The Assyrian (69 page)

She managed to smile. It seemed to require a
vast effort of memory, as if she had forgotten how. The effect was
not one of gaiety, but I think she had achieved her object

“Yes, he is in Calah. He will be here
tomorrow and we will meet in the presence of the king, but
certainly you will see him before then. Tell him, if you like, that
I came to see you.”

“Do you wish me to believe that you are not
afraid?” She sat down beside me, taking the cat from my lap into
her own. “Very well—I believe you. I never thought your cowardice
included any fear of Esarhaddon.”

“Have you been so unhappy then,
Esharhamat?”

The look she showed me then, the astonishment
and shock I saw in her face—I do not believe I had ever been so
ashamed, although to this moment I still am not sure of what. Not
that I suffered from any lack of choices.

“Yes. Yes, I have been unhappy,” she
answered, her voice suddenly quavering with unspilled tears. “I am
unhappy now, and shall be so, I’ve no doubt, until death frees
me—either his or mine, I do not really care which. I have been
Esarhaddon’s wife for nearly two years, and you can think to ask if
I have been unhappy?”

She looked down at her belly, round as a
melon, and pressed her hands against it, as if trying to hide it
from my sight. The cat, perhaps sensing that this season of comfort
was past, stole quietly away.

“They named my little son Siniddinapal, but
he died after only a few months. I loved him, but he died. ‘Do not
despair,’ they said to me, ‘for you will have other sons.’ And now
my womb is heavy again and I hate this child, even before he is
born—he will be a son, you know. Esarhaddon’s son. He will be a
king, like this father, and I wish I could. . . I wish my lord
husband might have a corpse for his heir!”

There is a bitterness which only women may
know, a sense of injustice at the tyranny of their own passions, of
having been betrayed by the pitiless logic of nature itself. It
places them—some of them—outside this charmed circle which we, with
such innocence, call the hazards of life, as if they had died even
to the possibility of happiness and come back as avenging spirits.
All this I learned, in that one moment, only by looking into
Esharhamat’s hot, hating eyes.

But it was the wisdom only of a moment. It
vanished as, at last, the tears stained her burning face. She did
not resist as I took her into my arms.

“I am sorry,” I whispered, kissing her hair.
“I am sorry. I meant but to obey the god’s will, and I have
reflected misery on us all.”

“Oh, do not speak to me of your god!”

She pushed herself away from me, her anger
flaming up again like stirred embers.

“Your god—he plays with us! A child pitching
stones at a bird’s nest could not have less pity. ‘The god’s will,’
you call it. Ashur’s will—for such an empty thing you let me go to
Esarhaddon’s bed.”

I started to speak, but the words died on my
lips. I could only hold her shoulders between my two hands, feeling
the terrible passion that shook her.

“Do you know what it has been like for me in
his bed—do you, Tiglath?” A terrible, mirthless smile pulled at her
mouth as she spoke. “On our wedding night he said, ‘Let us see your
backside, wife, that we may know what my brother has taught you of
the arts of pleasing a man.’ That was what I learned behind the
veil of marriage. I have been schooled in submission. Still, I do
not think to this hour my lord husband takes much delight in me—do
you know what he does sometimes, when he is drunk enough? He sends
his harlots to instruct me. Sometimes he even comes with them. Do
these little disclosures of my married life amuse you, Tiglath? Or
can it be that you are embarrassed?”

I admit I could not have said what I felt at
that moment. I could not have spoken at all. The very air in my
lungs seemed to have hardened into ice. I seemed as incapable of
sensation as the tiles in the floor beneath my sandals. It was
something like that instant in the midst of battle when one
receives a great wound and one is suddenly lost in a blinding,
paralyzing flash of light—the pain will come, but for the moment it
is far away.

Still, it must come. As I found my breath
again I wanted to scream with rage. My hands itched for a weapon—an
ax, for choice. I wanted to mix Esarhaddon’s blood with the dust. I
would not merely kill him; I would cut him into tiny pieces and
feed them to the dogs. Why had I not killed him when I had had the
chance? His throat under the blade of my sword. . .

