Garden of Madness (26 page)

What other horrors belonged to her lost hours? Kaldu?

Shealtiel?

The guards breached the tier. Her father shrank into shadows. She held out bloody, shaky hands against their attack and snatched tiny hiccups of breath.

There were three of them, or maybe ten. Her vision blurred tree and man together until she was surrounded by a forest. They clawed at her with branchlike arms.

Part of her mind slipped, like a skiff on the Euphrates, cutting smooth through water, sailing away until it fell over the dark horizon.

Not me, not me, not me
.

Cruel fingers dug into her arms, lifted her to standing. Pulled her forward but she could not walk.

Dragging. They were dragging her. She wore no shoes and her heels scraped the stones. The pain shot from heel to head.

They will kill me. They will kill the monster
.

In a hollow place in her mind, she saw Shadir hovering over unholy fire, the demon Labartu in his hand. Would they take her to Shadir? Let him exorcise the demon from the palace?

Father
. She could not leave him.

Tia wrenched herself away from the grip of the guards. Hot pain scorched her shoulder socket. She thrashed in their embrace and her hair clung to her mouth, stuck fast against wet blood.

“Father!”

She could not see him, could not find him, could not reach him. Not even to say farewell.

They carried her now, slung over the shoulder of one like a dead goat headed for market. Two more bound her wrists in a ferocious grip so she could not pummel the unyielding back of her captor.

She heard their conspiring whispers. What did they plan?

The corridors of the palace rushed past her, snapped at the edge of her vision like jaws, then swallowed her and pulled her down a narrow throat to her own chambers.

There was an eruption of activity. Guards scrambling, calling. Her chamber door kicked open. Voices of women—Omarsa and Gula—urging them to lay her across the bed.

She felt her body lift from the guard’s shoulders, saw the eyes of Gula spin past, then the ceiling of her chamber above her, where the face of Labartu had snarled at her in her sleep, or in her madness.

Male voices faded, replaced by a strident anger she well recognized.

“What has happened?”

Amytis’s cold demand for facts was met with whisperings at the door. Tia closed her eyes and tried to sink into the bedcoverings.

“Get her up. She must be bathed.”

Her slave women pulled her from safety and half dragged her to the bath chamber until she found her feet and stumbled there in her own wasted strength, chased by Amytis’s voice.

“What have you done now, Tiamat? You insist on ruining my plans, on destroying our chance to remain secure, to remain strong!”

Tia stood in the depressed floor and let them strip her bloody clothes.

“I cannot even begin to understand what you were doing there in the Gardens at this hour. And a dead girl?” Her voice carried all the horror, the curiosity, the fury she must have felt.

They had not heated the water. How could they have anticipated the need for so much water at this hour? The icy rush of it, dumped over her head, splashed against her naked limbs, set her shivering. She stood with mouth half open and eyes clamped shut, vibrating like a plucked harp string that sounded only ugly notes.

“Will you say nothing for yourself?” Amytis’s voice scraped against her even as Omarsa and Gula tore at her skin with rough rags, scraping the blood away, away, away. In her mind she followed the blood being rinsed in rivulets from her body, dripping through the drain at her feet, coursing through the sewage arteries of the palace until it was lost in the Euphrates, as if Ying had never needed all that blood.

They were drying her now, and she wrapped her arms around herself but could not still the shaking, shivering, trembling of her body or her mind. Her teeth bounced against each other, little tapping noises like tiny demons knocking on the door of her mind.

No, she could say nothing for herself. Could not save herself or save her father or save the kingdom. She was only a mad princess. A mad, murdering princess.

Omarsa and Gula dropped a tunic over her head, cocooned her in a woolen cloak, and bundled her into her bed and still her mother hovered over her, pouring accusations colder than the water.

“You are going to see Babylon given to others who care nothing for us, Tiamat. Know that it will be your fault. You had it in your power to make an alliance that could save us all.”

Tia managed to wriggle numb fingers from under her wrappings and reach for her mother’s hand. Her voice, when it came, rasped against her throat. “Mother, please . . .”

