Garden of Madness (3 page)
“By all the gods, Tiamat! For how long will you make our family a mockery?”
Tia choked down the first words that came to her at Amytis’s accusation—words that would slash at her hypocrisy—and instead lifted a verbal shield. “Mother, you presume attention I do not command.”
Amytis twirled and stalked down the corridor, requiring Tia to follow on her heels. The vermillion robe she wore over her white tunic flowed backward like a scarlet river. “Why can you not confine yourself to the chamber I built for you? For your activities?” Disdain poured over the final word. Amytis did not, could not understand the frustration that compelled Tia to run.
“You have built me nothing, Mother. You directed slaves to outfit a room, then called it a ‘gift,’ as though it were not designed to keep me hidden.”
An extension of the rooms where through childhood you kept me trapped
. “And I cannot run in a single chamber.”
Amytis thrust an arm into the air but did not turn. “It is the size of the throne room! Run in circles if you must! And those ridiculous trousers. You look like a traveling merchant.”
The palace halls held ears, so Tia held her tongue.
Amytis glanced back. “Why are you lingering back there? Come to my chambers. We have much to discuss.”
Weariness fell like a weight, but Tia followed Amytis through the hall of the harem. Curious eyes appeared above veiled faces. Amytis often swept through this corridor. To remind them all that she still reigned as queen?
Around a corner, past the representative of the harem, who maintained his stoic post, they reached Amytis’s personal chambers. At her approach a guard opened the door. Amytis entered, flung her outer robe across the over-cushioned bed, and turned on Tia.
Tia remained at the threshold of her mother’s chamber, but the door closed against her back.
The room was Amytis personified. As though she had come into a naked chamber and simply
lived
until it had become an extension of her very self, everything sparkling in the firelight, from gold-tasseled bed cushions to embroidered tapestries hung from bedposts. Even after a lifetime, the room left Tia dazzled.
Amytis crossed the chamber and poured wine from an amphora into a jewel-encrusted cup. “We must talk of your future.” She sipped the wine, her glittering eyes studying Tia over the cup’s rim.
“But Shealtiel’s mourning days will not be finished until—”
Amytis waved away the words with a dismissive hand and lowered herself to a carved chair. “After that, after that. Of course his death was anticipated, so messages have been prepared for days and already dispatched.”
“Messages?” The repetition sounded dull in her ears, the question of an ignorant child. Tia’s lips and tongue felt thick, useless.
Amytis raised her eyes to the painted ceiling and sighed. “To my family, in Media, of course.”
“Why—?”
Amytis clunked the cup onto a cedarwood side table. “Did you think I would allow you to remain unmarried, to run around the city like a street urchin?”
“But you told Marta—”
Amytis relaxed against the back of her chair, crossed her legs, and smoothed the white silk over her thighs. “No more Jews. Of course not. That woman’s next son is a brooding beast of a man, and marriage to him would benefit only their family, not ours.” Her voice was as smooth as the silk, unruffled by the harsh prospect of Tia’s future. “No, I have someone far better in mind.”
Tia should have anticipated this, and yet the information flattened her against the door, her hands worrying the rough wood as though it could absorb her. Memories of years with Shealtiel fluttered like moths. Her throat convulsed against her words and they emerged half strangled. “So, once again, a commodity to be traded?”
Amytis lifted her chin and those hard, hard eyes under half-lowered lids were terrifying. “This time will be different. He is a Mede. An older cousin of mine and a prince.”
“I would not care if he were king of all the world! I do not wish to again be under a man’s thumb.”
Within his embrace, perhaps, but no more
.
“Do not be foolish, Tia. It is the way of all royalty. We do what we must.” She used her own thumb to rub the palm of her other hand with focused attention. “The gods know I have done what was necessary.”
Amytis had been royalty herself, a Median princess, when her father brought her to Babylon for treaty and gave her to Tia’s father. Such marriages, like her own, were more political contract than loving relationship, with the wife fulfilling her duty of bearing children to link two nations, but little more.
Amytis brought her gaze back to Tia, but it was the vacant look of one who stared into the past. “And it does not have to be wretched.” Her voice had softened, and a stranger would have thought her tone consoling. Tia had learned the sound of manipulation.
“Look at me, Tia.” She spread her arms to the abundant luxuries of her chamber, then lifted a hand toward the ceiling, indicating all that lay above them—the king’s living, growing tribute of the Gardens. “You will find joy in it. The children will bring happiness.”
The words lit a flame in Tia’s belly. The same lies Amytis had spoken nearly seven years ago. Did she believe her own words? Clearly Tia did not bring
her
any happiness. But of course there were her sisters, married to Babylonian nobles and dutifully producing children.
“I will not marry again.” Her voice was tight.
Amytis laughed, that soft musical laugh her father claimed was the first part of her he loved. “If all goes as planned, he will be here in less than two months. When your thirty days of mourning are finished, you will be given to Zagros.”
Amytis would say that all her life Tia had been rebellious. But they had been insignificant mutinies, small refusals to bow to silly customs. In this, as in all that mattered, she had always been controlled.
The flame in her gut was an ancient, slow burn with an abundant source of fuel.
Would that it were a raging fire to purify my life
. She crossed the vine-choked carpet and fell to her knees at Amytis’s chair, cursed tears stinging her eyes.
“It is not too late, Mother.” The white silk twisted between her pleading fingers. “If the messages have only just been sent, you can send another to overtake the first, retrieve the scrolls.” Her voice faltered, the whimper of a child begging for reprieve. “Please, Mother. Do not give me away again.”
She bent her head to Amytis’s knee, held the tenuous connection. She almost dared to hope her mother would lay a pitying hand on her head. Stroke her hair. Whisper assurances of love.
