The Orphan. Peter Lerangis

       CHAPTER ONE

      ¹GO, DARIA. NOW.

      My knees shook. I stood before the gate of the King’s Garden, trying not to look at the magnificent people who strolled in and out. I did not want my eyes, my face, to give me away. I hoped my clean tunic would fool them. I hoped that on this afternoon they would not see me as a street urchin, a slave, a wardum, a creature of the dirt.

      My plan was crazy. But my friend Frada lay dying, and I needed to save her. I had to do the unthinkable. And fast. Pressing down the wrinkles of my garment, I held my head high and stepped through the gate.

      I was greeted by a blast of bad breath. “Step aside!” bellowed a royal guard, dragging a large sack. “King Nabu-na’id the Great approaches!”

       The king? Now?

      I leaped back into the street, as the guard repeated the command in several languages—Anatolian, Greek, Akkadian, Judean, Persian. People from so many different lands had come to Babylon years ago, before Sippar came. Before Babylon had been cut off from the rest of the world. Over time, listening carefully, I had come to understand nearly all their tongues. A useful skill for one who must survive in the streets.

      Looking up the hill I saw the royal chariot drawing near, attended by four miserable-looking slaves. The crowd stepped back, bowing low.

      “Here it is, my lord and master!” the brutish guard yelled. With a grunt, he threw the sack into the street, the Boulevard of the Gardens. “The last one!”

      The bundle thumped heavily, raising a cloud of dust tinged with red.

      Blood red.

      The crowd surged forward to look. They pushed me aside, blocking my view. Gasps erupted all around. An old woman fell to her knees in shock. A small boy began to cry. I wriggled my way through, and soon I saw what the ragged sack really was—a man, dressed in tatters and beaten to a lump.

      I turned away. In the reign of Nabu-na’id the Nasty, violence was more plentiful than sunshine. As the chariot stopped, the king did not bother to glance downward. His beard, elaborately oiled and curled, glinted in the sun. “Bel-Shar-Usur,” he barked, his voice like a dragon’s rasp, “what says the rebel now?” Bel-Shar-Usur, the royal vizier, slid from his chariot seat. Although he was ancient and stooped, he was said to be the son of the king. His steely-gray eyes flitted wildly, as if each eyeball were possessed by an enraged, trapped insect—yet somehow, miraculously, he saw everything. Stepping toward the crumpled man, Bel-Shar-Usur used a gnarled olive-branch cane to turn him faceup. If the world were merciful, the man would be dead. But his eyes turned upward, showing unspeakable pain, as he muttered a tiny plea in the language of the Greeks. “Kind king, I am a father of four and have done nothing wrong.”

      “Wretched rebel,” Bel-Shar-Usur said, “I’m afraid apologies are too late.”

      The king yawned and carefully, lavishly, picked his nose. By the look on his face, I could tell this action gave him great pleasure. “Dear Bel-Shar-Usur, you must properly learn the many languages of Babylon,” he said, holding out his crusty finger for a slave to clean. “The rebel apologizes not. He speaks Persian. He tells me I stink like a dead lizard. Burn him—and let all Babylon know that the rebels have been eliminated!”

      My heart sank as I tried to make sense of these lies. Both the king and his son had lied about the man’s plea. He didn’t apologize, he proclaimed his innocence—and he didn’t speak Persian!

      But what of the rebels—Zinn’s warriors, the Children of Amytis—had they been eliminated? They were heroes to the common people, dreamers, masters of disguise and disruption. Their ancestors served the second Nabu-Kudurri-Usur, the Good King. Back then, they had been valued and encouraged. Now they were exiled and hunted by the royal guards. I had always dreamed of becoming one of them.

      If they were truly dead, there was no hope.

      As four slaves carried the victim away, the crowd gossiped. “What was his crime?” asked a woman with a kind, concerned face.

      “The man is not a rebel,” muttered a gray-bearded man with a Greek accent. He glanced toward the Royal Garden, its walls cascading with color, its flowers exploding with fresh scents. “Here was his crime: He clipped a small sprig of ivy to put in his little daughter’s hair.”

      My knees turned to liquid. I had to grip a tree to keep from falling.

       Beaten and condemned to death? For clipping a vine?

      Over the walls, I could see a distant canopy of leaves. It was the Tree of Enchantment, whose magic pomegranates held awesome powers. Chewing their seeds could cure ills, give life to the sick. Guarded night and day from intruders, the tree was the king’s most valued possession.

      I was there that day on a mission. To save the life of my dying friend, Frada. To do what no one had ever done before.

      I

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