To Ride the Gods’ Own Stallion (15 page)

Naboushoumidin spun the ivory cylinder seal on the thong around his neck. He studied the blue one around Soulai's.

“Does Habasle have my tablet?” he asked.

Soulai fidgeted. “I don't know,” he mumbled. “Really, I don't.” He looked up. “But I do know he's sick; he might even be dying. He needs your help.”

“If he's dying, he's beyond anyone's help but the vultures'. And if he's sick he needs an asu.”

Soulai sighed. He understood. The scribe hadn't gotten what he wanted and therefore he wasn't going to give him what Habasle needed. “Thank you anyway,” he murmured. He began backing Ti along the wall. Where am I going to turn now? Soulai wondered.

“Describe his demeanor,” Naboushoumidin commanded.

Soulai stopped. He looked down at his toes—funny, he was dressed as a prince and yet stood barefoot—and tried to remember everything. “He has the fever,” he recounted carefully, “and a worm crawls in and out of the hole in his side—the one he got from the lance. And he's cold, and then he's hot. The spirits take over his tongue,” he said, remembering Habasle's rantings at Dur Sharrukin. “The ashipu put an amulet carved of lapis lazuli in his pouch—Habasle said it was an uridimmu, a mad dog or mad lion, but I think the uridimmu already took his dog's form, because he got the sickness, too, and he's already dead and still Habasle's not right.”

“One of his hunting dogs died? How?” The scribe was taking a keener interest now.

“A boar killed him when—”

“Oh, well, that is no sickness,” he interrupted.

“But the dog was acting strange ever since we left the palace,” Soulai argued. Maybe the man would help after all. “He was drooling and he wouldn't eat or drink—even when he was standing in water. He wouldn't come near us, even when Habasle ordered it, except that when the boar was on top of Habasle, about to kill him, Annakum charged through and killed it. But just as Annakum was dying he tried to bite Habasle. I know he had the sickness. It's the curse, isn't it?”

Naboushoumidin scratched his beard again. “Where did all this take place?”

A small alarm sounded in Soulai's head. “On the road to Harran,” he said truthfully.

“And how did you find a boar on the road to Harran?”

“Well, it was near the road. Ti was thirsty so we headed for the river. That's where the boars were. We killed two of them.”

“Mmm.” The scribe continued stroking his beard.

Panic kicked at reason again. Soulai considered running. “I think I'd better be going,” he said nervously. “Do you…know the cure?”

The smile twitching on Naboushoumidin's face made Soulai very uneasy. “Aren't you the slave who wished Habasle dead?” he asked. “Why are you now risking your life to save him?”

Soulai just stared, frozen. This was the hare's final moment, he thought, too frightened to bound away. He couldn't even save himself.

Naboushoumidin clapped his hands loudly, making Soulai jump. “Scribe!” he called into the marketplace. Several faces turned and Soulai shrank behind the cart, then straightened, for why would a noble be trying to hide?

A young scribe with a damp tablet of clay and raised stylus appeared. He glanced questioningly at the mismatch between Soulai's royal clothing and his bare feet.

“Now write this exactly,” the gray-haired man said. “‘So says Naboushoumidin, chief scribe to Ashurbanipal, king of all Assyria, to Habasle, son of Ashurbanipal. Drink down in its entirety milk in which a lizard has been boiled. Then say these words: He is long of leg, a fast runner. He does not need much food, is a poor eater. But to his teeth clings his seed; wherever he bites, he births a son. Away with him.'”

Naboushoumidin paused while the boy continued pressing the stylus into the clay. When the finished product was handed to him, he looked it over, took the stylus to correct a few strokes, then handed it back. He lifted his cylinder seal off over his head and rolled it across the bottom of the wet clay, leaving his signature pattern—an endless line of men carrying tablets into a library. Then he took a coin from his pouch, dropped it into the hand of the waiting scribe, and, taking back the tablet, dismissed him.

“Habasle reads better than he writes, so he should be able to understand this.”

“Thank you,” Soulai said. He unwrapped the robe from Ti's neck and carefully bundled it around the tablet.

“I can send someone with you, an asu if you'd like, to tend to the hole in Habasle's side.”

Soulai shook his head. He was already searching the area for a place to get some goat's milk for Habasle, and measuring the distance to the Nergal Gate for a hasty escape.

“This cure, you understand,” Naboushoumidin was saying, “is specific to the mad-dog disease. You say that the ashipu has set upon Habasle the uridimmu's curse. But I remind you that madness can take many forms.” He smiled with a warmth that Soulai remembered from their talk outside the library. “You come to me again if you need me.” With a nod, he backed away.

Soulai took a deep breath and, holding the robe with its valuable tablet close to his chest, led Ti into the bustling marketplace once more. He tried not to look around, but his eyes strayed. Fortunately he saw neither Jahdunlim nor the ashipu. When he spotted Mousidnou talking with a barley vendor, he ducked aside and hurried his steps, but the stable master didn't look his way.

