The Assyrian

by Nicholas Guild

  . . . . .

  Kephalos, even before my return, had purchased for himself the largest house Amat had to offer—a cramped little warren by the standards of the palace he had inhabited in Nineveh, but large enough for reasonable comfort. The difficulty, of course, was that my servant’s notions of comfort were anything except reasonable.

  “I pray you, Lord, to excuse the poverty of my table,” he announced the first time I came to dinner there, “but the kitchen in this place is a smoky box. My cook can hardly see for wiping the soot from her eyes and, as no doubt you understand, luxury is not to be expected under such conditions.”

  I looked at the silver dishes in front of me and beheld as great a variety of foods as even the king in Tushpa had regarded as sufficient against the gluttony of foreign visitors. Duck prepared after the Hittite manner, lamb roasted in spices, honeyed locusts, dried fish, barley, pumpkin, lentils, several varieties of cheese, and an abundance of fruit almost past imagining. The wine, of course, had been looted from my own cellar.

  “In such a wilderness, one must accustom oneself to privation,” he went on, sighing loudly before washing his fingers in a small bronze bowl and accepting a towel to dry them from one of the four or five serving girls, each more beautiful than the last, who floated in and out of the room as silently as ghosts.

  “Perhaps, with effort and a little good fortune, we can make of the place something worthy of you,” I said dryly, for his self-pity was comic enough.

  “Yes, Lord—riches relentlessly follow at the heels of power, and I have always known that in your service I would contrive to die a wealthy man.” He glanced up, his eyes twinkling with what might have been either greed or irony. “Allow me, after we have eaten, to put before you certain plans I have drawn up in accordance with your instructions. I fancy you will not be displeased.”

  My purposes were nothing if not grandiose. I would extend the fortress’s outer wall to encompass an area nearly five times the size of the present compound, and this extension would be carried out in stone, which luckily was to be found in considerable abundance in the mountains only a day’s march distant. It threatened to be no small task, but I would need the space because it was also part of my design to raise the strength of the Amat garrison from thirty companies to a hundred, and that within five years.

  And from this need for haste proceeded, paradoxical as it might seem, the intention to use stone. Brickmaking required the heat of the summer sun, but stone could be quarried and cut even in winter. Besides, I had three thousand soldiers to keep occupied until the next campaign season.

  Other work must necessarily follow. There would be barracks to build, and the kitchens, offices, workshops, and stables would have to be extended. An army such as the one I envisioned would require parade grounds to train on and hords of craftsmen in leather and metal to keep them outfitted. And since soldiers and craftsmen and scribes must all be paid, and must have somewhere to spend their money, the amusements of the town itself would have to be enhanced—but this, I suspected, was a matter which could be trusted to take care of itself.

  There was work enough to last several years, but thanks to Kephalos we made a good start that winter. The quarries were surveyed and within a month the first great blocks of stone had begun to make their way toward Amat on log rollers.

  The men of Ashur are great builders. This is the real secret of their success as conquerors—they understand so completely the arts of fortification that almost any city against which they lay siege is doomed, for those who would undermine a wall must first know how it was constructed. Thus, in the armies of the god no man is a soldier only; he will also have abilities as a carpenter, a mason, a joiner, or perhaps even an architect. And thus I had at my command all the skilled workmen I required.

  But skill can only do so much. The earth cannot be dug by magic, and stone blocks, no matter how perfectly their corners have been squared, will not move of their own will. To do these things required a vast force of men with no talents beyond strong muscles and a willing pair of hands.

  This difficulty, however, did admit of a solution, since my appointment as shaknu carried with it the customary powers of impressment. Besides, we found the local farmers, idle enough during the winter months, more than willing to work at the rate of half a copper shekel a day—such a sum, small as it was, could buy a bushel of dates, and among these folk a bushel of dates was wealth almost beyond imagining.

  By the month of Tebet, when there was already a finger’s depth of snow upon the ground and the quarry workers split away their blocks of stone by pouring water into the cracks they had made with iron axes and letting the water freeze overnight, the great new wall of our fortress had risen already to the height of a man’s waist, and I was able to hope that it would be finished within two years’ time. My own palace, which would also be the military headquarters and seat of government for the northern provinces, was proceeding even faster. I had hopes it would be ready for occupation by the season of flooding.

  The men of Ashur live by farming and war, and these are occupations which belong to the long hot months of summer, after the cold has unclenched its fist and the floods have come and gone. In winter we sharpen our swords and repair our granaries and wait. It is the season when, for want of anything better to do, a man turns in upon himself. It is the season of memory and tormenting dreams. It is the season of the bitter heart.

  Hence I was more than eager to keep myself busy. Had I been posted to the south, where there was no stone, I would have enjoyed a wretched enough time, but in Amat there was hardly any interval to indulge a taste for misery. In the mornings I worked at my desk; I saw my officers, read reports, and attended to the hundreds of little tasks by which a garrison of three thousand men is kept warm, fed, and orderly. And in the afternoons I mounted my horse and rode out to see how the work was progressing. It was only in the evenings that my brain was tempted by dark shadows, and even then I tried to keep myself busy—and if I could not find some piece of business I feasted my officers or went to Kephalos’ house to talk nonsense. And there was Naiba.

