Daniel stopped talking. There was a long silence. I failed. It didn’t work. I’m sorry, Samamat. I’m sorry Arioch—
“How did you know my dream? And what it meant? How? How?” Nebuchadnezzar demanded. He stared almost blankly at Daniel.
“I asked my God, who is great, and He showed me the dream.” Why did none of the others have the sense to create the king’s dream for him? Perhaps they had feared the king’s wrath too greatly. Samamat, of course, had taken the king at his word, and told only truth, disastrous though truth might be. I must thank God with all my heart, for He truly aided me.
Nebuchadnezzar smiled—an oddly ominous expression on his ravaged face. Abruptly, he stood, and half-flung himself down the steps. He threw himself at Daniel’s feet. “You are great. You are greater than the gods. You are greater than I. Bless me. Lend me your favor. I will worship you and raise you above all men.”
As Daniel stared down at the king, horrified, Nebuchadnezzar kissed his feet. Then the king sat back on his heels and called loudly, “Bring incense, bring sweet oils. Bring them now! We will all bow down before Daniel and worship him!” Nebuchadnezzar glared around the throne room. “Bow. Bow before Daniel, Master of Dreams!”
“No, O king—” Daniel tried to lift Nebuchadnezzar up, but the king flung himself at Daniel’s feet again. And all around Daniel, men and women were kneeling, bowing—Daniel looked across a sea of heads to where Arioch stood. Arioch shrugged, then bowed. Daniel stared down at the king, who was once again kissing Daniel’s feet.
Me. They’re worshipping me. Daniel hadn’t realized blood really could run cold until this moment. This is not by my will or wish, Lord! But Daniel knew he must stop this, and at once. After the great favor the Lord had granted Daniel, to repay Him by violating the first and greatest commandment—Daniel shuddered, and hastily tried again to raise King Nebuchadnezzar up. “O king, I did nothing but speak the words the Lord my God put into my mouth. Please do not do this. I am no god, nor am I worthy of worship.”
The ranks of dutifully bowing and kneeling courtiers opened to allow half a dozen priests to pace solemnly in, carrying golden bowls full of incense. Smoke drifted upward, thin silver cords of fragrance. Daniel knew he must not permit the priests to offer him incense. And he could think of no way of stopping them, for every man and woman in this vast chamber was far more afraid of King Nebuchadnezzar’s wrath than of the wrath of Daniel’s God.
Daniel searched for Arioch, seeking aid. At last he saw Arioch, half-hidden by one of the winged Beings. Samamat had wrapped her arms around Arioch, and the two were kissing as fervently as if they were Ishtar and her Consort.
Of course. Why should I be surprised? But he was, and as he gazed wistfully upon the two dearest to his heart, Daniel sensed the presence of the Lord again. And the Lord seemed to be laughing.…
“Bow down to Daniel!” King Nebuchadnezzar glared at the assembled courtiers as if they might actually argue with him—and Daniel dragged his attention away from his friends and back to his own danger. He held his hands out in supplication.
“Please, O king, if I have pleased you and found favor in your sight—”
“You have,” Nebuchadnezzar roared, “which is more than these useless vermin have. They will bow to you and worship you and—”
“—and the Lord my God will strike me down for blasphemy.” Daniel only hoped the king would believe this. It’s true, after all. “If the king would grant my petition and request, let my service to him be reward enough.”
To Daniel’s intense relief, this pleased King Nebuchadnezzar. The king promptly began berating the courtiers for bowing to a mere man, and the incense-bearing priests swiftly began chanting the king’s praises. And a strong hand gripped Daniel’s arm and drew him backward until a stone wing hid him from Nebuchadnezzar’s eyes.
“Hug Daniel later, Sama—we’re not out of sight, out of the king’s mind yet. Now come on.”
Daniel had never been quite sure what happened after Arioch dragged him and Samamat back to his chambers. When he was being honest with himself, Daniel admitted he didn’t want to know. They had gotten very drunk on a jug of highly spiced wine—That I remember, and the headache the next day—but for the rest of it—well, both the Lord and Daniel’s memories had remained silent.
