The Assyrian

by Nicholas Guild

  I swept the curtain aside and my bowels froze. There, waiting beside my sleeping mat, was Zabibe. The flickering, yellow light on her ashen skin gave an almost demonic cast to her beauty, as if she embodied within herself all forbidden pleasure.

  “My Lord has not forgotten me?” she asked, smiling teasingly. She crossed her arms in front of her and with the tips of her fingers pushed down the sleeves of her tunic to reveal her breasts. “To have been left behind would have broken your poor slave’s heart.”

  . . . . .

  “That woman, Lord, is a devil. Since she arrived here three days ago she has taught your servants to dread her anger—she drove me from your house with her curses on the very night of your return, and now I am afraid to go back there.”

  Even as he spoke, Kephalos stroked his beard with trembling, agitated fingers. He glanced about as if afraid that even here, in his own house, he was not safe from Zabibe.

  “She behaves as if she were already mistress of the shaknu’s palace,” he went on at last. “As if she stood in Naiba’s place—or even that of your Lady Mother—and no one has the courage to contradict her. My lord, I trust, is not such a great fool as to have thought of covering this woman with a veil?”

  “No, Kephalos—have no fear. I do not expect ever to take a wife.”

  “Yes, Lord, but the important question is what she expects. Be warned—she is the type who throws things.”

  “Throws things?”

  “Yes, of course. The wine cups will crash against the walls like hail against a tile roof.” He shrugged his shoulders, as if astonished that I could be simpleton enough to expect anything else. “Beat her, Lord. Remind her who is master in the palace of a royal prince. That is the wisest thing you can do. Take a whip of hippopotamus hide and beat her until you have flayed the skin from her backside, for if you do not let her know her place she will make of your life such a misery that you will long for the quiet safety of war.”

  “Yes, I will beat her. If only to please you and restore good order among my house servants, I will beat her.”

  “See that you do, Lord.”

  Gradually, consoled by my assurance of retribution, and an abundance of his own wine, Kephalos grew tranquil again. As we waited for his servants to prepare breakfast—knowing that my worthy slave never left his bed until two hours before midday, I had not yet eaten myself—he told me of all that had happened in Amat during my absence, and particularly of his own feats of cunning on my behalf and his own.

  “This barbarian who dwells in a leather tent,” he confided, in the manner of one with secrets to impart. “This Tabiti—he has many fine horses, and a wealth of gold. I wonder where he gets them.”

  “By cutting the throats of unwary fools like you,” I said, holding out my wine cup to be refilled. “Leave him in prosperity for now—after next summer’s campaign he will have a great deal more of which you may rob him.”

  “This is wise.” The learned physician nodded gravely—he was by then too far gone in drink to notice any sarcasm but, as ever, his mind was clear enough to grasp the main point. “You will make this tribe of wandering thieves great—a nation to be feared. And this Tabiti is, I think, your friend. In the years to come, when your brother sits on the throne, you may have need of such friends.”

  “I am not hatching treason, Kephalos. You sound like the wagging tongues of Nineveh, each one with his own story of how I am plotting to betray Esarhaddon.”

  “I say nothing of betrayal, Lord, but a man who can claim powerful allies is treated with respect.”

  I closed my ears to such talk. Ever since my brother had been named marsarru I had taught myself how to be deaf to what I did not wish to hear. After a while I left Kephalos’ house and returned to my scribes, who were more than eager to bury me with work. By the time the sky had begun to darken I had forgotten all about the wisdom of my alliance with the Scythians, who, in any case, had folded their tents and were already on their way back to the land of Shubria. I rubbed my eyes and thought only of half an hour in the sweating house, dinner, and my bed.

  It was in the sweating house, as I watched the steam rise from the glowing brazier, that I remembered Zabibe. The bitch — how dare she follow me from Nineveh without my leave? Even a wife would not think to act in such a fashion.

  But, of course, she hadn’t followed me. She had arrived in Amat some three days before, carried in a sedan chair like a great lady—one need not wonder that my servants were frightened of her.

