent. If he had ever laughed, or even smiled, there
was no evidence of it. Only the restless black eyes revealed the
man behind the mask.

“You are Tiglath Ashur,” he said finally, as
if the information would be new to me. “You are named for your
unclean god, and your father is king in the western lands, where
demons are worshiped. You see—I know you are not a spirit but a man
like other men.”

“And you are Daiaukka, shah of the
barbarians, whose father my grandfather sent into exile. Perhaps
now, if we are finished with insulting one another, you will tell
me what you wish.”

“Peace.”

“The price of peace is submission.”

“A truce, then.”

“Even a truce must be paid for.”

“You plan to take the city of Ecbatana,” he
said, glancing up at the horizon beyond my left shoulder. He seemed
almost not to have been listening to our conversation. “It will be
defended. Its loss, and the loss of the men who will die trying to
hold it, will not cripple me, but such a siege, even if it is
successful, would be expensive for an army such as yours—far from
home and surrounded by enemies. We must both decide which is
cheaper, war or truce.”

“I did not come here to sneak away
again.”

“No, you came here to win a great victory
over us—why, I wonder. Not because a few fools raided three or four
of your villages.”

“No, not because of that.”

“Why, then?”

He seemed genuinely interested. The restless
black eyes settled on my face, narrowing with attention. And there
was no harm in our understanding one another.

“Because, if they go unchecked, it will not
be long before the Medes begin to look with longing at the rich
lands where Ashur is king.”

“Yes—this is so.” He nodded, as if we spoke
of indifferent things, thus making a deception even of the
truth.

“And I would put an end to all such
ambitions.”