The Singer and Her Song Page 2

  She heard his voice break, felt his tears on her neck, and longed to feel the same urgent loyalty. They’d been married for twenty-eight years. She had borne him four children. And she, too, could say that the day she was married to him had been the happiest of her life.

  But what exactly did that mean about the rest of her days? She’d loved him passionately once—had wanted nothing but him and had braved her father’s wrath for him.

  And that was all that need be said. She loved him, too—though can I say he was my only love? Uqnitum felt a pulse of guilt somewhere below her heart.

  Now it might well be that their lives were ending. One of them might have to go on without the other. She knew Ar-tesshub couldn’t survive her death. He’d grown around her like a tree around a fencepost, and to cut out the post would leave the tree fatally maimed. On the other hand, she could survive his death. If forty-eight years of life had taught her one thing, it was never to rely too much on anyone else.

  “When they come”—Ar-tesshub no longer said if but when—“be sure to tell them you’re a musician, Uqnitum. I’ve heard their king spares musicians, drafts them into his own service. Make sure Tatasshe does, too.”

  “And Little Wullu?”

  “Well, he’s our child. They won’t separate him from us, will they? I don’t think it will matter that he isn’t a musician himself.”

  “You’re expecting humanity from those people?” She snorted bitterly. “Gods protect us all.” She drew away from Ar-tesshub and levered herself up. “I’ll collect the dishes. Tatasshe may or may not snap out of her snit...”

  “Don’t be too hard on her, ashti. We never know which day will be our last together.”

  “Don’t be so damned sentimental, Ar-tesshub. We need to think in practical terms. Should we try to get away before the city falls? Others have left.”

  “But we don’t know if they were captured or not.”

  “Well, we’re certainly going to be captured if we stay here,” she said. “Is there any chance we could slip out at night?”

  As usual, he said nothing.

  He knows I’ll contradict him. She said tartly, “I can see you’re not enthusiastic about that.”

  Her husband lifted his shoulders in an ambiguous gesture.

  “Think of the children, Ar-tesshub.”

  “Do you think Little Wullu could do that, my dear? Could he be silent for a long time? Could he—or any of us, for that matter—climb through a sewer or down the glacis in the dark?”

  Uqnitum’s face grew hot with anger at his resignation, but she had to admit to herself that what her husband said was probably true. She wasn’t sure she could climb the steeply sloping scree outside the city walls, even if there were no enemy patrols making the rounds.

  “Well, I don’t fancy just letting those dogs decide our fate with no effort on our part,” she muttered, stacking the soup bowls in one hand. She could hear how sharp her voice was. “I’m going to pick up Wullu’s bowl. Just stay there. I’ll bring you some more water to wash up the rest of you.”

  Uqnitum regretted the absence of servants. She and Ar-tesshub had let their slaves go when the siege began. She told them it was so they’d have the same chance as free men to fight or flee and survive, but in fact, their departure meant two fewer mouths to feed. Even the priests had freed the temple slaves, and despite their pious cant, she strongly suspected their reason had been the same. Nothing brought out people’s self-interest like dearth.

  Little Wullu’s alcove was dark. She made out the lump of his body curled up under a blanket in bed. Uqnitum pushed back the shutter a bit and latched it open so he’d have some air. The bolt made a loud clack, but he didn’t hear her. He was snoring and sometimes seemed to stop breathing. She shook his shoulder gently until he snorted back into action. Then she snagged the bowl from where it lay on the floor and tiptoed back out of the room.

  Wullu—they always thought of him as Little Wullu—was nearly seventeen, but he was no taller than a half-grown boy and not even as intelligent. Uqnitum would have denied this to anyone, but of course, she knew it in her heart of hearts to be true. He had trouble understanding the simplest orders. Although he was loving and trustful, he could be pigheaded. He could become violently upset if his routine were disturbed. What in the name of all the gods was going to happen to him when the Assyrians broke in and lined everyone up and marched them away into slavery? Perhaps he’d shout out in his slow, stubborn way, “Don’t want to.” And then what?

