Garden of Madness (9 page)

At this, a few stolen side looks. She turned to those who reacted.

“Who is she?”

A dark-skinned man, slightly built with the look of a Nubian, stepped forward. “Kaldu kept no personal slaves here in the palace, my lady. Perhaps in his home—”

“You know of whom I speak. I need to find her. No harm will come to her. I only have some questions.”

More glances between several. Did they protect someone? Or merely question why the princess had entered their domain with odd questions? Tia set down the figs and crossed her arms.

At last the Nubian spoke. “Perhaps my lady inquires after Ying. Kaldu often sought her out for various tasks.”

Interest sparked through Tia’s veins. “Ying? Who tends the rooftop garden?”

More guilty faces. “Yes, my lady.”

Ying. Tia’s thoughts rushed her from the kitchens. At last something she could pursue. It could not be a coincidence.

Tia shook off the feeling that she should not be pursuing any of this, crossed two courtyards and then the back halls of the palace, her robes billowing behind in her haste. Two flights of stairs led her to the entrance to the rooftop garden. She pushed open the door with care, as though a murderer might await.

Ying knelt, attacking the soil, with her back to Tia. She worked the ground around a bed of red roses. She was clearly strong. Tia watched her for a moment, watched her arm swing down again and again to rip the sun-baked dirt. She used a handheld tool, something Tia had never seen. Something like an iron claw. Her heart thudded.

As though she heard the sound of it, Ying turned. Her eyes flashed with something Tia could not name, but then Ying was all deference again, as she had been the first time they spoke. She stood and dusted the dirt from her hands. “My lady.” She delivered a slight bow. “Would you like me to place the cedar plank?”

Tia crossed the garden and ran her hand over some green shrubbery. “I came to speak with you.”

“How can I serve you?” The words, though proper, seemed to come from a far-off place, a place of mystery, like her homeland.

“You can tell me why you were seen often with Kaldu.”

Ying’s face blanched and her skin grew even lighter than the pale shade of her race. “I was assigned to assist him with his needs while in the palace.”

“Assigned by whom?”

She turned away, a risk in the presence of royalty, and bent again to her flowers. Somehow in this Ying stole power from Tia, challenged her, because she knew more than Tia.

“Why does the command of slaves concern you, Princess?”

It is my father’s safety that concerns me
. Tia frowned. “Assigned by whom?”

The answer, when it came, was soft, spoken toward the soil. Tia stood close enough to hear the whisper. “Your mother.”

When does my mother ever concern herself with slave assignments?
“Why?”

Ying shrugged one small shoulder, her back still to Tia. “They spoke often. I saw them together on the night that he was—the night he died.”

This was a revelation to ponder later. For now, Tia needed more information. She asked the question that nudged her heart the moment she saw Ying assault the soil. “Did Kaldu mistreat you?”

Ying snatched a hand from the flowers and turned it, palm upward. A drop of blood beaded on the tip of her index finger and swelled.

The oppression that had dogged Tia also swelled, a hand squeezing her heart. The blood on Ying’s pale, pale skin was an awful thing, and somehow all the dread of the evil charms in her chambers, of the whisperings in the dark streets, of the threat to her father, all focused on that single drop of blood. She backed away, washed in revulsion.

Ying stood and stared, her finger held outward like an offering but her face tight with a flinching fear, like one who’d been bled as a target to circling birds of prey.

The moment broke, and Ying pressed the bloody finger against her breast. It left an imprint on her white tunic. Her voice was a harsh whisper. “He did not mistreat me.”

Tia would press further, but still the dread wrapped her in silence. Ying pushed past her and escaped the garden.

Tia exhaled the moment she was gone, as though released from a vicious hold, reached to steady herself, and found nothing but flowering plants.

She would not let go. She would go where the information led. And next must be her mother.

“The shipments from Nubia must be unloaded the moment they arrive, and the sailors penalized for the delay.”

Tia stood at the rear of the throne room for several minutes, her back to the wall, watching Amytis instruct her officials. The queen dealt with her advisors with all the authority of a king, her voice ringing with imperial strength across the room. Amazing, the way Amytis emanated power and charm wrapped together.

The king’s top advisors, Rabi and Dagan, bowed to her command. As always, they sought her favor and acceded to her in matters of state. In the seven years since her father’s illness, Amytis had grown to a position of prominence she had not known when he ruled. Still, it was the magi who held the ultimate power.

And all of us conspire together
. Magi and royals alike, to ensure the city and the world believed Nebuchadnezzar ruled from his sickbed. It was a testament to the cleverness of the men in this room that the citizens of Babylon, and more important their enemies, had not learned the truth.

But it could not last forever. Men at all times grasped for power. And a king gone mad left a void someone would eventually attempt to fill. He was vulnerable, her father. In more ways than one.

Amytis saw Tia at last and motioned her forward, the next petitioner in line, come to ask for favors. Tia crossed to the base of the platform and stood on her toes, forcing a respectful smile.

“I would speak to you alone, Mother.”

Amytis sighed and lifted her eyes to the vaulted ceiling. “In my chambers.”

Tia followed her through the back corridor to her rooms, which smelled of her dizzying perfume. Amytis seated herself and directed a slave to brush her hair.

“Mother, why did you assign a slave to Kaldu?”

Amytis stretched her neck, and the slave followed the movement of her head with the comb. “What nonsense are you talking, Tia?”

“Kaldu. The slave Ying says you gave her to Kaldu while he visited the palace.”

Amytis fingered the emeralds around her neck and studied herself in the polished bronze, a blurry reflection. In that pause, that hesitation, Tia realized her mistake.