Amytis yanked her hand from Tia’s. “Pity? Is that what you seek? You shall have none of it from me. I have asked nothing more from you than that which I gave myself, many years ago. And you have refused.”

She was gone a moment later. Tia sensed Omarsa and Gula at the inside of her door, and guards instructed to remain on the other. The old asû, Seluku, came and peered into her eyes, but she sent him away.

She was so cold, still so cold. Her eyes too weighted to remain open, yet a deep horror at falling asleep kept her struggling for consciousness. Omarsa was at her bedside, an uncharacteristically gentle hand on her brow.

“Can I get anything for you, my lady?”

There was only one thing she wanted. One thing that a small part of her mind, her heart, whispered might help, like pure water to quench a malevolent fire. Tia clutched at her arm.

“The Jew Belteshazzar. Omarsa, bring me my father’s chief advisor.”

CHAPTER 30

The hours jolted past in fits of sweaty sleep and wide-eyed wakefulness. She twisted in the bedcoverings until they imprisoned, then clawed at her bindings and gasped for freedom.

At last, at last, her chamber door sprang open and the face she longed to see peered at her through the quivering lamplight. His white hair glowed in the dim outline of the door, and worry carved lines against his forehead.

“Daniel.” She spoke his name like a prayer, and perhaps it was.

He crossed the room to her bedside in a single step, it seemed.

A wave of fear lifted her and swept her into his arms. He sat at her bedside, let her cling to him, wrapped her in his tender, solid embrace.

“
Shh
, child.” His warm hand cradled her head.

All the terror and the questions and the stark unknown warred in her chest and she sobbed against his shoulder, soaking his white tunic. But the tears did not purify, quenched nothing. Instead, darkness grew inside her, like a beast conceived and growing and trying to scratch its way out.

“I am going mad, Daniel.” Tia cast the words against his shoulder, the sound constricted. Salty tears stung her lips.

He pulled away, turned to Omarsa and Gula huddled beside the door. “Leave us, please.”

The women scurried out, as if relieved to be away from the creature she was becoming. But another form slipped in before the door closed.

She stiffened in Daniel’s embrace. “Why is he here?”

Daniel laid her back against her cushions, smoothed the hair from her eyes. “I sent for Pedaiah.”

He stood apart, in a pool of darkness the tiny lamp on her side table did not reach. Even in the murky light, she could trace the jagged white scar.

She turned her head from him and swiped at her wet cheeks with the back of a shaky hand, conscious of her sleep-tangled hair. “I wanted only you.”

Daniel smiled, a smile one would give a child who claims she does not want any sweets.

Pedaiah shifted on his feet, still in the shadows. “Daniel insisted.”

“You are both part of this.” Daniel spoke to her, then glanced to Pedaiah. “Whether or not you will acknowledge that truth.”

Tia clutched at his tunic, heedless of Pedaiah for a moment. “But what is
this
, Daniel? What is happening to me?”

He pried her fingers apart, encased them in his own holy hands. “There is much darkness.”

“I fear the darkness is within!” Tia leaned forward, shifted so he blocked her view of Pedaiah. “Do you know—do you know what has happened?”

He nodded, his expression somber. Disapproving? Tia could not be certain.

“Pedaiah, come.”

They were not to have a private discussion, then. He would insist on letting Pedaiah see her as she was, know what kind of woman he fought to despise. She understood. It would make it easier for Pedaiah, easier to remain unpolluted.

“Tell me, child. What do you fear?”

She battled the vicious flush that surged through her chest, her throat, her face.
Let him hear. Let him hear everything
.

“I fear—I fear loss. The loss of everything, everyone I care about. The loss of myself, of my rational mind.”

He said nothing but gave a slight nod, as if to encourage but not interrupt.

“You told me once that I could make a difference in the world, do something important. But how can that be if I am as mad as— as my father?” There were no secrets here. No words she would not speak to find answers.

Pedaiah took a hesitant step forward. “Did you kill the girl, Tia?” The words themselves were harsh, even accusing, but his tone was not. He asked the question as if he already knew the answer and wanted only to hear her denial.

