Son of Ishtar

by Gordon Doherty

  Mursili skidded on the downward slope into the glade, arms lashing out to catch something to halt his descent. The Mesedi, just behind him, cried out. ‘My Sun, come back, come back!’

  But Mursili could only stumble and fall to his knees in the clearing as the elephant let out a deafening, trumpeting cry, shaking its head from side to side then stiffening its ears and tucking its trunk in below its mouth. The prelude to a charge, he realised, dread skewering his heart.

  The elephant thundered forward and the ground rocked – akin to the tremors the Gods sometimes cast through the earth. As the creature ate up the short distance between them, Mursili scrambled back on his heels and palms… until his ankle became tangled in a vine – caught fast. The Mesedi guardsman bounded down the slope and past Mursili in an effort to defend his king, but the elephant swished its head to the left, goring the guard through the groin with her short tusks and tossing his haemorrhaging body up and through the poplar branches.

  Mursili’s body froze with terror as the elephant charged on towards him. The beast was but steps away when Zida and his man burst from the trees, haring for the gap between the elephant and their king. The creature thrashed its trunk towards the Mesedi guardsman, batting the fellow off his feet, sending him crashing into a tree trunk with the thick crack of breaking vertebrae, bringing a thick shower of golden leaves toppling onto the clearing floor. Then came brave Zida, sprinting from the far side of the glade, leaping before the creature with his spear readied for a battle he could never win. The spry Gal Mesedi ducked the elephant’s swishing trunk and leapt back from its tusks but fell under its charge, a giant foot crushing his body on the clearing floor.

  ‘No,’ Mursili wailed.

  Bodyguards dead, the king gawped as the elephant rose up on her hind legs, its forelegs ready to come crashing down upon him, to dash him into paste. He heard a million voices sing in his head: of glory, shame, love and hatred, then swung his arms up before him like a futile shield, knowing he was bound for the Dark Earth.

  But instead of pain came a thud and a trumpeting cry from the beast. Mursili prised open an eye and saw the creature, still on two legs but now with a trident spear jutting from its left side. The cry cut right through him, and gave him the strength to draw an arrow from his quiver and cut through the vine entangling him, rolling clear just a moment before the elephant’s feet smashed down where he had been. He scrambled back up to the lip of the rise and watched, astonished, as now a volley of two javelins plunged into the beast’s flank. It swung round to face the threat. There, in the treeline, stood Volca and his two fellow Sherden warriors, crouched, upper bodies weaving as if ready to leap in any direction to avoid the elephant’s counterattack. Having spent their spears they now drew their swords. The elephant trumpeted once more, then tensed to charge the Sherden pair.

  ‘She is enraged; do not challenge her,’ Mursili cried. ‘Separate and run.’

  But the shout barely had time to leave his lips before the elephant lurched towards the trio. Mursili’s eyes widened, knowing the three there were as good as dead… until Volca, bounding like a deer, his handsome face spoiled by a feral grimace, leapt up and tore his trident free from the beast’s flesh, then drove it up and into the creature’s neck. It plunged deep and blood sheeted from the wound. The elephant emitted one more wail, its incipient charge instantly repealed and its legs suddenly bowing and bending. As the cow crashed onto its side, Volca stalked around it, his back straight, shoulders square, nostrils flared as he glowered down his nose at the felled giant.

  A moment later and the glade was still and silent. Mursili descended into the clearing to stand by the elephant’s corpse. Instinctively, he fell to one knee and placed a hand on the creature’s forehead, between its haunted, lifeless eyes.

  He noticed the other two Sherden moving over to the terrified calves, nocking their bows. ‘By all the Gods lower your weapons and let them go,’ he snarled.

  ‘My Sun?’ Volca said as the two small elephants backed away, trumpeting in terror and reluctant to leave their dead mother. ‘You grieve for the monster and its spawn?’

  Mursili spoke without looking up. ‘We came for a deer. This beast has died for nothing and the Gods will not be happy. You could have let her run,’ he added. ‘If you three had parted she would no doubt have charged into the forest and fled with her young.’

  Volca stalked round to the elephant’s neck, placed a foot on its hide then wrenched the trident free with a grunt, sending a puff of blood into the air. ‘We could not take the chance that it might come round on you again, My Sun,’ he said, bowing, the faint red mizzle settling on his horned helm.

