The Mammoth Book of Historical Whodunnits Volume 3 (The Mammoth Book Series)

by Mike Ashley

  Al-Hajar nodded, satisfied, then could not resist goading Daribul again. “Your friends have escaped this time, pen-pusher. But I will find out how much they paid you and where you’ve hidden it, make no mistake. Oh yes,” he went on, deliberately misinterpreting Daribul’s gasp of denial, “I’ve had your possessions searched. We haven’t found anything yet, but I’ll be watching you, even when you’re asleep.”

  “You’ll search in vain, then, and miss the real traitor. Unless, of course, it’s you. This could be your feeble attempt to draw the scent away from yourself. Surely the Queen’s safety is our biggest concern?”

  The other man stiffened, and Daribul readied himself for the blow – Al-Hajar was not a tall man, but stocky solid muscle. Instead, he laughed, a grating sound. “You have more courage than I expected from a man who kills phantom intruders. I look forward to our holy leader exposing you for what you are in his holy fire! And the Queen is quite safe with me to look after her.”

  “I’ve told you the whole story, Floran, no point in hiding the truth from you. You may need to seek a new master soon.”

  Floran hung his head. “I, I tried to stop them from looking at your baggage but I’m not as brave as you. Surely the Queen will not believe Al-Hajar’s lies. She listens to Advisor La’ayam and she’s always been your friend.”

  Daribul shook his head. “I’ve not been allowed to speak to the Queen, I don’t know why. Are they afraid I’m going to harm her, after all the hours we’ve spent together? Perhaps they think I have Assyrian friends secreted nearby. If I loved Assyra so much, I’d still be living there. Queen Zar’eshta knows that.”

  “No, Master. If you say you killed two men to save the Queen, I believe you. They must be somewhere. Dead men cannot walk!”

  “Thank you, Floran, then I won’t give up hope. I’ll continue to be vigilant. Now, you had better prepare my clothes – I shall endure tonight’s ordeal better if I am well-dressed.”

  The gathering of people around the rock waited quietly as the sun sank over the horizon and the egg-blue sky and thin strips of brown cloud were lit by the evening stars. It was still stiflingly hot on the wadi floor, but up on the rock it was cooler. Qu’atabar had spent the day purifying the rock and the altar, accompanied by his acolytes, and now continued his low chants as braziers were lit releasing the fragrant fumes of frankinsence and myrrh to waft across the expectant crowd. The priest beckoned. Al-Hajar, La-ayam and Daribul came forward to flank Queen Zar’eshta. She was already conducting her own rituals as ceremonial Queen-priestess, in white, a gauzy veil covering her head, as they did those of her female companions.

  The sky darkened and the fat pale lump of the waning moon rose from behind the mountains. The murmuring of the gathered masses became hypnotic, blending with the chanting of the priest, the shaking of rattles and tinkling of bells. Now and then the Queen’s voice could be heard. Daribul began to feel himself transported, his mind emptied, opened, awaiting the visions to be revealed. But he fought against it. He must remain firmly rooted in this world, every sense alert against danger to the Queen. The priest had promised a revelation, but Daribul promised himself he would die before she did.

  Qu’atabar beckoned his acolytes. They came forward, lighted torches from the braziers, and began arcing them high, calling out sacred words, gradually moving forward, then raised them on high. All eyes were focussed on the funeral pyre ready for it to burst into flames – all except Daribul’s. His eyes were darting everywhere – and then he saw them.

  “No,” he yelled, rushing forward. “Stop!” He grappled with the torchbearers and managed, such was their surprise, to pull them back.

  Cries of shock and horror burst out, followed by hissing.

  “You fool,” Al-Hajar cried and pinned Daribul from behind, pulling his arms behind his back. La’ayam stepped forward. “Silence!” he ordered. “Continue – set the torches now, before our sacred moment passes. Quickly!”

  “Why so fast,” Daribul yelled. “What are you trying to conceal? Listen – our holy priest was right – Qu’atabar, listen to me, I’ve seen your holy truth.”

