Word Fulfilled, The (23 page)

Twenty-nine

Nineveh, the Privileged Quarter

Twelfth Day of Du’ûzu, the Sixth Hour

ani eased herself onto Ianna’s sleep mat, her eyes red and swollen. She stared at nothing, while she caressed the folds of her daughter’s blanket. The house was so quiet, so . . . dead.

Mordac’s death was little more than a blur, a surreal dream that hovered just beyond her mind’s reach. She thought she remembered somebody scream, then someone pounded on the door. Suddenly there were people in the room, and two men carried something out, something large. A woman whispered in her ear; Hani had no idea what she said. Hani had merely gazed into the woman’s face, and that’s all she remembered until she woke this morning. Alone.

Hani spent the morning in a daze, her blanket clutched to her chest. At midday, she found herself with a piece of flatbread by the cold cook fire. She wasn’t hungry, but it was time to eat, she thought. The crust of bread went no farther than the back of her throat before she gagged it back up. Now she sat on the floor of the main room next to Ianna’s sleep niche, and tears poured down both cheeks. She wasn’t sure why.

Ianna.

The thought of her daughter sparked in her mind. She crawled to the light scrim that covered the alcove and nudged it aside. Leaning her back against the cold clay wall, she buried her head in her daughter’s woolen coverlet. She fancied Ianna’s fragrance in the fibers.

Her blurry gaze fell on the small collection of her daughter’s belongings. A hand-fashioned doll Hani made when Ianna turned five years old leaned precariously to the side, propped up against an earthenware bowl. The bowl brimmed with an assortment of stones her daughter had collected on the banks of the Idiqlat and Tabiltu Rivers over the years. Atop the pile perched a small brooch of silver and lazuli lapis, a gift she had asked Mordac to make for their daughter’s seventh birthday. It was his only begrudging acknowledgment of Ianna’s existence that Hani could recall. She picked up the trinket and turned it over in her hand. Surely there had been other times that Mordac . . .

Mordac. Where was—

Something in her mind told her not to finish the question. She obeyed.

Hani fingered the piece of jewelry, and her mind wandered back to the day Ianna was born.

Lll

It was a long labor, a difficult one. When it was over, Sari, the midwife, told Hani she had passed out three times near the end, but Hani didn’t remember that. Finally, somewhere in the darkness of the second night, through her pain and fatigue, she became aware of a tiny bundle on her stomach. She vaguely remembered she had pushed, then lay back from the birthing position after uncountable cramps, screams, and convulsions. She squinted at the bundle through glazed eyes. In the dim lamplight, it looked vivid purple, save a large splotch of ebony-black—was it hair? The bundle lacked any discernible features from her angle of view. She could barely feel its weight on her depleted abdomen. But she did notice there was no movement. Hani laid her head back onto the thin mat.
Stillbirth? All this, and my baby is dead?

Sari knelt over the tiny form and worked feverishly to clear its airways. She pinched and slapped the bundle to prompt an acknowledgment of life. Hani could hear her cluck and coax the infant to respond. Finally, Sari sat back on her ankles.

Hani’s parched lips quivered on a face pale from the loss of water and blood—and from fear. “S-sari?”

The midwife looked at Hani. She reached out to brush a wisp of sweat-drenched hair from the exhausted woman’s forehead. Then she smiled. “It’s a girl, Hani. A beautiful girl.”

Hani’s eyes flew back to the bundle. “But, is she—”

A flicker of movement cut her words short. Nineveh’s newest citizen flailed her feeble arm in the still air of the early morning. Hani’s eyes welled up, and she choked back an involuntary sob. Her eyes again met Sari’s, and she managed a weary grin. “A daughter.”

Sari tied off the umbilical cord and began to swab the baby. “Yes, a lovely daughter. She fought birth, no?”

Hani nodded, then frowned. “I hear nothing. She does not cry.”

“She is silent, true, but wait until you see her eyes, Hani. I have never seen such depth in a newborn’s eyes. She is very much alive, yes, very much.” Sari wrapped the infant and nestled her to her mother’s shoulder.

Hani twisted her body for a better look. “Is she whole? She’s so tiny—” She grimaced as a cramp gripped her abdomen.

“You must lie still, Hani. You still have the afterbirth to pass.” Sari loosened the infant’s cloth and shifted the baby to Hani’s breast. “Yes. She has the right number of fingers and toes. Her head is pressed, but that’s from the strain of birth. It will correct itself.”

Hani prodded her nipple with a fingertip against her daughter’s mouth until the infant settled into a soft suckling. She couldn’t take her eyes from the beautiful, blotchy, miraculous, misshapen face of her new daughter. “Welcome, my young one, my . . . daughter,” she whispered.

