Of Fire and Lions

by Mesu Andrews

  He lifted me by the hand and then met my gaze. Something troubling swam in the eyes I knew so well. “What is it, my lord? Are you ill?”

  “I’ll know after I hear your answer.” He hesitated, so unlike the decisive chief of Media’s wise men. “I’ve already asked the chief priest, and we’ve settled on a price. Now the only question is your willingness, Belili.”

  Settled on a price? My willingness? Prickly flesh lifted the small hairs on my arms. I’d performed all the priestess’s prescribed oath ceremonies. What more could he—

  “Marry me, Belili.”

  “Marry you?” I waited for him to chuckle and even glanced behind him, checking for a nobleman who had likely dared him to play a trick.

  He released my hand, real hurt blazing in his eyes. “Are you looking for someone to come to your rescue? I can see you have no intention of—”

  “No, I thought someone…I mean…Why would you wish to marry me?” The whole chamber fell silent, and I realized we’d become entertainment. “Please, can we go into the hallway to talk?”

  He accompanied me, placing his hand at the small of my back. It felt possessive but secure. I liked it. The hall was busy too, but at least people were bustling past rather than standing to listen.

  I lifted my eyes to appraise this familiar stranger. In his early thirties, he wasn’t unpleasant to look at. His hands had always been gentle and kind. How could I express my fear and distrust to the man Gadi? Not the chief magus or friend of the king. “Don’t you want to marry a Median maiden who’s never known another man?”

  He grinned, and at first I thought he would mock me. “You’re seventeen, vibrant, and clever.” With a feather-light touch, he traced a line from my earlobe down my throat and paused at the hollow of my neck, where he placed a kiss that sent my heart racing. I inhaled a ragged breath, daring to feel a moment’s pleasure. He brushed my lips with a teasing kiss. “I want you, Belili. Tonight. After the sacrifice of the white bull. Come to me at the pinnacle of your service to Mithra, you, the most beautiful high priestess in Achmetha’s records, and wed the chief magus.”

  His words shattered any delusions of his affection for me. This marriage, like everything else in my life, would be about my survival.

  “I’ve heard King Astyages has asked you to represent the Medes when King Nebuchadnezzar unveils a giant statue on the Dura Plain.”

  Surprise lit his features, then a wry smile. “You want to see Babylon.”

  “More than anything.”

  He slid his arm around my waist and pulled me against him. “After we’re married.”

  I pulled his head down and kissed him thoroughly, then pulled away, leaving him breathless. “I’ll marry you when we get to Babylon.”

  Eyes narrowed, he placed both hands on the wall near my head, trapping me with a steady gaze. He knew I was gambling. When would a high priestess get a better offer? “We leave for Babylon tomorrow.”

  “I’ll be ready.” I slid out to my right and tossed a smile over my shoulder. Let Gadi think it was for him. He didn’t need to know I was imagining Ashpenaz bowing to me.

  * * *

  Daniel was too nervous to sit still. He marched out of his bedchamber onto the second-story balcony and leaned over the railing to see farther up the mighty Euphrates. “They should be here by now. Surely they’d come straight to our villa, wouldn’t they?” He let out a huff and returned to his chamber.

  Zakiti remained quiet, a wry grin on her lips, while she finished embroidering his new belt for today’s dedication ceremony.

  He paced another lap around her couch. “Aren’t you going to say something?”

  His wife laid aside her embroidery and rose with the grace of a willow tree. “What do you wish me to say, my love? Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego will move heaven and earth to find you if they’re in this city. But look at all the people.” She pointed to the river, clogged as it was with rafts and quffas of every size. “If your friends didn’t plan for the crowds, they’ll likely miss the big event.”

  He pressed both hands against the rail, releasing his frustration in a long, slow sigh. “Sometimes Babylon’s chief wise man needs to hear the obvious from his wise wife.”

  Zakiti snuggled into the bend of his arm, and he pulled her into a long-overdue embrace. He’d been working too much—again. For the past five years, Nebuchadnezzar had demanded every one of his council members’ full attention to design and build the monstrous statue in the Dura Plain.

