The Singer and Her Song

  WayBack Press

  P.O.Box 16066

  Tampa, FL

  ۩

  The Singer and Her Song

  Copyright © 2020 by N. L. Holmes

  Empire at Sunset TM 2020

  All rights reserved.

  Cover art and map by Streetlight Graphics. Author photo by Kipp Baker.

  Quotes from Egyptian Love Songs from Ancient Egyptian Literature, vol. II, by Miriam Lichtheim, by permission.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to locales, events, business establishments, or actual persons—living or dead—is entirely coincidental.

  Table of Contents

  Copyright Page

  The Singer and Her Song

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  HISTORICAL NOTES AND GLOSSARY

  Enjoy this book? Don’t miss the next book in the Empire at Twilight series. Here is a taste of The Queen’s Dog:

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  This book is dedicated to my husband.

  CHAPTER 1

  What distinguished evening from day was the silence, Uqnitum realized as she stirred the watery soup that was meant for dinner. Only as the sun sank, listless, into twilight did the constant accompaniment of the daytime hours cease—the dull, rhythmic boom of the Assyrian battering ram as it swung again and again against the gate of the city. The noise itself had become a weapon, as relentless as the wind or the killing sun of summer in the desert to the southwest. How did they keep it up hour after hour, day after day? How many men were swinging that ram under the cover of its wood-and-leather “horse”? Day after day, on and on, they swung it, while the defenders hurled burning torches down onto the contraption in vain.

  The real question for the people of the little Mitannian city of Kahat was how long they could hold out against their besiegers, and in her heart of hearts, Uqnitum daughter of Tapshihuni knew the answer: not very long. She would never say it out loud. Everyone was too close to despair—her family, her neighbors, and maybe even the priests who ruled the city and directed its defense.

  But nobody held out against the Assyrians forever. For nearly two months, the siege had dragged on—longer than you dogs expected, she thought defiantly—and food was dangerously low. They’d been penned inside before the wheat could be sown. All they’d had for weeks was a little porridge stirred up from the tiny daily allotment. A little dried fruit. The few sheep or goats within the city walls, shared out among the inhabitants. Then the final bits of dried meat from last winter’s slaughter of pigs. Then the dogs. Now they were finishing the stored grain from the temple granaries. She didn’t know what would come next. Uqnitum refused to eat a rat.

  So far, she had kept her family fed. Little Wullu, her youngest son, was delicate, despite his thick, stocky build; he wouldn’t eat just anything. Her daughter, Tatasshe, had the needs of the pregnant. Uqnitum had stretched their sparse rations with wild dandelions, roots that grew between the stones, and a few straggly lettuces, already bolted and bitter, from the spring garden behind the house.

  She’d brought her portable brazier inside so she wouldn’t have to cook outdoors in the evening chill. And she could keep better watch over Wullu, asleep, exhausted, in his little alcove. They would simply have to live with the smoke. Crouched over the embers, she stirred a thin soup made with wild greens and a bone she had bartered from the neighbors—she didn’t want to know what kind of animal it had come from. An onion would have been worth a king’s ransom in Kahat.

  The fact that they’d been the honored musicians of the temple of Tesshub and Sharrumma wouldn’t do them much good anymore. No one, not even the gods, had time for elaborate services and long hymns and incense and magnificent sacrifices these days, and what would they sacrifice? Everything edible had been consumed by the gods’ starving people. Even the priests were manning the walls, organizing the making of torches, and filling jars of their dwindling water, ready to pour on any fire the Assyrians might lob into the city. She hadn’t practiced her vocalizing for weeks. Who had energy for singing after a long day of hauling rocks?

  With a shuffle of footsteps at the door and the scrape of the wooden bar rising outside on its lever and string, her husband, Ar-tesshub, entered, throwing down his borrowed pickax on the floor with a thunk. He was white with dust—face, hair, and clothing all the same color as if he had been hewn from the stone of the walls—a man of stone. Uqnitum rose, creaking, to greet him and exchanged a kiss, her spoon dripping in her hand. Ar-tesshub heaved an enormous sigh of exhaustion and forced a weary smile as he sank down onto the floor mat. He arched his back painfully, leaning against the wall. His dust-stiffened hair stood out around his head like gorse. Uqnitum remembered how Ar-tesshub’s beauty had struck her when he first came to her father’s house. She’d been—what, fourteen?—and Ar-tesshub nine years older, no longer a child. He’d already proven himself a better lyre player than her father.

  “Good evening, my dear,” Ar-tesshub said. “It smells good in here.”

  “Better than it tastes, I daresay. How goes the work on the counterwall?”

  Like every able-bodied man in the city, Ar-tesshub had been reinforcing the weakening gate, piling stones against the inside of the panels so that if—when—the Assyrians broke through, they would encounter yet another impassable obstacle. If the inhabitants didn’t starve first. The women, Uqnitum and her daughter included, had spent the day carrying stones from the site of destruction to the slowly rising counterwall.

  “I was tearing down houses today.” He examined his blistered palms and held them up for her to see. Uqnitum could scarcely imagine Ar-tesshub swinging a pickax, but then, many things had happened over the last few weeks that she could never have imagined. “We can’t seem to round up enough stones.”

