The Blood Star

by Nicholas Guild

  “He will not relent,” Nabusharusur said in a placid voice. He even smiled, as if wonderfully satisfied with the fact. Abdimilkutte turned on him like a cornered cat.

  “You—all this is your fault! If I had not listened to you. . .”

  But he could not even finish, so choked with wrath and terror had he become. Finally he sat down on his throne, slumped over in defeat.

  “The Lord Nabusharusur speaks the truth,” I said. “Esarhaddon will not relent against you, but he may yet spare the city. Throw open the gates.”

  “It means your own death as well, Tiglath. And the king’s. And mine.”

  And still my eunuch brother smiled, making one wonder what pleasure he found in the idea.

  “No—there can be no thought of that!” Abdimilkutte’s eyes bulged from his head. “I will not turn myself over to have the skin stripped from my body. No!”

  He waved us away, burying his face in his other hand, and Nabusharusur walked with me to the palace doors.

  “Shall you need an escort home?” he asked. “The mob is in an ugly mood.”

  “No one notices me—all the city’s hatred is directed against their king.”

  “And rightly so, for who could not hate so cowardly and self- indulgent a buffoon?” Nabusharusur’s smooth face wrinkled in disgust. “Can you imagine, he still sets aside two hundred jars of water a day for his gardens—in these times? The greatness of kings!”

  He laughed, contriving nonetheless to make no sound.

  “And Esarhaddon is no better. He is like a little boy, angry because he cannot open a jar of dates. But you hate him as much as I do—I can see it in your face. Perhaps you have even more reason.”

  “What reason do you have?”

  Nabusharusur cocked his head a trifle to one side and smiled, his own peculiar smile of contemptuous amusement that I could be simpleton enough even to ask such a question.

  “Ask me rather what reason I have for living. It is not love, for I have been disqualified from that. Therefore it must be hate.”

  He watched me for a moment, his eyes narrowing slightly, as if inviting me to disagree. But if he expected some answer he would have to be disappointed, for what answer was there? Answers meant nothing to someone like Nabusharusur. Perhaps this was what he wished me to understand.

  “Every life must have a purpose—mine is the destruction of Esarhaddon. That is why he is here.”

  “You think so? It is much more likely he will destroy Sidon, and you with it.”

  “And you, brother. Shall I tell him you are here? He has spies in the city, so it would be a simple enough matter.”

  He smiled again, and then shook his head. Did he know of my meeting with Esarhaddon? Who could say?

  “No, Tiglath, I am not trying to frighten you. A man must have two things before he can be frightened: imagination and something to live for. We two both have the first, but the second is mine alone. Esarhaddon took everything from you when he took the throne—have you wandered so far through the world without discovering that? Make your purpose mine, brother. I can achieve it without you, but why deny yourself the satisfaction? Help me to kill Esarhaddon.”

  I do not know why I was surprised, yet for a moment I was speechless. My mind raced, asking a thousand questions, turning over a thousand possibilities.

  “I can achieve it without you,” he had said. “Help me to kill Esarhaddon—I can achieve it without you.”

  Doubtless he could.

  “You have a plan?” I asked finally.

  The smile changed slightly, as if he knew he had won.

  “I have a plan. Of course I have a plan. With your help, I can save the city, kill Esarhaddon, and put you in his place. But only with your help. Otherwise I will only succeed in killing Esarhaddon, and at the cost of my own life. The army still loves you, Tiglath. They will accept Esarhaddon’s death if it is at your hands.”

  “The army has forgotten me—Esarhaddon is king.”

  “You could be.”

  No, I could not. And Nabusharusur knew it. I would perish, and he with me. And the army, in its wrath, would sack the city and put every living creature within its walls to death. But what was any of that to Nabusharusur, provided he achieved his purpose?

  “Tell me what you intend,” I said.

  So he did. We walked down the stone passageways of Abdimilkutte’s palace and Nabusharusur described to me how I would kill Esarhaddon. They were both mad, my two brothers, and between them they held me and the whole of Sidon hostage.