  Nebuchadnezzar’s obsession began on the night Abigail disappeared. Daniel had been summoned and reluctantly stood before the king, who had both betrayed and blessed him. Nebuchadnezzar vowed, “I’ll build the statue in my dream and dedicate it to your god.” Leaving his throne, he descended the dais and met Daniel face to face. “How old are you, Belteshazzar?”

  “Fifteen.” Teeth clenched, Daniel still burned with rage.

  “I had a wife and son by the time I was fifteen. Now I’m twenty-one and rule the world. Do you believe your god is more powerful than me?”

  “Yes,” Daniel said without hesitation. “Yahweh can do anything.”

  “Can he find you a Babylonian wife, or will he make you a eunuch in my service? These are your god’s choices, Belteshazzar. He should make the decision before you’re sixteen.” Nebuchadnezzar lifted a single brow. “Or I’ll make the choice for him.”

  Daniel tightened his arms around his wife. She was indeed a gift from Yahweh, introduced to him a year before that fateful night, a day when he’d accompanied Abigail to buy bread in the city market. Zakiti’s father was the best baker in Babylon. A shrewd haggler too. His daughter, even then, sat quietly with her embroidery, her pleasantness balancing his hard bargaining. Zakiti had visited Abigail occasionally at their villa after that, striking up friendships with all the maids.

  When Daniel named his choice of bride, King Nebuchadnezzar grudgingly agreed, since Zakiti wasn’t a nobleman’s daughter. He arranged their betrothal and even paid the baker an enormous bride price. The wedding had been simple, as had been their lives. Daniel worked. Zakiti maintained their home. She was caring, quiet, kind, and…childless. Yahweh, make my wife’s womb fruitful.

  Daniel tried to remember when he’d fallen in love with her. At least he thought it was love. His chest didn’t constrict with that passionate yearning he once felt for Abigail, but perhaps those feelings came only in youth.

  “Lord Belteshazzar, the lords Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego have arrived and await your greeting in—”

  “Yes! Finally!” Daniel grabbed Zakiti’s hand and fairly dragged her down the stairs. “I thought you three might miss the ceremony. What took you so—” The wide gold collars on their necks stole Daniel’s breath. When had they become eunuchs? Why?

  Shadrach scuffed his sandal on the tiles, refusing to meet his gaze. “We weren’t sure…well…that you’d want to see us.”

  Daniel glanced around his courtyard at the six eunuchs assigned by the king as his personal guards. He couldn’t speak freely in front of them. “Zakiti, would you bring some wine and cheese up to our bedchamber so my friends can enjoy some refreshment while I review last-minute administrative details about their cities before the dedication?”

  “Administrative details…” Confused, she started to argue, but realization dawned. “Oh, yes. Of course. I’ll bring a tray up in a few moments.”

  “Come, gentlemen.” Daniel led the men dressed in red administrator’s robes to his chamber and closed the door behind them. Without a moment for pleasantries, he pulled them all into a fierce embrace. “How could you think I wouldn’t want to see you?” They huddled together, letting the balm of friendship heal the uncertainties of four long years apart.

  Meshach, the quiet twin, broke the huddle first. “You should have no regrets about your decision to marry Zakiti. She’s lovely and seems to h
ave maintained her kind spirit—even after marriage.”

  The awkward approval opened the door for Daniel’s question. “Thank you, Meshach. I have no regrets. What about you three? How did you decide…” Struggling to find a way to phrase it, he kept it vague. “About your future?”

  Shadrach glanced at his brothers, who coaxed him to speak for them—as he always had. “It was actually quite simple. When you assigned our cities, we were alone for the first time in our lives. Nebuchadnezzar proved his negotiating skills when within a month, each of us received a message from the king giving us the choice of marrying a Babylonian maiden or taking the vow as his loyal eunuch.”

  Abednego, the feisty one, broke the tension. “None of us found a girl like Zakiti, so we opted for the brotherhood.”

  The brothers laughed and Daniel joined them, but Meshach sobered quickly. “Each of us came to the same conclusion independently. To marry a Babylonian in a strange city meant we’d become even more captive. Slaves to a wife’s needs, her family’s demands, and eventually our children’s legacy. To choose the ultimate form of Babylonian brotherhood felt simpler, since we knew how to be brothers. We serve Yahweh first, then the king and each other.”

