The Assyrian

by Nicholas Guild

  He took my hand in his own and, as I looked into his face, my eyes seemed to cloud. I thought of Esarhaddon, now the marsarru, one day my king and lord. My brother Esarhaddon, my friend, who slept in the bed of my beloved.

  “All true men are brothers.” This strange and savage man meant his own words and had made them truth. The world was indeed a strange place.

  . . . . .

  How shall I describe the Shaking Sea? Until that day, I had never seen so enormous a body of water—it seemed to me that I had reached the farthest limits of the earth, that I must now be standing at the banks of that great river which surrounds the world in an endless embrace. After this there could be nothing. I strained my eyes, but I could make out no farther shore beyond these vast, blue, blank waters.

  “You have tricked me,” I said to Tabiti—only half joking. “If I take sail from this place I will disappear forever over the edge.”

  “No. Two days in a boat, provided you keep the shore to your right, will bring you to Tushpa. I would give much to see King Argistis’ face when you arrive.”

  “I will not arrive. I will perish on this watery desert. Why, by the way, is it called the Shaking Sea?”

  “We have many earthquakes in these mountains, and when they come the sea dances. But at such times a man is just as dead if he be on land.”

  “You fill me with confidence. We men of Ashur, you know, are not sailors.”

  “Here—let me show you something that may ease your terrors.” He reached into the pocket of his coat and then opened his hand to display a copper arrowhead. “Watch.”

  He pitched the arrowhead into the water—we were standing no more than a few strides from its edge—and it broke the surface with a tiny pop, disappearing from sight.

  “Go ahead—watch.” Tabiti grinned at me, and his catlike eyes seemed to close completely.

  I would not have believed such a thing was possible had I not seen it with my own eyes. In a few seconds the arrowhead rose once more to the surface, to float there like a chip of wood.

  “How can this happen?” I exclaimed. “Is it magic? Have you cast some spell?”

  “If it is magic, it is not mine. Any bit of metal—or a man’s body—will float in these waters. Why, I know not.”

  I waded in to about the middle of my calves and picked up the arrowhead. Some of the water dripped into the wound on my hand, making it sting like a wasp, and I cursed loudly.

  “Perhaps it is its bitterness which makes all manner of things float in it,” he went on, as if I had just reminded him of the fact. “Although why this should be I do not understand. The great sea to the west is bitter as well, but any piece of metal thrown into it would sink to the bottom like a stone.”

  “Are you suggesting I float to Tushpa? With an army of six hundred or more men? Horses, gear, everything—bobbing along like corks?”

  “No. Send your cavalry and supply horses around by land—they will make better time without a mob of foot soldiers dragging along behind them. Then hire some few dozen boats from the salt makers who dwell an hour or so north of here. They will ferry you and a few hundred of your men to Tushpa in less than two days. By the time you have started dunning this king for his twenty mina of gold, the rest of your army will have arrived at the gates of his city to reinforce your eloquence.”

  “Yes—it might do,” I answered. My hand still smarted, but somehow it seemed less of a joke on me. “It might do very well. Tabiti, you are a thief and a rascal, but no fool.”

  He laughed and slapped his thighs, mightily pleased with us both.

  “The Lord Tiglath Ashur will someday learn that it is only by being thieves and rascals that rulers grow great. What is the difference between a thief and a mighty king? The thief steals only trifles.”

  That very afternoon Tabiti and I rode to the village of the salt gatherers and sat in the elder’s hut drinking a vile potion that tasted of fish guts and settling the terms of my passage to Tushpa. It was a tedious process—Tabiti, who spoke the language, haggled like a rug dealer, and the elder pulled his white beard and lamented his poverty in words that required no translation. I had only to listen, frown with impatience from time to time, and try to look the part of the ruthless and willful conqueror who could be counted on to massacre the entire settlement if I met with more avarice than I was prepared to tolerate.

