The Blood Star

by Nicholas Guild

  “My patron will agree to this. After all, he is a reasonable man and would have no motive to avenge himself upon you.”

  “Where money is involved, men are very rarely reasonable.”

  He nodded, as if he appreciated my point. I had the sense, however, that profit and loss were not really the issues here, for Ahab’s patron must certainly have understood that he could not emerge from these dealings the winner. I could only assume that statecraft, and not wealth, was the object of this contract, that what was being bought with five million emmer was not the chance at nine million in a year’s time but a claim on the future of Egypt.

  Yet, as it seemed to me, these were not my concerns. In a year, I would be far away. I should have been wiser.

  “How do you wish the five million?” he asked, as if he were a shopkeeper taking an order. “In silver or in grain? My patron has access to large stores of wheat and millet and can give you an excellent price—three million bushels, delivered to the docks at Memphis within ten days.”

  “Very well then, I will take the grain.”

  “Then would you be prepared to put your seal to the undertaking tonight? My patron is prepared to meet you this very hour.”

  “Yes—of course.”

  It was not until we were standing that I noticed he had not touched his wine.

  At the door of the tavern we met Enkidu. Ahab of Jerusalem glanced at him, shook his head, and then turned back to me.

  “You will understand, My Lord Tiglath Ashur, that these are sensitive matters,” he said, with a faint shrug. “My patron takes a considerable risk of. . . shall we say, embarrassment, if his involvement becomes known in Tanis. His position, his very life might be put in jeopardy. What I am trying to say is, he will not tolerate a witness at your meeting—not even a mute beast such as yours.”

  I smiled, a mirthless grin.

  “You are fortunate you speak in Aramaic, my friend. He is mute, but he is far from a beast. Yet I will tell him to stay behind.”

  I did, and Enkidu fixed me with his cold blue eyes, as if to say, you are a great fool to trust your life out of my keeping.

  The hour of midnight was just past. The streets of Naukratis, which at other times were crowded with people, were now almost empty. We could hear our own footfalls as we walked together through the maze of little alleyways that led toward the river. Ahab of Jerusalem offered no directions, save to touch my arm now and then when we reached a turning. I had thought I knew the city well, but very soon I lost my way in the darkness.

  As was usual on warm summer nights in the Delta, the mists were heavy. The very walls of the buildings appeared to sweat. I could not see the stars. Common noises, the yapping of a stray dog or the frogs croaking on the muddy riverbanks, sounded distant and muffled. On such nights the world seemed slightly blurred, as if the everyday solidity of existence had given place to phantoms. As in a dream, it seemed impossible to be sure of anything.

  Thus I was prepared to believe myself mistaken when I began to suspect that someone was following us.

  But even this is making the impression more precise than it was. I had no clear sense that there was one man, or three, or five. And he—or they—were perhaps not so much following as staying abreast of us, and always just out of reach. It was all very vague. What I saw or heard, or thought I heard, was always so at the edge of my consciousness as to be only a little more than nothing at all. It was simply that we no longer had the night to ourselves, that someone—or more than one—was there because we were there.

  Did Ahab know? Had he known from the beginning, and did he know because he had planned it thus? Did they intend any harm, these companions of the darkness, or were they simply another precaution of Ahab’s mysterious patron?

  And did they even exist? I had no confidence about anything.

  At last we reached a warehouse, a crude wooden building, simply boards nailed over a frame. It was perhaps slightly larger than the main room of the tavern where I was living, and the door stood open.

  Ahab motioned for me to enter first.

  There was an oil lamp hanging by a chain from the ceiling, but otherwise the warehouse was nearly empty, with only a few bales of canvas resting against one wall. The lamp was burning—otherwise the appearance of the place suggested no one had been here for many months.

  When he were both inside, Ahab closed the door and slid the crossbar shut. He reached behind one of the canvas bales and withdrew a sword. I knew at once that he intended to kill me.

  “What is this about?” I asked, turning to face him, strangely calm, almost as if I had expected something of the sort—almost as if I welcomed it.

  “It is about your death, Prince,” replied the man who had called himself Ahab of Jerusalem but who spoke now in Akkadian, in the accents of Babylon. “It is about the debt you owe to Marduk for having defiled his temple and his city. It is about the hatred of one royal brother for another. And do not think to cry out, for no one will hear except my own men, who are outside guarding our privacy.”

  His mouth was stretched into a tight grin, a ghastly thing that distorted his face into a mask of hatred. He waved his sword in the air, as if he wanted me to admire the way it caught the light. He held it in his left hand and I noticed that he grasped it in a peculiar, clumsy grip, as if at some time he had injured his hand. Probably I had not yet fully realized my danger, for I was still placid enough to notice such things.

  And, of course, this was the man I had seen in Memphis, on the day of Pharaoh’s procession. How was it I had not recognized him before this?

  I carried no weapon of my own, nor had I since leaving Memphis—somehow, in Naukratis, it had seemed a trifle foolish. Perhaps it had been. Perhaps, had I not come unarmed, Ahab’s shadowy followers, now suddenly so real, would already have killed me in ambush. As it was, he seemed content to do the work himself.