  Mursili stood, his mind ablaze with the frantic few moments that had led to this grizzly conclusion. His brow creased as he thought of the signals. ‘You made the double call – said we were good to move on the deer, why?’

  Volca’s face remained blank. ‘We made no call,’ he said, his eyes drifting to the mangled, ruined form of Zida – shards of white bone sticking through his pulverised, discoloured body, his tunic torn, the red cloak darkened with lifeblood.

  ‘Zida made the call?’ Mursili gasped.

  ‘We saw him through woods. He made two calls to tell you to come, then became flustered and confused when he saw elephant. Didn’t know how to signal danger to you. I tried to wave at him, to tell him: stay silent, but he made a third call regardless – but late, almost disastrously so.’

  Mursili felt tears welling in his eyes as he beheld Zida’s ruined body. ‘He was a brother to me. Selfless, loving, always there.’ He moved over to kneel by his chief bodyguard. A wet sigh slid from Zida’s lips. He was still alive. The Gal Mesedi’s eyes – flooded with dark blood – rolled with great effort towards the Sherden three. ‘My… Sun… ’ he started. His lips quivered, more words trapped there on the cusp of death, before his pupils dilated and the life seeped from him and into the Dark Earth.

  ‘You were my shield, my protector,’ Mursili whispered, unclipping the silver hawk cloakpin from Zida’s breast and unhooking the red cloak.

  Volca bowed curtly in the corner of Mursili’s eye. ‘I protect you for rest of journey home, My Sun. I be your shield.’

  Mursili glanced at Volca and then at the corpses, the Sherden’s offer barely registering. ‘We should bury my men. Then we shall return to the column and journey back to Hattusa before the snows come.’

  Volca nodded in agreement then clicked his tongue, sending his two Sherden warriors scampering over to begin digging.

  Chapter 6

  Oath

  Early Winter 1303 BC

  The snows came early, blanketing Hattusa in a slow, relentless fall. A low cherry wood fire crackled in the centre of the palace hearth room, holding the sharp chill at bay. Hattu sat cross-legged on a goatskin rug before the ring of stone and the warming embers within. He looked up and around the walls, where the light from the fire threw flickering shadows from the red and blue painted stucco reliefs of prowling lions and imperious sphinxes, giving them life.

  Then, when he closed his eyes, he saw only death. That wicked collage of memories that had deprived him of sleep since the previous moon: bearded warriors, blood, flashing blades. The screaming, the smoke, the stench. And then poor Sarpa. His head sank and he felt tears rushing to his eyes.

  He caught sight of himself in the polished bronze mirror resting on the floor by the fire: his dark hair had been overly-groomed by a palace barber, scraped back into a tight, high knot that expanded like a jagged weed on his crown. His face was apprehensive, lips tight like the fading weal on his cheek – the mark of Pitagga’s knuckles. His immaculate white tunic, forced upon him by the eager royal tailor, itched on his skin.

  Soft, shuffling footsteps sounded on the stone floor. Hattu wiped his eyes and looked up. ‘Ah, Master Hattu,’ Ruba said from the hearth room doorway. An announcement seemed to be hanging on the old man’s lips, but then the brightness in his eyes dimmed and he seemed confused as to why he had come
.

  ‘Come, sit,’ Hattu gestured to the spot on the carpet by his side, eager to disguise the old scribe’s embarrassment, ‘warm yourself by the fire.’

  Ruba wandered in and sat, muttering to himself, his face sagging and anxious. ‘I fear my thoughts wander again. The candle does gutter…’

  ‘Yet still your mind is sharper than any other in Hattusa,’ Hattu said swiftly and firmly.

  Ruba chuckled. ‘Sharp enough to know what is happening to me.’

  Hattu felt a thickening in his throat.

  ‘It could be worse,’ Ruba mused. ‘I once knew a man who lived by the salt lake.’

  Hattu’s sadness receded as the prospect of another of Ruba’s entertaining tales settled on his shoulders like a warm blanket.

