"Cease!" cried Shalmanesar, but the old man's eyes had taken on a glazed, ecstatic look, as he was stretching out one hand, and he went on:
"—shall stand beside him in the day of the—"
"Impale him!" roared the king.
Someone in the crowd of courtiers laughed, but broke it off midway as Shalmanesar glared in the direction of the sound. A pair of stalwart spearmen had seized Anak, muffling the flow of his voice with a blow that brought blood. Finch looked around from face to face* trying to tell himself this was drama and these were actors, who would presently meet behind the scenes for a cup of coffee; but there was no change in the faces around him, intently watching Shalmanesar. The king cocked his head a little on one side, so that the ornaments on his tiara tinkled, and from outside the tent somewhere there came a dreadful shriek of agony as his sentence was executed.
He shook his head a trifle gloomily and made a what-can-you-expect gesture. "Let the college of the priests of Nergel perform a purification," he said. "It may be that the old demon was casting a spell." He stood up. "I go to take counsel with the Queen Ishtaramat; Tudkhalijash the Hittite and the scribe Nintudunadin accompany me."
As Finch followed the king into the inner recesses of the great tent he could hear a buzz of conversation break out behind. The words were inaudible, but the tone was unmistakably one of criticism and he felt a pleasure that had nothing to do with the impersonal approach of a historian is supposed to give his subject, but simultaneously was moved to the ironic thought that the criticism was probably over some neglected detail of court ceremonial.
Ishtaramat the queen was old and enormously fat; a cascade of flesh propped up among cushions, handling a piece of dyed fabric that in the half light of the tent looked Minoan in design. She let it slip across her knees as the three men came in and smiled. "Will the incarnation of Shamash shed his light on my poor place and recount the augmentation of the domain of Asshur?"
Shalmanesar drew his brows together. "Who shall measure the folly of a fool?" he said. "I sent him to the impalement. Read, Nintudunadin, the words of the King."
Finch cleared his throat, and with some difficulty managed to read off the cuneiform notes on his tablet. It occurred to him that he would not particularly care to be the recipient of the nasty little smile playing around the Queen's lips. When he had finished, she said: "The General Zilidu has conquered the Egyptians in battle. He brings captives to the altar of Asshur."
"Arr-gh!" the King snarled. "Yes, captives from an enemy who stands before them in the field and blows the trumpet, saying, 'We will strive against Asshur.' While I must deal with serpents of the rocks, whose spears are their tongues."
"The King is Lord, and who shall stand against his voice? The General Zilidu could not win victories over the Egyptians if he were conducting the siege and you the expedition."
Shalmanesar's fingers drummed on the arm of his X-shaped chair. "This is an old tale and a bad tale," he said. "I am the King; shall I give my glory to another? Shall I sleep in a cave like the foxes while my slave is among the tents of the King, hearing the singers? Yes, and saying to this one, 'The King has departed,' and to that one, 'Come, let us make a new King.' "
The old Queen gave a little chuckling laugh. "My Lord, the old King, held that the pleasures of battle were above those of the camp as the sun is above the earth; and this is a strong and a warlike people, that desire a king even in their own likeness."
"The Old King! The Old King! Can I do nothing without hearing that word thrown at me? The Old King left me with an empire, yes, his to give but mine to hold and shall the same weapon both cut and grip? There must be a new order in this land, yes so that we are one people."
"The incarnation of Shamash is angry; yet it is against himself that his anger rises, since his new order asks not the impalement of the Samaritan, but his acceptance as an equal ally ... The Old King would have impaled him unheard—and sent Zilidu to follow."
Shalmanesar's lips drew back from his teeth, he leaped from the chair as though to strangle the queen, with hands outstretched, then drew back as she did not stir and began to pace the carpet. "Enough!" he cried. "Hear the judgment of the King, write it on the tablets: Who so shall mention the Old King or his deeds against me as long as the sun shall rise, shall have his legs cut off and be burned with fire. This is my word ... Tudkhalijash, summon the flute-players and the dancing boys, and let wine be brought to my own place. I am tired of state." He turned toward the door.
As they went through it, Finch heard Ishtaramat's low giggle and her final words:
"You will not so easily prevent the army from mentioning General Zilidu, Lord."
Twenty-One:
Perhaps it was the tension of the royal interviews; but for whatever reason Finch could not, as he emerged from the bus, recall the details of his abode, and found himself rather inexplicably hoping that it would not be filled with shining chrome and scientific gadgets. He might have spared himself the worry. The place was a monument of bachelor comfort, with only the disconnected machine in which he had been harnessed when he woke up, the "Somnometer" he supposed, as a reminiscence that it had been the scene of an experiment.
There were high bookshelves, the lines of volumes impressive by the absence of uniform "sets," except in one corner, where a double row of big brown tomes drew his attention. Examination gave him a shock—all copies of the same book, and the book was "The Experimental Interpretation of History," by Arthur Cleveland Finch. He picked up a copy.
... But, of course! As his eye ran along the lines, he could recall having written a paragraph there and thought rather well of it, having wished here he could express the matter more clearly, wondering why an honestly-done piece of work like this did not sell better. There were too many too narrow-minded people, capable of good work themselves but lacking the breadth of vision which acquaintance with other aspects of culture gives, even within the boundaries of their special fields. Even Thera, now that he thought of it, had probably never read the book through. She had been full of bright questions when it came out, but all about the few paragraphs in which dreams were mentioned, her own specialty, for which she had probably searched the index. A drop of that poetic imagination so rigidly eschewed because it involved a priori assumptions would ...
The idea struck him that it might be amusing to make up a rhymed list of the Assyrian kings like that one of English monarchs which has long served as a mnenomic for school boys. But that would require alcohol and his stomach was cold with the sour fermentation of ancient Assyria. He put the book back and let his feet guide him to the bathroom where, sure enough, the medicine cabinet held a bottle marked as whiskey and tabbed with a meticulous chemical analysis of the contents. He had settled himself and was already grinning with satisfaction over his progress when something went bzzzzp!
Finch glanced up at the source of the sound, a shadow-box over the door, and saw a thin line of orange light grow in curls and swoops that resolved themselves into the word "Chase" in longhand. The signature box, he remembered, repeating what one's caller wrote with a stylus on a steel plate at the door. But what did the psychologist want at this hour of night? He half-automatically punched the button on the hanging cord by his chair.