  But the priest, his skin pasty and sweat running into his wild eyes, was seizing the torches himself.

  “He is possessed,” La’ayam hissed, “We must silence him before our people are disturbed.” He lunged forward, but Daribul managed to shift his balance, and the blow fell on Al-Hajar. Twisting free he shoved La’ayam aside and rushed forward to grasp Qu’atabar’s arm.

  “No, no,” he yelled again. “I have seen them – the Queen’s attackers – there in the pyre.”

  Heads turned in shock and in the confusion Daribul managed to grab hold of one of the torches and hold it high. Yes, he had seen them. The beardless round faces, the bodies completely hairless, no longer swathed in robes. Beside him he sensed Qu’atabar hesitate.

  The Queen’s voice rang out. “The gods have guided us – Qu’atabar has given us this sacred moment – we give praise – but we must continue – Al-Hajar, remove those bodies from the pyre and then we must continue.”

  Al-Hajar pushed forward to help Daribul. “You mean these two hairless boys?” he growled. “But I–I recognise them. They are –”

  With a high-pitched scream Qu’atabar snatched the torch from Daribul and with one in each hand ran forward and leapt onto the pyre. Flames whooshed into life, roaring through the tinder dry wood and leaves, intense heat seared their skin as sparks flew into the sky. The origin of the screams did not, could not, last long in that inferno as he and all the dead bodies were consumed in the holy fire.

  Daribul sank to his knees, shaking. Of course, why hadn’t he thought of that before? Clean-shaven young men, part of Qu’atabar’s retinue of acolytes. It was the priest’s doing. If he, Daribul, had paid more attention to Sheban gods and not his own, he might have guessed sooner. The Queen was safe, but from what? What had been the priest’s evil intent?

  The Queen and her scribe were sitting alone together in her tent. Just outside, talking and giggling together, were her female servants. They had left the wadi two days and forty miles behind and were now camped on an open plain, the faint blue line of the Red Sea in the far distance, and no rocks or hills nearby for pirates or brigands to hide behind. A fresh wind blew and if Daribul closed his eyes he could almost imagine they were back home in Shabwah.

  “Thank you, Daribul. I think that is a fair and accurate account of recent events.” Zar’eshta paused. “Perhaps not accurate in one way – you don’t give yourself enough credit.”

  “What credit should I take? Of picking up my sword like any man here to protect you?”

  “That too. No, I thought – surely you’d solved the riddle already? You knew those two bodies would be in the pyre. You were looking for them.”

  He shook his head. “I wish I was as clever as you think I am. I was as in the dark as everyone else. No, it was my servant Floran – he convinced me to continue to believe in myself and I promised to continue to be vigilant, in your service.”

  The Queen sipped some of her wine, then sighed. “Qu’atabar kept his thoughts to himself, he didn’t even share them with any of his acolytes, and they of course are obedient to a fault. Perhaps he only confided in those two you killed. But I remember that he was very opposed to this journey to visit King Solomon. Yet, his arguments were listened to and then, seeing it was inevitable, I thought he was resigned to the caravan. Do you think that was it, he wanted us to turn back?”

  Daribul laid aside his stylus and flexed his aching hands, before reaching for his cup.

  “I wonder,” he said, a faraway look in his eyes. “I have travelled long distances and seen many wonders. I know that a man – or a woman – can take their soul, their strength with them. But perhaps he felt his world was cracking – he had gone beyond his limits.”

  “Desert madness,” the Queen nodded. “Yet he must have laid his plans before we left, to make contact with the brigands, to choose the spot for the attack, and under
cover of that, for his own men to attack me – it is as well that Al-Hajar acquaints himself with everyone around us and recognised them, or it might have been your ashes lying in the wadi, not Qu’atabar’s.”

  “I suppose he’s good at his work,” Daribul admitted grudgingly. He did not like being in Al-Hajar’s debt. “Qu’atabar must have been desperate, hiding the dead bodies all day, knowing he could not leave the camp without questions being asked, and then managing to smuggle them into the pyre. No wonder he insisted on building it himself.

