The Blood Star Read Online Free PDF Page B

had
acquired.
    And when I turned to go, there he was,
standing in the doorway, no longer even attempting to conceal
himself. He was waiting for me.
    I stopped when I saw him. We stood staring at
one another for a moment and then he glanced about, almost seeming
to fear that someone might have been following him, and then
approached me as warily as if I had been an adder.
    “What do you want of me?” I asked.
    “You are the Lord Tiglath Ashur,” he said, as
if this constituted an answer. “You need not dissemble—even without
the god’s mark on your hand, and though you have shaved off your
beard and dress now like a foreigner, I would still have recognized
you. I saw you once when I was still a boy. You came to Arbela,
where my father was an omen reader at the shrine.”
    He was hardly more than a boy now—perhaps
sixteen, perhaps younger. Perhaps as young as I was when I first
went to war and put my boyhood behind me forever. He was still as
beautiful as a girl, and his eyes were large and dark. He had yet
to learn guile.
    “I ask again. What do you want of me?”
    “Not to betray you, Dread Lord. I was sent by
the rab abru , who is a man without respect for the gods, to
follow behind and see where you dwell. He plans to wait until after
dark and then come and arrest you—he will not take the risk in
daylight, for he fears a disturbance if it became known that you. .
. Also, he does not trust his own soldiers. There are many in the
army who believe that you are he whom the Lord Ashur loves, the
true king.”
    “Esarhaddon is the king.”
    “He wears the crown—yes. But the god has
always put wise and noble men to rule over us in the Land of Ashur,
and you would never have turned your face from your brother as he
has from you.”
    What could I have said? Nothing, in that
moment. My heart was too full. I felt humbled by the unsought
loyalty of this stranger, for in those whom they would follow men
always see what is finest in themselves.
    “What do you want of me?”
    “To do your will, Dread Lord. Whatever you
require of me I will do, even to the forfeit of my own life.”
    He meant what he said. I could see it in his
face.
    “Do you know the wineshop of Kupapiyas of
Hatti?”
    “Yes.”
    “Then tell the rab abru that I dwell
there—it is the truth, so you will have fulfilled your commission.
Yet you might wait a few hours before you tell him.”
    “It shall be as you say, Dread Lord. You had
much business in the bazaar and were a long time about it.”
    “What is your name?”
    “Ishtar-bel-dan, Lord—named for the patron
goddess of my city.”
    “Ishtar-bel-dan. It is a name I will remember
all my life.”
    There was no more to be said between us. He
turned, as if to go, and then came back to kneel before me, taking
my right hand in his and touching it to his forehead, as if I were
the king in truth.
    Then he rose and left. I never saw him again,
but I will not forget him until I am dust.
    And there were but a few hours left in which
to purchase my life.
    I did not return to the wineshop of
Kupapiyas—there was nothing to prove that Dinanu had no other eyes
with which to watch me. But the stable keeper had eyes only for the
silver I counted out into his hand. He was willing enough to carry
a message for me.
    “Find me a fat Ionian who will know you are
from me when you say it was the son of Merope who sent you. Tell
him to come back here quickly, as he values his life. Tell him not
to leave anything behind.”
    The stablekeeper hurried off, promising he
would be back with my Ionian before the day was a quarter of an
hour older, but the time seemed to stretch on endlessly. I bridled
the horses and put blankets over their backs and then went up to
the hayloft, where I could watch the street. It struck me as an
even wager which I would see first, Kephalos or a patrol of
soldiers come to carry my head back to Nineveh in a jar.
    I could hear the sounds from the peddlers’
stalls and the low, busy