The Assyrian

by Nicholas Guild

  “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 pi
ece 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.”

  My overseer punctuated his answer with a low bow, his hand over his heart. I wondered how much he might know but decided that perhaps it would be better not to ask.

  “Such I am no longer, for I have made over the estate to my lady mother. I know you will serve her as faithfully as you have served me, Tahu Ishtar.”

  “I and my son both, Lord.”

  “Good, then—that is settled.” I swung up on the horse’s back and held out my hand. Tabu Ishtar took it in both of his. “And may things prosper with you always, and may the child in Naiba’s belly be another grandson to rejoice your heart.”

  “Goodbye, Lord. May the god hold you in his hand.”

  He knew we would never meet again. It was in his voice.

  “Goodbye, Overseer.”

  When he released my hand I let the gelding have a taste of the spur and left behind this place which had been my home.

  . . . . .

  I reached the marker stone of my own lands in the first hour of morning and I did not expect to pass under the Great Gate of Nineveh until about two hours after midday. With a nimbler pace I could have been quicker in my journey, but I had had a large breakfast and was inclined to be lazy and, in any case, nothing so very pleasant awaited me in Nineveh.

  The road ran always within sight of the Tigris River, which at this season of the year lay within narrow banks. Her cold black waters raced over her stone bed hissing like an adder—she too was on her way to Nineveh.

  I wondered what would happen there. Would I be confronted with false witnesses, men paid to testify that I had plotted with Arad Malik? Would Esarhaddon really stoop to that, since he better than any would know my innocence?

  Yet even as king he would not dare to charge me with my true crimes, for how could he possibly admit to the world that his son and heir, the child Ashurbanipal whom the gods favored, was not his issue but my own? No, if he knew—and I rather suspected that he did—he would keep silent.

  So. What was left? An assassin—a hired dagger hiding in the shadows? Probably. Everyone would know the truth, but no one would utter it. A king can reign with many scandals behind him, for men—if given a choice—will always believe what they want.

  Sinqi Adad had said that before the flesh was burned from his bones. Was this the wisdom that comes to condemned men?

  The sun in my face was pleasant. Life was a gift of heaven, even if it lasted but an hour.

  Everything was clear on the road to Nineveh.

  I met few people on my journey until I had passed the last marker before the city gates—the same spot where I had spoken for the final time to the maxxu. There, where the wheel ruts in the mud grew suddenly deeper, I passed a knot of farmers with their wagons, three or four of them, pulled to the side of the road, enjoying a jar of beer and a little conversation on their way to market. One glanced at me as I passed, and the sudden surprise that registered in his face showed that he recognized me. Five minutes later the same wagons passed me at a brisk trot, but the men looked away as they went by.

  I stopped on the road and had my midday meal at a spot where I could already see the walls of Nineveh.

  How had it all happened? Every step of our downward path was clear to me, and yet I still could not grasp how Esarhaddon and I, friends and brothers, could now be such unforgiving enemies. It seemed strange, and yet inevitable. My life in ruins, his without contentment or ease of spirit—it was bitter. This hatred between us, it was what I regretted most, even more than the loss of Esharhamat, whose love at least I had retained. If it was to be the assassin’s blade, striking from some concealed place, I would not grieve to part from my life. Yet I grieved that it would be Esarhaddon whose treasure paid that it might be done.

  Having finished my meal, I set out on the last part of my journey. By the time I was within five hundred paces of the Great Gate I could already see the crowds gathering.

  By the time I had crossed half that distance they were lining the road, throwing flowers and gold coins in my path, reaching to touch me, or even my horse, cheering.

  “Ashur is King! Ashur is King! Ashur is King!” they chanted, their faces flushed, wild with joy. As I passed beneath the Great Gate, the mud walls echoed the shouting. The Street of Ninlil, which led to the king’s palace, was clogged with people—foreigners and natives, children and men, women holding out their babies that my shadow might fall across them. I could hardly make my way for the pressure of the mob that surged to come near.

  And everywhere the cheering, the same cry from so many thousand throats: “Ashur is King! Ashur is King!” It was almost as if they were pleading with me or their god or both.

  “This,” I thought, my heart pounding within my breast, “this is the finest hour of my life. Whatever comes now, I will never know another like this.”

  There is a saying in the east that the three finest things in life are love, power, and revenge. The crowds who came to welcome me home to Nineveh gave me all three, if only for this brief moment. Whatever might come in the hours and days to follow, I was having my revenge on Esarhaddon in advance.

  Even on a market day, when the streets are crowded, a man may walk from the Great Gate to the palace of the king in forty-five minutes. That day, on horseback, it took me not less than two hours. The people of Nineveh would not let me go. My head rang with their cheering, and I was drunk with the wine of their adoration. They, at least, had not forgotten me.

  The steps of the king’s palace were crowded as well. The nobles of my brother’s court, perhaps attracted by the commotion had come in their grandeur and their robes of office to witness what, no doubt, they had never expected and could hardly understand. I sa
w many faces that were known to me and many that were not. I saw perplexity, alarm, even fear. Yes, of course they were afraid.

  And at last even Esarhaddon himself appeared on the palace steps—the king, in robes of gold, come once more to subdue the people of this hated, rebellious city. He raised his hand for silence, but the crowds paid him no heed. They kept up the joyful sound of their cheering—”Ashur is King! Ashur is King! Ashur is King!”—as if I were their king and they followed me from my crowning ceremony.

  At last, at the foot of the Stairway, I drew my frightened, nervous horse to a stop and dismounted. Esarhaddon was at the top, before the great doors, which stood open on their copper hinges, and I at the bottom, and we faced each other for the first time.

  I mounted the steps, one after the other, slowly, the nobles of my brothers court breaking before me and the crowd still cheering at my back. One step at a time—it seemed to take forever.

  At last I stood before him. A cold sneer was on his face, as if he had expected this treachery all along. And still they cheered.

  I knelt at Esarhaddon’s feet.

  The crowd went silent. On my knees I held out my hands to him, my king and lord, in token of submission. And then I pressed my brow against the ground in front of him. It was a gesture no one could have misunderstood.

  The world seemed to hold its breath. I raised my head and saw hatred in my brother’s eyes—yes, for this he hated me more than ever. I regained my legs.

  Esarhaddon said nothing. He simply turned and walked back inside through the open doorway.

  . . . . .

  I was informed it was the king’s will that I not dwell in my own residence, the palace I had inherited from the Lord Sinahiusur, but should abide within the royal palace itself. I was in fact being kept under informal arrest—I had freedom of movement within the palace and the house of war, now garrisoned with troops from the south loyal to Esarhaddon, but the city was forbidden to me.

  They feared the mobs, of course. They feared that somehow, even after my public submission to the king, I might snatch the crown from his head—although whether I still had the power was difficult to know.