The Blood Star (100 page)

He had then proceeded to teach me everything
he knew of the poisoner’s art, and that turned out to be a great
deal.

“The Greeks are less gifted in these matters
than the eastern peoples,” he said. “Yet I have traveled widely,
both in the pursuit of knowledge and through the vicissitudes of
fortune, and I have learned much from the physicians of many
nations. Believe me, Lord, when I say there is little safety in the
world. A man may cut an apple in half and share it with you. You
will die while he will live, because only one side of the knife’s
blade was coated with venom.”

Esarhaddon’s health had been declining for
some time—since that episode in Egypt, in fact. Had someone been
weakening him, little by little, for so long a period?

“
Poisons vary in their effects,”
Kephalos had explained.
“Some are more subtle than others, but
each leaves its characteristic mark. One has only to look for
it.”

I did not have to look very far. I found it
on the hand I held in mine. Obscure but visible, showing through
the fingernails, tiny flecks of pale brown, like traces of
long-dried blood.

“
Aphantos. Little known and difficult to
obtain in sufficient quantities. It comes from the seeds of a drab
little flower called the Philozoös, found in only a few places in
the world because it needs heavy brine to thrive—even the sea is
not rich enough in salt to sustain it.

“
It is not an efficient poison, for it
must accumulate in the body over a long period, and thus its
administration is a tedious business. Yet it has the virtue of
being indetectable, save for those spots under the nails, which
hardly anyone would even notice.”

Esarhaddon’s sleep was deep and untroubled. I
left him for a moment and stepped out into the hallway, where a
guard was posted. I called him to me with a silent gesture.

“The king’s physician, the Urartian Menuas.
Do you know where he is at this moment?”

“Yes,
Rab Shaqe
. Shall I send for
him?”

“No. Have him placed under close arrest. Take
him by surprise, and be sure he has nothing secreted on his
person—I will hold you responsible for his life, so be sure he has
no opportunity to take it himself. Have his medicine box brought to
me.”

I went back to the couch where Esarhaddon
slept and sat down again, having decided to say nothing to him
until I was sure, and perhaps not even then. I did not entertain
much hope.

Salt-laden water where the Philozoös might
grow—how many such places were there in the world? The Bitter Lakes
in the Sinai, at the threshold of Egypt. The Great Salt Lake,
called the Dead Sea by the Moabites. And, greatest of all, the
Shaking Sea in the kingdom of the Urartians—I had been there, and
the waters were as harsh as death.

Who would know better of the properties of
the Philozoös flower than a physician from Tushpah? Who indeed.

When Esarhaddon woke up, we spoke again and
he was able to eat a little something. Then he drifted back to
sleep. I took the opportunity to bathe and catch a few hours’ rest.
I would leave Menuas to sweat at least that long. He would be all
the better for the wait.

When I awoke it was already late into the
night. The physician’s medicine box was on a table in my room. It
contained a collection of surgical instruments, carefully wrapped
in linen, and several small pottery jars sealed with waxed and with
the name of the substance each contained scratched on the side.
Some of these I could identify, others not. One jar was marked
“Siburu,” which I knew from Kephalos, who used it on himself as a
treatment for thinning hair, a dark powder taken in beer or sweet
milk. Yet the powder in the jar was a pale brown—almost precisely
the color of the flecks in Esarhaddon’s nailbeds. I tried a little
on my tongue and found it tasteless. Siburu is almost
unpalatable.

I went to Esarhaddon’s room and questioned
the officer in command of the watch.

“Does the king still sleep?”

“Yes,
Rab Shaqe
.”

“That is well. Take me to where you are
holding the physician Menuas.”

My orders had been carried out scrupulously.
I found the prisoner, stripped naked and chained by the hands, feet
and neck so that he could not even stand up, in a windowless room
not much larger than a baker’s oven. The expression on his face
when I opened the door was one of sheer terror, although, after so
many hours in the dark, he may merely have been dazzled by the
light of my oil lamp.

