Garden of Madness (37 page)
Fear shot through her, the fear that all their plans were for naught and that she would marry Amel after all and see her family murdered before the Akitu Festival ended.
“He will come for us!” Her voice shook with terror and she grabbed at Pedaiah’s tunic.
He uncurled her fingers and jumped from the wagon. “You must hide.”
And then he was gone, racing forward to the head of the caravan.
A moment later her wagon jerked forward to follow the others. She watched the alley, waiting to pass Pedaiah one final time, to whisper a tortured good-bye. But he did not appear.
The wagons careened through the city streets, chased by unseen horrors that were yet to come. The frantic speed strangely calmed her father, who sat with arms wrapped around his knees. He did not take his eyes from Tia, watching as she bounced along beside him, clutching the side for support.
Within minutes the wagon slowed. She rose to her knees to peer into the darkness ahead.
Daniel’s house!
Her family alighted from their wagons one by one—her mother and sisters, their husbands and children. Pedaiah ushered them through the doorway, into the darkness beyond. Tia signaled the guards and pushed down the back of the wagon. They dragged the king forward and he did not protest. Pedaiah met her in the street.
“He has a secret chamber.” Pedaiah’s voice held urgency and he slipped his fingers through her own. “For the unseen training of magi in the ways of the One God. He will hide you there.”
Tia watched the guards pull her father toward the door. “For how long? We must get out of the city.”
“But not tonight. It is too dangerous. For now, you must hide. Until we have a better plan.”
She exhaled, frustration and fear building in her gut. “You are certain no one knows of this chamber?”
Pedaiah led her to the door. “Many know of it—those who have been trained here. We must only pray that none of them are loyal to Shadir.”
The risk was great—to remain rather than to flee—but she did not see what choice they had. She ducked into the doorway, traced her way through the passage to the courtyard, and was met by Daniel, who somehow embraced both Pedaiah and herself together.
“Come, come.” He pulled them along. “Through here.” Ahead, she saw a flicker of leather and tan tunics—a glimpse of the guards and her father disappearing into a darkened door.
They followed. Daniel snatched an oil lamp from a small pedestal they passed and Pedaiah guided her forward with his hand on her back.
Several steps downward, a twisting corridor with a low ceiling, a door half the height of a man, and they were inside a small chamber. Large enough for perhaps twenty persons to sit on the floor and learn from a wise man.
A dozen pairs of eyes shone in Daniel’s meager lamplight, and he raised the lamp to flicker shadows onto the musty walls. Her little family group huddled in the darkness, but Daniel’s attention was trained on only one of them.
Several hesitant steps brought him to stand before her father. The two met each other for the first time in seven years. She could see only her father’s face. Pedaiah circled her waist with his arm and brought her closer to his side, but she barely noticed. It was her father’s expression that held her captive.
Daniel reached a hand across the space that separated the two men, laid it gently on her father’s shoulder, one man to another. Not a gesture of man and beast, nor servant and king. A gesture of friends.
Her father’s entire body convulsed. A shudder that ran the length of him, but straightened rather than bent his spine.
His eyes fluttered and lifted to the low mud-brick ceiling.
Daniel’s voice was like a benediction over him. “Say it, my friend. Say the words.”
She held her breath—they all did—and watched something pass over her father’s features. A clearing, a washing away, a letting go. His body sagged as though released from a fearsome grip and he brought his gaze to meet Daniel’s.
And for the first time in seven years, Tia saw her father smile.
He smiled, and he licked his dry lips, and he spoke. Her father, the king, spoke to them all. Words that she would not have understood, would not have believed, in the days before she had known Pedaiah.
“The Most High lives forever. His kingdom is an eternal kingdom. His dominion endures from generation to generation.”
The grip of the guards fell away from his arms, and her father stumbled forward. Daniel opened his arms and caught Nebuchadnezzar in a warm embrace.
Over Daniel’s shoulder her father sought her out with his eyes, smiled on her.
“Tiamat
.”
Their seven long years had ended.
