Watson, Ian - Novel 16 (33 page)

 
          
Eventually
the head of the procession arrived at a gateway set in a tall, long garden
wall. The tiny clay- brick porter’s lodge adjoining was just large enough for
one well-built fellow to stretch out full-length on the floor to sleep. A
squat, bulky gatekeeper stood expectantly, holding a short sword across his big
bare slab of a chest by way of salute. His head thrust up out of his shoulders
without much benefit of neck. His tight black hair might have been trimmed with
a scythe in one fierce sweep across his skull. A red nose suggested a flaw; he
might be a drunkard, though perhaps the kind of drunkard who rouses quickly,
becoming a wrathful automaton.

 
          
Thessany
refused to let her chariot proceed through the portal; she pointed accusingly
down the lane.

 
          
‘What
is that ugly omen yonder?’

 
          
Everyone
peered, including the gatekeeper. Near, but not very near the gateway, half
hidden by weeds, lay the rigid corpse of a cat gathering flies.

 
          
‘What
is that abomination doing there?’

 
          
Lord
Gibil intervened: ‘Clear that thing away immediately, Nettychin. Burn it.
You’ll have a shekel docked from your pay for negligence.’

           
How to make friends with your local
gatekeeper, thought Alex.

 
          
‘No,’
said Thessany. ‘He is in my employ, and I choose not to dock his pay. Today is
my wedding day, and I am full of bliss. Perhaps his eyes are not what they used
to be?’

 
          
‘Madam,’
stated Nettychin emphatically, ‘I see well; but your eyes are keener than mine.
Just as your kindness is greater than anyone else’s.’ He spoke as if stamping
each utterance upon the fabric of eternity. He shifted his weight from one
elephant foot to the other. ‘Madam, maybe it crawled there recently. The spikes
are fresh-tipped with poison.’

 
          
‘By
you?’

 
          
‘Aye,
madam. The cat must have been stupid clumsy.’

 
          
‘Unlike
you. How did you reach those spikes?’

 
          
‘With
a ladder I keep behind my home. I think to myself: no intruders allowed!’

 
          
Thessany
favoured him with a smile. ‘Thou good and faithful servant.’

 
          
As
Nettychin stomped up the lane to collect the dead cat, the procession entered
the walled garden, which was a somewhat desolate pleasance. The house beyond
must have stood empty for a while - it was of two sprawling storeys with a
tower at the south end rising one storey higher. The top floor of the tower had
windows; otherwise only the main doorway broke the blank zigzag of the front
wall.

 
          
Plain
to see that no one had watered or pruned the roses or trimmed the tamarisk
bushes or hoed out choking weeds and coarse grasses till recently, when a hasty
effort had been made. A bonfire of torn-up vegetation still smoked lazily.
Roses sprawled in thorny tangles with scant blooms and black-spotted, mildewed
leaves. The sandy soil still supported much tussocky grass and invasive coarse
green things, with petty blossoms, as though the clearer-up had realized
halfway through his task that completing it would just produce an acre of
desert. The garden may have been more charming before the effort was
undertaken.

 
          
Heaps
of horse droppings lay on the ground. Thessany wrinkled her nose.

 
          
‘I
do apologize for the condition of this,’ Lord Gibil said to her. ‘All was
arranged in haste. In a few months this garden will be as splendid as the house
already is.’

 
          
‘That
manure’ll help,’ observed Muzi.

 
          
‘By
lying around attracting flies?’ asked Thessany.

 
          
‘Manure
feeds flowers.’

 
          
‘It
doesn’t contain flowers, lord and husband. It likely contains thousands of wild
grass seeds. Alex,’ she said to her slave, ‘please clear all the mess away.
Trim and tidy; put in order. Especially water the poor roses. They’re suffering
neglect.’

 
          
‘Something
which won’t afflict you, my rose!’ declared gallant Muzi; though his gaze
drifted nostalgically to the horse dung.

 
          
With
a terrible yapping and baying a great brown hound bounded from behind the
house, dragging a leash behind it.

 
          
‘Tikki-Tikki-Tikki!’
Muzi jumped from the chariot. He intercepted the animal before it could cause
mayhem, such as knocking people over or upsetting carts. Heedless of his
embroidered wedding cloak, he wrestled the hound over on to its back and
tickled its belly.

