He went to the door. "Tell the king that his concubine lives and that he has a daughter," he said. "She cannot be disturbed… quiet, I tell you! She hangs between life and death and cannot be disturbed and will be weak for some time; nor will she bear more children. Take my word to the king, and leave this place in peace! You, you, you-sit quietly over there, on that bench, and wait in case something is needed."

The Islander doctor turned back in, pulled down his mask with a weary sigh. Azzu-ena was standing and drinking the water-and-supplements Smith had handed her, looking frail and out of place in the green surgical gown and cap. She put the glass down and faced him.

"What is your name, asu of the Eagle People?"

"Justin Clemens," he said, and added with a wry smile, "Clemens son of Edgar."

Suddenly the Babylonian woman's reserve broke. Clemens blinked in astonishment as she fell to her knees at his feet.

"Teach me, Jus'hikin son of Eg-gar!" she said.

"What?" he said, bemused.

"Teach me!"

Words poured out of her in a torrent, until he gestured and she slowed the stream down, pronouncing each word with desperate clarity so that the foreigner would understand.

"I am the daughter of an asu, and because he had no sons he taught me. Because I am a woman and raised in the palace, they give me some work here in the harem. My father was a wise man, a good man-and all he taught me is nothing, nothing. I have watched the sorcerers, and the spirits do not hear them, for those they treat live or die as they would if nothing was done. Sometimes I can help the sick, but so often I try and try and still they die, and I can do nothing but at least I knew I could do nothing and you can and I must know-"

She took a deep breath. "I own a small house in the babtum, the city-ward, of Mili-la-El, near the Eastern Gate. I will sell it and give you all I have." She clutched at his trousers. "I have no parents, no brothers to object-I will be your slave, scrub and clean and weave, if only you will let me learn-if you will only let me watch what you do!"

Clemens opened his mouth on a refusal as kind as he could make it, and then closed it again, remembering.

He remembered the pain of it, the lost tools, the knowledge useless without technologies that Nantucket did not have, facing parents who had to be told that their child was gone, husbands, wives, brothers. It had been even worse for his teachers, Doctor Coleman and the others. They'd never despaired, never stopped teaching, never stopped looking for ways to make up their lacks.

"I will impart by precept, by lecture and by every mode of teaching…to disciples bound by covenant and oath, according to the Law of Medicine…"

"What? What do you say, lord?"

"The words of an oath," he said in Akkadian. "Rise, Azzu-ena. If you would learn, I will teach you, as best I can."

June, Year 9 A.E.

A camel gave its burbling moan, and that set off the whole train of seven pair that were hauling the headquarters wagon. God, but 1 hate those things, Ian Arnstein thought. The Babylonians of this age knew little about camels and were convinced they were possessed by demons. He wasn't altogether sure they were wrong. They stank, they bit, they spat green mucus at anyone who came near, and they complained every waking hour in voices like guttural damned souls. Their only merit was that they could carry or haul three times what a horse did, further and faster and on less water and rougher forage.

The army of King Shuriash of Babylon sprawled out over the dun-colored flatness of the landscape in clots and driblets and clusters, half lost in its own plumes of beige dust. The king's paid men and the retinues of the nobles near the capital had been brave with banners and polished armor when they left Kar-Duniash, but now everything was the color of the grit kicked up by feet and hooves or the homespun of the tribal contingents and peasant levies hurrying to join them from every side.

Sometimes there was a hint of hills on the eastern horizon, the topmost peaks of the Zagros. Sometimes there was a hint of a breeze, like something out of the mouth of a smelting furnace but still welcome when it dried the sweat. Ian unhitched a canvas water bag from the big six-wheeled wagon's bed and expertly directed a squirt into his mouth. It tasted of silt and the chlorine powder used to sterilize it, and it was no more than tepid from the evaporation. It was still utterly glorious, especially if you kept all memory of ice-cold beer firmly out of your mind.

And now they were approaching a belt of intense green, where the Diyala River spilled its moisture onto the plain. That made the air very slightly muggy, hence even more intolerable, and there would be bugs. Oh, will there ever be bugs, Ian thought.

"Could be worse," Doreen said. Like him, she was wearing khaki shorts and shirt. Beads of sweat ran down the open neck and made the cotton fabric cling to her in ways that would have been more interesting if it wasn't so hot. "We could be marching and carrying packs."

Ian nodded. The Marines' khaki uniforms were wet with sweat and stained where multiple layers had soaked in and then dried to leave a rime of salt. The faces under the broad-brimmed hats were set, remote, fixed in a mask of endurance. Now and then one would hawk and spit, the saliva colored like the earth that lay thick and gritty on everyone's teeth; every hour they broke for a ten-minute rest, and the noncoms would check to see everyone was taking their salt tablets and enough water. Once every day or so someone would keel over, swaying or staggering or just falling limp as a sack of rice; the more extreme cases ended up on the wagons with a saline drip in their arm.

"Hup! Hup!"

Colonel Hollard came riding across the plain on his camel, the beasts' long, swarming pace spooking the horses drawing a Babylonian noble's chariot into a blue-eyed, flat-eared bolt even in the heat. Or maybe it's their smell. Probably their smell. Another camel paced beside him, carrying a short, swarthy man with a wide white grin and streaks of gray in his beard; Hassan el-Durabi, an ex-Kuwaiti whose wealthy family had raised racing camels and who'd been vacationing on the Island when the Event came.

The two men pulled up their mounts beside the headquarters wagon, saluting.

"Good beasts, Councilor," Hassan said, stroking his camel's neck and then giving it a flick on the nose with his quirt when it tried to turn its long, snaky neck and bit him on the kneecap. "Those Aramaean pigs we bought them from know nothing of handling them, nothing."

Ian nodded, smiling pleasantly; the Kuwaiti had been gleefully pleased to end up making war in Iraq, with the king of Assyria standing in well for Saddam Hussein-they did seem to have a good deal in common, methods-wise.

The nomads to the southwest had taken to using camels recently, but they were still trying to ride them sitting on the rump rather than on a proper saddle over the hump itself, and their pack-loading arrangements weren't much better. Most of the Aramaeans herded sheep on foot, with their gear on the backs of their donkeys and women. The Arabs' turn wouldn't come until long after the end of the Bronze Age.

Or would have come, if we hadn't showed up, he thought.

"What's the word?" Ian asked the Marine colonel.

"The Assyrians were supposed to be massing their forces on the middle Tigris," Hollard said, pointing north and westward with his quirt. "We're coming in this way to threaten Asshur from the rear. Prince Kashtiliash thought they'd be unlikely to guard it because it's considered too hard to cross these rivers. However, from the latest reports they are there in some force. The usual thing-enemy not cooperating with our battle plan."