A woman pulling two donkeys jostled her way in front of him and Soulai paused to let her pass.

“Well, the little bat returns in the daylight.”

Soulai froze. The ashipu's long fingers gripped his shoulder and spun him around. Two other men, by the ashipu's order, tore the reins from Soulai's hands. A sharp blow to his stomach doubled him over. He fell to the ground, almost passing out, but through the nauseating fog managed to hear the ashipu exclaim, “What is this? Who are you?” A sandaled foot rolled him onto his back, exposing his face.

With his head reeling and vomit rising in his throat, there was no way Soulai could answer. He didn't have to, for the ashipu was already celebrating his triumph.

“Why, you're Habasle's slave. He's dead, isn't he? The curse has worked! You've got his clothes and I've got his horse. I knew it. The stars spoke of the death of a pretender to the throne and this proves it. It's over.”

A heel slammed into Soulai's skull, once, twice, and a third blow landed on his throat. The clip-clop of horse hooves blended with the clamor of the marketplace, and then there was only the sun shining too brightly in his eyes and the vibration of many feet stepping around him.

Hysteria

If anyone noticed Soulai's misery, they soon forgot, for a shriek split the marketplace.

“He's dead!” a woman screamed. “My son's dead!” Through bleary eyes, Soulai caught a glimpse of her carrying the blood-covered body of a small child. The crowd closed around. Each curious newcomer asked the same question—“What happened?”—and received the same shrugged answer. But gradually, trickling back from the hysterical crying, came a murmur. “A lion!” “She said she saw a lion.” The words leaped across the knots of people like a wildfire. “There's a lion loose here in the city.” “A mad lion!” “A killer lion!”

Numbed beyond caring, Soulai let the news blaze around him. Then he heard another voice, as familiar as it was angry: Mousidnou's.

“Where in the name of Nergal have you been hiding your skinny ass?” he roared.

Soulai couldn't come up with a response, so he lay there, stupefied, until a hard kick landed between his ribs. He moaned and rolled over.

“Plagues! Looks like you've traveled through the underworld, boy. But where's the parti-color stallion? If he has but one hair out of place—one hair, mind you—I'll skin your worthless hide myself.”

“I didn't steal him,” was all Soulai managed to say. Then a horse's shrill whinny rent the air. “They're killing him. They're killing him,” he cried, looking around wild-eyed.

Mousidnou tried to pull him upright. “Here, now,” he scolded. “Sit up. I can't understand your whining. Who's killing what?”

“Ti. The ashipu is killing Ti. I was trying to save him but they took him—and I let him go. It's my fault.”

The stable master looked around in vain. “Here, now,” he said again. “Sit up.” He tugged at Soulai once more. “Come out of the sun, boy.”

Somehow Soulai managed to grab the fallen tablet before Mousidnou's beefy arm lifted him to his feet and steered him toward a shaded bench alongside the palace wall.

“Now,” the man growled when Soulai had surrendered there in a slump, “where in the name of Nergal have you been for the better part of a week and where's my other horse? I'll not lose my head to Habasle because some thickheaded stableboy decided to go off on a gallop. You're lucky he hasn't come to the stables since his lion hunt.”

“But he has,” Soulai protested. He lifted the cylinder seal off from around his neck and handed it to Mousidnou. “He's the one who took Ti—after dark. Habasle said the ashipu was trying to kill him…and Ti, too, for a sacrifice and—”

“Wait! How did you get to be a part of all this? Did Habasle order you along?”

Soulai flushed. “I was worried about Ti. And Habasle was leaving so fast that I didn't have time to throw a rug on one of my ten. I just grabbed the chestnut and rode him without even a bridle. I wasn't stealing; I was looking out for Ti.”

Mousidnou studied the carved blue pendant in his palm with a doubtful frown. A horse's piercing whinny made Soulai jump up again. He was certain it was Ti.

“That's him! We have to help.”

Skeptical, the stable master cocked an ear. There was no subsequent call. “If the ashipu has chosen the horse for sacrifice,” he said finally, shrugging his round shoulders, “then perhaps that is the best use for him. You heard the charioteer: he's been ruined for the hunt or for war.” He looked past Soulai and sighed. “That stallion you favor isn't the first one to be cast aside as useless. And on a day like this, with every man sharpening his knife for battle, a quick slit across the throat sounds better than being left behind to rot within city walls.”

“But Ti's not useless,” Soulai argued. “He has Ninurta's mark—the hawk, you saw it—god of the hunt
and
of war. He'll prove himself; I know it. We have to stop the ashipu,” Soulai pleaded.

“We?” Mousidnou repeated with a sneer. “Who has such power? The ashipu makes the stars move in the skies.”

