The Assyrian (5 page)

. . . . .

How shall I speak of the house of war, in
which Esarhaddon and I filled such exalted stations? In my time
there I learned how to ride a horse and drive a chariot, how to
fight with the sword, the dagger, the bow, and the javelin. I
learned the forms of military courtesy. I learned tactics. I
learned discipline and the leadership of men. And, most important
of all, I learned arrogance.

I learned that I was a prince of Ashur, that
all the peoples of the world were but dust under the feet of the
unconquerable armies I was destined to lead. I learned that I had
every right to be pleased with myself and contemptuous of all
others because I would be a soldier and my father was the king.
This was a most necessary lesson, since arrogance is the sole
parent of both daring and cruelty, and without these no wars have
been won since the first turning of the sky.

We men of Ashur are farmers. We harvest our
barley and our vines. Our lives are bound up with the soil and the
life giving water which are both gifts of the great Tigris River.
But our land is flat and offers us no protection from the marauders
of the eastern mountains, and it is poor in metal. Gold is from
Egypt. Silver is from the Bulghar Maden, north of the Cilician
Gates. A nation may manage without these but not without copper,
which must come from Haldia, and even Cyprus. Our tin is mined in
the north, beyond Lake Urumia, and our iron from the southern shore
of the Black Sea. All of these places lie outside the plains where
our first fathers set up their brick huts and worshiped the god
from whom we took our name. Thus, because men envied us our rich
harvest and because weapons are not made from mud and river reeds,
we became warriors and spread the glory of Ashur to the four
corners of the world.

And our rule brought the blessing of peace.
This, I know, is no more than is claimed by every conqueror, but it
is still the truth. The tiny western kingdoms that called us a den
of lions and cried after their lost freedom had bled each other to
exhaustion for a thousand years before we came. Each would be a
tyrant over the others and cursed us only because we were in the
place they would have had for themselves. Thus the merchants and
artisans and the common farmers, who cared nothing for the
ambitions of princes, such humble folk might complain because we
taxed them, but they would not have rejoiced to see us overthrown.
The trade routes were open and men might live in peace. And these
are not small things.

Thus was I taught in the house of war.

But such matters mean little in youth. What I
loved were the horses and the bronze tipped arrows and the growing
strength of my own body. I would be great in the Land of Ashur. I
had for this the word of the king my father. Happy is that boy,
yearning after manhood, whose hand has been filled with a
sword.

On the first morning after my arrival at the
royal barrack, I awoke with a violent shudder of astonishment and
found myself dangling by my sleeping tunic, my toes reaching in
vain for the rush mat beneath me.

“You are not in the house of women now,
Prince,” said a voice very close to my ear. I twisted around and
with no small surprise beheld the sun blackened face of a man in
the green uniform of a rab kisir. His hair and beard were streaked
with gray. He looked inexpressibly old to me, but he might have
been forty. He seemed angry. He was holding me up by the scruff of
the neck with one hand. The other hand was missing—there was only a
stump sticking out of the sleeve.

“I am Tabshar Sin, Prince Tiglath, your
servant. In the army of your grandfather the Lord Sargon, I led a
hundred men against the Nairians. We won a great victory that day.
I lost my left hand, as you see, but I spilled much blood and the
great king was pleased to provide for me by giving his grandsons
into my charge to be trained up as soldiers. And soldiers, Prince,
do not sleep till noon like tavern harlots. Dress yourself and wash
your face. There is no one here to perform that office for
you.”

I was dropped to the ground like a broken
water pot. Two minutes later I had performed my toilet and was
standing outside in the gray light of morning. Tabshar Sin was
waiting for me. We were alone on the dusty parade ground.

“What a great pity, Prince—it would seem you
have missed breakfast!” He grinned at me, showing strong white
teeth. I felt like the rabbit under the paw of a lion.
“Nevertheless, we will hit upon something to keep you
occupied.”

This was my introduction to the life of
glory. From first light to dusk, out of everyone’s sight and with
an empty belly, I studied the art of foddering the royal war
horses.