I have been a proud man. A mighty king, skillful at politics, gifted in leadership, with achievements beyond any dreamed of by my father or my father’s father.
Yes, I have been a proud man. Believed that I alone controlled my destiny, that I held the reins of my life in my own hands and could direct its goings according to my choosing.
Once, years ago, I watched three rebels thrown into a brick furnace. I saw a god walk amongst them, saw them emerge unharmed. I knew truth that day. That the Most High God of the Jews was the One True God, and all others false.
But I denied this truth. Allowed only for the Most High to be added to our existing pantheon of gods, gave Him slight acknowledgment in my heart and in my kingdom.
And so He came to take the reins, to snatch control of mind and body until such time as I would admit the truth. I was ready now. A tranquility like the water of the Gardens poured over my soul, rushed into my heart, flooded my emotions.
And I opened my mouth and spoke the words, the words seven years in the making, seven years in the learning.
“The Most High lives forever. His kingdom is an eternal kingdom. His dominion endures from generation to generation.”
My guilt and shame drained away with the words, replaced by a confidence that my wickedness had been forgiven, according to the justice and mercy of the One God.
In this, I acceded authority to Him whose power was infinitely beyond my own.
And with the accession came the one thing I could not grasp for myself.
My sanity was restored.
Tia had never been plagued with shyness. But standing there in that cramped chamber, with the eyes of the king on her and surrounded by family, a tremor of uncertainty fluttered against her chest, held her back from approaching.
Her mother had insisted that the king knew of her true parentage. What if this had been a lie, like so many she had told over the years?
The king was a paradox. Regal bearing fastened upon a beast’s visage. Those in the chamber held their breath collectively, stunned with the transformation in process. Her mother hung back, as though fearful that to encounter this man who was half her husband would return him to his previous madness.
The king released the Jewish prophet, who stood aside like a proud father himself, and took a step nearer to Tia. Pedaiah’s presence behind her was solid, and she reached a hand backward to grasp his warm fingers.
“Tiamat.” The name was gravelly in her father’s throat, a lingering reminder of the years past.
And then she was in his arms, the embrace she had longed for, his beard scratching at her neck and his tears wet on her cheek.
“You never gave up on me,” he whispered.
She tried to speak, but a sob caught in her chest.
Beside them, a movement of light and dark, of the queen’s pale skin and dark hair. Nebuchadnezzar released her to face his wife.
Tia had not seen Mother more beautiful than in that moment. Her wide, dark eyes fixed upon those of her husband, her full lips parted in a fusion of hope and disbelief, her delicate fingers reaching, reaching for what she had not believed possible.
Despite his filth, his crusted beard and yellowed nails, despite the smell of him and the barest scraps of clothing that hung from grimy shoulders, her father swept the queen into the passionate embrace of a younger man. Her mother’s whimper of surprise became a cry of relief, of laughter, and then of joy.
Tia laid her head against Pedaiah’s shoulder and drank in this reunion. He held her close, and the dark chamber seemed to lighten.
“How long?” His roughened voice took in the room, though he did not release her mother. “How long have I been senseless?”
It was Daniel who answered, his tone at once amused and instructive. “Seven times have passed over you, my king.”
Nebuchadnezzar nodded to Daniel, some secret understanding passing between the men. “To whom He wills power, He gives power.”
Daniel bowed, a slow dip of his head, and the king returned the gesture.
He still held her mother with one arm, but his gaze returned to Tia, confusion flitting across his features. “But who is this, Tia? Not your husband, Shealtiel? He is much changed.”
She smiled, suddenly timid again. Where to begin?
“Shealtiel has gone to his fathers, my king. This—this is his younger brother, Pedaiah.”
The king looked down on her mother’s face. “I am surprised, wife. You were so opposed to her first marriage. I would not have thought you would give her again to the Jews.”
Tia flushed. “We are not married, Father.”
The confession and her use of the term
father
both shook her with confusing emotions.
Mother leaned close to the king. “Tia knows the truth, husband. All of it.”
