The Carnelian Cube

Twenty-Two:

Let the scribe Ninudunadin speak without fear and tell what the sons of men in the camp say of the Glory of Asshur."

Finch frowned. The walls of the interior tent were cloth, not too thick, and it was no part of his intention as recorder to be drawn into the intrigues of an Assyrian court. In fact, it would ruin—

Queen Ishtaramat chuckled amiably, the jelly of her chins shaking. "It is written that the tree that bears no fruit shall be cut away; and also that the tongue is the tree of the mouth."

She probably meant it. "And it is also written," countered Finch, "that he who repeats a lie told by another is the son of it; and also that the son of a lie is a fool."

"By the telling of the lie to those who know the truth is its father brought to his confounding."

Finch bowed. "Oh, Queen, live forever. If it be understood that I speak to the Queen's favor and not of mine own thought, I will even say that the men of valor say this: that foreign things find favor in the eyes of the King; or that the General Zilidu is like the old King, who slew thousands before Bel."

She giggled again, but it was a rictus and the rest of her face was sober. "Speak truly, you who are the ears of the King and keeper of his memory: it is not said among the host 'This Lord is the bull of Marduk, a notable raper of women, so that if there is a fair damsel among the spoils, he will not have her allotted according to right, but seize her for himself?"

"No, Great Lady. Never have I heard this word."

"It is bad," she said. Her voice went down to a matter and her eyes rolled till they showed the whites, then focused again and she giggled. "Come, let us make a counsel together, you and I, you of the King's memory. You have taken the tale of the General Zilidu's victory and captives. Is there among them a princess comely of form, desirable, of rank sufficient to be the King's handmaiden?"

Finch shook his head. "I know not one ... Unless you count as princess a certain Sherah, daughter to a merchant prince of this Samaria, who is reputed to be of so perfect a beauty that she was sent to the King of Egypt as the price of his alliance. If ..." He stopped suddenly, realizing what he had said and could have bitten his tongue out. Sherah would be Thera.

Too late. The Queen's face lighted and she clapped her hands. At one side a corner of cloth lifted and a wizened dwarfish face peered in, the eyes darting quickly back and forth. "Summon the eunuch Nabuzaradan," she said, and the face disappeared. There was silence in the tent.

"Great Lady," said Finch, "is it permitted that the scribe ask the Queen's counsel?"

"It is permitted. This is a great and a proud nation, that glories in its king and would be ruled under Asshur by one greater than themselves, the incarnation of the god. If the King be a mighty man of valor, who slaughters by thousands and tens of thousands the enemies, and winds out their entrails around the altar of Nergal—well. Such an one they understood; they would do so if they were great. Such an one was my lord, the Old King."

She stopped, her eyes rolled again, and when she spoke, it was almost in a whisper. "Such an one is the King's turtan, Zilidu, the great captain. But not my son, King Shalmanesar ..."

"My lord, the King," observed Finch diplomatically, "is of greater mind than to exalt himself. He thinks of the glory of Asshur before that of Shalmanesar."

She focused a quick glance on him, and then giggled. "Who taught you so much, slave? Yet I suppose a fool might read the design; to unite in one realm under Asshur all peoples and tongues from the sea of the Chaldees to that of the Egyptians. Any fool but these foolish fighting men, who since they may drink death tomorrow, have no thought but for the glory of today and those that lead them to it." Her voice dropped again. "There is a fear of me; I remember how my lord, the Old King, dealt with Nabonassar, in the days before he was King."

"And you think that General Zilidu—"

"Must be brought low." The queen tittered again. "Oh, not with the spear. The camp is full of Zilidus. Listen scribe, wise man, memory, and I will tell you a thing: there is a way a man may prove himself above others and their master, though he may not so much as heard the trumpet blow. If they say 'Behold, he leads every woman to the couch,' they will also say, 'He is a great lord and greatly to be praised.' Only a dead king is loved for his achievement as a ruler; but a living one for those as a soldier or a lecher."

There was a small sound behind Finch, and he turned in time to see a man who was evidently Nabuzaradan the eunuch going down in his prostration.

