Garden of Madness (10 page)
Tia and Pedaiah reached the last home on the left of the Street of Marduk, and Tia slowed at the single door facing the street.
Pedaiah scowled. “This is your childhood friend? Belteshazzar?”
“You do not approve?”
He huffed. “I should not have thought you would have any respect—”
“For a Jew?”
His gaze found hers and bore into her thoughts. “It would be a first.”
Tia looked away, shame warming her face.
Pedaiah slapped the door and the doorkeeper appeared a moment later. The older man’s eyes lit with pleasure, but it was not Tia’s visit that delighted.
“Pedaiah!” He bowed low. “He will be most happy to see you.” To Tia, he gave only a passing glance.
Pedaiah allowed her to enter first. Surprisingly, the unimposing door led to a spacious house with a beautifully tended courtyard. It would seem her father’s chief advisor still enjoyed some benefits of his former position, though he could have lived more lavishly in the palace.
The doorkeeper bustled off to find Belteshazzar, and Pedaiah led her across the courtyard to a stone bench, recalling to her the earlier visit with Kaldu’s wife.
I have gotten out of the palace more in the week since becoming a widow than in the year prior
. She chose to remain standing.
He came at once, her father’s old friend, and looked unchanged from Tia’s memory, save perhaps a bit more gray. Tall, with a lean build and trimmed beard. A quick smile and eyes that sparkled with some unknown amusement. He crossed the courtyard, arms extended.
“Pedaiah. I did not expect you for another few days—” His eyes caught Tia’s and he slowed, forgetting the intended embrace. “Is it the princess?” He looked to her protector, his brow furrowed. “You have brought me his daughter?”
Pedaiah held up a palm. “She has come of her own accord, Daniel. I only followed.”
Tia had his full attention now, this
Daniel
as she now remembered his Judaean name. It had been a point of good-natured contention between her father and him, the way he refused to substitute their god’s name for his own, as was custom.
“Come, sit.” He indicated the benches and Tia obliged. “You are much grown.” His gaze traveled the length of her. “But still, I would know that hair, those eyes, anywhere.”
“And I, you, Belteshazzar.”
He shook his head. “
Tsk
, child. It is Daniel.”
She smiled with warmth at having taken up her father’s argument. “You are unchanged,
Daniel
, though I have not seen you in the palace for years.”
His smile disappeared. “Your father? Something has happened?”
Tia sensed true concern. “No. Well, perhaps—” She glanced at Pedaiah.
Daniel waved an eager hand. “Continue, continue, child. You can speak in front of Pedaiah. He is like my own son.”
Pedaiah’s nod of approval was for Daniel alone.
“There has been a death in the palace.”
“Two deaths.” He nodded. “Your husband and Kaldu.”
“Yes, of course. Two deaths.” Tia looked to Pedaiah again, but his attention had moved across the courtyard to a girl entering with a tray. Her fleeting look toward Pedaiah spoke much. “My husband’s illness was long and unfortunate. But it is Kaldu’s death that brings me today.”
Daniel noticed Pedaiah’s glance and signaled the young woman forward. “I know little of it, I fear.”
The servant set her tray on a low table between them with a glance at Tia that held some hostility. Tia paused to let her complete her task. She was clearly another Jew, about Tia’s age. Her robes were a pale yellow, setting off her flawless skin. Though dressed in the modest way of the Jews, with her hair nearly covered, the fashion did nothing to obscure her beauty—the kind of womanly innocence men appreciated. She bent over the table, pouring wine and cutting crusty bread. The scent of the fresh-baked bread reached Tia’s nose and her stomach growled. The three laughed, and a flush crept across her neck and face.
The girl lifted a plate. “Please, my lady, take some food.” Her tone was pleasant, if a bit mocking.
“Thank you. I shall.” Tia bit into the yeasty loaf and watched the unspoken communication between the girl and Pedaiah. Tia could not decipher its meaning, but it made her uneasy, she knew not why.
Daniel patted the girl’s shoulder but spoke to Tia. “It has been some time since I was part of the everyday affairs of the palace. These days, I do not know much of its intrigue.”
“My father relied on you, I remember.”