  Who had provided her escort? A slave woman does not embark on such a journey on her own. Someone had told her to come, had provided her with money and protection. Someone had sent her. I wondered why it had not occurred to me before.

  She was a spy.

  I did not trouble myself to ask for whom—my movements and intentions were not of interest to that many people.

  Had Esharhamat guessed? “Let her believe she is favored,” she had advised. Yes, Esharhamat would have understood all these matters better than I. I, who would not even listen when my own slave told me to protect myself with powerful friends.

  For a moment or two I considered sending this Arab slut packing back to my father’s house of women, but only for a moment or two. After all, what would she learn in Amat that I would not want known in Nineveh? Or, more probably, in Calah?

  No—let her stay. Why put Esarhaddon and his mother to the trouble of finding another to fill her place? I would use her like a tavern harlot and let her pry into whatever secrets she liked.

  But tonight, in this at least, I would follow the wise counsel of my friend Kephalos and cut a few notches from her backside that she might remember not to play the fine lady. I had only to recall the fear filled eyes of my servants and the wrath boiled within me.

  “Ekalli, go down to the river’s bank and cut me a green switch, about the length of my arm. Make sure it is straight and smooth and strip the bark away from all save the thick end.”

  He grinned, showing me his teeth stained with date sap. He was but a lad, fresh from some peasant village, and he knew it was not his hind parts which would feel the lash. That was all he had learned to care about.

  The switch cut through the air with a sound like startled bees. The wood, where the bark was peeled away, was still slippery. I smiled as I thought how I would make my little Arab monkey dance.

  There was a tiny room off my sleeping chamber which I used when dining alone. She was waiting for me there, she and some two or three of the household women, preparing the table for my meal. She was wearing only a thin white linen tunic that did not even reach her knees and that she sponged so that it clung to her body. When I first saw her she was crouching beside my chair, almost as if claiming it as a possession.

  Yes, of course my slaves bowed to her—she was the master’s concubine, she who had found favor in his eyes, the woman into whom he pressed his seed. She would be presumed to have power, perhaps even to the power of life and death, and it was a presumption she was at some pains to encourage.

  Well, all of that would cease this very evening.

  When she saw me she smiled, and then, when she saw the switch in my hand, the smile froze on her lips and her black eyes seemed to thrill with terror.

  The other women, as soundlessly as mice, fled the room.

  “My Dread Lord, I. . .”

  But her voice died as I raised my whip and then allowed the tip to settle gently on her bare shoulder.

  “You have overstepped yourself,” I said, letting my voice become almost lifeless. “A harlot with a pretty body, who knows to dance to the flute and cymbals, who can kindle a little lust and thus imagine herself mighty.”

  “If my lord is pleased. . .” She dropped her eyes, which by then had grown shiny—like so many women, she understood the power of meekness. Yes, let the foolish man believe she had grown all submission.

  “My lord is not pleased. He is not pleased to have his servants, trusted and faithful these many years, driven from his do
or like masterless dogs. No—he is not pleased.”

  I reached out with a sudden movement and grabbed the sleeve of her tunic. Even as I dragged her to her knees the fabric gave way with a frightful tearing sound, leaving her half naked. She huddled by my feet, her face almost touching the floor, but I took a handful of her long black hair and pulled back her head, forcing her to look at me.

  “You—are—less—than — nothing,” I said, speaking through clenched teeth, letting the whip keep time with the words. “You—are—no—one—in—this—house!”

  With each stroke a thin red line appeared on her back, and as she stared up into my face a thin sheen of moisture appeared on her brow, and I could hear her soft moan. At first I thought it was pain, but it was not pain—at least, not only pain.

  “Oh . . . my lord—my Lord Master. . .”

  Her voice seemed to come from some hidden place deep within. Her hands, braced against my legs, crept under the hem of my tunic and she pushed aside my loincloth. I weighted more heavily the stroke of my whip, until it seemed to cut into her flesh like the edge of a sword, coating it with blood, but she only seemed to grow more urgent.