* * *
The events of the next few years convinced Daniel that the Most High God surely enjoyed watching mere mortals make fools of themselves. Daniel named himself as first among the fools.
The affair of the King’s Dream was the beginning of Nebuchadnezzar’s fall into total madness. Oh, for a time the king seemed to become once more the ruler who once had laughed and loved enough to create the incredible beauty of the Hanging Gardens for his favorite wife. And perhaps, had Queen Amytis still lived, she might have anchored the king in sanity. Without her …
With no one ruling his heart, King Nebuchadnezzar had no reason to remain sane any longer. As Daniel said one night to Arioch, “I think the king looks forward to his bouts of madness. He can forget his sorrows when he forgets himself.”
“Yes, and he causes a lot of sorrow for a lot of other people.” Arioch shook his head. “I don’t know, Daniel. I think something seriously bad is about to happen. Remember the king’s dream?”
Who didn’t? No one who had been in the throne room that night could possibly forget standing before Death, knowing no one could answer the king’s impossible question. Daniel still thanked God daily for the inspiration that had saved them all—
—and had raised Daniel high in King Nebuchadnezzar’s favor. The king had created Daniel ruler of the province of Babylon, governor over all other governors. It hadn’t taken Arioch’s warning to make Daniel see the danger in this promotion to a rank only one step lower than that of the king himself. Taking advantage of Nebuchadnezzar’s embarrassingly great gratitude, Daniel begged that the position be given to three of the most talented of the young men who had been brought from Israel and trained up in the king’s court. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego made better governors than Daniel ever would—
“Not nearly as concerned as you are with morality, just with appearances,” Arioch said. “Good idea, Daniel. Let those three be targets for the evil eye. Better them than you.”
“I don’t see why so many resent me, Arioch.” Daniel knew himself to be the target of much malice and envy now that King Nebuchadnezzar had proclaimed him little less than a god.
“They don’t resent you, Daniel, they hate you. And they hate you because you’ve got the king’s ear and at the moment he’ll do whatever you say.”
“So they’re afraid of me.”
“It took the Great Daniel, Master of Dreams, this long to figure that out? Yes, Daniel, they’re afraid of you. So since you won’t remember to watch your back, I’ve got men watching it for you. Oh, and Samamat says be careful what you eat and drink.”
“Does she read danger for me in the stars?”
“She reads danger for you because she’s not stupid. But yes, I think she did mention something about the stars and poison in the same sentence. Maybe you should buy a food taster.”
“I won’t put another’s life at risk just to save mine.”
“It isn’t that much of a risk, assuming you buy a good food-taster. Haven’t you ever wondered why they cost so much?”
“Because they don’t live long?”
“Daniel, King Nebuchadnezzar’s food-tasters are both older than my grandfather’d be if he were still alive. Good food-tasters spend years becoming immune to most poisons. All that time and training costs money.”
“So … you think I should—”
“Take some of that treasure the king keeps handing over to you and buy the best food-taster in the market. Yes, I think that’s a good plan, Daniel.”
The combination of Arioch’s firm insistence and Samamat’s worried pleading convinced Daniel. Reluctantly, he paid an exorbitant amount for a rotund, middle-aged Greek who swore not a morsel of foo
d or sip of drink would get to Daniel untested.
Wonderful. Now I, too, can live like a king. Paranoid and hungry.
* * *
The Greek turned out to be a sound investment; within a month, the man fell ill after tasting wine that had been sent to Daniel—supposedly from the king. Guilt flared as Daniel stood at Pontos’s bedside, watching as a doctor laid cool wet cloths upon the man’s swollen lips.
“I’m sorry,” Daniel said, and to his surprise, Pontos managed to whisper,
“You see? I’m worth it.”
“Your man’s a treasure,” the doctor said. “Most would be dead, even of such a small dose.”
“You mean he’ll live?” Daniel could hardly believe that, but the doctor nodded.
“Trust a Greek for poisons. And Pontos here has a great reputation, you know.”
“No,” said Daniel. “I didn’t know.” He supposed the doctor thought him a fool, and was now ruefully certain that Pontos considered him so. And I suppose Arioch will say “I told you so.” Well, and so he did.