  Uqnitum felt suddenly vulnerable in the extreme. If only she could hide him or get him away somehow. But it was too late—too late for any of them. Their old life was all but over.

  Tesshub and Sharrumma, watch over us. Hepat, dear mother of all, watch over my little son.

  Uqnitum daughter of Tapshihuni did not often admit to fear, but it was upon her now, her hands quivering like a plucked string. She set the bowl with slow deliberation upon the table then went out into the courtyard and walked to the well. She concentrated hard on picking up a jar, hooking it to the rope, and lowering it into the water. It was a very long way down these days. From far below, a gaunt, square-jawed face looked back at her, the eyes sunk in shadow, the dark bangs gashed by a streak of white. She hauled the jar up hand over hand—she, the greatest woman singer of her age, the daughter of Tapshihuni—and lugged it back into the house.

  She reentered the main room to find Ar-tesshub had gone upstairs already, no doubt still covered in dust. He had to be at the end of his strength. They all were. Unlike a lot of the people in town, her family wasn’t used to manual labor, but now they swung pickaxes and hauled rocks with the meanest slave. The spring days were growing longer, and the work of reinforcing the gate went on until sunset, whenever that might come. So their night of repose would be short. Who knew if it would be their last? At some point, the Assyrian troops who had taken Taite would be sent here to Kahat. It was only a paltry few leagues away, an afternoon’s march.

  Uqnitum set the jar down. The water was thick and stank of sulfur. What difference did it make if they were clean? They might all be dead before sunrise.

  She saw Tatasshe hanging the clothes in the courtyard and called to her to come in and go to bed, but the girl shook her head. Her face was bleak. She’s been brooding on Ennamati again, Uqnitum thought. We can’t let sentimentality weaken us. But she said nothing, just climbed the stairs, feeling the twinge in her knee with every step. “Don’t stay up too late,” she called as she passed the window on the landing.

  In fact, an unaccustomed wave of sentiment overcame Uqnitum herself as she gazed down into the courtyard of their home, where they had made their lives for twenty-eight years. Everything had become so familiar, so comfortable—the witness to so much contentment—and now it all took on an aura of immense preciousness. The little wellhead. The blackened pots against the wall. The grape arbor that sheltered the door. How easily she could see in her mind’s eye the children playing tag around that well, Tatasshe and the older boys. She could see them sitting on a bench in the shade of the grapevine, their little heads bent earnestly over the strings of their child-sized harps, while their father gave them their music lessons. She could see herself and... Don’t remember that.

  Thank the gods, the boys were gone. When Pushi and Tippi had run away to make their fortunes in the West, she had screamed at them for being ungrateful bastards and said she never wanted to see them again. But now she was relieved that they weren’t in Kahat to suffer what was coming. The Assyrians were not kind to young men of fighting age, even musicians.

  She had her doubts about what Ar-tesshub had said regarding the Assyrians’ treatment of musicians anyway. He tended to live in his own pleasant little world, where music was important and the votaries of Kinnaru honored. Men can afford that illusion, she thought bitterly. Their whole life was performing. When men came home at night after playing all day, they still talked about music—what the high priest wanted for the next festival, how that new
harp had such a perfect sound. Listen to this, ashti; I had a great new melody come into my mind.

  Women, on the other hand, never quite escaped from the weight of the everyday, no matter how talented or famous they were. There were still babies to nurse, sick children to take care of, cooking and weaving to supervise, pregnancies. Somehow, even with slaves to do the actual housework, the moorings never got cut the way they did with men. Women’s bodies anchored them inescapably to the quotidian.

  Her idealism thus tempered, she wasn’t so sure music was that important in the greater scheme of things—on the level of clashing armies and conquered populations. Perhaps that was also because she remembered her childhood in the court of King Wasashatta, where she and even her father, the great Tapshihuni, had been little more than high-level servants. Not that he’d ever noticed. That was one thing he and Ar-tesshub had in common: the ability to blot out reality.

  “Ashti? Are you coming to bed?” Ar-tesshub called out.