  In the end the old bandit came to terms quite amicably, showing me black stumps of teeth as he smiled his approval. I had only to pay him and his boatmen twenty silver shekels for four days’ work, which was doubtless a greater sum than they would earn from a year of selling salt. I would sail the next morning with two companies of infantry and their gear.

  Our last night with the Sacan was one of wary celebration. My soldiers had learned to mix freely with these barbaric wanderers, but they were on their guard, drank but little, and stayed clear of their wagons and their women, for I had made it clear that I would put to death any man who gave pretext for the shedding of blood. It was hard to know how far the hospitality of these people extended and, since they were now our allies and might be useful in the future, I wanted no further trouble with them. Tabiti, I suspect, restrained his own men in similar fashion and for the same reasons.

  Great as was the friendship and mutual respect that had grown up between us, I had the distinct impression that he would not be sorry to see the last of me, nor of the army I commanded.

  In the morning, when the salt gatherers had assembled their vessels and my soldiers, some of them already white faced with apprehension, were loaded on board, we set sail for Tushpa.

  Chapter 19

  It is said that no true man of Ashur is at ease trusting his life to any waters wider than those of his Mother Tigris, that the broad seas are the home of countless demons. And truly these soldiers of mine cursed their fortune in having such a fool for a commander that he believed the sea could be kept out by the wooden sides of a boat, but for myself I enjoyed every hour of this my first voyage. The water was always calm, so there were no dangers. In two days and a half we were never out of sight of shore, and each night we pulled our keels up upon the beach and slept on the solid land.

  Still, this was an adventure. Perhaps because I am half Greek, my stomach never troubled me and I felt none of that green giddiness which makes the gentlest rocking of the waves a source of agony for so many and which no charm or incantation seems to drive off. To me everything was new and interesting, and the journey to Tushpa had all the tranquil charms of novelty.

  I learned, among other things, that the Shaking Sea is not quite the lifeless desert it seems. Each evening, after we had beached our boats, the salt gatherers would cast their round nets into the waves lapping at the shore and within an hour or less collect enough fish, each no longer than a man’s hand, to feed at least themselves. My soldiers without exception refused even to look at these, contenting themselves with bread and dried goat flesh, and in this they were wiser than their commander, for when the leader of our little fleet brought me, as something of a delicacy, a specimen of his catch, nicely cooked and spread out on a bed of savory-smelling pine needles, I was fool enough to eat it. It tasted strongly of mud and was as brackish as the waters that had spawned it. I smiled and smacked my lips appreciatively, but as soon as decency permitted I stepped into the surrounding forest, jammed two fingers down my throat, and relieved my belly of its unpleasant burden.

  The salt gatherers themselves seemed to live on a diet of little else. Their wine, as I discovered to my horror, really was concocted of fermented fish guts, and the only vegetable I ever saw them eat was a variety of bulb, like a wild garlic, which they dug out of the damp forest earth. The income they derived from the salt they distilled was spent almost exclusively on fresh meat, but their product was not of sufficient purity to command any great price and thus they probably would have starved without their nets.

  These people were among the most primitive I have seen anywhere on earth. All their prosperity dep
ended upon the Shaking Sea—indeed, the sea itself was the chief of their gods—and the existence they derived from it was as barren as that acrid waste. The arts of metalworking, masonry, and carpentry were unknown among them so, although they lived in a land where wood and stone were plentiful, their houses were nothing more than woven reeds over frames of bent poles. Their lives were preserved by their poverty for, although they understood nothing of war and were surrounded by marauding tribes, they possessed nothing worth the trouble of taking except their women, which, after the fashion of the Scythians, they kept hidden from the eyes of avarice.

  Yet, in spite of the misery of their circumstances, they were conspicuous for an open, generous serenity. They looked upon us, a mob of armed soldiers, with no symptoms of fear and seemed willing enough to share what little they had. This voyage to Tushpa they appeared to regard as a great lark, a holiday, a gift from their open handed gods. I found it difficult to despise them.

