The Blood Star (103 page)

And then, as I passed under the shadow of the
great gate, I saw them. The whole city seemed to be crowded into
the main street. At first they merely stood there, staring at me
stupidly, as if a man on horseback was something beyond their
comprehension.

No one spoke. There were soldiers mixed in
with the crowd, but the expression on all their faces was just the
same. I had seen it before, on the faces of the conquered, that
mixture of doubt and hope, the uncertainty that afflicts people
when suddenly the next few hours of their lives come to seem like a
wilderness in which anything might happen.

Here and there, someone to the front of the
crowd would drop to his knees, then a few more, then many.
Sometimes there were tears in their eyes. Some reached out their
hands to touch me as I passed. The unnatural silence persisted.

When it began, it seemed at first to come
from some distance, muffled and indistinct, almost like an echo.
Yet quickly it grew in strength, and I recognized my own name,
shouted by a thousand voices so that the walls themselves seemed to
tremble.

“Tiglath! Tiglath! TigLATH! TigLATH!”

The crowd surged around me so that both my
horse and I seemed carried forward more by their collective will
than by our own motion. It was like being at the center of a
boiling caldron, and the shouting never stopped so that it seemed
to beat against me in waves.

“TigLATH! TigLATH! TigLATH! TigLATH!”

Thus it was, every step of the way, until I
found myself in the great square before the king’s palace. Then,
once more, there was silence.

The crowd withdrew to a respectful distance,
and I was allowed to dismount. A royal groom took the reins from my
hand. I glanced up at the palace doors, half expecting to see
Ashurbanipal waiting for me at the top of the staircase, but he was
not there.

“Good,” I remember thinking. “He is either
too proud or too clever to associate himself with the favor of an
undisciplined mob. Whatever the reason, it is the kingly way to
mark a distinction between ruler and ruled.”

I mounted the great central stairway alone.
The doors opened to receive me and then closed behind my back, and
I felt myself enclosed in a separate reality. I was no more the
popular hero. I had become another kind of man entirely, the
subject and servant of my king.

At least, that was the impression
Ashurbanipal was striving hard to create. Had Esarhaddon never made
his deathbed confession, and had this king been other than my own
son—a thing known to me but perhaps not to him—it might even have
succeeded.

I waited several minutes, quite alone, in the
great hall of the palace. At last a chamberlain approached me.

“The king will receive you in his garden,” he
said, as if he hardly had enough air in his lungs to pronounce the
words—he was an elderly eunuch who had been in the royal service
even during my father’s lifetime, and the grandeur of his position
so near the throne seemed to have made an early and indelible
impression on him.

“Thank you. I know the way.”

Ashurbanipal sat on a stone bench next to a
pool that had probably contained fish during the summer months but
was now drained. It was a cold morning, but he did not seem to
notice. He was reading a clay tablet, from which he looked up when
I approached, acknowledging my bow with a slight nod.

“Well, Uncle,” he said, “I could hear the
tumult in the street, even from here. It seems we are all delivered
over to your mercy.”

Only then did I notice that the tablet he had
been reading, and which he still held cradled in his hand, was the
one I had sent to Naq’ia.

“If that is the case, Lord, I would venture
you have little enough to fear.”

“But is it the case?”

“No.”

He smiled thinly. I had to remind myself that
I was speaking with a fifteen-year-old boy, for he was tall and had
already acquired a remarkable self-possession.

“Grandmother, I gather, is in a terrible
state,” he said, as if he merely wanted to change the subject. “She
has retired to her rooms and refuses to see anyone, so that at last
the garrison commander was forced to come to me. Poor man—if he
hadn’t grown so accustomed to taking his orders from Grandmother he
might have thought to declare himself
turtanu
and carry on
without her. My youth, you see, Uncle, puts me at a disadvantage.
Everyone assumes they should act for me.”

He paused for a moment and glanced at me
speculatively, perhaps wondering if I believed him. But of course
it did not matter if I believed him, because I did not care whether
he was telling the truth or not. He had dissociated himself from
the rebellion, and that was enough. It freed me from any suggestion
of treason.

