The Assyrian

by Nicholas Guild

  “Why do you not wish to return to Nineveh?” he asked at last, his brow tight with something between worry and anger. “Is it because of Esharhamat? She is there, you know—the king keeps her near him, even though she is my wife. Three times in the month I must travel from Calah, a distance of nearly four beru, merely to rut on her. It is a great inconvenience.”

  “No. I did not know she was in Nineveh. But, had I need of no other, that is a very good reason for me to stay away.”

  This, of all possible answers, seemed to be the one he least wished to hear. His heavy fingers drummed against the table, and he glanced about as if looking for some target for his wrath.

  “I do not know why you were wont to set such store by her embraces, brother,” he said, his eyes, black and angry, snapping around to fasten on my face. “Of all the world’s women, she. . . With me she is as cold as pond water.”

  What had he expected? I do not know. I only know that I grasped his arm just above the wrist and squeezed down with all the strength in my fingers, until I thought it just possible that a little harder and I might break the bone.

  “I think it best, brother, if we never speak of this again.” The words were less a whisper than a hiss. “Really, I think it best. . .”

  “Yes—yes!” Esarhaddon, with some difficulty, tore his arm away from my grasp. “As you will. I did not think, after so long. . .”

  “Then you are a greater fool than even the king imagines.”

  Suddenly he stood up from the table—as if he had just seen a snake. Every eye in the hall was upon him, and even the music of the flute players died away in silence. I had never seen him look like that before, almost as if I had struck him.

  Then he turned on his heel and strode out.

  . . . . .

  This incident was doubtless the subject of much discussion within the garrison, and it is not impossible that it formed part of more than a few of the secret dispatches which I knew perfectly well found their way to one or another eager reader in Nineveh. What was made of it there I cannot guess.

  For two days afterward I did not see Esarhaddon. He closeted himself away with members of his own suite—on the pretext of “official” business—took his meals alone, and disappeared from sight. I was not surprised. It seemed to be the wisest thing that we should stay clear of each other for a time. I did not even think to concern myself with what he might be planning.

  “He is not happy, my son”—this was Merope’s verdict on the matter. “The gods in their peculiar wisdom have assigned each of you different destinies, and he is as discontented with his as you are with yours. Esarhaddon is by temperament lighthearted and careless. As a simple soldier he would have found the world a place much to his liking, but as marsarru he is adrift, not knowing what to do nor whom to trust. That mantle would have suited your shoulders better.”

  I could only shrug my shoulders, so well suited to the weight of power, for my mother’s words were wise.

  “Then what am I to do?” I asked.

  “Only pity him, and be his friend—no matter what.”

  Except that it had become no easy matter to be my brother’s friend.

  On the third day, after Esarhaddon had once more ventured into the daylight, one of his officers called upon me.

  “The lord marsarru wishes you to arrange some hunting,” he announced, precisely as if he were speaking to my cupbearer.

  “Hunting?” I repeated. It was not so much the substance of the request that astonished me as its form.

  “Hunting—precisely. There is no need for anything elaborate, just a few beaters and the like. What have you in this area that is worth the trouble?”

  He smiled faintly. He was tall, slim, well tended, and about thirty, and he seemed to regard everything he saw around him—including me, as if I had spent all my life wiping the dust of Amat out of my eyes—with contemptuous pity. I could not help wondering where my brother had acquired such a specimen, since he was precisely the type of palace officer Esarhaddon had always most detested. But tastes, it seemed, had changed with circumstances.

  “I think we can manage a wild pig or two,” I answered dryly. “You may tell the lord marsarru that all will be ready against the morning.”

  I had thought in terms of an expedition lasting three or four days—I had thought it would do Esarhaddon good to spend a few nights under the stars, away from his courtiers, living like a soldier again. I was that naive.

  My first mistake was in underestimating my brother’s wish for simplicity. When at daybreak he stepped out of his quarters and looked around at the preparations I had made, he grinned and shook his head.