 
          
The
dog’s minder followed apace: a dapper, sandy, middle-aged man with the look of
an ex-soldier. Muzi continued rough play with the beast till this other man had
reattached the leash to its studded collar.

 
          
Muzi
scrambled up, his fine attire dusty and hairy.

           
‘Tikki sure missed me!’ he told his
bride. ‘I didn’t think I oughta bring him to the wedding.’

           
‘Who’s that person who let him
loose?’

 
          
‘That’s
my man, Irra. Irra, this is your new mistress.’

 
          
‘Madam.’
Irra inclined his head sharply to one side. The leaping hound prevented any
more obsequious or straighter bow; if indeed Irra had contemplated such.

 
          
Alex
saw Thessany speedily sum up Irra.

 
          
‘Chain
that creature,’ she said sharply. ‘And keep it well chained. Use metal, not
leather, to control it.’

 
          
‘Tikki’s
just affectionate,’ protested Muzi.

 
          
‘I’m
not having it soil my gown or nip my slave while he’s putting this wilderness
to rights. As for you, Irra, did you suppose I wished to be greeted by that
lolloping, slobbering monster? I loathe dogs. I am the daughter of the lion.’

 
          
Irra
stood to attention; however, his attention was directed at Muzi.

 
          
‘Yeah,
chain Tikki up.’

 
          
The
major-domo began to haul the hound away.

 
          
‘Irra!’
Thessany’s voice was pitched to halt a man in his tracks.

 
          
‘Madam?’

 
          
‘When
I bid, Irra, you do
my
bidding.’

 
          
‘Yes,
madam. But what if - suppose - you were to bid me to slit Tikki’s throat?
Begging your pardon, I merely enquire.’

 
          
Lord
Gibil hastily abandoned his chariot, strode at Irra, and slapped him hard
across the cheek.

 
          
‘You
dare enquire, before servants and menials, as to the extent of your mistress’s
authority? You shall lose . . .’ He turned apologetically to Thessany. ‘Dearest
Daughter-in-law, I overreach myself.’

 
          
‘He
shall lose
three
shekels from his
salary ... to be restored in nine months' time - with interest - if he has
carried out his duties to my satisfaction.’

           
‘A judgement of wisdom!’ declared
Lord Gibil. ‘A wise wife is a treasure,’ he told his son, in case his son was
unaware. Lady Gibil nodded vaguely.

 
          
In
which, after a pregnant pause, we encounter ingots, ergot, and apricots

 
          
After
hectic activity there is often a long moratorium; as in war, so in life. A
quick campaign is followed by ages in camp. Or since most Babylonians cared a
lot more about money than they cared about war, you might say: initial
investment of capital is followed by slow accrual of profit.

 
          
You
might, except that the banker Lord Gibil had been known to lend out money at
extortionate interest rates; and his financial probity will soon play a part in
our tale. Metaphors fall apart. Suffice it to say that the tempo changed from
allegro to adagio; a long slow movement set in.

 
          
By
day Alex mostly laboured in the garden or brought water by bucket-barrow from
the nearest canal for kitchen, toilet, and stable use, and to pour around the
roots of roses.

 
          
In
the neighbourhood many gardens were orcharded, with plum and pear, apple and
crabby medlar. Bees hummed from hives nearby. On the way to the canal he would
pass a school for rich kids and hear young voices chanting answers about the
jargon of jewellers, the categories of songs, how fields are best divided, secret
meanings of words and other useful information. Down the lane to the west was a
dairy where gallons of milk hung from the walls in the bags of calves’
stomachs, turning into ghee-like cheese by contact with the rennet. Mama Zabala
sent him there twice a week.

           
And at home? (Where he now had an
out-of-the-way cubbyhole all to himself indoors.)

 
          
The
reeded windows along the rear of the house looked upon stables and kennels and
a spiked back wall masked by a line of weeping willows, two of which were dead
and wept dry sticks. The prospect was not of roses but of horse and hound,
which to Muzi’s way of thinking must have made the house ideal. Within ten or
so days of his marriage he had ridden forth upon black Galla, accompanied by
Irra on a mare, several mounted young cronies, and a dog pack, bound for a spot
of hunting and three nights away from home; which was the first occasion for
adultery in the tower room which Thessany had made her own.

