The Blood Star (4 page)

“No—I want them only for hunting. My master
and I travel the caravan routes, and a little fresh meat is a
blessing. I will take six of these, and a leather quiver for them.
And that sword over there, provided the blade is not hacked. How
much do you want for all that?”

“Five silver shekels, if Your Honor
pleases?”

The pouch Kephalos had given me bulged with
coins, and I was on the verge of paying the man what he asked until
I remembered that I was supposed to be the servant of a traveling
merchant, who would be expected to bargain.

“I will give you two,” I said.

“Your Honor beggars my wife and small
children. I could not sell so much for two silver shekels, for that
is a fine sword—an officer’s sword—and you will not find such
javelins even if you were to go to Nineveh for them. Yet I will
part with them for three silver shekels, although my children will
go hungry and my wife will curse me.”

I let him wait for an answer. His eyes begged
pity of me.

“Two silver shekels,” I answered at last.
“And six of copper.”

“Your Honor is cruel to a poor man. Yet I
need money to buy food for my babies. Two silver shekels then, and
eight of copper.”

I walked away, carrying my weapons with me,
wondering by how much the man had cheated me.

In the town’s central square, in makeshift
stalls fashioned of hemp and reed mats, were the livestock that
were to be sold that day. There were some ten or fifteen horses,
most of them half dead, not even fit to limp along in front of a
plow, but I saw two I thought might serve: a pale brown gelding
with good legs, and a stallion, black as death, made nervous by the
crush of people—the man who held its halter looked as if he feared
to have his arm torn from its socket. I would buy those two and,
since our lives might depend on them, I did not care what I had to
pay.

I feared it would be no small sum, for there
were others who were interested. One of them wore the uniform of a
rab abru
.

I could not remember ever having seen Dinanu
before, although that meant nothing. It was possible we had been in
the same room together a dozen times, since in recent years
Esarhaddon and I had not been on such good terms that I would have
paid any great attention to the members of his entourage. Yet there
was no mistaking that this was he, sent down from Nineveh with the
king’s commission to assume command of the garrison and to visit a
shameful death upon Zerutu Bel. He seemed the type for such
work.

He was standing with five or six of his
junior officers, a squat, thick, clumsy-looking man with heavy
eyebrows and a face that seemed to narrow to an edge like an ax
blade. His hand was on the black stallion’s fine arching neck,
attempting to calm it—without noticeable effect it seemed, since
the beast capered and snorted, as if it could hardly wait to
trample him into paste beneath its hooves. It would have been wiser
simply to withdraw, but that was not possible. I could tell, from
the way Dinanu looked at it, he meant to have this horse and no
other, and I could not allow such a thing. This animal did not like
him and would surely, one day, leave him with his neck broken. The
prospect did not disturb me very much, except that they cut the
throats of man-killers.

“This one will serve very well,” the
rab
abru
said—in Aramaic, since he was treating with a foreigner.
“I will give you ten silver shekels for it. Have it sent around to
my headquarters by midday.”

“My master will give you twelve silver
shekels—unless, of course, you have already closed your
bargain.”

Dinanu glowered at me from beneath his
massive black brows, his eyes burning like hot coals. Yet I do not
think he recognized me—if he did, he did not show it.

At last he turned to the horse dealer, who
wore the elaborately curled beard of an Harrian, men notorious as
sharp traders. The horse dealer’s nostrils were flaring slightly as
if at the scent of unexpected profit.

“I think you have hit upon a stratagem,” the
rab abru
said to him, seeming, for the moment, to have
dismissed me from existence, “I think you have hired this villain,
that he might bid against me and drive up the price. If I find this
to be true, I will order your right hand to be cut off as an
example.”

“My master is not this man. My master is the
caravan merchant Hugieia of Sardes. Having lost his own to bandits,
and trusting my judgment in these matters, he instructed me to
purchase him a mount suitable to his wealth and dignity.”

I stepped forward and placed my hand upon the
horse’s nose. I have a way with horses, and at once the great
stallion quieted down.

