Marta’s eyes went immediately to her son, however, with a flicker of hope. “Yes?”
Tia bit her lip and turned so her back was to him. “I believe you are right. I should do all I can to give Shealtiel an heir.”
Marta grasped her arm, her eyes glassy.
“But not Pedaiah.”
Confusion swept Marta’s features. Her eyes shifted to Tia’s left, to the presence of the brother at her back.
Tia swallowed her discomfort, the humiliation.
“Tell us, Princess.” Pedaiah’s voice was shot through with sarcasm. “Please, enlighten us as to why you will not have me.”
She forced her stance open to include him. He stood close, too close, and she had to angle her head to see into his dark eyes. The thin white scar on his chin that had always piqued her curiosity glowed in the lamplight.
Pedaiah was nothing like his brother. Tall and lean where Shealtiel had been shorter than Tia and too wide. Thick dark hair, trimmed short, instead of his brother’s thinning hairline. All that Shealtiel lacked in attractiveness, Pedaiah had gained. But his bearing always seemed prideful, conceited. Shealtiel had tended to bow and scrape.
Pedaiah’s gaze roamed her clothing, obviously troubled by the skin she left exposed, compared to his Judaean mother and sister.
Tia leaned back on her heels. “Let us not play games, Pedaiah. You hate me. You always have. A marriage between us would be an affront, and I doubt you could even bring yourself to give Shealtiel an heir.”
He said nothing, but she did not miss the cringe—that tiny squint of the eyes, the creased brow.
Marta interjected. “I do not understand. You will not marry Pedaiah?”
Tia dragged her gaze from the brother, gave him her shoulder. “Nedabiah,” she said to Marta.
“Nedabiah!” Both mother and son repeated the name with equal outrage.
Marta’s hands flew to her cheeks. “He—he is ten years old!”
Exactly
.
“It is done all the time.” Tia swung her hair over her shoulder and grasped Marta’s arm. “Treaty marriages between children.”
Pedaiah’s voice was low in her ear. “You are no child.”
She turned on him. “And you are no fool. This arrangement is best for all concerned.” Desperation hardened her tone. “The bride-price your family paid was inconsequential. To receive it back would be nothing. Far better for you to keep me in the family.”
Marta pinched her son’s forearms, her eyes wild. “Say you will marry her, Pedaiah. Do not keep refusing.”
So, he has rejected me already
. She should not have been surprised, but still it stung.
“Look at her, Pedaiah.” Marta was pleading now. “She is beautiful. So beautiful.”
But he refused to look at her. “Too long our people have been seduced away from principles by beauty.”
Tia snorted to cover the shame. “Principles. Just like your brother.”
“I am nothing like my brother.”
Ah, the first bit of ire she had seen in him. Had she struck a nerve? Could she follow it, find the place where more hurt could be inflicted? But to do so would be to appear petty, to admit offense. She would not hand him such a prize.
“Stop!” Marta covered her ears. “Your brother lies dead beside you and still you cannot respect his choices.”
There was more here than Tia understood. Pedaiah trembled, still unwilling to face her.
Her Garden-born plan was in danger. The fear that had lodged like a brick in her chest since Amytis’s announcement threatened to suffocate. “Marta, you must see that I am right. Wed me to Nedabiah, and in due time I shall perhaps bear a son in Shealtiel’s name.”
In truth, the very thought was repugnant, but she had decided in the Gardens that this was her best alternative. To escape the control of a husband, she must find one whom she could command.
Never mind that Nedabiah will eventually become a man
. Tia would worry about that later.
Marta sighed, a sound so weighted with sorrow and resignation that compassion nearly drove Tia to retract her hasty plan.
“Your mother will never agree.”
Marta was weakening, and she must push forward. Tia waved away her concern. “We will do it quietly, before she can interfere. I will handle my mother. Appeal to my father’s advisors. She will listen.”
Marta looked to Pedaiah, a question in her eyes.
So, Pedaiah had become the decision maker with his father in prison these many years.
Tia sidled closer to him. He inhaled sharply and turned his head, as though he could not bear the sight nor the scent of her. She watched him swallow hard, saw his breathing shallow. Was she so repulsive?
