The Blood Star

by Nicholas Guild

We raced for the mouth of a wider passage, making the sluggish water race by us. We swung round an island, and I could see pieces of reed frond floating past, carried by the almost imperceptible current. We were in a main channel now. I could feel the blood in my veins. Was it possible we had escaped?

  And then we saw them.

  Three boats, turning the corner together, like the horses pulling a chariot, men standing in the prows, as calm and steady as if their bare legs stood on solid ground, the spears in their hands already brought up to the shoulder.

  I turned, my guts clenched with dread—it was the same behind us. We were trapped, as neatly as rabbits in a baited snare. They had led us here, and we were trapped.

  My javelin was lying at the bottom of our boat. I picked it up. I would not sell my life for nothing.

  “By the bright gods, Lord—no!”

  It was Kephalos’ voice. I looked down and saw him, his hands clasped in supplication, his face a mask of terror.

  “They will slaughter us, Lord,” he said, only a little softer. “Stay your hand from this rashness. I beg you.”

  In an hour, I thought—perhaps less—we might wish they had slaughtered us. Yet he was my friend. I had led him to this. His life was not mine to give away.

  I let the javelin drop from my hand.

  I sat down to wait. There was nothing else to do.

  The boats drew near, and someone in one of them threw a grappling hook over our prow and took us in tow. They hardly glanced at us, their eyes looking past us. The red cloths with which they protected their heads from the sun framed faces as dark and seamed as old leather. They said nothing, these men. They showed no sign of triumph, as if our capture brought them no more merit than if we were oxen being herded home to be penned up for the night. Perhaps they were merely disappointed in us. Perhaps we had been too easy.

  This is defeat, I thought. This is what the Medes felt when I humbled them in their own mountains. And now it has come to me. My god was deserted me, and my simtu will be a shameful death at the hands of my enemies. What I felt was almost like remorse.

  “Forgive me for this, Kephalos,” I said. “It seems I have brought you to your end.”

  “Lord. . .” He moved his shoulders in a despairing gesture. “Regret nothing, for I do not.”

  Not even he believed it. Yet I was both touched and appalled. He had risked everything for my sake, and I had as good as murdered him.

  For an hour they dragged us through the water. I could hear the insects buzzing, as monotonous as death. My heart was black within me. I cursed my own folly, the blindness of my heart, and I cursed the Lord Ashur.

  At last we came to a village—a village of reed huts, floating on an island of reeds.

  Our captors, throwing lines to others who waited on the shore, shouting orders at them in a tongue of which I understood not one syllable, prepared to moor their boats. Women, old men past any use, hard young warriors, and children barely old enough to be left alone, they all stood about, talking and making incomprehensible gestures, like people at a bazaar. It was hardly the reception I might have expected from this fabled race of warriors. We could as easily have just returned from a fishing expedition.

  One man, at last, stepped forward, resting his hands upon his hips, grinning in obvious triumph through his great dark beard. In this wild place, his black tunic was shot through with silver. There was a glittering sword in his red sash and rings of gold and precious stones on his fingers, but these were not what made him so striking a figure.

  He was no taller than his fellows, nor was there any unusual grace to his person or beauty in his strong, broad face, crowded with sharp and irregular angles. A lump, the size of a grape, appeared over his right eye—his one distinguishing feature. Yet even this somehow only enhanced the general impression of a man with perfect confidence in his own powers. He had the bearing of a king.

  “Prince Tiglath Ashur,” he shouted, in only slightly accented Akkadian, and raised his arm. “I am glad you have arrived among us at last, Lord. I was afraid that in the marshes you might have come to harm.”

  VI

  The mudhif of My Lord Sesku, who styled himself King of the Halufids, although he was no more than a tribal chief, was perhaps eighty paces in length and fifteen in width. The ceiling and walls, which consisted of several layers of reed mats, were held up by eleven great arches, the columns consisting of bundles of reeds, each as wide as a man’s shoulders, roped together and bound at the apex. The whole structure, in fact, had been built of nothing except reeds, as was everything else in the village, for there was neither stone nor wood to be found in the marshes, and even mud for bricks would have had to be dredged up from the bottom of the channels. Reeds, on the other hand, were everywhere.