“It would appear I have found something
worthy.” I smiled at the
rab abru
, as if to annoy him. I was
a crafty foreign servant, out to wrest my little victory from one
of the mighty of the earth. “It only remains to be seen which of us
has the heavier purse.”

“Let me see the color of your money,
slave.”

He put his hand on the hilt of his sword and,
although I was carrying one myself, I thought it more prudent
simply to take the bag of coins from my belt and open it for him.
Dinanu’s mouth tightened when he saw the glint of so much
silver.

“These foreigners are all rich,” one of his
officers said, in Akkadian. “They are all—what is this?”

The man reached out and grasped my wrist,
yanking it toward him so that the bag slipped from between my
fingers and fell with a soft clink to the earth. He held me so that
my palm was up, and they could all see the birthmark there, red as
blood and shaped like a star.

“It is not possible! It can’t. . .”

“No, it is not possible.”

Dinanu stooped down and picked up the bag of
coins, returning it to me.

“The king’s traitor brother is in a dungeon
in Nineveh,” he went on in Akkadian, speaking only to his officers.
“Either that, or he is dead by now. Look at this one—he is no
prince. Any man may have a mark upon his hand.

“It seems you have bought a horse.” The
rab abru
looked at me with cold, appraising eyes. “May you
ride far on it, and never return to Birtu.”

He turned on his heel and walked away.

“Twenty silver shekels for the stallion and
the brown gelding both—quick, man, yes or no?”

I grabbed the Harrian by the neck of his
tunic and shook him, for he seemed to be in a dream.

“Yes or no!”

“What?—yes, Excellence. Twenty silver
shekels, yes!”

I counted out the money for him, took the
horses by their lead ropes, and went on my way. I wanted to find
Kephalos. I did not trust to luck.

I had not gone a hundred paces from the main
bazaar before I knew I was being followed.

It was perhaps two hours to midday. People
flowed past me on their way to the shops. I had two horses in tow
and thus trod cautiously along the center of the street.

Three times I had glanced back and seen him,
always the same distance behind me—his back to me as he paid a
vendor for a cup of beer, turning abruptly into an alley, now
idling in the doorway of a brothel. His face was in shadow, but he
wore the tunic of an officer and I was sure he had been one of
those with Dinanu.

There was a public stable near the main gate.
I took the horses there rather than back to the wineshop, where
Kephalos would be waiting. The garrison at Birtu had no business
with Kephalos, whose existence they did not even suspect. There was
nothing to be gained by leading them to him.

The stable keeper showed me his stock of
bridles and saddle blankets—I took my time choosing. I had yet to
make up my mind what to do about this second shadow I had
acquired.

And when I turned to go, there he was,
standing in the doorway, no longer even attempting to conceal
himself. He was waiting for me.

I stopped when I saw him. We stood staring at
one another for a moment and then he glanced about, almost seeming
to fear that someone might have been following him, and then
approached me as warily as if I had been an adder.

“What do you want of me?” I asked.

“You are the Lord Tiglath Ashur,” he said, as
if this constituted an answer. “You need not dissemble—even without
the god’s mark on your hand, and though you have shaved off your
beard and dress now like a foreigner, I would still have recognized
you. I saw you once when I was still a boy. You came to Arbela,
where my father was an omen reader at the shrine.”

He was hardly more than a boy now—perhaps
sixteen, perhaps younger. Perhaps as young as I was when I first
went to war and put my boyhood behind me forever. He was still as
beautiful as a girl, and his eyes were large and dark. He had yet
to learn guile.

“I ask again. What do you want of me?”

“Not to betray you, Dread Lord. I was sent by
the
rab abru
, who is a man without respect for the gods, to
follow behind and see where you dwell. He plans to wait until after
dark and then come and arrest you—he will not take the risk in
daylight, for he fears a disturbance if it became known that you. .
. Also, he does not trust his own soldiers. There are many in the
army who believe that you are he whom the Lord Ashur loves, the
true king.”

“Esarhaddon is the king.”

“He wears the crown—yes. But the god has
always put wise and noble men to rule over us in the Land of Ashur,
and you would never have turned your face from your brother as he
has from you.”

