Garden of Madness (23 page)

They were soon in the advisory chamber off the throne room—the prince, Amytis, and her two close advisors. Tia eyed the tapestry, as though it might reveal her secret.

“I trust your journey was not too difficult.” Amytis’s words dripped with honey, and she directed a slave with a jug at the door to pour wine for all.

Zagros grabbed a cup immediately and raised it to her. “Only the length of time I had to wait to see my cousin.” He glanced at Tia. “And her fine daughter.”

“We must speak of the marriage.” Amytis sipped at her own cup. Tia left hers untouched. “It would please me to get it done today, but the people require more pomp, I’m afraid. For them to recognize the alliance, to accept it, even welcome it, they must feel part of it. So, one week from today, at the Akitu Festival, if it pleases you, cousin, we shall complete the agreement.”

Tia had a flash of imagination, of Zagros’s face as he watched her race her chariot before their marriage, but she could not find amusement in the thought.

His gaze slid to her again. “I am not sure I can wait seven days.”

Tia swallowed, a coldness racing into her hands and feet.

Zagros shrugged and sighed. “But as I am getting far more than I had imagined, I suppose I must.”

Did he speak of her? Was she more than he expected? Or was it the kingdom her mother was handing over with her?

“Come, Rabi. Dagan.” Amytis led the way from the advisory chamber. “Let us leave Tiamat and Zagros to get acquainted. Zagros, a slave will be in the corridor to show you to a private chamber.” Her eyes leveled at Tia in silent warning. “Whenever you are in need of it.”

With that sickening pronouncement, the three left and Zagros set his cup down on the table with a teeth-jarring thud.

He wasted no time with pleasantries and had Tia pushed against the wall a moment later. He smelled of too many days of travel and too much wine, and she realized that he had been drinking heavily long before he reached the palace.

“Now.” He hooked a thick finger around the clasp of her veil. “Let us see if what is under here matches the beautiful eyes and delectable body I have already admired.”

Tia pushed his massive hand away and undid the clasp. The veil fell to one side, and though it had only been a flimsy scrap of fabric, still she felt more vulnerable, exposed, without it.

He chuckled—a superior, amused laugh that set her teeth on edge. The coldness had spread to her entire body, and she had lost control of her breathing, which came in tiny, panting expulsions. She put her hands against his chest, a feeble effort to erect a barrier.

Those strange, huge hands were around her waist now, sliding upward. His eyes fluttered closed and his lips parted, and she could think of nothing but a giant rutting boar that could do whatever he pleased.

She pushed against his chest. “Not yet, Zagros. Not yet.”

He opened his eyes and peered at her from under bushy eyebrows, as though surprised she had even spoken, let alone objected.

“I am not a palace concubine or one of your slave girls, Zagros.” Tia pushed harder and raised her voice. “Perhaps, there in the uncivilized wilds of Media, you are unfamiliar with the etiquette necessary to wed a princess.”

Her slur found its mark. His eyes narrowed.

“Here in Babylon, a princess is sacred until the day she marries.” She took advantage of his hesitation to sidestep him and cross the room. She must be gone before he remembered her mother had practically tossed her to him. “I trust you will show me the proper respect for the next seven days.”

His slow grin was part animosity and part animal lust. “All the sweeter when I have you then, Princess.”

She gave him a quick, false smile and fled.

The encounter had shaken her, it was true. But more than anything, as she returned to her own chamber at a run, it strengthened her determination. They were leaving the palace, she and her father.

And they would not look back.

CHAPTER 26

Nightfall seemed elusive, as though the heavens themselves conspired to keep them trapped in daylight. Tia made the necessary arrangements—trading a bit of jade from an old bracelet for a wagon and donkey. Her purchase would be waiting in an alley behind the palace, outside a rarely used delivery door, when the sun set.

At last the western sky beyond her chamber window streaked with purple and orange, and the sun fell into the sea of clouds at the horizon. Tia leaned her forehead against the window’s edge and drank in her last view of the sunset from the palace.

“Omarsa, Gula.” The women shuffled behind her, ready for their final command from her, though they were unaware it was the last. “I am tired and feeling ill. I wish to be alone tonight.”

