But my brain did not ring with the clash of weapons and the thunder of horses’ hoofs. These things had lost their terrifying strangeness and, besides, I was hurrying to the arms of a beloved woman. Parting from her would be more terrible than any death.
Esharhamat waited in her sleeping chamber. Her women, such as she trusted, would guard us against intrusion until perhaps an hour before first light. Esarhaddon had been the whole month in Calah, waiting, it was said, for me to return to the north.
A single oil lamp burned beside her mat. Esharhamat leaned back on one arm as she turned to me, smiling. As I knelt beside her she touched my face, letting her fingertips rest so lightly against the skin, and kissed me upon the mouth. Our kisses became greedy, almost fierce. We did not speak. There was no time for words. We made love the way the starving feast, as if it might all be taken away in the next instant.
“What shall we do all the long time apart?” she asked at last, when our passion was spent and she huddled in my embrace.
“We shall suffer,” I told her, since there was no other answer. “We shall persist in hope, and we shall wait.”
“For how long?”
“I know not.”
“It is in the god’s hands.”
“Yes.”
“Yes.”
Outside, in Esharhamat’s garden, the crickets sang. Mother Tigris was in full flood, and the world was awake for another year. And I was leaving at dawn to fight the Medes.
“Tiglath. . .”
“Yes?”
“I think it possible I may be with child.”
I held her in my arms, not moving, perhaps not even breathing. What did I feel? A kind of cold shock—it was only the surprise.
“Will it be mine?”
“I hope so, yes. It may be Esarhaddon’s, for he is nothing if not scrupulous in his royal duties, but I think not. I believe it is yours, if only because I know already I will love this child.”
“Then I am glad.”
“So am I.”
In an hour, I thought—perhaps not so much—we will have to part. How will I bear it? Now, more than ever, how will I bear it?
. . . . .
But I did bear it. My heart was dead within me, but I bore that too. Ashur’s golden dawn saw me with three thousand soldiers at my back, a spectacle for the people of Nineveh to cheer. I now belonged not to Esharhamat, or our child not yet born, or even to myself, but to the king and his army and to the city mob that must have its hero of an hour, to shout themselves hoarse with his name and then forget him. I was once more that dead thing, a Great Man.
I stopped for a single night at Three Lions and said farewell to my mother—the maxxu was right, for my tongue had sickened of the word—and then we marched north, following the mountain trails, which were hard but made a shorter journey and, in any case, were good experience for the campaign ahead.
Zabibe was in a wagon somewhere in the baggage train. I did not send for her. I waited.
At last we crested the mountains and could see the Great Zab River, shining in the morning light like a silver snake. When our horses drank from her waters we were not more than two days’ march from Amat.
We slept that night near a good sized village called Adini, where the headman came to my tent, bowed, and sought the king’s blessing. I gave it to him and inquired if his village had a worker in metals who could fix a cart axle for us. It had.
“He will need to be a strong man, for it is a heavy cart—it needs four oxen to pull it.”
“Oh, he will do very well, Lord, for he has the strength of an ox himself.”
“Good. Then send him to me.”
The axle could have waited until we reached Amat, but I could not. In about half an hour the metalsmith came, and he was all I had hoped—a giant, with arms as thick as another man’s thighs and a face and chest covered with tiny burn scars from his furnace. He was also very ugly and in some misadventure had even lost an eye, the empty socket of which he plugged with a copper shekel. I watched him at his work, and when he was finished invited him to share a jar of beer with me. We sat together perfectly contented, as if we had known each other all our lives, and the metalsmith scratched the matted black hair on his belly as he drank. I was quite pleased with him.
“Tell me, Metalsmith, do you have a wife?” I asked.
“Alas no, Lord,” he answered, grinning rather foolishly. “I had one, but she died. Now her children have no mother and I have no one to cook my dinner.”
“It must be a great loss to you. Was she beautiful?”
“No, Lord. She was too skinny and her skin was as rough as granite, but a one eyed rogue cannot expect a queen for his sleeping mat. She had also a bitter tongue.”
“Then I assume you beat her.”
“Oh yes, Lord, I beat her—as any proper man would. But it did not soften her.”
I desired to hear no more. I went into my tent to fetch something I had purchased in Nineveh—a fine whip, not much longer than a man’s arm but woven of boar’s hide that had been soaked in salt water.
“Come with me, Metalsmith.”
We went back to the baggage train, and I found Zabibe’s wagon, where she was lying on a carpet naked as dawn, painting her toenails. She smiled when she saw me, but before she could speak I took her by the wrist and pulled her down into the dust. The Metalsmiths one eye burned with delight when he beheld her, as well it might, for I would venture his village did not hold another that was her equal.
“Here is a new wife for you, Metalsmith . . .”
“No, Lord—NO!” Zabibe tried to pull free from my grasp, but I held her tight. “Mercy, Dread Lord. . . Not this! No!”
I did not answer her cries. In this, a matter to be settled by men, I spoke only to the metalsmith.
“Of course, this one too has a bitter tongue, but I promise that if you beat her hard enough, she will learn to love you. I give you the whip as her dowry.”
