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."
Part I Chapter 6
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