The Concubine's Son

by H A CULLEY

  ‘I think we may be better off without his custom,’ one of them grunted.

  ‘You’re wrong. He’s more important than he makes out, you mark my words. He might be able to put some work our way,’ the head smith told him.

  Sumu-Epuh knew all about the presence of Tarhunda and Arishaka in Aleppo and a quiet word between his son, Yarim-Lim, and the captain of the city watch saved the smiths from any unpleasant interrogation. The questioning of the surviving assassin was far from pleasant, however. Yarim-Lim demanded that the man be handed over to his torturers and Tarhunda agreed, provided he could be present. At first the usual beating failed to produce anything but then Arishaka slipped into the room.

  Tarhunda was horrified and grabbed him to usher him out, but then the boy stopped him.

  ‘Wait, I think I know this man.’

  ‘You do?’

  ‘Yes, his face is familiar, but I can’t think where from.’ He looked at the man thoughtfully but he wouldn’t meet his eye until Yarim-Lim grabbed him by the chin and forced him to look at the boy. Then slow grin spread over Arishaka’s face.

  ‘He was a guard at my father’s palace in Babylon. He told me a story once when I was five and he caught me sneaking out of the women’s quarters to go exploring. His name is…’ He paused. ‘Uhar. That’s it. I’m certain of it.’

  Tarhunda was watching the man’s face. As soon as his name was mentioned the Hittite knew that the boy had remembered him correctly.

  ‘Well, now,’ he said. ‘I seem to remember hearing that Zuuthusu had made him his captain of the palace guards for the short time that he was on the throne of Babylon.’ He turned to Yarim-Lim. ‘Hammurabi will be in your debt if you send this piece of carrion to him. He was one of those who murdered Sin-Muballit.’

  ‘What was he doing here though?’

  ‘It seems that we still have at least one traitor in our midst in Babylon. Only few a people knew that I was coming here and that the king’s brother was with me.’

  ~#~

  Hammurabi was furious when he heard about the attack on Arishaka. For a fleeting moment he entertained the unworthy thought that, had the attack succeeded, he wouldn’t have to worry about a potential rival in the future, but he told himself that he was being paranoid.

  He ran through a mental list of those who had known about Tarhunda’s trip. There was the council, of course, but he didn’t suspect any of them. They all had their own reasons for detesting Zuuthusu. The army knew that their commander was going to be away, of course, as did certain other people in the city, but no-one else knew where he was going or that he was travelling via Aleppo. He would have to find out who the members of his council had told.

  He went to discuss it with Adiar before he did anything. He had just started to explain what had happened when his wife gasped in pain and clasped her hand to her stomach.

  ‘What is it, my love? Are you ill?’ he asked in alarm.

  ‘No,’ she tried to smile in response. ‘I think the baby is coming.’ She gasped in pain again. ‘Fetch my women and you had better leave.’

  ‘Of course, yes, right away.’ The confused and worried king ran out of the room and sent in Adiar’s slaves and companions, who reminded him of clacking geese as they rushed in to help their mistress. For the next few hours Hammurabi could think of little else but the birth, the attack on his brother quite forgotten.

  ‘You have another fine son, lord king,’ one of the queen’s companions told him just as the sun was disappearing over the horizon.

  ‘And my wife?’

  ‘Both mother and child are well, though the queen is a little tired. She asks what name you have chosen.’

  Hammurabi thought for a moment; it wasn’t something he had given any consideration to. He looked up at the sky where the moon had just appeared, lit a fiery red colour by the setting sun.

  ‘Samsu-Iluna, I think,’ he said eventually. ‘Beloved of the moon; yes, Samsu-Iluna it is.’

  The atmosphere in the council chamber was tense.

  ‘Are you saying that one of us is in league with the traitor Zuuthusu, lord king?’ Isiratuu asked. He had been taken aback when Hammurabi had said that the news about Tarhunda’s mission must have come from one of the council.

