The Blood Star (70 page)

“
Do not let them make of you a king,”
my father had said, speaking to me in a dream.
“I do not care to
think of my son as a king among foreigners—such a thing would be
undignified.”

Was it truly his ghost or only some fancy of
my own mind? Was there any difference? Nevertheless, I would honor
his wish as if he had spoken with his living voice. I was now a man
living as other men, happy to have put all thought of greatness
from me, but I was still the son of Sennacherib the Mighty, Lord of
the Earth’s Four Corners, King of Kings, and I still had the pride
of a prince. I had not refused the Throne of Ashur to be a king at
the world’s edge.
“Such a thing would be undignified.”

But men listened when I spoke in the
assembly. I had only to rise to my feet to command silence and
attention, for my victory over Ducerius had earned me respect. I
will not claim that I always carried my point, but I was the first
among equals, which is as much as even a king can claim if he is a
Greek, for there are limits to how much the Greeks, who have never
learned the habit of obedience, will honor any man. It is better
thus, and I was right to decline a crown. Those who are truly free
have no need of kings.

So I returned to my farm and was a farmer
again.

And in truth the next year of my life was
full of happiness. Our harvests were rich, and mine was the
satisfaction wealth brings when it is wrested from the earth by
one’s own labor. I had the respect of my neighbors, and I had
Selana, who gave me that which no woman had ever given me, a love I
could enjoy without self-reproach, a love I could acknowledge to
the world, conscious that I offended against no man or god.

Selana, the peasant girl I had bought on the
wharf at Naukratis when she was no more than a child, and yet I
valued her above any noblewoman with perfumed breasts who had lured
me to her bed with promises of golden pleasure. In her love there
were no dark secrets, no hidden place of treachery. All was as it
appeared. With her I was more than happy—I was content.

But if I fancied myself safely beneath the
god’s notice I was mistaken, for the Lord Ashur has a long reach. I
knew this the evening Epeios stopped by my house on his way back
from Naxos to tell me “of a stranger who has come, a man who speaks
a tongue no one has ever heard before, who asked through his
interpreter if there was one among us who carried the mark of the
blood star on his hand.

“It seemed to me you should know, Tiglath. He
does not make an encouraging impression, so no one has thought to
betray you to him, but he has clearly come a long way and he knew
where to look for you—I think he will find you out here soon
enough.”

He was still mounted on his horse, while I
stood on my porch. I had not even offered him a cup of wine yet. I
was glad no one else was about to hear him.

“Did you see him yourself?”

“Yes.”

“Has he a finger missing?”

“I do not think so. I am sure not, for that
is the sort of thing one notices.”

He was longing to ask the inevitable
questions—Who is he? What business could such a one have with
you?—but he did not. So many among the Greeks of Sicily had things
in their pasts they preferred to leave undisturbed that it was not
considered polite to make such inquiries.

“Then let him find me,” I said. I even
managed a thin smile, as if the matter were something indifferent.
“Perhaps I am not the one he looks for—I am not the only man alive
who carries a red birthmark upon his hand.”

I did not expect him to be deceived, but I
was past caring what Epeios thought of the matter.

“Come down from your horse and break the seal
on a jar with me. Think no more of this other matter, for it is of
no importance.”

When he was gone I ate my evening meal,
listening in silence as Kephalos offered his nightly description of
his exploits during the battle on the Plain of Clonios. I listened,
glancing about me, all the time thinking to myself, all of this,
this life I have made for myself, this happiness which is so a part
of every hour that I am hardly conscious of it, it was all no more
than a shadow, a thing that vanishes with the sun, of no
substance.

And I remembered the eagle whose shadow had
fallen across me after the defeat of Collatinus—an eagle, flying
east, staining my palm an even darker red with his blood. The god’s
purpose, it seemed, was about to be revealed.

The next morning, without a word to anyone, I
hitched up our cart and drove it into Naxos. There seemed little
point in delaying the inevitable.