  It was just an hour before noon of the third day when we made our first contact with the Urartian war galleys—they sent four to intercept us, although why they required such a number to deal with some twelve or thirteen little fishing boats was a mystery I could not at first puzzle out.

  Tabiti had promised the salt gatherers that I was a mighty prince who could sweep away all before him and who lived under the protection of a powerful god, and this assurance had emboldened them to venture beyond their own end of the Shaking Sea and into those waters where King Argistis’ war vessels jealously guarded access to Tushpa. As I mounted to the prow of our lead boat to display my uniform—since this would be our only defense—I could only hope that the Urartians would be as impressed.

  It was a wind still morning, and the great ships had furled their sails and were driven forward by oarsmen hidden behind the black wooden walls that towered out of the sea like floating cliffs. I had almost decided that the Urartians were about to bear down on us and smash our little boats to kindling when, at the last instant, all their oars rose out of the water in unison and hung suspended in mid air. An officer—at least, someone whom I took from his bearing to be an officer—leaned over the deck railing and peered down at me as if at the corpse of some curious and repugnant sea creature that had tangled his anchor rope. He was a square faced man with heavy eyebrows and a wide black beard, and I took an instant dislike to him.

  “You trespass,” he said, matter of factly, first in his own language and then, when I did not respond, in Aramaic.

  “The armies of Ashur do not trespass,” I answered, in Akkadian. “They are at home wherever they go in the wide world. I am here at the invitation of the Lord Lutipri, who came to Amat to implore my aid against the Scythians within this very month. The Scythians are conquered, and if you do not show me more civility I will order one of my soldiers to climb aboard your ship and cut the tongue from your head.”

  He was greatly taken aback, as I had intended he would be, and for a long time said nothing, doubtless not knowing what to say. A moment ago he had believed himself to be all powerful, and now he was not so sure. This was not a clever man—I could almost watch the ideas turning over in his mind.

  At last I decided to spare him the suspense of indecision.

  “These good and simple people wish to return to their homes,” I said. “I think it would be best if you took me and my soldiers aboard your own vessels and conveyed us the rest of the way.”

  When this suggestion did not meet with immediate agreement, I waited through perhaps ten heartbeats—which I could feel throbbing quite distinctly in my neck—and then allowed myself the luxury of losing my temper.

  “I said to lower your boarding ladders, you lout! Are the men of Tushpa such fainting creatures that they fear to be overcome by a force of less than two hundred strong? I’ll have your head to go with the tongue if you keep me waiting another half a quarter of a minute!”

  At last it sank through even to this muddy intellect that I could not possibly be bluffing—what could I have gained for myself except a walk to the executioner’s block?—and the boarding ladders were indeed lowered. My idyll had reached its end, and I had become once more the soldier and the diplomat. I waved goodbye to the salt gatherers, with whom I had never exchanged a word in any language, and turned my face toward Tushpa.

  By the middle of the afternoon we were within sight of that city, which must rank as the most beautiful in the world. Never before had I seen great buildings made entirely of stone and never again would I see any which so dazzled the eye. The temples and palaces of Egypt are vast, cunningly made, and very grand, but one tires of endless rows of sand-colored columns. Thebes and Memphis are places one quickly learns to live in without really noticing. Tushpa, however, is a ceaseless delight, a jewel box of color, a place of wonder. This I could see even from the wharves, behind which rose walls composed of alternating bands of white and black stone, as delicate and majestic as a high born woman.

  The commander of the Urartian ships—for so he turned out to be—had divided my soldiers among his other three vessels and kept me aboard his own, doubtless on the theory that even an adder is harmless after its head is off. He needn’t have worried, for I was quite content to sit in his cabin and drink his wine, even after we had touched land and he had sent a messenger hurrying off to report my arrival and seek instructions.

  In any case, it was not a long wait. Within the hour the cabin door opened and the Lord Lutipri himself entered, looking no less astonished than my unwilling host, whom he dismissed with the curtest possible gesture. He sat down, blinking at me like an owl in that twilight darkness.

