A small return indeed, Bur-Sin had thought. As the days passed and work progressed, he had been increasingly aware of how unique, how spectacular his achievement would be when it was finished. Nothing remotely like it existed in the Kingdom of the Two Rivers or even beyond.
As chief designer and architect, Bur-Sin had labored for years over the plans before building began. On countless mud tablets he had drawn elaborate construction details. When his plans were finally approved by the Great King, he had become responsible for training and overseeing the laborers who did the actual building. At the same time he had personally searched the land for the rarest, most beautiful plants, jewels to be placed in the setting of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon.
Tier upon tier the gardens rose. They did not actually hang in the air, but were roof gardens built within the walls of the royal palace. Laid out in a series of ziggurats, or pyramidal towers, they were irrigated by pumps of the architect’s own design, drawing water from the Euphrates River.
Almost every day the Great King came to see them. At intervals he would bestow another gift upon the architect, more jewels or a supple dancing girl with honeyed hips. The Great King knew his architect had an insatiable passion for women.
Then Bur-Sin began to notice that in conversation, the Great King invariably referred to the gardens as “my gardens.” The name of the man who was creating them was never mentioned.
A thousand slaves labored, a thousand times the sun rose and sank, and still the Hanging Gardens were not completed. The Great King grew impatient. “How soon can I dedicate my gardens?” he demanded to know.
Bur-Sin lost his temper. “On the day when they bear my name, the gardens will be finished!”
The Great King had responded with a burst of temper of his own. “Arrogant servant, how dare you usurp the royal prerogative!”
“I am entitled to recognition for my work. It is not too much to ask. The people of Babylon already know who is responsible for the gardens. They will remember and revere me long after I am dead. I merely request that when foreign dignitaries come to view the gardens, as they will, they too should honor the builder’s name.”
“I am the builder!” thundered the Great King.
Bur-Sin had felt his rage turn to ice. “Then complete the Hanging Gardens yourself. As for me, I will offer my services elsewhere. Perhaps the Aegyptians will appreciate me. I can erect an equally splendid construction for them.”
The Great King’s rage knew no bounds. “I will never allow you to build a rival for my gardens! Seize him!”
Guards had tried to grab Bur-Sin, but he ran. He fled through the halls of the royal palace until at last he came to the Inner Temple, the private precincts where the Great King offered sacrifices to the god Marduk. In an alcove curtained with crimson silk the image of Marduk stood, an upright crocodile sheathed in gold.
Bur-Sin had prostrated himself before the statue. “Great Marduk, deliver me!” he pleaded.
They had found him there, cowering at the feet of the gilded saurian. Breaking the laws of sanctuary, the guards had dragged him away and taken him before the Great King. Then did Hammurabi the Lawgiver, the Just and Wise, pass the most unjust decision of his life.
“Put out his eyes,” he said.
That was long ago. Now the siu who was once Bur-Sin walked again, not the ancient avenues of Babylon, but the muddy streets of Rome, stalking its prey.
TWENTY-NINE
The woman was red-eyed and weary. Since sundown she had been in and out of tavernae soliciting business, but the loins of the Romans were not responsive to her decayed charms. She hated the prospect of going home. Home was a tumbledown hut at the foot of the Palatine Hill. Built into the hillside above were a number of tombs, bleak reminders of mortality. On the summit stood some of the finest houses in Rome. Their sewage combined with noxious liquors seeping from the tombs to rot the footings of her walls. She had grown so used to the smell that she no longer noticed it
Her shack was dark and lonely, and without a client for the night, Justine could not even buy oil for her lamp. There was nothing to eat either, but that scarcely mattered anymore. Her teeth were so rotten she could hardly chew and had to stifle her hunger pangs with soggy bread and overripe fruit when she could get them. There was little pleasure in such a diet. At last she admitted defeat and set out for the Palatine.
The night seemed darker than any she could remember. “I am too old for this,” she said, talking to herself for company. “When I was young and beautiful they all wanted me; oh yes, I could command any price then. Now they laugh at me.”
Almost every statement she made was prefaced by, “When I was young and beautiful,” until the phrase had become a joke. “When you were young and beautiful that old she-wolf was still suckling Romulus and Remus!” her listeners would jeer.
People could be so cruel. Justine’s eyes brimmed with self-pity. Once she had laughed at older harlots who were glad to settle for marriage to some rough farmer from the country and the security of food on the table every night. In her youth she had believed such women were foolishly sacrificing freedom for the drudgery of slavery. Now she would have accepted an offer of marriage from even the most impoverished goatherd or lime digger and been grateful, but the offers had dried up with the last of her beauty.
“This winter I’ll be forced to get a bowl and beg,” she muttered to herself. Then a remnant of almost-forgotten pride surfaced. “No, I won’t beg. I’ll kill myself first. I will. I’d rather be dead.”
In the enveloping darkness, something snickered.
The woman froze. “Who’s there?”
Silence. But the silence was not total; she could swear she heard breathing close by. She reached into the neck of her gown and fumbled between her scrawny, sagging breasts and produced a sliver of metal. “Who’s there, I say. I warn you, I have a dagger here and I know how to use it.”