I crouched on the floor beside him, setting
the lamp down between us, and the guard closed the door from the
outside. Menuas and I might have been alone in the universe.

“By the great gods, Lord, I have done. .
.”

“Do not lie, Physician,” I said, interrupting
him. “Do not add perjury to your sins, and do not insult me by
implying that I can be deceived. I have examined your medicine box
and found the Aphantos with which you have been poisoning the
king.”

For a moment he said nothing. He merely
whimpered abjectly, as if his sufferings had robbed him of his
wits. And in truth I found it impossible to feel any anger against
this wretched man. Who could say what threats or promises Naq’ia
had marshaled to make him do her bidding.

And yet the murder of a king is a fearful
thing.

“It—it is a remedy for impotence,” he said
finally, perhaps not even daring to hope he would be believed. “It
is a remedy. . . It is. . .”

I smiled at him wolfishly.

“I have known the king since we were boys
together,” I answered. “I have never known him to lack force in his
loins, although his passions are cool enough now. I have neither
the will nor the power to save your life, Physician. Yet if there
is to be any mercy for you, you must speak only the truth.

“Is there an antidote?”

He said nothing. He merely stared at me with
his small, frightened eyes, not yet ready to accept that there was
no hope for him.

“Do you know what punishment is reserved for
crimes such as yours?” I went on at last. “You have raised your
hand against the Servant of Ashur—do you know what will be done to
you? You will have the hide stripped off your body while you still
live. Can you imagine what that is like? I have seen it done, and
it is terrible even to watch. The men who do it are greatly
skilled, and they take their time, since they want their victim to
remain alive and sensible to the very end. Thus they begin at the
palm of the hand, you see, and they peel away the skin in a single
piece, even taking the fingernails, and then they cut up the inside
of the arm. . .”

He opened his mouth as if to scream, but no
sound came out.

“Can you imagine, Physician, what it must be
like to be no more than a piece of raw, bleeding meat, rolling
around helplessly in the dust, unable even to close your eyes
because your face as been flayed off, and your eyelids with it?
Finally they will feed you to the dogs, and you may be still alive
even for that last indignity. Think of it, Physician—you might die
only when the king’s hunting dogs have torn you to pieces. You
might even live to hear them snarling at one another over the
bloody scraps.”

I paused, to give him time to imagine it all,
to let his mind fill with expectations of pain and horror. That is
the point of torture, to focus a man’s attention on his suffering,
and thus make it unbearable.

I could not save him from his fate—no one
could. Yet it served my purpose to let him think so, if only for a
while.

“Spare yourself,” I said, breaking the
silence. “If you can, spare yourself this death. Is there an
antidote?”

For a few seconds he seemed capable of
nothing except little choking sounds, as if the words had caught in
the back of his throat. Then he swallowed and looked away for a
moment, trying to compose himself enough to allow him to speak.

“There is no antidote,” he whispered, without
raising his eyes. “In the beginning, if the poison is stopped, the
effects will pass off of their own. But by this stage there is
nothing to be done.”

So it was finished. Nothing could stop the
slow ebbing of my brother’s life. I had not really expected
otherwise, but the heart seemed to turn to stone within my
breast.

“Was it poison in Egypt?” I heard myself
asking. Menuas hesitated and then nodded his head. “The same?”

“No—another. A stronger poison called—“

“I do not care what it is called. Why did he
not die then?”

“When you started to suspect, I was too
frightened to administer the fatal second dose. The Aphantos was
more like the normal progress of disease, so I have been giving him
small amounts ever since the end of the last campaign. The
Lady—“

“Do not speak her name, dog!” I grabbed the
iron ring around his neck and pulled him to his feet so that it
almost strangled him. “Never speak her name—neither to me nor to
anyone else!”

I released my grip and he dropped back to his
knees, almost gagging as he tried to catch his breath. He was a
pitiful villain to have committed so great a crime.

“How long, then, can the king live?”

“Perhaps two or three days—no more.”