Tears threatened again and she shoved them back. “I do not know.” To Daniel, she said, “I have been losing myself. One moment I am thinking something, doing something, and the next moment hours have passed and I have no memory of the time. Tonight—tonight was different. When I awoke, not only had time passed but also movement. I was in the Gardens. With Ying.” The name caught in Tia’s throat, the vision of Ying’s slashed body shook her voice. Again Tia clung to him. “Tell me, Daniel. Tell me if I am mad. If I am a murderer.”

Daniel turned from her. “It is time, son.”

She held her breath. What unknown plan had they conspired?

Pedaiah slid closer, his fingers twined together. But Daniel pulled the hands apart and guided his right hand to Tia’s head. She bent under the weight of it, and Daniel held her hands. She felt what was coming in the holy hush that followed. Remembered the way the darkness fled when Pedaiah last prayed his heart over her. Welcomed the words that she both loved and feared, words with power to free and to heal.

Pedaiah’s voice lost all its harsh arrogance when he prayed. It was a voice like music.

Contend, Yahweh, with those who contend with Tiamat
.

Fight against those who fight against her
.

Take up shield and armor, arise and come to her aid
.

Brandish spear and javelin against those who pursue her
.

Say to her, “I am your salvation.
”

The beast in her chest cowered and shrank. She closed her eyes and fell into the prayer.

May those who seek her life be disgraced and put to shame
.

May those who plot her ruin be turned back in dismay
.

May they be like chaff before the wind, while You drive them away
.

May their path be dark and slippery, while You pursue them
.

With every word, light scattered shadow. Evil shriveled and died.

Then her soul will rejoice in Yahweh and delight in His salvation
.

Her whole being will exclaim, “Who is like You, Yahweh?
”

How long, Lord, will You look on
?

Rescue her from their ravages, her precious life from these lions
.

Emotion swelled in her throat and she did not fight it. These tears
did
purge, or perhaps it was Pedaiah’s words, or even the exquisite intensity with which he prayed.

Then she will give You thanks in the great assembly
,

Among the throngs she will praise You
.

Awake, and rise to her defense!

Contend for her, my God and Lord
.

Did he believe his own words? Did he believe that one day she would declare his One God before her people? Once, she would have scoffed. Tonight, she was unsure of nearly everything.

But one thing she knew. The oppressive darkness had lifted from her soul. Tia looked at Pedaiah with silent gratitude. He held that familiar seriousness, but when their eyes met, connected, things were said between them without words, a lifetime of things in that single moment.

“You are not a murderer, Tiamat.” Daniel’s words, but her eyes were still on Pedaiah, whose lips curved upward—a slow, slight smile of reassurance.

“You are, however”—he patted her hand—“quite courageous.”

Tia gave him her attention. “What has courage to do with this night’s events?”

“This night, many nights. I have watched you fling yourself into this quest for truth, take great risks. Now that you have tasted loss, you are ready to hear what it truly takes to change your world.”

The lamplight flickered and dimmed, as though to keep Daniel’s words shrouded in more shadow.

“There are three things you must know, Tia, if you are to be the woman you desire.” He held up a finger. “One. You must accept that you are a mere shadow on this earth, under the mighty hand of the One God, and He is sovereign over all.”

She clung to each word, committing them to memory if not committing herself to their veracity. She would think on that later.

“Two.” He ticked off his second point with another finger. “You cannot save yourself. There is no sacrifice you can make, no good you can do, that can atone before a holy God. He alone, in His great love for you, must make a way for your atonement or you will be lost.”

Tia licked her lips and flexed her shoulders. The weight of madness had lifted but these were also weighty statements.

Daniel smiled as if in sympathy. Did he know how much such humility would cost her? “And the third, Tiamat, is the true secret of an uncompromising life. When you are rooted in this atoning love, this all-consuming, never-failing love, you cannot be shaken. No loss of possessions, no hatred of man, no dark power can tear you from it. And with such strong roots, you are free to challenge the world.”