The Assyrian (91 page)

This is what happened at Khanirabbat. As I
honor the gods of my fathers, this is the truth of it.

I saw all this from a distance, happy to be
no nearer. Yet I reproached myself bitterly, for was I not the true
author of this carnage? The omens had declared it the god’s will
that Esarhaddon should be king in the Land of Ashur, and I, because
I scrupled to defy the god for the sake of a woman’s love, had
submitted. I do not pretend my motives were nobler—Esharhamat was
all I thought of, and I gave her up, a sacrifice to my
obedience.

Yet was this the god’s will? His sons, the
manhood of his nation, left for the feasting of birds and dogs? Had
I truly obeyed, or had I so prided myself on the nobility of a
gesture that I set all else at nothing? What had I done? I had left
the decision of my own fate—of the fates of thousands, perhaps of
the nation and the world beyond—to the entrails of a goat.

Some impressions stay with a man for life. I
will never forget the slaughter at Khanirabbat. I will never forget
my sense of guilt and shame. On that day the world became a
different place for me. I lost forever the final illusion of
youth—that I could hold myself free from sin.

. . . . .

The rest of the day, until the light failed
utterly as the bloodstained landscape could at last cover itself in
the decency of darkness, patrols crisscrossed the hills looking for
fugitives from Esarhaddon’s revenge. I do not think that very many
of these escaped, but one did cheat the slave gangs and the
executioner’s knife. For my brother Nabusharusur did not die at
Khanirabbat, although it was only the merest chance that I and no
other found him.

It was close to sunset. I had ridden about,
almost at random, more than for any other reason because I could
not stomach the prospect of returning to camp. I did not wish to
look into the guilty faces of murderers whom I had known all my
manhood. I wished to spare both them and myself that final
humiliation. So I let the brown mare wander where she would, only
taking care to keep away from the battlefield.

I passed by a great pile of boulders, stacked
on top of one another like onions on a dish. I stopped for a
moment—for no reason I can remember—and took a sip from the water
skin I carried by a cord over my shoulder. I was expecting nothing,
looking for nothing, and suddenly I heard a sound. It was faint,
but still recognizable. It was the scrape of metal against
stone.

I turned to look—I saw nothing. I listened
again and heard nothing. There was nothing. I was sure of it.

Then I looked again, into one of the deep
crevices in that pile of rock, and there I saw, dimly but
unmistakably, the outline of a human figure, crouched and hiding,
still as death.

I drew my sword. Then I looked about, saw
that there was no one near, and put it back in its scabbard,
feeling a fool.

“Come out. There is nothing to fear from
me.”

The figure moved. Gradually, into the dusty
twilight, came Nabusharusur. Whomever I had expected, it had not
been he.

He sat down at the mouth of the crevice,
still holding a dagger in his right hand, and looked at me with an
expression of mingled disgust and relief.

“Nothing to fear from you. Brother, whatever
it is that makes you say such things, whether in jest or earnest, I
marvel at it. Nothing to fear from you—by the gods!”

He looked exhausted, as desolate as a beggar
for all the gold bracelets on his arms. His fine wool tunic, which
that morning must have seemed almost regal, was crumpled and
filthy. Yet he was the same, that perverse pride of his
unbroken.

“So, it is all over,” he went on. “Give me a
sip of your water, Tiglath—like a friend.”

He drank greedily and then offered the skin
to me again, but I bade him keep it.

“Thank you. And now you can do me another
kindness and kill me before you take me back to Esarhaddon. Say to
him you found me dead.”

“Where is Arad Malik?” I asked, as much to
turn the subject as out of any curiosity. Why should I have cared
about Arad Malik?

“Gone—ran away yesterday. He did not even
wait to hear Esarhaddon’s reply to his offer of surrender, the
coward. No one needed a gelder’s knife to take that one’s manhood.
Is everyone dead?”

“Yes, almost. Those who are not soon will be,
or will wish they were.”

“I knew it was hopeless the day we talked in
Amat. I knew you would not listen to me, for your ears are always
buzzing with the sound of that voice which only you can hear. You
think it is the god’s, but it is not.”