  ‘Perhaps the king didn’t explain himself as well as he could have done,’ Adiar, who was sitting on the throne beside him, cut in before Hammurabi could reply. She glanced at her husband who nodded faintly. She looked at each man in turn: in addition to the chief minister, the council consisted of Sin-Bel-Alim, the foreign minister, Mannui-Qipi, the high priest of Marduk, Bashaa, the captain of the palace guards, Kinau, the chief elder and Seluku, the chief diviner of Shamash, the sun god.

  Divination was an extremely important art in Mesopotamia as the pronouncements of oracles and the interpretation of omens shaped policy making. Seluku had been made a member of the king’s council so that he could offer predictions about the actions being debated before decisions were reached. So far he had been careful not to oppose any of Hammurabi’s cherished policies but his words of caution had proved useful in more minor matters. Privately Isiratuu thought that the man was a clever charlatan but Hammurabi held him in high regard so he held his tongue. .

  ‘A message must have been sent to Zuuthusu well before the day of our departure, because Uhar had to travel from Susa to Aleppo to intercept Arishaka before he left again; and the distance from Susa to Aleppo is much greater than the distance from Babylon. Only the council knew that Arishaka would be in Aleppo en route to Phoenicia so the information must have originated from one of you.’ Adiar held her hand up at the outburst of protest that greeted her statement. ‘No-one is accusing anyone here but one of you may have said something about Tarhunda’s plans to someone else. Did anyone tell their wife, lover or friend?’

  Hammurabi was watching the council members carefully whilst his wife was speaking. All seemed to be a picture of innocence, except for Seluku, who suddenly looked a little shifty.

  ‘Seluku, is there something that you would like to share with the council?’ he asked suddenly.

  ‘Well, lord king, I did sacrifice a lamb to look at her liver to ensure that the omens for the mission were propitious,’ the diviner began hesitantly.

  ‘So? How would that send a message to my enemy?’

  ‘Well, I may have mentioned the purpose of the sacrifice to my assistant.’

  ‘And do you suspect this assistant may be Zuuthusu’s agent?

  ‘I didn’t, lord king, or I wouldn’t have continued to employ him. He does seem to have come into some money recently though.’

  The king turned to Bashaa. ‘Go and arrest him.’ His eyes fastened on Seluku again. ‘You’re a fool and I don’t need a fool as my chief diviner; get out.’

  But when the palace guards arrived at the temple to Shamash, where the assistant lived, they found he had fled the city the previous day, presumably as soon as word of the failed attack in Aleppo had spread around Babylon.

  ~#~

  Arishaka pulled his camel to a halt when the road through the Shouf Mountains emerged from the trees. This was the last ridge before the coast and he gazed in wonder at the deep blue sea, speckled with reflections from the sun, which lay spread out before him. Immediately below him lay the Phoenician port of Beirut. Compared to Babylon it was only a small town sited on the south side of the mouth of a river, but its harbour was extensive with warehouses lining most of the quayside. Ten ships were tied up alongside the quay with half a dozen more waiting out in the harbour for their turn to unload.

  Suddenly the boy realised that the tail of the caravan had passed him and was now two hundred yards further down the road as it wound its way down to the narrow coastal plain. As he descended towards the town a wave of humidity hit him. Unlike the dry heat of Mesopotamia and northern Syria, the atmosphere near the sea was cloyingly hot. Within minutes the linen tunic and kilt he was wearing were stained with sweat. The sea looked increasingly inviting but Tarhunda ha
d warned him that there were currents and undertows offshore; it wasn’t like swimming in the Euphrates. Nevertheless he and some of the camel boys ran into the sea near their camp and splashed each other, shrieking as the cold water hit them. However, as soon as they got dry the humid heat hit them again within minutes.

  The Babylonians got used to the humidity as the caravan continued its journey down the coastal road towards Ashkelon, some one hundred and eighty miles south of Beirut. Whilst Beirut had been established as a Phoenician trading port, many of the other city states on the coast were independent or part of a larger Syrian confederation; the Phoenician presence being confined to the seaport and the merchant area. Their arrival as maritime traders had been fairly recent but, nevertheless, they were already becoming the dominant part of each city’s economy.

