Flesh sizzled, but Enkidu felt no pain. He did not let go.
Dishon fell back, astonished. Enkidu wrenched the iron from his flaccid fingers and held it aloft. He pursued the torturemaster slowly across the room while the stink of his own burning flesh irritated his nostrils.
Dishon backed into the table. The water-clock toppled and crashed with a jangle and splatter.
Enkidu dropped the hot iron. “You are less than that to me,” he said, and turned his back. He walked out.
CHAPTER 17.
Pale dawn was upon the city. The inebriate throngs were gone at last. Persian troops patrolled the streets instead. An empire had fallen during the night!
He probably ought to care, Enkidu thought. But now there was pain in his hand, as though he had blistered it in a furnace; he remembered only vaguely how that had happened. Babylon’s subjection seemed as unreal as all the rest that had happened this night.
How strange that there were no stones or spears or flaming arrows—yet the Persian had conquered. No slaughter of citizens, no razing of buildings, no sacking and looting and burning, no impalements. It hardly was a proper war!
As he started across the bridge to the new city, the tradesmen began to appear. There were many Persians here, too. A cart loaded with foodstuffs lumbered across the bridge, causing the skittish horse of a trooper to whinny and rear. Enkidu dodged back, then had to catch himself from falling over the edge. The rider cursed at Enkidu, thinking him to blame. Otherwise he was ignored.
In the growing light the river bed showed as an almost solid bank of mud.
But he had to keep going, lest his sudden, precious faith that Amys lived be lost. Let the mighty Euphrates sink to nothing; that hardly concerned him. Certainly the river was overrated. Could it ever have been very impressive! Why construct such a massive bridge?
He paused, startled by something obscure, then bent over and stared down. No, he had not been mistaken; the great river had fallen, even since he saw it last. The muddy pylons reached up out of gray muck festooned with weeds and rope and debris. Small boats were moored far from the tiny trickle of water remaining. A stale, tainted odor rose from the new mud flats. What had happened?
First the Persians had appeared mysteriously inside the impregnable city. Then the river had dried up. Twin mysteries. Could they be linked? Was Babylon truly cursed, as the Kebar Hebrews had eagerly foretold?
He stared out at the vanished river as in some nightmare between sleeping and waking, while another level of his mind pondered Amyitis and his certainty that she lived.
Abruptly everything fell together. The world jumped into focus.
The host had finally caught on. NK-2 could not stop him now, and had no need to. As soon as this business was finished, they could depart Babylon…
He was running despite his weakness, fighting the jostling horses, the cursing men, dodging between a farm wagon laden with cackling poultry and the donkey pulling it, while the wagon’s driver struck at him with a whip and the poultry set up an awful din of squawks. Enkidu untangled himself from the traces, scarcely aware of the commotion, and pressed on forward. He slipped around a herd of baa-ing sheep being driven into the city by shouting shepherds and barking mastiffs. He pushed wildly past or around or through all the slow-moving obstacles. On towards Gabatha’s house.
Aten must have given him that faith in Amys’ life—until his own observation and logic augmented it.
Close enough to the truth, this time! NK-2 thought. Maybe he was the spirit of a deistic entity…
“I have business within,” Enkidu informed the Persian soldier who challenged him outside Gabatha’s house. It was amazing how rapidly Cyrus’ host had multiplied in the past few hours.
The trooper’s hairy face broke into an unpleasant grin. “A guest of Gabatha’s? Enter, enter!”
Though the sun had barely cleared the horizon, the house seethed with activity. Servants rushed about bearing jars and baskets and there was a steady commotion within. The great courtyard swarmed with bearded Medes, and with women making them welcome. The fat merchant must be providing a banquet, sparing no expense for the invaders. Trust him to ingratiate himself with the prevailing powers!
But, oddly, most of the soldiers seemed more attentive to the preparations afoot in the center of the court than to the wine and the women. Enkidu looked where they were looking—and went sick inside.
Gabatha himself stood with feet planted in the middle of the court, directing the placement of a very long stake into a freshly dug hole.
“Set it loose,” the merchant directed a couple of sweating slaves, “so that it can easily be taken out again once we fit it. Once we get our chief entertainer for today skewered, then you can set it up again and tamp it in solid… assuming you are not already on it.”
Both slaves blanched. So did Enkidu, though Gabatha had not noticed him. What gruesome entertainment!
The stake set to his satisfaction, the merchant turned his eye to a group of slaves assembled at the far end of the court. He beckoned genially.
“Our Persian friends have expressed a desire for a skewering,” he informed them, smiling. “Old-Assyrian style. What man of you will step forward to oblige our good friends? No volunteers for this simple task? You will not even have to stand on your feet, and you will have a lofty view of all the proceedings…”
Enkidu rubbed his rear as he always did when thinking of impalement. He couldn’t help it. Obviously Gabatha had someone in mind… did he realize Amyitis remained alive? “Then I shall have to make the choice, I suppose. Now which one of you worthless servants can I most easily dispense with? Hul, step forth!”
Hul stepped forth, most reluctantly. He was a young boy with a scared face. Enkidu had seen him last night, bearing the first message… so that was how the merchant dealt with those who annoyed him by bringing bad news!
Gabatha eyed the boy appraisingly. “I have always wondered how you would look when elevated to your proper station. This is an excellent occasion to find out, don’t you agree?”
The boy’s Adam’s apple dropped. The Persians guffawed—somewhat more heartily than the jest called for, it seemed to Enkidu.
Gabatha paused until the merriment subsided, then sighed with mock regret. “Alas, you are needed in the kitchen. Go!”
Hul did not need a second order.
“Azor, step forth!”
Azor was the elderly man who had brought the second message of distress. What a memory the merchant had for grievances, however trifling! But obviously he was only teasing these poor slaves for the entertainment of the guests. He knew who would grace that stake…
It seemed, after leisurely preliminaries, that Azor was needed to see to the stabling of the Persian horses. He, too, vanished.
The faces of those who remained as Gabatha dismissed a third to his household duties were a study in quiet terror. The last to be queried… would not be dismissed.
Encouraged by his guests’ pleasure, Gabatha continued his cruel game. No one paid any attention to Enkidu.
He stepped quietly into a side hall and hurried toward the back. A guard stopped him in the first hall.
Enkidu wanted to shove the man aside and rush on by, to Amys. But this would be folly. It was one thing to get to this house, but another and more difficult thing to get to Amys… without betraying her life to Gabatha again.
“I have to—to see someone.”
The guard took his arm in a grip of stone. “Yes you do, citizen. Right this way.”