The Blood Star (46 page)

“Had he found out, he would have killed me. I
have often wondered why he didn’t anyway, since he regards me as
even a greater traitor than you.”

“Yes, that wound goes deeper. I may have
raised the rebellion against him, but he never loved me.”

Nabusharusur smiled. As so often with him,
looking into his smooth face, on which no beard would ever grow, I
could not tell if he mocked me or not.

“How did you come to this place?” I
asked.

“Oh, it is not a very exciting story.” He
shrugged his thin shoulders, as if to dismiss the idea that one
such as he could ever pretend to heroism. “I simply rode hard
enough to keep ahead of any news of the battle. I told anyone I met
that I was a courier in the king’s army—I was dressed as a soldier,
so they had no reason not to believe me. I sold off my jewelry as I
needed money. The horse, by the way, dropped dead on the road to
Hamath, but I was able to buy another. I was in hiding here in
Sidon when the king renounced his allegiance to Nineveh, so I
offered him my services, from which he has been profiting ever
since. I have risen very high in favor here, for Abdimilkutte
values my counsel. These people are not as clever as they would
have the world imagine, or, at least, this one is not.”

“I congratulate you, then, on your good
fortune in finding this place of refuge. The Sidonians, no matter
what you think of them, seem to have timed their defection for your
particular convenience.”

My words had been spoken partly in jest, but
Nabusharusur did not take them so. He shook his head.

“Fortune had little enough to do with it,” he
said. “There were rebellions in half the states in the empire after
Esarhaddon took the throne, and he has spent most of the years
since quelling them. It is so with every new king, for these
foreigners seem not to bear our yoke lightly. In our father’s day
it was Tyre that led the revolt of the Phoenician cities. This time
Sidon has taken her place while Tyre, out of pique, remains loyal.
We have conquered the world, we men of Ashur, but if we hold it at
all it is only because each of these little states hates its
neighbors even more than it does us.”

It was early evening, but Nabusharusur had
dismissed all his servants and we were alone together in a large
room that had a view of the harbor. We spoke in Akkadian, but my
brother was a cautious man and doubtless did not care to have our
conversation overheard. He ate a sparing meal, picking disdainfully
at the dishes before him, yet he did justice to the wine—this
seemed to be a habit he had acquired in exile. We had been friends
as children, but much had come in the way since then and I had to
keep reminding myself that I hardly knew this man.

“Will the king persist in his rebellion if
Esarhaddon takes the field against him?”

“A sensible man would not, but Abdimilkutte
is not a sensible man.” Nabusharusur smiled again, that smile which
spoke so eloquently of his contempt for the whole race of men. “A
sensible man would make an arrangement for perhaps a lower rate of
tribute and count himself fortunate, but the king of Sidon is not
that man. He is not like his subjects, who think only of profit. He
dreams of glory, of the old league of Phoenician states, with
himself at its head. I, of course, foster these dreams, for if he
comes to terms with Esarhaddon my head will certainly be part of
the bargain. But I think I am safe enough for the time being—they
are neither of them sensible men. Esarhaddon burns and slaughters
wherever he goes and by his own lack of moderation stiffens the
resolve of the likes of Abdimilkutte. I am not the only one who
fears for his head.”

“If Esarhaddon brings an army here, you would
both do well to settle your affairs. You know how he is. He will
resent the city’s defection as a personal affront, and he will not
rest until it has been punished.”

“This is true—I count on it to be true.”

The smile, by this time, had taken on the
fixed character of a mask. It revealed nothing now, not even
contempt. With great delicacy Nabusharusur lifted his wine cup to
his mouth and then set it down again. It was like a ritual, a
statement of confidence before the gods.

“What game are you playing, brother?” I
asked, wondering if I did not already know the answer.

“What game? The same one I have always
played.”

He offered me a plate of glazed plums and I
took one, hardly knowing why. I did not even eat it but set it down
on the table in front of me.

