The Blood Star (14 page)

Finally the birds quieted again, yet there
seemed always to be something. A breath of wind would set the great
reeds, tall as date palms, rubbing against one another, making a
noise like river frogs that had swallowed the god’s own thunder.
The unearthly howl of jackals echoed across the water, making one
think of the torments of the unburied dead. Things were forever
crashing through the undergrowth and there were always the birds,
alive to every little disturbance.

And, of course, there were also the
insects—mosquitoes and black flies the size of wasps. It was a cold
night, but they swarmed up out of the stagnant water and feasted on
our exposed flesh, even getting under our tunics. At last we had to
scoop up mud to smear over our faces, our arms and legs, or they
would have devoured us.

The next morning, covered with itching, red
welts, our backs sore from lying in the water at the bottom of our
boat, we woke to a breakfast of water and dried fish. Neither of us
was in perfect temper.

“Life is bitterness,” Kephalos said at last.
“I have but one complaint to make against the mother who whelped
me, and that is that on the day of my birth she did not leave me
exposed on a mountainside, to have my guts torn out by eagles
before I was old enough to know the harsh world. The gods love none
but those whom they allow to perish young.”

“I think it possible we may perish ourselves
before long,” I answered, hating him for speaking the words of my
own heart.

“You think so? Then Ashur is more merciful
that I imagined—by the gods, my head splits! What I would not give
for a cup of wine.”

But there was no wine. There was only the
empty sky and the water and the reeds. Was Ashur merciful? Would he
deliver us from this, or had he been jesting with me?

That day, and the next, and the day after
that, we navigated by the sun, always heading roughly south. As the
water became shallow, we shipped our oars, finding it more
convenient to cut down a few of the great reeds and pole our way
through the labyrinth of channels. The heat was terrible, so we
rested while it was at its height, finding what shade we could. We
had plenty of food—Kephalos raised no more objections to the taste
of dried fish—but we had to be careful with our sweet water, for
the marshes were indeed brackish. I cherished the hope that this
meant the headman had been mistaken, that the reed wilderness was
merely the final barrier between us and the Bitter River, but it
was no more than a hope.

Thus we went, day after day, sleeping as best
we could at night, struggling by day to preserve strength and faith
as we journeyed through this waste of reeds and sluggish, wandering
water. I do not know how long we had been thus before we found we
had at last intruded into the realm of the Chaldeans.

The sun had not descended more than two hours
from noon, and we were preparing to resume our hunt for a main
channel to the Euphrates, when, silent as death, another reed boat
slipped from beyond the far side of an island and came into view
directly in front of us, crossing from left to right. There were
three men aboard, one sitting in the middle and two at either end,
poling her along. These two wore tunics that hung to the middle of
their thighs and carried curved knives stuck into their belts, and
all three covered their heads with a piece of red cloth held in
place by a rope headband.

We lay on our bellies in our own boat and
watched, praying to every god we could remember that no one should
think to glance in our direction.

In the space of perhaps ten heartbeats they
were gone. It was much longer before either of us remembered to
breathe.

“Did they see us?”

“No.” I shook my head. “I think not. I think
if they had seen us we would already be dead.”

Suddenly it occurred to me to remember that
men do not live where they will die of thirst. I scooped up a
little water in my hand and tasted it—it was sweet. We had passed
beyond the brackish water that I had hoped would mark the entrance
to the Bitter River. Now one direction meant as little as any
other.

We were lost and surrounded by enemies—had
the Lord Ashur meant me to come to this, or had I misunderstood his
signs? I was filled with a wild despair.

As if in answer, almost as a rebuke, a huge
serpent, black as death and thick as a man’s arm, slid out of the
reeds and swam a little way before disappearing once more around
the corner of an island. No, perhaps I had not misunderstood. All
of this had been intended from the beginning. The god fulfilled his
own purposes, not mine.

Yet we were lost for all that. We waited
another hour before we resumed our wanderings—aimless, it now
seemed. We pushed out into the open water, listening for the
slightest sound, but for the rest of that day we saw no more signs
of human life.

