Garden of Madness (40 page)
She patted his cheek, grinned through her tears. “And you should not have feared. The Most High is stronger than a thousand Shadirs.”
He lifted his hand to hers, clasped her fingers, but then took Tia’s hand and joined it with Pedaiah’s.
“It is time to speak to our people.”
Tia lifted her joy to Pedaiah’s face and saw it reflected there. He squeezed her fingers, and they approached the lip of the Akitu House roof, a united royal family presented to the people, standing behind their king.
Her father’s voice had lost none of its authority, though the people had not heard it for seven years. Below them, the masses of people within range of his words drank them in, passed them backward through the torch-lit streets that stretched before them to the far gates of Babylon. Tia looked over the people and she loved them, though she knew in many ways she was no longer part of them.
Nebuchadnezzar spoke of the magi dead under their feet with respect and yet condemnation. A plot to take the kingdom from him had been stopped this night, and the people were witness.
“My daughter Tiamat shall indeed be wed tonight,” he shouted. “But not to the prince of Media as was expected. We shall keep our kingdom to ourselves yet awhile longer.”
At this, smiles of amusement, of appreciation, rippled through the crowd.
“Instead, I wed my daughter Tiamat to the brother of her late husband. To Pedaiah ben Jeconiah, son of the Judaean king.”
Pedaiah’s arm circled her waist and they stepped to the edge of the roof to stand beside the king. The people lifted a cheer, though she guessed they cared little for her happiness and were only glad to see the kingdom retain its autonomy and strength, with no treaty marriage to the Medes.
She thought of Amel, whom the people had never known was to be her husband. Where was he now? Would he flee the city along with Shadir?
Behind them, at the announcement, a shriek lifted into the night.
They turned as one to face evil once more.
She had expected Yahweh to pursue Shadir and exact justice. She had not expected Shadir to pursue her.
Though in truth, it was impossible to know where his attack was directed—to her, to the king, even Pedaiah. He flew across the roof in a rage, his face a hideous contortion of malice, lips flecked with froth and eyes bulging. In one upraised hand he bore a dagger. He would carry one of them over the edge of the roof with that dagger embedded in flesh. Pedaiah pushed Tia behind his body and her father held out his arm, ineffectual defense.
Halfway across the roof, Shadir met the blades of four soldiers. One of them sliced so deeply into his neck that, stoic as Tia usually was at the sight of gore, she turned her head, faint with the spectacle.
Shadir went down in a heap, his robes settling around him like a blackbird’s feathers coming to roost, and did not move.
They stood in silence, all of them, shocked by the suddenness of the attack and the finality of Shadir’s execution.
Her father, her true father, pulled Tia to himself and kissed the top of her head.
“Not here, Tia,” he said, as if they had not just witnessed such a horror. “I will not have you married here, with death all around us.”
Tia smiled up at him and nodded. “There is only one place with beauty enough to erase all the ugliness of this night.”
And so that very night, Pedaiah’s mother, Marta, was brought, and his sister, Rachel, and younger brothers to join once more with her family. Surrounded by them all, she stood in the Hanging Gardens—that wild and untamed place with its roots deep in the palace—and married the man she loved.
One year later
Push, Princess! Push!”
“I have been pushing all night!”
Tia’s sweat-soaked hair stuck fast to her face, and she spit to clear it from her lips.
Omarsa stood beside where Tia lay on the bed and clucked her tongue. “It has
not
been all night—”
“I don’t care! It has been too long!”
“All the women of the world before you have endured this night—”
Her murderous look stopped Omarsa’s flow of stupidity.
“You will bear a fine son very soon, Princess, I promise you.”
“I will hold you to that promise, Omarsa!”
Indeed, it turned out that her slave was a bit wiser in the ways of childbirth than she. Within the hour Tia held her newborn son in her arms, and Pedaiah knelt at her side, his face buried against them both. Hot tears anointed them with his love. Tia laid a hand on the back of his head and knew completeness for the first time in her life.
She looked at Omarsa. “Send for any news. I will go as soon as I must.”