He raised his pleading, tear-filled eyes to
me, his lips shaping the first words of a soundless prayer that I
might give him at least a crumb of hope, but I rose and tapped the
door to let the guard know to open it. I was finished with this
man.

“Two or three days,” I repeated. “So be it
then, Physician. You have sealed his fate and yours.”

“Lord—pity. . !” He tried to throw himself at
my feet, but his chains would not let him and he merely toppled
clumsily to the floor. “Lord! What am I to do?”

“Do? Prepare for death.” The door opened, and
I snuffed out my oil lamp. “Turn to the gods for mercy, Physician,
for you will find it nowhere else.”

Esarhaddon slept until morning, and I waited
by his bedside, trying to decide what to tell him. He was the king,
from whom the truth must not be hidden, yet he was also my brother,
and how could I steal all hope from him by revealing that he had
been poisoned, and that he was past all cure? And how could I
darken his last hours by telling him that the poisoner who had
robbed him of his life had been sent by his own mother?

In the end I told him nothing—the ties of
blood and love meant more than the duty of a subject. Yet when he
awoke he seemed to know all without being told.

“Call my officers,” he said to me, almost as
soon as he had opened his eyes.

“It can wait. Take a little something to eat
first.”

“No, Tiglath. Call my officers. There is
little time left—I can feel it. And soon enough I will have no need
of food. Call them.”

I did so, and soon the room seemed crowded as
the
rab shaqe
of the army filed in and took their silent
places around Esarhaddon’s sofa. There were perhaps twenty-five of
them, not merely the leaders of this expedition but commanders from
every garrison within a week’s ride. Some of these men I had known
since boyhood; others had been my comrades-in-arms at Khalule and
Babylon, and in the Zagros when we waged war against the Medes. A
few had risen up during my years of exile, but I had marched at
their side through the Wilderness of Sin and taken their measure in
battle against the Egyptians. These were soldiers, men who could be
trusted.

And all had been brought hither by news of
the king’s illness, ready to do their master’s bidding while he
lived and, should he die, to secure the peace of the empire
according to his will. It seemed as if all the armed might in the
world was focused in that tiny space.

I helped Esarhaddon to sit up, arranging some
cushions to support his back, since he was too weak to do it for
himself—he had spoken no more than the truth when he said he could
feel his end coming, for he was failing rapidly.

“I am close to death,” he said, in the voice
he might have used to discuss his plans for a battle. “I have made
certain decisions touching on the next reign, and I wish to know if
you will support them. I will be gone, gentlemen, so the matter
will be in your hands.”

He closed his eyes for a moment, as if
gathering strength, and then opened them and looked about him,
turning his gaze from one face to the next. No one spoke.

“The
marsarru
is young and without
experience,” he went on. “We are entering a time that will be full
of war, and I do not believe he is ready for the burden of rule—he
may never be ready, but this is a thing which only time can reveal.
Until then it is my will that my brother, with whom you are all
acquainted and who needs no words from me to make his glory known,
shall act as
turtanu
. The boy Ashurbanipal shall have the
name and honor of kingship, but all power, in peace and war, shall
rest with the Lord Tiglath Ashur.”

I felt a cold shock go through me, for
nothing had prepared me against this. I tried to keep all
expression out of my face and to avoid the eyes of the men who all
at once were studying me as if I were a stranger to them.

“Well?” Esarhaddon glanced about him
challengingly. “How is it to be? Will you abide by this? Have none
of you anything to say?”

There was a brief buzz of conversation as the
commanders of the king’s army exchanged whispers, and then Kisri
Adad,
rab shaqe
of the
quradu
, an old soldier whose
loyalty and integrity were beyond question, stepped forward.

“So long as the life and honor of the
marsarru
are respected, and his right of succession, which
each of us has sworn to uphold, then no one here will withhold his
obedience from the Lord Tiglath Ashur, whom every man honors.”

He turned his gaze from the king to me,
seeming to demand an answer to his unspoken question. Yet for the
moment I was silent—I seemed to have lost the power of speech.