Fingers of evening stretched across a fiery sky sending black birds into nearby trees screeching and fighting for a place to sleep. Evil seemed to be winning as the stink of death settled on Hul, permeated his clothes and made his chest burn. The boy he had buried in a father’s arms and the two dead men strapped to their horses would be with him always. A burden made more devastating by his slave’s actions and his own mother who had put the massacre into motion.
The slave eyed the weapons and worked at his restraints, his horse tethered to a line being led by his master. “If you take me to council, I will make sure your mother dies with me.”
Hul’s mount danced sideways as he glanced back and pulled on the reins. “You should have come to me with her plan. My uncle and his child are dead and now his widow clings to my back.” He felt the woman turn her head to look at the slave.
“What was I to do? Refuse her? No one refuses Mistress Cassia…not even you.”
The slave’s observation was partially correct. He didn’t know Hul had left his mother confined to her room and guarded by a manservant who was, more than likely, castrated and hung upside down from a beam in the ceiling.
The young widow pressed herself against his back and whispered, “Kill him.”
Hul looked down at her diminutive arms and delicate hands wrapped around his waist and then stared over his shoulder. “What?”
She met his stare with large honey-colored eyes fringed with moist lashes. “Kill him before we get to the city gate.”
Momentarily stunned, he didn’t know what to say. The woman had been silent the whole trip from her dead husband’s camp, quietly sobbing and banging her head against his back. Hul looked away because her son’s eyes, the image of hers, milky in death and too big for a child’s face, flashed through his mind and brought bile to his throat. The boy’s head had almost been severed leaving his spine exposed and blood flowing into the ground. “No, Milpah. That would be too easy an end for Ziba.”
In answer she resumed her head banging. He didn’t have the heart to make her stop. If this was her only comfort then so be it. No matter that he would have a permanent bruise dead center of his left lung. Maybe it felt a little like punishment for his failure as head of the family, a position he never wanted and a responsibility looming in his nightmares.
As they topped a rise the city of Eridu spread out below, oil lamps were being lit across the city, children were called in for supper, doors locked and cattle folded their legs onto beds of straw. Hul smelled smoke from cook fires mingling with baking bread and simmering stew and scratched his head. He needed a bath, a night of uninterrupted sleep, and an explanation for his wife, one that would be hard for her to hear. He would soon have three wives, Timea, Reumah, his brother’s widow, and Milpah, the head banger demanding revenge. As kinsman redeemer he was responsible to produce offspring for the dead, creating a continuation of their line, heirs of property and position in the family. It was the law and he was a law abiding man.
The horses clopped through the South Gate, their hooves loud on the cobbles in the stillness. Heads hung over roof tops to see who had entered the city so late. Hul stayed in the shadows, prolonging the rumors that would fly like crows at first light and deposit the stink of gossip. He directed his horse down the narrow ally beside the family compound and dismounted in the stable leaving bodies, horses, and his slave with a manservant. The widow grasped his cloak as if deep waters were pulling her under and moved in tandem with his steps.
Kinsman on Amazon US
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