  “My Dread Lord. . .”

  The words were indistinct, muffled. She pressed her face against my groin and then, suddenly, took my manhood between her lips. I could hear the gasps of breath as she seemed to devour me, like a starving beggar.

  I am not made of stone. My senses were not dead. All wrath left me, to be replaced by something infinitely more savage. My lash dropped unnoticed to the floor.

  She drew back for a moment, still clinging to my legs; her eyes, as she looked at me, were swimming with tears—not of pain or fear, but unspent longing.

  “My lord—I beg you. . .”

  Had I been in a trance? In an instant I came to myself and pushed her away—hard, that she struck the floor. I turned and left the room, my brain burning.

  For two hours I sat outside, on a stone bench in my garden, letting the cold night seep into me. The thoughts tumbled through my mind, one after the other, too quickly to be more than a blur. What had I seen inside myself that filled me with such delicious, terrible dread? Was I a beast or a man? I did not know—I did not wish to know. Yet I could not turn away from this knowledge, which only waited to possess me.

  I thought of Esharhamat and my brother. Was it like that? Was I no more than that—or was Esarhaddon so much wiser than I?

  Yes, of course. Esarhaddon, with his slow, coarse, deliberate lechery—he, at least, understood himself.

  At last I grew weary even of my own ecstatic remorse. My head galloped. I would drink myself quiet, and then sleep.

  In my chamber I found Zabibe, waiting, still wearing the same thin white tunic, now little more than a handful of rags.

  I had not expected this, had not wished it, but she had come nonetheless. A silver vessel of wine, still cold from the cellar, stood at the end of my sleeping mat, with a gold cup beside it.

  The whip lay on my pillow, still stained with blood.

  Zabibe poured the wine and with her own hands brought the cup to my lips. I drank, although my throat seemed to squeeze shut. I drank, and felt my desire awaken all over again. Still, I had come to hate her.

  This she understood—and welcomed.

  “Show me your backside,” I said.

  She crouched down on her knees and elbows, her head to the wall. The welts on her shoulders looked almost black in the lamplight. I could hear her breathing, in quick little starts, as if some violent passion cut each breath into a hundred ragged fragments.

  I placed my hands on her buttocks and pushed them apart. As I thrust into her, the only sound that escaped her lips was a whimper of blissful, welcome pain.

  This woman, it seemed, had found that which she sought. It was a thing I must not try to understand.

  Chapter 28

  Zabibe kept the whip, and each night she would leave it, along with a vessel of wine and a single cup, at the foot of my sleeping mat. It was mine to use, and if I did not use it she became at first restless and then cold and unresponding, but it was hers to keep, to hide away, to treasure. It was her focus for an intense hunger of the senses, an excitement that was almost like religious frenzy, as if that limber wand had become her idol, the symbol for her god, to whom she prayed for release through submission and pain.

  At first I covered her back and buttocks with angry stripes, marks she carried sometimes for days, but in time I had but to touch her gently on the back, to let her feel the whip’s hard smooth surface on her skin, and this alone would set her sobbing with desire. She would beg me, but not to spare her—never that. She wanted me to threaten her, with pain, even with death. She wanted me to hurt her. I sometimes took a fold of her breast and squeezed it between thumb and first finger until I left a bruise. I did worse things as well, things it shames me to remember.

  Once or twice I forgot myself and nearly killed her, and she almost seemed to wish that I had, as if that would have stamped her happiness with perfection. It was an unaccountable yearning.

  And it was much the same for me. We played this cruel game almost every night for months, and there was no surfeit, but rather the appetite fed on itself. She was becoming an obsession.

  The bonds between men and women are as varied as the patterns the sun makes on rippling water, and as quick to change. I do not speak of love, for love has not often entered my life and I did not love Zabibe, nor she me. Passion was all we shared, and passion, which can exist side by side with contempt and even hatred, is not the same as love. I took a cold, exquisite pleasure in this woman, in her flesh and in her pain mingled craving. But that was all.