Daniel told Arioch and Samamat of the poisoned wine, but refused to complain of it to King Nebuchadnezzar. Not that everyone in the palace didn’t already know—but Daniel thought it better if the king could pretend ignorance.
“After all, Arioch, the poisoned wine allegedly came as his gift.”
“And?”
“And Daniel’s right, Arioch.” Samamat reached out and clasped Daniel’s hand in hers, a rare intimacy.
“He is?” Arioch regarded Daniel doubtfully.
“Suppose the wine really was sent by the king?” Daniel asked. “I don’t think I want to remind him of something like that, do you?”
For once, Arioch agreed with Daniel. When dealing with a mad king, discretion became survival.
* * *
Nebuchadnezzar’s next venture into the kingdom of madness was on so vast a scale it became impossible to conceal. The king ordered a statue cast in gold, a huge image of the goddess Ishtar. Reasonable enough, in Ishtar’s own city. But the golden idol had not been intended for a temple, or to crown the Ishtar Gate, or to adorn the throne room of the palace.
King Nebuchadnezzar commanded this exquisite example of the goldsmith’s art to be conveyed to the plain of Dura, a dozen miles from Babylon. There the precious idol was set in the middle of an open field, as if it were nothing more than a clay figure for a roadside shrine.
And all the great men of the kingdom—the princes, the governors, the generals, the priests, the treasure-masters—were commanded to attend the king there at Dura.
All except Daniel. For no reason Daniel could ever determine, the king ordered him to remain in Babylon.
“And fortunately, the king has commanded no women be permitted at his great assembly, so I don’t have to trek out to Dura. In this weather, too.” Samamat shook her head. Summer was no time to hold a gathering on the plains bordering the Tigris River.
“Well, you can help me rule in the king’s name.” Daniel still couldn’t believe Nebuchadnezzar’s orders, and couldn’t decide if it would be wiser to obey and put the crown on his head, or to disobey—humbly. He put the question to Samamat, who shrugged.
“I don’t know, Daniel. Who knows what the king will choose to do these days? I just hope…”
“Hope what, Sama?”
“Well, the stars indicate a change coming.”
“What kind of a change? A new king?”
Samamat frowned. “I can’t tell. Maybe. Something different. I’ll keep studying them, of course. Perhaps they’ll reveal more after the full moon.”
Something different certainly summed up what happened on the plain of Dura. Once the hundreds who had been commanded to travel there arrived, they found not only the statue of Ishtar blazing like fire under the summer sun, but King Nebuchadnezzar holding court there. All the musicians in Babylon had also been commanded to Dura; they ringed the idol, waiting with their harps and lyres, their flutes and timbrels and drums. Arioch sent Daniel a long letter, scrawled on new papyrus in Arioch’s own slashing hand, warning him of what happened then—a forewarning for which Daniel was deeply thankful.
First, there wasn’t enough water. Or food. The king, may he live forever, told everyone they could turn right around and go home—after they all prostrated themselves in front of the idol. Which they were supposed to do when they heard music start. And whoever didn’t prostrate himself would be thrown into a fiery furnace. As if the sun wasn’t hot enough to melt a helmet. So once the heralds had managed to shout this to everyone on the field, the king raised his hand and the musicians started playing, and I don’t think anyone told them what to play, because I never heard such an uproar in my life. Harps and drums don’t mix that well anyway.
So everyone fell over himself to be the first man flat on his face. Except, of course, for those three friends of yours. Which the Chaldean mages helpfully pointed out to the king, because there were so many people there the king really couldn’t see past the first dozen or so rows, not with that sun glare and the dust. So the king, may he live forever, ordered everyone to stand up again, and ordered the music to start again, and everyone fell flat on his face again.
Except Abednego, Shadrach, and Meshach, of course. The three of them waited around, standing, until I and the guard got through the rows of prostrated worshippers—I hope Ishtar appreciates what the king’s doing for Her Glory here—to arrest them and haul them before Nebuchadnezzar. Who demanded to know why they weren’t worshipping as ordered. They said it wasn’t permitted by their own god, so the king ordered them thrown in a fiery furnace.