  Uqnitum ladled out a bowl of the pathetic soup. “It won’t fill you much,” she warned her husband then called out in a louder voice, “Tatasshe, shala, come and eat. You never know when it will be your last chance.” Tatasshe entered from the courtyard, where she’d been trying to wash clothes with the same jar of water they had used for weeks. She unrolled her sleeves to conceal the red, raw-looking skin of her forearms. “Is that water going to get the clothes cleaner or dirtier?”

  “I don’t know, Nera, but they said the wells were low. We need to save every drop for drinking. No chance of going down to the river to do the wash, that’s for sure. If it doesn’t rain soon to fill up the cisterns, I can’t imagine what we’ll do. Anyway, this will get out the sweat, if not the stains. I hope you and Attani don’t mind sleeping in your tunics tonight. I’ve washed our nightgowns.”

  The young woman looked down at her father, who smiled at her in return, although his eyebrows were anxious. Her face, tired and dispirited, broke into a sweet smile. “Attani, welcome home. How’s the wor
k going?” She took the bowl of soup from her mother and sank to the floor beside him, drawing the low table closer. She nudged her father’s shoulder with her own in an affectionate gesture. She’s still Papa’s girl, Uqnitum thought with a twinge of envy. They’ve always been so much alike.

  Uqnitum brought her own bowl and settled herself painfully across from her husband. Squatting to pick up rocks the whole day long had put her cranky knee into a bad mood, and the brazier had finished her off. She passed a small pot of water and a towel to Ar-tesshub so he could at least wash his hands. The towel was black and stained with blood from the raw fingers that had been wiped upon it, the water none too clean. It, too, had been reused frequently.

  “More of the same.” Ar-tesshub sighed and blew on his soup. His dark lashes were as dust-whitened as the rest of him and gave his black eyes a curiously innocent appearance, like the painted, round eyes of a doll. “We could have rebuilt the temple with all these stones, yet the pile still doesn’t seem to cover the back side of the gate. I think a five-year-old could climb right over it.”

  “Well, don’t be so negative,” Uqnitum said. “They haven’t broken through yet. By the time they do, you’ll have covered the space. And the Hittites may still be coming to our aid. Have they said anything, the priests?”

  He shook his head, his face suddenly shuttered.

  “The Hittites are coming.” Uqnitum snorted. “How long have we been telling ourselves that? Our allies, our sometime suzerains, the sworn enemies of Assyria—of course they’re coming. But they never seem to get here, do they? No doubt, if they’re in Mitanni at all, they're trying to relieve the capital.”

  If Taite fell, Mitanni was no more. The old capital had belonged to the Assyrians for a century; the little bit of the kingdom they called Hanigalbat was all that was left. And nobody but the Mitannians cared.

  Uqnitum found she was more cynical than she wanted to advertise.

  “If you ask me, this whole rebellion was an absurdity.” Tatasshe wasn’t normally one to weigh in on politics, but like every inhabitant of Kahat, she had a vital reason to be concerned. Her gentle voice was bitter. “They left us alone all this time. Why rock the boat? It’s we on the borders who are paying. A little town like Kahat—what can we do? The king wants to look strong, and the rest of us pay.”

  “So would you just let them pick us apart?” Uqnitum asked. “Of course he had to rebel. We should be part of Hatti, but those Assyrians think we still owe them something. They’ll just take and take until somebody says no to them.”

  Ar-tesshub raised his eyebrows in a considering gesture, but his pursed mouth was unconvinced.

  Uqnitum plowed on. “I think King Shattuara did the right thing. At least if we go down, we go down with some pride.”

  “I’ve already lost my husband in this war for somebody else’s pride. Have you forgotten?” Tatasshe set her empty bowl down on the table with a clatter, surged to her feet, and fled the room, close to tears.

  Uqnitum exhaled an exasperated breath though her nostrils, but she rued her harsh words. Tatasshe was a soft soul who tended to mix her own emotions into pragmatic things like politics. And she was pregnant. A woman often was on the edge of tears at such a moment, especially when she confronted the reality of bearing a child without a father to protect it. Gods grant that she could even bring the little one to term; it would be her last chance to give Ennamati the heir she had never managed to produce before. How terribly sad that Tatasshe should find herself expecting during this siege. Well, she was only twenty-seven. She could always remarry if she survived—if any of them survived. And if any men were left after all this.

  Little Wullu—what would happen to him? The sudden image of the Assyrians batting down Wullu’s stumpy body and riding over him leaped before her eyes. Gods forbid. Over my dead body.

  Ar-tesshub was watching her wearily, his face strained, the pouches under his eyes crusted with dust and more visible than usual. He had finished his soup and was rubbing his knuckles. She locked glances with him.

  Sweet Sharrumma, look at what those dogs have done to your servant, she thought, caught between sorrow and outrage. Her husband was one of the great lyre players of the age, and his fingers were swollen and abraded from handling stones, his nails ripped off to the quick. He couldn’t pluck a string if he had to. This cries out for justice, lord. Punish those barbarians, who have no respect for your temple.