  And it is no small pleasure to watch walls and buildings slowly rising at one’s command. By the time we began to feel the first hint of warmer weather, the great fortress walls had risen to the height of a man’s head, three of the new barracks were ready to receive their occupants, and my own palace, except for the roof and the interiors of the rooms, was nearly finished and I had hopes of being able to move in within a few months. I took great delight in all this, and that delight compensated for much.

  For I was then still a very young man, and a young man, whatever his disappointments, cannot remain afflicted forever. I had a task in life, something to make every day seem important, and my flesh was not deprived of its comforts. If I had my black moments to live through—particularly when the oil lamp had been snuffed out and I had spent my seed and must wait for sleep to close my eyes—they were only moments, to be measured against long hours of forgetfulness and an easy mind. I was, if not happy, at least content.

  But by the time the snow had started to vanish from the ground and the floodwaters were rising again, I was beginning to feel restless. The work proceeded well and did not depend on my day to day supervision, and the reinforcements from Nineveh could not arrive before the end of Iyyar, and that gave me over two months. Amat could not hold me. I was like an animal in a cage, rubbing its sides against the bars to make its place of confinement as large as possible. I decided on a tour of the provinces.

  The villages of the north are small and widely separated, for the land is not as fertile as it is in the south. My new subjects would be too poor to entertain their shaknu and a large force of his solders without considerable hardship, and I would not be seen as a mere plunderer. Besides, it was part of my object to make these people understand that the garrison at Amat, to which they paid their taxes and sent their menfolk impressed as laborers, was there to protect them. What would they think if it appeared
that not even I felt safe to travel within my own territories without an army at my back? How secure in his life and his property was then any man? Thus I set off with a bodyguard of only ten men.

  It was a cold morning on which we began our journey, the coldest in many days. The frozen breath of our horses made great plumes in the air, and the fields of stubble left over from the autumn harvest were shining with ice. Naiba stood on the porch of my house, a blanket wrapped around her shoulders, watching with that look of doubt that women have when the men go off on their incomprehensible errands. I smiled at her and swung up onto my mount. It seemed a fine time to be alive.

  We followed the Upper Zab south until just after noon and then struck out for the east, entering a line of fertile valleys nourished by a river which appeared as no more than a thread on any map I had ever seen and was bounded on either side by ranges of mountains the names of which none among us could even guess. The river, swollen by the melting snow, was already a torrent, and we could hear quite plainly along its bottom the sounds of huge stones being rolled downstream by its violence. The land on the opposite bank was much more level and open, but it was not until almost evening of the second day that we found a spot at which we could risk a crossing. I could not remember when I had ever felt water as cold as that.

  On the morning of the third day, only a little more than an hour after breaking camp, we rode into the first village we had seen since leaving Amat. Perhaps sixty or seventy families, living in the collection of mudbrick buildings, made up this one community, which might have existed on the same spot for easily a thousand years.

  Following the etiquette which governs such matters—for even the king’s shaknu must not imagine the men of Ashur will consent to be treated like a conquered race—I stopped my horse some twenty paces from the village perimeter and waited. In his good time, the village elder, a white haired, leathery old man with a face like a lion, came out to meet me, his staff of office in his right hand. He bowed, just low enough to be polite without implying servility, and stood in silence.

  “You have the look of one in authority,” I said. “I bring you greetings from our dread lord, the King in Nineveh, the Servant of the God, the Lord of the World. I am his shaknu, and my name is Tiglath Ashur.”

  “It is a name known even here, my Lord Prince. And I welcome you, the mighty son of a mighty father, as if you were the king himself.”

  That night the village feasted us on fresh killed lamb. And I was the guest in the elder’s house, where I drank beer with him and his sons and his son’s sons. Outside I could hear the laughter of my soldiers, most of whom had probably been born in such a place as this and thus doubtless felt very much at home. I too, though raised in the Lord Sennacherib’s court, felt the comfortable familiarity of these whitewashed walls, within which, in a sense, all the men of Ashur have been born, for the village is the root of our lives.

  All of us, the elder and his progeny and their guest the shaknu, sat on reed mats upon the floor, drinking from pottery jars and enjoying the brazier’s fire. And the old man told me of the days when he had been a soldier in the army of the great king Tiglath Pileser, who had made war in the western lands.

  “I was but a boy then, and had never been more than half a day’s journey from my father’s threshold. I was privileged to serve under the Lord Sargon, who became king himself in the next reign but one. He was a mighty man—but for your leather colored hair and your blue eyes, you, Lord, might almost be his ghost.”

  “I am not fit even to be his shadow, Old Father, but I am flattered if you think my grandfather lives in me a little. I was born in the hour of his death and this, I fear, is the only legacy I have from him.”

  I opened my hand to show them the birthmark on the palm.

