The Assyrian (20 page)

“We must do something,” I found myself
repeating, this time to her.

I rose and mounted my horse. Tahu Ishtar
lifted down his son and put him into the arms of an old man, they
exchanged a few words, and the two of us headed out of the circle
of mud brick huts at a gallop. Within minutes we had already passed
the knot of men running over the rough

earth like a pack of hunting hounds.

We found the dead boy, or what remained of
him, just beyond the first set of bluffs that marked where the
mountains began their rise.

“They must have sensed pursuit and abandoned
their meal,” Tahu Ishtar said—the child’s breast had been torn open
and one leg was gnawed to the bone. The ground was smeared with
blood. He came down from his horse, wrapped the body in his cloak,
and handed it up to me. “At least now his mother can bury him.”

We rode back to the farmhouse in silence. I
cannot speak for my overseer, but my own mind was ringing with the
sound of a mother’s cries over the mangled body of her son. I kept
remembering that these people were now my responsibility, that by
ancient custom the tenants of the land had a right to look to their
lord for protection. I had not been in possession the length of a
single day and already, it seemed, I had failed them.

“How long has this been happening?” I asked
finally. Tahu Ishtar was a while answering, as if he too had been
deep in thought.

“Last winter and this. The villagers keep
fires burning at night to frighten the beasts off, but in the
preceding month they have become bolder. A week ago they snatched a
goat that had been left tethered behind one of the huts, and now. .
.”

“We will need a chariot,” I said suddenly—the
idea had just flown into my head. I could only wonder why I hadn’t
thought of it before. “Have we a chariot? If not, I shall send to
Nineveh.”

“Lord, there are three great males. They hunt
in concert, and their cunning is not to be despised.”

“Have we a chariot, Tahu Ishtar—yes or
no?”

His little son, his arms clasped about his
father’s waist as we rode along, watched me through huge black
eyes, as if he could not fathom how I could dare to quarrel with
the overseer.

“Yes, Lord.” Tahu Ishtar stroked the chin of
his great beard, doubtless wondering why the great gods had seen
fit to visit him with a young fool of a master. “It has not seen
use these ten years. The wheels are off and I cannot answer for the
condition of the harnesses, but all of that can be seen to.”

“It is well, then—have all things readied
against the morning, and tell the villagers to organize themselves
as beaters. We shall go hunting tomorrow!”

. . . . .

I made a wide circle about the farmyard in
the chariot which, between yesterday afternoon and the king’s last
visit some ten years before, had leaned against a wall in one of
the barns like a crippled vagabond waiting for the rain to stop.
Tahu Ishtar and his men had worked through the night by the light
of torches, and they had worked well. The wheels turned with
noiseless ease—my only anxiety concerned the horses, as well
matched a set as I could find among the animals in my stables but
unused to pulling as a team. More than that, I could only hope that
they would not panic at their first sight of our quarry, but in the
hunt, as in war, much must be taken upon trust.

My mother stood in the doorway of our house,
surrounded by the house servants, watching as I brought the chariot
to a sudden halt to test how the platform rocked beneath my feet.
As I whipped the horses up again I smiled broadly and waved to her,
and she waved back. She had not tried to discourage me from this
venture, although I had only to look at her to see that she was
afraid of this “sport” in which I was indulging myself.

“It is only a hunt, Merope. I have gone
hunting a thousand times, and the king kills lions with a sword for
an afternoon’s amusement.”

What I did not tell her, of course, was that
not even the king hunted lions without a retinue of armed men, but
perhaps I did not need to. My retainers were only farmers, with
nothing but their hand sickles and walking sticks for weapons, and
I had never hunted anything more dangerous than the wild pigs that
roamed freely over the plains east of Nineveh. Still, I was a
warrior skilled with both bow and javelin and could handle a team
of horses as well as any man in the royal army. In the pride of my
youth I imaged these would be enough.