  “The Lord Tiglath Ashur has gone to too much trouble,” he said—loud enough for everyone to hear. “What do you say, my brother? Shall we just tether a couple of extra horses behind a chariot and go off on our own? Shall we turn our faces upcountry and disappear for a day, as we did when we were boys?”

  I answered his grin with one of my own, for I was very pleased, and threw a bag of provisions on the back of my chariot. Within five minutes Esarhaddon and I were driving out through the fortress gates, alone.

  The plains east of the city boast fine hunting—gazelle, antelope, and wild boar roam there in great abundance, and as the water holes dried up lions and even the odd panther were driven down from the hills to take their chance near the dwellings of men. If we caught sight of any of the great cats, however, it would only be at a distance, for they are too wary to be taken without the aid of beaters.

  We crossed the pontoon bridge over the river while there was still dew on the grass, and Esarhaddon mounted his horse. Our plan was that I would drive around to the south while he rode north, and we would see if we couldn’t catch a herd between us.

  “Give me the wineskin, Tiglath,” he said, reaching out his hand for it. “Forgive my selfishness, but court life has made me soft and I will feel the heat worse than you.”

  “Do not distress yourself, brother, for, knowing the greatness of your thirst, I brought two.”

  He laughed as he took the wineskin and rode away, his horse kicking a plume of dust into the air. I did not see him again for several hours. I envied Esarhaddon, since this was not very good terrain for hunting from a chariot. For all that the fields were scorched by the sun, this was farmland and crisscrossed with irrigation canals narrow enough to present no difficulties to a man on horseback but which forced me to look for the rickety little wooden bridges that the farmers had thrown across here and there for their wagons to use. I managed to flush out a wild boar, but he was clever enough simply to make for the nearest ditch and thus outran me easily. At last I headed toward the foothills, where the game would be thinner but at least I would be able to maneuver better. There I was lucky enough to stumble upon a herd of antelope, which stampeded at the sight of me but which I was able to run down, picking off with my javelin two of the ones that tired quickest. It was good sport, and a haunch of fresh butchered antelope makes a fine supper. By the time the sun was two hours past its zenith I began to think of looking about for my brother.

  “Have you had luck?” I shouted hailing him from across the wide parched plain. He had tied his horse and was sitting under the shade of an outcropping of rock—I could just distinguish his outlines in the shadow.

  He waved back, as if he realized the futility of trying to make himself heard at such a distance. I whipped my team back up to a canter. By the time I had blocked the chariot’s wheel I could see that Esarhaddon could have spent but very little time hunting. There was a bag of dates on the ground beside him and the wineskin was cradled on his lap, looking a good deal gaunter than when I had given it to him a few hours before. He didn’t say anything, but he didn’t have to. His eyes glittered and the expression on his face was intense and concentrated, which meant that he had been drinking heavily.

  “You do well to stay out of the sun,” I told him. “But if all you wanted was to fuddle yourself we could have tarried in Amat.”r />
  “No—it’s more private here. Besides, I am not fuddled.”

  He sounded almost mournful, so I decided not to tease him anymore. I took the water bag from my chariot and poured some into my hands to rinse off my face. I don’t know just when it was that I noticed his sword was out of his scabbard and lying on the ground beside him.

  “Tiglath,” he said suddenly, “why will you not be my turtanu when I am king? It is because you still hope to become king yourself?”

  When I looked around at him I could see that he was not merely trying to goad me. He was leaning forward, his hands balanced upon his knees, as if he really wanted to know.

  “I cannot be king while you live, Esarhaddon, and this is not a matter I will discuss with you while your brains are putrid with wine.”

  “Perhaps you still have hopes?” he went on, as if he had not heard me. “Perhaps you think that some one or another of your many friends will put a dagger in my back, and that when I am safely mixed with the dust you can then have everything—the throne, Esharhamat, the god’s favor, everything.”

  “Be silent, Esarhaddon, before I forget that I love you.”