One touch, Mother. One touch
.
Instead, when Amytis shifted, it was to reach for her wine.
Tia pulled away and went to the square-cut window. The chest-high opening looked south, and at this height there was no need for a safety grid, leaving the view unobstructed. She leaned her head against the opening, blinking away emotion.
“You are unreasonable, Tia.” Amytis joined her to look over the city. The fires of a thousand hearths glinted through the streets like watchful eyes. Amytis studied Tia’s face and lifted her cup. “And you are distraught. Take some wine.”
Tia wanted to grab the cup and toss it through the window but took it from Amytis’s hand and sipped obediently.
Amytis watched her through calculating eyes, then turned back to the city.
“You are a princess, Tia. You have a responsibility to your kingdom. Marriage treaties ensure its peace.” She jutted her chin toward the city, the fires. “If you will not fulfill your duty to them, then you might as well be a peasant yourself.” She leaned through the opening and peered into the darkness below. Her voice deepened. “And I wonder how you would fare in the streets of Babylon.”
Heat flooded from Tia’s toes to her hairline. Subtle, as always, and yet clear. Do as she was told, or she would be as a commoner, thrust from her home and her position, unburdened of her possessions and left with nothing.
“Is there not some other way to serve, Mother? Can I not find ways to help—?”
“This is the way, Tia. I will hear no more.”
The flush receded, leaving Tia chilled. She set the cup on the sill and left the chamber, silent, feeling Amytis’s hard stare against her back. There was only one place she wished to be, and Amytis would not approve of her destination.
The hour was late but typical for Tia’s secret errand.
She crossed three torch-lit courtyards to reach the wide stairs that led into the underbelly of the palace. Slaves tasked with second watch toiled on their knees to keep the flowers watered and mulched. Their listless eyes followed her steps, but what did she have to fear from slaves?
Once, years ago, a guard had caught her and dragged her to her mother’s feet. Amytis called for an explanation, then slapped Tia when she gave it. Since then, she had only gone at night.
The stairs plunged downward, turned once. Two lonely torches burned in wall sockets as she descended, and at the bottom twin tunnels diverged in shadows, their vaulted ceilings lost in darkness. Tia shot a glance in each direction and held her breath, listening for a scrape of sandal on stone or a sword unsheathed. Nothing.
The vast tunnels and passageways of the palace could hide a thousand villainies. Though it had always been her home, still she felt its treachery. Wherever power resides, there is always evil.
Seven barrel-vaulted chambers lay in succession, but she need only reach the third. Here her preferred entrance, unused by anyone else, climbed upward. Within moments she regained the palace level, but no doorway led to a courtyard. Instead, the stairs spiraled toward the sky—a narrow shaft, a tunnel turned vertical.
First tier. Second
. Her hand trailed the cold stones to her right and she twisted upward, upward.
Five. Six
.
Tia paused at the seventh and topmost tier of her father’s beloved Gardens, only lightly winded.
All that running has done some good
.
The door was locked, for she was always careful. What lay beyond must never escape. Her fingers fumbled at the leather-strung key at her throat and she fitted it to the socket. For one last breath she clung to the security of the landing. She had come many times but still held no illusion of safety. Heart thrumming, she nudged the door inward, a whisper of wood against the bricks.
Night air rushed through the open door, a cold greeting. Tia crossed the threshold and perched at the summit.
Viewed from the streets, the mountain built above the palace astounded citizen and traveler alike, a forest of trees and flowers, suspended above the city. Tonight, fronds of lofty palms scraped the dark sky and blotted out starlight. Sharp, jutted trunks bristled like angry soldiers standing guard over the Gardens. Tia darted to the first set of steps and descended one tier, moving with caution and a listening ear, her senses sparking with cold awareness.
A throaty growl reached her, the threatened sound of a beast with eyes on an interloper. Tia halted, hand extended to the blood-red petals of a rose. Glossy-green leaves shone black in the darkness, and the smell of earth and moss mingled with another smell, neither animal nor human, but something frighteningly in between.
No need to call out. He understood nothing.
She lowered herself to the bottom step and waited. He would come.
The buzz of night insects kept her lonely company for some minutes. But then a shadow shifted, there came a scraping sound, nails dragged across stone, and he was there.
“Hello, Father,” Tia whispered, her voice as tremulous as an old woman’s. She held out a hand, palm downward, fingers forced to relax.
He inched toward her, feet and hands tapping the stones, then stopped. Stared from under bushy eyebrows and hair grown long and matted. His beard, too, had been uncut for nearly seven years and dragged over the ground. Tattered scraps of clothing, the last clinging vestige of humanity, hung from him in ribbons. His skin was caked with the mud of years. She had tried, those first few years, to make him comfortable, to care for his body, but the collapse of his mind prevented her ministrations.
What little light reached them here reflected in the whites of his eyes, and as always Tia fell into their empty depths, willing herself to see some flicker of awareness, some perception of who he was, of who she was to him.
There was nothing but the wet softness of animal eyes.
He scrabbled forward and sniffed her outstretched hand.
Tia lifted it to touch his cheek, but he jerked away and she grabbed her own hand. After all these years, his rejection still burned.
“Shealtiel is dead, Father.” She spoke as though he understood, her seven-year defense against her crushing despair of what he had become.
He skittered a few paces, to a clump of blooming lavender at the base of a fig tree, and settled. His gaze never left her face.
“I know you wanted me to marry Shealtiel, and I sorrow for his family, but I am not much grieved for my own loss. Is that wrong?” Tia drew her legs up in front of her chest and wrapped her arms around them to ward off the night chill. She confessed her guilt to the only one who would ever listen.
