The Assyrian (71 page)

“And what would those reasons be, my Lord
Marsarru?”

The king waited for an answer, watching his
heir through narrow, speculative eyes.

“I think he prepares for the day when a new
king will reign in Nineveh. I think he plans himself to be that
king.”

Esarhaddon folded his arms over his chest and
turned his gaze to me. I have found you out, his eyes said. You
think you have been so clever, but your intrigues have been known
to me from the start.

“If that is what my brother believes, I have
a very simple answer.” I smiled at him—in that moment my love for
him was dead. “Let him take command of this army himself. Let it be
his weapon, and not mine—he is an able soldier and no doubt will
win his victory. Let the glory of conquest be his and not
mine.”

“So that you may remain behind in the capital
and plot with my enemies? Tiglath, do you think I am such a
fool?”

“I prepare an army in the north to rob you of
your inheritance,” I said, shaking my head in derision. “I also
wish to stay in Nineveh and rob you of your inheritance. Make up
your mind, Esarhaddon—which is it to be? You must settle for
yourself what form my treachery is to take.”

The king laughed, and when my brother tried
to make some response, he waved him into silence.

“Now, let us speak of serious matters,” the
king said. “You say, Tiglath, that you can stop the Medes for a
generation. And then they will return again?”

“Yes, Dread Lord. When they have found
another king to make them forget the might of Ashur.”

“Yes—it is just so.” He shook his head in
sadness. “I have been to the edge of the Northern Sea, in the days
of my youth, when I made war upon the Hebrews and the cities of
Tyre and Sidon. I have seen the waves of that sea lapping the
shore—they advance and fall back, just so. And each wave is
mightier than the one before, until the ninth and last. This
Daiaukka, who calls himself a king, he is not then the ninth
wave?”

“No, Lord. His father was perhaps the first,
and he is only the second.”

“Then purchase for us what time you can,
Tiglath my son. I am glad that I am an old man, that I will not be
troubled again.”

At these words Esarhaddon rose and walked
off, not looking at either of us. The king did not even try to stop
him.

“Would you do such a thing?” he asked at
last. “Would you make war on the Lord Donkey to reign in his
place?”

“No.”

“It is a great pity. You would have been the
better king, but we cannot always see into the god’s plans for us.
I hate to think what will happen after I am dead.”

He passed his hand over his beard, now more
than half gray, and stared out at his garden, but with eyes that
seemed to see nothing. Or did he see the times that would follow
his own? I know not.

“You will have your great war against the
Medes,” he said at last. “But I think it will be the last gift you
will receive from my hands. I am old and tired. My strength leaves
me, almost from day to day, and I cannot stand against Esarhaddon
alone.”

“Alone, Dread Lord?”

“Yes.” He looked at me, and suddenly his
expression changed. “Or didn’t you know? My brother, the Lord
Sinahiusur, is dying.”

“No—I did not know. I knew he was ill, but. .
.”

“Yes, dying. Go and see him, my boy, for he
was always your friend.”

. . . . .

As I waited in the reception hall of my
uncle’s palace, I was impressed by the quiet. There were many
persons come to pay their respects to the turtanu—most, no doubt,
hoping to beg a final favor—but no one spoke. It was as if they all
were expecting someone to arrive at any time and wished to be sure
that they did not miss his entrance.

“May it not come for me like this,” I
thought. “May I find my simtu in the heat of war. May it come when
I expect it least.”

“The Lord Sinahiusur wishes to see you now,”
his chamberlain said, almost whispering the words into my ear. “If
you will but come with me, Prince.”

Men followed me with their eyes as we left
the great hall. How many of them, I wonder, were foolish enough to
envy me?

The bedroom was remarkably small and sparse,
with no furniture beyond a few cedar chests. Even as he waited for
his final rest, the Lord Sinahiusur, the king’s turtanu, lay on the
floor on an ordinary sleeping mat. I sat down beside him and he
took my hand in his—I was astonished by the weakness of his grasp.
His illness, it seemed, had worn him away, for the bones in his
face showed quite clearly under the skin.