  This was not the king’s home, for he lived in a humble dwelling no grander than that of his poorest subject. Except perhaps to sleep there for a night or two, no one lived in the mudhif. This was where Sesku received guests and petitioners, where he dispensed justice to his people, where he held banquets to honor his victories in war and the festivals of his gods—and, as it happened on this occasion, the arrival of an important visitor.

  “You were surprised I knew you, Great Prince?” he asked as we sat cross-legged on the reed mat floor, drinking buttermilk together. It was an agreeable drink after the huge meal—I had been served first, and then Sesku’s retainers in strict order of precedence, and only last did one of his servants bring Sesku himself a small plate of lamb and rice, for it would have been unthinkable for the king to have eaten before all of his guests were seen to.

  Poor Kephalos was pegged down on the cold, damp ground by the boat landing, his fate still unsettled. As, indeed, was my own.

  “My Lord, I am surprised even to be alive,” I answered.

  This made Sesku throw back his head in laughter. His retainers, when he repeated my answer to them, laughed too, beating the ground with their reed canes in sign of appreciation, although what I said had not been intended as a jest but merely as a statement of fact.

  “Great Prince, there is nothing to be surprised at in that,” he said finally, wiping his eyes with his sleeve. “The king in Nineveh, who is your brother, has driven you from his lands and desires your death. Word of this has reached us even here, for the Lord Esarhaddon has caused riders to be sent in every direction, and I have my spies, even in the great city of Ur. Your brother is a rash man who will doubtless come to a bad end someday. He hates you, and thus, as he is my enemy, he makes you my friend. My people are poor, but their king is not a savage who kills against his own interests. No—I would spare your life if only to annoy the Lord Esarhaddon, but that is not the only, nor even the best reason.”

  He made an expansive gesture with his right hand, seeming to invoke the whole world as his witness.

  “No, Prince Tiglath, that is not the reason.”

  “Then what is?”

  “We have met before.”

  He opened his tunic and, pinching up a fold of skin over his rib cage, displayed a ragged scar, as long as a man’s finger.

  “You gave me this,” he said, grinning like a demon. “At Khalule, when we were both no more than boys.”

  He paused, as if waiting for a reaction, but I made no answer. I did not wish to—what could I have said?—yet I am not sure I even had the power. The blood was running through my heart as cold as melting snow. In my mind formed the words to the ancient prayer: “Lord Ashur, deliver me from the vengeance of my enemies. . .”

  But Sesku merely laughed again, bringing his hand down sharply against his knee, relishing the jest.

  “You took me clean off my horse,” he cried merrily, reaching across to jab with his fingers the corresponding spot on my own breast. “A boy just come from the marshes, I dare say I wasn’t much of a rider. I fell straight back over the damn beast’s tail. At first I thought I had only been thrown, but then I saw that lance of yours sprouting up out of my chest like a bulrush--by the gods, what a mom
ent! I can remember lying there on the ground, staring up at the cloudless sky, half convinced I must be dead already—such was the end of all that day’s glory—hah!”

  He leaned forward. He even put his hand on my shoulder to draw me towards him. It seemed he was about to impart a confidence.

  “You see, I had run away to join King Kudur-Nahhunte’s army as a mercenary. My father, the Lord Hajimka, was a jealous fool who hated me for not being a weakling and favored another of his sons to succeed him because he took pleasure in the boy’s pretty voice, the old. . . Ah well, perhaps it is best to speak as little ill of one’s ancestors as possible, hey? So, I planned to cover myself with glory among the Elamites. I saw one battle, and got skewered like a rabbit for my trouble, yet I returned to my father’s mudhif a hero. A man’s reputation is the greater for having illustrious enemies—this wound was the making of me, I promise you. When the old king died, I cut the throat of that effeminate nightingale my brother and took his place as heir. No one voiced the slightest protest. So, you can see how it was. I can hardly make myself responsible for the death of one who has done me so singular a service—you saved my life, Great Prince. You are the foundation of all my prosperity! Hah, hah, hah!”