“I have come to believe, Tiglath my brother,
that truly you must be favored by the gods. The world is an evil
and corrupt place and you are an honest man who has never learned
guile. Yet you seem to survive every catastrophe. I think, finally,
you will outlive all of us. And I believe that your presence here,
in this city, at this precise moment, is a sign from heaven that my
designs will prosper. For, you see, I intend to destroy Esarhaddon,
and I shall use Sidon as my instrument.”

“You are mad,” I said, with something like
awe. “I think perhaps you have always been mad.”

“You think so? Perhaps. But life itself is a
kind of madness, and thus I am counted as a clever man.”

“Then what will you do?”

“Wait—stiffen Abdimilkutte in his purpose,
and hope that Esarhaddon is as great a fool as I have always
believed and swallows the bait.”

He raised his arm and made a sweeping gesture
through the air, seeming to encompass not only the room where we
sat but the whole city.

“You are a soldier, Tiglath, so you know even
better than I that a besieged city cannot be taken so long as it is
well provisioned. We are not a sailing race. Esarhaddon may be able
to hire a few warships to patrol in front of the harbor, but the
Sidonians have a vast fleet and will keep themselves supplied no
matter what. Let Esarhaddon come—let him camp beneath the walls of
Sidon, wearing himself out until the army grows so weary of his
obsession that they cut his throat.”

“It will not succeed, brother. Esarhaddon may
be a fool, but he is a good soldier. He will find a way.”

“You had best hope he does not,” he answered,
leaning towards me, grinning like a demon—yes, of course he was
mad. “I have spoken to Abdimilkutte, and you will not be allowed to
leave the city until he has settled with Esarhaddon. If Esarhaddon
triumphs. . . Well, brother, I leave it to your judgment. How long
do you think you will survive once the king of Ashur has you in his
hands again?”

“How did he know, so quickly, that you were
in the city?”

“Who can tell? Perhaps he saw me. Perhaps he
did not need to, for Nabusharusur is the sort of man who will find
out anything of interest to him.”

Kephalos shook his head in perplexity and
alarm. At that hour of the night, and with me summoned away by the
king’s herald, he was deep in wine. I did not blame him.

“And he can keep us here,” he said. “Indeed,
he can keep us here. The city is a trap if he chooses to make it
one—the harbor is patrolled and there are only three gates through
the wall, all of them guarded. He has us sealed inside like wine in
a jar.”

“He has me sealed inside,” I corrected him.
“Get out while you can, my friend. Take ship to Greece. No one will
trouble to stop you and you can do me no good by staying here. Take
Selana with you.”

“Selana will not go.”

I had not seen her standing there in the
doorway of my room. She looked pale and shaken—I wondered how much
of our conversation she had overheard.

“You do not know what you are saying,” I told
her, with some asperity, for I was in no temper for girlish
heroics. “If the worst happens, and the Assyrians take the city,
you will be carried away into slavery—always provided, of course,
that you have not starved to death or been massacred first. Go with
Kephalos while you have the chance.”

“I am your slave already.”

“You are my slave only because it is your
perverse humor to call yourself such. If you are carried out of
Sidon as war booty, you will find it is a very different matter. I
should not like to think of you growing old as a tavern harlot in
Nineveh.”

“Master, is the king of these Assyrians
really your brother?” she asked, deliberately changing the subject.
I knew these tactics of old.

“Yes, he is my brother. And the man who
stands at the right hand of the Sidonian king is also my brother.
And both of them hate me as much as they hate each other—I do not
expect much benefit from my family connections. Will you go,
Selana?”

“No, I will not go. My Lord is a great fool
even to think it. A slave’s place is with her master.”

“A slave’s place is to obey, and it is my
will that you should go. If need be, I will have Enkidu carry you
aboard the ship in a leather sack.”

“Enkidu will not go either. You know
that.”

“Then you must go without them,
Kephalos.”

But the worthy physician, made melancholy
from drowning his fear in too much Lebanese wine, could only raise
his hands in a gesture of despairing resignation.

“What am I to do, Lord—am I to be shamed by
the courage of a child? No, the little bitch has sealed all our
fates. I too will stay. Perhaps, after all, it will all come out
right.”