The king’s stables boasted over a hundred
horses, great stallions, each more skittish and fierce than the
last, with flaring nostrils and stone hardened hoofs that could
have taken a man’s head from his shoulders as neatly as the
executioner’s ax. Among these I made my way through the narrow
stalls, carrying huge bundles of hay and sacks of barley. I felt
myself ill used, and more than once I sat down on an empty grain
jar to weep for the sad fate that had taken me from my mother and
put me among such cruel strangers. There was no noon meal in the
royal barrack—a soldier has to learn to work all the day on his
breakfast—but I did not know this and was sure all had forgotten
me.

But at nightfall, when I was quite convinced
I had been given over to starvation and despair, Tabshar Sin
returned, looked about him, and seemed pleased to see that I had
performed the tasks assigned to me.

“This, Prince, is a soldier’s lot,” he said,
putting his hand upon my shoulder as if he understood everything of
my sorrow. “Most of his time is filled with drudgery and boredom.
The rest is fear, pain and, finally, death. Glory awaits but few,
and only those who have accepted all the rest. Come. It is time to
eat, and then to sleep. Tomorrow will be better.”

We dined that night on bread and goat cheese
and strong brown beer. I sat among the royal princes and at Tabshar
Sin’s right—indeed, his only—hand. This was meant, it seemed, as a
singular honor. Tabshar Sin told stories of his campaigns, and I
and my brothers listened with attention and admiration. Never had I
tasted such fine food nor known such splendid company. I had
forgotten all about the king’s stables. It was the most glorious
evening of my life.

Esarhaddon was not there. When I asked after
him I was met at first with an embarrassed silence and then
informed that he had been sent to sleep under the stars, a bitter
punishment indeed because the nights were cold. He had been caught
fighting. I had only to look around me to discover with whom—at the
end of the table was a boy with a blackened eye. His name was Arad
Malik and I knew him slightly, since he had been removed from the
house of women only the year before. He had a wide, stupid face and
he stared at me with hatred all evening, for he knew Esarhaddon was
my friend.

The only other one of my royal brothers whom
I knew by sight was Arad Ninlil, the second son of the Lady
Tashmetum-sharrat. He was a thin, sickly looking boy of about
fourteen, with blue shadows under his eyes. He never spoke or
smiled and hardly seemed to be listening to Tabshar Sin, as if his
mind were occupied with the contemplation of some private sorrow.
His training was nearly finished, and in a few months he would
leave to join the army in the north. After his brother
Ashurnadinshum, he was heir to the throne.

When the meal was over I managed to steal
half a loaf of bread and one of the small sealed jugs of beer. It
would not surprise me to discover that Tabshar Sin was aware of my
theft, but if he was he said nothing. I returned to the barrack,
rolled up my blanket and that of Esarhaddon and went looking for
him. I found him on the roof, his hands clasped behind his head,
watching the stars. He was happy to see me but happier, I think,
for the bread and beer.

“Why did you blacken Arad Malik’s eye?” I
asked him.

His mouth full of bread, Esarhaddon smiled in
recollection as his heavy fingers broke through the seal of the
beer jug.

“He gave me no choice.” he answered. “He
would fight, and only because I said his mother’s breasts were as
round as summer melons and just as green. It’s quite true, you
know—I saw them once when I was but a child of six. They aren’t a
sight to be forgotten.”

We both laughed. We couldn’t help ourselves.
Arad Malik’s mother was from Hamath, a gift of their king from his
own harem, and the men of Hamath are famous for their sharp
trading. It did not surprise me to learn the Lord Sennacherib had
received less than full value.

“Nevertheless, it is a fool who makes enemies
needlessly my brother.” I accepted the jug from Esarhaddon’s hand
and took a swallow. I was unused to beer and suspect I had grown a
trifle drunk at dinner. “Learn caution. Arad Malik is a stupid
lout, but one day he may do you an injury.”

“To make enemies is the business of a
warrior’s life, and besides, the day I have aught to fear from that
son of a cow. . .”