I rose to my feet, trembling with dumb wrath.
I could not look at Esharhamat. I could not.

“Good—I am glad I told you,” she said, her
voice calm, empty of passion. “See where the will of Ashur has
brought us, Tiglath. For it is not pity I want, but shame.”

“Then you have your will, for you have shamed
me.”

“Then I am happy.” She reached out her tiny
white hand and touched me upon the arm. “For the day will come when
I will ask you to turn your back on your god—and return to me.”

Chapter 26

The king expected my presence at his banquet
that evening, but there was no room in my belly for the duties of
subject and son. I hardly thought of the king’s existence. All I
knew was that it would have been impossible to stay another hour in
the city of Nineveh.

So I made no excuses and left no messages. I
simply went to fetch my horse from the stables in the house of war
and rode out into the open country. Night was already covering the
world with its wings, but this too I hardly noticed. My mind
throbbed like a great bruise. I thought it might burst at the sound
of another word.

“Have I now grown so degraded by your
brother’s touch that you cannot love me, Tiglath?” she had asked,
mocking me with her question. “Do you wish to hear more of his
visits to my bed—you have but to ask, for I shall hold nothing back
from you. Who more than you has a right to know all the intimacies
that pass between Esharhaddon and myself, all the little ways he
has of endearing himself to a woman. Shall I tell you everything,
Tiglath?”

She seemed to laugh and weep by turns, or
both together. And at last she threw herself into my arms, sobbing
like a child.

“Do not leave me in this darkness, Tiglath—I
beg you. Do not turn from me again.”

There were no more words. I do not even
remember how I came away from her. I can only remember her face,
stained with tears.

So I rode away into the black night, half mad
with rage and blind, helpless grief.

For what seemed hours I kept my horse to a
gallop, lashing him on until his flanks were slippery with lather,
until at last he could run no farther and simply stopped, gasping
for air, his great chest heaving with every breath. I dismounted
and we walked on together, the lights of the city watchtowers far
behind us.

The wind was laden with ice and slipped
through my cloak like a thousand iron needles. It was then so dark
I could not even see the ground.

At last, as my brain began to clear, I felt
the cold as an annoyance, an unwelcome distraction, and looked
about for some shelter. What I found was a ruined hut, no doubt the
abode of some long dead farmer, its roof gone, its mud brick walls
broken and worn down by weather but still solid enough to offer
protection from the wind. I tethered the horse and crouched down in
a corner, wrapping my cloak about my knees. It was not a place to
offer much comfort, but I would not freeze to death there and
somehow I could not be troubled to want anything beyond.

No passion lasts forever. By the chill hours
of morning mine had subsided into a sullen resentment, black enough
but at least no longer tearing at my breast like a weasel trapped
in a leather bag. I began to think with some satisfaction of
cutting Esarhaddon’s throat. The idea charmed me—for a moment I
experienced something almost like pleasure. Such a thing would be
impossible—the person of the marsarru is as sacred as that of the
king—but still I could not deny myself the satisfaction of
imagining it. This is always the first step the mind takes to heal
itself, the illusion that everything can be set right by some
single action.

Then I began to consider more practical
solutions. If I could not kill Esarhaddon I could ask him to set
his wife aside—he did not favor her, and once she had given him a
healthy son. . . But this too was impossible. Everyone knew the
prophecy that she was to be the mother of kings. Esharhamat was the
seal of legitimacy on his claim to the throne. If she had children
by another man, and if the omens favored them, no son of Esarhaddon
would feel himself safe.

“Turn your back on your god—and return to
me,” she had said. “Turn your back on your god.” Could I do such a
thing?

I would not be permitted to kill Esarhaddon
honorably, in open combat, but I could contrive to have him
murdered. Yes. Men died every day—had not there been questions
asked about the death of Arad Ninlil? I would have no shortage of
willing accomplices, should I choose to employ them, for rarely had
a royal heir stood in lower favor than did my brother. A poisoned
cup of wine perhaps. . .

But could I do it? Could I? No. I had grown
to hate Esarhaddon, but he was safe from me. I was not brave enough
for such treachery.