I waved yet once more and whipped my horses
to a gallop.

In the village, Tahu Ishtar and all my
tenants were assembled and waiting. They stood in silence as I drew
to a stop—like an army before a battle they waited in sullen
silence, knowing that all which followed would take its own course,
that the time for choices was past. Now all they desired was to
believe they were not entrusting their lives to a fool.

“Overseer, have the goats been staked
out?”

Tahu Ishtar stepped forward and set his hand
to rest on the railing of my chariot. We had settled all these
matters between us the day before, but he understood the needs of
his people and was therefore content to act the role assigned him
in my little pageant.

“Yes, Lord. All is prepared.”

I hardly glanced at him. I kept my eyes on
the villagers, holding them with my gaze one at a time—it is a
trick known to anyone who has held authority over soldiers, as it
makes the bond of command somehow a personal matter.

“Then all that remains is to wait,” I said,
speaking now to all of them together. “There are three of these
great cats and they have not dined very well of late, so they will
come down yet again from their mountains in search of prey. Let
them find it—let them gorge themselves until their bellies are
close to bursting and they want nothing more than to lie quietly in
the shade by some watering hole and sleep. We have provided the
meal, so we will know where to look for them when it is time to
close the trap. Tahu Ishtar, see to it that the children and the
old people stay behind their doors this day. You know where I will
be.”

I would have driven away that instant had not
one among the men pushed his way forward and grabbed one of the
horses by the bridle to keep me from going. He was a small man, no
longer young, with eyes that looked as if they had not closed all
the night. I raised my whip and he released the bridle instantly,
holding up his hands in supplication.

“Lord,” he cried, “Lord, allow me to come
with you—I have a father’s right!”

“Then it was your son yesterday?” I looked
first to the man and then to Tahu Ishtar, who nodded in
confirmation.

“Yes, Lord—my son.” The tears started in his
bloodshot eyes and for a moment his voice left him. “My only son,
born when my wife and I were already past our best days—there will
never be another for us. Take me with you, that I might see them
die that tore my boy’s life from him!”

“I deny you this, and may the god pardon you
for asking it.” I allowed my voice to carry an anger I did not
feel—for my heart was moved. “You are a farmer, not a wielder of
weapons. What would you do, give your wife another corpse to mourn
over? More than this, what you wish of me is an impiety. It is our
business this day to rid the land of a danger, not to take revenge
upon a dumb animal that merely follows the instincts he was born
with and is therefore without sin. Tahu Ishtar, keep them all in a
straight line—I will await the sound of your beaters!”

I did not tarry then, but turned my wheels
toward the wide plains, where I would seek out a hunting ground of
my own choice.

A chariot needs space. It is a clumsy affair,
difficult to turn and stopped by anything that will not give way
before it. A wheel can go over a rock and send the rider flying, or
break off and leave him stranded. The only advantages it offers are
speed and the fact that, like a boulder rolling down the side of a
hill, it strikes terror into the hearts of any who stand before
it.

The plains thereabouts were speckled with
scrubby little trees, hardly more than bushes but sufficient to
entangle a team of horses. It was a long time before I found a
place empty enough that my quarry would not simply dart for cover
the first instant the ground shook under my charge.

There was even an outcropping of rock that I
could scramble up for a view of the whole landscape as far as the
mountains. I would be able to see the line of beaters, perhaps even
before I heard them, and perhaps I would even catch a glimpse of
the lions. I tethered my horses, gathered together my weapons, and
climbed the rock for a look about me. It would be many hours, I
knew, before I saw anything.