  Some of the merchants in the caravan had left them in Beirut and others had joined. By the time they eventually reached Ashkelon there were only a handful remaining from those who had accompanied them when they left Aleppo. Tarhunda was suspicious of everyone who had joined them en route, but there were no further incidents on the outward journey. Merchants travelled together in caravans for mutual protection but the Hittite thought that it might be safer to travel back on their own. There would have been time for another assassin from Elam to have journeyed to the coast at Tarsus and then travelled by ship to intercept them on their way north.

  The Hyksos, who governed Ashkelon, were a warlike people who now ruled the lands from Ashkelon to the Nile delta. After the collapse of Egypt under the old Pharaohs, the Hyksos were slowly imposing their own rule on the kingdom.

  As Tarhunda and Arishaka walked around Ashkelon, they were impressed at the developments made by the Hyksos. The smiths were producing armoured vests made of linked rings of bronze and a long sword with a curved blade at one end designed for cutting into an enemy much more effectively. Arishaka never had obtained his larger plate vest with plates sewn on so now he ordered one of the new mail vests and Tarhunda did the same. The commander also ordered one of the swords as well.

  As they made their way back to camp they saw a chariot coming towards them, but it wasn’t like any chariot they had seen in Mesopotamia. Instead of being heavy with solid wheels and pulled by onagers, this one was drawn by two horses , had a light wicker body and wheels with six thin spokes. Whereas the chariots at home were quite slow, this one was travelling at some speed. As it passed them they were enveloped in a cloud of dust, but not before they had seen that it contained three men: the driver, an archer and a spearman who stood by a basket containing a number of throwing spears. Later Tarhunda learned that these were called javelins.

  ‘What we have seen today has made our journey worthwhile, even without buying any horses,’ the commander murmured to Arishaka as they emerged from the dust cloud.

  ~#~

  In the end Tarhunda bought thirty mares and five stallions to take back to Babylon. Eight of them had already been broken so he sold his own horse to go to stud and selected the best of the stallions for himself and a small mare for Arishaka. The other six he had taught to ride in Babylon completed the riding party. He armed them with swords, small round shields and spears to act as the protection party with four archers mounted on camels. The remaining camel boys tied the leading reins of the unbroken horses to their saddles. The baggage camels carried examples of the Hyksos bronze-smith’s work in addition to the camping equipment and provisions.

  Two of the horsemen were sent out as scouts each day whilst the rest and the camel archers rode as flank escort to the small caravan. It was just as well that Tarhunda had taken these precautions as the two scouts came back at the gallop as the caravan toiled back up the road into the Shouf Mountains above Beirut.

  ‘There’s an ambush up ahead. They have tried to conceal themselves in the trees above the road but they’re not very good at it,’ the lead scout reported with a grin.

  ‘What do we do, shall we fight?’ Arishaka’s face was alight with excitement.

  ‘No, we shall most certainly not, you little tearaway.’ He smiled at the boy, then gave him some serious advice. ‘Never fight if you can avoid it, especially when the only priority is to get these horses to Babylon safely. We’ll have to head back to Beirut for tonight and carry on up the coast road tomorrow. We can head back to Aleppo through the region known as the Cedars from further up the coast.’

  However, when they got a few miles north of Beirut they found the road obstructed by an outcrop of rock. The only way round it was along a narrow strip of beach. It was a perfect spot for an ambush.

  ‘Arishaka, can I trust you to do exactly as you are told?’ Tarhunda wanted to know.

  ‘Yes, of course.’

  ‘Hmmm, very well then. Take the archers and the spearmen into the trees a hundred yards further back along the road and work your way above that outcrop without being seen. Take a few boys to hold the horses and camels. Once you’re in position if, as I suspect, there are men waiting to waylay us, start to pick them off using the archers. The spearmen are there to protect them. But, now listen to me, if there are too many of them don’t attack but make your way back here.’