  “Then I take it your ‘patron’ will not be coming.”

  It sounded almost like a jest, but I wanted to keep him talking. If only to give me time to think.

  “My patron waits in Nineveh for the return of your head—I am free to leave the body where it falls, but I cannot return without the head. I have sworn I would not.”

  “Sworn?”

  “Yes.” The grin stretched a shade tighter. “Does it surprise you? I took an oath—we all did. All five of us.”

  “An oath? To whom?”

  “To Marduk. To the Sixty Great Gods of Akkad and Sumer. To the true king. We sealed it with our blood, with the sharp blade of the sacred knife. But what does that matter now? I will be the one to return to Nineveh with your head wrapped in a cloak, and there I will receive my reward. I, and no other—the god’s servant, Mushussu.”

  The five eagles, each dripping blood from the stump of a missing talon. The prophecy was fulfilled and its meaning revealed. But, as usual, too late.

  Mushussu—I should have known.

  There were no more than three or four paces between us, and suddenly he cut at the air with his sword, missing me by the width of a few fingers. I jumped back out of the way, which was what he wanted. He wasn’t yet ready to kill me.

  “I always knew I would have to deal with you myself,” he said, sounding almost as if he were out of breath. “In the desert, that was a cowardly mistake, and the gods will not be served by half measures. All these years I have had to wait until I could lure you out of Memphis!”

  He flourished his sword again, as if daring me not to be afraid. He needn’t have troubled himself—I was afraid now, but the fear only seemed to make my mind more agile.

  I was perhaps the taller by a span. I had all the advantages of height and reach, but he had the sword. I would have to find a way inside its arc if I was to reach him.

  He managed his weapon with reasonable skill, suggesting he might have been a soldier once. If his grip was clumsy it was only because he clutched the handle with only three fingers, the last sticking out from his grip as if he had broken it at some
time and the joints had frozen straight. I did not stop to consider the question further—he was too dangerous for that.

  I threw a quick glance about, but there was nothing anywhere I could have used as a weapon or a shield. There wouldn’t have been. He would have seen to that. There was only the oil lamp swinging from its short chain, and even that was out of reach. It threw eerie shadows across my attacker’s face and his sword caught its light.

  “It was Senefru,” I said, a bit startled at the sound of my own voice. “He told you I was coming, and why.”

  “Yes—he found me out where you could not.” He laughed, as if glorying in his triumph. “He searched a long time, but he found me out. It seems you make enemies wherever you go, Prince.”

  He laughed again. It was cruel, mindless laughter, in its way as terrifying as death itself.

  He is mad, I thought to myself. He is quite mad. Feeding on this one obsession, his mind has sickened.

  He crouched forward a little. The time for explanations was over now—I could see that. Now he meant for me to die.

  He cut at me again, swinging from right to left, and this time I was not quite fast enough and the point skimmed across the palm of my left hand, slicing it open. I felt the blow, nothing else, but even in the wavering yellow lamplight I could see the spray of blood.

  Then the pain came, a surge of it, as if the nerves were being violently twisted. It poured straight up my arm and into my chest. For a few seconds, there was nothing else in the world but that pain.

  He could have finished me, but he did not. Another man would have—I would have—for no enemy is safe until he is dead. But this one was enjoying himself too much. He wanted to kill me slowly, to shave off pieces of my life one at a time.

  I have allowed myself to go soft, I thought. He cuts my palm and I am ready to faint like a woman. If this one kills me it will be no one’s fault but my own.

  I have to get inside the arc of his sword. I have to fight the man and not the weapon.

  I clenched my hand into a fist to slow the bleeding, trying to remember that a man is not invincible simply because there is a sword in his hand.

  We faced one another, each of us slightly crouched, like cats ready to spring. He seemed more careful now. The point of his sword danced in the lamplight and he took a cautious step forward, making me back away from him. I let him do it—I let him think I would run like a rabbit were there not a wall behind me. I had to give him back his confidence, so he would make a mistake.

  Another step. Another. He tried another slash. His blade whistled through the air and I was only just able to pull myself back beyond its reach. My balance was bad and I almost stumbled, but his was worse. He did not know it, but if he had extended himself just a little farther, I would have had him.

  We both recovered. He felt better now because he was on the attack once more.

  I could see him readying himself to try again. This time it was a thrust, and as I stepped away from it the point snatched at my tunic, just brushing against my rib cage. But I had parried the attack, which gave me an opportunity too tempting to resist.

  My kick caught him just below the knee. He grunted in surprise and pain and almost went down—almost, but not quite. He cut at me with his sword, driving me off.

  It seemed I had made an error.

  “You think you are clever,” he said, panting for breath. “You think you are clever and brave, but now I will kill you—NOW!”

  He made a rush, screaming, his sword slashing wildly. But he was slower now and I could get away. He paused for a moment. Then he rushed me again.

  I waited, dancing out of reach, backing away. He lunged again, but he was tiring and each time the sword swung in a wider arc. Each time he took an instant longer to recover.

