The Moon That Fell from Heaven by N. L. Holmes

Author:N. L. Holmes
Format: epub

At Ili-milku’s side, head bent over the table, sat Teshamanu. The other scribes had already left for lunch. Presumably, they had intact homes somewhere.

Once he had determined that his family was safe, Ili-milku and his staff had set to work trying to reestablish the king’s chancery. Foreign affairs wouldn’t stop just because the world was in ruins. Lots of archived texts had fallen and broken. They would need to recopy what could be read and clear out the hopeless remains. Everything could be stored in the north annex with the older cases until the palace was once more safe to inhabit. They could move the writing room there as well.

Ili-milku and the other palace bureaucrats had been busy without stopping all night long. Rescuers had pulled out as many victims as could be safely removed for the time being. Kalliu messengers had been sent out at breakneck speed to the viceroy, notifying him of the calamity and begging for aid. Priests and musicians and mourning women had been rounded up for the late king’s obsequies in the morning and the coronation of his little successor. The dowager, too, was managing to function, keeping things moving forward. It was she who would rule the kingdom under its six-year-old king. Ili-milku wished he felt more optimistic about that. She had certainly proved her strength, but he had doubts about her honesty. However, in that regard, nothing much had changed—Niqmaddu had permitted his mother a dangerous degree of liberty; she was almost a ruler of a parallel kingdom. Ili-milku regretted the absence of kinder thoughts about the dead, but there it was.

“What do you say we stop for a bite to eat?” he suggested to Teshamanu, who was bent diligently over a tablet as he recopied its text. “My family has probably already eaten, so we may just have to grab a bite in the kitchen here.”

“With pleasure, my lord.” The queen’s secretary laid down his stylus and straightened the tablets before him. He did his best to wash the clay from his hand in the bucket that sat beside them and dry it on his hip. There was no concealing the clay stains on the elbow of his empty sleeve, where he had steadied the tablet.

Ili-milku couldn’t help but notice that even water was in short supply. The earthquake had disturbed a lot of people’s wells and ruptured the cisterns.

As he scooted out his stool and got to his feet, he eyed his colleague surreptitiously. Both the men were shaven, in a gesture of mourning, which seemed to make wholly unfamiliar people of them. Teshamanu’s face was bruised and scraped, one eye half swollen shut, but he seemed to be holding his own after the trauma of the quake and of finding the king. Nonetheless, a grim pleat sat between his eyes.

The two scribes made their way down to the kitchen, and Ili-milku said, “How is it you happened to find Niqmaddu, anyway, my friend? He wasn’t even supposed to be at the palace yesterday morning.

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