He did not respond. Since the day she met Pedaiah seven years ago, he had seemed intent on infuriating her.
“You felt our marriage signified compromise. That he displeased your God.”
His attention was still only on the slaves, but at least he spoke. “My people do their best to live under the thumb of your family. They do not always choose wisely.”
“So I was a foolish choice? That is what you believe?” Tia fought the rise in pitch.
“I believe we grow complacent after too many years in your desert. I would see rebellion as a better choice than compromise.”
She laughed, a quiet chuckle that drew Marta’s scowl. “In that, Pedaiah, we are agreed.” She felt his sideways glance and smiled. “Yes, I am as surprised as you.”
The burial urn was ready at last to be placed inside the tomb. As a family, they approached and each laid a hand on its side. She followed, unsure of the Judaean practice and wanting to show respect. Though the wailing that had accompanied them from the palace had largely been simulated, there was true grief here in this little group. Pedaiah’s lips moved silently, his eyes closed, and the moment seemed holy. Different than Babylonian burials. Marta and Rachel huddled beside Pedaiah and cried.
Tia felt their sadness deep in her own heart, joined them in it, and became more family in that moment than she yet had. And in the end, Tia wept as well, for what she’d lost and what she’d never had.
She embraced Marta and Rachel. Pedaiah watched her with narrowed eyes. Did he believe she pretended grief to win their favor, to win Nedabiah as her child-husband? Pedaiah seemed eager to always think the worst.
They returned to the chariots, and Pedaiah took Tia’s hand to assist her upward. She clutched the gilded wall with one hand, but he retained the other, longer than necessary. She met his eyes and found him still watchful, as though he saw something in her no one else could see.
Something passed between them as they studied each other for that long moment. Something strange and wholly perplexing, a current like a trail of flame. She felt a protectiveness from him, a desire to keep her safe. Tia pulled her fingers from his grip and held her hand to her belly. He dropped his own and turned. As he walked through the night toward his chariot, he held his arm from his body as if his hand were unclean. And yet it had not been revulsion she had seen in his eyes. Her breath grew shallow, and she barely heard Amytis’s barked instructions to the charioteer.
Pedaiah’s look followed her all the way to the palace, her mind forming an unintentional comparison between the mage Amel-Marduk and the prince Pedaiah. One was all charm and beauty and danger. The other—all gruff anger, resentment, and piety.
And yet, for those few moments at Pedaiah’s side, the oppression that had fallen over Tia these past two days had seemed to lift.
Amytis was speaking low and harsh. “Still you draw undue attention, Tiamat.”
Tia scanned the Processional Way. “What have I done?”
Amytis followed her gaze. “Not here! In the palace. I have spent the time at the burial ground hearing gossip from court officials.”
Tia sighed and watched the city slide past.
“We must now deal with the next problem you have created.” Amytis shifted in the chariot and set her face toward the palace. “Pedaiah, it would seem, believes you murdered your husband.”
Tia entered the rooftop garden, intent on her errand, and crossed to the site of Kaldu’s death to scan stones and dirt for anything she might have missed. The stones had been scrubbed clean by Ying and the crushed plants cut back or removed. One would never know such a gruesome death had occurred. There was nothing more to be seen, so Tia retrieved her plank, bridged the gap to the city wall, and hurried across.
Tonight’s run would be abbreviated. Only a short distance to the next gate, where she would descend through the sentry tower and make her way to the home she sought.
Despite her determination, two days had passed before she had an opportunity to pursue her questions. Two days of worry over palace gossip, knowing she could do nothing. While she’d concerned herself with one killing, she was suspected of another. But since she had done nothing wrong and Shealtiel’s body had been interred, nothing could be proven.
Though proof matters little. My reputation will be tainted
.
Tia cared little for norms and conventions, but her honor was another matter. In truth, it galled her to think Pedaiah had yet another reason to think her inferior. To clear herself, tonight she sought answers.