He shook his head, and a spasm of bitter
laughter escaped him, like a cry of grief.

“You are a coward, Tiglath, worse even than
Arad Malik, who at least had a moment of freedom when somehow he
found the will to slay the king our father. Old loyalties fetter
you like chains—and the fear that just once you might do a thing
not because it is right but because your bowels yearn for it. Ever
since you gave up the Lady Esharhamat, you have been in love with
self-denial. I knew you would take Esarhaddon’s side.”

“Then why did you not flee?”

“Like Arad Malik?” He smiled indulgently, as
if at a bad joke. “Eunuch though I am, credit me with some dignity,
brother. No—I set this thing in motion and I must let it carry me
where it would.”

The smile died, giving place to something
like a weary acceptance.

“And now kill me. I have lost, but I would as
soon avoid paying the full price for that and I cannot be sure of
having the courage to do myself what needs doing. Kill me,
Tiglath.”

Instead, I dismounted from the mare and put
her reins in Nabusharusur’s hands.

“I have enough on my conscience,” I said.
“Besides, I owe you my life in the matter of the slave girl Zabibe.
Take the horse and flee—there is nothing to stay for now; and in
the darkness you have a good chance of escape. Do not stop, not
even for a day, until you are beyond Esarhaddon’s reach.”

He did not wait for me to make the offer
twice, but climbed on the horse’s back, slipping the cord of the
water skin over his shoulder.

“Do not imagine I am grateful, Tiglath my
brother,” he said—and, indeed, there was no way I could have
mistaken the look of loathing hatred in his eyes. “Nor that this
settles the account between us, for you are in debt for far more
than your wretched little life. We would not all have come to this
if you had sided with us. You still owe for what was done here
today.”

With a slap on the rump, I sent the mare into
a canter and watched yet again as Nabusharusur rode away to an
uncertain destiny. I could only hope that I would never see him
again.

I walked back to camp in the dark, guided by
the pale light of the cooking fires. When I reached my tent I found
only Kephalos, his face set in the resignation of one who has
witnessed every horror.

“It has been an evil day,” he said. “My eyes
have seen too much.”

“Yes, it has been an evil day—even I am sick
of war. Shall we depart from this place and go home?”

“Home, master? You mean, to Amat?”

“No, to Three Lions. I would sooner wait
there than anywhere else until Esarhaddon decides on my simtu. All
it requires is to find us horses.”

We did not wait for morning. The battle
ended, Ghost was tethered beside my standard, and I borrowed
another for Kephalos. In the dark we set out, carrying lanterns on
the ends of poles. The road south, after all this, was a pleasant
place.

Chapter 34

I now assumed that I had come to the end of
my life, and I wanted to be prepared. As soon as we had arrived at
my estate I sent Kephalos on to Nineveh to fetch a scribe that I
might put my affairs in order. He returned in three days, by which
time I had settled with myself that it would be best to put Three
Lions in my mother’s name at once, since if I were declared a
traitor my property would be forfeit to the king. My other holdings
I would leave as they were, for to give a significant share of that
vast wealth to anyone I cared for was quite simply to invite
confiscation. As matters stood, provided his malice alone did not
supply him with a motive, Esarhaddon would not proceed against my
mother. I also put into my former slave’s hands deeds empowering
him to do as he thought best with the gold he had deposited with
the merchants in Sidon and Egypt.

“I advise you make haste to be gone,” I told
him. “It will be a while before my brother remembers his grievances
against you, but it will come.”

“I could go home to Naxos and live as a rich
man,” he said, sighing heavily. “The Greek islands are the best
places of all for a man to find his comfort and pleasure—the
happiness of life, master. Could you not be persuaded to make your
escape with me?”

“No. If I cheat Esarhaddon of his vengeance,
where do you imagine the blow will fall?”

“You are thinking of the Lady Merope.”

“Yes, of her. There is no time now to fetch
her—doubtless I am still being watched at a discreet distance. I
must stay.”

“Then I too will stay. I will abide here at
least until your fate is settled. Perhaps I may be of some use. And
afterward there may still be time.”