  “We must act now, Tiglath. We must kill Esarhaddon. Abdimilkutte thinks of nothing but his own safety, so we have no choice. If we hesitate, the whole city will perish.”

  I left him at the doors, through which, because of the crowd waiting before them and the soldiers’ quite understandable fear that the palace might be overrun, I had to squeeze like sap out of a tree.

  I walked back towards the harbor district through streets which, almost from one hour to the next, had taken on the stricken appearance of a place from which all hope has fled. The sides of houses were streaked with dirt because people had begun digging up their flower gardens to eat the bulbs. I could not remember how many days it had been since last I had heard a dog bark—they had all been chased down and eaten as soon as the Tyrians blockaded the harbor. The odors of cooking had disappeared, even the smell of excrement. Except to search for food, of which there was none, people stayed indoors and starved quietly.

  It was the quiet which was most oppressive. Hunger begins in pain and ends in lethargy, so that even the children stop crying. Abdimilkutte need not have worried—the mob outside his palace would end by returning to their homes and staying in them. And a man whose lips are cracked with thirst has no voice to shout his anger.

  What would be the conclusion of all this? Would the soldiers of Ashur storm the wall or would the citizens merely open the gates to them, begging for a last sip of water before offering their throats to be cut?

  And was it possible I could prevent such an outcome by so simple an expedient as murdering Esarhaddon?

  “The guards will not attempt to prevent your leaving the city,” Nabusharusur had said. “I will see to it that you are given a horse, and then you need only ride into camp and kill him. His men, down to the commonest soldier, are sick of him. They will welcome you as their hero and liberator. No one will interfere, for you are still a royal prince and your person is sacred. Even Esarhaddon himself will hesitate. At first he will only want to know what you intend—he will suspect no danger. That is your great advantage, Tiglath. He hates you, but he has never learned not to trust you.”

  It was all lies. Nabusharusur did not even believe it himself. Esarhaddon was king in the Land of Ashur, and I was forgotten—it had been four years.

  And the army would show no mercy if their king was murdered. Their revenge would be terrible. No stone would be left standing upon another, and there would be such slaughter as would make the gods weep. I would not be the only one to perish, merely the first. Sidon and all who dwelt within her walls would become a memory. This is what Nabusharusur was hoping for. He knew he was doomed, but he planned a more general destruction. He wanted the world to be blotted out with him.

  But I could not oblige. Even if it had all been true, even if I could have saved Sidon and raised myself to glory as king in the Land of Ashur, Esarhaddon was my brother—whatever else he had become or made himself, he was still my brother, and I could not forget the love I bore him. If he razed Sidon to the ground and put her people to the sword, it was not in me to rob him of his life.

  Yet it was for their sake that I had also to stop Nabusharusur from taking it. “I can achieve it without you,” he had said. I believed him. No one is safe from the man who despairs of living, who does not care if he lives or not.

  Before returning to the tavern where I occupied rooms, I went down to the great stone quay that guarded the entrance to the city’s harbor. Perhaps a hundred of the swift lit
tle Sidonian merchant ships and many smaller craft were trapped there, lying at anchor, deserted. Across the water, obscured by distance and the dancing sunlight, I could just distinguish the sails of the Tyrian fleet scattered across the horizon. These tiny vessels, seemingly numberless but each guided by its own will, cruised back and forth, back and forth, tacking into the sea breezes to keep from being run aground among the maze of channels nearer to shore. They were the net that held us all inside.

  But the net was fragile, for the Tyrians, drifting over the empty water, could not bring their strength to bear on one spot with any speed. A spider’s web might be useful to catch a few flies, but before the hawk it breaks like a shadow.

  Why had a thing so obvious not occurred to me before?

  I hurried back to the tavern and found Kephalos.

  “Can you buy a ship?” I asked. For a moment he only stared at me, the expression on his face somewhere between pity and wonder.