The lions had not made much of a meal of that
village boy before they were frightened off, and if they had been
desperate enough to forage so close to the abodes of men, they
couldn’t have eaten for many days before that. Tahu Ishtar had seen
to it that five of my fattest goats were tethered not far from a
watering hole where the great cats would be sure to look for
prey—they would feast to their hearts’ content and then have no
thought for anything except languishing about out of the sun.
Doubtless it would come as a disagreeable surprise when they heard
the sound of a hundred men and women, strung out in a line and
beating the ground with their flails, and when they smelled the
smoke from the fires the villagers would set in their path. If Tahu
Ishtar managed all according to plan—and Tahu Ishtar was a man to
inspire perfect confidence—then his three great males, sluggish and
confused, would be panicked straight into my path. With nowhere to
run, they would stand and fight, and that I expected to have all my
own way.

I had perfect confidence in myself and I felt
no fear, only a pleasurable excitement. After all, these were
merely animals—not Elamites armed with swords and javelins of their
own. Not men like myself. The biggest lion in the world has no more
than teeth and claws, and I had no thought of allowing them close
enough that I should be in any danger from those. This was merely a
day’s hunting, no more. I had nothing to fear unless I committed
some stupid mistake, and there was little enough danger of that. I
was quite cheerful as I sat in the pale winter sunlight, waiting
for some sign that the game was afoot.

The sun had declined almost an hour from noon
when the first traces of smoke appeared on the horizon. I climbed
down from my lookout, untethered the horses, and strung my bow. The
chariot was already rolling out over the baked earth when the first
of the great cats loped out into the open.

The lions of the east are not quite so large
as those found in Egypt, whence the king imports those which he
hunts for his private sport, but this one was as big as any I had
ever seen, even in the king’s preserve. When he saw the chariot he
pulled to a dead halt, cocked his head to one side as if surprised
and annoyed at this intrusion, and then crouched to wait for what
would happen next. I brought the team up to a canter, angling
toward him, and when he saw that he was being challenged he broke
the air with a mighty roar—it was all I could do to keep the horses
from bolting in panic.

In war each chariot is manned by two; one
drives that the other is left free to fight with arrow or javelin.
It is the same when the king makes war upon the lions of the royal
preserve. But I had no one to drive for me, and thus I was
compelled to stop before I could attempt a shot.

I drew up some seventy paces from my quarry,
who crouched as if to spring and roared out his battle cry. I did
not dare step down from the car for fear the horses would simply
gallop away without me, so on the rocky platform of the chariot I
selected an arrow and took my aim. The lion faced me with fierce,
hating eyes. As if sensing his danger, he took a careful step to
the left, then another, and then, while he hesitated, I let fly.
The arrow pierced him in the chest before, screaming with agony and
rage, he tried a last headlong attack.

But it was no good. The rush lasted only a
few steps and then he slowed and stood quite still, watching me
through eyes already grown clouded with pain, and then collapsed.
He lay on his side, panting heavily, and a thin stream of blood
spilled from between his great jaws. With my javelin in my hand, I
came down from the chariot to give him a quick death.

It was the mistake I had promised myself I
would not make. I stood over him, ready to drive the javelin into
his heart, when I heard the horses neigh with terror. I whirled
around, dropping to one knee, just as the second male began his
spring. My weapon was braced against the

ground and the lion, intending to fall upon
me, fell upon it instead, the copper point tearing open his belly
before it broke off.

But before he surrendered to death he managed
to sink his great teeth into my left shoulder, tearing at my flesh
in his last agony. By the time he dropped lifeless to the ground,
he had given me a wound that went to the bone—in an instant I was
washed in my own blood and sick with pain. The horses had of course
bolted, so there was no retreat. I had only the sword in my belt, I
could hardly stand, and already I could hear the last of the great
males snarling in the undergrowth.

He took his time—this one would make no
mistakes. Perhaps he knew I was bleeding and hoped to wait until I
was weakened to the point of helplessness. He wanted me to know he
was there, for no wild creature makes so much noise by chance. I
had killed his brothers and he was telling me that they would be
avenged.

But if I was bleeding, he had the villagers
pressing down on him, burning their way ever closer. I could hear
them now, the sounds of their shouting and the sticks they beat
together. I could smell their fires.