Omarsa nodded and went to the door, then whispered a few words to a younger slave. Though Omarsa served her still, Tia had not seen Gula since the night her father retook the throne of Babylon.
They huddled together, the little family, for too short a time. The slave returned, face grim, with a message that was passed to Omarsa and then to Tia.
“He is fading, Princess. But it is too soon—”
“No. No, I must go. Pedaiah, take the baby. Omarsa, help me prepare.”
In the end, Omarsa carried their baby boy and Pedaiah carried her, for she was too weak to walk and the king’s chamber lay on the other side of the palace.
One year had passed since her father had emerged from the Gardens and taken his place on the throne of Babylon again. A year of joy, of prosperity. In his newfound allegiance to the One God, Nebuchadnezzar had become even greater than his former days, and the people’s devotion had swelled.
Daniel’s training of young magi in the ways of the One God had come out from its secretive cover into the palace itself. While most of the wise men still pursued the age-old Babylonian gods, a school of magi flourished—some Babylonian and some Jewish— who were especially trained to seek the wisdom of Yahweh, and ever watching the stars for signs of the Messiah whom Daniel said was to come.
They reached her father’s chamber and were ushered in. Pedaiah carried Tia to her father’s bedside and set her carefully beside him.
Amytis touched her cheek briefly, but her attention was on the babe in Omarsa’s arms.
“A son, Father. I have borne a son.”
The king’s lips formed a knowing smile and his weak fingers sought hers. She caught them up and kissed them.
Omarsa transferred the sleeping child to Tia’s arms, and her mother came to stand beside her.
From the shadows, Daniel also stepped forward, his warm smile falling on her. She was not surprised to see him. He and her father had been inseparable for the past year.
The prophet stood at the bedside, one hand on her father’s feverish brow and one hand on Tia’s son, and his eyes fluttered and closed.
Tia’s smile faded, replaced by the solemn awareness that their time under this great king had come to an end, on the very day of this new beginning.
Somewhere in the halls of the palace, Amel-Marduk waited for word of his accession to the throne.
Tia would not have thought this possible a year ago, but in the days since Shadir’s death and the slaying of the magi who followed him, Amel had become the king’s son in a true and honorable way. Ironic that the very thing Shadir had plotted would now come to pass. But all had changed. Amel would be a good king, ruling as her father wished, and the succession would be peaceable. Already he had convinced her father to give up his grudge against the Hebrew king Jeconiah and grant him release.
Daniel’s eyes opened and he drew in a deep breath as though he would speak. Tia studied his noble profile and read the intense sorrow of a man losing his close friend.
“It is an end and it is a beginning,” he whispered.
A chill raced along Tia’s flesh at this echo of her own thoughts.
“The hand of Yahweh has been heavy on His people in judgment for their idolatry. He has brought them to a land of idols to teach them His sovereignty, and never again will they turn to false gods.” His eyes smiled a blessing over Tia, over her child, and her heart pounded in response to the prophetic words, now spoken over her baby. “When the days of the judgment are passed, this child shall lead them.”
Tia’s breathing shallowed, a sense of the holy falling on her.
Daniel’s voice rose, a victorious, joyful sound. “His name shall be Zerubbabel.”
Born of Babylon
. “But he shall be the last prince of the captivity. And he will lead his people home.”
Pedaiah’s hand fell on her shoulder, and Tia could feel the fatherly pride surge from his fingers into her flesh.
She thought of all she had once feared to lose—her position as princess and the luxuries that accompanied it. She had risked it all, and in many ways she had indeed lost it all. They did not live in the palace, she and Pedaiah. They lived among their people, the followers of Yahweh. This they would continue to do while they waited for the return. Though the king still called her his daughter, she belonged to another house now, the house and lineage of David, from whom would come a Messiah to save all people.
But the loss of Babylon was nothing. She had gained all that she truly desired. And now, this new calling—to raise a prince of Israel who would lead his people back to their land—well, she had wanted to change the world, had she not?