"It is permitted to rise," said Ishtaramat. The eunuch had not the usual fatness of his kind, except about the white hands, clinking with wrist-rings, and about the greasy face. Gazing at the small eyes and the line from nose-base to mouth, Finch thought he could not trust such a fellow as far as an oyster can climb a tree, and caught himself wondering what Nabuzaradan had been in the outer world, before being conditioned into a eunuch of Shalmanesar's court. Something unpleasant—

"... a certain Sherah, princess of Samaria," the Queen was saying. "When the General Zilidu presents himself before the Lord of Asshur, after he has had his wine, let her be of the general's train."

The eunuch bowed. "O Queen, live forever. But it is not the custom to bring women in the train—"

She interrupted him with a giggle. "I charge you with it. The last man who failed me was flayed alive."

A pearl of sweat glistened on the greasy forehead. "It is done, Great Lady."

"Without veil. You may go." She clapped her hands again, and when the dwarf face appeared, said: "The astrologer, Shamsuabi."

Finch was far too interested in this specimen of court control to want to miss any of it, but for the record, he said: "Great Lady, is it desired that I withdraw?"

"Nay." She breathed through her mouth, a breath that ended in the usual titter. "Have I not said: 'We will make a counsel together?' A thing may come out of this; it is good that the queen's counsellor should know too much of her counsel to tell any of it to others, and enough so that he may stand in her place before the judgment seat."

Finch found the silence that followed slightly oppressive. He shifted his feet and wondered, as he had over Nabuzaradan, what this rather sinister matriarch had been before Dr. Theophilus Chase put her through his conditioning routine. She was too convincingly living her part for it to be something merely assumed under any process of indoctrination, an actor's role. Perhaps— Finch glanced at the fat, passive face with its heavy-lidded eyes, waiting with that expression which seemed to hold nothing but serene good nature—perhaps she was the victim of some such experiences as himself, wandering down endless corridors of existence, under some obscure compulsion to be another individuality ...

"It is an honor to an old woman that the favorite of the gods will give his time to visit her," said Ishtaramat.

"It is an honor to this incompetent interpreter of the signs of heaven that the Great Lady should ask for him," replied the astrologer, and rose from his obeisance to reveal that remarkable thing, a clean-shaven face, with a hooked promontory of a nose between deep-set eyes. He waited respectively and it was the Queen who spoke next:

"Has the Knower of the Stars cast the horoscope for this siege?"

There was the faintest flicker of expression on Shamsuabi's face, instantly ironed out to smoothness. "Only partially, Great Lady. The task is long. Dilbat holds the sky at sunset and that is good, but Ninib tarries in the Waterman, and that is bad. The siege is arduous."

She chuckled. "The Keeper of the Gates is more discreet than to say clearly, 'It is thus; the gods will it.' Yet shall it not be remembered that Shamsuabi the astrologer foretold the victory of General Zilidu over the Egyptians?"

The man bowed. "Not I, Great Lady, but the stars. Marduk was strong, being in the Archer. But now—"

She cut him short with an uplifted hand. "But now one must go before my Lord, the King, with an uncertain word. I remember a certain Asmaradan, an astrologer before My Lord, the King, whose eyes were gouged out with hot irons when he gave to one of the general's glory, but to the king, troubles. Is not today the day of prediction?"

"I serve the truth, Great Lady, which hot irons and eye gouges cannot change."

"Yet truth wears many garments, of which a wise man will present her in the most attractive. Gome, is it not true that in this Samaria there was damsel so beautiful as to be called the luck of the city, who could be given to the King of Egypt as the price of his alliance? Is it not true that she is even now in the train of General Zilidu? It would be a good thing if the stars said, as men also say, that he who possesses the princess shall also possess the city." She giggled. "See, how I have done a tiling for you. Here is a true prediction, yet one that will advance you with my Lord, the Bang."

Once more that expression, rapid and enigmatic, flashed across the face of Shamsuabi. But he hid with a bow, and said: "The thanks of her slave to the Great Lady under Ishtar."

"It is permitted to withdraw; and to the scribe Nintudunadin also, who has all our counsel"

She wasn't overlooking a single bet, thought Finch, as he made his way toward the tent of the trap-door and his relief by Hilprecht The geo-politician was already in costume, pacing to and fro in the narrow room and shaking his head as Finch came down the ladder.