His shoulders sagged. “I would have preferred the secret be kept from you.” He tilted his head, examined her. “It changes nothing, Daughter. Nothing.”
She tried to smile, but the muscles of her lips quivered into something else. Though she was not his own, he loved her still. Like the One God, inviting her into His covenant.
The king’s attention went to Pedaiah. “So, you have not married her, but you wish to?”
The startling question set the rest of the room buzzing, and her father seemed to realize at last that others were present. There came a flurry of greetings and embraces, of introductions to his grandchildren whom he had never met, of tears from her sisters, and nervous acknowledgment from their husbands.
Her mother drew him aside at last. “There is much to tell you, my king. The kingdom is not safe. We are in hiding, attempting to flee the city.”
Even as she said the words, they all saw that everything had changed in this secret chamber. They were an exiled family with a mad king no longer.
It was time to take a stand.
Behind her, a shout of derision sounded from the narrow passageway and Tia turned in time to see a lean figure bend and enter, then straighten and survey the room.
Her would-be future husband. Amel-Marduk.
The room silenced at once. Tia stepped forward, as though she could shield them all with her body. Pedaiah shifted as well, toward her father.
Tia faced the young mage, the young
prince
, and lifted her chin. “So you have found us, Amel.”
He surveyed the room full of royalty and brought his gaze back to her. “What is this, Tiamat? You are leaving Babylon?”
She hesitated and swallowed her first reply. Their uncertain future left her fumbling for an answer.
Pedaiah stepped behind her. “She will never marry you, Amel. Take the throne if you must, but you will not have Tia.”
Amel looked between them, then broke into a laugh. “So this is who you would favor, Tia? The arrogant Jew?” He turned on Pedaiah. “And you? You think yourself worthy of a princess?” He jutted his chin toward Pedaiah. “Perhaps another scar, to match the first I gave you, would remind you of your place.”
Pedaiah stiffened beside her, his hands forming fists and his jaw clenched.
Tia went to Amel and clutched at his sleeve. “Let us leave in peace, Amel. We leave the kingdom to you. There is no need for bloodshed. No need to tell Shadir what has become of us.”
Amel snarled, an angry curl of the lip she had never seen. “Let you leave with a mad king and his successors? What’s to keep you from returning to claim the throne?”
“Look at us.” Tia spread a hand to the huddled group and risked a glance at her father. He stood half hunched, his eyes a vacant stare. Had his madness returned? But no, it was an act for Amel. His cunning had returned with his sanity. “With what army shall we claim the throne? We escape with little more than our lives. We are no threat to you.”
He seemed to deliberate, and she pressed into his silence.
“If you care for me at all, Amel, do this for me. Allow me my freedom, and the lives of my family.”
Her fingers tightened around his arm, and he stared down at her hand, then slowly removed its grip. His eyes, when he looked into Tia’s, held an empty hostility. She had misjudged him.
“I care for you,
Princess
, because of what you can do for me here in Babylon. Out there”—he jerked his head toward the unknown—“out there you can do nothing, and hence you mean nothing to me.”
Pedaiah was before her in a blur, blocking her view of Amel, pushing him back toward the door. “Go then, mage. Raise your supporters. Do what you must.”
He gambled that Amel had come alone, without soldiers to take them all.
The men faced off, a breath apart, until Amel broke the hold and backed to the entrance. “You will never escape the city.”
And he was gone.
They did not have long.
Amel’s departure left them in silence for only a few moments, until a hushed and hurried convening of ideas brought them together in the darkened chamber.
At the heart of their plan: the king’s restoration and what it meant for the kingdom, and for their enemies. They would not flee into the night as though they had no king.
The two guards who had brought her father into Daniel’s house were sent to retrieve the wagons. Daniel followed, then returned when the wagons were readied. Water was brought for the king to wash, and clothes to cover him.
In a strange reversal of their earlier flight, they piled into the vehicles and headed back toward the palace—the one location Shadir and his followers would not expect to find them. Tia and her parents took to a single wagon this time, with Pedaiah sitting cross-legged beside her.