Yet men were somewhere about. One had only to
listen. Men are jealous of their dwelling places—they drive out all
competitors and impose their will so that even the birds will not
nest near their dwellings. That night the silence was almost
oppressive.

It was in the morning that I most sensed the
nearness of our danger. I awoke with a sense of foreboding, an
almost tangible feeling of menace for which I was unable to
account. What had altered since yesterday?

And at last it came to me—the bird cries had
changed.

I could hear them echoing through the reeds,
a call and then an answer. Another call, from yet somewhere else,
and yet another answer. These were not birds, but men.

“Quietly, Kephalos my friend,” I whispered.
“I was mistaken—they did see us. We must try to find some place of
safety. They are hunting for us.”

We picked up our poles and shoved away from
the island that had been sheltering us, our boat lifting its prow
and then, as smoothly as a knife cuts the air, moving out into the
empty water. We allowed her to drift for a moment, listening for
the murmur of voices that would mean we had betrayed ourselves.
There was nothing. Yet we knew the Chaldeans were close around us.
They were there somewhere, pulling the net tight, narrowing the gap
through which we had to slip if we hoped to escape.

We made our way, soundless, moving our poles
so quietly that they pierced the water without so much as a splash,
our hearts dying in our breasts with every turning of every narrow
channel. At intervals we would stop and listen—the birdcalls would
fall silent and then, after a time, begin again. It was almost as
if they could track us through the water that closed behind our
gliding boat.

On and on we went. A pause to listen, and
then on again. How many were there pursuing us? Six boats? More?
They seemed everywhere. The sun rose to noon, but we did not stop
to rest and avoid the heat. We did not dare.

I rested on my pole for a moment. The sound
of an egret floated on the heavy air. It was far away. At last—or
was it merely an illusion born of anxious fear?—at last I had a
sense that they had fallen behind us. An answer came, equally
faint, and then silence. Then the calls became more frequent, as if
our pursuers also were beginning to doubt they had us in their
grasp.

No, they were falling back. I knew it now.
Now was the time to make for deeper water, and then run like the
wind.

We raced for the mouth of a wider passage,
making the sluggish water race by us. We swung round an island, and
I could see pieces of reed frond floating past, carried by the
almost imperceptible current. We were in a main channel now. I
could feel the blood in my veins. Was it possible we had
escaped?

And then we saw them.

Three boats, turning the corner together,
like the horses pulling a chariot, men standing in the prows, as
calm and steady as if their bare legs stood on solid ground, the
spears in their hands already brought up to the shoulder.

I turned, my guts clenched with dread—it was
the same behind us. We were trapped, as neatly as rabbits in a
baited snare. They had led us here, and we were trapped.

My javelin was lying at the bottom of our
boat. I picked it up. I would not sell my life for nothing.

“By the bright gods, Lord—no!”

It was Kephalos’ voice. I looked down and saw
him, his hands clasped in supplication, his face a mask of
terror.

“They will slaughter us, Lord,” he said, only
a little softer. “Stay your hand from this rashness. I beg
you.”

In an hour, I thought—perhaps less—we might
wish they had slaughtered us. Yet he was my friend. I had led him
to this. His life was not mine to give away.

I let the javelin drop from my hand.

I sat down to wait. There was nothing else to
do.

The boats drew near, and someone in one of
them threw a grappling hook over our prow and took us in tow. They
hardly glanced at us, their eyes looking past us. The red cloths
with which they protected their heads from the sun framed faces as
dark and seamed as old leather. They said nothing, these men. They
showed no sign of triumph, as if our capture brought them no more
merit than if we were oxen being herded home to be penned up for
the night. Perhaps they were merely disappointed in us. Perhaps we
had been too easy.

This is defeat, I thought. This is what the
Medes felt when I humbled them in their own mountains. And now it
has come to me. My god was deserted me, and my
simtu
will be
a shameful death at the hands of my enemies. What I felt was almost
like remorse.

“Forgive me for this, Kephalos,” I said. “It
seems I have brought you to your end.”

“Lord. . .” He moved his shoulders in a
despairing gesture. “Regret nothing, for I do not.”

