The Assyrian (9 page)

Esarhaddon insisted we stop at a stall where
an old woman with no veil and a series of waving lines tattooed
over her nose and left cheek was selling fruits preserved in sugar.
There were flies swarming over the fruit, but Ksarhaddon would not
be pleased until we bought some. We paid for it with a couple of
copper half shekel pieces, most of the money we had, and it turned
out to be a bad purchase. As soon as we bit into the fruit and
pierced the sugar that coated it, the smell was dreadful and there
was black rot at the core. We threw the rest into the gutter.

Here and there we heard the sounds of music
and sometimes of women’s high pitched laughter. Open doorways
invited one inside buildings made of yellow mud brick.

The people in the streets, citizens and
foreigners alike, stared at us and stood out of our way, for we
were dressed in the uniform of the royal barrack. Boys that we
were, no man would have dared to raise his hand against us.

There were no beggars on the streets, as I
have seen in other places, for the king punishes begging. Nineveh
is a rich city and there is work for all who want it. A bankrupt
may always sell himself as a slave, which is considered more
honorable than begging because one may buy oneself out of slavery,
but begging is a stain upon the soul.

At last, after asking directions many times,
we found our way to the Gate of Adad. It was a district that
offered constant tribute to that god, patron of war and storms,
called “the thunderer,” for everywhere there was the sound of
hammer upon anvil and the heat from the furnaces made a scorching
wind. The men there went about bare-chested and they all carried
many scars from old burns. When we asked for the house of Kephalos
the physician, we were directed to follow a street somewhat wider
than most, and when we reached his door we could no longer hear the
clanging of hammers. Kephalos, who must have had spies out to bring
him word of our coming, was there to greet us, resplendent in a
tunic of blue wool with sleeves embroidered in yellow. He had grown
a beard, which was brown as Tigris mud and added to his dignity of
bearing. He went down on his knees before us, opening his arms to
embrace my feet.

“Young master, welcome, many times welcome to
the house of your servant Kephalos. And you, Prince Esarhaddon,
welcome as my master’s royal brother and in your own right as well.
I am honored beyond words to think. . .”

“Obviously not beyond words, Kephalos. Come,
up on your feet again, honored physician, or you will soil your
robes.”

This consideration seemed to carry some
weight and we were finally able to persuade him to rise and finish
his effusive greeting inside.

His face was shining with oil and his
prosperity was everywhere evident as he took us into the private
rooms of his house. There were carpets on the floors and the chests
that seemed to stand against every wall had been left open to show
forth linens of many colors and richly embroidered wools. Even
before we sat down at his table the smell of spiced lamb had
reached us from the kitchen. My slave, without doubt, had grown
rich.

“Half of all this is yours, young master,
pursuant to our agreement.” Kephalos waved his hand so that the
lantern light flashed from his ringed fingers. “And I have invested
sums with the Aramaean traders—wisely, of course, for I am careful
of my lord’s wealth—and we can expect good returns next year, when
the caravans return from the Northern Sea. Yes, come here, my sweet
boy.”

It was the child who had brought me Kephalos’
invitation that morning. He sat down beside his master, close
enough to touch his side, and Kephalos put his arm over the boy’s
shoulder as if their intimacy were of long standing. Esarhaddon and
I exchanged a glance, but we said nothing and Kephalos went on
talking as before, apparently quite comfortable in the usages of
his own house. He spoke of the metal trade, and in a way that would
have convinced anyone he had been born to commerce. He drank a
great deal of wine as he talked, and the more he drank the more
openly he caressed the slave child, who accepted it all without any
self-consciousness, like a baby in its mother’s lap. Matters had
proceeded almost to the point of indecency by the time a fat little
woman with the broad brown face of a Phrygian and gold bangles on
her ankles and wrists brought in the first course of our dinner and
set it down before us. As she left, she swept the child up in her
arms with the practiced motion of a boatman loading cargo. Kephalos
smiled after her with indulgent lechery.