“Does my lady require the asû?”

Tia smiled over her shoulder. “No, thank you, Omarsa. You—you are always good to me. Both of you.” The women were silent. Did they sense the good-bye? “You may go.”

When her chamber door clicked shut behind them, Tia turned to the room. The moon would be nearly full tonight, rising on the other side of the palace to reveal deeds better kept secret. She would need to move quickly, before it emerged from entangling clouds. Her heartbeat fluttered and her stomach echoed.
Focus on the task, Tia
.

She snatched a dark red bedcovering from the base of her bed and, with a flick of her wrists, snapped it outward and let the lightweight fabric settle to the floor. She must choose carefully what she would take. The load must be light enough to carry alone, substantial enough for a long journey.

Her flowing robes and silk tunics lay all over the room, draped over chairs, pooled in baskets. She moved about in silence, touching each she would leave behind. The green silk she had worn the day Labashi was born. The purple cloak on her wedding day. Three of these, the most common-looking she could find, she tossed to the center of the spread fabric.

A warmer cloak, an extra pair of ordinary sandals. Her possessions were dividing themselves into
princess
and
commoner
before her eyes, even as her heart was trying to accept the loss.

Enough clothing. Tia crossed to a side table, where she had carelessly flung a few armbands and ropes of pearl yesterday. How many provisions could these pieces buy? She crammed them both into a carved wooden box—a childhood gift from her father—and placed the box in the center of the piled clothing. Outside her chamber the drift of voices stilled her hands. She listened, focused on the tone, on the words. But the disturbance passed, continued along the corridor, and faded.

What else need she take? Tia sniffed the stopper of a jar of myrrh, then pulled it out and applied the musky perfume to her neck. One last scent of royalty before she would smell of the streets. Yes, she would leave the perfumes, the jeweled shoes, the treasures of adolescence. The vestiges of royalty were even now shedding from her. What would be revealed? Would she survive as a commoner in a new land? Would she even survive the journey?

A quick change into her running clothes and Tia was ready. She tied together the corners of the red bedcovering. Was it too heavy? It was too late to make changes.

She slipped from the room, made sure she was alone in the corridor, and hurried toward the nearest stairs, a narrow passage she never used but one that served her purpose.

A trembling began in her fingers, already fatigued from their taut grip on the improvised pouch, and traveled like a ripple of water up her arm, across her chest, through all of her. She pushed on, gained the dark stairwell, and hurtled downward to the bottom level of the palace. She peered through the open doorway. Alone. She hugged the bulging sack to her chest and crept along the stone wall to a small storage room, where a narrow delivery door gave access to a narrower alley. Good thing she had been an adventurous child, exploring every chink of the palace.

As promised, a beaten-down wooden cart stood in the murky twilight. A hitched donkey pawed at the stones with impatient swipes of one hoof. The alley smelled of garbage or perhaps sewage. Tia thrust her belongings over the wagon’s side, then wedged her foot between two splintery wheel spokes and hoisted herself high enough to see the bed.

In a nondescript pile beside her sack she found a skin-scratching blanket, large enough to cover a man. Hopefully. And the rope she had requested.

Good
. All was ready, then.

The spoke gave way under her foot. She grabbed the rope, clutched the cart, and fell a half step, breathing hard, then jumped down and eyed the wheel. Would it hold? She should have paid more for something better. She had been so concerned with blending into the peasantry. The cart’s former owner was probably laughing over his cook fire tonight.

The clack of sandals on stones reached her from the end of the tight alley. Tia shifted away from the sound and wedged herself against the donkey’s warm flank. Two voices, some laughter, and she was again alone. She patted the donkey’s rump, but his long gray ears flattened, as though he were displeased and felt no camaraderie with her or her foolhardy task.

A moment later Tia was in the storage room, the coil of rope hooked over her shoulder. She threaded through the barrels of grain, reached the corridor, and headed for her next set of stairs, those that would take her to the lower levels where she could access her secret passage to the seventh tier of the Hanging Gardens.