  ‘He was young, spry and sharp of mind. And such a strong swimmer. He would search the freshwater estuaries to gather smooth, bright stones he could sell at the markets. While others panned for stones and metals from the banks, he knew better: he would row his raft right out to the deepest part of the water, then tie a rope around his ankle, looping the other end around a heavy rock. With a knife clasped between his teeth, he would leap overboard and let the rock pull him deep down to the bed of the estuary. He said it was like diving into a treasure chest.’

  ‘Like Gilgamesh?’ Hattu said with a smile. ‘In his quest for the thorny underwater weed that promised to restore youth.’

  ‘Like Gilgamesh indeed,’ Ruba grinned. ‘This diver man would fill a sack with water-polished stones, precious healing weeds and sometimes even small ingots of gold, then cut the rope with his knife and shoot to the surface with his haul. Then one day, before a dive, a fisherman carelessly bumped his raft. They quarrelled and traded insults, but it came to nothing. And so he dived as usual, the rock taking him to the muddy bed.’

  Ruba fell silent again.

  Hattu wondered if the old man’s mind had slowed once more. ‘And what did he find this time?’ he prompted.

  Ruba turned to him, a wry smile on his face. ‘I have no idea, for he never resurfaced. They found his raft. On it was a sack with his bread and water… and his knife.’

  Hattu felt a chill on his skin and the urge to laugh darkly at once, imagining the diver’s moment of cold realisation, anchored by his own volition to the floor of the estuary with no means of cutting the rope.

  Ruba arched one eyebrow. ‘Now it might have been the argument with the fisherman that caused the slip or it might have been something else… but that… that, is forgetfulness at its worst.’

  Hattu peeled away the layers of the tale. Ever the pedagogue, Ruba often embellished his stories with as many lessons as possible. The detriments of a fiery temper, the foolishness of leaving only one means of escape, the folly of hubris. The old tutor had taught him so much: of the stars and the seasons, of the birds, blooms and trees of the land, of how the soil itself – the dry ground upon which they stood – had once been deep under a great ocean. He remembered tracing his fingers over the delicate relics Ruba had shown him – impressions of shells and long-dead sea creatures in shards of rock found right here in the hilly heartlands.

  Perhaps the old man’s wisdom might answer the question that had been lodged in his thoughts since the Kaskan raid. ‘Tutor, when Sarpa was killed, General Kurunta… he was shocked, in a way I have never seen before.’

  ‘The death of your brother shocked us all, Hattu,’ Ruba said.

  ‘No, Kurunta was saddened by what happened to Sarpa… but he seemed horrified by the sight of me standing there.’

  Ruba’s face lengthened, like one sensing bleak weather.

  ‘He… he said something.’ Hattu gulped. ‘It will begin on the day he stands by the banks of the Ambar, soaked in the blood of his brother.’

  Ruba’s eyes slipped shut, his lips tightening.

  ‘What did he mean?’

  Ruba stayed silent for some time. Hattu wondered if the candle was guttering once more. ‘They were not Kurunta’s words, Hattu. They were the words… of Ishtar.’

  Hattu’s flesh crept. ‘Of the Goddess? Of my protector?’ Every year, Father had bluntly commanded him to visit the small shrine to Ishtar in the lower town. She was his protective deity and so he would take pots of honey and wine to her altar. He thought of the great stony, lifeless eyes of the statue within, and it sent another chill through his marrow.

  ‘On the night of your birth, she came to him.’

  Hattu’s flesh crept.

  ‘She came to him in a dream and sang him a song,’ Ruba said quietly. ‘A song he never wanted to hear. A song he certainly never wanted you to hear.’

  ‘What song?’ Hattu snapped, fists balled, frustration rising. ‘Tell me.’

  Ruba arched one eyebrow, turning to him. ‘And I can understand why he is so reticent,’ he chided. ‘The fire within you is bright, perhaps too bright.’

  Hattu uncurled his fists and lowered his voice. ‘Please, Tutor, tell me.’

  Ruba hesitated then sighed. ‘Aye. My mind will desert me one day and then… so few will remain to tell you. Only Kurunta, Nuwanza and I know the song’s words in full.’ He gulped and looked around as if fearful Ishtar might be watching, before whispering:

  ‘A burning east, a desert of graves,

  A grim harvest, a heartland of wraiths,

  The Son of Ishtar, will seize the Grey Throne,

  A heart so pure, will turn to stone,

  The west will dim, with black boats’ hulls,

  Trojan heroes, mere carrion for gulls,

  And the time will come, as all times must,

  When the world will shake, and fall to dust…’

  Hattu’s skin tingled, colder than ever as the verse washed around in his head. What did it mean? Then he picked out one part of it. The Son of Ishtar, will seize the Grey Throne.