  “I remember the blood star which ushered you into the world—and the Lord Sargon out,” the old man said gravely shaking his head. “It is a fearful thing to be thus marked by the god. It makes me thank the might of Ashur that I was born to a humble destiny.”

  “To be a prince and live in a golden house must not be so punishing a fate.”

  It was one of the grandsons who spoke, a man of about my own age but very far gone in drink.

  “I would not spurn to be a king’s son—ask the Lord Tiglath Ashur if he would trade places.”

  In the silence that followed, he swallowed hard and lowered his eyes to the ground.

  “This fool sprung from my own loins meant no disrespect, Prince,” the elder said at last. I could only grin, as if at a joke, and touch his beer jar with my own.

  “And none was taken, Old Father. You both speak the truth, for a man’s life is what he makes it. If he is wretched in a golden house he has no one to blame but himself.”

  “No, Prince—a man’s life is what the god makes it.”

  . . . . .

  In every village we were received with warm hospitality, for the men of Ashur respect their king and his servants and do not disdain the stranger in their midst. I found that my name had preceded me even to these remote places, which gratified my pride but did not make me once again so willing to speak of my father’s fathers, nor did I again show anyone the mark on my palm. I had been boasting, after a fashion—for I was proud to be descended of great kings—and I had been punished for it. I did not delight to be reminded that I was nought but the god’s plaything.

  We proceeded down this line of valleys until we found a pass in the mountains. Then we crossed the pass and headed back toward the Upper Zab, for I wished to cross it before the floodwaters had risen enough to make the pontoon bridges unusable. It was the month of Nisan, on the day when the New Year’s festival would be ending in Nineveh and the god’s idol returned to his temple, when we entered the western part of the lands under my authority.

  These places are little cultivated by men, and it was not unusual for us to go several days without finding a village or a plowed field. But the weather was mild and there was no shortage of game for hunting, so we felt no privation. Because I was curious—and felt no desire to return to Amat before the time—I led my little troop once more into the high country, into places where only the caravans travel, where none are at home except spirits. I would have felt content to wander there forever.

  At last, in the middle of the day, after cresting a line of hills, we saw before us a great mountain. It was not part of any range but stood alone, like a proud king who will endure no comparison. It seemed to confront us without warning. The summit was lost in mist, secluded and holy.

  We had been traveling more or less at random, following no specific trail and with no goal in sight, and yet, as I looked up at those rocky slopes, all might and grandeur, I could not overcome the impression that somehow I had been brought to this place, that I had found what, without knowing it, I had been seeking all along.

  There was one among my soldiers who, having been born in a village not three days’ ride away, could make some claim to knowing the country. I summoned him forward and pointed.

  “What is that ahead of us?” I asked him.

  “That is Mount Epih, Rab Shaqe,” he answered, smiling as if the sight of it filled him with pleasure. “It is the dwelling place of Mighty Ashur, as old as the world.”

  “Then you have been here before?”

  “Oh, no, Rab Shaqe, for its precincts are forbidden. But it could be no other. The god marks it as his own—see?”

  Yes, I could see. Even through the clouds a dull yellow light was just visible, seeming to flicker slightly like an oil lamp left by the window.

  “The summit is never without its mantle of clouds,” he went on, “but the god declares himself. They say that when the light disappears it will mean that Ashur has deserted his people and consigned them to destruction.”

  “And the mountain is forbidden?”

  “Yes, Rab Shaqe. None may venture there save those whom the god summons—at least, none may return. They leave their bones to bleach on the dead stone and their souls will wande
r forever, with none to make them offerings of wine and food. It is a place best left to itself.”

  “I come from Mount Epih,” the maxxu had told me, so long ago. “Do you know it?” And I had answered that I did not, saying that few have been there. “Few have, yes. But you will one day.” It seemed that the day had at last arrived.

  “We will camp at the foot tonight,” I said, watching his eyes grow wide with pious dread. “And tomorrow I will climb the mountain. Do not fear—I believe that I have been summoned.” I smiled at him, for he was afraid.

  “We will know, will we not, if I come down again.”

  “Yes, Rab Shaqe. We will know then.”

  My soldiers were not enthusiastic for this latest of their commander’s freaks. My orders were met with a glum silence, and when we had ridden within half a beru of the mountain they all stopped their horses together and waited for me to turn and face them. I could see from the expressions on their faces that they meant to go no farther.

  The ekalli, who had fought at the Bohtan River and was a good man, not easily frightened, swept his hand sidewise through the air in a gesture of apology.

  “We would follow you into the jaws of death,” he said, as if ashamed to admit it. “There is no enemy with whom we would fear to do battle for your sake, Rab Shaqe. You know all this. But we fear to offend the god, and now you would have us profane the ground of his holy place with our footprints. We beg you, Rab Shaqe. . .”

  “Do not distress yourself, Sinduri,” I said, touched by this appeal, which, if it fell just short of mutiny, I could not bring myself to blame, for they were right to dread this which I would do, and it was not my place to involve them in the god’s wrath. “We will stop here, away from Ashur’s precinct, and tomorrow I will go on alone. If I do wrong, none will suffer for it save myself alone.”