  “But if you love me, Tiglath my brother, then why do you conspire with my enemies?” He had risen to a crouch now, and he was holding the sword. I could see it now in his eyes as they held me—he had drunk himself into a black rage. “Why did you entertain Arad Malik and Nabusharusur in your house, when you knew that they hate me? Why, Tiglath! Did Arad Malik offer you the throne if you would join them against me?”

  I could almost have pitied him. Arad Malik—how typical of Esarhaddon to get it wrong.

  “It is not for you to say, brother, whom I shall see in my own house. Nor is it for me to turn away any who are sent there with the king’s commission.”

  “I knew it—the king!” He was so angry that he actually stamped his foot, something I had not seen him do since childhood. “Always the king! He hates me, and why? Simply because I am not you!”

  As a swordsman, Esarhaddon had few rivals. He had always been able to best me in close combat, calling the javelin a “coward’s weapon”—perhaps he was even right, for I had no trouble acknowledging to myself that I was afraid.

  “Do you deny that they have brought you into their conspiracy?” he shouted, standing now, seeming to test the sword’s weight in his hand. “Do you deny that you plot with them against me?”

  I could see quite clearly now that it had been his design from the first to bring me out here to this isolated place and to kill me. His mistrust and jealousy had reached such a pitch as that. But still, there was enough left of his old habit of love that he could not do the thing in cold blood—he had to heat his liver with wine before he had the strength to draw his sword on me.

  My poor brother—I found I could not but pity him, even now. It was as my mother had said, “. . .he is adrift, not knowing what to do nor whom to trust.” Except that now he seemed to think the thing to do was to strip me of my life.

  I could have ended the matter quite quickly. Nothing more would have been required than to raise my javelin and put it through his heart, but we both knew I would not do that. Esarhaddon wanted a duel, a fair fight between equals—he was not a coward or a villain, and it was not his way to murder a man when he is defenseless. Nor was it mine. He would have what he wanted.

  He was swaying slightly as he stood there—he was very drunk, but even drunk he was a formidable enemy. I could only hope that he was even more drunk than he seemed.

  “I do not deny that they hate you,” I said, smiling slightly, letting my own anger rise. “And I do not deny, brother, that they spoke to me of you—of your unpopularity, of your unfitness to be king. All this is true enough. Can you deny it?”

  “I deny it!” The muscles in his face tensed with anger as he shouted his denial. “I deny it—the god chose me over you!”

  “Did he? Or was something arranged with the baru Rimani Ashur, who then hanged himself out of shame? They told me of rumors about our sister—rumors that must have reached your ears too, brother.”

  “I am chosen of the god Marduk, King of the Gods! I am chosen, I am chosen, I am chosen!”

  So it had come to that. His mother’s whisperings all these years—I could hardly believe. . .

  “So now you wish to test the favor of heaven, is that it?” I grinned at him, an angry, hating grin, for even as I drew my sword, I could not drive a brother’s love from my heart. “Then come—we will see whom the god honors. We will see who lives and who dies.”

  The suns heat was punishing, enough to burn away the very air in a man’s lungs. As he stepped out into it Esarhaddon wiped his eyes with his fingertips. He walked slowly, with his feet wide apart. No, he did not relish this fight, any more than I did myself. I waited, letting him come to me.

  He was now almost close enough to touch me with his sword point. If he was drunk now, it did not show; he looked solid and impenetrable as he balanced on the balls of his feet, looking for an opening. We circled around one another, each searching for the other’s weaknesses. As boys we had done this a thousand times in play, never thinking that someday we would fight in earnest. On its first pass, Esarhaddon’s blade cut through the air with a tearing sound—though he wasn’t even trying to reach me yet, only testing, sure of himself, seeing how I would react. He was like a cat with a cornered mouse.

  I made a rush and he parried it aside with ease, as I had known he would. He did not follow up his advantage, however—he was not such a fool as to fall into a trap. He even dropped his point a few hand spans, inviting me to try again. But I knew that trick too.

