Read Online The Assyrian by Nicholas Guild - Free Book Online Page B

feet, fading
into the shadows. I would have rushed to embrace her once more, but
she held out her hands to prevent me. I could see, even in that dim
light, the tears that wet her face.
    “Goodbye, my Lathikadas, my son,” she
murmured. “I cannot help you with my love now. Forget me, my son.
Only remember that I love you more than life.”
    And then she was gone. The door closed. I was
alone

Chapter 3
    I do not know how I found my way back to the
royal barrack that night. I remember that I lay on my bed, that I
thought I would die of misery, that my tears choked me and made my
throat burn. I was but a boy and nothing cuts as deep as a boy’s
sorrow.
    My mother had hurt me more deeply than she
could have imagined, for she had made me feel all over again the
sharp pain of losing her. For many days I was thus. While the sun
shone I did my work, the work of learning the soldier’s craft, and
none saw any difference in me, but at night I was overwhelmed with
grief. Only Esarhaddon was my witness, and Esarhaddon said nothing.
I was grateful to him for that.
    And then, at last, the torment subsided into
a certain moroseness that was with me always but left me free to
think of other things. I was unhappy, but I had not lost interest
in life. I was thus when Kephalos came to me one day.
    I had been speaking no more than the truth
when I told Tabshar Sin I had little enough need of a servant. I
was merely a boy, I had few possessions to trouble about, my needs
for food, clothing, and shelter were met by the royal barrack, and
I spent the greater part of my time in military training. True,
Kephalos did teach me what remained of the Greek alphabet, but that
was quickly done and there was, in any case, nothing to read in
that tongue. For the rest, he seemed to spend most of his day
loafing around the parade ground, idle and useless. He was never an
energetic fellow, but in time even he began to grow restless.
    “Master,” he said to me at last, “is it not
the case that in this country slaves are sometimes allowed to go
out and find occupation in the city, to enrich both themselves and
their owners? Is this not the custom?”
    I was sitting on my sleeping mat, unstrapping
the greaves from my shins, and I looked up at where he was standing
in the doorway. It was almost evening. I had had a strenuous day
and was tired and hungry, but not unpleasantly so—in a quarter of
an hour I would come out of the steam baths, sweated and clean and
ready for dinner. So I listened to his talk as I might have to the
good natured growling of a camp dog, without much understanding or
interest but willingly enough.
    “Yes, of course, Kephalos, that is indeed the
custom.”
    “Then, I was wondering. . .”
    “Yes, Kephalos?”
    He showed his teeth in a nervous smile, an
admission that we both understood he had gotten himself into some
difficulty. I was even then accustomed to this.
    “Master, I am of little use here, as you
know. And the atmosphere of a barrack is not much to my taste. I
wonder if I might have your indulgence to follow my old profession.
. .”
    “And what profession is that, Kephalos?”
    The smile grew a shade more tightly drawn
across his face, for he was aware I was baiting him.
    “I would, with your permission, young master,
set up as a physician.”
    I kicked off my sandals and he swooped down
to gather them from the floor, hugging them to his breast as if he
had some idea of forcing me to ransom them.
    “Master, you must understand I. . .”
    “Have you read the law codes, Kephalos? Do
you understand how the king punishes a physician who is negligent
or even merely inept? If you make a man blind in one eye, the king
will send a soldier to your house, where he will gouge out one of
your eyes with the point of a dagger. I was under the impression
that you had not yet completed your apprenticeship at the time of
your capture. Was I mistaken?”
    “Master, you are young—let me explain
something to you,” he said, and