Sari smiled. After she poured a cup of water and urged Hani to drink, she moved to the foot of the mat. The practiced midwife frowned and tugged gently on the umbilical cord. “Come, come. Let’s not be difficult.”

Another cramp overtook Hani’s abdomen and then eased, and Sari rose to dispose of the last evidence of birth.

Hani jolted from her fixation on the baby. “Mordac. He doesn’t know.” She looked up at Sari.

The midwife smiled. “I’ll tell him.”

Sari rose and limped on stiff joints into the main room. The light of dawn crept down the narrow street, where Mordac sat outside the door, his head lolling as he fought drowsiness.

“Mordac?”

His head jerked and he struggled to his feet.

“Sari! What—is Hani—is everything—”

Sari smiled. “She’s fine, Mordac.”

Relief relaxed his face, but anticipation squeezed his voice. “Is it—”

“Mordac, you have the most beautiful daughter I have ever delivered. She is perfect. Her . . . Mordac?”

Mordac’s face clouded over. “A daughter? A girl?”

“Yes, a daughter,” Sari said softly. “A very lovely daughter.”

He stepped back and dropped his gaze.

“Hani asks for you.” She searched his face, but it was blank. “Mordac?”

His eyes flicked up to hers, and he muttered under his breath, “Yes. I just need to . . . I’ll be there. A daughter . . .”

Sari cocked her head and turned toward the door.

Hani looked up when Sari stepped back into the niche. “Sari?” She looked past the woman. “Is Mordac—”

“He’ll be right in.” Sari smoothed the front of her tunic and avoided eye contact with Hani. “He just needs a moment.”

Hani nodded and returned her attention to her baby.

Two hours later, long after Sari went home, Hani and her baby drifted off to sleep. Alone.

Lll

Hani wiped the latest of countless tears from her cheek. She began to replace the brooch, then stopped. She turned it over in her hand once more, then closed her fingers over it and pushed herself up from Ianna’s sleep mat. She set her jaw. Her mind was made up.

The linen cloth over the entrance to Ianna’s sleeping niche rippled as Hani slipped back into the main room.

Lll

“She is ready.”

Thirty

Nineveh

Twelfth Day of Du’ûzu, the Ninth Hour

ews of the royal delegation’s imminent arrival spread quickly. The city magistrate whipped his staff into action, caught off guard by only a half-day’s notice. This was unheard of. The Senior Scholar, closest of the king’s advisors, en route to Nineveh with no advance warning? He fumed as he fired instructions to his first assistant. This was a serious breach of protocol. How was he supposed to prepare properly for the king’s emissary when he had no word of when or why he was coming?

Ahu-duri sighed as he planted a weary foot on the dusty road in front of the king’s nearly completed palace. He hated to travel. Especially on land. To ride the great river was one thing, but to rock to and fro on the back of a smelly, insolent camel was another. Time was short, though, and his mission afforded him no choice in conveyance. So he rocked to and fro. And he scowled.

The caravan’s entrance through Nineveh’s Ashur Gate went unnoticed to the vizier. There was so much to do and so little time. He didn’t know whether to blame his headache on the task at hand or the camel.

“Good health and long life to you, Vizier.” The magistrate’s narrowed brow belied any sincerity in his greeting. Surrounded by his closest advisors, the city official dipped his head in perfunctory respect. Two scribes stood ready with waxed wooden boards to record any instructions the king’s legate might utter. Four slaves supported poles from which banners of light fabric shielded the delegation from the midday sun.

“And to you, Iqisha.”

Ahu-duri’s brusque reply stoked the magistrate’s irritation. The vizier’s apparent disinterest in the trouble he had gone to in preparation for this no-notice visit added to his annoyance. The Senior Scholar didn’t even look at him. Instead, his eyes darted around the new palace complex. Iqisha gritted his teeth. This was not going to be a good visit.

Ahu-duri barely heard the magistrate’s greeting. The king had levied a last-minute order for a progress report on the palace upon the delegation’s return. The vizier was caught short at how the construction languished. He shook his head. Adad-nirari would not be pleased.

Iqisha’s high-pitched voice snapped his train of thought.

“To what do we owe the honor of your presence in Nineveh, my lord?”

Ahu-duri glanced down at the magistrate, still bowed before him. He sighed and wiped the sweat from his brow with a sleeve.

“A matter of urgency for the king, Iqisha. My sincerest apologies for the lack of forewarning. Please let us forego the usual protocol. I need your help. Where can we speak in private?”