I embraced him and with tears of gratitude in
my eyes told him it was my desire that he flee, but he would not
listen.

“By my lord’s will I am now a free man,” he
said grandly, “at liberty to go and come as it pleases me, and I
have an inclination to see how all this is to be resolved. I will
do as I think fit.”

“Then think fit to go to Nineveh and see what
can be learned there. You will be safe enough if you lose yourself
in the crowds—the city is full of foreigners and one more will not
be noticed.”

This he did, leaving me alone to enjoy as
best I could the final days of my liberty.

I would wait at Three Lions until Esarhaddon
summoned me—this would be soon, for I knew he would not long be
able to resist the temptation to have me beneath his hand, but I
decided that until the moment came I would put him from my mind and
live for my own pleasure. Thus I hunted every day, though in winter
the game was scarce, drank more wine that was good for me, and
slept as long and as well as I could. If my servants and tenants
had any inkling of my troubles, they gave no sign. Life was almost
pleasant.

I discovered, upon my return, that Naiba was
the mother of a fine son, a hardy little boy who already walked
about on fat little legs, and was with child again. She seemed
happy, and so did her husband. It gave me some pleasure to think
that not all of my deeds had ended in sorrow.

For, although I might stand blameless before
the gods, that no longer seemed enough to wash away the guilt that
somehow had stained me at Khanirabbat. Perhaps Nabusharusur had
been right: I had believed myself to be hearkening to Ashur’s will,
and perhaps all this time it been nothing more than the voice of my
own fears.

My eunuch brother had been right in claiming
that it began with Esharhamat. I had turned my back on her,
imagining myself noble—how was it possible that I should be
anything else when my heart bled so? And every year without her had
seemed harder, another step farther into the darkness. Yet I had
begun the journey and must go wherever it took me.

How could I do otherwise? As Esarhaddon came
closer to the throne, his election as marsarru had seemed a greater
and greater piece of folly, yet it had been proclaimed the will of
heaven and all the more stubbornly had I believed it so. Having
lost Esharhamat, how could I have admitted to myself that we had
both placed so great a sacrifice upon the altar of destiny only to
see it so rudely rejected? The more one pays for a thing, the
dearer it becomes. That is what greed is, and it blinds one—it
burns out one’s eyes. I had become blinded by a greed of the
spirit, so what price would I not have paid to make Esarhaddon
king?

Nabusharusur had been right to call me a
coward. I was afraid of everything, it seemed, except death.

Five days passed, and then ten. Esarhaddon’s
great army had returned from the upper Euphrates—one afternoon,
while out riding, I saw, far in the distance, the clouds of dust
raised by their columns. By this time my brother was in Nineveh,
had celebrated his triumph, and was looking about him. I continued
to wait. I was not in a hurry.

At last the king’s herald arrived—one man, so
at least I was not to be dragged away in chains.

“You are summoned,” he said. “The king bids
you enter the city alone, and in a manner calculated to cause the
least possible disturbance.”

“Perhaps I should come disguised as a
beggar,” I answered. “Or perhaps the king would rather I were
brought thither as a common criminal, tied to the tail of a
cart.”

“You know the king’s will.”

“Yes—I know it.”

He left, the impassive messenger. He had
never even come down from his horse, but then I was little inclined
to shows of hospitality.

Very well. I would make no great spectacle of
my entry into Nineveh—the idea had never so much as crossed my
mind, but I would nonetheless dismiss it. I would ride there alone,
a man on horseback, carrying no token of rank. I would be as any
prosperous farmer come to the capital for business and perhaps a
little holiday. Esarhaddon would have nothing to complain of.

In the morning I went out to the stables,
accompanied by my overseer Tahu Ishtar, and put a bridle on the
dappled gelding I would ride into Nineveh. Ghost, in the next
stall, kicked against his gate and snorted nervously, as if he
understood everything.

“I may be away some time,” I said. “And I
desire that the best possible care be taken of that horse. Once, in
Media, he saved my life.”

“It shall be as the master of Three Lions
wishes.”