  “And if he was not mad then – with you no longer at the helm, who better to lead us than a priest-king?”

  The Queen put down her cup. “I prefer to think the desert-devils had entered him. Thank you. Without you, he might have succeeded a second time.”

  Daribul thought of the past few days. His actions had been instinctive, not those of a rational man. But he kept his own counsel.

  “Still,” she said, her eyes dancing with mischief, “it is now one of our many adventures along this road to Jerusalem. Let’s see, shall we call it one of our hundred tales of Arabia?”

  Daribul smiled and they exchanged a look of understanding. Yes, eyes, he thought, that will not only captivate but enslave even the mightiest of kings.

  The Judgment of the Gods

  Robert Reginald

  Three centuries after Solomon the Assyrian Empire was entering its final phase. The following story is set towards the end of that Empire, more specifically in the year 681 BC with the death of King Sennacherib.

  Robert Reginald is the writing alias of university librarian Michael Burgess, currently Head of Collection Development at the California State University John M. Pfau Library. He is best known for his phenomenal works of bibliography and historical research which include, amongst a list that would fill this book, Science Fiction and Fantasy Literature (1979) and Lords Spiritual and Temporal (revised, 1995). He received the Pilgrim Award in 1993 for his lifetime contribution to science fiction research. He has more recently completed two novels set in an alternate medieval Europe, The Dark-Haired Man (2004) and The Exiled Prince (2004).

  Nineveh, Capital of Assyria, Twentieth Day of Tebetu, in the Year Named for the Eponym Nabu-Sharru-Usur (January of 681 BC)

  The Great King Sennacherib lay prostrate before the altar of the god, his face pressed to the cold tile floor, his arms stretched in supplication towards the huge, flickering image of the eagle-headed deity looming above him. Torches mounted in alcoves on either side of the small hall provided minimal light.

  “My relatives plot against me,” he murmured. “My enemies are legion. I have destroyed the city of Babylon to avenge the death of my eldest son, but those whom I let live now wish my death. Everywhere I see war and plague and famine. When shall it end? When shall the burden pass from my hands?”

  A sudden breath of winter air pressed his robe against his legs. He shivered in spite of himself. A moan seemed to emanate from the mouth of the god.

  “What did you say?” the Great King begged. “Tell me what to do.”

  A second groan echoed through the chamber. The guard captain standing just inside the door at the other end of the hall woke from his reverie at the noise, peering into the darkness.

  Suddenly and quite without warning, the vast statue of the deity tipped forward and fell directly onto the king.

  The guard screamed a cry of warning, echoed by the troop posted outside. But it was too late. As he could quite clearly see when he rushed to his master’s aid, Sennacherib, the Great King, the Mighty King, the King of the Four Corners of the World, was quite, quite dead.

  “The judgment of the gods!” the captain exclaimed, as the other soldiers rushed to his side. “The gods have spoken!”

  And so they had.

  Achilleus of Zmyrna in Asia Minor sends greetings to his father’s father in Chios. May the son of Meles sing a thousand more songs before he rests!

  In the third year of the twenty-fourth Olympiad, I accompanied the expedition of your son Telemachos to Assyria, there to establish a regular system of trade with the Great King Sennacherib and his ministers, now that their hegemony extended to the shores of the Mediterranean Sea. By your instruction I had learned the art and science of lettering from the Phoenician merchants of Akko who were wont to visit our fair harbour, and this skill, it was thought, might give our party some small edge in the bargaining yet to come.

  We were three months on our journey, first by ship around the coast of Anatolia, and thence overland up the Orontes and across the great waste to Mesopotamia. When we finally arrived in the walled city of Nineveh, not long after the close of summer, we were thoroughly tired of traveling and ready to meet with the king and his officials.

  This proved, however, somewhat more difficult than we had imagined.