The infant Zerubbabel opened his eyes in the same moment Nebuchadnezzar’s closed for the last time, and the final sigh of death was drowned by the lusty wail of new birth.
Her father had gone to find his reward at the gates of the One God.
But here in Babylon . . .
Here in Babylon, her greatest adventure awaited.
The Hanging Gardens of Babylon were first included on a list of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World by the historian Philo of Byzantium, around 250 BC. Only a few other ancient writers mention the Gardens, and their existence has never been proved.
We do know from extensive excavations in Babylon that Nebuchadnezzar was a great builder and that a structure of this reported magnitude was possible. By combining the accounts of those few historians, we can assume that if the Hanging Gardens did indeed exist, they were built for the king’s Median wife on a series of lofty terraces and planted with trees and a variety of flowers. In writing
Garden of Madness
, I drew upon these historians’ works as though they were fact, but it must be admitted that some scholars find the accounts suspect.
The characters within this novel are a mix of fictional and historical. Nebuchadnezzar and his wife, Amytis, are known to us from history, as are the names of the king’s two sons-in-law and his son, Amel-Marduk (often translated as Evil-Merodach in Scripture).
We have the names of many Israelites of the captivity, including the king, Jeconiah (also known as Jehoiachin), and his sons and grandson Zerubbabel, who is claimed as both the son of Pedaiah and the son of Shealtiel in Scripture. This uncertainty about Zerubbabel’s father was the seed of the idea for
Garden of Madness
.
The themes of pride and divine sovereignty are weighty within the book of Daniel, and I attempted to examine them within this novel, from the perspective of the Jewish Pedaiah as well as the pagan Tiamat. While God allows free will and the consequences that follow, His sovereignty is total and ultimate, and as such it often takes us places we do not want to go and perhaps do not understand. We can spend our lives railing against His sovereignty, running from it, denying it exists, or pridefully trying to control it, but in the end the only path to true joy is to embrace it. It
is
possible to surrender and embrace God’s sovereignty, and it is secure rather than frightening because God is good and because He loves us and invites us into intimate relationship with Himself through the work of Christ.
While I was not able to travel to the location of
Garden of Madness
(near present-day Baghdad) during its writing, I have accumulated some wonderful photos, video, historical notes, and virtual presentations on my website, along with my travel journals and photos from other books, and I’d love to have you join me at
www.TracyHigley.com
for more exploration of Babylon—no passport required!
THE STORY BEHIND THE STORY . . . AND BEYOND
In the research necessary for any historical novel, a myriad of fascinating tidbits surface. Many of these find their way into the story itself. Sadly, many do not, because to include them would be too much weight for a novel. But after finishing
Garden of Madness
, you may perhaps be interested in learning more about events that occurred before and after the story’s setting, and about Babylon during the time of Nebuchadnezzar.
The idea for
Garden of Madness
started with simple curiosity on my part. I had studied Babylon for previous novels, and knew the city was heavily walled and thoroughly irrigated, with little but desert beyond its walls. Where, I wondered, would those in charge of the government during Nebuchadnezzar’s seven years of madness have stashed the mad king? Since the book of Daniel tells us that he regained his throne at the end of seven years, we must assume they kept track of him. Was it possible he was kept in the very Hanging Gardens he had built?
From there, other bits of the story formed themselves as I speculated that there must have been plots to take the throne during those seven years, and his family would have been fighting to retain power. I wanted to view the story from a Babylonian’s point of view, and thus Tia was born. But I also wanted to see the city and palace from a Jewish perspective. In a reading of genealogies I stumbled upon the apparent discrepancy between two accounts of the father of Zerubbabel: in one place Shealtiel and in another Pedaiah. Bible scholars assume that one of these men died before Zerubbabel was conceived, and that his brother married the widow to produce an heir in his brother’s name. For a novelist, that sort of fact sparks ideas! Zerubbabel did indeed lead the first wave of captives back to Israel, some thirty years after the end of my story, and he is part of the lineage of Jesus. We have no evidence that his mother was Babylonian—this is fiction of my creation—but certainly we see God grafting pagan nations into the line of David in other places.