  Once more his retainers joined his laughter and once more the reed mats covering the ground danced under the blows of their canes, although but few could have had any notion why. It was expected of them, and so they laughed.

  I did not laugh. To laugh would have been unseemly and, besides, my memories of that battle were perhaps less agreeable.

  “And yet,” I said, pausing to let the laughter die away, “and yet you sent out men to capture me, as if I were a quail to be snared in a net.”

  “Yes, of course—you must not be offended, Great Prince.” With his own hand he refilled my cup from a goatskin bag that rested beside him. “A king must be seen to be a king in his own domain. You will appreciate it was a question of prestige.”

  “So you had me dragged to your camp like a captured woman and now, having asserted yourself, you can afford the luxury of mercy.”

  “That is it precisely. I see, My Lord Tiglath, that you are truly a king’s son, for you understand the arts of rulership.”

  “Then I hope your mercy will extend to my companion.”

  “No—he will die.” He said this quite calmly, not even glancing at me. “You have committed a trespass, and someone must be punished for it or my people will imagine me weak.”

  “Did you not see the notch in his ear? He is a slave, my property, and I sit at your feet as a guest. Your people will imagine nothing except that you know what is due to a visitor in your house.”

  “There is no notch in his ear.”

  “Out of vanity he keeps it hidden with colored beeswax, but it is there.”

  “You permit a slave vanity?”

  “He is also my friend.”

  Sesku watched me through narrowed eyes, as if he did not quite believe me, and then shrugged his shoulders dismissively.

  “Very well—it shall be as you say.”

  When they dragged Kephalos inside, a hemp noose still dangling from his neck, he stumbled forward as if his knees had turned to water. His face was a pale gray and his eyes glittered with terror. I was certain he would have collapsed if Sesku’s retainers had not been supporting him by the arms.

  They led him to the back of the mudhif, among the children and servants, and when at last they released him, he dropped down to his hands and knees, gazing about like a caged animal. They put food before him, but he merely stared at it as if he had forgotten its proper use.

  “You will pardon me,” I said, rising, “but I must speak to him.”

  Sesku dismissed me with a bored wave and I made my way among his guests, who sat in tangled knots on every available cubit of the reed-mat floor, until I could crouch beside Kephalos. I put my hand on his shoulder. He glanced up with a start, as if surprised to see me.

  “You must not be afraid,” I murmured in Greek. “These savages have no idea of killing us. They have decided that we shall be their honored guests.”

  “Then they have peculiar notions of hospitality,” he answered finally, when at last the words no longer stuck in his throat like splinters of bone.

  “Take some food—it is wisest not to offend them.”

  He looked at the bowls of rice and cooked lamb before him and at last picked one of them up only to set it down again, his hands trembling, his face, if possible, even a shade paler than before.

  “I am afraid I might gag on it,” he said. And then, as if an idea had just occurred to him, he clutched my arm. “You are sure they will not murder us?”

  “For the moment they are disposed to friendship, yet men who are a law onto themselves can be fickle. Eat the food they offer.”

  I began to rise, and then remembered something.

  “I fear I was forced to make you a slave again,” I said. “I beg your pardon for it, but it was only on such terms that their king felt inclined to spare your life.”

  Kephalos reached up and plucked out the little triangle of wax that filled the notch in his ear, throwing it to the ground like the discarded husk of an orange.

  “Think nothing of it, Lord. At least they are respecters of property—I will find what safety I can in that.”

  Immediately he took a bowl of rice and began scooping the contents into his mouth with his fingers. I knew then that he would be well enough.

  I returned to Sesku.