  He reached up with his left hand and wiped his eyes again. He was sweating heavily and squinting in the light. Yes, he had drunk too much wine to be fighting in the bright afternoon sun. It oppressed him, like a shoulder pack filled with stones. A narrow advantage for me—something to balance against his skill.

  Finally he lunged, leveling a blow at me that cut from left to right and would have split my chest open like a fig under a cart wheel had I not somehow managed to dance aside. But this time he did press his advantage, slashing at me once, twice, three times, each stroke coming closer until the last one cut through my tunic at the shoulder, bathing my right arm in blood as I scrambled to get away from him. I did not even know how badly he had wounded me. I was too busy trying to stay alive to feel the hurt.

  And then, suddenly, he seemed to waver—not long, but long enough for me to regain my balance. He stopped and peered into my face, his eyes blinking, as if all at once he could not remember who I was or how he had come to be there. It lasted only an instant, this remission, and then he swung at me again. But this time I caught the blow on the edge of my sword and turned it aside.

  He was tiring—I could see that now. That was my chance, to let him wear himself down.

  The sweat popped out on his face and arms now. He was beginning to grow desperate. He had drawn first blood, but he knew he did not have much time to press the advantage. He wanted to finish me off before his strength failed him, so he kept after me, hacking away at my sword blade like a man trying to cut through a bank of reeds. It was becoming easier and easier to fend him off.

  At last he made his mistake. He let his swing carry him just a little too far inside my range, and I caught him on the back of the hand with my point.

  It was hardly more than a scratch, just enough to slit open the skin, and though it probably hurt like a demon, it was, I think, more than anything the surprise that did it. Esarhaddon cried out, and the sword dropped from his hand. I did not need any more invitation than that.

  For some unaccountable reason, it never occurred to me to kill him then and there. I simply charged, yelling at the top of my lungs and catching him in the pit of the stomach with my shoulder. I could hear the wind shoot out of him with a cough as we tumbled down together. Esarhaddon did not even try to fight me off—he was too busy trying to remember how to breathe.

  When
he came to rest I was on top, my knee planted in the center of his chest and the blade of my sword across his throat while Esarhaddon, making a series of short gasping sounds, tried to fill his lungs again. It was a moment before he even noticed that I was there.

  “You were so sure,” I whispered between my teeth—I could think of nothing except my anger. I was ready to kill him in that instant. Perhaps all that saved him was that I wished him to know how he had made me hate him. “May the gods damn you forever, you were so sure. You have grown soft, brother. You have turned into a soft, clumsy drunkard, or you would not now be on your back with my sword blade under your chin.”

  “Then be quick about it,” he croaked. “Go ahead—do your will. Kill me.”

  I could feel his body going rigid as he waited for the blow. I raised my blade. He was already dead. I had made the decision, and his head was as good as off.

  Except that my arm would not obey. And then I knew that I could not, that it was not in me to take Esarhaddon’s life.

  I pressed the edge into the flesh of his throat until a fine red line of blood popped out beneath it.

  “And who would avenge you if I did, brother? Who? The army, perhaps? Do you think so? Or the king? No—he would laugh with joy and beg the god to put me in your place. How long do you think it would be before I entered the house of succession, my brother? Then I would have everything, even Esharhamat. Would she mourn for you, do you think? Would I have to guard my sleep against your widow’s fury?”

  He did not answer. If he tried—if he even understood—the words came not. He only stared at me with wild eyes, expecting death in the next instant.

  “Or perhaps you count on your mother to appease your ghost with my blood. Do you, Esarhaddon? I think not. I think our father, who is wise enough to crush a scorpion when he sees one, would have her head on the floor within an hour of receiving word of your death. What do you imagine might stay my hand?”

  His lips opened and then moved to shape a word that had no voice. And all the time his eyes never left mine. Finally he licked his parched lips and tried once more.