Watson, Ian - Novel 16 (22 page)

 
          
The
sketch was finished in a few minutes, but then Alex had to kneel for a further
hour while the tattoo artist patiently dug little holes in his flesh with different
needles and rubbed in flecks of what looked frighteningly like cobalt and
cadmium. He tried not to flinch too often or otherwise betray pain. Blood and
sweat dribbled down his chin, to be mopped periodically with a dirty rag. He
had no idea whether Thessany observed the whole of the process. He felt as if
the needles were tapping into the nervous system of his head, as though to
extract his mind and make a copy of it.

 
          
Eventually
the tattooist rubbed his needles clean on the same rag, packed them away, and
left the bench, humming to himself.

 
          
Alex
tried to rise, on creaking knees, but Anshar thrust him down again. ‘Now it’s time
for your slave's haircut.'

 
          
A
fat cook-like woman brought a bowl of water, bar of soap, scissors, iron razor,
and thumped herself down where the tattooist had sat. She snipped his locks,
stropped the razor on stone, sending sparks flying, soaped his head and carved
till only a crest of hair remained.

 
          
‘I’ll
do you once a month,’ she said, ‘unless your hair grows fast, in which case
it’s barbering once a fortnight.’

 
          
At
last he was able to rise. He had been allowed to keep his scrubby growth of
beard.

 
          
Anshar
pointed to a reed door. ‘Strip and clean up. I’ll kit you out in a kilt.’

 
          
It
was a different Alex who was led into Thessany’s room an hour later. A
bare-to-the-waist, shaven- skulled, kilted, lion-tattooed Alex. There seemed to
be a permanent cold numb spot on his cheek.

 
          
Thessany
clapped her hands in delight. ‘What a Babylonian you’ve become! You may go,
Anshar. I shall explain this slave’s duties to him.’

=
        
As soon as they were alone, Alex
observed, ‘You don’t seem unduly sad about Moriel’s murder.’

 
          
‘An
awful upset, I agree. At least the man trained his staff properly. The lovely
wig I ordered for my wedding will not disappoint.’

 
          
‘Your
wedding?’

 
          
She
toyed with a silver comb. ‘Yes, let us speak of that, rather than of dead
hairdressers. Especially considering the circumstances of his . . . his . . .
hmm . . .’

 
          
‘His
squalid betrayal by a mage? To whom you paid
my
money - to discover the contents of
my
little scroll.’ ‘Yours! When you simply found it in the street?’
She laughed. ‘Anyway, if it’s yours, who owns
youT
She did not, however, deny that she knew the contents of the
scroll, even though Moriel had been killed before he could report back to her.
Alex noted this omission.

 
          
‘Since
I’m able to buy my freedom, I presume there are laws governing the property of
slaves.’

 
          
‘Oh
yes. But one never knows how a law will be interpreted.’

 
          
‘I
don’t suppose you’d want me to complain to a magistrate about this matter. Or
to your father.’

 
          
She
tossed the comb down. ‘Wedding dates need to be fixed, so I suspect you’ll see
my father at prayers this evening. A genuine personal appearance! Much will
become clear to you, Mori.’

 
          
‘What
did you call me?’

 
          
She
stared out of the window.

 
          
‘You
called me Mori. Pet name for our departed friend. I’m not a new Moriel for
you.’

 
          
She
turned. ‘No, you know so much less than him.’ She walked to him, cold fire in
her eyes, and fingered the lion mark on his cheek. ‘I shall have to make do
with second best, and educate you in the ways of intrigue. Delicious intrigue.’
She let her hand sink.

=
        
‘Won’t Praxis run sly errands for you?’

 
          
‘Praxis,
at heart, is a bit of a puritan. A moralist. Even more so than Anshar, who
utters morals out of mere unoriginality. Praxis will dislike you, without fully
knowing why. If you seem obedient he won’t punish you arbitrarily.’

 
          
Alex
swallowed. Her touch had made his numbness smart painfully. ‘So I’m not moral
enough to suit Praxis, am I?’

 
          
‘You’re
a mixture of distrust and treachery and ambition.
Would-be
clever treachery; frustrated lustful ambition. You also
share with . . . you-know-who . . . a certain streak of masochism, the desire
to have people punish and betray you, in your case because you have failed to
live up to expectations. Those, for instance, of your clan, who expected
something else from you ... Yet you also imagine that these self- inflicted
punishments of fate free you from your personal obligations, thus giving
amoral rein to your own smothered desires, which this city might fulfil.’

 
          
‘Is
that all?’

 
          
‘No.
You also protect yourself with a species of wit - cold irony - so as to appear
strong when in fact you are callow, lacking real experience. One of the prime
reasons why you distrust people, why you cannot give yourself, is that no one
else really exists for you in your egotism. Other people are objects. You are
the only subject, the only “I”. Other people are merely inventions, though
often admittedly unco-operative ones.’

 
          
‘Am
I by any chance your mirror,Thessany?’

 
          
‘You
shall address me as “Mistress”. For now you are my subject. You may not be able
to give yourself, but I have taken you. I told you once in Ishtar’s temple that
I prayed for you. Now I
have you.
¹

 
          
‘On
the subject of giving oneself, this husband - ’

=
        
‘Wit. Bankrupt wit.’

 
          
‘Who
is he?’

 
          
She
smiled. ‘I suppose we are two of a kind.’