“Take this to your father, Pedaiah. You know it is best.” Her voice shook and Tia willed it to remain steady. “You know it is best.”
He spoke to her but looked only to his mother, his face pale. “Any association our family, our nation, has had with yours, Princess Tiamat, has brought nothing but death. What reason would we have to continue such madness?”
Marta’s quick intake of breath spoke more than words. They did not speak of madness in the palace. Not ever. The secret that roamed the tiered Gardens was closely guarded.
But Pedaiah did not regret his comment, Tia could see it. He was like one of the well-bred stallions she kept for chariot racing. Haughty and arrogant but given his head far too often until he believed he was master rather than beast. All these years she had seen his eyes follow her whenever he came to the palace. Yes, he was finer looking than his brother, but she preferred Shealtiel’s apathy and neglect to Pedaiah’s disdain.
She studied his profile, the tiny muscle pulsing in his jaw, then drew so close he leaned his upper body backward. “You forget yourself, Pedaiah. You would do well to remember who is the vassal and who is the victor.”
He met her eyes then, with such coldness her pulse stuttered.
“It is time for the ritual washing of my brother’s body.” He held an arm toward the door, indicating that she was dismissed. “Family only.”
Tia stormed from the death chamber and halfway down the dark corridor before she slowed to chastise her own timidity.
Pedaiah has no right to dismiss me
.
Should she return? She was not wanted. In this, there was humiliation.
But I must make them want me again
. They must agree to let her marry Nedabiah.
Her pace quickened with her thoughts, and she sped through the hall with no destination in mind, only to keep moving. Her mind worked best with her body active.
She rounded a corner in the southeast wing, smacked against a solid surface, and reeled.
Hands shot out, grabbed her arms, and held tight.
“My lady.” The voice was smooth as warm oil.
Tia looked up into eyes that stole her breath.
She had seen him before, twice, but only from a distance. Her father’s court of advisors were a muddled mix of magi, sorcerer, diviner, and priest, each playing a different role and each with a bevy of protégés. The man who held her studied privately under Shadir.
She smiled too widely, blinked too rapidly. “My apologies.” Her voice sounded shrill in her ears. “I was not paying attention.”
He still held her arms and smoothed the fabric before releasing her. “You are more accustomed to
being
watched than watching, I am certain.”
She searched his slight smile for mockery but could see he intended to flatter. He bowed, and she took in the wavy hair, falling to narrow shoulders in the magi way.
“I am Amel-Marduk.”
He wore the clothes of a mage. His flowing and heavily embroidered robe hung open, and the thin fabric of his tunic revealed a lean but muscular physique. But it was his eyes that dragged her in, smoky gray with lashes that seemed to brush his cheeks.
“I am Tiamat.”
He smiled, lips tugged downward as if amused that she gave her name. Of course, he knew it already. “Strange name for so beautiful a creature.” He tilted his head, studied her. “But perhaps you have inherited a bit of the goddess. A little of her fire, her energy?”
Tia licked her lips and looked down to hide her pleasure. It had long been a matter of shame to her that Amytis named her for the dragon goddess—the hideous monster of chaos, Tiamat. That Amel would create something complimentary from her mother’s choice sent a warmth to her cheeks.
“I am sorry to hear of your loss today, Tia.”
His familiarity should have outraged her. It did not.
“It has been a difficult day for you, no doubt. You look flushed.” He lifted his chin and peered over her head, to the end of the hall. “Would you like to take some air?”
What could it harm?
“Yes. The air always brings relief.”
He invited her to walk ahead with a guiding hand, the slightest touch at the base of her back. The gesture seemed protective and brought again a flash of warmth.
The entrance to the small rooftop garden where earlier Tia crossed to the city wall lay at the end of the corridor, and they passed into the night air, silent. Tia’s heart raced, as it had when she’d returned from her run hours earlier. Roses she always ignored smelled sweeter than she remembered.
Why had she come to the garden with this man she’d never met, on the day her husband died? The crescent moon soared higher than when she’d run under it, and that running hour felt part of another night, another time.