He did not believe it himself. There was
sweat in the creases of his face and his eyes were damp with panic,
but, as he had in all the many crises of my life, he meant to stay
and do what he could for me. The gods were kind to grant me so
loyal a friend, for I never deserved it.

“Perhaps,” he went on, “perhaps the Lord
Esarhaddon will not even come.”

But we had not been in Sidon half a month
when the first reports began to be heard. An army, numbering
between eighty and a hundred thousand strong, was on the march down
the northern caravan route from Kadesh.

“You see?” Nabusharusur was almost beside
himself with triumph. “He comes. Of his own will he sticks his head
into the noose. I knew this was a temptation Esarhaddon would never
be able to resist.”

Because, of course, no nation save the Land
of Ashur, not even the Egyptians, could have fielded so many men.
And if the cities by the Northern Sea were to be brought to heel,
Esarhaddon was not the ruler to sit quietly in Nineveh and let his
generals steal the glory of it. He was a soldier long before he was
a king, and he had waited all his life to command great armies. My
eunuch brother was right—he would never be able to resist.

“Yet we shall see, at last, whose head is in
the noose.”

Nabusharusur only stared at me, as if he
hardly believed I could be such a fool. They were both mad, both of
them—hatred and the taste of power had turned their wits. Neither
of them cared what they did, or how the world suffered for it, so
possessed were they by their private demons.

Thus the siege of Sidon began.

I suppose what surprised me the most was the
calm with which her people greeted the approach of this the
mightiest army on earth. To them it seemed almost a matter of
routine—after all, this was not the first time foreign invaders had
camped beneath the walls. There was not even a sense of
urgency.

The men of Ashur were still four days’ march
distant when the villagers from the surrounding countryside began
streaming through the city gates, the men leading small flocks of
goats and the women carrying great bundles balanced on their heads,
usually with a child on one hip and another, a few years older,
clutching a handful of skirt as they trailed behind. I wondered, as
I watched them arriving, how many of Esarhaddon’s spies were mixed
in with these crowds.

The first effect of this influx was a sharp
rise in the price of everything except meat, for the Sidonese were
quick to see an opportunity for profit and the refugees had to sell
their animals at once to keep from starving.

On the night his patrols had spotted the
first scouting parties of cavalry, Abdimilkutte ordered the gates
closed and barred. The next day there was nothing except a great
cloud of dust on the horizon, but the morning after, standing on
the city walls, I could watch the long columns of soldiers fanning
out over the plain that spread eastward to the mountains. By midday
they had sent out foraging parties and established a series of
camps, and by twilight the first lines of earthworks were already
in place. The reports had not exaggerated. Esarhaddon’s force was
at least a hundred thousand men, as large an army as that which had
assembled for Khanirabbat.

The next morning, a herald rode up to the
main gate bearing the king’s terms for accepting Sidon’s bloodless
surrender. A clay tablet was carried to the palace, but the herald
would not be content until anyone who cared to hear knew
Esarhaddon’s demands: the city must pay thrice over the five years’
tribute that was due, and that at once; since his soldiers were not
to be cheated of their rightful booty, the citizens must submit to
two days of peaceful pillage; a selection of prisoners was to be
taken, up to the number of a thousand, and carried back to Nineveh;
and Abdimilkutte was to abdicate, since he had proved himself
unworthy, and leave the throne to whichever of his sons Ashur’s
king thought best. In exchange, the people of Sidon would be
granted their lives and liberty, and the city would be spared.

It was not an offer to attract much
enthusiasm, particularly since the Sidonese did not believe their
city could be taken, not even by an army of a hundred thousand men,
but I had no doubt, even then, that Esarhaddon intended to have it
refused. He was looking for a pretext. He wished to make an example
of Sidon, one that would not be forgotten until the world was
dust.

“The king, naturally, rejected such terms at
once,” Nabusharusur reported, with no small satisfaction. “He was
frightened, of course—he is always frightened—but it took me only a
little time to restore his valor. Is it not wonderful how
Esarhaddon makes the way smooth before me?”