Garden of Madness (25 page)
“It matters not how I know, Mother. What action will we take? I will find proof of his deceit if you will tell me—”
“You will do nothing!” She hurled herself at Tia, shook her by the shoulders. A little gasp escaped her mother’s lips, a stuttering sort of inhalation that was almost a sob. “Nothing, Tia. Do you hear me? You will stay away from all of it. You’re a foolish girl, and your questions will destroy all I’ve done to save this kingdom.” Her long fingers dug into Tia’s skin. “Why can you not simply do your duty and prepare yourself for marriage?”
“Because I want more for my life than to be bought and traded! I wish to—to—”
“To
what
, Tia? Say it! What is it that you wish?”
“I wish to make a difference!” Tia yanked away from her tight grasp. “To live a life of consequence, not simply of comfort. To have a cause to live for, more than power and luxury. To find something so important, I would even give my life!”
The declaration spilled from her like a newborn truth Tia had not known until she looked into its face. It left her breathless.
Her mother’s expression shifted from cold amusement to something other, something almost like kinship, as though Tia’s desires had resonated in her own heart, reminded her of who she once was, given her a taste again of what it was to ache for meaning.
But the link between them was too fragile to hold. Amytis turned away and left it broken.
“You need children, Tia. That is all. Marry Zagros and have his children and you will find all that you seek.”
The words were lifeless. They fell from her lips like stones, hit the floor, and made no sound.
Tia did not bother to respond.
Tia found him in the palace.
When Amytis swept out of her chamber, leaving her hollowed, empty, Tia collapsed onto her bed and snatched a few hours of agitated sleep. But before the sun completed half its daily trek, she rose, remembered her mother's words, and churned through the palace corridors, intent on questioning Pedaiah.
The secrets of the palace had denied her in every direction she pushed. Fitting that she now hunted an outsider for answers. Why had Amytis assumed it was Pedaiah who told her of Amel’s claim to sonship?
If she could prove Amel to be a pretender for the throne, Shadir’s plan would slip through his fingers like grains of Babylonian sand. Her father would be safe from his plotting. Amytis would have no reason to ally them with the Medes, with her as the adhesive between two kingdoms. Such a simple solution, why did Amytis not work toward that end? Why, instead, did she try to sell Tia off to ensure peace?
The web of chambers belonging to the family of the deposed king Jeconiah lay in the southwestern corner of the palace, level with the street. Directly under her own, two floors down. She knew the way well enough, for one of the rooms had belonged to Shealtiel, and she had been summoned there often through her seven years of marriage.
“Why can you not simply do your duty?”
How could her mother spit out such an accusation? Had she not followed duty to Shealtiel’s bed since she was a girl? True, he had never been cruel. Never violent. But never loving.
She intended to force Marta to point her to Pedaiah’s dwelling in the city. When she shoved against the outer door of their set of chambers, a voice in singsong cadence, familiar and low, vibrated the air. Though she could not see him, somewhere Pedaiah prayed.
She hesitated. Listened. She understood none of his Judaean language, but the tenderness of the prayer, more like a song sung in the night to a sleepless child, flowed over her chafed spirit like a balm.
“He knows you, wants you to know Him.”
They were not empty words. Pedaiah’s heart belonged to his One God. It had not been like this with Shealtiel. Perhaps if it had . . .
“Tiamat?”
Nedabiah, the younger brother she sought to marry, stared at her with wide eyes from across the simple chamber. A smaller version of Pedaiah, who was beside him a moment later, removing the fringed prayer cloth from his head.
The anger that had fueled her steps had seeped out of her body at Pedaiah’s prayer. She fumbled for an explanation. “I—I came to speak to Marta—”
Nedabiah crossed thin arms over his chest. “She is not here.”
How had she not seen how alike these two were? Did Nedabiah know her plan for him?
Pedaiah circled an arm around his young brother’s shoulders. Did he think she’d come to snatch the boy? A flush of heat slithered up her neck.
“I was only coming to ask where I could find
you
.”