  “My Lord Tiglath Ashur,” he began at last, “it is not twenty days since. . .”

  “Since we last dined together in Amat—yes, my lord. I have come to report a great victory. The Scythians are driven back from the banks of the Bohtan River, which are still wet with their blood.”

  This wily man narrowed his eyes as he regarded me in silence. I grinned at him, like a boy who has just performed some stunt, but I knew what he was thinking. Finally he shrugged his shoulders, as if at a thing indifferent.

  “Of course, my prince, it would never occur to me, who knows you so well, to doubt your words, but—you must understand—my king. . . I hesitate to speak of proof. . .”

  “What proof could you require beyond the fact that I am here, and alive?” My grin widened just a shade, and then collapsed. “If more is required, go look at the fresh graves by the Bohtan River. Go send emissaries to the Scythians, who now camp on the western shores of the Shaking Sea. Do not speak to me of proof, my lord.”

  “On the western shores?” The Lord Lutipri actually rose a handspan or two out of his chair. “But that is Urartian land!”

  “I have ceded it to them—they must go somewhere, my lord. Or perhaps you thought I would undertake to massacre them all when all I pledged was to drive them back from the Bohtan River—”

  “You had no right!”

  “I had the right of necessity. And besides, it was my pleasure.”

  King Argistis’ servant had by then regained his seat and his composure, and merely shrugged his shoulders once more—a sign that he was too wise to rail against an accomplished fact.

  “And now, my lord,” I continued, “there is the matter of twenty mina of gold.”

  . . . . .

  That evening all unpleasantness was forgotten. My soldiers were quartered within the palace compound and provided with food, wine, and women, and I was the king’s guest at a banquet in my honor. This meant nothing more than that the Urartians wished to move cautiously; they needed more time to consider the altered situation and think of some way to evade paying their debt.

  I was just as pleased, however, since it gave me the best of opportunities to study Argistis and his court at close quarters. I sat beside him, at his right hand, this king whose father my grandfather had driven to take his own life, and heard myself called his friend, his partner in the works of glory, but the sight of him
made me shudder with an inward dread. He was, like most of his race, tall and almost womanly slender. He was not many years older than I, but already his beard was notched with patches of silver and his eyes had a haunted look, as if the burden of his office weighed heavily upon him.

  What did the coming years hold for him, I wondered. His nation was hedged about with enemies, and his nobles—or so it was said—intrigued against him. Would his mind crack under some great calamity so that he followed his father’s example and searched his own breast with a sword, or would some one of his great men save him the trouble? In either case there was that about him, a kind of aura, which suggested he would not die quietly.

  But for however long he would live he seemed determined to live in splendor. Even the Lord Sennacherib might have envied him the opulence of this banquet, at which the least among his courtiers were appareled in tunics of the costliest embroidery, and many, including the king himself, wore robes heavy with gold and silver. The hall in which we dined was walled with smooth green stone, almost like glass, and the tables were of sweet smelling cedar. We were entertained by musicians brought from Lydia and Egypt, and by fair skinned courtesans who danced with uncanny skill, rolling their breasts and bellies as they kept time to the rhythm of the flutes. Several of the most beautiful sat beside the guests at the king’s own table, speaking in many tongues and tempting their patrons with sugared dates and wine and the charms of their own persons; the sound of their laughter was itself a kind of music. My own had hair the color of polished leather and eyes as green as summer figs. Her body smelled of honey and oil and she kept reaching stealthily under the hem of my tunic to caress my manhood, which I must own was as stiff as a dagger blade.

  King Argistis seemed to find this amusing. At last he laid his hand upon my arm and, leaning toward me, murmured, “She is a rare one, is she not? My father bought her for my harem while she was still a sucking babe, and she has lived all her life for my pleasure only. I will have her sent around to your room later—a small token of the love I bear you, Prince.”