This time there was no mistaking the low chuckle. The sound came from off to her right, in the direction of the marshy waste ground that comprised much of the valley between the Capitoline and Palatine Hills. The path she usually took home lay across that space, but she felt a curious disinclination to follow it. “Perhaps if I go back to that last tavern my luck will turn,” she murmured to herself.
Facing around, she began to retrace her steps. The breathing followed her.
Other sounds accompanied it now, whispers and murmurs and obscene smacking noises. She felt a sudden relief. She was being followed by young boys then, males still embarrassed by their burgeoning sexuality and resorting to childish games. But she knew how to deal with them.
Halting abruptly, she threw wide her arms. “That’s all right. You needn’t be afraid. Step up and show me what you’re made of. I’ll be good to you; I’ll break you in right. Come now,” she wheedled, “come to me.”
Out of the darkness, something came.
Justine had thought nothing could shock her anymore, but she was wrong.
From the shadows swarmed amorphous apparitions that hissed and growled and sniggered, writhing obscenely as they advanced. Some appeared as gaping mouths with slimy tongues or slobbering lips that mimicked sucking. Others were oversized genital organs, a phalanx of throbbing phalluses advancing on the horrified woman. Still others were mere sparks of sulfurous light that gave off the stench of carrion.
Central among them was a figure who appeared human yet moved in rhythm with the disgusting phantasmagoria. He chuckled again.
“You called me?” asked the siu.
Justine tried to run. He caught her before she had gone more than a few steps and threw her to the ground. Gibbering, the other horrid forms closed around them in anticipation.
“You must forgive my admirers,” the demon growled. “From time to time they follow me like shadows, and they are just about as useful. Let us dispense with them, shall we?” He whirled on his companions with such a ghastly roar that they faded into the night, leaving him alone with his prey.
Justine fought with all her strength and the experience of too many years spent on the streets. She knew how to hurt a man. She kicked and clawed until he pinned her wrists with one hand, squeezing them tightly enough to block circulation. He stopped her from kicking him by the simple expedient of throwing his full weight on top of her.
To her surprise, he was not nearly as heavy as he looked. But he stank abominably.
She tried to scream then. He covered her mouth with his own and swallowed the scream, then drew back enough to say, “I suppose it is too much to hope you might be a virgin?”
Before she could reply he chuckled again. The sound was mirthless and cruel. “No, I suppose not. A pity.”
“Do whatever you want; just don’t kill me!”
“Kill you? I assure you, the mere thought of a corpse disgusts me.” Justine felt a shudder run through the body pressed against her own.
“I’ll do anything …”
“Good, very good. I appreciate compliance in a woman. Tell me, what do you want most in all the world?”
“To get away from you!” she snapped.
“Oh, we can’t allow that. Try again. Consider your situation. You are a harlot, I suspect, and thus in the business of selling yourself. If in exchange you could ask for anything you liked, no matter how impossible, what would you ask for?”
Her frantic mind skittered sideways and she said the first thing that popped into her head. “I’d ask for my youth back.”
“Better, much better. I think that could be arranged.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. I’m old; I’m thirty,” Justine confessed in a whisper. She turned her head to one side, trying to avoid his fetid breath.
As if he read her mind, he said, “Do you dislike my odor? Someday you will smell even worse, unless you find a way to stop time. That is what I can offer you. In exchange for something I require, I can make you half your age and keep you young forever.”
“You’re mad.”
“The gift I describe is in my power to give, I assure you.”
“Only a demon could do such a thing!”
He stroked her sunken cheek. “And what do you think I am? I can make this flesh bloom again and do more besides, much, much more. In return, however, I have special needs that must be satisfied.”
Justine could not imagine what “special needs” this repulsive being might have. She was convinced he was mad and dangerous as well. In her years walking the streets of Rome she had met any number of madmen and learned it was best to placate them whenever possible.
“Just let me get up,” she urged, “and we can talk. I’m not used to doing business like this.”
He chuckled again. “On the contrary, I should say this is the very position in which you are most accustomed to doing business. But you may get up. If we are going to be partners, you deserve that courtesy.”
Partners. The idea repelled her. But if she could stall for time, perhaps she could find a way to escape. A few minutes ago she had been ready to consider dying; now she wanted most desperately to live.
“Do you indeed?” he asked abruptly, reading her thoughts, which were a clarion call in the Otherworld. In one lithe movement he was on his feet and reaching down to offer her a hand up.
Although she tried not to, Justine shrank from his touch. His hand was icy cold and very dry, the skin rough and flaking. His sharp nails bit into her palm like tiny fangs. “Take me home with you,” he said. “We can talk there.”
The last thing she wanted was to lead this lunatic to her home, but she had no choice. With fast-beating heart she made her way across the fetid waste ground at the foot of the hills. He followed close behind her. She did not have to look back to know he was there. She could smell him. Just knowing he was there made the flesh burn on the back of her neck. In fact, her skin felt peculiar all over, as if she had been in the sun too long. A hot flush radiated from the top of her head to the soles of her feet. She toyed with the idea of claiming disease—a trick a Scythian whore had taught her in her youth—then remembered that he could read her mind.