With a sharp pull on her arm I sent her reeling toward her new husband, who caught her dexterously enough. In an instant she went for him with her nails, but he simply laughed and struck her a playful blow that sent her sprawling in the soft spring mud. She sat up, her eyes streaming with tears, with a bruise on her cheek she would carry for many days.
“Master, I beg you. . .” she whimpered, holding out her hand to me.
“Be silent, woman, for you deserve worse than this. Did you really expect me to harbor an assassin in my bed?”
The metalsmith grabbed her wrist and pulled her to her feet. Zabibe, her bare legs covered in mud, was at last quiet. Her tearstained eyes beseeched mercy, but she seemed to know there would be none.
“I thank you, Lord—she is fine.” The metalsmith ran a hand caressingly over her shoulder and breast, not caring that she shuddered away from him. “She is beautiful enough that I do not care how bitter her tongue may be.”
“Yes, but be sure to beat her. Strip the skin from her backside,” I said, smiling with grim satisfaction, enjoying the sight they made together. “And—a warning: unless you have grown weary of life, always make her taste the food first herself before you eat it. She is an Arab woman and employs some strange spices. You would not care to die of indigestion.”
There was fire in the look she gave me as I spoke—such fire as almost made me sorry to part with her. Yes, of course she hated me. But what had I ever cared for her hatred?
“Take her, Metalsmith, before I change my mind.”
The whole army could hear her cries as he led her away. Her curses rang in the air.
“May the gods desert you, Tiglath Ashur,” she screamed. “May you die a bitter death in the land of the Medes, and may the dogs eat your corpse.”
So many women had heaped their curses on my head. I wondered if the gods ever thought to listen.
Chapter 29
The crows had done their work in two years. Except for bones held together with decaying sinews, there was not much left of the corpses of Uksatar and
the four elders of the Miyaneh tribe. The very clothes in which they died had rotted away, so that not even those who, like myself, had been present at their execution could have told one from another.
My charger Ghost, a fine stallion now, a war horse raised up to be unafraid of battle or the smell of blood, snorted nervously and dug at the earth with his hoof as I stopped for a moment to look at the ghastly spectacle—five skeletons, men impaled and left as a warning, left to stare back with empty eye sockets at the eastern mountains from which they had dared to make war on the Land of Ashur.
Of course the warning had been to no avail. At intervals over these two years, and particularly during the winter just past, Median raiding parties had crossed this boundary to plunder what they could from the surrounding villages. There was nothing to be surprised about in this, since they knew I would be returning in any case; why should they then curb their natural nomadic greed?
And although it was not something to which I could very well admit, these incursions were not unwelcome to me since they justified the war we were about to unleash on the people of the Ahura. After all, we were not merely cruel predators, come for the pleasure of butchery and whatever we could carry off, but the armed wrath of our god who will not suffer his people to be robbed and murdered. But, more important, they showed the limits of Daiaukka’s control over his confederation of tribes.
Daiaukka was very far from a fool, and he knew that burning villages west of the Diyala River and driving off their cattle would hardly blunt the attack that must inevitably come. He knew as well that my policy of war was not without its opponents, that the king my father’s mind had still to be won to this undertaking, and he was wise enough to guess that every hut set ablaze, every peasant killed, every measure of stolen barley was reported in Nineveh and only served to reinforce my argument that the Medes were a threat and must be crushed.
So Daiaukka knew that these border provocations were folly, and if he did not stop them it only meant that he could not. His word was yet something short of law among the tribes of the Zagros, for all that he styled himself shah-ye-shah, king of all the kings of the Aryan. So much the worse for him.
So as I gazed up at these five of the Miyaneh, strangled at my command, their skulls covered only here and there with a few remaining strips of dry, curling, sun-blackened flesh, grinning like demons now as they had leisure to reconsider the laughable folly of their crimes, I was not sorry that their warning had gone unheeded. I promised Ashur that the Medes would not require another such for many years to come.
I rode back to camp, a city of tents upon the broad plain, where the northern army was enjoying one final long afternoon of peace before we wet our sandals in the Diyala for the last time and crossed into the lands of the Medes.
Ghost strained at his bridle, eager to break into a run. His long silver white mane waved in the wind, and the muscles of his mighty body bunched and rippled beneath the skin. He was a fine horse, powerful and swift. I was sure he would bring me luck.
Even as I entered camp, men cheered me, waving and shouting my name. When I saw a man whose face I knew, I smiled and waved back, for soldiers must believe their commander cares about them. These had entrusted their lives to me, even as I led them against an enemy famous for courage and ferocity, and as they wished to live and triumph they created an idol and called him the Lord Tiglath Ashur. It is always so. One man is made great only to serve the purposes and hopes of many.
And this year again we would carry the banner of the blood star, waving on our standards beneath the winged disk of Ashur, so I hoped it would not be only my own men who believed in the myth of Mighty Sargon’s sedu.
I was not, however, trusting solely to the magic of my own reputation. The army I was bringing into the Zagros was twenty thousand strong, well trained and disciplined men who knew what was expected of them. Many had campaigned before and knew the terror of battle. If we did not prevail, the failure would be not theirs but mine alone. But we would prevail—I was very sure.
