The Assyrian (87 page)

“Who, damn you? Speak!”

“My Lord Prince, I know not. I. . . It is not
certain. . .”

Yes, of course he knew. I released my grip on
him and let the wrath in my liver quiet.

“Who?” I repeated, more calmly now.

“The belief is that your royal brothers Arad
Malik and Nabusharusur. . .”

Yes, of course. What an idiot I was not to
have guessed. Who else could it have been except Arad Malik, too
stupid to see the enormity of the crime, and clever, pitiless
Nabusharusur, who feared neither god nor man? Naturally, those
two—one could only wonder what had taken them so long to act.

“And there have been disturbances?”

“Yes, Prince. The city is in open
insurrection.” He nodded quickly, as if confirming his own words.
“The garrison commander begs to know your intentions.”

“My intentions?”

What was the man talking about? I was nearly
thirty beru away, and over rough terrain. It would take me a week
to reach Nineveh with an army—what could my intentions possibly
matter?

But perhaps I was merely being obtuse. The
embarrassed look that came into the rab kisir’s eyes implied as
much.

“Prince, perhaps. . .” He broke off, taking a
deep breath. One might have imagined he was preparing himself for
judgment. “The fact is, Arad Malik is threatening to proclaim
himself king. He may already have done so by now, and if the
rebellion is raised in his name. . . Prince, how can you imagine
that anyone really wants Arad Malik on the throne of Ashur?”

My intentions. While the rab kisir waited for
his question to be answered, I considered, for the first time, the
importance that must now be attached to my intentions.

Because, of course, the garrison commander
was no friend to the marsarru—why had it only just occurred to me
that Esarhaddon was now the king?—and he was asking me to declare
myself. The garrison, it was implied, was remaining neutral, moving
neither to support the insurrection nor to suppress it, until he
heard from me.

So he had sent this elegant young man, who
was too wily to put the thing into so many words but was
nonetheless waiting to know if I was prepared to accept the army’s
support and declare myself king.

I was being invited to lead the rebellion
against Esarhaddon.

And, of course, the rab kisir was still
waiting for an answer to his question.

“You may tell the garrison commander,” I
began, weighing each word as if many lives might hang on it, which
was no less than the case, “you may tell him that my intentions are
to write a letter of condolence to the lord marsarru—pardon me, to
the king—in which I will pledge to him all the obedient loyalty
which he has a right to expect from a subject and a member of his
own family.”

“Then you will not. . ?”

“No, I will not.” I fixed him with a stare
that implied astonishment that he could even wonder. “But I will do
this—I will advise the garrison commander that he would do well to
bring the city of Nineveh to good order and to arrest the traitors
Arad Malik and Nabusharusur. Otherwise, the Lord Esarhaddon might
draw unfortunate conclusions.”

“I see. Have you no other message,
Prince?”

“None.”

At the word he drew himself to attention and
made his salute. Then he turned on his heel and left my presence.
What finally became of him I know not, for I never saw him
again.

In all likelihood my officers were just
outside the door, waiting for me to summon them. But I did not
summon them. I was unprepared to speak to anyone, so I returned to
my rooms and had a slave bring me a jar of wine. I needed time to
think and I needed something to steady me.

Had I been right to answer as I did? And,
more important, had I been wise? These questions filled me, yet I
kept returning to the same inescapable conclusion—that I had had no
choice. The time for rebelling against my brother’s succession was
during the life of our father, when I could have made my ascendancy
so compelling that Esarhaddon would not now dare to question it.
Now I would invite nothing except civil war and, possibly, the ruin
of the empire. I had made my decision long ago, and it was too late
to alter it now.

Yet what would become of me now that the king
was dead? I had no illusions about Esarhaddon—the fact that I had
not joined in this foolish rebellion against him would not save me.
I would not be forgiven. The moment he felt strong enough to act,
he would avenge himself for the wrong I had done him by existing,
and standing first in our father’s eyes.