  And what of Esharhamat? Had I forgotten her? Had I become so busy with feeding my new appetite for cruelty that she had passed from my thoughts? Hardly that. Indeed, it seemed that the more I became entangled in Zabibe’s net, the more I longed for Esharhamat.

  “I do not care how you spend your seed,” she had told me, “so long as I have your heart.” I have learned to stand in awe before the wisdom of women, and in this Esharhamat was wise. She knew she had no rivals. Whom could I love but Esharhamat? I wrung out my loins into Zabibe in an ever rising frenzy of desire and yet, day by day, I grew to loathe the sight of her.

  And I do not think it was any different for her. I think we learned a mutual hatred as we toiled in our mutual lust.

  But Zabibe was not all that Amat contained. I had not been sent there to entertain myself with a harlot, but to fight my father’s battles. I had an army to prepare for war, and for hours, sometimes days at a time, I would hardly think of her as I lost myself in the honest, happy hardship of drill.

  I promoted men out of the companies that had fought in the campaigns of the last two years and put them in command of the recruits who had just come up from Nineveh. Tabshar Sin was now in charge of training at the garrison, and when he could vouch for his little boys as decent parade ground soldiers I would take four or five companies at a time up into the mountains for field maneuvers, going out on forced marches lasting sometimes twelve, sometimes fifteen or twenty days. We would return to Amat with sunburned faces and bleeding feet, for I knew what these men would face in the lands of the Medes and therefore spared them from no travail, but the farm boys who had left returned as soldiers.

  And always my old instructor in arms begged that he might be allowed to accompany us, and always I returned to him the same answer: “Tabshar Sin, would you shame me in front of these puling infants? As their commander and the veteran of many battles I enjoy some credit with them now, but what if they were to see me worn to nothing beside one old enough to have lost a hand in the wars of my grandfather?”

  “I understand you well enough, Prince,” he would answer, looking at me through narrow, accusing eyes. “You are afraid I am too old and might hold you back.”

  “I am more afraid we might hold you back, my friend.”

  “Then promise me this—that you will not leave me be
hind when next summer you march into the Zagros Mountains. I have yet a few good battles left in me and I wish to see this rogue Daiaukka whom you admire so much, to judge for myself if he is all you have claimed for him.”

  “It shall be as you wish. But next summer, not this.”

  Did I think perhaps Tabshar Sin would change his mind? I do not know what I thought, but may the god forgive me that ever I made such a promise—and that ever I kept it.

  Thus did we spend our days, laboring at the soldier’s trade, happy to weary our sword arms and cover our sandals with dust, dreaming always of the nearness of glory and of death. And thus did the hot months of that summer burn themselves out, clearing the way for the approach of the winter rains and my return to Nineveh.

  There was a sense, of course, in which I had never been allowed to leave.

  The king, after the Lord Sinahiusur’s death, had not chosen another turtanu and had tried as best he could to rule alone. It was an experiment which could never have succeeded, for the god’s empire was too vast and my father had grown old. Yet he tried. I could gauge the concentration of his effort in the letters which arrived almost daily at my headquarters in Amat.

  “I have today received ambassadors from Ashdod. In public audience they bring gifts from their king and messages calling me a kind father to all their people, but in private they tell me they tire of his rule and ask my permission to overthrow him and set up the son in his father’s place. This boy, who is the child of one of my own women, given to Sharru-ludari when I established his lordship after the revolt of Zedekiah of Ascalon and restored to him the throne of his ancestors, is a wicked boy. . .

  “There is pestilence reported in the city of Dilbat, and the moon, we are told, has been seen to drip blood for three nights in succession. The priests say I should fast and shave my beard in token of contrition for my transgressions against Sin and Nergal, but if I have transgressed, why do the gods visit their wrath upon Dilbat, that accursed dog hole whose citizens, you will remember, joined the Elamites and those sons of harlots the Babylonians in a cruel rebellion which stole from me the life of my eldest boy? I fail to see why I should be inconvenienced. . .