Pedaiah said nothing for a moment, only narrowed his eyes in that condescending way of his, too much of which had etched lines at their corners, though she could not see the creases from where she stood pressed against the door.
“What can I do for you, Princess?”
Such coldness. Was this the same man who had taken her hand and run her across the city?
She bit her lip and glanced at Nedabiah. “I would speak with you. Alone.”
At this, Nedabiah’s eyebrows lifted, as though a pauper had come demanding audience with the king. Yes, they were much alike, these two.
Pedaiah nodded to his brother, then inclined his head toward the deeper rooms of the complex. Nedabiah obeyed and disappeared. Pedaiah watched him go, then turned back to her, silent, waiting. He wore his customary white tunic, so plain yet always unsullied, and the purple fringe of the prayer cloth lay over his shoulders like a mantle of royalty.
In all the years she had frequented these chambers, the austerity of the decor had always been a mystery. The wide chasm of bare floor between them, the unadorned walls and simple furniture. Tia had assumed that when the Jews came from their dusty, backward villages, they brought their simple tastes with them. Could it be that like everything else about Pedaiah, this plainness was a refusal to assimilate into the Babylonian culture?
She sought a casual opening. “I did not expect to find you here.”
“I am living in the palace for a time.”
Her heart tripped over the statement. “Why?”
He glanced to where Nedabiah had disappeared. “To protect those I hold dear.”
Ah
.
“What can I do for you, Tiamat?”
Pedaiah’s repeated question jarred her. “I have questions for you.” A flicker of interest, perhaps even hope, flamed in his eyes. “Questions about Amel-Marduk.” Just as quickly, the flame was gone, doused with cold water. His clean-shaven jaw worked, the muscles there tense and bulging.
It was ridiculous, this conversation from two sides of the room, so she crossed to him, close enough that Nedabiah would not hear her words. Pedaiah seemed to withdraw, without ever moving his feet. How did he always accomplish this?
“I need to know more about Amel. About his days before he came to the palace to study under Shadir. You said that you knew him—”
“We were never friends, Princess.”
“No, no, I did not assume you were. I only want to hear more of him.”
Pedaiah sidestepped her, went to a small table, and poured water from a jug into an earthen cup. He offered her none. He was not thirsty; he was stalling.
If Pedaiah would not answer simply, Tia would provoke. “You were jealous of him, perhaps?”
His back was to her, but she heard him laugh into his cup. A laugh that signified not that she was amusing, but rather that she was a fool. “You should stay away from him, Princess. He—he is not worthy of you.”
Worthy of
her
? Pedaiah had made it plain that she was only so much Babylonian dirt under his feet. The offense of his former words returned her to boldness. “I did not ask you for advice, Pedaiah. I asked you for information.”
He slammed the cup to the table and turned on her. “And why must I be the one you interrogate?”
“Because you know more than you will say. And I must know of him. Where did he live before the palace? Who is his family? He worked at one of the furnace yards, you said.”
“I did not say.”
“Then—then I suppose it was Amel who told me that he saw you there.”
It was Pedaiah who drew close now, close enough that she could smell fire on him, as if he had come only a moment ago from the furnace. A flash of memory, of her father’s head against her own. She shifted toward him, feeling every speck of the narrow space that separated them.
“And what else did he tell you of those days?”
“That you acted as you always do, proud and arrogant and insisting that the Judaean captives not be tasked with brick-making. That you helped them shirk their duties.”
The small smile again, this time close enough for her to touch him.
“Yes. Yes, I helped them escape from Amel-Marduk. From the curses that fell from his mouth, only slightly less frequent than the lashes of his whip. From the forced hours on their feet, beyond all human endurance. From the unbearable heat that sucked the life from their pores. He would have left them where they fell in the sand, kicked aside only to make space for more slaves to feed his ambition.” He brought his mouth to her ear, and the words were sharp with accusation. “That is your Amel-Marduk, Princess.”
She gripped his arm.
Do not pull away now
. “He is not mine, Pedaiah. I—I do not—”
But he retreated, his face once again set like marble. She could believe almost that it was jealousy that fueled his bitterness, but no—no, it was a fury borne of protective instinct, a herd leader defending his pack.