But his voice, when he spoke, was still
strong.

“You have seen the king,” he said. “Does he
give his approval to your war against the Medes?”

“Yes, Lord—it seems I am to be a
conqueror.”

He did not return my smile, but perhaps he
saw beyond my poor joke.

“Yes. A conqueror.” He closed his eyes for a
moment, and then, seeming to focus all his will on the task,
reopened them. “Esarhaddon, too, in his time, will be a conqueror.
I wonder how that will bode for the Land of Ashur.”

“Do you think I do wrong, Lord?”

“Wrong? No. But it no longer matters what I
think—neither I nor the king is important now. Even he knows that.
Esarhaddon and you must settle the future between yourselves.”

I made ready to speak, to say that he would
doubtless recover and live many years yet, but I did not. What
would be gained by lying to him when he would know it was a lie?
The consciousness of death was in his face. He did not even seem to
care.

“The physicians, when I am dead, will open me
up to satisfy themselves that I have not been poisoned.” He smiled,
as if at the foolishness of children. They will find my belly full
of corruption, for it is not by the hand of any mortal enemy I die.
I wonder how I have offended against the god that he visits this
end upon me.”

“You are a pious man. Lord—there can be no
sin on your head.”

“You think not?” he asked, squeezing my hand.
“Perhaps, but I am not easy. We have all gone very wrong somewhere,
Tiglath. Yet I cannot seem to discover where. I think it possible
the diviners fill us with false hope. Perhaps we sin to imagine we
can know the god’s will.”

We sat in silence for a long moment while, it
seemed, the lord turtanu reviewed the twisting course of his life.
He still held my hand, but I had the impression that he had
forgotten I was there with him. It was as if he had taken a moment
out of our visit to continue his long dying, and that this was a
thing he was obliged to do alone.

“I had thought to see you sooner,” he said
finally, almost startling me awake. “But then you left the city so
suddenly—no, you need not explain. Like everyone else, I have my
spies and know the reason. What will you do, Tiglath my boy? What
will you do?”

“Do, Lord? What can I do?”

“The god alone knows that.”

“Yet he is silent.” I shook my head,
wondering how we had come to this subject. “He keeps his purposes
hidden, that we must grope in the darkness of our own wills.”

“Yes—hidden. In this, in so much. But is it
not all one, Tiglath? Is not life a seamless garment? You must come
again.”

“Yes, Lord. Whenever you wish it.”

I pitied him—yet only because he was dying. I
did not understand then what perhaps he had come to see, that the
world was more wicked and the god’s designs more twisted than even
that wise and pious man could ever hope to grasp. Perhaps he had at
last understood that he understood nothing. Perhaps that is the
god’s last gift to those who are his servants.

He smiled—in a way that concealed the reason
for it.

But I did not come again. It was already dark
by the time I left him, and the Lord Sinahiusur was to die at
sundown of the day following. But I knew nothing of this as I
returned to my own rooms. I knew only that I was oppressed in
spirit. Zabibe was waiting for me.

“Someone has been here, Lord,” she said.
There was an unnatural tension in her voice, as if something
restrained her from speaking more. “A woman—a household slave, I
think, but very elegant in her manners. She asked to see you, but
would not wait. She left something for you. It is there, on the
table.”

I picked up a small bundle wrapped in a linen
scarf. I did not open it at once, although Zabibe seemed to be
waiting for me to do just that. I found I had no wish to satisfy
her curiosity.

“Did she not give her name?” I asked.

“No, Lord.”

“Very well, then. Tell them I will have my
dinner now.”

“It shall be as you command, Lord.”

She bowed and left.

Standing there, thinking of nothing, I picked
open the tiny knot and found beneath it a lapis brooch, such as
women use to pin back their veils. It was carved, decorated with
figures of cats. It had come from Tyre—at least, that was what the
merchant had told me that morning in the bazaar when I bought it as
a present for Esharhamat. It seemed so long ago.

