“It could be a trick,” Lushakin murmured—he had insisted on leading my bodyguard, saying that a foolish prince needed a wise rogue to watch his back.
“It is not a trick, for he has given his word.”
“Then be not yourself so scrupulous. Take your javelin and, as soon as he comes within range, plant it in his belly like a garden stake. He is all that holds their confederation together—kill him and the Medes will quickly fall to quarreling among themselves again.”
“Until another rises to take his place. Besides, Lushakin, I too have given my word.”
“All you high born nobles have mud for brains.”
I laughed, and pricked my horse forward, leaving Lushakin and his hand-picked escort of quradu behind. Daiaukka met me in the center of the plain.
For a moment neither of us spoke. Our mounts sniffed at each other nervously, as if they understood the antagonism existing between our races, while shah and rab shaqe took each other’s measure. It was an interesting silence.
Daiaukka was then perhaps thirty years old, but for full half his life he had been at war, rebuilding the alliances that had fallen apart after his father’s banishment, and every day of that long struggle showed in his face, which was as brown and weathered as his old leather coat. He seemed ageless, almost indifferent. If he had ever laughed, or even smiled, there was no evidence of it. Only the restless black eyes revealed the man behind the mask.
“You are Tiglath Ashur,” he said finally, as if the information would be new to me. “You are named for your unclean god, and your father is king in the western lands, where demons are worshiped. You see—I know you are not a spirit but a man like other men.”
“And you are Daiaukka, shah of the barbarians, whose father my grandfather sent into exile. Perhaps now, if we are finished with insulting one another, you will tell me what you wish.”
“Peace.”
“The price of peace is submission.”
“A truce, then.”
“Even a truce must be paid for.”
“You plan to take the city of Ecbatana,” he said, glancing up at the horizon beyond my left shoulder. He seemed almost not to have been listening to our conversation. “It will be defended. Its loss, and the loss of the men who will die trying to hold it, will not cripple me, but such a siege, even if it is successful, would be expensive for an army such as yours—far from home and surrounded by enemies. We must both decide which is cheaper, war or truce.”
“I did not come here to sneak away again.”
“No, you came here to win a great victory over us—why, I wonder. Not because a few fools raided three or four of your villages.”
“No, not because of that.”
“Why, then?”
He seemed genuinely interested. The restless black eyes settled on my face, narrowing with attention. And there was no harm in our understanding one another.
“Because, if they go unchecked, it will not be long before the Medes begin to look with longing at the rich lands where Ashur is king.”
“Yes—this is so.” He nodded, as if we spoke of indifferent things, thus making a deception even of the truth.
“And I would put an end to all such ambitions.”
“And to do this you must win your victory. But this I can deny you, by the simple device of refusing your challenge. I can hide in these mountains until the snows drive you out.”
“And while you hide, I can lay waste this nation you are making. I can burn villages and fields. I can slaughter cattle. When the snows come your people will face famine, and they will blame you—and rightly, for it is a king’s duty to protect his people. If he cannot, he is not a king.”
“This too is so. Thus we will both profit from a period of truce.”
“For how long?”
He turned inside himself for a moment, considering the matter. “Two years.”
“What will have changed by then?”
“By then I will be ready to fight. Then you will have your victory—or I will have mine.”
“Still, you must buy this truce.”
“Why? It is to the advantage of us both.”
“But more to yours than to mine. If I stay, I may break your grand alliance, by so simple a device as starving it to death. No, you must buy this truce, with gold, slaves, and horses. The men of Ashur do not make war for glory alone, and I will not go back to my father like a beggar.”
“It shall be as you say, Tiglath Ashur. I expected no less, since the men of your race are all thieves. Receive my embassy and they will settle terms with you. We will meet again, in two years’ time.”
With a suddenness that almost took my breath away, he wheeled his horse about and rode back to his own bodyguard. Our meeting was over, and with it my first campaign in the lands of the Aryan.
. . . . .
The instructions Daiaukka gave to his emissaries must have stressed a need for haste, because I was less than five days in coming to terms with them over the payment of tribute. I was to leave the Zagros with four hundred horses, a like number of slaves—provisioned for the journey, that I would not have to feed them at my own expense—and five mina of gold, which was not a great amount but would be enough to pay my soldiers. I was content with my plunder, for although Daiaukka did not seem to realize it, he had ceded me a considerable asset. That wise and cunning man had made a mistake in the composition of the slaves.
It is a hard king who will send his own people into bondage, and the shah of all the Medes had apparently yielded to sentiment because nearly all of the men and women who made up my prize were Cimmerians from the north, taken in the almost constant warfare between these two peoples who were undistinguishable in appearance and custom, even language, yet who hated one another with such desperate passion. Thus the Cimmerian captives regarded us as their liberators. I found among them many who were willing, indeed eager, to aid my map makers and scribes, and even to fight beside the soldiers of Ashur. It is a mistake to part with an enemy who has long been a prisoner in your own house.