“When shall we break camp, Rab Shaqe?” Lushakin asked as he held Ghost’s bridle while I dismounted.
“An hour before dawn,” I answered. “And see to it that every soldier is ready to march at first light. I wish the Medes to see that though we are many we know how to move.”
“You think they are watching already?”
“I know it.” I looked at him, letting my eyes go wide as if I hardly credited he could be such a simpleton. “Their outriders have been about five hours ahead of us even since our third day out of Amat. You should ride in the vanguard with me, where you could have seen the droppings left by their horses.”
Tabshar Sin laughed.
“You had best be careful, Prince, or this simpleton will grow to believe you.
Lushakin, when he saw he had been gulled, laughed too. I had known both men since the days of my greenest youth, so a joke was permitted.
“Nevertheless,” I said, “they are there. They are not fools enough to reveal themselves, but they are there. I can feel their eyes on us.”
In my tent were maps, certainly the best maps ever made of the lands east of the Diyala, drawn on goatskin by the Cimmerian slaves we had rescued from bondage on our last campaign. There was not a rock on the Zagros Steppes they did not show. At least we would not have to stumble forward like blind men.
“We must keep to the broad plains,” I told my officers. “An army of this size cannot maneuver to advantage in the mountains and, besides, why should we give Daiaukka the chance to ambush us? We have size in our favor—no matter how many riders the Medes can field, they cannot hope to overwhelm us—and a giant should not pick the inside of a beer jug for a battleground.”
“They might decide simply to ignore us, to wait in their mountains until winter comes and we are forced to withdraw.”
“Daiaukka will fight. A king is not a king unless he can protect his people—he knows that. We shall bring such devastation to the Zagros that he will be forced to fight.”
When the meeting was over, Lushakin and Tabshar Sin stayed behind, and the three of us drank wine and talked about the glory of vanished times until well past the blackest part of the night. We all three despaired of sleep, and it is better on such occasions not to be alone.
By the hour the sun first showed itself in the pale gray sky, the armies of Ashur’s vengeance were already on the move. By midday we had crossed the river and were treading the earth our enemies called their own.
By twilight of the second day, outriders reported having sighted the first Median village. I gave my orders against the morning.
“Take one company of men. Destroy everything. Every wall, every farmer’s hut—everything. Burn what you find of the harvest and drive as many of their animals back as you can—there is no reason why our soldiers should not have meat for their dinner tomorrow. Slaughter the rest and throw the carcasses down the wells. Kill any man you find in arms or who attempts to resist. Spare all the rest. Use your whips, if you must, to drive them out. We will fill this land with wandering beggars for Daiaukka to feed, if he can. Let no one molest the women, for we are not barbarians.”
The Medes build their houses of stone, but the roofs are of wood. They were still burning the next night, turning the southern sky an evil black red. My soldiers rejoiced—and why should they not, since our enemies served us no better?—but the sight made my bowels turn to ice.
For many days it was the same. Companies of men would fan out from the main body of the army to raid and pillage. Our grain wagons were filled to bursting, and we had horses, cattle, and goats enough to provide for a force ten times our own number. We found silver and gold, and these I divided out among the raiders as booty, keeping, as was the custom, a fifth part for my own share.
It was not long before the village elders began coming to us, as they had on our last campaign, meeting us on our way to offer tribute if we would spare them. But I was without mercy.
“You have given allegi
ance to a wicked king,” I told them. “He has visited this vengeance upon you by warring against the Land of Ashur. That which you suffer, my own people have suffered before you—this and worse. All those following Daiaukka must learn what price my god exacts from any who mock his power.”
At my words the elders lamented in cracking voices and tore their beards.
“Yet, Dread Lord, we are but farmers and herdsmen. We are not warriors to carry arms into the Land of Ashur. Spare us.”
“Are not my own people farmers and herdsmen? Do not your sons ride with Daiaukka’s army? Yet I will grant you a little pity—more, indeed, than was shown to those I have come to avenge. I will give you one day’s grace. Gather together what you can and turn your faces to the mountains. You must leave your wagons, but what you are able to carry on your backs I will spare you. Take it, and find Daiaukka. Tell him of your sufferings and demand his protection as a right. Tell him that the Lord Tiglath Ashur, a king’s son and prince in the Western Lands, will not cease his devastation until he is driven away by force or vanquishes his enemies in open battle.”
I raised my hand in salute, that they might see the blood star across my palm and know to whom they listened.
And this, as my words were whispered about from one village to another, was how the Steppes of the Zagros grew filled with the sounds of sorrow, how the footpaths and trails became clogged with pilgrims. As water breaks before the prow of a ship, the people who called themselves the Aryan scattered before our advancing columns. Always, just in the distance, we could see the clouds of dust raised by their unsandaled feet as they set out on their hopeless flight from destruction.
And always we found their settlements empty of men, the goats still tethered in their yards, the grain stores intact, for they knew that if they broke this covenant we would ride them down and leave their corpses to feed the dogs. What we could not carry away as loot we burned and slaughtered.
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