  These “Black-Haired Men”, as they call themselves, are a strange folk indeed. They speak a tongue akin to Phoenician, yet etch their scratchings upon tablets of clay, like the tracks of birds upon the beach. Not even their rulers can read the inscriptions engraved upon their own monuments. They welcome the settlement of strangers within their chief citadels, so that their own people have become a minority in some of their cities, and promote such individuals to the highest levels of service in their government, but force them to bow and scrape as if they were no better than slaves. I do not understand how any man can tolerate such treatment.

  We sent our embassies to various high officials, but none would receive us. We sought out the major trading companies in the city, but while all treated us courteously, none would treat with us without the approval of the government. Thus matters rested while fall advanced into winter.

  I had been directed by Uncle Telemachos to acquire as much of their language as quickly as possible, and so I sought out one of the Houses of Scribes, a place where youths were regularly initiated into the mysteries of the stylus and the clay tablet. I asked the Headmaster if I could participate, even though I was older than most of these boys. A contribution to the god eased my passage immeasurably.

  The study was most difficult. It was as if these men had purposely designed a system that would be impossible for the average citizen to learn, which was perhaps the whole point of the exercise. Scribes are highly valued for their services here, being among the best paid members of society.

  I befriended an older lad named Asarbaniplos, which is the closest I can render his name in the Greek tongue. I understood at the time that he was related to the chief families of the city, but exactly how, I did not know. Assyrians do not talk about such matters. I never learned, for example, how old he was, for the year of one’s birth is a closely held secret for these people. No one even knows the age of the Great King who rules them.

  This Banu, as he was commonly known, had dark curly hair and a quick spirit which instinctively grasped that which seemed so elusive to me. We became great comrades in our battles over the meaning of the elusive stone tablets.

  After four months’ residence in the citadel, Uncle obtained an interview with the Second Vizier, during which he asked to see the Great King. He was laughed out of the palace. “No man may talk with the emissary of the gods,” he was told.

  Several days later I was studying in the House of Scribes when a commotion interrupted our lesson.

  “What’s happening?” I wanted to know.

  “The Great King is dead,” my friend replied. He shook his bushy head, unable to comprehend what he was saying. “The gods have struck him down. They have cursed Assyria.” Then he ran out the door, not heeding my shouts to stop.

  I returned to our apartment, but we stayed close to home the next few weeks. The streets were filled with thieves and rogues eager to steal money, food, even the clothing off one’s back. Finally, order was restored by two of the old king’s sons, one of whom was proclaimed his successor. Still, the evident dissatisfaction of the people was everywhere apparent.

  When a month had passed, we heard of an army approaching from the
west. Crown Prince Esarhaddon had gathered together his forces and was marching on the capital. The Substitute King went out to meet him, but was defeated and reportedly fled.

  A few days later, a squad of guards knocked on our door, and ordered Uncle Telemachos and me to accompany them. We marched out of the Hatamti Gate, where we mounted horses and headed north-east onto the open plain. We could see our breaths blowing behind us upon the wind.

  “Where are we going?” I asked.

  “Speak when you are spoken to,” the guard said, emphasizing the point with a wave of his spear. I dutifully obeyed.

  We rode until we spied a citadel, which I later learned was called Fort Sargon. We dismounted and the guard blindfolded us.

  “Do not remove these on pain of death,” he ordered.

  Then they took Uncle and myself by the elbow, and guided us through a series of long, echoing passageways paved with stone.

  Finally, we entered a large hall, judging by the change in sound, where we were both forced to the ground, prostrate upon the cold floor. We heard the tramp, tramp, tramp of a squad of soldiers coming through a doorway and across the room. Our “gentle” companions raised us to our knees.

  “What are your names?” came the harsh inquiry.

  “What is he saying?” Uncle wanted to know.

  “We are Telemachos and Achilleus, traders from Zmyrna,” I replied.

  “Te-le-ma-khu,” the hidden man stuttered. “A-khu-i-lai,” he added. “These are hard for the Black-Haired Men to say.” He paused. “Why does your senior not speak for himself?”

  “He does not understand your language,” I stated. “No disrespect was intended.”

  “Then you may become his voice,” came the response. “Tell him what I have said and what I will say, and translate his responses for me. Do you understand?”