 
          
‘You
and him?’

 
          
She
tutted. ‘You, slave, and me. So be my mirror; and I will polish you. My future
husband is Muzi, son of Lord Gibil the financier. Gibil is rich, through crude
cunning. Muzi is a bit brainless, but he makes up for it with bravado. His
passion is hunting wild beasts. He is athletic, a handsome young stallion ideal
for taming and training; and when he gets too pent up I shall always let him
have his head. What he cannot conquer in me he can compensate for by
slaughtering lionesses.’

 
          
‘Risky
business. A lion might bite his head off, leaving a rich widow.’

 
          
‘You’re
being impertinent.’

 
          
‘Sorry.
Please continue polishing me. Tell me what’s in the scroll that was worth
killing for.’

 
          
‘Wait
till after you’ve seen my father. An event is better than a thousand words.
That’s why I had you tattooed like a temple slave. Otherwise you wouldn’t have
properly experienced your change in circumstances. That tattoo is the seal on
our private contract.’

 
          
‘A
lion tattoo,’ said Alex. ‘And Muzi is a lion-killer.’ ‘Yes, isn’t that
appropriate? I suppose he thinks of me as the trophy he has won thanks to his
own gallantry.’

 
          
Alex
asked on impulse, ‘Do you know the story of Andromeda? The
Andromeda
of Euripides?’

 
          
‘No.
Why?’

 
          
As
well as he could, Alex recited the speech of Andromeda in bondage about
gallantry of the heroic kind, and gallantry towards women.

 
          
When
he had done, Thessany clapped.
‘Excellent
and deserving slave! I ought really to give you a lute so that you can sing
such speeches to me. Of course she went on, ‘lesser egotists always feel the
need to ingratiate themselves. Admiration is important to them; so that they
can justifiably admire themselves. You may go now, slave/

 
          
Alex
was allocated a roll of bedding and told that he could sleep in the courtyard
at nights, or in the kitchen doorway. He had no room of his own, though
undoubtedly there were rooms to spare. Mama Zabala the cook slept in the
kitchen itself, on the floor, always near to her bread oven and brick range
with its elevated troughs for charcoal braziers where meat was cooked.

 
          
Following
a light lunch of lentil broth, a barley-cake and a plate of awkward undesirable
parts of several river-crabs - then a brief siesta under the shade of the fig
tree - he spent the afternoon fetching water, scouring copper frying pans,
peeling, and grinding corn in a handmill of volcanic stone. Mama Zabala’s
intermittent chatter built up his picture of the household - as regards
menservants, maids, the slightly lame but doughty doorkeeper, the horse stabled
round the back, and the two cats.

 
          
Mention
by Alex of his new mistress produced respectful discretion rather than the
intimate domestic outpouring of affectionate anecdote which he had rather been
hoping for from a motherly cook in a house lacking any other matron.

 
          
Mention
of Thessany’s father seemed to fill Mama Zabala instantly with superstitious
awe and anxiety. She kneaded her amulet, a clay blob, by now barely
identifiable any longer as an elephant, thanks to several years of rubbing and
squeezing.

 
          
That
evening Alex found out why.

 
          
A
gong boomed.

           
‘Time for chapel,’ announced Mama
Zabala. ‘Come! Afterwards we eat.’

 
          
She
led him across the courtyard to a wide door of dangling reeds. Several oil
lamps failed adequately to light a large, windowless, corbel-vaulted room.
Maids and doorkeeper and Anshar were already kneeling on hassocks, facing a
wall with a heavy black door-size curtain hung midway. A circular, jet-black
rug at the foot of this curtain made it look as though a dark shaft opened down
into the earth. There were no statues, no images of any god, no offerings of
roast lamb or wine or barley-cake; just the curtain, the rug, and a single
incense bowl.

 
          
Mama
Zabala urged Alex to kneel; and knelt herself, somewhat more cumbersomely than
an elephant. A groom hastened in, followed by Praxis; both knelt down. A couple
of minutes later Thessany arrived, dressed in a white silk gown. She walked
around the little congregation and knelt in front, a few cubits from the dark
shaft. Alex looked for her father, but no one else had come.

 
          
Then
Thessany cried out: ‘Come, Lord Marduk, Mage of Magi, Father of us all!
Lugalugga, Dumu- duku, Bel Matati, Shazu, Tutu, Suhrim, Zahrim! Hear us, bless
us, tell us.’

 
          
The
black curtain flew aside; Mama Zabala moaned softly. Behind was empty, clotted
darkness. The next moment a dazzling figure stood on the black rug. He hadn’t
stepped out from the darkness. He had appeared instantaneously, blindingly. His
most disconcerting feature was his beard, which was plaited tightly thrice.
Three furry auburn tentacles sprouted downward from his chin to the middle of
his chest, making him seem not a human being at all but some other species of
creature - something ancient and horrid who fed himself by means of those hairy
appendages. He wore a triple-horned crown which matched, aslant, the horns of
his beard. His eyes were watery blue, his nose squat, his lips fleshy and
sensual. Silver lions embroidered his cloak. He stood motionless, staring into
the chapel.

 
          
The
figure just had to be a
holographos
,
such as had appeared to Deborah. A piece of future
tekhne
here in the chapel of a Babylonian house! What’s more, the
figure could be none other than Thessany’s father. It must also be the god
Marduk in the guise of his high priest!