Servant of the Bones

" 'Cyrus!' I said. Cyrus was the conqueror.

"The full details of the man's accomplishments were sharpened in my mind. This was Cyrus the Achaemenid King who already ruled half the world. He had united the Medians with the Persians, the man who meant to take Babylon. The man who had scared all the cities around us. This was no longer tavern talk of war. This was Cyrus himself sitting here before us.

"I should have prostrated myself before him but no one was doing anything like that before anyone, and he had said in a clear voice with an excellent command of Aramaic that I was to be at ease.

"Very well. I looked at him directly. After all, I thought, I'm going to die. So what. Why not?

My father took the empty chair beside me.

" 'Azriel, my boy, my beautiful boy,' said Cyrus. The voice was crisp, full of good humor. 'I have been in Babylon for days. There are thousands of my soldiers throughout Babylon. They have come in by many gates over a long time. The priests know. Here, your beloved King-and may the gods keep him well always-Nabonidus himself knows.' He gave a generous nod to the suspicious and dying old King. 'All your King's regents and his officials know that I am here. Your Elders, you see. Don't feel fear. Feel joy. Your tribe will be rich and they will live forever, and they will go home.'

" 'Ah, and this depends then on what I do?' I asked.

"I wasn't sure then and am still not today sure why I was so cold and disdainful of him. He was compelling but he was human, and young. And also, no matter what he'd done so far, he was a heathen to me, and he wasn't even Babylonian. So, I was cold to him.

"He gave a silent measuring smile.

" 'So it depends then on what I do?' I repeated the question. 'Or your will, Lord, has your will already been decided?'

"Cyrus laughed, with crinkling cheerful eyes. He had the vigor of kings all right, and not yet the total madness. He was too young and he'd been drinking up the blood of Asia. He was full of strength. Full of victory. 'You speak boldly,' he said to me generously. 'You look with a bold eye. You are your father's eldest, aren't you?'

" 'For the three days required,' said one of the priests, 'he must be very strong. To be bold is part of it.'

" 'Put another chair at this table,' I said, 'with your permission, My Lord King Cyrus, and My Lords, King Nabonidus and Lord Bel-shazzar. Put it here at the end.'

" 'Why, for whom?' asked Cyrus politely.

" 'For Marduk,' I said. 'For my god who is with me.'

" 'Our god is not at the beck and call of you!' roared the High Priest. 'He won't come down off the altar for you! You have never seen our god, not really, you are a lying Jew, you are-'

" 'Close your mouth, Master,' said Remath in a small voice. 'He has seen the god and he has spoken with him and the god has smiled at him, and if he invites the god to this chair, the god is most likely to come.'

"Cyrus smiled and shook his head. 'You know,' he said, 'this is truly a marvelous city. I am going to love Babylon. I wouldn't hurt a stone of such a place. Ah, Babylon.'

"I might have laughed at that, at his wiliness, his disrespect for the elders and the old priests, his ruthlessness and his wit. But I was past laughing. I looked at the light of the lamps and I thought, 'I am going to die.'

"A hand touched mine. It was vaporous. No one could see it. But it was Marduk. He had taken this chair to my left; invisible, transparent, golden, and vital. My father sat to my right and my father just put his hands up to his face and cried and cried.

"He cried like a child. He cried.

"Cyrus looked with patience and compassion at my father.

" 'Let's get on with it,' said the High Priest.

" 'Yes,' said Enoch, 'let's get on with it now!'

" 'For these men, these elders, these priests, this prophetess, get stools for them to be comfortable,' said Cyrus amiably and cheerfully. He smiled at me. 'We are all in this together.'

"I turned to look at Marduk. 'Are we?'

"They all watched me in silence speaking to my invisible god.

" 'I can't tell you what to do,' said Marduk. 'I love you too much to make a mistake, and I have no right answers.'

" 'Stay then.'

" 'Throughout,' he said.

"The stools and chairs were quickly brought in and the Elders allowed in very casual fashion to sit all about us and this conquering Persian King, this monarch who had driven the Greeks crazy all over the world and now wanted our city and had everything we had but the city.

"Only the priest Remath remained standing, at a distance against a gilded column. The High Priest had told him to leave, but he had ignored this command and apparently been forgotten. He was watching me and my father, and then I realized that he could see Marduk. Not so clearly But he could see him. Remath moved his position slightly so that he could see all three of us, going to a farther column behind Cyrus where Cyrus's soldiers, by the way, stood poised to become butchers. And there Remath stared at the seemingly empty chair with cold and conniving eyes, and he looked at me."

6

Well, my lord, what do you want of me?' I asked. 'Why am I, a Hebrew scribe, so important so suddenly?'

" 'Listen, child,' said Cyrus. 'I want Babylon without a siege, I want it without a death. I want it the way I have taken the Greek cities when they have been smart enough to let me do it. I don't want ashes behind me and ruins galore! I don't come with a torch, and a bag for loot, a thief. I will not rape your city and deport your populations. On the contrary, I will send home to Jerusalem all of you, with the blessing to build your own temple.'

"Enoch now stood up and laid down before us a scroll. I reached for it, and read it. It was a proclamation freeing all the Hebrews to go home. Jerusalem would be under Cyrus's benevolent protection.

" 'He is the Messiah,' said Enoch to me. And what a change of tone from the old man. Now that Cyrus the Great was talking to me, my own prophet was talking to me. Now, by Messiah he meant 'anointed one.' Later on the Christians made a big deal of this word, but that's all it meant then. But still, it was a strong word.

" 'Add to that proclamation,' said Cyrus, 'gold, gold beyond your imagining,' he said, 'and permission to take all that you possess with you, to reclaim your vineyards, your lands, and be loyal to a powerful empire that will let you build your Temple to Yahweh.'

"I looked at Marduk. Marduk sighed. 'He's speaking the truth, that's all I can tell you. He's going to conquer one way or another.'

" 'I can trust him, then?' I asked my god.

"Everyone was shocked. 'Yes,' said Marduk, 'but to what degree . . . keep listening. You have something they want, your life, there may be a way, who knows, for you yet to escape with it.'