“Who was the man?” he asked finally.

“What man?”

“The man whose skin. . . Oh, do pardon me,
Uncle. I am being rude—please sit down.”

I sat down next to him on the bench, although
I would have preferred to stand. I would have preferred to be
inside, drinking wine in front of a brazier, but Ashurbanipal
looked quite comfortable where he was. I found myself wondering
what point he was attempting to make by receiving me here.

“The man was the Lady Naq’ia’s physician. He
poisoned the king.”

“Ah, well, then perhaps the less said. . . Is
that the ‘secret’ to which you refer?” To indicate his reference,
he balanced the tablet in his hand as if trying to guess its
weight.

“No, it is not.”

“And this secret, whatever it is—you intend
to keep it?”

“I think that is best.”

He was still just young enough to be unable
to conceal completely the fact that he was relieved.

“Do you suppose, Uncle, there are many
families with as many secrets as ours?”

“For the peace of mankind, let us hope
not.”

For just an instant, as our eyes met, I was
quite sure he knew everything. Then the impression weakened and I
was no longer sure. I would never be sure.

“What are we to do, Uncle?”

“We are to decide whether you can yet be
trusted to be king.”

He was proud, and he did not care for this
answer, but he was also shrewd and therefore did not say so.

“You have a price, Uncle?”

“Yes, I have a price.”

“And that is. . ?”

“The Lady Naq’ia—you must put her aside. She
must never again be allowed to meddle in the affairs of this
house.”

“I thought for a moment you were requiring
that she be put to death.”

“For her, that will be worse than death.”

He seemed to consider the matter for a few
seconds, but I knew at once that he had already made up his mind,
perhaps even before I spoke. Perhaps, in trying to rule this boy as
she had her son, Naq’ia had at last overreached herself.

“Very well,” he said finally. “Let her be
sent into a luxurious exile in Babylon. We must not be too
cruel—let her torment my brother Shamash Shumukin with her
advice.”

“Even this may one day prove to have been not
far enough, but let it be as the king of Ashur wills.”

He smiled another of his pale smiles, which
was all the acknowledgment this victory of his was to receive.

“Yet Grandmother is not the only one who must
go into retirement, Uncle, for a king is not a king if there is one
among his subjects more mighty than he, whose voice alone can
humble the crown to dust.”

I could not account for the shock I felt at
these words, since I had expected something of the sort. He was
right, of course. This boy and I could never share the same
world—as he had pointed out himself, there were simply too many
secrets in our family.

Yet the prospect of another exile, from
which, this time, there would be no return, was no easier for
that.

“I understand,” I said, after a pause no
longer than the time required for drawing breath. “You wish to rule
alone, and that you cannot do as long as I. . .”

“Uncle, while Prince Tiglath Ashur is at my
side, all eyes are drawn to him alone. Every soldier in my army
worships you almost as one of the bright gods. Common people cheer
you in the street, and peasants in the remotest villages give their
male children your name and tell the stories of your wars and your
magic courage. In their hearts, you are the king they would have. I
cannot hope to stand against the measure of such glory—not yet. I
must have my chance to try.”

I could feel the tears standing in my eyes,
unshed but blinding. For the first time I felt a father’s love for
this boy whom I must never own as mine. It was bitter to lose a son
even in the instant of finding him, yet I knew that the only
father’s blessing I could ever give him was the one for which he
now entreated me.

“Yes, I really do understand.” I put my hand
on his arm, allowing myself that one gesture of affection, and his
pride did not impel him to pull away, so perhaps he comprehended
something of what was in my heart. “I will go. And not to some
distant garrison town where, even against my will, I would always
be a focus of resistance to your rule. I shall seem to disappear,
and forever. It shall be as if I had died.”

“As if you had never lived,” he answered, a
strange hardness coming into his voice.