Of course, there wasn’t a fiery furnace out there on Dura plain, so I had to take the three of them and find one, and who has a furnace burning at this season? Or one big enough to hold three men, come to that? But I had to do something, friends of yours or not. So I told the king, may he live forever, that his will would be carried out, which seemed to please him enough to order everyone to stand up and go home again. I brought the prisoners to the nearest blacksmith’s and had him get the forge going. We nailed up blankets around the forge and we all waited while Abednego, Shadrach, and Meshach stood in the forge, and why they didn’t all three drop dead of the heat in there I don’t know.
Finally I figured they’d been in a fiery furnace long enough to satisfy the king’s command and ordered my men to haul down the blankets. Frankly, Daniel, I expected to find at least one of them dead of the smoke if nothing else, but all three of them were fine. Sweaty and sooty, but not dead. I suppose they had the sense to lie down on the ground and stay as cool as possible. They said the Lord Their God had saved them, and maybe He had, because it must have been hell in there. And of course once they’d said that, half my men were convinced they’d seen a mysterious fourth person in the smoke when we took down the blankets. And then they decided this mysterious fourth person looked like a god. Which is what they told everyone when we got back to the plain of Dura with Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego alive and pretty well, considering everything.
And that’s when Nebuchadnezzar ordered that anyone in his kingdom who spoke one evil word about this Great God of yours would be cut up in little pieces and thrown to the crocodiles in the Tigris.
All I can say is that I hope the king, may he live forever, doesn’t want to hold any more mass religious rituals. Especially on Dura plain. In the middle of summer.
Better burn this even if it is a waste of papyrus.
Your friend, Arioch.
King Nebuchadnezzar never again emerged from the madness that devoured him. After months of nerve-shattering dreams—dreams Daniel interpreted as soothingly as possible for the raging king—Nebuchadnezzar abandoned humanity entirely, living naked in the palace gardens, eating grass, and snarling at anyone who came near him. Nebuchadnezzar’s death, caused by his insistence on consuming nightshade leaves, came as a relief to almost everyone.
His heir, Prince Belshazzar, ordered a splendid tomb erected to hold his father
’s body, and then began his reign as he meant to finish it: drunk. Better than madness, Daniel thought, but not by much.
I hope the wine at least drowns Belshazzar’s dreams. I hope King Belshazzar forgets I’m alive. I’m tired of interpreting dreams for kings.
* * *
Darius the Mede, Darius the Great, Darius the Lord of Half the World, marched upon Babylon, followed by an army so vast no man could count its soldiers—although they numbered at least ten thousand, for that was the size of Darius’s elite corps, the Immortals. Darius had already conquered vast lands in Asia and Africa. There was little chance for Babylon to stand against him, and King Belshazzar apparently didn’t even intend to try.
At a moment of ultimate crisis, Belshazzar ordered up another feast.
Rumor had it that all that was served was the strongest wine. What was not rumor, but truth, was that Belshazzar had dragged out the plunder his father Nebuchadnezzar had looted from the Temple in Jerusalem, and was using the Temple’s sacred vessels as wine cups. No one had been able to dissuade Belshazzar from this sacrilege.
Daniel hadn’t even bothered to try.
* * *
Darius’s army marched ever closer to Babylon, and Belshazzar and his guests grew ever drunker. Arioch rode out with the king’s guard to watch the approaching host, leaving Samamat in Daniel’s care. The two of them waited through three long tense days and nights. On the third night, someone knocked softly at Daniel’s door.
Daniel and Samamat looked at the door, and then each other.
“I don’t think Darius’s soldiers would bother to knock,” Samamat said, and Daniel answered, “Probably not.” And Arioch would simply have entered without knocking. Another glance passed between them, and then Daniel opened the door.
A veiled woman stood there. “Daniel Dream-Master? The king has need of you. Will it please you to come to him?”
“King Belshazzar asked for me?” Daniel found it hard to believe that King Belshazzar could remember his own name by now, let alone Daniel’s.
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