 
          
Alex
and she lay together sated in the darkness of the night.

 
          
‘I
must be pregnant,’ she murmured, ‘else it would be time for my period by now,
and I’m not puffed up, and not at all twitchy.’

 
          
Alex
nibbled on her ear lobe. ‘Bit early to be sure. Such upset! A new home - ’

 
          
‘A
new husband in my bed. Or me in his.’

 
          
‘Just
how did you persuade him that you needed separate rooms?’

 
          
She
chuckled. ‘I said, “Muzi, are my circumstances to be diminished to one half of
what they were - so that I must share like a poor lodger? No, my lord and
husband, my life is doubled by you. We need two bedrooms of love.” I also
disconcerted him a bit about miscarriages and morning sickness and menstrual
flows and other mysteries.’

 
          
‘What
happened between you and Dr Cassander?’

 
          
‘Oh,
him. He gave Muzi liquids to make me take on the first and subsequent nights,
so that I could drink a toast to our son and heir before each swiving.
Naturally, when Muzi’s back was turned I poured the liquids through the window
and refilled the phials with water.’

 
          
The
house contained its own private chapel where Muzi’s new house-god had been set
on a pedestal with a curse inscribed on its back, as on a boundary stone, to
prevent removal. Following Muzi’s instructions the image-maker had crafted a
baked-clay warrior with the head of a dog, modelled after Tikki. The chapel at
the north end of the house was half roofed and half open to the sky. Unlike at
the house in Scribe Street, where Marduk could appear magically and wouldn’t
have brooked a rival house-god, a solid image was essential here. A few days
after the wedding a thaumaturge had visited the chapel, of an afternoon, to
consecrate the domestic god before the assembled, kneeling household.

 
          
Muzi
and Thessany had knelt foremost, with their hands joined upon the clay dog’s
head. The thaumaturge - whose bland moon-face bore the scars of acne or pox -
swung a censer and chanted formulae to chase away any lurking imps.

 
          
He
poured crushed, dried thyme over their linked hands and the head.

 
          
‘Now
your god comes to life,’ he told his little congregation. ‘The senior lady of
the house must feed him every morning so that he doesn’t wish to run away. If
an alive god runs away he becomes dangerous and degenerate because he has no
proper home any more. Everyone must look after their own gods, otherwise there’s
robbery and murder and rape caused by vagrant gods who resent the happy
households they observe; but can’t enter except deceitfully or violently.’

           
Thessany cocked her head. ‘Do a lot
of gods run away from home through neglect?’

 
          
‘It
can happen, lady. How else can people be inspired to burglary and other foul
crimes?’

 
          
‘Supposing
the entire family dies of disease; what then?’

 
          
‘Why,
the god must be broken quickly by a thaumaturge - just as the family has been
broken. But your god will guard you against disease; to the best of his
ability.’

 
          
‘Are
bones a suitable diet for him?’

 
          
Moon-face
looked disconcerted.

 
          
‘Since
he’s a dog,’ added Thessany.

 
          
‘A
barley-cake is most suitable, madam. With a saucer of water for him to wash his
fingers. How do you not know of this?’

 
          
‘Well,
you see,’ drawled Thessany, ‘I’m the daughter of Marduk; so we worshipped a bit
differently at home. Okay, no bones or dead cats on the altar.’

 
          
Muzi
chortled at his wife’s wit.

 
          
A
few days after that, Gupta had made the first of what were to be many regular
weekly trips across town to train Thessany for an hour or two in esoteric
discipline. Thessany explained to Muzi - so she later told Alex - that Gupta
was her dancing instructor, and she wished to learn Eastern dances. All the
best married ladies ought to pursue a graceful hobby, a proposition at which
Muzi could hardly demur since he meant to amuse himself, too, by chasing wild
beasts. She did not mention that Gupta taught dance in a striptease parlour.

 
          
So
as not to arouse suspicions in Muzi’s breast - though really his breast
harboured few suspicions of any sort, perhaps to the chagrin of Lord Gibil,
whose banking business he would inherit - Thessany and Gupta exercised
downstairs in the dining room; and indeed the manoeuvres, often in slow motion,
through which the Indian put Thessany did bear superficial resemblances to
exotic dances, albeit dances not of display but of ultimate disappearance.