  The feast continued until nearly dawn. The Halufids were not a people much given to drunkenness. Indeed, the cheapest date wine, or even beer, was enough of a luxury among them that even a king would hesitate to offer it to every guest who entered his mudhif, and thus, because it is only a pleasure to grow flushed with drink when all partake of it, and there are no sober witnesses to disapprove, the celebration of our arrival was a relatively decorous affair. Perhaps that was why their revels could wear out the night.

  As a special treat, Sesku had provided for professional entertainment, in the form of a dhakar binta, a boy from another village who had acquired great local fame for his dancing. He was indeed very skillful, almost more an acrobat than a dancer, but I found his performance, for which he was dressed as a woman, even to padded breasts, rather repulsive. He wore his hair to his waist, had painted his face, and his gestures and carriage were those of an expensive harlot. Indeed, as Sesku informed me, the boy would offer his backside to any man who could meet his price.

  Kephalos, I noticed, watched the dance with great interest. I remembered Ernos, the boy who had once been a slave in his house, and wondered if perhaps the dhakar binta had not found a new patron.

  Yet Kephalos himself, as it turned out, was an object of much admiration. Several hours into the evening, an enormous woman wearing a red tunic, with gold bangles tinkling from her heavy arms and a gold ring in the side of her nose, entered the mudhif and sat down next to Sesku. Her presence somehow changed the whole atmosphere of the feast. Gaiety appeared to die away as men who had been singing and laughing only the moment before fell into uncomfortable, murmured conversation. It was only after she had come among us that I noticed the absence of other women from the feast.

  She was of sufficient years to be considered elderly, although, from her manner, I rather suspect she would have resented being called such.

  “My mother, my father the king’s most beloved wife, the Lady Hjadkir,” Sesku announced, by way of introduction—almost, it seemed, by way of apology. He then spoke to her in her own language, and at last a faint smile crossed her heavy face and she nodded. Had I been presented to her as anything less than a foreign prince, I doubt I would have received even so much as that.

  “She enjoys the gift of prophecy,” he said, turning once again to me. “She is foolish, like all women—more foolish, perhaps, than most, for even my father was hard pressed to control her. Yet sometimes the gods are pleased to speak to her through dreams, and this blessing must be
respected. I have been saved from disaster more than once by listening to her warnings. And, of course, she is my mother. My Lord, what reverence does a man not owe to his mother?”

  I made some reply, enough to satisfy my host that I did not think it a weakness in him thus to honor the Lady Hjadkir, and the matter was allowed to drop.

  And gradually, as it will in the presence of even the greatest evil, the natural cheerfulness of men reasserted itself. Sesku’s retainers apparently decided to ignore his mother’s intrusion, as no doubt they had on other occasions, and they took delight once again in the music of the flute and drum, the dancing of the dhakar binta, and each other’s company.

  Gradually, however, I became aware that the Lady Hladkir and her son were having what sounded like an argument, and several times I saw her point toward my servant. At last Sesku turned to me to explain.

  “My mother wishes to know for what price in silver shekels you would sell that slave of yours,” he continued, fixing me with his gaze almost as if he dared me to laugh, yet at the same time admitting to the ludicrousness of this infirmity in one of his own family. “He was caught her fancy and she wishes me to buy him for her.”

  His eyes narrowed slightly—some question of family prestige was involved here, but of what sort I could only guess. It was a difficult moment.

  After a time I found courage enough to make the only possible answer.

  “Were he in honor mine to dispose of,” I said, “I would take pleasure in making your lady mother a present of the rogue. But he is not. He has served me faithfully since I was a boy, and has made my exile his own. He must serve me or serve another only as his heart pleases.”

  The king of the Halufids translated my reply for his mother and, strangely, it did not seem to anger her. She appeared to consider the matter for a time, and then her gaze returned to Kephalos, who of course was unaware of the impression he had made. As she studied him her eyes glazed over with passionate longing.

  Again she whispered something to her son, and then she rose and left us. As soon as she was gone, Sesku began to laugh.