  Once into the trees, Arishaka and his men dismounted and left the horses and camels with two boys. He took the other three boys with him because they were good with a slingshot. Twenty minutes later they crawled into position behind some rocks overlooking the outcrop which jutted out towards the sea. Below him were some twenty archers intently watching the road from the south. A few hundred yards away he could see his caravan resting in the shade of some trees. Arishaka beckoned his men forward into positions from where they could fire down on the ambushers fifty yards below them.

  Just as the last one was getting into position, he dislodged a stone which skittered away down the hill, collecting others as it went. The men below them looked round in alarm just as Arishaka gave the signal. Six arrows found five targets and the boys’ slingshots took out two more. The ambushers scuttled for cover, but not before two more of their men were hit.

  The enemy were trapped. If they tried to escape downhill they would be easy targets. If they attacked uphill they were equally doomed; and they had already lost nearly half their number, though at least one was still alive to judge by the screams of agony carrying up the hillside. One man got up and tried to make a run for it. He fell with three arrows in his back and a hole in the back of his head from a slingshot. Seeing this, the other ten men stood up and threw their weapons away.

  The archers went downhill to collect those arrows they could re-use and the discarded weapons. One stooped and cut the throat of the man screaming in agony. They ushered the prisoners down to the road whilst the boys ran back to collect the horses and camels.

  After some questioning it transpired that all but one were hired locals hoping to make some easy money. They identified one man as their paymaster but they knew nothing about him except that he came from Mesopotamia somewhere. Tarhunda got a fire going in the grove where they had waited during the attack and hung the man from two trees so that he could be lowered over the fire. Just at that moment a caravan came past heading for Beirut. They seemed disinterested in what was happening and hurried on their way.

  ‘We might have the local watch coming to investigate once that lot reach Beirut,’ one of the men pointed out nervously.

  ‘Then we had better get this chap to talk quickly, hadn’t we?’ Tarhunda snapped.

  When he was lowered over the fire there was a nauseating smell of burning flesh and he screamed as the blood in his lower limbs boiled. He was hauled up again and a pitcher of sea water was thrown over him. As they were about to lower him again he yelled for them to stop.

  He gabbled that he was a priest of Shamash in Babylon who assisted the chief diviner. His uncle was a secret supporter of Zuuthusu and in his pay. He used to pass on information which he got from the chief diviner to his uncle, but he had been warned to flee the city. He had joined a caravan to Susa and Nutesh,
Zuuthusu’s right hand man, had paid him to assassinate Arishaka. He was lowered over the fire once more but he had nothing else useful to say before he died.

  ‘Why is my half-brother so keen to see me dead?’ Arishaka wanted to know after he had recovered from vomiting.

  ‘I suspect because you were exposed on this trip and he knew your death would really upset Hammurabi. I don’t think it is just a matter of the throne of Babylon anymore. It’s personal on both sides now.’

  ‘Then I want to be the one who kills Zuuthusu,’ the boy said fiercely. ‘It’s personal between me and him now as well.’

  Chapter Eight – Diplomatic Interlude – 1786 to 1783 BCE

  Hammurabi and Adiar were discussing marriage. The king’s sisters were now fifteen and eighteen. He should have done something about it before this but Ashlatum had been more than content to have their company whilst she was developing Kid-nun. But now the project was complete and a governor had been appointed to take over from her. The man Hammurabi chose was Abi-Maras, Isiratuu’s eldest son.

  ‘Do you think that Dadusha would agree to marry one of my sisters?’ The two had been running through a list of possible suitors and Adiar felt that strengthening the alliance with Eshnunna was important.

  ‘I’m sure that my brother would be prepared to consider it, yes,’ Adiar replied thoughtfully. ‘After all, he is now fifteen, the same age as Ettu.’

  ‘Good, perhaps the best plan would be for you to visit your brother and take my sister with you? What do you think?’

  ‘If so, I had better go now before my belly swells any further.’ Adiar smiled at her husband.

  ‘What? You’re pregnant again? Wonderful!’ Hammurabi gave her a kiss and patted her stomach, which was still as flat as ever, as far as he could see. ‘How long have you known?’