And I knew what he would do, for this king
would not share his crown even with a shadow. And so, like kings
before him, he would cause the histories of my father’s and my
brother’s reigns to be rewritten, lest they seem more glorious than
his own. My very name would vanish from the annals, which in any
case is only a collection of triumphant lies. He meant to destroy
the past—or, at least, my past.

And even this, I knew, was for the best. He
had a sliver of ice through the heart, this son of mine, and that
is not a bad thing for a king, although in other men it stands as a
fault. Esarhaddon had not had it, and only knew to be cruel where
he should have been merely ruthless. It was perhaps what I also
lacked, and why the Lord Ashur at last saw fit to deny me the
throne of my fathers. I did not regret the lack in myself, but I
was glad for Ashurbanipal.

“As if I had never lived.”

We spoke then of many things, for even a king
is willing to share his thoughts with a ghost. He promised that no
one on either side would suffer for his part in the late rebellion,
and I knew he was wise enough to keep his word.

“I will reconquer Egypt,” he said. “Not this
year, but as soon as the floods are past I will assemble an army
and drive this Taharqa so far up the Nile that he will never find
his way back. It is a matter of prestige now, so I have no
choice.”

“A war of conquest is not a bad way to begin
a reign,” I told him. “But invade through the Delta—do not attempt
another desert crossing, because Taharqa will expect that. And do
not underestimate him, for he is brave and clever.”

“Yet once the war is won, I think it best to
collect tribute for a few years and then let the matter tactfully
drop. Egypt is a broken reed. She will never trouble us again, so
why waste soldiers trying to hold her?”

“This is wise. And remember, My King, as yet
you have no knowledge of war, so listen to your commanders and
follow their advice. The men who took Egypt once can take her
again, if only you will let them. There will be enough glory for
everyone.”

“It shall be as you say, Uncle.”

When I left the city, by a side gate leading
from the palace compound, it was already the middle of the
afternoon. I rode back to camp both pleased and sorrowful, and
these in about equal measure, for I had accomplished all that I had
set myself to do, but now the future had no place for me. Not here,
at least.

“Would it pain you so very much to give up a
husband who is a prince of Ashur for one who is merely a Sicilian
farmer?” I asked Selana, even as a groom took my horse away.

“Are we going back?” she asked, and I knew
from the light in her eyes that it was all she wanted.

“Yes—and this time forever.”

“Then I shall try to bear it,” she said, and
laughed.

But mine was not to be an abrupt departure,
for it could not be allowed to seem that the king was driving me
out. I stayed in Calah for over a month, retaining the title and
power of
turtanu
, and I helped in the planning of the next
Egyptian campaign, approving the commanders who would be its real
leaders. The king and I appeared together in public, and he
distinguished me with many signs of favor. At the same time I made
it known to the leaders of the army that I planned to return to my
place of exile, far beyond the shores of the Northern Sea.

“Why must you go?” they asked. “The king is
only a boy, and it was the Lord Esarhaddon’s will that you should
hold power as
turtanu
.”

“I am weary of power—now I seek only
obscurity and peace of mind. I came back only because it was the
king my brother’s will, and now I have permission to return. Trust
the new king. He is young, but his mind is quick and he knows how
to listen. He will do quite well without me.”

I do not know if they believed these
assurances, but at last they came to accept that I left by my own
wish.

And ten days after our first conversation,
Ashurbanipal sealed the agreement between us by sending the Lady
Naq’ia into exile. I saw her depart the city, in a wagon drawn by
royal oxen, as if she were already a corpse on her way to
burial.

We did not speak, but I have not forgotten
the expression on her face. She knew she would never be back, and
that a lifetime of treachery and murder had ended in failure. She
looked as if she envied her victims.

I could not find it in my heart to pity
her.

And at last it was time for me too to leave.
The king made me many presents of gold and silver, but great wealth
would be of little use to the man I was to become, so most of these
I distributed among the bodyguard chosen to conduct me to the
northern border. Lushakin insisted on commanding my escort
himself.