Two guards manned the tower at the Sin Gate. She approached slowly to show she was no threat. They watched her from their elevated post and laughed when she crossed the threshold of the tower entrance. A narrow set of stone steps spiraled downward, and the rough wall scratched her arm as she descended. In the street below, a tiny thrill shot through her body. Alone in the city!
The streets held secrets, clasped between alleys and mud-brick houses, buried under piles of refuse, hidden in shrines that littered the way. But tonight she sought truth in one particular household, sought some explanation for the brutal murder of Kaldu—an explanation that did not include her family. The night flickered with torches, sinister and shadowy. She did not linger.
As a court official, Kaldu retained his own residence rather than occupy the palace, but it lay only an
ashlû
away, and within minutes she was rousing the doorkeeper. He was a portly slave and moved too slowly for her taste.
She waved him closer. “Tiamat, royal daughter, to see the wife of Kaldu.”
His eyes widened and he looked over her head, then leaned to search behind her.
“I am alone.”
At this, his heavy lips parted and his eyebrows arched, creasing his forehead. She pushed past him. If he would not invite her, she would enter alone.
“I am coming, I am coming.” He scurried ahead, up the few steps that led to the main level. “You may wait here. I will announce you.”
Tia heard the tapping of sandals across the inner courtyard long before Kaldu’s wife rounded the corner, lips parted and eyes wide.
“My lady!” She extended an arm. “Please, please come.”
She wore the dark tunic of mourning, and Tia did not miss the woman’s second glance at her own clothing. She wished she had not masked her intentions by dressing “like a Persian merchant.”
Kaldu’s home was nothing so grand as the palace but still richly appointed, with a central courtyard of leafy palms, a small pool, and stone benches for reclining. Braziers burned on each side of the courtyard, bathing the space in warmth and light. A welcome respite from the menacing darkness of the streets. From this courtyard branched all the rooms of the house, and Tia saw no one but Kaldu’s wife. Gemeti, she remembered. The home smelled of bread and onions.
Gemeti inclined her head to a nearby slave. “Bring wine. The finest.”
“That is not necessary, Gemeti. I have no wish to impose. I only wanted to see how you are.”
Gemeti smiled—a quick, obligatory smile—and invited Tia to one of two benches facing each other. She took the other and picked at her robe where it lay across her knee. “My husband’s death leaves us bereft.”
Tia could hear the tears hovering below the surface. “I am sure the palace will provide—”
“But you lost a husband recently as well.”
Too much curiosity in her voice. Tia lowered her head. “Yes, in that we have become sisters.”
Gemeti came to sit beside Tia and patted her hand. “We will both survive. Women always do.”
“True.” Tia clasped the woman’s hand, warming it with her own. “But I should think your loss more difficult. I knew for some time that Shealtiel would be taken from me. Kaldu’s death was—terrible.” An awkward finish. How had she thought it right to come with such a selfish objective?
Gemeti pulled her hand from Tia’s and smoothed her robes with shaky fingers. She looked across the garden to a room at the back of the house. “There are more ways than sickness to watch one’s husband be taken slowly.” Her voice was taut with emotion, and her eyes found Tia’s and spoke more than words. She must have felt kinship.
The slave brought wine in earthenware cups. Tia accepted one for the sake of courtesy and took a slow sip. Gemeti’s confession opened a door Tia could not ignore. Her reason for coming. “I remember Kaldu as quite devoted to his family. To you.”
Gemeti drew in a deep breath before answering and leaned against her slightly. “Once, perhaps. But these last months . . .”
Tia whispered her question. No need for slave ears to hear everything. “You believe there was someone else?”
“Someone. Some . . . thing. I cannot say.” Gemeti ceased her constant fidgeting and wound her fingers together. Tia covered the woman’s hand with her own. “He spent all of his time at the palace. Grew melancholy here at home. And I—I heard things.”
“I heard nothing.”
Gemeti smiled into the distance as though grateful for Tia’s attempt at denial. “Other court officials. Wives invited to dine at the palace on occasion. Even merchants. Everyone eager to tell me that Kaldu seemed enamored with a particular slave girl in the palace and was seen with her often, even more than he attached himself to the magi.”
