“We will do better now,” I shouted back.
“For the god reserves you to another way,” the maxxu had told me, so long ago. Now, I thought, perhaps I am to find it.
When we reached the middle of the river, Selana tore off her veil and threw it away. Almost at once the swirling waters dragged it under and it disappeared forever.
EPILOGUE
If one is spared to grow old enough, the past assumes a clarity that is denied to the present, and the future disappears like a phantom. I was thirty-seven when I crossed the Bohtan River and left behind forever the land of my birth. That was nearly sixty years ago. It has taken me all my long lifetime to see even dimly into the riddle of those days, of what Esarhaddon and Naq’ia and all the rest of us set into motion while we followed blindly the pattern of the god’s great design, thinking it all the movement of our own little wills. I alone have been spared to see the ends of things, only to grasp that these are not the ends, that the Lord Ashur recognizes no completion to his purpose, which is known only to him, and thus the final meaning of all we did and suffered remains hidden.
And perhaps I only deceive myself that I have learned anything at all. Deianira, child of my youngest grandson, is endlessly pleased with herself that at last she is mistress of all the Greek letters in which this long story of my youth is written—she can point to them, one after another, as they appear on the vellum page, speaking the name of each and fancying that thus the whole secret of writing is open to her. Perhaps my understanding is like hers, composed of random fragments of the truth, useless because without a clue to the controlling intention.
So here it sits on my writing desk, scroll after scroll, the product of many days’ labor, meant for eyes that can see more clearly than mine. There is only a very little more to add.
We wintered that year with Tabiti and his people, and the following spring we moved west with them as far as Lydia, where the Sacan, along with tribes of the Cimmerians, raided many border villages and seemed able—such was the weakness and turmoil of that kingdom—to come and go as they liked. At the coastal city of Myrina the son of Argimpasa and I threw our arms around each other’s necks and through our tears vowed eternal friendship, knowing we would never meet again. Selana, Theseus, Enkidu and I took passage on a Phoenician ship bound for Lesbos, and from there we traveled to Corinth and on to Sicily, arriving home late in the summer after an absence of seven years.
Our return caused considerable excitement in Naxos, where old friends hurried to welcome us back, to tell us all that had happened while we were gone, and to hear of our adventures in strange lands. We stayed in the town overnight, and then in the morning I hired a wagon and we drove to our farm, where an astonished Kephalos greeted us as if we had dropped from the sky in a shower of fire.
“Dread Lord!” he bellowed, weeping furiously, “oh, bless the gods that they have spared me to see this day. It is as if you’ve returned from the dead!”
“Not quite, you fat scoundrel. Did you not receive the letter I had sent to you from Naukratis?”
“Yes, Lord, but distance is like eternity and a scrap of papyrus is not a living man. I despaired that you would ever find your way back—yet I gather, since you are here, that the Lord Esarhaddon has met his death?”
I told him all that had happened. It was a long story, lasting far into the night, and by the time it was finished we were both too drunk to find our beds. Such was our reunion.
The farm was much improved in our absence, which was entirely due to the careful management of young Tullus, who had taken a wife and already had a son just Theseus’ age. His mother had died, but his brother, as yet unmarried, still lived with him. With some of my little remaining gold I gave Icilius the price of a bride and bought the two families a plot adjacent to my own land, on condition that Tullus remain as my overseer. The rest I laid out on the purchase of another farm, for I meant to prosper in my new life.
The years that followed brought increase and loss, as is the common lot of all men. Selana was with child again even before we left Asia, and a second son, named Patroklus, was born to us soon after our return. He was followed by a daughter the very next year and then by two more sons. Selana and I lived together in happiness and as much peace as is possible with such a woman, and she died in her seventieth year, surrounded by a family that extended to the fourth generation. I have never ceased to mourn her loss.
Kephalos died ten years after our return, after dining too well one night on Selana’s roast lamb. As I had promised him, I buried his ashes in the same urn with his beloved Ganymedes.
Enkidu died in his sleep. His hair had turned white by then, but his great strength never left him until the hour of death. His ashes lie beside my wife’s, as is only his due.
As for myself, I have lived into the extremity of age, fortunate not to have survived any of Selana’s and my children, all of whom now have children and grandchildren of their own.