Daiaukka sent me yet one more offering—the persons of Uksatar, parsua of the Miyaneh tribe, and four of his tribal elders as acknowledgment of the fault committed when the villages of Dur Tuqe had been raided. This was the reason given, but I have no doubt the shah served his own purposes first. Perhaps he had hit upon this device for ridding himself of some future challenge to his rule; or perhaps the raids had been carried out against his wishes and he intended to set an example. Or perhaps both. In any case, I was to do with these five as I saw fit, which meant that I was to kill them.
This I did. When our army crossed the border back into the Land of Ashur, I had all five strangled with bowstrings—since the manner of their dying could be of consequence to no one except themselves, I saw no reason to make a spectacle of it—and then had the corpses impaled
on high stakes and set out so that they faced east, back to their homeland. I left them there as a warning to any others of their nation who might think to plunder the lands where the god’s will was law.
These things were done on the sixth day of the month of Tisri in the twenty-first year of the reign of the Lord Sennacherib. On the next day, since it was an unlucky day, the soldiers rested and kept to their tents, but on the next we began our march first to Musasir and then home to Amat, where the citizens met us with thanksgiving on the second day of the month of Marcheswan, when already at those altitudes the first breath of snow whitens the night air.
All the garrison buildings were now completed, remade in stone that would stand to the end of the world, and the fortress wall was nearly finished. Even the town, which I had left nothing but a collection of mud hovels, had increased in size and splendor out of all recognition.
The work had gone well, and for this my slave Kephalos was quick to take all the credit. He had grown even fatter in my absence, so since his girth was the one infallible index of his prosperity, I could only assume he had continued to benefit from a brisk traffic
in bribes.
“You, my lord, have not fared so well on this campaign,” he said, pulling at his great gleaming beard and shaking his head with resigned sadness. “This king of the Medes has cheated you, for such captives as these, unteachable barbarians with clay in their ears, will not fetch much of a price on the—”
“The captives, most of them, will be returning to their homes after the winter. They are Cimmerians and I want friendship with that nation, since they are bitter enemies with the Medes. Some few—and of their own choice—will serve with us when we return to settle all questions with Daiaukka.”
We walked in the garden behind his house, which was only less grand than the palace I had had built for myself as shaknu of the northern provinces. I could smell the perfume of frankincense trees and hear the tinkling waters of a fountain, pleasant sensations after months on campaign.
Kephalos made no protest beyond a slight groan, as if the silver he would lose in commissions were being cut from his own flesh.
“Ah, well then, Lord, if it must be, then it must. At least there are still the horses.”
“The horses go to the army.”
“Dread Lord, this is too much!” he shouted, stopping to stamp his foot against the flagstone walkway. “I know that you love to play the rab shaqe, the noble soldier who thinks only of his duty, but by the great gods, a man who pays no need to his own interest can be trusted in nothing else. If you must persist, then at least let me sell the horses to the army—through such a device we will do almost as well, and your conscience will be clear.”
“To the army, Kephalos, as the king’s share in the booty.”
“Then I almost am afraid to ask what you plan for the five mina of gold.”
“It has already been divided among the soldiers. Common men will not fight without the hope of plunder.”
Strangely, there was no protest. I looked around at him to see if he could be ill, but he was smiling.
“Kephalos, what have you . . ?”
“Soldiers spend plunder on wine and harlots,” he said, as if explaining some principle of nature. “I have an arrangement with all the tavern keepers and brothel owners in Amat whereby I—which is to say, we—receive a fifth part of all the custom that passes through their hands. This in exchange for certain. . . let us speak of them as ‘considerations.’ Or, better yet, let us not speak of them at all, for a wise man does not stir up the mud at the bottom of his own well. At any rate, Lord, my sagacity has yet saved us something from your foolishness. Be thankful that your slaves loves you and concerns himself with the hard task of preserving you from beggary.”
I did not protest. I only laughed, thinking that if I ever changed my mind and decided I must be king in the Land of Ashur, the simplest way would be to have Kephalos buy the throne for me, since no doubt he was already rich enough to manage this.
“Have you answered your father’s letters yet?” he asked, watching me out of the corner of his eye—the question implied, as if there were any doubt of it, that he knew their contents.
“No. But I must, soon.”
“And will you go back?”
“It seems I must. He is the king, and it is his will.”
“But if you refuse, he will understand.”
“No—he is the king and has ordered me home. He knows I would not flout his will, even if I could.”
“Then, after all this time, you will be putting your hand back into the lion’s mouth.”
“I know that.”
We walked on in silence. The wind had picked up and it was no longer such a pleasure to be walking out of doors.
“Will you go back with me?” I asked. It was not even a request, but I would have liked his company. Kephalos, however, shook his head.
“No, Lord. As long as your father lives you are safe anywhere in the Land of Ashur, but Nineveh is a place where bad things can befall one who has angered the marsarru. I will stay here, that the Lord Esarhaddon will not feel tempted to stain his hands with my blood.”
“I think you wrong him, my friend.”
“Do I?” Kaphalos smiled bleakly. “I think not, Lord. I think you are blinded by the habits of affection and see not the truth of what your brother has become. What will happen to both of us when he is king is not a subject I much love to ponder.”