"What gives?" he greeted Finch. "I hear those shoutings."

"I think Zilidu's army must have come in," said Finch, "but I was held up by Queen Ishtaramat and didn't get to see the show."

"Ach! My friend, you are a phenomenon. I do not understand; the great events come, a parade of victorious armies, and you miss it to make attendance to this fat old woman."

Finch grinned: "The fat old woman was worth a little attendance this time. She's up to tricks." And he recounted the queen's interviews with Nabuzaradan and the astrologer.

"So!" said Hilprecht. "She is useful, that queen; she makes things happen. You see what comes? Zilidu cannot give up this wench; she is his trophy. Doch, things will now occur. But do such details matter? No, they are of the purest sentimental interest which is not significant in the chain of historical events. Your approach is too personal ..." He stopped and jagged one thick eyebrow upward. "I remind myself. What troubles have you been making, my friend?"

"I don't know. What do you mean?"

"Ah! I hear a word here and there, and Papa Hilprecht is not so foolish. A word to the wise men is not barking against the wrong boat, according to your English proverb. I tell it because you are saving my theory, in friendship. Beware yourself! They discuss in the general board that you should be declared unscientific because you lose your judgment over a woman, a nanny-goat. There is also a black, who claims to be an astrologer, by the gate waiting."

The weight of the world came down on Finch's shoulders. "Oh, good heavens!" he said. "Do you mind if I don't type out these notes till I've seen him?"

Hilprecht assumed the expression of a disapproving but indulgent father, and held up one finger. "It is not right, but for once, go. I will omit to report."

The visitor was Beauregard, all right, looking very large and rather menacing in the red rays of a setting sun, just outside the wooden tunnel. The guard on duty, a burly individual with a red beard and an inexplicable odor of perfume, was looking at the visitor suspiciously. But Beauregard was smilingly polite:

"Dr. Finch, sir, indeed I am delighted to encounter you. I hope and trust your project is proceedifying in a magnificent manner."

"It's going along all right. What can I do for you?"

"For me in person? Nothing, nothing at all, Dr. Finch." He waved large hands and seemed for the moment a trifle nonplused.

"Oh. I was under the impression that you would hardly have come out here merely to say good-evening."

"As a matter of factuality, you are correct, perfectly correct. I came because of my reading of the stars which demonstrates that as a pronounced Saggitarius type, you have the ideal of the promotion of justice."

"Naturally. How does that affect your visit here, my sable sibyl?"

"Sir!" There was enormous dignity in the face presented to him. "I am victimated by dense injustice." He lowered his voice and with a glance at the guard, added in a stage whisper: "A certain doctor has brought impeachment proceedings on the ground of casting a false horoscope. Yes sir."

"Was the horoscope false?" he asked.

"No sir! That is the point. The whole signification of it according to varitudinous systems is that you and Miss Bow is in distinctivized danger."

Finch frowned, looking away toward one of the service buses that was just drawing up near the entrance, acutely conscious of a sense of responsibility for this pathetic and ridiculous creature. And yet, in that last stormy interview with Chase, Beauregard had certainly shown every indication of ratting, placing all the blame for the incident on him.

"What do you want me to do?" he temporized.

"Sir, the situation is almost indefeasible. But we have a resource. We can apply to the Numerological Institute, which has seniorization even above Dr. Chase's department, due to its newness. I observe that you and Miss Bow are both Nines, while Dr. Chase, as a Seven, entertains a naturalized antipathetic polarity—"

"The inhabitants of Skye," Finch interrupted him gravely, "take in each other's washing, and I am delighted to hear that astrologers patronize numerologists."

Beauregard's features withered. "If you don't, by gollies, I'm gonna have to tell the board you put me up to it, tha's all. Dr. Chase, he'll—"

He came to a stop suddenly, gazing at two men in gray uniforms who had separated themselves from the little group getting off the bus, and were talking to the guard. The latter was pointing toward Beauregard. "Thanks," said the two, and came over.

One of them addressed the astrologer. "Are you Washington Beauregard? ... Assignment Division, Department of Psychology. You have been chosen for an assignment in the reconstruction project on Assyrian history. Sorry to rush you, but I'm afraid you'll have to come over to the conditioning laboratory right away."