The Assyrian Read Online Free PDF Page B

silence. I
could even hear the faint whispering of the wind overhead. For that
instant I thought I might really have won.
    But then I was answered with laughter,
laughter that boomed like thunder, like the laughter of the god
Ashur himself. How dare they? I was so filled with wrath that I
wished to shed tears until I saw that it was not the priests who
were laughing. They had forgotten my existence. They were on their
knees, their races pressed against the dusty stones.
    And then I saw them, across the courtyard, in
the shadow of the arcade, two men. I strained my eyes to see
clearly and, as if to oblige me, they stepped out into the
sunlight.
    One of them I knew. He was the turtanu
Sinahiusur, the king’s brother; he stood silent and majestic as
before, wise and heroic.
    But I hardly had eyes for him. I was looking
at his companion, he who had dared to laugh at me, who laughed
still. His tunic was covered with gold. I thought I was in the
presence of a god.
    He gestured toward me with his arm, his lips
still smiling.
    “Bag Teshub—Uncle.” he said. “This is but a
boy, though he roars like a lion, eh? Take the knife from him.”
    Bag Teshub picked himself up from the stones
and came toward me, bowing even as he walked.
    “Give me the knife, Tiglath. We are not in
the schoolroom now. This is the—augh!”
    He had come too close. The knife struck out
and cut him across the hand so that red blood spattered his arm and
rolled to the ground. I waved my little weapon threateningly and he
jumped back and out of danger. And the thundering laughter sounded
again.
    “He is as he styles himself, eh, brother?”
the golden man said, turning a little toward Sinahiusur. “This one
has the bowels of a prince, eh?—yes? I am convinced, so let it be
as you think best. He shall be spared the knife.”
    Sinahiusur said nothing. He merely placed his
right hand upon his breast and bowed. And then he turned his eyes
to me.
    “Bow down, Tiglath Ashur,” he said, in a
voice like the stroke of an ax. “Bow down before the king thy
father.”
    My knees became as water and I fell to the
stone floor, touching it with my forehead I was in the presence of
the god’s chosen one, and my mind was clouded with awe. It was
Sennacherib who stood before me, whom I myself had named Lord of
the Earth.
    “Come to me, boy,” he said, his voice all
gentleness. “Come and let me see you.”
    In all my life I had never yet seen the king
my father, and now I stood before him. He rested his hands upon my
shoulders and my eyes clouded with tears.
    “Do not be afraid, my son. Have a lion’s
heart and I will make you great in the land of Ashur. How is that,
eh? Better?”
    There was a slight sound. It was Bag Teshub,
his bleeding hand wrapped in a scrap of linen, clearing his
throat.
    Yes—what is it, Uncle?”
    “What of the other, Dread Lord?”
    Because, of course, we had forgotten all
about Nabusharusur. He stood in the shadow of a pillar as if he
wished to disappear altogether. I do not know what I felt for him
in that moment; perhaps my heart was too glutted to feel anything
more.
    “Yes, of course.” The king’s face went hard,
though his hand still rested lightly enough on my shoulders. “I
think one lion is enough for this day, eh? Fulfill your task,
Uncle.”
    The priests were quick this time. They gave
Nabusharusur no chance to resist but lifted him from the ground by
his arms and legs. He screamed, he filled the air with his shrill
voice, but in an instant he was upon the altar stone and the cruel
knife had begun its work.
    “No, do not turn away, my son,” the king
said, laying his hand upon my cheek so that I could not. “Learn to
be a man and shrink not from pain and blood.”
    And so it was that in my ninth year I learned
what it meant to become a man of Ashur.

Chapter 2
    Sinahiusur was a pious man, a respecter of
omens. He had remembered the child who was born the night the great
Sargon died, and thus it was that the god’s