The Assyrian Read Online Free PDF

priests removed
from Belushezib’s body as roughly as they might have ripped the
skin from a rabbit. The boy kept screaming the whole time, as if he
really were being flayed alive.
    At first I understood very little of what was
taking place. I saw two of the priests holding Belushezib down upon
the altar stone by his arms and legs while another, carrying a
leather cord in his hands, stepped forward and made a loop with it
around Bclushezib’s private parts, choking off the scrotum as he
pulled the cord tight. It was all done in the calmest, most
workmanlike manner, as if they were cooks in the king’s kitchen
dressing a sheep for the night’s banquet. Nabusharusur and I
watched in horror as the fourth priest produced a knife with a
curved blade and sliced open the scrotum, letting its bloody
contents spill out over Belushezib’s legs. I thought the air would
shatter with his shriek of terror and pain.
    And then, of course, everything was plain to
me.
    “How dare they?” I thought. “How dare they do
such a thing?” But they did dare, and as I felt Bag Teshub’s hand
on my shoulder I knew that I was next.
    I looked up into his beardless face—he was
smiling at me. The skin around his neck was loose and jiggled when
he moved. He was fat and strengthless, and he had been the old
king’s brother.
    Suddenly I understood why my mother had been
so afraid, and why Naq’ia had smiled.
    Yes, of course. Esarhaddon was not here. He
was safe, should the throne come to him. And I was here, about to
have my manhood stripped away from me before it had even begun.
    And Bag Teshub could smile.
    “No—not to me.”
    Whether I actually spoke these words I know
not, but they filled my mind. My father was the king, and they
would not do this to me.
    They had finished with Belushezib. One of
them took a torch, dripping with burning pitch, and seared closed
his wound. He screamed yet once more, but no one paid any heed.
They were already turning their eyes to me.
    “Go on, Tiglath,” Bag Teshub whispered. “It
is over in a moment. Show them what a brave boy you are.”
    He gave me a gentle push forward. The priests
were content to wait for me. The one with the curved knife balanced
it in the palm of his hand, almost playfully. I took a step, then
another, then another. I hardly knew what I was doing.
    I would have been a warrior, and a warrior
tells himself he is not afraid of suffering and death. I was not
afraid of the pain—and I hardly knew what death was. But this
shameful dishonor. . . No, it must not be allowed to happen.
    I knew what I had to do.
    They were far from expecting resistance. I
approached them meekly, my eyes upon the ground, like the boy that
they thought me to be. The one with the knife was closest to me,
his back to the altar stone. He was so sure he had me in his power
it was almost like an invitation.
    I was only a boy, but my mother had taught me
to be agile and quick. I shuffled my feet as I approached him. I
kept my eyes down.
    Then, at the last moment, when he began to
reach out his hand to me. I rushed at him with all the sudden force
I could command. It was enough—I hit him just above the knees,
striking hard with the palms of my hands, and he rocked back,
losing his balance. He fell backward over the altar and, as I had
expected, allowed the knife to slip from his grasp.
    It fell clattering to the stone floor. While
they all recovered from their surprise I had just time to scoop it
up as I ran to one of the pillars that supported the arcade around
the far end of the courtyard. I ran like a deer, my heart pounding
within me. I did not stop until I had that massive granite pillar
at my back. I turned, the knife in my hand, to face my
tormentors.
    “I am Tiglath Ashur!” I shouted I was half
mad with fear, but it was mingled with a strange exultation such as
I had never known. “My father is Sennacherib, Lord of the Earth,
King of Kings! Come near me at your peril!”
    For an instant there was only