Yet what of my other son? What of Ashurbanipal? Some twelve summers ago I heard that he had died full of years and glory. I cannot describe what I felt, for it was almost as if a part of myself had died.
A traveler told me the news, and from him and others over the years I have heard almost all that I know of events in the land of my fathers. They have no idea who I am, for the name of Tiglath Ashur has been long forgotten in the eastern nations, so what they tell me is perhaps even the truth.
Yet I had some tidings of Ashurbanipal even before I left the Greek mainland, for that same summer he kept his word and returned to Egypt with a large army, this time carrying fire and sword all the way to Thebes itself and making himself absolute master of the entire country. Thus the child of my loins proved himself a soldier after all. Taharqa retreated into the Land of Kush and was never heard from again. Egypt, so I believe, is ruled to this day by the descendants of Prince Nekau, who, with the king his master’s permission, made himself Pharaoh.
Then Ashurbanipal made war against the Elamites, destroying that nation forever—I have heard that he had the king’s head cut off and hung from a tree branch in his garden. The Assyrian victory, though complete, was by no means a blessing, however, for the collapse of Elam provided an opening for the Medes, who quickly overran the country and proved a far more dangerous neighbor.
The arrangement by which Esarhaddon gave the throne of Babylon to his son Shamash Shumukin lasted for more than ten years, but in the end, as I had feared, peace between the royal brothers was destroyed. Shamash Shumukin, by what agency and for what reasons I have never been able to learn, was persuaded to rebel against the king of Ashur, raising the whole of Sumer against him. Ashurbanipal crushed the rebellion and Shamash Shumukin died, perhaps by his own hand, as his palace in Babylon burned around him—thus was the prophecy of death by fire, which haunted Esharhamat’s dreams even as she carried the boy in her womb, fulfilled at last.
I have often wondered if Naq’ia’s hand was behind these things, but I will never know. I have heard nothing of her over the years, although she must be long dead.
Of the kings who ruled after Ashurbanipal, whether these were his descendants or others, I know nothing. It has been many years since I have heard the name of my native land on any man’s lips, but of her fate I am nonetheless certain.
I have listened to tales of a great king who has arisen among the Chaldeans, a conqueror who has made himself king of Babylon, and the Medes I know wait only for any sign of weakness that they may fall upon the Land of Ashur like a wolf raiding a flock of sheep—like Esharhamat’s while she was big with her doomed son, my sleeping mat is a place of fire and slaughter.
Every night I dream of Nineveh. I see her deserted and in ruins, her gods carried off into slavery, the ground sodden with the blood of her people. I hear the foxes barking in her streets, and the cries of owls that have made their nests in her temples. Soon, I know, some traveler will make his way here with news that the east has given birth to a new strain of conquerors, that the empire of
my fathers has perished under the swords of another race. I pray only that death will find me first.
Yet until then I sit here in my garden, shaded by a plane tree I planted with my own hands, within sight of the wine-dark sea, and it is possible to believe that life is a blessing. Nations that have known uncounted centuries of triumph vanish in an instant of defeat, yet men live on without them. Some purpose is served in this, though we may never know what it is, for the god is full of mercy and his holy light washes the world clean with each new day. I see the sun rise over the glistening water and feel its heat against my face, like the warmth of love, and I know that the Lord Ashur has not deserted his creation.
It is as the maxxu told me, though I hardly believed him all those years ago. There is always another dawn.
# # #
About the Author
NICHOLAS GUILD was born in 1944 in Belmont, California. He received a B.A. degree in English from Occidental College in Los Angeles and an M.A. in Comparative Literature and a Ph.D. in English from the University of California at Berkeley. Since then he has divided his time between teaching and writing. He is the author of critical articles on 17th Century poetry and 20th Century fiction, along with twelve novels, several of which have been international best sellers and which have been translated into German, Italian, Spanish, Japanese, Russian, Greek and Czech.
Presently he lives in Frederick, MD
Discover other titles by Nicholas Guild at Smashwords.com:
Angel
The Assyrian
The Linz Tattoo
The Berlin Warning
Chain Reaction
The President’s Man
The Favor
Old Acquaintance
The Summer Soldier
The Blood Star Page 78