What a father he would make
.
“He lived in the farmers’ district.” The clipped words seemed to cost him. “His mother’s name was Dakina. He had no father, as I recall. I know nothing more.”
Tia had been dismissed. She did not wait to be forced from the chamber.
In her own rooms once again, she paced and tried to focus on her next actions, tried to forget how Pedaiah looked when he spoke of the injustice to his people with such beautiful fury.
She would go to the farmers’ district, search out Amel’s mother, find the truth about his parentage. She reached for a cloak tossed over the back of a carved chair, but her hand wobbled with the effort. Her sleepless night and the clash with both Amytis and Pedaiah had left her exhausted.
Later. Later she would go. For now she’d partake of a cup of the wine kept at her bedside and a few hours of sleep.
She coiled on her bed, pulled coverings over her body, and sought peace from the peculiar sadness.
But the dreams came.
Roiling, churning dreams of Labartu and blood and fire, of night screams and daylight tortures, of pain and of death.
She awoke in darkness. Relief at the release from terror spilled over her, and a chilled breeze cooled the sweat on her forehead. She breathed against the darkness, long drags of the night air to fill her constricted lungs.
The sensibility of something amiss came slowly, too slowly.
A sticky wetness on her hands. Had she spilled her wine? Her bed, hard as stone. A coldness in her limbs. She forced her weighted lids open, took in the star-spattered sky, and shuddered.
Outdoors. Not in her chamber, not in her bed. Different this time. She had not lost only hours, but also her own movements.
Tia pulled herself to sitting, noting again the wetness of her hands.
The Gardens. How had she come to be in her father’s Hanging Gardens? She held her palms to the moonlight, and in the shadows of the trees the spilled wine looked like blood.
But no, there was no wine.
She searched the undergrowth for her father. Did he watch her? Did he know how she had come to be here?
There, under a date palm, a human form with only a fragment visible to her—a leg, unclothed.
Her heart slammed against her chest. She crawled forward. Followed the length of slim leg to bare thigh, limp body. Torn robes. Deep scratches in the arms. Bloodied face.
Ying
. Kaldu’s missing slave girl. The same putrid mutilation.
Tia’s breath huffed from her chest. She kneeled at the corpse like a penitent, lifted her bloodied hands once more, and studied the dried gore under her own nails.
The screaming began long before she realized it came from her own mouth.
Tia choked on her own scream. It died a gurgling death in her throat, then fell to the pit of her belly.
She put a hand to her mouth to keep it from returning, felt the gore smear her face, and yanked the hand away.
The whites of Ying’s eyes, shot through with blood trails, refracted the moonlight like shattered alabaster. Her bluish lips hung slightly open. Purple bruises stained her jaw.
Tia’s own blood pounded in her fingertips, her forehead. All her fears, conscious and unconscious, clotted together in her mind, a foul mass of self-accusation.
Ying’s robe had been torn away from her splayed legs. One thigh was deeply sliced, the ripped flesh and tendons spread to reveal bone, like a split merchant’s sack spilling its treasures.
The dead scream in her belly turned rancid, turned her insides rotten, turned against her and tried to rise. She skittered backward from the body and retched. Once, twice. Three times. She clutched at her distended stomach. Tears tracked her face and chilled in the night air.
Behind her an eerie moan matched the wind in the trees but came from the ground. Tia swung her heavy head and saw her father. He watched her. Saw her hover over the kill. He moaned again, like a child with a broken toy. She reached for him. Too far.
The Gardens smelled of blood and vomit, and she tasted both. A shout went up from a lower level, sharp and angry. Another shout returned, but she could make no sense of the words. Could make no sense of her own words, if any had formed. She heard the
slap slap
of soldiers’ sandals. They came for her.
Her hands and stomach both were clenching, unclenching, clenching. She slid farther from Ying’s body. One thought, and only one thought, pounded in rhythm with the blood in her veins.
She had been hunting a monster.
I have been hunting myself
.