But perhaps that moment might never come.
Perhaps he would think again before challenging the shaknu of the
north, the rab shaqe of a vast army staffed by officers loyal to
their commander. In Amat, so far from Nineveh and Calah, so remote
from the councils of state, I was not much of an irritant. Perhaps
he would prefer not to run the risks involved in satisfying his bad
temper. Perhaps he would be content to leave matters as they
were.

I would wait. I would write my letter, a
letter which contained both my pledge of loyalty and a reminder, if
one was needed, that the northern army had not spent the last four
years growing soft on barracks food. I would see what answer my
brother made and act on that.

And if Esarhaddon should be foolish. . ?
Then, I was not sure what I would do.

The wine was no help. I drank four cups, one
straight after the other, and they did nothing except send me to
the night pot to empty my bladder. When I returned to the audience
chamber I found my officers assembled there, waiting for me.

“The king is dead,” I told them. “The Lord
Esarhaddon now reigns in his place. There is some unpleasantness in
Nineveh, but that is no concern of ours. The next seven days will
be a period of mourning—tomorrow, when the announcement is read at
parade, it will contain nothing except the fact that the king is
dead. Now return to your beds.”

They left, without anyone offering to speak.
Perhaps they had expected something more, or perhaps they could
read the future better than I and did not like to say so.

I went out onto the balcony on the palace’s
eastern side and saw that the sky was already turning pearly gray.
My mother would be up now and should be told.

She wept. Somehow I had not expected it. She
covered her face with her hands and wept.

“He was my lord,” she said, when at last the
tears were spent. “He was my lord, the father of my son. It seems
strange that he should be dead.”

I sat with her a while and then went out to
the garden, where the only sound was the distant clamor of servants
in the kitchen. Merope was right. It did seem strange that the king
should be dead. It was the first I had thought of it except as a
matter of state—the man who had sired me was at that moment dust in
his tomb. I sat on a stone bench, trembling like a plucked
bowstring while my overstretched nerves took their revenge.

. . . . .

Over the next several days dispatch
riders—and sometimes ordinary officers and men who, for one reason
or another, had deserted from their garrisons and found their way
to Amat—kept us well informed of events in the south. Arad Malik
had indeed proclaimed himself king and, what was more surprising,
the Nineveh garrison had taken his side. Esarhaddon had marched to
Ashur to assume the throne, and in both that city and Calah the
garrisons had pledged their loyalty. Mardin, Tishkhan, and Samsat,
among with many other cities in the west, where Esarhaddon’s
policies toward Babylon were unpopular, had joined the rebels, but
the garrisons of the south were all sending detachments to fight
with the rightful king. There was to be civil war. I had had no
hand in it, but it was to happen just the same. It was even
possible—something which was pointed out to me by more than one of
my officers—that I could have prevented it had I chosen
differently. A man may think and do as he will, and in the end the
gods will have all their own way.

Thus I watched events unfolding at a
distance. As the first step in claiming his inheritance, Esarhaddon
marched on Nineveh with an army of some twenty thousand. The
garrison there, seeing themselves outnumbered, abandoned the city
and withdrew to a town on the upper Euphrates called Khanirabbat,
whither the rebels were collecting their strength. When Esarhaddon
once occupied our father’s palace, so I was told, a man could
almost walk across the Tigris on the waterlogged corpses of those
among Nineveh’s citizens whom he had ordered punished for their
disloyalty.

My letter to the new king contained all that
was proper—praise of the Lord Sennacherib, congratulations, and a
pledge of loyalty. I did not mention what I knew of the revolt. I
made no offers. If Esarhaddon required help from my armies in this
civil war, he only needed to ask. I would wait, I decided, until I
was asked. I would not throw myself at my brother’s feet.

Yet no word came. The month of Sebat was held
over, and still Nineveh was voiceless.

I went hunting nearly every day. There was a
hard frost on the ground and precious little game, but it was a way
to distract my thoughts from the impending storm and to be alone—I
was weary of being watched by men with questions in their eyes:
“What will you do, Rab Shaqe? What will you do?” The wild deer in
the mountains west of the frozen river did not inquire into their
future or mine. They also hardly ever showed themselves.