What could I have said? Nothing, in that
moment. My heart was too full. I felt humbled by the unsought
loyalty of this stranger, for in those whom they would follow men
always see what is finest in themselves.

“What do you want of me?”

“To do your will, Dread Lord. Whatever you
require of me I will do, even to the forfeit of my own life.”

He meant what he said. I could see it in his
face.

“Do you know the wineshop of Kupapiyas of
Hatti?”

“Yes.”

“Then tell the
rab abru
that I dwell
there—it is the truth, so you will have fulfilled your commission.
Yet you might wait a few hours before you tell him.”

“It shall be as you say, Dread Lord. You had
much business in the bazaar and were a long time about it.”

“What is your name?”

“Ishtar-bel-dan, Lord—named for the patron
goddess of my city.”

“Ishtar-bel-dan. It is a name I will remember
all my life.”

There was no more to be said between us. He
turned, as if to go, and then came back to kneel before me, taking
my right hand in his and touching it to his forehead, as if I were
the king in truth.

Then he rose and left. I never saw him again,
but I will not forget him until I am dust.

And there were but a few hours left in which
to purchase my life.

I did not return to the wineshop of
Kupapiyas—there was nothing to prove that Dinanu had no other eyes
with which to watch me. But the stable keeper had eyes only for the
silver I counted out into his hand. He was willing enough to carry
a message for me.

“Find me a fat Ionian who will know you are
from me when you say it was the son of Merope who sent you. Tell
him to come back here quickly, as he values his life. Tell him not
to leave anything behind.”

The stablekeeper hurried off, promising he
would be back with my Ionian before the day was a quarter of an
hour older, but the time seemed to stretch on endlessly. I bridled
the horses and put blankets over their backs and then went up to
the hayloft, where I could watch the street. It struck me as an
even wager which I would see first, Kephalos or a patrol of
soldiers come to carry my head back to Nineveh in a jar.

I could hear the sounds from the peddlers’
stalls and the low, busy murmur of a thousand voices. All of that
would be hushed if the soldiers came. I would hear that stillness
long before I saw them, or heard the tramp of their sandaled feet.
I waited for that.

But it did not come. Only Kephalos came,
almost running but not quite, bustling along as fast as his bulky
dignity allowed. I went down to meet him.

“My Lord, if this is some prank I will not be
amused—by the time that ruffian barged in affairs had reached a
very delicate state between myself and the lady. . .”

“They know I am here—they know it,
Kephalos.”

If it is possible to change in an instant
from wrath to fear, as a man may be living and then dead, with no
line between that the mind or eye can see, this is what happened in
Kephalos’ face. Not a muscle altered, yet he seemed stricken, as if
all strength had left him. I put my hand on his shoulder lest he
fall, but he did not fall. He was still as death.

“I must flee,” I said. “You will be safe, my
friend, if you will but stay behind. Yet do not return to the
wineshop, for they will search for me there. I only could not leave
without saying good-bye.”

“There can be no thought of my staying
behind, Lord—I have not come so far as this to abandon you to your
own foolish whims. We must be gone at once.”

With a leather strap I tied together his bag
and his medicine box—all the luggage we had between us—and threw
them across the neck of the black stallion. Then I held its bridle,
waiting for Kephalos to scramble onto its back, but he was not
eager.

“It is a fearful-looking beast, Lord, and, as
you know, I am no very enthusiastic rider. Perhaps you—and it—would
be better pleased if. . .”

“You are a wealthy Lydian merchant,” I
answered impatiently. “Would you mount your servant on a better
horse than you rode yourself?”

“Yes. Of course—what is so. . ?”

“Get on, Kephalos. Throw your leg over its
back and let us leave this place!”

I mounted the brown gelding, clutching the
quiver of javelins under my arm. No one stopped us in the street.
At the city gate the guards let us pass unchallenged. Even as we
headed west, away from the main southern road, the dust kicked up
by our horses settled quietly behind us. We rode until the walls of
Birtu sank from sight behind us, and we saw no one. There was no
sound but the whispering wind.