Lll

Ahu-duri reclined in the corner of a walled garden that adjoined the new palace. He didn’t want to stress the magistrate’s services any more than necessary, so he decided his entourage would stay in a completed part of the complex for the few days they were in the city. True, these were more austere accommodations than he was used to, but the stay here would give the vizier greater opportunity to inspect the building. He slipped a morsel of cheese into his mouth and chased it with a sip of wine as he reflected on the day’s activities.

The meeting with Iqisha earlier that afternoon had gone as well as could be expected. The city magistrate received the reason for Ahu-duri’s visit with calm, but the vizier noticed him pale as he digested the king’s intent to designate Nineveh as the source and the seat for a substitute king. The royal advisor didn’t blame him. It was a serious issue that his city and one of his citizens was to become the target of wrathful gods for over full three phases of Sin. Iqisha chanced a curt reminder to his visitor that Nineveh had just begun to enjoy a period of renewal. Was it really a wise move to lift the city to the attention of displeased gods? Ahu-duri reminded him that the king’s decision was just that, the king’s decision. He omitted the fact that Nineveh’s selection was his own idea. That would only complicate an already strained visit. His aide’s grating voice interrupted his ruminations.

“Sincerest apologies, my lord. You have a visitor.” Karehi threw an irritated glance over his shoulder toward the courtyard gate.

“A visitor?” Ahu-duri frowned.

“Yes, my lord. A woman. I told her you were at rest, but she insisted. She says . . . she says she’s your sister.” The steward averted his eyes.

“Oh. Of course. Please see her in.”

The man tinged red at the cheeks. “It’s just that she’s a—”

Ahu-duri’s mouth lifted into a thin smile. “Yes, I know. And I do have a sister in Nineveh.”

The aide’s eyes widened. “Of course, my lord. I didn’t mean to imply—”

“See her in, Kaheri.”

“Certainly, my lord.” The aide spun on his heel and hurried back the way he came.

Kaheri returned a moment later with the woman. She stood with her head bowed while the steward presented her.

The vizier nodded. “You may go, Kaheri. Oh, and bring another cup of wine.”

“Yes, my lord.”

Ahu-duri rose to his feet. “Sister, it has been a long time.”

She kept her head bowed. “Thank you for receiving me, Brother. I know you’re busy and—”

“Nonsense, and you need not be so formal. Come, sit.”

The woman raised her head and ventured a smile at the second most powerful man in the realm. “Thank you.” She settled onto a low stone wall that bordered one of the courtyard’s floral plots.

Kaheri returned with the wine and another small plate of fruit and cheese.

Ahu-duri nodded and the aide left them alone. His sister lifted a grape and fingered it as she pondered how to begin.

“I only just heard you’d arrived in Nineveh. The whole city wonders what brings a king’s delegation to us.”

Ahu-duri raised an eyebrow. “I am sure they do, and rightly so. It is a matter of great urgency.”

She cocked her head.

He shrugged. “The word will come out officially tomorrow, but there is no reason you cannot know now. There has been a series of bad omens over the past several days. Sin dimmed unexpectedly, Nin Ur has shaken the earth in Kal
ḫ
u, a ram sacrificed to Marduk was diseased—and worse, the
baru
who performed the extispicy fell ill and died. Very bad omens indeed.”

The woman’s eyes widened. “We have heard none of this. What of the other gods? What of Nabu, of Ishtar?”

Her brother shrugged. “That is all we know. The gods have not answered the
muhhu
through the lots or the leaves. But enough has happened that King Adad-nirari has decided to invoke the
ugu lugal
tradition to avoid any coming wrath.”

“The substitute king? That is serious. He must indeed be concerned. But why does that bring you to Nineveh?”

“To avoid the anger of the gods falling on Kal
ḫ
u—especially while we recover from the effects of the earthquake—the king decided to select a candidate from Nineveh and install him here.”

The woman grew thoughtful. “Do you know who that will be yet?”

The vizier shook his head. “King Adad-nirari has entrusted me with his seal to make the selection. I have seven days to complete my task and report back to him. The king has no relatives here. We may have to select a commoner if no nobleman can be found who is suitable, or who cannot buy his way out of it.”

“A commoner.” She knit her brow. “Is that done?”

“Rarely, but there is a precedent.”

The woman paused, then a subtle smile touched her lips.

Ahu-duri cocked his head. “Something amuses you?”

She shook her head. “Please let me know when you begin your search. I may be able to help.”

Her brother frowned. “My search has already begun. How could you help?”

The smile on her face broadened. “There may be a common solution to both of our problems. Don’t let it distract you now. I’ll be in touch with you.”

Ahu-duri shrugged. “All right. So, tell me, Sister, how are things at the temple under the new High Priestess?”

Hulalitu smoothed her light blue tunic over her thighs. “They have been . . . interesting.”