In all her years her mother had never told her the truth. She lied without remorse whenever it suited her needs. Or her wants. Why should today be different?

When she was younger, Tia had tried to keep count of the lies, of the deceit and trickery Amytis had used against her. She had given up years ago. Tia had asked her once why she loved her older sisters and scorned her. “You have your father’s love,” Amytis said. As if that were enough for anyone, and Tia should not need the love of a mother.

Amytis turned to her and waved away the slave. “Kaldu was a busy man. Besides his official duties, he studied under the magi. I approved this tutelage and offered him Ying for his needs.”

“Are you not concerned about his death? About how it might have occurred?”

“Kaldu’s death will no doubt be explained somehow. Or perhaps whatever killed him will act again and this time be observed.”

Tia watched her mother’s hazy reflection in the bronze. Did her thoughts run along the same path as Tia’s own?

Amytis slapped her hands against her thighs and stood. “It is time to leave off useless questions, Tia.” She ran a hand along Tia’s hair, correcting whatever flaws she perceived. “You have been scurrying about the palace like the wayward child of a slave, and it is time to act as a princess. There is much to do in preparation for your marriage.”

Tia bowed her head briefly and escaped her mother’s chamber without speaking. What was there to say? Would she beg at her knee again? Plead with her to show some affection, some pity? Never.

Once a wayward child, always a wayward child.

CHAPTER 11

A few well-placed questions after the morning meal gave Tia her next objective. Nearby, but she would have to escape the palace once more. She would not wait for nightfall and her evening run. Instead, Tia directed her chamber slaves to dress her for an excursion, in a long tunic and embroidered woolen robes, with a wrapped head scarf to cover her unruly hair.

She would go quietly, without attendants or even a chariot. Amytis was in the throne room at this hour, as were her advisors, and Tia found the palace halls quiet. She slipped through the series of fountained courtyards, watching for Ying.

Tia had played the foolish princess, uncaring about matters of city and kingdom, heedless to the true workings of power. While her father prowled the Gardens, others made decisions in the throne room and in whispered, unseen enclaves. At the center, as it had always been, were the magi. The magi who interested Kaldu.

Now she must find answers outside their secretive circle. Someone with knowledge of their activities, yet not a colleague. Belteshazzar.

She had not thought of Belteshazzar in years. The name brought pleasant childhood memories, of better days when her father was whole, when he was the laughing, generous man she remembered, whose chief advisor had been a strange but affectionate Jew he kept close at hand. What had become of Belteshazzar in the years since her father’s confinement? Did he still live?

Guards at the palace entry arch slowed Tia’s progress, recognized her, and let her pass. She did not miss their amusement. Was she a joke among them all?

At the base of the wide palace steps, a sudden voice at her side startled her.

“Running away, are you?”

The ever-present Pedaiah, with his ever-mocking tone. Why am I surprised?

“But what am I saying?” He indicated her embroidered robes. “You are not dressed for running.”

Tia bristled and kept walking, but he fell into step beside her. Had he been waiting for her? “What do you know of it?”

Pedaiah shrugged and nodded to a group of Jews they passed.

That was all the answer Tia was to receive, so she answered his implied question. “I needed to breathe air outside the palace.”

“Hmm. Yes, I know how that feels.”

“You have never lived in the palace.”

Silence met her statement, so she pushed along the Processional Way.

When would he fall back? Tia felt his gaze on her profile. “Your mother and sister came to live in the palace when I married Shealtiel. But not you.”

“No. Not me.”

She needed to rid herself of him before finding Belteshazzar, but her curiosity bested her. “Why not?”

“Some of us prefer to remain untainted.”

The words were like a slap against her cheek. She halted and turned on him. “The foul Babylonians, is that it? You fear we would defile you?”

He raised his chin and looked down on her. “You have that power. Indeed.”

“You speak as though we brought you to the uncultured wilderness rather than the most splendid city on earth. Of what can your home country boast?”

He lowered his eyes and inhaled as if in pain.

Tia waved a hand. “Why do you not return to whatever it is you do,
outside
the palace?” She shoved through the crowd, leaving him behind.

But he was not to be shaken. Moments later, when she had weaved through a group of merchants bearing wagons of millet, he was there again beside her.

She elbowed him aside. “Stop following me!”

“Perhaps I am only going the same direction.”

Tia growled, her fingers tightening to a fist. “Then, please, tell me where you are headed so I can choose another route.”

He pulled at her arm and Tia whirled on him. “Do not touch me!”

“You are not safe outside the palace unaccompanied.”

“So you would be my protector?”

He bowed in deference, unsmiling. “Pleased to oblige.”

“I—I did not ask—” The words sputtered out, barely intelligible.

They drew attention. Merchants and shoppers passed, eyes shifted to their argument. He stepped closer and lowered his voice. “Princess, you are happily naive of those who would take advantage of finding you in the city alone. I will not force you back to the palace, but I do insist upon joining your adventure.”

He said
adventure
as though Tia were a little girl out for a jaunt in the frightening city. “Very well.”

He nodded once and walked at her side. “Where are we going?”

“To visit a childhood friend.”

They did not have to travel far through the squalor of the city. Belteshazzar’s house lay in the shadow of the great palace. Surprising for a Judaean captive, and yet he had been a favorite of her father’s and lived in the palace when she was a child.

The streets here, so close to the royal family, were kept pristine, with well-tended rooftop gardens and smooth-facing stones hiding mud bricks. The children of nobles and court officials played in the streets, and the occasional merchant delivering grains and fruit to wives within hollered warnings to clear the way.