Daniel lowered his head. “We did not always agree, the king and I, but our conversation was always interesting. Several times I believed he would finally bow the knee to the Most High, especially after . . .” He sighed. “I had hoped this present humiliation should not be necessary. But he is a proud man.”
Troubling words. As though her father had brought upon himself his present state.
And are not all kings to be proud?
This idea of only One God, it both mystified and intrigued.
The girl would not leave. She fussed with the food, the cups, the plants. She hovered around Pedaiah like a bee drawn to a sticky sweetness, and he in turn seemed interested in all she did.
Tia tried to focus on Daniel. “Kaldu had taken up with the magi. Do you know why?”
His look turned dark. “Why does any man seek them out? For power, and power alone.”
“You were one of them.”
Daniel pulled at his beard and seemed to debate within himself how best to answer. “It is complicated, the position in which I found myself in your father’s court, Tiamat.”
She nodded.
“The Most High gave me to know certain things, to interpret your father’s dreams, to advise him in important matters. For many years there was much jealousy among the other wise men and magi who would have my position. Their power and knowledge, when it is authentic, comes from elsewhere.”
“They feared you.”
He smiled, a brief flash of a smile, that was part amusement, part melancholy. “They fear the Source of true power. Hate it, even.”
“And Kaldu?”
He leaned forward and patted her hand. “Be careful, young Tiamat. There is much at work that you do not understand. Much that is better left alone.”
His tone was fatherly in its condescension, but Tia resisted. “If I recall, you were never afraid to challenge those who opposed you.”
His eyebrows arched. “And you are ready for such a challenge?”
“I must know the truth. For the sake of my father.”
Daniel twined his fingers together, pressed his index fingers to his lips, and studied her. When he spoke, lowering his hands, the words were deep and intense with eyes to match. “Then question everything, dear girl. Question everything you have been taught, everything you have been told.” He slanted forward, eyes haunted, and his next words were a mere whisper. “The time of the prophecy is upon us.”
A chill shuddered through Tia, a portent of evil to come, of substantial change and the dangerous unknown. She looked to Pedaiah, whose attention was on the conversation at last. His expression was unreadable but fierce.
Her icy fingers bit into the lip of the bench, searching for steadiness, but her skin crawled and the edges of her sight went dark, as though darkness itself reached for her from somewhere beyond her vision.
Tia stood, unsteady but determined. It was past time to return. The two men stood also, but Daniel stayed her with a hand on her arm.
“Be wary, child. When you seek truth, you cannot be certain what you will find. You must be ready. Ready to stand and fight, and not to run.”
His words, his grip, were like iron. Had he ever run from anything? Tia pulled away, but he was not finished.
“The pursuit of truth is not a course to be run or a stunt to be perfected, Tiamat. The consequences—” But here he broke off, as if he had said too much, and his eyes seemed to glisten with unshed tears.
He embraced Tia briefly, and she could almost believe it was her father’s arm around her. Tears surfaced.
Daniel turned her toward Pedaiah. “Return her to the palace, son.”
And Pedaiah did, without conversation. She could not read the set of his jaw. Anger? Condescension? They had not spent so much time together in her seven years with Shealtiel, but even side by side, arms nearly touching, they somehow kept distance between them, as they always had. As though they each presented some sort of danger to the other.
He left Tia at the palace entrance, and her thoughts took her all the way to her chambers.
“So you have returned?” The voice that emerged from within was impatient, strident.
Tia breezed in and flung her head scarves across the bed. “No cause for concern, Mother. I only went to the river to cool down.”
Amytis sat upon a reed-rush chair, one long leg crossed over the other. “Do you think me a fool, Tiamat? I know exactly where you have been.”
Tia narrowed her eyes and studied her mother. Did Amytis bluff? And why the sudden interest in her actions? She seemed to be everywhere these days, watching Tia’s every move.
“You have been to see that old Jew.” Amytis stood and pushed her hair over her shoulder. “Spend your time in whatever way you please, Tiamat. But do it in the palace and do it alone.” She drew close and hissed in her ear, “When your new husband arrives, I would not wish for him to hear rumors of his bride’s inappropriate behavior.”