At the top of the stairs, she yanked the key from under her clothes and jammed it into the lock for the last time. The door gave way with a creaking protest.

Inside the Gardens Tia sat for a moment in her usual place, to catch her breath, to still her heart. To prepare to meet her father.

The moon had crested the bank of low-lying clouds and from this height Tia felt almost equal with it. As though she and the moon god Sin both looked down on the king with pity. No, not pity from Sin, for his brightness would soon reveal two fugitives in the street.

She closed her eyes for one last deep breath. The rope’s weight tugged on her shoulder.

When she opened her eyes, the rope lay beside her.
Strange. I did not feel it slip
.

The bitter taste of fear, a warning, stung the back of her throat. A flutter began in her chest. She looked to the moon for confirmation. The flutter roared into a stampede. Above her, the moon had shot upward, like a white spark against the night sky. How much time? How many hours had she lost?

She scrabbled at the rope with numb fingers. Her thin running clothes were damp with perspiration, though the night was cold. A chill shook her body and would not release her.

Not again. Not tonight
. She needed her full wits about her tonight, if ever sanity was essential.

She clamped her lips, cutting off a foolish urge to yell for her father. The same plan. There was no need for alteration. The streets were bright with moonlight, yes. She would be more cautious.

She picked her way down the crumbling steps to the next tier, her ears alert to any sound of guard or king. Through the lofty palm fronds the moonlight spattered the stones like white blood. Shadows could hide anything. Would her father attack an intruder? Did he even know her?

She searched the sixth tier, then the fifth. The smell of rotted earth filled her nose. Her fingers cramped around the rope. The night wore on. Did he cower in a tangle of underbrush? Sleep in a hollowed recess?

By the third tier Tia was tempted to call for him, but this close to the guards, she dared not take the risk.

And then she saw him. Those white eyes, always so startling in the darkness, in the darkness of his bearded, dirt-smeared face. He sat in a human position, legs drawn up to his chest.

“Father?” Even her whisper seemed loud. His eyes flicked toward her, but there was no smile of recognition, no open arms. Just a wary animal sniffing, as always.

Tia crept across the space between them, her hand held out in the usual way, the other hand gripping the coiled rope. She was loathe to bind him like a beast but could not be certain he would follow her if she didn’t.

“Father, we are leaving.” Close enough now to touch his head. The moon shone off the gray streaks in his dark hair and beard.

Her heart never raced like this when she ran. Like she had run all the way to Assyria and back. She crouched to face him, held the length of rope in shaking hands, looped it over his head and down his body.
Steady, Father
. She did not take her eyes from his.
Feel how much I love you
.

She swallowed against the desert dryness in her throat. He did not move.

To secure the rope around his waist, she must have him move his drawn-up legs. She had only ever touched his head. With one hand she retained a hold on the loop of rope. With the other she pushed against his knees, lowering his legs. He was like a docile pup.

With his waist exposed, she quickly tied the rope, snug enough to hold but not constrict. Guilt over the bizarre action flooded her, sprang tears to her eyes. She blinked away the blurriness and tugged on the rope. “Come, Father. It is time to leave.”

Why did he have to be all the way down here on the third tier? Would he make a sound as they climbed? Alert the guards?

She coiled the rope once around her wrist, then turned and stepped away, with only a gentle pull. The rope tightened against her hand.

Come, Father. Trust me
.

The resistance released. He had moved. She risked a backward glance. He had shifted to his typical crouch, balanced on the toes of his bare feet and the knuckles of his hands. She tugged again, took a step. He followed.

That’s it, Father. We will go together
.

Indeed, he scrambled forward until the rope was slack in her hand and they walked side by side. She refused to entertain the analogy of a pet.
Think of him only as an old man, bent and crippled, in need of assistance
.

Tia had never seen him climb steps, but he took them on all fours, and they were on the next tier. The rest of the climb was quick, save a brief stop at a bubbling pool where he lapped greedily. The action startled her. How would she care for him on the journey, or even once they reached their destination? Could he learn to drink from a cup? Eat like a human? Tia shook off the questions. They were not for tonight.