The Assyrian Read Online Free Page B

wrestling, at which you are not gifted. You would have kept your
distance and worn me down until you could toss me over on my face
with one of your fine Ionian tricks. Girls—paugh!”
    It was all a splendid joke, and I laughed
with him. I had no objection to admitting to Esarhaddon that, yes,
there was something ever so slightly ludicrous about this passion I
had conceived for our little cousin, who could not fight with a
wooden sword or stand on her hands or even wrestle, who cried when
the lightning frightened her, who could only smile and admire and
bewitch.
    “You are a foreigner, of course—if you were a
real man of Ashur you would know better than to melt like beeswax
just because she looks at you.”
    “I am no more a foreigner than you, you son
of a Babylonian!”
    This time he was not quick enough to avoid
the foot I placed behind his knee to tumble him over backward.
    A quarter of an hour later, when we had both
washed the dirt from our faces in the fish pond, it was still a
splendid joke.
    “Well, you will be cured fast enough. When
she is the wife of Ashurnadinshum, and that will be sooner than you
think, you will have to get over this folly of yours.”
    “I don’t see why.” I answered back, perhaps a
little too loudly—for part of me knew even then that there was
something dangerous about my feelings for Esharhamat. “Just because
she is queen, I don’t see why we can’t go on loving each other.
What should it matter to Ashurnadinshum?”
    “Tiglath, my brother, for all that you are a
clever Ionian, by the god’s will there never was born so great a
fool.”
    . . . . .
    As with the approach of a thunderstorm, as
the time for parting drew nearer, the air in the house of women
seemed to grow heavy and hard to breathe. Bag Teshub became ever
more anxious and seemed to whirl with business as he prepared us
for our final recitations, and those of the king’s wives and
concubines who had sons of leaving age withdrew into the silence of
their own hearts. And Naq’ia, as she watched me from the fountain’s
edge, smiled as if she knew all the secrets of my future life.
    At last, when my mother could no longer
restrain her tears in front of me, she gathered me in her arms,
covering my head with the heavy bronze curtain of her hair, and
wept as if she were to lose me to death. It was the first time I
tasted fear.
    “You will see, my little prince.” she said in
between her sobbing. “You will see how the god of this land
protects you from your enemies. The god’s mark upon you will see
you through every danger—you will see. You will see.”
    “What enemies could I have in my father’s
house?” I asked. It seemed suddenly an important question.
    “None from whom the greatness of your destiny
cannot protect you. You need be afraid of no one.”
    And when I looked into her eyes, flooded with
tears, I knew at once that she did not credit her own brave words
and my heart quailed within me.
    “We will not be parted long, Merope. When I
am a great general and high in the king’s favor, I will win you out
of this place.”
    My mother smiled, as if she believed me.
    When I left my mother’s arms my one thought
was to find Esharhamat, for my mind was troubled. She was sitting
beneath the linden tree, as if waiting there, but there was no
comfort to be gained from her because the contagion of dread had
found its way even to little Esharhamat.
    “I will never see you again,” she said in a
voice that was no more than a whisper. “I will be walled up in
Ashurnadinshum’s house of women and you will forget me. When you
leave this garden you will no longer love me.”
    They were strange words—I could not imagine
what she meant, nor, I suspect, could she. But some foreboding had
reached her, child that she was, and she was filled with helpless
terror. I was but nine years old, she even less, and we sat there
together beneath the great tree’s spreading branches as the future
appeared before us like