“Mother and son,” He said, after she had gone
back to her kitchen. “Arrived in the land two years ago. The boy is
young, and Philinna, though sweet as a fig, is a simple creature
and speaks hardly a word of Akkadian. She understands Greek well
enough, but who else does in this part of the world? I picked them
both up for I am embarrassed to tell you how little. The boy’s name
is Ernos. Try these, my young lords—honeyed locusts, which I would
not be ashamed to serve to the king your father himself. Philinna
has a loving touch with such delicacies. . .”

After dinner, Kephalos took us out to his
garden and we sat under a vine arbor and drank wine mixed with
water at three parts to two, as strong as any I had ever tasted. It
was not very long until I felt as stunned as a man who has just
fallen from his horse, and Esarhaddon was drunk almost to
incoherence.

“We cannot allow the prince to go back to
your barrack in such a condition,” Kephalos said finally, shaking
his head as he looked at the way Esarhaddon sagged against the
arbor. “I have something to bring him back to life.”

He stepped back inside his house and in a
moment returned with a small flask which he emptied into the wine
that remained in Esarhaddon’s cup.

“In an hour he will be fresh as dew.”

While we waited for Kephalos’ potion to do
its magic, he and I listened to the crickets and enjoyed the relief
of cool night breezes. It was as pleasant an evening as I have ever
known.

Eventually Esarhaddon got up, staggered to a
corner of the garden, and retched loudly. When he came back he was
smiling and talkative and asked for more wine.

The night was black before Kephalos allowed
us to say our farewells, and as a parting gesture he gave me a
pouch bulging with silver coins.

“You are reaching the age, master, when you
will find uses for ready money,” he said, holding my hands in his
own and cupping them around the pouch. “And the night is still
fresh and it is a long way yet back to the royal barrack.”

Then, once more, at the threshold of his
grand house, he went down on his knees before me and clasped my
ankles.

“I am your servant,” he said. “And though I
was born a free man I could not want a better master. Always
remember, in this life I and my home and all that I have is yours,
my prince.”

He, too, had drunk more than was good for
him, but I knew that he meant what he said and there were tears
shining in his eyes as he rose from the ground. A rascal and worse
was this slave of mine, but for some reason he had decided to be my
friend as well and I could not help but love him. He waved after us
as Esarhaddon and I walked away down the street to the Gate of
Adad.

In the light from the doorway to a tailor’s
shop—Nineveh never sleeps, so the tailor was still at his needle
and glanced up to watch us, perhaps thinking we meant him some
mischief—I divided the contents of the money pouch with Esarhaddon.
We always divided everything, bread, beer, work, so why not this?
It was more silver than either of us had seen before in our
lives.

“I wonder which of them he is bedding with,”
he said after we had resumed our journey—more slowly now, and
watchfully, because Esarhaddon had settled with himself that we
were to make proper use of our sudden good fortune. “The mother or
the son, or possibly both, do you think? Perhaps both
together?”

He was grinning because he knew he had
shocked me, although there was no reason why I should have been
shocked. We were both aware, in the rather abstract way of boys
just on the threshold of their manhood, that women were useful for
other things besides preparing honeyed locusts, and no one who has
lived any time in an army encampment, even if it be the royal
barrack, can escape the knowledge that there are those who prefer a
boy to any woman, even if she be sweet as a fig. Still, I was
shocked. The meaning of Kephalos’ behavior at dinner, which I had
found more puzzling than anything else, was suddenly clear to
me.

Then, all at once, as if I had just seen the
joke, I broke out into loud laughter.

“Yes,” I said, laughing still—we were both
laughing now. “Yes, knowing Kephalos, I would say both
together”

With our arms about each other’s shoulders
and money in our belts, Esarhaddon and I went off in search of
adventure and pleasure and all else that silver coins could buy in
the streets of Nineveh.

