The Assyrian (66 page)

“And to do this you must win your victory.
But this I can deny you, by the simple device of refusing your
challenge. I can hide in these mountains until the snows drive you
out.”

“And while you hide, I can lay waste this
nation you are making. I can burn villages and fields. I can
slaughter cattle. When the snows come your people will face famine,
and they will blame you—and rightly, for it is a king’s duty to
protect his people. If he cannot, he is not a king.”

“This too is so. Thus we will both profit
from a period of truce.”

“For how long?”

He turned inside himself for a moment,
considering the matter. “Two years.”

“What will have changed by then?”

“By then I will be ready to fight. Then you
will have your victory—or I will have mine.”

“Still, you must buy this truce.”

“Why? It is to the advantage of us both.”

“But more to yours than to mine. If I stay, I
may break your grand alliance, by so simple a device as starving it
to death. No, you must buy this truce, with gold, slaves, and
horses. The men of Ashur do not make war for glory alone, and I
will not go back to my father like a beggar.”

“It shall be as you say, Tiglath Ashur. I
expected no less, since the men of your race are all thieves.
Receive my embassy and they will settle terms with you. We will
meet again, in two years’ time.”

With a suddenness that almost took my breath
away, he wheeled his horse about and rode back to his own
bodyguard. Our meeting was over, and with it my first campaign in
the lands of the Aryan.

. . . . .

The instructions Daiaukka gave to his
emissaries must have stressed a need for haste, because I was less
than five days in coming to terms with them over the payment of
tribute. I was to leave the Zagros with four hundred horses, a like
number of slaves—provisioned for the journey, that I would not have
to feed them at my own expense—and five mina of gold, which was not
a great amount but would be enough to pay my soldiers. I was
content with my plunder, for although Daiaukka did not seem to
realize it, he had ceded me a considerable asset. That wise and
cunning man had made a mistake in the composition of the
slaves.

It is a hard king who will send his own
people into bondage, and the shah of all the Medes had apparently
yielded to sentiment because nearly all of the men and women who
made up my prize were Cimmerians from the north, taken in the
almost constant warfare between these two peoples who were
undistinguishable in appearance and custom, even language, yet who
hated one another with such desperate passion. Thus the Cimmerian
captives regarded us as their liberators. I found among them many
who were willing, indeed eager, to aid my map makers and scribes,
and even to fight beside the soldiers of Ashur. It is a mistake to
part with an enemy who has long been a prisoner in your own
house.

Daiaukka sent me yet one more offering—the
persons of Uksatar, parsua of the Miyaneh tribe, and four of his
tribal elders as acknowledgment of the fault committed when the
villages of Dur Tuqe had been raided. This was the reason given,
but I have no doubt the shah served his own purposes first. Perhaps
he had hit upon this device for ridding himself of some future
challenge to his rule; or perhaps the raids had been carried out
against his wishes and he intended to set an example. Or perhaps
both. In any case, I was to do with these five as I saw fit, which
meant that I was to kill them.

This I did. When our army crossed the border
back into the Land of Ashur, I had all five strangled with
bowstrings—since the manner of their dying could be of consequence
to no one except themselves, I saw no reason to make a spectacle of
it—and then had the corpses impaled

on high stakes and set out so that they faced
east, back to their homeland. I left them there as a warning to any
others of their nation who might think to plunder the lands where
the god’s will was law.

These things were done on the sixth day of
the month of Tisri in the twenty-first year of the reign of the
Lord Sennacherib. On the next day, since it was an unlucky day, the
soldiers rested and kept to their tents, but on the next we began
our march first to Musasir and then home to Amat, where the
citizens met us with thanksgiving on the second day of the month of
Marcheswan, when already at those altitudes the first breath of
snow whitens the night air.

All the garrison buildings were now
completed, remade in stone that would stand to the end of the
world, and the fortress wall was nearly finished. Even the town,
which I had left nothing but a collection of mud hovels, had
increased in size and splendor out of all recognition.