It happened to be market day, and even during
the last few hours of daylight the square was crowded. Voices, like
coins clattering against the paving stones, cut the silence into
little pieces, and the air was rich with the smell of life. The
wineshops were doing a brisk business and I traded greetings with
old friends and comrades in arms and even men whose faces were
unknown to me.

Everyone, it seemed, was ready to take my
hand and to offer me a taste from his jar, and more than a few told
me again of the barbarian who inquired after one marked with the
blood star, confiding it to me in whispers like a secret.

Yet the man himself appeared not to be
there.

And then, quite suddenly, he was. As I stood
beneath the awning of a wineshop I did not see him at first—I only
heard the growing silence as men nudged one another and pointed,
letting their conversations die away. I turned, and my heart almost
froze within my breast.

He was one in the middle of life, and by the
standards that would apply among the Greeks he was an exotic enough
sight. His beard, which reached to the middle of his chest, was
carefully plaited, and he wore the elaborate, richly embroidered
court robes of a royal chamberlain in the Land of Ashur. In his
hand was his staff of office, and from this dangled the silver
ribbons which meant his message was for a prince of the king’s own
blood.

I knew him, of course, by sight if not by
name. As soon as our eyes met, he bowed from the waist.

“My Lord Tiglath Ashur,” he said, in a voice
that carried to every corner of the square—my friends and
neighbors, it seemed, were to be treated to a spectacle—“son and
grandson of kings, Prince in the Land of Ashur, attend me, for I
bring you the words of your royal brother the Lord Esarhaddon, Lord
of the World, King of the Earth’s Four Corners.”

It was a shock. Whatever I had expected, it
had not been this. Even the sound of my native tongue, which I had
not heard in years, rolled in my head like distant thunder. For a
moment I could only stand and stare.

“I have no brother who is a king,” I said,
when at last I found my voice again. “The Lord Esarhaddon has said
I am his brother no more. He has turned his face from me, and he
and I can have no business.”

“Then it is the king who speaks, and it will
be the subject who listens. Or do you deny that bond as well, O son
of the Lord Sennacherib?”

I studied his face with bitter eyes, hating
him, feeling like a fox in a wooden cage. Did he dare to mock me,
this one?

“Speak then.”

“Look about you, Lord. The king’s words are
not for the ears of common men.”

I did look about, at the staring faces of the
Greeks, and all at once, and of its own will, a fit of laughter
broke from my lips.

“Be at ease, Chamberlain,” I said, still
laughing. “The king’s secrets are safe enough. The king bid me hide
myself in the dark lands beyond the sun, and I have made a
reasonable enough effort to oblige him—there is not another within
five days’ journey of this place who can understand a word we
speak.”

“Still, my Lord. . .”

It was then that I noticed the man who stood
beside him, a short, dark, compact figure in the costume of an
Edomite. His interpreter, doubtless—but perhaps not entirely
trusted.

“As you wish,” I answered, gesturing toward
the entrance of the wineshop. “I am sure the proprietor will oblige
us.”

We were met in the doorway by Timon the
Arcadian, the owner, still in his leather apron, who had been just
on his way outside to see what the stir was about.

“Can you oblige us with a little privacy?” I
asked him, smiling. He had fought at the Plain of Clonios and was a
good fellow.

“Of course, Tiglath, of course! Take whatever
room pleases you,” he said, pointing up the stairs to the second
story, where the harlots entertained their customers. “And if any
of my girls are still asleep up there, just kick them out.”

He laughed at this.

When we had four walls around us and the door
was closed, the chamberlain turned to face me, his lips closed as
if he would never speak again. He bowed once more.

“The king summons you home,” he said. “He
demands your attendance upon him at Nineveh.”

I do not know why I should have been so
surprised. Perhaps anything he said would have had the same effect.
Perhaps I had simply not recovered from my initial astonishment.
Yet I found I had to repeat the sentence to myself before I could
even grasp its meaning.