No, Mother. Of course not
.
The sun rose, scorching Babylon as its rays shot through the streets. Tia clapped for her chamber slaves, who were awake and attendant at once.
“Dress me with care this morning, Gula. Robes that cover. And a head scarf, as the Jews do.”
Oiled, perfumed, and dressed, Tia left her chambers, trailed by her attendants, and wound through the palace’s labyrinth of halls to the rooms set aside for the family of the Judaean king Jeconiah.
The palace bustled, with slaves rushing the corridors and a din coming from beyond the residential quarters. Was the cause what she suspected?
A flutter of something akin to nervousness at the family’s door tickled her belly. Pedaiah’s stern face, those dark, brooding eyes . . . She dreaded the confrontation.
But it must be done.
“They have gone to the banquet room.” The little Assyrian slave’s voice was amusingly high pitched, but his words thudded against the pressure in her chest. “There is to be an announcement.”
She turned away, and a moment later one of her mother’s slaves stalked the hall, his face set on her. “My lady”—he descended in a quick bow—“your mother requests your presence—”
She held up a hand. “I am coming.”
She walked as if to her execution.
Aside from the throne room, her father’s banquet hall boasted the most lavish decor of the palace, and thus of the city of Babylon. And if Babylon, then perhaps the entire kingdom or even the world. Intricate mosaic tiles, their blues and yellows polished until they gleamed, spread scenes of battles and hunts across the floor, and bas-relief sculptures lined the walls in tableaux so realistic, visitors wanted to run their hands over the bodies of man and beast to feel for beating hearts.
At the end of the large room, a long table reserved for Tia’s mother, and whatever nobles she invited this morning, held the finest Babylonian dishes, and on either side two massive windows cut into the stone wall streamed light into the room, the sun’s rays bordering the honored guests. White silk fabrics, hung above the windows, billowed in the morning breeze. Scattered throughout the room were smaller tables, four stools clustered around each.
The luxury struck her afresh, along with a comparison to the city streets she had navigated yesterday. Tia had lived all her life amidst such extravagance. She sometimes forgot the privileges of her life, how vile it could be elsewhere.
Tia’s mother and sisters sat at the head table, but she would not allow her dread of her mother’s
announcement
to sway her from her task. She searched the tables for her quarry.
There
. As she had hoped, Marta and Rachel sat at a table near the back of the room. The occasion must be significant, for Pedaiah had joined them. Still one empty seat. She threaded through the maze of tables and came upon them just as Rachel said something to her brother, and Pedaiah laughed, a joyful, heartfelt laugh. The sound jolted her, strange but welcome. Had Tia thought him incapable of mirth?
Smiling innocently at the threesome, she took the fourth seat.
As one, the family looked to her, then to her mother’s table at the front, as though waiting for Amytis’s wrath to streak across the banquet room, a lightning strike capable of incineration.
The two women faced her, and Tia bowed her head to each, noting with concern Marta’s shadowed eyes and downcast face. “How do you fare this morning, Marta?” Beside her, Pedaiah shifted his stool toward the door.
Marta and Rachel both sat silent, staring. Tia was saved from the awkward moment by two slaves descending with trays of purple dates and cool green melons and goblets of palm wine.
She had dined regularly with Shealtiel in the banquet room during their marriage, always at the head table. She had seen Marta and Rachel here rarely and could not remember Pedaiah ever being present.
The food and wine were spread before the four of them, and Tia lifted a goblet, intending to drink to Shealtiel, but something in the sentiment seemed offensive. Instead, she sipped the wine and set the cup down too hard, sloshing liquid onto her hand.
The room buzzed with conversation, and whatever announcement her mother intended must be scheduled for later. Noblemen poured in, took their places, and the musicians at the perimeter set to work on their strings and drums. A figure appeared behind Pedaiah, and the four turned, breaking the tension.
The servant girl from Daniel’s house
. But even as the girl’s eyes took in the seating arrangement and lingered on Pedaiah, Tia saw her mistake. Not a servant at all. Her bearing, her expression, even her clothing bespoke a confidence borne of privilege. How had she not seen it yesterday?