  For the first time, Daniel saw the brotherhood of eunuchs as more than disfigurement, but what about Yahweh’s law? Again, he searched for words that wouldn’t offend. “Have you considered the law of Moses? The command that says, ‘Do not cut your bodies.’ ”

  Meshach nodded with a mischievous grin. “Recite the whole verse, Daniel.”

  Daniel’s memory was sparked by the use of his Hebrew name, and he recited it easily. “Do not cut your bodies for the dead or put tattoo marks on yourselves. I am the LORD.” His heart lightened immediately. “The cutting is in the context of grieving!”

  Shadrach nodded. “Yahweh also forbids priests to cut themselves, but we’re of Judah’s descendants and could never be priests. Each of us heard Yahweh’s wisdom on the matter and wrote the exact same points in a message to the other two, receiving the messages on the day we took the eunuch’s vow.”

  Gooseflesh rose on Daniel’s arms. “Though we cannot worship our God in Jerusalem, He has come to Babylon with us, my friends. In little proofs like this, I feel His presence.” The three exchanged approving glances, and Daniel felt as if they were young princes again in the captive camp. He placed his hand in the middle of their circle, and the others piled their hands on top as they’d done seven years ago.

  Only Abigail’s was missing. A stab of loss closed Daniel’s throat.

  “Have you looked for her?” Shadrach’s voice, barely a whisper.

  Daniel shook his head. “I gave her into Yahweh’s hands. He will protect her.” It was the only thing he could do. The alternative was insanity. What mortal could oppose the King of the Earth?

  Shadrach placed his other hand atop the pile. “Yahweh is faithful, friends, and He has placed us in key positions at strategic locations. Daniel teaching the king’s advisers in Babylon. My brothers and I secretaries to governors in Sippar, Erech, and Nippur.”

  Daniel’s heart soared. “Our scattering is our strength, brothers. Those who trained with us also serve throughout the empire. They’ll teach their children and their children’s children about Yahweh’s laws and His ways. We’ll grow stronger in faith, in number, and in loyalty to each other while we await our deliverance.”

  “And we’ll return with the remnant in only sixty-three years,” Meshach added, surprising them all with his humor.

  “Indeed, my friend.” Daniel’s smile felt traitorous. How could they celebrate without Abigail? Where was she? Where would she be in sixty-three years?

  17

  [King Nebuchadnezzar] summoned the satraps, prefects, governors, advisers, treasurers, judges, magistrates and all the other provincial officials to come to the dedication of the image he had set up….Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego replied to him, “…If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to deliver us from it.”

  —DANIEL 3:2, 16–17

  Gadi ransomed me from my underground tomb of secret rites and life-threatening oaths and bore me on eagle’s wings into a world I’d never known. Cold, clear water gushed from rocky crevices as the snows thawed in the Zagros Mountains. Wildflowers bloomed on soil-crusted plateaus. New life chirped, mooed, and baaed around us on our journey to Babylon. Beside our evening campfires, Gadi wrapped me in blankets and taught me to recognize the constellations of the Dog, the Hunter, and the Twins. He lauded my cleverness and filled my mind with knowledge of plants, animals, herbs, cloth, dyes, governments, languages, and geography. His intellect astounded me, and I planned to capture his affections as I’d done with dozens before him.

  But on the first night of our journey, when the moon rose high and camp sounds stilled, he delivered me to the threshold of my private white tent and pecked a chaste kiss on my cheek. “Are you suddenly so concerned about my virtue?” I said it with a teasing pout, certain he’d swagger into my tent with little coaxing.

  Instead, he held my face gently between his hands. “While you were a priestess, your body was a representation of Mithra to me—and to others—but when you come to our wedding bed, you will be as a maiden to me.” He kissed the tip of my nose, as if all his other kisses had never happened.

  The next morning—and each morning after—twenty servants met our every need before we spoke, and 150 guards ensured our safety. We journeyed over mountains, through a desert, and over plains, the experience far different than my torturous journey with Ashpenaz’s eunuchs years before.