And we laughed yet again and passed the beer
jug until it was well and truly empty and our heads were buzzing
like the inside of a termite mound. And then the empty jug rolled
over the edge of the roof and smashed to pieces on the ground and
we laughed then even more. We were laughing still while we wrapped
ourselves in our blankets.

At last Esarhaddon stared up at the blight
stars and smiled.

“Would that there were other worlds to
conquer besides just this one,” he said dreamily. “Would that they
were as many as the stars.”

“One is enough, brother. You and I will have
our fill of battles before we are done.”

There was no answer. Esarhaddon lay there
beside me with his eyes closed, already dreaming of the glory of
war.

We slept together that night under the dome
of night, content in our lot and in each other, for we were
brothers and shared a brother’s love, and we believed it would
always be so between us, that there was safety in the heart. To the
eye of a child the world is simplicity itself.

The following day I was issued a bronze
helmet and a corselet made of leather, and Tabshar Sin began to
teach me the elements of swordsmanship. He worked me until I could
no longer raise my right hand higher than my shoulder, and then he
strapped a small round shield to my other arm, drew his own sword,
and told me to defend myself or begin collecting scars. In the end
I collected no scars, but I fancy that was due more to Tabshar
Sin’s restraint than to any skill of my own. By the middle of the
afternoon everything above the navel felt as stiff as wood and I
was quite sure I would be crippled for the rest of my life. Finally
Tabshar Sin led me to the shade of a wall, sat me down, and poured
water over my head and body until I covered my face with my arms
and begged him to stop.

“‘I am Tiglath Ashur, son of Sennacherib!’
Yes, boy, I heard about your skill with a knife. It would seem,
though, that you are only fierce in front of priests and
eunuchs.”

I swore at him, calling him all the worst
names I could remember, but he only laughed. He was an old
campaigner. Nothing shocked him and he was without pity. Tabshar
Sin had decided I had the makings of a soldier.

A boy’s body hardens quickly, and it was not
many days before I could train from sunrise to sunset, feast and
make jokes all the evening, and then stagger off to bed to rise the
next morning as fresh and cheerful as a maiden on her bridal day. I
loved the house of war.

The royal barrack, of course, was only one
part of that vast complex, which had been intended originally to
provide the king with his bodyguard and the city of Nineveh with
its garrison. The princes of the blood mixed on friendly terms with
officers and common soldiers alike, for the men of Ashur are a
proud race and only the king himself is sacred. Although still a
boy, I lived a man’s life among men, and I was profoundly
happy.

My time there passed quickly. I learned all
the arts of siege and pitched battle and became proficient in some
of them. Esarhaddon, with whom I maintained a fierce competition,
was always a better swordsman, but I was better with the bow and,
most particularly, the javelin. I had no equal for managing a
chariot, but he was my superior as a rider. Esarhaddon was a fine
wrestler, as I have had occasion to mention already, but I was more
agile and could run great distances without tiring. We never grew
weary of this rivalry. We never grew weary of each other’s company,
or of thinking of ourselves as the most amiable, the most
accomplished, the most blessed of boys. So passed each hour of each
day of each month in the tranquil violence of camp life.

The one variation came after I had been in
the royal barrack for about half a year, and it took the form of an
unexpected gift from my uncle the Lord Sinahiusur.

It was only the middle of the afternoon when
a runner came to fetch me from the parade ground, saying only that
I had a visitor whose presence would excuse me from my exercises. I
was not sorry to leave, being tired and dirty and having had my
backside scraped raw from waist to neck by falling off a horse. My
foot had caught in the stirrup and the broken winded old mare, who
knew all about little boys who fancied themselves masters of the
king’s cavalry and had evidently decided she would teach me to
respect my elders, dragged me perhaps as many as twenty paces
before Tabshar Sin could overcome his paralysis of laughter enough
to disentangle me. It had not been one of my better days, and I
welcomed any excuse to quit the scene of such a humiliation. I
didn’t care who wanted me, or for what.

“Go to the dwelling of the camp commander,” I
was told. The thought entered my mind that perhaps I had disgraced
myself enough to warrant dismissal, but it was all one to me.