Amel let her wander ahead, along the walkway banked with jasmine and roses. She turned a corner toward the outer wall and paused. Ahead, something lay across the walk. Half-hidden in shadows, it was a mystery. Amel stepped beside her and followed her gaze.
“Someone has left their cloak?”
Tia shook her head. Too large for that.
It was absurd to hesitate, to not simply walk forward for a closer look. But something in her chest held her back, some strange premonition, a fluttering fear.
She glanced at Amel and he merely smiled. “Let us see what has been left behind, then.” She stepped forward with a pretense of boldness.
Three paces from the shadow, she saw it was a body.
She dashed the last few paces and bent to the prone form. “Amel, bring a torch!”
It was a man, unconscious or dead, she could not tell. Even in the starlight she could see blood.
Amel returned with a torch and lowered it to Tia’s shoulder. She gasped and fell back, braced her hand against stones behind her, and found her palm slick. Amel lifted her to her feet and she wiped her bloody hand on her tunic, then stepped out of the dark pool surrounding the body.
The body had been mutilated, but his face had only been scratched. She recognized the distinguished features of the nobleman, one of her father’s longtime friends.
“It is Kaldu.” The connection to her father brought a wave of sadness.
Amel’s gaze was on her, not the tragedy at their feet, but he nodded.
Kaldu’s upper body lay in a bed of flowers. She stepped around bloody stones to get a closer look. She bent again to examine him, aware that Amel still held the torch and kept a safer distance.
The length of the torso had been ripped open, like a sacrificial bull. But instead of a priest collecting Kaldu’s blood, it had seeped across the stones. Lacerations crisscrossed his arms and legs at random angles. Whatever had cut his body had shredded his tunic and the fabric clung to ragged wounds. His fingers were bloody. Long fingers that once played the lyre.
He played at my wedding
. Her fingers trembled at the injustice of his death.
Oh, Kaldu, who has done this to you?
Tia studied his face again. Why had it been spared? The preponderance of gashes on his forearms were a clue. He had shielded his face from his attacker.
But what kind of attack? Cuts too irregular for knife wounds. Some deep, others shallow. One particular cut across his calf had slashed so deeply the bone was visible. She studied the fibrous muscles that had been exposed and ran a hand over her own calf to compare.
“Tia, we should summon the court
asû
.”
“Kaldu is dead.”
“Still—”
“Yes, and his family.” Her heart tightened at the thought of Kaldu’s wife and daughter. She looked up from the body. “Will you go?”
“Whoever—whatever—killed him may still be close—”
She gestured to the garden. “It is not so large, Amel. You can see we are alone. Go quickly.”
Her tone indicated it was a command, and he bowed his head and backed away, though with a hesitancy that pleased her.
“Leave the torch.”
He set it into a wall socket and disappeared.
She took the opportunity to make a closer inspection of the area. The position of the body was odd. Crumpled, like he’d been tossed here.
But with all this blood, this must be where he died
. And no marks to indicate he’d been dragged.
Around her were indications of a furious struggle. Plants ripped up at the roots, flowers crushed, dirt spread over stones. He was missing a sandal, which Tia found paces from his bare foot.
She saw no knife, no weapon.
Who may have witnessed this attack?
It was a small, private garden, kept for royal use alone and accessible by a single door. Her eyes strayed to the cedar plank she kept propped against the stone wall and she bit her lip. Could someone have crossed from the city wall while she had been running? She needed to find the slave who tended the flowers.
Amel returned within minutes, with the asû, the court physician. Shadir and her mother followed.
She glanced at Amytis. What brought her?
Amytis lifted her eyes to Tia with an expression Tia could not decipher. Kaldu had been a family friend. Yet Amytis did not seem distraught.
The asû set about his examinations. Kaldu’s wife and daughter arrived within minutes, and the sadness of the event swept over Tia afresh. Although a puzzle, this death was primarily a great tragedy.
Kaldu’s wife kneeled in his blood, her cries muted but heartbreaking, and took his whiskered face in her hands.
Tia fought back her own tears at the woman’s pain. She, too, had lost a husband today, but would she ever love enough to feel this keen a loss?