“Habasle says
he
can make the moon come and go.”

“Then where is the all-powerful Habasle? If he cares so much for this horse, where is he?”

“Do you know a place called Dur Sharrukin?”

Mousidnou narrowed his eyes and nodded slowly.

“Habasle's waiting there; he was too sick to ride so he sent me.” Soulai paused. “At least, I think he's still waiting. The ashipu said just now that Habasle's dead. He said he read it in the stars.”

For what seemed like a long time Mousidnou stroked his beard and studied Soulai. Finally he said, “I guess I'm sorry to hear that. I had no love for the boy, but I feel less for that red-robed monster. He's got plans for all of us, some say.”

The stable master's words surprised Soulai. “But what if Habasle isn't dead?” he argued. “What if the ashipu is wrong? Naboushoumidin gave me the cure for his sickness—it's right here.” He showed the tablet to Mousidnou, who gave it a cursory glance.

“And just what is my part to be in this?” the man asked.

“I need a horse…two horses, to bring Habasle back.”

“Do I wear the look of an ox?” Mousidnou shouted. “Are you calling me stupid to my face? A stableboy steals two of my horses and sneaks off in the middle of the night and now I'm to give him two more and open the gate?” He shook his head in disgust. “If the ashipu says Habasle's dead, you can believe it. I'm not risking necks—of people or horses—to bring back a corpse. There's plenty of those on the way.”

“What do you mean?”

“The Medes are challenging our borders. That's why everyone is preparing for war. The word is all over the city.”

Soulai nodded. “That's what Habasle said. He made a drawing on a rock—”

“Everyone on watch,” interrupted a palace runner. “A lion's loose from the zoo. One dead already.”

Both Soulai and Mousidnou looked back toward the marketplace. The stable master became more agitated.

“Look here. I've horses to protect, if nothing else. So I suggest—no, I order—you to return to your work. You're to make up for the week's worth of chores another has had to do in your place. Now go. Go!”

Soulai moved toward the stable, shuffling at first, then picking up speed as he came up with a plan. He'd promised to save Habasle, and that's what he was going to do. Besides, Habasle had said he had something that the ashipu needed. He prayed that that would somehow save Ti.

The instant he entered the stable, Soulai retrieved two sets of tack, chose a horse from his ten, and set about readying him. He was just tightening the girth when Mousidnou came stomping down the aisle.

“What are you doing?” he demanded.

“Riding back for Habasle,” Soulai answered firmly. “He's the king's son and it's my duty to save him.”

Mousidnou scowled. “When was the last time you slept?”

“That doesn't—”

“You're in no condition to ride; you'll fall into the first moat and drown.”

Soulai's fingers halted as he matched a determined stare with the stable master's.

“Plague it! You'd better be right,” the man growled. Handing back the blue cylinder seal, he slapped his stomach and his demeanor changed. “It's been a great many years since this belly's been astride.” He grinned at Soulai's stunned expression. “They're all getting ready to ride off to battle, thinking I'm too old, or too fat, maybe, to join them. Well, I'll show them. Now light a fire under your feet, boy,” he roared, “and take the rug off this gray horse; he's a spine splitter. Find me an older one, with a soft back. That small gelding will do, the one with the chewed-off tail.” He indicated the horse and Soulai quickly moved the rug and fastened the bridle.

Another horse was tacked for Habasle. “I'll bring back his body one way or another, I guess,” Mousidnou said. “Now, you're sure the source of all this trouble is still at Dur Sharrukin?”

Soulai nodded. “He was inside the gatehouse of the main entrance when I left him. Here's the tablet with the cure against his sickness. Naboushoumidin said to boil a lizard in milk—I was thinking goat's milk would do—and make Habasle drink it.”

A broad grin lit Mousidnou's face. “Gladly. Now,” he said, a stern look extinguishing the smile, “you are to polish the hooves of your horses as well the ten on either side of yours. I want every mane combed out and every forelock and tail braided. They're going to war soon and they'll need to look like the king's chariot horses.”

Stableboys peeked out from everywhere to watch Mousidnou balance on the edge of the water trough in order to climb onto his horse. While he was respected as a knowledgeable horseman, no one had ever before seen him ride. Astride and waving like a boy off on an adventure, he headed out of the palace. Just before he disappeared beneath the shadows of the lamassu, his final, oath-laden shout sent the stableboys back to their work.

All except Soulai, who waited alone in the courtyard, listening for Ti's whinnies. None came. I have to sneak away and look for him, he thought. But images of slashing claws and bloody fangs suddenly filled his mind—there was a lion loose in the city and he could be anywhere—he could be watching the stable at that very moment. Soulai felt his palms grow damp. He looked at the terraces above, tried to take a step toward them. Dusk was already falling. Maybe he'd have better luck finding Ti in the daylight. Hating himself for his cowardice, Soulai fled inside the stable.