  “Yes—yes, of course,” he stammered out at last. “If a man is fool enough to buy that which is of use to no one, who would refuse to sell it to him? The harbor is full of ships I can buy for a cup of fresh water. Yet—Dread Lord—the Tyrians. . . What would you want with a ship?”

  “Buy us a ship, Kephalos. Find one that runs like the wind and is large enough to carry us across the sea to Greece.”

  He grabbed my arm, his eyes wild with hope.

  “Is that what it will do, Master?”

  “Perhaps. If the gods favor us.”

  He needed to hear no more. We went in search of Selana and Enkidu and found them together, sitting in the shade of the withered garden. I explained my intentions.

  “We will all go with Kephalos,” I told them. “But when I leave, Enkidu, you and Selana must stay with him on board and wait for me to return. I charge you, my friend, let no one else come near. At all costs, stay with the ship and guard it with your life. If you fail in this, by tomorrow we will all be feeding the crows.”

  He nodded, once. I knew he understood and would show neither weakness nor mercy.

  The ship was a merchant craft obviously built to gratify someone’s private whim. She was perhaps forty cubits in length and no more than twelve through the waist—too narrow to hold much cargo—and her great square sail could catch enough wind almost to lift her out of the water. I doubted if she had been profitable, but I could not doubt she was fast.

  When everyone else was aboard, I untied the ropes that held her to the wharf and set her adrift.

  “In two hours we will have the land winds,” I said to Kephalos. “Keep away from the wharf, or before very long you may have enough people clambering on board to swamp her. If I am not back when the time comes, leave without me.”

  He nodded, his heavy face puckered with anxiety. I watched him cast off from the stone pier and then turned and left, heading back towards Abdimilkutte’s palace. I had almost broken into a run by the time I reached the end of the wharf. My heart was pounding in my ears like a war drum as I thought, There is just time, before my meeting with Nabusharusur. . .

  Thus I did not hear the splash when Selana dived into the harbor, intent on following wherever I went.

  . . . . .

  My first object was the see the king and, for once, without the presence of Nabusharusur. This, I fancied, would not be difficult—Abdimilkutte had almost ceased to exist for my brother, who thought only of his revenge. By this time, I hoped, Nabusharusur would not even be in the palace.

  The guards at the great cedar doors recognized me, and I was admitted without hindrance.

  It was always dangerous to share a secret with a king, for every king is surrounded by spies. I had lived most of my life in royal courts and knew their ways. Doubtless Nabusharusur kept himself informed, and it would not have surprised me to learn that more than a few of Abdimilkutte’s most loyal retainers had given consideration to how they could survive him and were sending messages to Esarhaddon.

  Thus, when I requested admission to his presence, I did not ask to wait upon the king alone—why draw attention to my business? I would find some means when the moment came.

  He almost refused to see me, and when I beheld his distracted condition I could understand why. This was not a man whose mind could tolerate any more bad news. And, besides, he was with his concubines.

  “Well, My Lord, and am I to have no refuge from my cares?”

  He was lying on a couch, his tunic pushed up around his waist and his loincloth undone—the Phoenicians are the most immodest race the great gods ever fashioned—and an exquisitely made young girl with skin the color of tarnished brass was crouched over him, doing all that she could towards solacing the flesh. I waited with averted eyes until she had quite finished.

  “Mighty King,” I said, when he had readjusted his garments and sent his women away, “I wondered if you might be kind enough to show me the wonders of your garden—I am informed it is the last patch of green in Sidon with any hope of surviving.”

  His eyes darted to my face, narrowing suddenly, as if he wished to be quite sure of what he had seen there. Yes, he understood well enough.

  “My Lord, with the greatest pleasure. . .”

  The roof of Abdimilkutte’s palace was a kind of paradise, lush with flowers and pleasantly cool. The wind had died away almost to nothing, so it was more for privacy’s sake that we chose the shelter of a vine-covered arbor that allowed a view of the sea. The king had brought with him a pitcher of wine and a pair of golden cups, and with his own hands he filled them.