Since my convalescence I had taken to eating
a midday meal—a man develops bad habits when he lies about all day
being told to conserve his strength, yet it was true that I still
needed the extra flesh. On this one day I tethered Ghost and sat
down behind a break of stunted, wind-twisted trees to open my
leather bag and see what Merope had provided against starvation. I
was busy gnawing on a strip of cured and peppered beef when I saw a
solitary rider approaching, purposefully but without hurry, his
face concealed by the cowl of his tunic.

He reined his horse in some thirty paces
distant and seemed ready to wait quietly until I acknowledged his
presence. He was carrying no weapon, and there was nothing in his
manner which implied a threat. I held up my wineskin for him to
see.

“Stranger, if you thirst. . .

He pushed the cowl away from his face. It was
Nabusharusur.

Yes, of course I was surprised. He smiled his
strange, mirthless smile, as if he had won a victory.

“My spies reported that you came here nearly
even day,” he said. “I thought it worth the risk to catch you
alone.”

“Have you ‘caught’ me then, brother?”

“It is only a manner of speaking, Tiglath. I
want nothing but to have a private word or two—will you grant me so
much as that?”

“You are the murderer of our father and king,
and a traitor to his heir. I should grant you nothing except the
length of my sword under your ribs.”

“Yet you will hear me, brother.”

“Yes, I suppose I will.”

He dismounted and let the reins fall to the
ground—his horse, I noticed, was a gelding, so perhaps they enjoyed
an understanding.

When he sat down beside me I offered him the
wineskin once more and he accepted it, drinking deeply. We had,
after all, known each other from childhood.

“The cold,” he said. “I feel it, perhaps more
than you.”

“I feel it too. It creeps into my wounds and
makes them ache.”

“I heard that you almost died in the
east.”

His smile was at once solicitous and, perhaps
without his realizing it, mocking. Yes, he would give the great
vain fool this chance to tell his soldier’s stories.

It is a mistake to hold other men in such
utter contempt. I waited in silence.

“There will be civil war,” he began at last,
when he saw that I did not mean to speak. “There will be a great
battle, perhaps only days from now. Esarhaddon is marching north
already. It could have been prevented, if you had listened to
me.”

“It could have been prevented if you had not
murdered the king, Nabusharusur. If you had but stayed your hand we
could all now be quiet, and our father would be alive.”

“It was necessary. Besides, I did not kill
him—I was there, but Arad Malik struck the blow.”

“Which he would never have thought to do
without you to show him the way. Do not split words with me,
brother.” I stopped, and took a swallow of wine, telling myself
there was no point in losing my temper.

“Why was it ‘necessary’ to kill the king?” I
asked finally, when I was once more in control of my voice.

“Because he had yielded to Esarhaddon. The
walls are already going back up around Babylon —they are rebuilding
the city.”

“Why should you care about that? You, who
dread the gods so little that you could murder the king.”

“You are right, I do not fear the gods.”
Nabusharusur made a gesture with his thin hand, as if dismissing
the whole of heaven. “I do not tremble before idols of wood—why
should I? Do you believe the gods are real, Tiglath? Do you?”

He shrugged his shoulders.

“I believe what I can see. I believe the
walls are going up around Babylon. I believe the king had resigned
his power to Esarhaddon because he was old and no longer cared what
happened in the world outside his palace garden. And who is to
blame for that, brother, if not you?”

“I. . ?”

“Yes, you. The king died in his heart when he
saw that Esarhaddon and not you must follow him.”

“And now you would make Arad Malik king.”

“Yes, if need be. Arad Malik is preferable to
Esarhaddon, if only because he does as I bid. And he is not
Esarhaddon—that is why men follow him, because he is not
Esarhaddon.”

“And you would have the nation make war on
itself to place one fool on the throne in place of another.”