In the end she simply kept walking. For so many years she had done as men asked; the habit was deeply ingrained.
At last she came to the pitiful shack that was her home and tugged open the splintery door. There was no lock; she had nothing to protect, so she could not slam the door in his face and lock him out. But he was too close behind her anyway. She felt him brush past her into the darkness. Then she heard the scratch of fingernails on pottery.
“I have no oil for that lamp,” she started to say just as her one small lamp flared into light. He stood holding it in front of him while its flame threw eerie shadows on his face.
The sight made her nauseous.
“Do you not find me handsome?” he asked sardonically.
She could not bear to look at him. In the wavering light, his face was the color of putrid meat. “You must be diseased. Your skin is flaking off.”
“Unfortunately that is correct, but not because of disease.”
She could not resist asking, “Does it hurt?”
“You dear child. So tenderhearted.”
“I’m not a child and I’m not tenderhearted either.”
“But you would help me if you could?” he persisted.
“Of course, but I don’t see how I …”
“In return for your youth, you will do anything?”
“Anything.”
“’Tis done, then. Now it is your turn.” Reaching for her with one hand, he caught her by the wrist and drew her closer to the light “Look down,” he commanded. “Dear child.”
Justine looked down.
The arm he was holding had been sunburnt and scrawny, scored with old scars; but even as she watched it began to change. The contours grew as plump and prettily rounded as in her youth. Her gnarled fingers became white and supple once more; then the broken fingernails were whole again, forming perfect arcs.
He slowly moved the lamplight along her arm, then across the front of her body. “Observe yourself, Justine.”
She did not ask how he knew her name. Her attention was focused on the full, firm breasts plainly visible in the low neck of her gown.
He released his hold on her. Her discolored metal mirror appeared in his hand and he held it before her face. “What do you see, Justine?”
“Is that me?” she asked tremulously, lifting a wondering hand to her cheek.
The girl in the mirror copied her gesture exactly. The girl was barely fifteen, with eyes like sloes and a ripe, red mouth. Not a line marred her perfect complexion; she was vibrant with life.
Staring into the mirror, Justine said, “I used to look like that.”
“You look like that now. And you will forever, unless I withdraw my gift. Or … if we should fail to conclude our business arrangement … .” He twisted the mirror away, then held it back. This time Justine found herself gazing upon the old familiar face that greeted her each morning, haggard and wrinkled, with pouches under the eyes and an apathetic expression.
She caught his hand. “Ah no, bring her back!”
“Are you certain?”
“Yes. Yes! I will do anything. Anything.”
His lips quirked into a smile. “Somehow I thought you would,” the demon said.
THIRTY
Horatrim was dismayed to hear Tarquinius demand possession of Vesi. But before he could leap to his feet in protest, Delphia caught hold of his arm, squeezing firmly. “Don’t be rash. The king’s bestowing a great honor on her. Your mother will live in the royal palace and be treated like a queen.”
“I won’t let my mother be any man’s harlot!” Horatrim had never heard the word before, yet it suddenly burned through his mind.
Tarquinius overheard the outburst and blandly replied, “You misunderstand my intention, Horatrim. I don’t need her for my bed; I have plenty of willing women. I want to install her as my personal soothsayer.”
Slowly Vesi turned her head and met her s
on’s eyes. For a single instant he thought he saw his mother’s true expression: terrified, lost. Then it faded and was gone.
It was close to noon the following morning when a sedan chair arrived at the house of Propertius Cocles and obsequious slaves offered their bowed backs for Vesi to step upon so she could climb in. She seemed quite content to go.
Severus had been too drunk to go home after the banquet, so he and Khebet had been given beds for the night. They now joined the party gathered at the door to wish Vesi farewell. Severus had a cloth soaked with vinegar wrapped around his head, but the Aegyptian showed no sign of a hangover. He was bathed, shaved, and neatly dressed, every hair in place. Even his fingernails were buffed and shining, and he exuded a throat-catching aroma of pungent herbs and exotic spices.
“I charge you to take good care of my friend,” Delphia told the king’s servants.
“And remind him that it was I who found her for him,” added Propertius. Turning to Horatrim as the sedan chair disappeared down the street, he said, “You could not possibly have made better arrangements for your mother’s welfare. Relax and be happy for her.”
“But she speaks so rarely,” Horatrim protested, “and when she does much of it is so obscure.”
Severus interjected, “No matter how obscure her pronouncements, they will be taken as messages from the gods. Propertius doesn’t set great store by the gods, but I assure you Tarquinius does. As does my friend Khebet,” he added, indicating the Aegyptian.
Severus continued, “Unfortunately the rest of us have to work a bit harder at pleasing the king. I want to hear more about these paving ideas of yours, Horatrim. Propertius, do you mind if we take your guest on a little tour of the city? Perhaps the air will help clear my head.”
“Go right ahead,” said the trader with an indulgent wave of his hand. “I thought you would find Horatrim interesting. Just remember who introduced you to him.”
“He will probably try and charge me an introduction fee,” Severus grumbled as they strolled out into the street.
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