  “Notice, My Lord, how thin the Tyrians have spread themselves,” I said, raising an arm to points toward the horizon—at this distance the sails of their ships were almost invisible, so probably Abdimilkutte, who did not possess a hunter’s eyes, had to accept my assessment on trust. “They dare not come in too close, for they do not know the channels and fear to run aground. And it is a wide expanse of sea they have chosen to close.”

  “Yes, but they have done it effectively enough,” the answered, sounding faintly annoyed. “In fifteen days, no ship has dared to sail from this harbor.”

  “Quite true—a ship alone is too easily picked off. But think of a hundred ships, sailing in a mass with the land breezes stiff behind them. Some would be lost, certainly, but the rest would break out like a bull through a wooden fence.”

  His eyes trained on the horizon as he tried to see the thing in his mind. He leaned forward, resting the palms of his hands on his knees, and I could hear his breath catch. Yes, he understood now.

  “It would be a chance at life—for you and some few thousand of your subjects. To stay here is to die, for the king of Ashur will drive pity from his heart once his men are inside the city walls. You know that, My Lord.”

  “The Lord Nabusharusur says the army of your brother is already maggoty with unrest, that they will go away if we only wait. . .”

  “They will not go away. The Lord Nabusharusur knows this, for the king is his brother as well as mine. Leave the Lord Nabusharusur to me. If you listen to him, you are a dead man.”

  He swallowed, hard, but it would seem that whatever was in his throat refused to go down. Perhaps it was his own heart.

  “An hour before dusk would be the best time,” I continued, “when the wind is the strongest. I have a fast ship waiting already. I leave it to you and your people to settle who goes with us and who stays behind.”

  “My soldiers—I will take my soldiers with me.” He licked his lips as if they were cracked with thirst. The wine cup, which he held cradled in his hand, was forgotten. “Eight thousand men and perhaps only a hundred ships. . . A great pity, I shall have to leave some behind, and yet. . .”

  “You will have no need of soldiers, Lord. You will have need of men to sail your ships—think of your people. War is a soldier’s business, and his only virtue is to know how to die. Have a little mercy on those who have trusted you.”

  “My people—well. . .” He smiled blandly, gazing into empty space. “Th
ey hate me now, so. . .”

  I might as well have been speaking to the wind. The king of Sidon had no thought for anyone but himself. I needed Abdimilkutte, for without his help no escape was possible, but I did not like him.

  “One hour before sunset, then.”

  I rose and left him there, wondering why I had thought to hang my life by so weak a thread. Because, of course, there had been no other choice.

  Yet what was I to do about Nabusharusur?

  We had been children together in the king’s house of women, and no one but Esarhaddon himself had been more my friend. And then, when we had come of an age to begin life in the world of men, the castrator’s knife had done its bitter work. Esarhaddon and I, having been spared, studied to become soldiers, while Nabusharusur disappeared into the tablet house to learn the arts of a scribe and to nurse his bitterness. I did not hear of him again for many years.

  And it had all led to this. He had had a hand in our father’s murder, and his had been the voice raised loudest to urge rebellion against Esarhaddon—and not for his own sake, nor for Arad Ninlil’s, who had struck the blow that killed the Lord Sennacherib, nor for any abstract love of duty or his native land. Why then? The reasons were hidden from me, and perhaps even from him. Perhaps, by now, reasons no longer mattered.

  I was to meet him by the Great Gate, where he would be waiting at the third hour past midday. I was not his brother now, or even his friend—only his instrument. I would do well to remember that.

  Perhaps, even now, if I could persuade him. . .

  He stood by the gate tower, dressed in a simple soldier’s tunic, talking to the officer of the watch. When he glanced up and saw me his eyes tightened, as if he looked into a bright light. More than this, he betrayed not the slightest emotion.