  She pulled in the shutters and latched them then turned away from the window. The last few steps took her past the boys’ old room, which they had shared with Wullu before the freeing of the servants. Now her youngest slept downstairs in the slaves’ alcove, where she could keep an eye on him while she cooked. He accompanied her and Tatasshe to the women’s worksite every day, where he would carry a minimum number of small stones with extravagant care before he lost interest and drifted away. There were always a few dark looks from one or another neighbor. Why are we feeding this useless boy when there is so little for the fighters to eat? She knew what they were saying behind their stiff, watching faces. Her answer was, Fuck you; who can be sure he’s not more precious to the gods than you are, fat priest’s wife?

  The idea leaped into Uqnitum’s mind that she should perhaps painlessly release Wullu’s soul to the gods if the Assyrians broke in. Her face flashed hot with a pang of shame. How can you even think such a thing about your own flesh? Yet she feared his unpredictable behavior could endanger them all, and she couldn’t rid herself of the vision of the bastards riding him down into a bloody mass. To spare him that would be a mercy...

  Troubled by her thoughts, she let herself quietly into the bedroom she and Ar-tesshub shared. He was still awake and welcomed her into his arms as she slipped under the covers. His cheeks and beard were wet, creating a slurry of the dust that still covered him. She could feel the trembling of his hands. He was afraid, too—afraid for her, no doubt, as she was for him.

  Is it better to love no one? she wondered, her heart sinking. She was prepared to die—she was strong. She could do it with style, sneering in the faces of her murderers, defying them to do their worst. But to watch Ar-tesshub or Wullu or Tatasshe be tortured or killed... I don't think I’m that strong.

  They lay wordlessly in one another’s embrace.

  “Kahat’s not that important. They may lose interest and move on,” she finally murmured, not because she believed it but because she was used to being the pragmatic one.

  “I think this is probably the end, my dear.” His voice was unsteady with suppressed weeping. “A man... a man couldn’t have asked for... a better wife. I love you, my dearest. I love you.”

  Her throat clenched with the temptation of tears, but she had no answer. I love you came hard to Uqnitum, who was scrupulous about the truth of her statements, and she wasn’t sure she knew any longer what that meant. Instead, she began to sing softly against Ar-tesshub’s ear a melody her father had written, although the words were from an old Egyptian popular song. “Our love shall endure day and night, waking and sleeping,” she crooned in her smoky contralto. “The sight of you gives life to my heart.”

  She could hear Ar-tesshub struggling with sobs. At last, he wept outright, his face against her bosom, his lyre player’s fingers clutching her back like vises.

  “The yearning for your voice is my strength when I am weary. There is no one else who is in harmony with your heart, but only me.” She stopped, overcome with a wave of pain. Harden your heart, she warned herself, breathing fiercely. You’re going to lose all of this.

  They lay entwined for a long time. Uqnitum couldn’t tell whether Ar-tesshub was awake or asleep. Eventually, his fingers relaxed their grip. At last, hearing a snore, she extricated herself from his arms.

  Sleep refused to accept her. For some reason, the memory of Tapshihuni rose before her eyes. Her father had shaken off all the vulnerabilities of love—a man who seemed to care for no one. She could see him as he was in her childhood—still young and vigorous, with his square jaw and aggressive nose and his shock of coarse, dark hair. He was a big man, quick to raise his voice, intimidating. She had stood up to him, a smart-mouthed little girl as feisty as he was. Amazing, she thought. Children didn’t do that, especially girls. He’d rarely beaten her for it, either. She’d often wondered whether he secretly admired her stubbornness and nerve or whether he was genuinely disgusted by her. She was so much like him—and not only in appearance. Their relationship was destined to be stormy without the mediation of a mother.

  Tapshihuni, the court composer and lyre player of King Wasashatta, had been a man full of his own importance. Disciples, flocking to study with him from all over—from as far away as Hatti—had quaked at his disapproval, which he administered with cutting sarcasm. He could also be a charming raconteur dropping names, seeking to impress, to ensorcel, to enslave. But his little motherless daughter had been neither impressed nor afraid of him.

  For her, fear had turned into anger.