Chapter 27

All that winter Nineveh was like an old dog
biting itself in its sleep. There were disturbances—tavern quarrels
that quickly turned into riots, fires in the poor quarters. There
was talk of omens and the births of monsters. Men were restless
without understanding quite why. They were waiting for something to
happen. But what? They could not have said what. There was no
peace.

For me it began with the death of the Lord
Sinahiusur. His will named me as sole heir, since he had left no
sons. I came into possession of his palaces, his vast estates along
the upper Euphrates, and gold and silver beyond reckoning. This,
added to what the king had already given, made me, after my father
and brother, certainly the richest man in the land of Ashur.

But wealth, it appeared, was not all I had
been meant to inherit, for the king appointed no successor as
turtanu. The rumors—and the city was full of rumors—said he was
only waiting for me to ask. So, in all likelihood, was Esarhaddon.
So, possibly, was I.

Even as the Lord Sinahiusur’s body was being
prepared for burial beside the dust of his ancestors, a delegation
of senior officers from the quradu came to wait upon me in my
rooms.

“The king is too old to rule alone,” they
said. “If you do not take up your late uncle’s office, much—perhaps
most—of its power will go by default to Esarhaddon.”

“Would that be so terrible? Esarhaddon must
be king himself one day—it will do no harm if he learns the uses of
authority. Besides, the king may choose someone else as
turtanu.”

“Who? Who else would be acceptable to
Esarhaddon?”

“I would not be acceptable to Esarhaddon. But
Esarhaddon is not yet king. Why should the choice lie with
him?”

“Because men are afraid.”

“Why?”

“Because the marsarru has vowed that anyone
who thinks to stand above him in this reign will not live an hour
into the next.”

“Would this not apply to me as well? I am as
mortal as another man, and my brother would order my throat cut
sooner than most.”

“If you are the next turtanu, it may be
possible to keep Esarhaddon from ever becoming king at all.”

“I am not a necromancer, gentlemen. It is not
in my power to keep the king my father alive forever.”

“The Lord Tiglath Ashur chooses not to
understand us.”

So it went. But what could I tell them, that
I had already pledged my word in this matter? Did I still feel
bound by a promise made to Esarhaddon when he was still my friend?
I did not even know myself, but, in any case, that was beside the
point.

It would have been so easy, as the officers
of the quradu knew only too well. As turtanu, and with the king’s
full support, I could have bound the army to me, made it the
instrument of my will alone so that, when the moment came, I would
be able to push Esarhaddon aside and assume the throne in my own
right—or, if I preferred, let him stay as a figurehead king and
keep the real authority all to myself. In the past, both of these
things had happened. I could even have forced him to set Esharhamat
aside that I might marry her. As turtanu there would be no limits
set to my power, provided I had the bowels to use it.

But there was the obstacle. I was not
prepared to strip my brother of his birthright. I was not even
prepared to threaten it, and if not, what point could there be in
my becoming turtanu? Esharhamat had said, “Turn your back upon your
god,” but I could not. The god had set his mark on me, on my soul
as well as on my body. I had felt myself in his presence too many
times—he had made himself too real for me to set his will at
nothing, and his will was that Esarhaddon should be king. In short,
I was afraid of this impiety that so many urged upon me. I feared
the wrath of Holy Ashur. Before that, if before nothing else, I was
prepared to be a coward.

What was it the maxxu had said? “In the years
to come you will speak ‘farewell’ until your tongue sickens at the
sound.” This was to be my unalterable destiny, the god’s will.
There could be nothing else. Thus it was at the funeral rites for
the Lord Sinahiusur, my protector and friend, that I began to speak
the word “farewell.”

For three days his body lay exposed in his
house that all the city might come and see that the great man, the
chief minister of the state, was dead. Esarhaddon had already
returned to Calah, and the king, by ancient custom, took no part in
the mourning—of all our family, I alone kept vigil beside the
corpse. During the day strangers came and went, staring at the dead
face and then hurrying away. The mighty turtanu was merely an
object of curiosity now. People did not seem to remember who he
was. It was a strange thing, but even before he was consigned to
his tomb he seemed forgotten, as if even a life so filled with
business as his amounted, in the end, to nothing.