Not even he believed it. Yet I was both
touched and appalled. He had risked everything for my sake, and I
had as good as murdered him.

For an hour they dragged us through the
water. I could hear the insects buzzing, as monotonous as death. My
heart was black within me. I cursed my own folly, the blindness of
my heart, and I cursed the Lord Ashur.

At last we came to a village—a village of
reed huts, floating on an island of reeds.

Our captors, throwing lines to others who
waited on the shore, shouting orders at them in a tongue of which I
understood not one syllable, prepared to moor their boats. Women,
old men past any use, hard young warriors, and children barely old
enough to be left alone, they all stood about, talking and making
incomprehensible gestures, like people at a bazaar. It was hardly
the reception I might have expected from this fabled race of
warriors. We could as easily have just returned from a fishing
expedition.

One man, at last, stepped forward, resting
his hands upon his hips, grinning in obvious triumph through his
great dark beard. In this wild place, his black tunic was shot
through with silver. There was a glittering sword in his red sash
and rings of gold and precious stones on his fingers, but these
were not what made him so striking a figure.

He was no taller than his fellows, nor was
there any unusual grace to his person or beauty in his strong,
broad face, crowded with sharp and irregular angles. A lump, the
size of a grape, appeared over his right eye—his one distinguishing
feature. Yet even this somehow only enhanced the general impression
of a man with perfect confidence in his own powers. He had the
bearing of a king.

“Prince Tiglath Ashur,” he shouted, in only
slightly accented Akkadian, and raised his arm. “I am glad you have
arrived among us at last, Lord. I was afraid that in the marshes
you might have come to harm.”

VI

The
mudhif
of My Lord Sesku, who
styled himself King of the Halufids, although he was no more than a
tribal chief, was perhaps eighty paces in length and fifteen in
width. The ceiling and walls, which consisted of several layers of
reed mats, were held up by eleven great arches, the columns
consisting of bundles of reeds, each as wide as a man’s shoulders,
roped together and bound at the apex. The whole structure, in fact,
had been built of nothing except reeds, as was everything else in
the village, for there was neither stone nor wood to be found in
the marshes, and even mud for bricks would have had to be dredged
up from the bottom of the channels. Reeds, on the other hand, were
everywhere.

This was not the king’s home, for he lived in
a humble dwelling no grander than that of his poorest subject.
Except perhaps to sleep there for a night or two, no one lived in
the mudhif. This was where Sesku received guests and petitioners,
where he dispensed justice to his people, where he held banquets to
honor his victories in war and the festivals of his gods—and, as it
happened on this occasion, the arrival of an important visitor.

“You were surprised I knew you, Great
Prince?” he asked as we sat cross-legged on the reed mat floor,
drinking buttermilk together. It was an agreeable drink after the
huge meal—I had been served first, and then Sesku’s retainers in
strict order of precedence, and only last did one of his servants
bring Sesku himself a small plate of lamb and rice, for it would
have been unthinkable for the king to have eaten before all of his
guests were seen to.

Poor Kephalos was pegged down on the cold,
damp ground by the boat landing, his fate still unsettled. As,
indeed, was my own.

“My Lord, I am surprised even to be alive,” I
answered.

This made Sesku throw back his head in
laughter. His retainers, when he repeated my answer to them,
laughed too, beating the ground with their reed canes in sign of
appreciation, although what I said had not been intended as a jest
but merely as a statement of fact.

“Great Prince, there is nothing to be
surprised at in that,” he said finally, wiping his eyes with his
sleeve. “The king in Nineveh, who is your brother, has driven you
from his lands and desires your death. Word of this has reached us
even here, for the Lord Esarhaddon has caused riders to be sent in
every direction, and I have my spies, even in the great city of Ur.
Your brother is a rash man who will doubtless come to a bad end
someday. He hates you, and thus, as he is my enemy, he makes you my
friend. My people are poor, but their king is not a savage who
kills against his own interests. No—I would spare your life if only
to annoy the Lord Esarhaddon, but that is not the only, nor even
the best reason.”