. . . . .
The Lord Sennacherib would now accept no excuse. It was no longer a question of father and son—the king commanded the presence of his shaknu. On my loyalty as his subject, I must return to Nineveh.
The evening of my conversation with Kephalos, two days after my return to Amat, I wrote and made my submission. I would be in Nineveh to attend upon the king no later than the first day of the month of Kislef. I could not delay longer.
Then I went into the women’s quarters and spoke of these things to my mother. She sat quietly, listening, as was her custom, until I had done.
“Will you take me with you, my son, or shall I remain here?”
“You will accompany me at least as far as Three Lions. I think it best you stay there until I see what awaits me in Nineveh.”
“And what awaits you in Nineveh, Lathikados?”
“I do not know. Nothing good, I fear. I would prefer to stay here until the flesh falls from my bones, but the king will not be denied.”
“He wishes to see his son.” She smiled at me, as if now all doubts were cleared away. “Why should he not? You are the pride of his life, and he loves you.”
I did not reply, since there was no reply I could have made.
“I can be ready in two days,” she went on at last. “I am an old woman and have little to hold me to one place.”
“You are not old, Merope, and you are still beautiful. The king no doubt will think so.”
“The king, without doubt, is past thinking of any woman’s beauty, my son. But you are not. Shall you take Naiba with you?”
“Yes—I shall take Naiba with me. You need have no fear that your son will twice be guilty of the same folly.”
We said no more of the matter, and Esharhamat’s name was never mentioned between us.
. . . . .
Esharhamat. I had been away from Nineveh for almost two years. My life had been full of business. I had taken another woman to my sleeping mat. Yet had a day passed when memories of Esharhamat had not stirred in my mind? The thought of her was like a ghost, visiting silent and unbidden. I was never free.
She was with child again—I had received notice of this from my father. The baru predicted a son who would wear the crown of a great nation, so the prophecy which had kept her from me seemed fulfilled.
And I was on my way back—if not to Esharhamat, then to the mud brick walls of Nineveh. Once more would I drink the waters of the Tigris, mother of rivers. Once more would I behold her great temples and hear the noise of many tongues in her streets. I was her son. Yes, I longed to see her again, even if the sight tore the heart from my breast, for a man cannot walk forever on unknown paths and not grow a stranger to himself. Nineveh—how I loved her as I turned my eyes to the road home! How I will love her while I live, though she become but a name.
Such was the bitter sweetness of my journey, for a man easily takes pleasure in his own pain, and memory makes all things precious, even loss.
I left Amat thinking to return within two months. Kephalos was to carry on with his building projects, and Lushakin, whom I had promoted to rab abru, commanded the garrison. The civil government was in the hands of my scribes, who would keep me informed by riders dispatched three times each month.
The weather was unusually cold when we set out, but the roads were good and we traveled fast, although our escort numbered forty men. The wagon for my mother and her women was hardly any encumbrance. We arrived at Three Lions by the evening of the twelfth day, in time for us to dine on fresh killed goat.
“The gods are pleased, Lord. The river has been kind and we have had fine harvests in your absence.”
“Perhaps the gods w
ould be most pleased if I stayed away entirely,” I said, but it was not the sort of joke Tahu Ishtar was disposed to understand, so he made a solemn bow and held his peace. My overseer had changed hardly at all since our first meeting, years before, but his son, Qurdi, was now quite grown.
I was not the only one struck by this fact. A handsome youth will make an impression anywhere, and the night before, while my mother supervised her women in the ordering of our house, I had observed that Naiba and he kept exchanging glances that could not be misinterpreted. This morning, while he accompanied his father and me on an inspection stroll of the farm buildings, it seemed that nothing could induce him to raise his eyes from the dust, as if he already felt the shame of having dishonored his master’s sleeping mat. It was a situation I found highly amusing.
We were in the stable, where Tahu Ishtar had been showing me a fine silver-colored colt born only four days earlier. It stood beside its mother on thin, ungainly legs while my overseer caressed its neck with his broad, knowing hands. He was a proud man, who would never violate the trust I placed in him, and this animal, born for the service of another, was precious in his sight.
“He is fine,” I said. “As fine as the horses of the Zagros, of which the Medes are so proud—as fine as the great black brute that bears their king. I will not part with him. I will have him trained up to war and ride him myself.”
“What shall we call him, Lord?”
“Ghost,” I answered. The name was as much a surprise to me as to anyone, for it had just that instant come into my head. “The Medes are greatly afraid of ghosts.”
“So it shall be, Lord.”
He closed the stall behind us and we went back outside into the sunshine. It was a fine cold day and the blood washed through my veins like wine. It was good to be alive and in possession of so many of the earth’s good things. In that moment I envied no man.
“You have done well, Tahu Ishtar,” I said. “I grow rich by your labor and care. I feel privileged that I can entrust my property to one such as you.”
He said nothing, but frowned, and cast a furtive, sidewise glance at his son. He, too, it seemed, had read rightly the message in a pair of dark eyes.
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