What was left? Furtive meetings with
Esharhamat? Nothing more than that? Perhaps not even that.

Not every knot might be untied, it
seemed.

Dawn was coming. Ashur’s sun was rising
behind the eastern mountains. At first it only traced their ragged
outline as the sky, with painful slowness, turned a pale gray.
Then, finally, the god kindled his fire and rose once more to chase
away the dark ghosts of night. The world had his gift of life for
one more day.

I cannot claim to have been very
appreciative. My legs were stiff from the cold, I was hungry, and a
dull, stubborn resentment clouded my mind like the fumes of wine
after a night’s debauchery. I was in a filthy, poisonous temper
that made everything, even the morning sunshine, into a
grievance.

I was many beru from the nearest
dwelling—there was not even a plowed field within sight—and yet,
looking about me, I had a vague sense of where I was. Possibly I
had passed this way once or twice while hunting; at any rate, it
seemed familiar.

Within three hours I reached a village—I had
not been looking for one, but I found it. The peasants gathered
around my horse shouting, “Lord, Lord! The Lord Tiglath!” and
almost as soon as I had dismounted I was besieged by women offering
me beer from huge clay jars and baskets of fruit and roasted
lamb.

There were men here, it seemed, who had
fought at Khalule. We sat down together around the cooking
fires—the whole population it seemed, some sixty or seventy
villagers, including children and old people—and held an impromptu
feast.

In the face of such insistent hospitality,
one is hard pressed to concentrate on one’s private misery and,
thus distracted, it was some time before I thought of the fact that
I was the most wretched of men. I felt ashamed to have forgotten,
but by then, of course, it was too late since, even against my
will, I had grown quite cheerful, and I thanked the great gods for
having blessed men with childish and inconstant hearts, that their
griefs might know such narrow limits. I was not too proud for
that.

“Stay among us,” the elders told me. “Bring
us good fortune and the blessings of the gods.”

Why not? I thought. Yes, I will stay here for
a time. I will hide myself here.

But there was nowhere for the Lord Tiglath
Ashur to hide. The next morning one of the king’s heralds, the
silver ribbons hanging from his staff of office, rode into the
village.

“The Lord Sennacherib, King of the World’s
Four Corners, greets the Royal Prince, the Lord Tiglath Ashur,” he
announced, precisely as if he were addressing a multitude instead
of one man. He was tall and smooth faced, really a very grand
figure—they always are, these court warriors with their jewel
encrusted swords. “I am one of many sent to discover the reason for
the Lord Tiglath Ashur’s sudden removal.”

It was what I should have expected. My
father, who in old age was prey to sudden fears, had probably sent
envoys in every direction with orders to find me or not return. It
was possible his guards were still turning over each square cubit
of the city, seeking me alive or dead. It was a cruel thing I had
done. I should have left word.

“You may tell the king you have found me,” I
said. “I am here and will remain here for a time.”

“The Lord Sennacherib bids you return at
once.” He drew himself up very straight—he really was a pompous
donkey.

“That is not possible.”

He smiled. And why should he not smile? Did
he not speak with the king’s voice?

“And why is it not possible?”

“It is not possible because it is not my
will!” I shouted—I had simply lost patience. “Go! Tell the king my
father that I will come when I will come. Be gone!”

I stamped my foot out of pure vexation, and
the man actually started with alarm. They are such heroes, these
palace eunuchs. Within the minute he was on his horse and raising
clouds of dust on his way back to Nineveh.

. . . . .

Each day while I dwelt among the villagers I
went out hunting alone. I brought home deer and wild boar, and my
simple hosts rejoiced to be feasting on such abundance of fresh
meat, but I took little pleasure in the sport.

I simply wanted to be by myself and thus
spent the better part of every afternoon sitting in the shade of an
acacia tree, puzzling over the strange shape that life had taken
for Esharhamat and Esarhaddon, and for me. My musings led me to no
solutions—there could be no solutions; the god had seen to that—but
the character of the problem gradually revealed itself with
disheartening clarity.