  ‘The Son of Ishtar? I… am the Son of Ishtar? These deeds are destined to be mine?’

  Ruba sighed. ‘The Goddess is a riddle, Hattu. You are a young man. Your actions will define your destiny.’

  A patter of footsteps saw a palace servant lean in from the doorway. ‘Master Ruba, Prince Hattu: one of General Kurunta’s messenger-hawks has landed at the Tawninian Gate – a grey-feathered bird.’

  Ruba’s face lit up and he clicked his fingers. ‘That’s what I came to tell you: Kurunta and a knot of scouts set off this morning to clear the western approaches of snow and watch out for the king’s return.’

  Hattu’s heart froze, knowing what Kurunta’s grey bird meant. ‘The king and the army have been sighted,’ he said, his voice devoid of enthusiasm.

  ‘They will be here imminently,’ the servant nodded then left.

  Hattu’s stomach plunged. He imagined General Kurunta out in the blizzard, telling the king all that had occurred in his absence. By now, Father would know about the Kaskan attack… and about his part in it – at a time when he should have been in the acropolis grounds as Father had decreed. Had he obeyed the king, then Sarpa would not have risked his life to stray from the safety of the temple strong room. He rubbed at his eyes with a sigh.

  ‘I will ride Onyx down to the Tawinian Gate and speak with him first,’ Ruba said, reading Hattu’s thoughts.

  Hattu stood. ‘And I will go across to the throneroom, for his reception. To face his anger.’

  Ruba cocked his head to one side, confused. ‘Hattu, anger is a false emotion, you know that, don’t you? It is carried on truer sentiments that most men do not know how to express: the tavern brawler who fights only because he cannot bring himself to confess his love for his friend’s woman; the shepherd who beats his animals with a cane only because he is heartsick for them, knowing he has not fodder enough to feed them through the winter; the soldier who slays men in scores because he cannot for one moment stop to face the reality of what he is doing.’

  Hattu shook his head. ‘My brother died because of me. Ishtar’s foul verse… it is cursed. I am cursed.’

  Ruba sighed and gazed past Hattu in
to the flames. ‘Pitagga’s axe took your brother’s life, Hattu. Now, I should go. I will meet you by the Grey Throne, soon.’

  Hattu sighed. ‘Tell me one thing, Tutor. This verse: was it alone enough to conjure Father’s ill-feelings towards me?’

  Ruba’s eyes grew rheumy. He shook his head but seemed unable to speak for a moment, as if assailed by a pang of grief. He dipped a hand into his breast pocket. ‘Your father made me swear never to let you have this. But now I know you must see for yourself.’

  ‘Tutor?’ Hattu whispered.

  Ruba brought out a thick bronze key, placing it in Hattu’s palm. Without a further word, he left.

  Hattu stared at the key. Cold realisation – as cold as the metal – settled upon him. ‘Is this…’ he whispered, the words trailing off. He gazed up at the ceiling as if to see through it, then dropped his gaze to the hearth room doorway and beyond, the broad stone staircase leading to the palace’s second floor.

  He edged towards the stairs. Up he went to find not a soul up there. The shutters of the arched window on the landing had blown open, and snow had gathered on the sill and the floor there, the strange brightness that comes with snow part-illuminating the upper floor. As he made to close them, he heard the distant noise of cheering from the lower town, of chanting priests and droning Wise Women. Pipers began a sombre, ancestral tune too, braving the elements and preparing to welcome their Labarna home.

  He closed the shutters and gulped, looking again at the key. Father would have to wait. He turned to the long, gloomy upper corridor and gazed along it: deserted, the wintry wind causing the shutters along its length to tremble. At the far end of the dark corridor, atop a short flight of steps, was the Black Room, forbidden to all. All he had ever seen of the room – the highest in the palace – was from outside: that high balcony. And, on just a few occasions, that weightless, rippling form upon it.