 
          
Time
flowed by, like the Euphrates, which Alex never saw these days; no more did he
notice time elapsing. He fetched water. Mama Zabala cooked. Nettychin guarded
the gate. Muzi went out drinking - moderately - with his cronies. The god,
assisted by sparrows darting in through the open roof, devoured a barley- cake
a day.

 
          
Away
at the palace, reportedly, King Alexander was even closer to death. The king’s
favourite, Hephaes- tion, was alternately drowning his sorrows and sprinting
around outside the city, naked, fit to burst his heart like some mad
Philippides bearing news of death’s imminent victory. Some crack troops,
disgruntled at the prospect of no Alexander, had brawled with magi in the old
city, knocking off cone hats and busting heads.

 
          
Then
Thessany announced her pregnancy. A delighted Lord Gibil arrived, followed
shortly after by Dr Cassander, who presented Thessany with herbal potions
designed to ‘fix the foetus’ and ward off miscarriage (substances which she no
doubt poured away).

 
          
Charmingly,
Nettychin presented his mistress with a simple clay amulet of a hen perching on
an egg.

 
          
‘It
cost a shekel, madam, but it’s a pleasure. You know which shekel.’ Amulets
always cost more than they were worth, since their value might prove
immeasurable.

 
          
‘I
shall wear it and treasure it,’ declared Thessany, ‘as if it were gold.’

 
          
* * *

           
Surprisingly soon, six months had
passed since the wedding; and with the advance of the pregnancy, despite
Gupta’s guruship, Thessany became somewhat more rather than less visible.

 
          
For
a good while now, she had fretted to Muzi about the pressure of his organ
perhaps displacing their heir. Whenever he absented himself from the house,
riding away for a night or two under the rural stars, she would have Alex visit
her tower room, and no such objections occurred; though nowadays Thessany
always rode upon him, rocking her way to climax.

 
          
‘I’ve
found a delightful way to satisfy my consort,’ she confided one night. ‘You
know that skin of a lioness in his room, mounted on a frame? Well, I creep
beneath. I kneel growling, facing the backside where I enlarged a certain hole
under the tail and sewed smooth satin. He mounts. I use my hands with unguent
smeared on them. Or my mouth, if it amuses me. He likes that. It’s hotter and
wetter. He once pierced the lioness dead with his spear. Now he pierces her
once again with his weapon.

 
          
‘Not
that I scorn him, you understand?’ she went on, when Alex said nothing. ‘He
seems to enjoy himself more this way. With a horse between his legs he’s a
warrior. With a lioness to mount he’s the King of Beasts. Almost a god . . .’
She sighed with satisfaction. ‘I’m stretching his imagination. I’m training
him.’

 
          
‘To
be a better banker?’

 
          
‘I’m
sure Gibil notices a change.’

 
          
‘He’d
be rather surprised by the method.’

 
          
‘Are
you jealous, lover? He
is
my husband,
you know.’ She nuzzled into him. ‘And how lavishly could you support me,
dearest slave? This way, Alex, he supports us.’

 
          
‘Until
he realizes, and sticks a spear through me.’

           
‘If I could protect you from Marduk,
I can easily protect you from Muzi.’

 
          
‘Luckily
I don’t feel like a gigolo - with all the water I have to haul.’

 
          
‘I
assure you it’s harder work trying to become invisible.’

 
          
‘Ah
yes, the struggle for insight! Does Gupta think you’re filling with transparent
clarity?’

 
          
‘I’m
transparent to you, dear. This is, you realize, my way of apologizing - about
the lioness.’

 
          
‘I
rather gathered you enjoyed it.’

 
          
‘I
do, quite. One gets excited. Why not have fun? It’s like a visit to a top-notch
brothel must be for you men.’

 
          
‘I
wouldn’t know.’

 
          
‘But
here, Alex dear, in this bed with us, is love. And the baby is
ours
; together. Besides,’ she went on
after a moment, ‘I didn’t
need
to
tell you about our frolics. I told you because you’re part of me; I’m part of
you.’