The work had gone well, and for this my slave
Kephalos was quick to take all the credit. He had grown even fatter
in my absence, so since his girth was the one infallible index of
his prosperity, I could only assume he had continued to benefit
from a brisk traffic in bribes.

“You, my lord, have not fared so well on this
campaign,” he said, pulling at his great gleaming beard and shaking
his head with resigned sadness. “This king of the Medes has cheated
you, for such captives as these, unteachable barbarians with clay
in their ears, will not fetch much of a price on the—”

“The captives, most of them, will be
returning to their homes after the winter. They are Cimmerians and
I want friendship with that nation, since they are bitter enemies
with the Medes. Some few—and of their own choice—will serve with us
when we return to settle all questions with Daiaukka.”

We walked in the garden behind his house,
which was only less grand than the palace I had had built for
myself as shaknu of the northern provinces. I could smell the
perfume of frankincense trees and hear the tinkling waters of a
fountain, pleasant sensations after months on campaign.

Kephalos made no protest beyond a slight
groan, as if the silver he would lose in commissions were being cut
from his own flesh.

“Ah, well then, Lord, if it must be, then it
must. At least there are still the horses.”

“The horses go to the army.”

“Dread Lord, this is too much!” he shouted,
stopping to stamp his foot against the flagstone walkway. “I know
that you love to play the rab shaqe, the noble soldier who thinks
only of his duty, but by the great gods, a man who pays no need to
his own interest can be trusted in nothing else. If you must
persist, then at least let me sell the horses to the army—through
such a device we will do almost as well, and your conscience will
be clear.”

“To the army, Kephalos, as the king’s share
in the booty.”

“Then I almost am afraid to ask what you plan
for the five mina of gold.”

“It has already been divided among the
soldiers. Common men will not fight without the hope of
plunder.”

Strangely, there was no protest. I looked
around at him to see if he could be ill, but he was smiling.

“Kephalos, what have you . . ?”

“Soldiers spend plunder on wine and harlots,”
he said, as if explaining some principle of nature. “I have an
arrangement with all the tavern keepers and brothel owners in Amat
whereby I—which is to say, we—receive a fifth part of all the
custom that passes through their hands. This in exchange for
certain. . . let us speak of them as ‘considerations.’ Or, better
yet, let us not speak of them at all, for a wise man does not stir
up the mud at the bottom of his own well. At any rate, Lord, my
sagacity has yet saved us something from your foolishness. Be
thankful that your slaves loves you and concerns himself with the
hard task of preserving you from beggary.”

I did not protest. I only laughed, thinking
that if I ever changed my mind and decided I must be king in the
Land of Ashur, the simplest way would be to have Kephalos buy the
throne for me, since no doubt he was already rich enough to manage
this.

“Have you answered your father’s letters
yet?” he asked, watching me out of the corner of his eye—the
question implied, as if there were any doubt of it, that he knew
their contents.

“No. But I must, soon.”

“And will you go back?”

“It seems I must. He is the king, and it is
his will.”

“But if you refuse, he will understand.”

“No—he is the king and has ordered me home.
He knows I would not flout his will, even if I could.”

“Then, after all this time, you will be
putting your hand back into the lion’s mouth.”

“I know that.”

We walked on in silence. The wind had picked
up and it was no longer such a pleasure to be walking out of
doors.

“Will you go back with me?” I asked. It was
not even a request, but I would have liked his company. Kephalos,
however, shook his head.

“No, Lord. As long as your father lives you
are safe anywhere in the Land of Ashur, but Nineveh is a place
where bad things can befall one who has angered the marsarru. I
will stay here, that the Lord Esarhaddon will not feel tempted to
stain his hands with my blood.”

“I think you wrong him, my friend.”

“Do I?” Kaphalos smiled bleakly. “I think
not, Lord. I think you are blinded by the habits of affection and
see not the truth of what your brother has become. What will happen
to both of us when he is king is not a subject I much love to
ponder.”