  Her anger spilled over, and she said more harshly than she intended, “Don’t leave any food. We hardly have anything left, so you’d better eat it while there is some.”

  Ar-tesshub tipped up his bowl to show her it was empty. “Thank you, ashti. I know you’re tired, too, yet you and Tatasshe always manage to put together something to feed us. Has Wullu eaten?”

  “He has. He’s gone to bed.”

  Neither of them spoke for a moment. Then Ar-tesshub’s voice dropped, pleading. “Uqnitum, my dear... don’t be too hard on Tatasshe. She’s had a terrible shock, seeing Ennamati killed right before her eyes. She’s had to bear an extraordinary amount of suffering through all this.”

  Tatasshe’s handsome young husband had been the first casualty of the siege, shot through the throat with an arrow while everyone stood around below the walls, handing up weapons, proud and triumphant. Ennamati had stood up on the ramparts, all red-faced and laughing and full of a young man’s bravado, and cupped his hands to shout an insult—and then his head snapped back, and he’d plummeted like a stone into the crowd. What were the chances? She could hear the Assyrians cheering and laughing below the walls, the pigs, while Tatasshe froze as if she were the one struck mortally and began to whimper, “No, no, no, no...” The only consolation had been the discovery soon after that she was pregnant. Now Uqnitum wondered if even that had become a punishment—one more thing she had to fear losing. At least back then, they’d been able to bury their dead decently. These days, there was no time for anything but a common grave.

  “I know, my love. But life has to go on. She’s not the only one who’s lost her man. If everybody just threw up his hands and said, ‘This costs too much,’ we might as well open the gates and welcome the damned curs in.”

  He smiled vaguely at his lap and murmured, “You may be right, my love.”

  Which meant he thought she was not right. She felt a flare of resentment at Ar-tesshub, who never came out and said he disagreed, even when he did. She’d berated him about it: Are you ashamed of your position? Then defend it, man. Show some spirit. He was a soft soul like his daughter, always evading confrontation, always making accommodations, never taking a stand. Perhaps that was another lesson learned from Tapshihuni. The master had brutalized him, yelled at him, and made him do passages over and over, once actually knocking the lyre from his hand in public. He’d criticized the youth’s table manners, his choice of clothes, and even his mountain accent. And Ar-tesshub had never fought back.

  But, she reminded herself, he was the love of my life. She’d been swept away by his beauty, his liquid black eyes, the sensitive face, and those hands, which seemed to have a life of their own. And seeing him here—a weary, half-starved, graying man who could be a grandfather, with his beautiful musician’s hands tattered and raw—the enormity of their situation overwhelmed her.

  She leaned over to kiss the bare crown of his head and sighed. “What’s going to happen to us?”

  There was a moment of grim silence, then Ar-tesshub, his face suddenly stiff, opened his mouth to reply. He spoke as if he wished he might not speak, the words struggling through his lips in reluctant pieces. “There... was a rider who got into the city just at sundown, Uqnitum. They let him into the postern gate. He... he was coming from Taite...”

  “What news from the capital? Have the Hittites come?”

  “Yes, they were there. But... Uqnitum, my love... Taite has fallen.”

  Uqnitum froze, an icy breath of fear raising the hairs on her neck. This was the end of them.

  “I didn’t
want to say it in front of Tatasshe after I saw how upset she was. King Shattuara has fled, no one is sure where. The Hittites have withdrawn in defeat. It’s... it’s over.”

  Uqnitum closed her eyes to gather her strength. Taite had fallen, just as Wasshukanni had fallen two generations before. Both capitals were gone. Mitanni was no longer a nation—not even “Hanigalbat,” the nostalgic pretense of a nation—but instead just a few rebellious cities. The Hittites had come, and nothing had changed. Mitanni was defeated, they who two hundred years before had been an empire to rival great Mizri. Once Mitanni had conquered Assyria—something the latter had never forgiven.

  Kahat was alone now, and the wolves howled at the gate. There would be no relief to look forward to. There would be no rescue. There would be no hope. It was well and truly over.

  Uqnitum drew a deep, unsteady breath and forced herself to speak in a conversational tone. “Do you think the priests will surrender now, or will they continue to resist?”

  “I think they’ll resist on the off chance that the Assyrians lose interest and lift the siege. That was the word today among the men. Even if they surrender, after having held out for so long, we’ll be punished, so why not... hope and fight on.” Despite these words, Ar-tesshub’s face was without hope. “They'll burn us down as they have every other city that’s resisted.”

  A bonfire of anger roared to life within Uqnitum, as fierce as any city torched by the Assyrians. Who are these people, anyway? What gives them the right to swallow up our country? She closed her eyes and spoke solemnly, fists clenched, her voice quavering with fury. “May the gods smite those bloodthirsty bastards. May they smash them on the rocks. May they drown them in the river. May...”

  “Uqnitum, my love.” Ar-tesshub held out his arms to his wife, and she crawled around the table to him, nestling against him, her hands against his bony chest. “Whatever happens,” he murmured into her hair, “know that I have loved you and the children. The day you married me was the happiest day of my life. I have always admired you as a singer, but more than that as a woman. You are my only love, my dearest.”