Tia’s heart pounded. “Do you know this slave? I shall question her!”
Gemeti wrapped an arm around her shoulder and squeezed. “No need, Princess. No need. He is gone now, so what does it accomplish? And no, I do not know who she was and do not care.”
“But, Gemeti, do you not wish to know who killed Kaldu?”
Her features darkened, a veil of suspicion dropping over her eyes. She released Tia and stood. “That is for the gods to know. I pray to Anu every day for justice.” She crossed to the other bench but did not sit. “Why does a princess leave the palace alone to concern herself with such questions?” A sudden coldness struck the room, a coldness the flaming braziers did nothing to dispel.
Tia rose and inclined her head in respect. “I only desired to wish you peace, Gemeti.”
Her features were closed yet composed, as though she willed her eyes and mouth into stone. “And you, my lady.” The tone was flat, the words lifeless.
Ignoring her coldness, Tia embraced her quickly before leaving.
Gemeti did not escort her to the door. Tia felt the woman’s eyes at her back as she crossed the courtyard and turned into the entryway. The doorkeeper had vanished.
The night had advanced while she followed her questions. Her run should have taken her home long ago. Tia slogged toward the palace, her energy sapped. She tried to run, to make up the time lost, but her muscles were sluggish, chilled.
What use was any of her questioning? Did she truly believe she could find answers here in the city or in the palace? Should she not be more concerned with her own situation? She must ensure her marriage to Nedabiah to prevent Amytis from giving her to her cousin.
Tia crossed the shadowy streets one after another, her gaze darting in and out of doorways and corners. Was she watched? Did the suspicion that she had murdered her husband follow her? Were those whispers of unseen enemies who lay in wait, plotting against her?
What was this paranoia? This sudden, oppressive fear?
No, it was not sudden. The weight of it had been with her for days, only now exaggerated as she pushed herself toward the palace, all her senses slowed and lethargic.
She slipped upward through the sentry tower with only a nod from the guard, crossed back to the palace and returned her escape plank, then fled to her chambers.
And yet when she entered, her chambers felt no safer.
Someone has been here
.
Someone other than her personal attendants. Tia stood in the center, gaze roaming. What was different? What was amiss?
Her furniture—carved chairs and cedar tables—lay unmoved. She examined the small chest where her jewels were kept, but it was untouched.
The smell of incense filtered to her senses, as though a ritual or incantation had been performed here. She drummed fingers against her thigh in a nervous rhythm. A slow suspicion rooted her to the floor and kept her searching the room for something added, not taken. Something small yet lethal.
There
. Strewn across her bed, both a warning and an attack. Tiny charms belonging to demons and one preventative amulet, broken in two jagged pieces. She stared at the broken demon Labartu, her chest expanding in a mix of fury and fear.
“Gula! Omarsa!” Only Gula appeared. “Who has been here?” Tia pointed to the evil on the bed.
Gula’s eyes widened. “No one, my lady.”
“Is it because they think I killed my husband?” Or did someone know she asked questions about Kaldu and think to frighten her into silence? She snatched the charms from her bed, crossed the chamber, and tossed them through the open window.
Let them threaten
.
It only reveals there is something to hide
.
She would not neglect to make sure Shealtiel’s family agreed to her plan.
But first she intended to find the truth.
From the doorway Tia watched the slaves in the palace kitchen at their morning work. The large room in the corner of the palace complex had direct access to the city street for deliveries and felt open, airy. Slaves laughed and chatted in groups of mixed races around wooden tables where they chopped and sliced and butchered today’s meals.
Tia had never frequented the cooking rooms. She had cared little for what she ate and even less for how it was prepared. But gossip ruled the palace, and it was no more prevalent than around the worktables of the kitchen slaves.
The camaraderie ceased the moment Tia’s presence was noted. More than a dozen pairs of eyes fixed on her, knives in midair and cook fires unattended. She leaned against a roughened worktable near the door, grabbed a handful of figs from a wooden dish, and chewed.
“I am looking for someone.”
They waited, all of them silent.
“Kaldu’s slave.”