Finch fumbled, won the ladder. Under a decent electric light the gash was less serious than he had imagined at first, but it was an unhandy business getting a bandage on it, and then he had to change robes.
As he swung the trap-door into position at the top of the ladder, he heard a cough, then a voice, somewhere just outside the tent. "Speak without fear, slave, and show what is in your liver."
It was Zilidu's voice, Tiridat's; he could not miss it. Finch softly lowered the trap-door into place and listened. Another voice answered.
"Lord I must tell you a thing. It nearly concerns the Glory of Asshur."
The other voice was also familiar, though for the moment Finch could not place it.
"Tell it then to the King or his counsellors, whose servant am I. You ox! Do you think to trap me, so that the Lady Ishtaramat may carry tales to the King?"
"Nay, Lord, but hear me—" The other voice, he had it now; Nabuzaradan the eunuch. "There are those who serve the family of the Old King because they must, yet would rather serve his ways, even in the hands of those who are not his blood, because the ways they love. It is the matter concerning the Samarian Princess, Lord."
There was a momentary silence outside the tent. Then Zilidu said in a changed and slightly gruffer voice: "What of her, then?"
"There has been a prophecy made before the King, and the world knows it, that whoso is to possess this city of Samaria must first possess its princess."
"I have heard—"
The voice cut off as there was a clink of something metallic at the other side of the tent and a high-pitched voice called: "Burnipal the King's magician would enter unto Nintudunadin the scribe."
Finch hung paralyzed for a second as behind the tent where the colloquy had gone on, there was the sound of a quick step, then silence. At the other side the flap was pulled back to admit a jolly, clean-shaven man with a slave who bore a tripod and various other properties, and a censer in which burned a fire of camel-dung.
"I come to bless and for the removal of evils," said the wizard sententiously. "Lie down. Let your soul be at peace. Let the tripod be set up, the frankincense ignited, and let the bowl be filled with the purest water."
He waved his hands gracefully to and fro, muttering prayers in the archaic language of the hymns, while the slave followed his instructions and Finch composed himself with as much patience as he could muster. Burnipal dipped a branch of tamarish in the water and sprinkled him with it as the heavy odor of the incense rose, chanting slowly:
The voice was monotonous, there was nothing to do but lie there and take it, and Finch had had only about three hours' sleep. In spite of the fact that out in the camp the preparations for the victory feast were going forward energetically, he drowsed, dozed, and then drifted off completely.
He snapped awake with the sound of the shout that had roused him still ringing in his ears. There was pale daylight through the flap of the tent. The magician had gone, leaving behind nothing but the odor of his frankincense, and from somewhere in the distance, the shout that had roused him was repeated—a cry of distress.
Finch got up, feeling every one of his years, and went to the door of the tent to peer out. The plaza was deserted, with the yellow sun of mid-morning lying across it and the walls of Samaria shining beyond. As he watched, an arrow flashed suddenly across his field of vision from left to right. There was a shout and three or four guards, heads down, shields high and spears at the ready, came dashing from the royal tent in the direction from which the missile had come.
One of them whooped, down some alley of tents that made him invisible. A yelp of agony answered, and then the guards came back, laughing and talking, one of them with a reddened spear. Finch thought a trifle bitterly about "spending personnel" and inched cautiously out into the daylight to see what was wrong, prepared to duck back and down through the trap-door. One of the guards turned and eyed him, but incuriously, without any gesture either friendly or the reverse. He judged it was safe to follow.
As he drew nearer the big tent there became audible something that sounded from the distance like choral singing, but which on nearer acquaintance resolved itself into the long, monotonous keening of a number of women- The door of the royal tent was looped back and no one on guard. Finch pushed on toward the central apartment, thinking that Shalmanesar IV, King of Assyria, Babylonia, and the lands beyond the desert, had probably met his historical fate.
A moment later, he was sure. In a room crawling with eunuchs, slaves and women, all wailing to the limits of their voices, he found the king. Shalmanesar was lying on the carpet, stripped, with a dozen great claw-gashes in Ins body, and the skull bitten through. Zilidu's present.
"Where did this happen?" Finch demanded. "Where is the court?"
"In the King's bed-chamber, Lord."
Finch pushed his way through the crowd to the place, to find the door barred by a pair of soldiers.
"An order has been given that none enter," said one.
"Fool! I am the secretary, Nintudunadin."
He pushed between their hesitant spears. In the king's bed-chamber stood the lion's cage with its door open. On the far side was the royal bed; between cage and bed there were spots of blood on the carpet, and a man doing a curious thing. He had an odd-shaped hammer and was driving little nails through each spot of blood into the carpet. As the man's head came up Finch recalled that when you had murdered a man this little precaution was obligatory, to "nail down his ghost."
The nailer was General Zilidu.
He set down the hammer, then turned to face Finch and clapped his hands. Finch turned—just in time to see a new line of soldiers at the door, not the men of the royal guard, but infantry with sunburnt faces and dirty equipment, men from Zilidu's own Army of the South.
"Excellent scribe," said Zilidu, "one would think you cared little for my presence."
Finch breathed hard, then got himself under control. It was absurd of him to have been frightened, though a hand of ice was clutching his heart at the thought of Thera.
"It's all right," he said, "the show is over," and realized he had spoken in English.
Zilidu linked his brows. "If that is a foreign spell," he said, "I warn you that there is a new wizard, who will make it recoil on your own head."
Finch said: "O General, I wished to say only that the appointed time has come. I should be taken to the place of rendezvous."
Zilidu laughed shortly. "Slave! You shall go to the place of rendezvous in good truth. As for that Ulula, who tried to play a man of iron, though he was only a reed painted in its resemblance, your rendezvous shall be with him."
An officer shouldered his way through the line of spearmen. "Oh King, live forever," he said. "The old witch is dead."
"Let there be a thanksgiving proclaimed that now Ishtaramat, the evil genius of Asshur, is no more. As for this carrion—" he gestured toward Finch "—let him be placed with those who are to be flayed before Bel."
Pinwheels seemed to revolve before Finch's eyes. "King—King (what had been the name the fellow took?) Sargon, I say, release me! You know that this is a make-believe and a dream, and that in the real world I command you and the other actors."
The new king merely smiled. "The gods have taken *he wits of this poor animal. The other world of which you speak is only in your own vain imaginings, and this is the real world, in which I am verily lord over you and all other men." He gestured. "Take him!"