In the end what we found was a wineshop, not
a hundred paces from the palace walls. I have since been in a
thousand such places, for they are to be found everywhere in the
world, but of course the first time for everything is what one
remembers. It was only a few tiny rooms, and its mud walls had
never felt the stroke of a brush. There were tables and benches
about, all of rough dark wood, and everywhere men in plain wool
tunics and with their heads bare sat drinking with sullen
concentration. The air smelled sour and was itself almost thick
enough to drink. Huddled in one corner were three men with musical
instruments, and in front of them danced what at first sight I
fancied the most enchanting beauty I had ever beheld, for her
breasts were as round and brown as apples, and her belly, as she
swayed to the music, seemed possessed of its own independent life.
My mother excepted, it was the first time I had ever seen a woman
naked.

There were other women there, carrying wine
to the tables and sometimes leaning over the men they served, and
they—it suddenly struck me—were naked too. One of them turned as
Esarhaddon allowed the curtain over the doorway to drop back into
place, and she smiled at us with a smile that seemed to promise all
the delights of this earth.

“By the sixty great gods, Tiglath my brother,
I think we have found what we were seeking.”

Yes, indeed we had.

Everyone stared at us as we approached an
empty table and sat down. It did not seem a place much frequented
by the cadets of the royal barrack, but that did not, it appeared,
count to our disadvantage. The girl who had smiled at us came by
with a jug of wine and a pair of pottery cups, and as she set them
down we could smell the perfume of her bare body. I do not know how
Esarhaddon felt, but I was mortally frightened. Much as I longed
to, sooner than touch her brown flanks I would have put my hand
into the armorer’s furnace. She, however, was not so reluctant.

“Lords,” she murmured, letting the fingers of
one hand trail down the side of Esarhaddon’s face, “you do us honor
by your presence.” She poured the wine, and as she did one of her
breasts, which were by no means undersized, brushed against the
sleeve of my tunic. For a moment I thought I would choke with sheer
excess of pleasure. “Anything you wish you may command. Food, wine,
a woman to help you drink it—a woman to help you forget your cares.
All you need do is speak.”

We could not have spoken. Our tongues were
glued to our palates and we dared not risk so much as a syllable.
It was then that I noticed Esarhaddon’s face had turned as red as
fire.

“Later perhaps?” She looked from one to the
other, but we were both equally helpless. “I will come again—or if
you wish anything, you need but raise the smallest of your
fingers.”

She took my little finger, hooking it with
her own, and brought it up to her mouth and pretended to bite it
with her white teeth. My life has been wasted, I thought. Until
this moment I have learned nothing, done nothing of the slightest
importance. Under my loincloth, my member was as rigid as a tent
peg.

She went away, and I lifted the wine cup to
my lips and the sour taste of it brought me back to earth with a
jolt.

The woman who had danced began again, and all
the time, as her body undulated to the rhythm of the flute and the
drum’s beat, she never seemed to take her eyes from us. She would
tilt her shoulders and her breasts would swing out to one side, and
her hips twitched back and forth and the heavy mat of hair between
her legs strained up and back.

“By the sixty great gods,” Esarhaddon
breathed, his voice hardly more than a whisper. “For just half a
quarter of an hour alone with her, what I wouldn’t give. What I
wouldn’t give.”

It seemed, however, that many were not so
fastidious as my brother, for as soon as the woman had finished her
dance, a man in the costume of an Amorite approached her, gave her
a drink of wine from the goblet he carried, and began to engage her
in a discussion the subject of which was more than obvious. At last
he reached into a pocket and counted out a few copper coins for
her. She rested her back against the unpainted wall and placed one
foot upon a stool she might have kept there for the purpose, and
the Amorite lifted up the front of his tunic and pressed himself
against her.

I have seen such things many times, for the
people who live beside the two great rivers feel no shame about
satisfying themselves . In all the great cities of the East one can
walk down the streets in broad day and behold men rutting on women.
They do this as casually as a Greek or an Egyptian might empty his
bladder against a temple wall. Perhaps it is only because I am half
a foreigner that I have always turned my eyes away with a feeling
of unease, as if I had chanced to witness a profane thing. It is a
prejudice of mine, something I have never overcome.