  At last, just as the sword swept by, I threw myself at him, catching him full in the chest with my shoulder.

  But I could not hold him. He broke from me, throwing himself back until he slammed into the wooden wall behind him. The impact seemed deafening in that small space.

  Then something strange and terrible happened. He stood against the wall, an expression of the most profound surprise on his face. He did not move. Slowly, his arms fell down to his sides. The sword dropped from his hand. I started towards him and then stopped. He was shaking his head, back and forth, back and forth, as if to warn me away.

  And then, very slowly, his knees gave way and he slid down. Then I saw.

  There was a broad red smear on the wall, just where his head had been. And in its center an ax blade was sticking through the wood. It was wiggling back and forth, back and forth, as someone worked to pull it loose from the wall.

  Mushussu—I must call him something, and I never learned his true name—was lying crumpled on the floor, the blood welling freely from a deep notch in the back of his skull. He did not move. He would never move again.

  I cannot say I understood at once. Then I heard a low growl from outside, like a dog warning away intruders. I went to the door of the warehouse and lifted away the crossbar. When I pushed the door open I saw Enkidu. There were still traces of blood on his ax.

  I will never discover how he found me, nor how he knew when to strike with his ax against that wall, or what became of Mushussu’s men—although on this last I can at least make a guess. I did not care how. I only cared that he had saved my life.

  Yet he gave me no opportunity to thank him but swept past me to where the dead man lay. Enkidu crouched beside the corpse, grasped the left arm and held it up for me to see, glaring at me impatiently.

  “I don’t understand,” I said.

  His answer was to take the smallest finger and pull it off. It came loose with a snap. He threw it on the floor at my feet. I picked it up and looked at it under the light of the oil lamp. It was wax.

  The hand, on close examination, showed only a stump where the original had been cut away. The scar had long since faded to a white line. Like the street magicians one saw everywhere in Egypt, Mushussu had tricked me with an illusion.

  It was only then, for some reason, that I grasped the enormity of what had happened.

  “You will take Selana downriver to Buto,” I said. “I am in your debt, but this time do as I ask. Here she is still within Senefru’s reach, but she will be safe with you in Buto and you must stay with her there. I will join you when I can.”

  I knew from the way he looked at me that this time he would obey. Where will you go? his eyes asked.

  “I must return to Memphis. It is possible that even now I may not be too late.”

  XVII

  I left that night, stopping at the tavern only long enough to pay my reckoning, bind up the wound to my hand, and write a letter of instructions to Glaukon. He was to turn whatever money he held for me over to Selana and to arrange passage downriver for her and Enkidu.

  I did not reveal to him my intention of returning to Memphis—probably he would assume as much without any word from me—but I did tell Selana. She listened, without interruption or protest, and gave me her promise to do as she was bid. She understood, I think, how futile would be any attempt to stop me.

  Khonsmose had a horse, a brown gelding, no very fine specimen, which he sold to me for three hundred pieces of silver. It was not worth a hundred, but that was what he asked and I payed it. If he had asked a thousand he would have gotten that—I only wanted to be away, and traveling upriver a man alone can move faster on horseback than by boat. I have wondered since if perhaps he did not later come to realize how he had wasted his opportunity and also to convince himself, perchance, that I had ended by cheating him instead of the other way about.

  By the time the sun rose, I was already three hours south along the river trail.

  Had Khonsmose’s horse only known how to walk on water I could have been in Memphis in two days. The distance from Naukratis is not so great, but the Nile, which has only seven mouths, has many channels. I had to cross the river eleven times, and each time I had to find a vill
age, hire a boat and a man to row it, tie the horse’s bridle to the stern and then hope the crocodiles didn’t get the poor jade before we made it from one side to the other. Thus the journey took five full days, during which I stopped only when the horse began to stumble from weariness.

  During all that time I knew no rest. Even when I stopped for a few hours because the horse would not go on, even when I had every intention of sleeping, I hardly seemed able to close my eyes.

  Thus I cannot be sure if what happened that last night before I saw Memphis again, while I sat holding the horse’s reins, my back against the trunk of a date palm, my mind stunned with fatigue, I cannot know if it was real or merely a dream. But perhaps, if it was a dream, it was no less real for being such.

  Dawn was yet three hours away in that, the blackest part of the night. There was no moon, but the stars glimmered angrily. I could just hear the soft whisper of the Nile, like an old woman dreaming of her youth. There was no other sound except, now and then, the cry of some water bird. My brain ached from simple exhaustion. I felt myself alone in the world.

  And then, all at once, I was not. Tabshar Sin, my grandfather the Lord Sargon’s old rab kisir, who had trained me up as a soldier in the house of war, was there beside me, squatting on the ground just at the limit of my field of vision. Somehow I did not find this strange, although he had been dead for seven years, killed in the war we had fought together against the Medes and buried on the field of battle. I did not think about it.

  For a long time—or what seemed a long time—he did not speak and neither did I. I was glad for the companionship, on any terms, and it occurred to me he might vanish if by breaking the silence I admitted I knew he was there.

  I needn’t have worried, however.