. . . . .

The Lord Sennacherib would now accept no
excuse. It was no longer a question of father and son—the king
commanded the presence of his shaknu. On my loyalty as his subject,
I must return to Nineveh.

The evening of my conversation with Kephalos,
two days after my return to Amat, I wrote and made my submission. I
would be in Nineveh to attend upon the king no later than the first
day of the month of Kislef. I could not delay longer.

Then I went into the women’s quarters and
spoke of these things to my mother. She sat quietly, listening, as
was her custom, until I had done.

“Will you take me with you, my son, or shall
I remain here?”

“You will accompany me at least as far as
Three Lions. I think it best you stay there until I see what awaits
me in Nineveh.”

“And what awaits you in Nineveh,
Lathikados?”

“I do not know. Nothing good, I fear. I would
prefer to stay here until the flesh falls from my bones, but the
king will not be denied.”

“He wishes to see his son.” She smiled at me,
as if now all doubts were cleared away. “Why should he not? You are
the pride of his life, and he loves you.”

I did not reply, since there was no reply I
could have made.

“I can be ready in two days,” she went on at
last. “I am an old woman and have little to hold me to one
place.”

“You are not old, Merope, and you are still
beautiful. The king no doubt will think so.”

“The king, without doubt, is past thinking of
any woman’s beauty, my son. But you are not. Shall you take Naiba
with you?”

“Yes—I shall take Naiba with me. You need
have no fear that your son will twice be guilty of the same
folly.”

We said no more of the matter, and
Esharhamat’s name was never mentioned between us.

. . . . .

Esharhamat. I had been away from Nineveh for
almost two years. My life had been full of business. I had taken
another woman to my sleeping mat. Yet had a day passed when
memories of Esharhamat had not stirred in my mind? The thought of
her was like a ghost, visiting silent and unbidden. I was never
free.

She was with child again—I had received
notice of this from my father. The baru predicted a son who would
wear the crown of a great nation, so the prophecy which had kept
her from me seemed fulfilled.

And I was on my way back—if not to
Esharhamat, then to the mud brick walls of Nineveh. Once more would
I drink the waters of the Tigris, mother of rivers. Once more would
I behold her great temples and hear the noise of many tongues in
her streets. I was her son. Yes, I longed to see her again, even if
the sight tore the heart from my breast, for a man cannot walk
forever on unknown paths and not grow a stranger to himself.
Nineveh—how I loved her as I turned my eyes to the road home! How I
will love her while I live, though she become but a name.

Such was the bitter sweetness of my journey,
for a man easily takes pleasure in his own pain, and memory makes
all things precious, even loss.

I left Amat thinking to return within two
months. Kephalos was to carry on with his building projects, and
Lushakin, whom I had promoted to rab abru, commanded the garrison.
The civil government was in the hands of my scribes, who would keep
me informed by riders dispatched three times each month.

The weather was unusually cold when we set
out, but the roads were good and we traveled fast, although our
escort numbered forty men. The wagon for my mother and her women
was hardly any encumbrance. We arrived at Three Lions by the
evening of the twelfth day, in time for us to dine on fresh killed
goat.

“The gods are pleased, Lord. The river has
been kind and we have had fine harvests in your absence.”

“Perhaps the gods would be most pleased if I
stayed away entirely,” I said, but it was not the sort of joke Tahu
Ishtar was disposed to understand, so he made a solemn bow and held
his peace. My overseer had changed hardly at all since our first
meeting, years before, but his son, Qurdi, was now quite grown.

I was not the only one struck by this fact. A
handsome youth will make an impression anywhere, and the night
before, while my mother supervised her women in the ordering of our
house, I had observed that Naiba and he kept exchanging glances
that could not be misinterpreted. This morning, while he
accompanied his father and me on an inspection stroll of the farm
buildings, it seemed that nothing could induce him to raise his
eyes from the dust, as if he already felt the shame of having
dishonored his master’s sleeping mat. It was a situation I found
highly amusing.