  Ashpenaz. The closer my camel lumbered to Babylon, the more I wished to avoid the dedication ceremony altogether. Why had I wished to humble Nebuchadnezzar’s chief eunuch? And why had I imagined it was even possible? I should be utterly content as Lord Gadi’s wife in Achmetha. But like a moth to a flame, I continued, swaying in the plush sedan on the back of the slowest Bactrian camel on earth, imagining what I would say when I came face to face with…Daniel. Not Ashpenaz, but Daniel.

  I hated Ashpenaz. But I was terrified of seeing Daniel. Would his discerning eyes see more than I wanted to reveal?

  Had the boy I loved become King Nebuchadnezzar’s governor of Chaldeans—a role equal to Gadi’s position in Achmetha? Or had Babylon’s king reneged on his promise and betrayed my dearest friend? Friend. It seemed a rather empty word for all we’d shared.

  After our fifteen-day journey, I noticed a glimmering reflection on the horizon before we crested the hills of Babylon. We plodded forward, and the mammoth statue seemed to grow taller as our beasts climbed higher on the hills. The landscape southeast of Babylon was scarred by the hideous image, nearly as high as the temple’s ziggurat but ridiculously narrow. Its golden top had a slight protrusion with several indentations. Was it supposed to be a head?

  “What is it?” I asked my nobleman but kept my voice low. He shot a warning glare my direction. Even he knew better than to question mighty King Nebuchadnezzar.

  Gadi swatted his camel’s rump, sending its hooves into flight. I urged my lazy beast into an urgent trot toward the massive crowd on the Dura Plain. Bowl-shaped hills bordered the northern edge of the flat green expanse, where the enormous statue stood guard over earth, men, and sky. At the pinnacle of the hill and directly beneath the gold monstrosity, King Nebuchadnezzar and a woman I supposed to be his queen rested nobly on their thrones, presiding over the largest crowd I’d ever seen.

  Gadi had weaved his camel expertly through the crowd and halted at the northernmost point of the plain. He gestured wildly for me to hurry. My camel was skittish though, hesitant to advance through the cheering crowd and drunken revelry.

  “Come, my dear!” Gadi pointed at two large platforms flanking the king’s dais, formed by graduated terraces in the hillside, where men and women in various foreign costumes and regal dress sat in places
of honor.

  When my camel finally ambled up to meet him, a Babylonian eunuch grabbed its harness. “What are you doing?” Panic nearly launched me from my sedan.

  “He’s leading us to the nobility terraces beside the royal dais.” Gadi tossed a scroll, imprinted with King Nebuchadnezzar’s seal, into my sedan.

  I opened it, read it, and felt like a nine-year-old girl again, waiting for Babylonian guards to expose my true identity.

  My bridegroom chattered like a hoopoe, changing from the distinguished chief magus to an excited little boy. “I had no idea King Nebuchadnezzar would honor King Astyages by placing us on the nobility terraces. We’ll stand by kings, Belili. Kings and their queens.”

  “Yes, what an honor.” With a trembling hand, I secured my red veil across my face. The matching red head covering and robe—the color of Mithra’s high priesthood—were a gift from my bridegroom proclaiming the status of his prize to any who had experienced the underground world of Mithra’s worship. I paraded through the crowd like a dazzling red banner, but at least I was covered—all but my eyes—in the land of my enemies.

  Two brick furnaces bordered the nobility terraces, built into the downward slopes at the far edges of the hills. Perhaps they were the excuse I needed. “Gadi, I’m frightened of the furnaces.” My pitiful lie interrupted his elation. “Why are there flames in them? Does the king need to fire bricks while nobility stand no more than two hundred paces—”

  Our guiding eunuch interrupted, shouting over his shoulder. “King Nebuchadnezzar has thrown two food vendors into the furnaces this morning.”

  “But why?” I sputtered, horror gorging at the back of my throat.

  “They charged too much, and the king believes in setting an example.” The eunuch spoke as if he’d informed us of the weather.

  I turned to Gadi, hoping to see the same revulsion I felt, but his attention was fixed on the steady stream of ox-drawn carts carrying wood up the hills. The insanity of Babylon became clear, like water filtered through a tightly woven cloth. The carts delivered fuel to stoke ever-burning furnaces to make more bricks to build ever-taller towers so Nebuchadnezzar could grow an ever-larger empire to, presumably, increase his ever-cruel executions. I turned my head and spit on the land of my first exile, wishing I’d never come.