“. . .Summons me home?” I shook my head. “It
is my death if I return to the Land of Ashur—it was his judgment
against me. I cannot go home.”

“Nevertheless, he summons you.”

“No doubt, that he might once again put me
within reach of his assassins,” I said.

“The Lord Esarhaddon guarantees your life, in
token of which. . .”

There was a small linen bag hanging from his
belt. He undid it and placed it on a table beside the room’s only
window, stepping away, inviting me to examine its contents.

Inside was a human hand, severed at the wrist
and dried in salt until the flesh was the color of harness leather.
It was a left hand, and the smallest finger was missing.

I felt a thrill of horror, without even
knowing why, for I had seen many worse things in my life. Perhaps
it was merely the nearness of my escape. And also there was in this
something of the secret which had been betrayed.

So the last one was now accounted for.

“The king cannot make me come,” I said,
almost to myself—the words seemed in place of others that remained
unspoken. “His power, even his name, is nothing here. I am beyond
his reach.”

“Yes. Nothing compels you except duty.”

“I have no duty to Esarhaddon.”

“But to the king. . .”

I could have struck him, but instead I turned
my back that he might not see how his words twisted my heart.

“Leave me, Chamberlain. Your duty is done.
Return to Nineveh and say you received only silence for an
answer.”

He bowed yet again and turned away. I could
hear his footfalls on the stairs. I did not see him again.

The hand remained on the table where he had
left it.

As I drove the wagon home, I thought how it
would please Esarhaddon to see me thus, a dusty farmer jostling
along a rutted country road, on an island the name of which he had
probably never even heard. I wondered why he was not content to
leave me so, as I was content to be left. I was no danger to him
here. It appeared he simply could not bear the idea of having me in
the same world with him.

I put no faith in his guarantee. A severed
hand meant little enough, and Esarhaddon had already broken his
word on this account—I had fled his realm and still he had sent men
to murder me. It might be that the five assassins which my dream
had foretold were at last accounted for, but perhaps my brother now
felt safe enough on his throne that he had decided he preferred to
enjoy his revenge in person.

And he had the impudence to send for me thus,
as if he were recalling one of his provincial governors.

And that because he knew I would come.

I was trapped. It was such a jest on me that
I felt almost like laughing. Yes, Esarhaddon’s messenger had seen
through me—as had his master. I might dress like a Greek, but this
incident had been all the god required to remind me that I remained
a man of Ashur. I had been an exile for many years now, yet I could
not break the habit of obedience—Esarhaddon was still my king.

Each of us must have something at the core of
his soul, some final loyalty, to deny which would be to deny his
own nature. I was the son and grandson of kings, and the king spoke
with the authority of Holy Ashur himself. I could not join the
rebellion against Esarhaddon when our father was murdered; I could
not stand aside and let Nabusharusur kill him at Sidon. Even on the
other end of the earth, I was still the
quradu
, the soldier
of the royal bodyguard, sworn to lay down my life at the king’s
word. To be such had been the pride and glory of my youth. To be
such had been, to me, more than to be prince or conqueror, more
even than to be king. The time for breaking faith with all that had
long since passed.

Thus I knew I would return, simply because it
was the king’s will. And Esarhaddon had known it too.

Thus I looked upon myself as a dead man.

Kephalos bustled out to greet me as I pulled
into our farmyard. I tried to smile as we unbridled the horse, but
from the way he stared I gathered I was not very convincing.

“What afflicts you, Lord? You look as if you
have seen an evil spirit.”

“Perhaps I have. A messenger has come from
Nineveh. I am bid to return.”

He stood silent for a moment, the horse’s
bridle hanging unregarded from his hand. At first he seemed
relieved, even expectant, and then gradually his face began to
register that tension of a man waiting to have his worst fears
confirmed.

“You would not return, would you? Not even if
the message should be that Esarhaddon is dead. . .”

“He is not dead—no, my friend, I am not being
recalled to the throne. Quite the opposite, I fear.”