  Even as a girl, she had seen what was happening between her father and his star pupil, the man who later became her husband. Tapshihuni had declared that Ar-tesshub was a great artist but lazy; he needed to be pushed and goaded to reach his highest level of skill. The strategy had worked, she supposed, but she’d never believed perfecting Ar-tesshub was really her father’s motive. She understood from painful experience how fiercely he wanted to control those around him.

  Uqnitum could just make out in the darkness the lighter patch of Ar-tesshub’s face at her side. The first prolonged conversation she and he ever had was after Tapshihuni had humiliated him at length in front of an entire class. The young musician had stayed alone in the rehearsal room when his teacher left, ostensibly to try a passage yet again. Uqnitum entered the room unseen and padded silently to his side. She watched him weeping tears of shame and discouragement over his lyre, outrage simmering in her heart, before she coughed discreetly.

  Ar-tesshub jerked up and saw her there. He grew red with embarrassment. After all, she was the master’s daughter. “Forgive me, Uqnitum!” he cried, wiping at his nose. “You must think I’m acting like a child.”

  “No. You’re acting like a human being, something my father couldn’t begin to understand.”

  He rested his forehead on the arm of his lyre, his voice echoing, hollow, across the strings. “I can’t do this anymore. Who am I fooling? I don’t have any talent. Why should I torture myself to try to be something I’m not?”

  “You have talent, Ar-tesshub,” she said fiercely. “Can’t you see that my father's purposely making it hard? He says you’re a quitter, and he wants you to prove him right. Don’t give him the satisfaction of breaking you.”

  And he was so beautiful, gazing up at her in awe of her frankness and her wisdom, his elegant nose red and his long black lashes starry with tears. Uqnitum had never met anyone who attracted her so. Ar-tesshub was more than beautiful; he was everything her father was not: polite, humble, sensitive, and wryly self-deprecating. She fell for him right then and there as she watched his long, graceful body in action and dreamed of his agile fingers dancing over the lyre strings, imagining them opening the laces of her dress, his fine mouth pressed to hers. They talked endlessly, and she grew more and more impressed with the beauty of Ar-tesshub’s soul. It was possible, then. Not all men were like Tapshihuni.

  The youth wasn’t perfect, of course. Who was? Tapshihuni had seen the romance beginning to smolder and
had warned, “He’s only looking to advance his career through you. Do you think he finds a big, plain girl like you attractive?” The lad, he claimed, was easily discouraged, reduced to questioning himself, sometimes completely paralyzed by self-doubt. He was weak. “He doesn’t deserve you.”

  But that’s why he needs me, Uqnitum reasoned. She was strong. Together they were perfect—strength and beauty, just like music itself.

  Five years later, they had asked Tapshihuni’s permission to marry. Although the match was perfect in every way, her father had refused.

  Uqnitum could feel anger tightening her jaw even after all these years.

  By that point, Ar-tesshub had become the centerpiece of the palace musicians and Uqnitum the lead singer at only nineteen. Tapshihuni wanted them to stay subservient forever. He wanted Ar-tesshub to be his glorious disciple and Uqnitum to serve as his creature and his amanuensis. “Have I wasted all that time teaching you to write for nothing—you, a girl?”

  And that was how they’d come to be in Kahat, where the Assyrians now hammered on the gate.

  They had run away and joined the troupe at the temple of Sharrumma and Tesshub, marrying without her father’s permission. Tapshihuni hadn’t dignified their rebellion with a display of anger, yet he’d never spoken to them again. Ar-tesshub was crushed with guilt, fearing he was being ungrateful to his mentor—he’d been pushed to rebellion by Uqnitum in the first place. But she reveled in her act of insubordination.

  Only once more, when her father was dying, had she made the effort to see him, with her older children in tow—for their sakes. But he’d rejected the sight of his grandchildren brutally, and she’d consigned him to Allani, queen of the underworld, with no filial kipsum offerings except her hatred.

  Why am I thinking about all this? she wondered, willing herself to unclench her jaw. That was the beginning of Ar-tesshub’s and my life together, and this may be the end of it.