Making a New Start

By Richard Freeborn

Mistakes compound until one final misjudgment shatters the world Nidintu knows. Blaming the gods, he flees to a new city. As Nidintu rebuilds his life danger and new temptations walk side-by-side, always threatening to trip him up.

Nidintu learned hard and painful lessons in Babylon. The lessons reinforce his decision to trust and rely on no-one. 

In these six stories, Nidintu treads a narrow, twisting, and perilous path toward redemption.

• Making it Right
• Making Changes
• Making Something Good Happen
• Making a Promise
• Making a Commitment
• Making a Safe Journey

If you like your historical fiction packed with adventure and a dash of romance, grab Making a New Start now.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Richard Freeborn
• Release date: Apr 28, 2022
• ISBN: 9798201363468

Book preview

Making a New Start by Richard Freeborn

MAKING A NEW START

RICHARD FREEBORN

CONTENTS

Introduction

Making It Right

Making Changes

Making Something Good Happen

Making A Promise

Making A Commitment

Making A Safe Journey

About the Author

Also by Richard Freeborn

For Jackie

INTRODUCTION

At the end of my ancient historical mystery, Family Harmony, the actions of one of the characters made it necessary for him to leave the city of Babylon. That story appeared in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, and Nidintu’s departure was set in stone.

Unexpectedly, this caused me a problem.

Nidintu was one of my favorite characters, and he wouldn’t go away.

Every story I wrote about the Exiles after that, I wanted to pull him back into the action. I pictured him leaning on the door frame, stroking his black beard, dark eyes intense as he watched me write, waiting to come back.

By this time, I was also about seventy percent of the way through the novel Thieves in the Temple, again without Nidintu, because the timeline of the story takes place after Family Harmony.

I spent a long weekend writing him back into Thieves in the Temple, and adjusting the timeline to take place before the events in Family Harmony.

Then I spent another long weekend putting everything back as it was.

Even then, Nidintu wouldn’t go away. He hovered round the margins, waiting for his opportunity.

Finally, his patience wore me down. I was at a point in another Babylon story, where I seemed to be beating my head against the wall to release each sentence onto the keyboard. The writing wasn’t fun, so I took a break, thought about everything but that story, and asked myself.

What really happened to Nidintu?

Following that thought, and as a way of getting him to leave, I wrote Making it Right.

Except he still didn’t leave. For every new Babylon story, I came up with an additional idea more suited to Nidintu. One story became two, then four, and at six, I decided he deserved his own collection.

You don’t need to read Family Harmony, or any of the other Jacob and Miriam stories of the Exiles in Babylon to enjoy this collection. However, if you want to learn everything that happened in Family Harmony, send me an email at [e-mail], and I’ll send you a free electronic copy of the story.

Meanwhile, please enjoy Making a New Start.

MAKING IT RIGHT

The city of Erech was about five, or six days travel south of Babylon. It wasn’t the size of Babylon, or with temples as impressive as the Esagila, the temple of Marduk, Nidintu’s own personal god. Erech though, had a tradition that went back to a time when Babylon was a convenient and anonymous river crossing in the desert.

Nidintu slowed his pace as the crowd of farmers, merchants and travelers approached the northern gate of the city. Erech’s city walls weren’t as impressive as those of Babylon, but they served their purpose, and the gate guards with the long spears every army was copying from the Persians looked alert and nervous.

Nidintu understood their concern. There’d been a series of raids that targeted small caravans leaving few, if any, survivors. He knew his northern accent would mark him as different, and these soldiers would be focused on anything out of the ordinary.

The elderly man beside him stumbled. Nidintu braced himself for the sudden onslaught of weight, let the man fall against his shoulder, then balanced him and set him back on his feet

Thank you, the man said. He rubbed his thigh then laughed and settled the chains of garlic bulbs back on his shoulder and looked over at Nidintu.

A blessing on you, he croaked. A man could get trampled here, and all the guards care about is what they can extort. He didn’t wait for an answer, and continued his complaints about the harvest, the weather, and taxes. All Nidintu had to do was nod and mumble an occasional agreement so it looked to the guard like they were together.

He felt the gaze of the guards sweep over them, and then he was in the narrow tunnel between the outer and inner gates, being jostled and shoved by the other travelers.

They were just past the inner gate when Nidintu heard the harsh bark of a guard’s voice and the clatter of wood and metal.

There was a high wail of fear, and the crowd around him moved a little faster, the fear in them strong enough he could almost taste it. The goats and mules in the crowd sensed that same fear and began bleating, braying, and trying to bolt.

Nidintu stepped aside quickly as a goat careened into his knee, trailing a stream of urine. The animal strained at the halter, as his handler, a young boy barely in his teens, struggled to control the runaway. Nidintu gripped the rope close to the collar and held firm, forcing the animal to stay in one place until the panic dissipated from its eyes, and it stopped struggling. He released the halter and pushed the goat back toward the boy, whose eyes were wide. The youth stammered his thanks and turned away.

The distraction had been enough to separate Nidintu from the old man, and as he began walking again, out of the confines of the gate complex, the street widened into a broad avenue that swept through the center of the city to the four temples of Eanna. He’d heard of them and could see the ziggurats ahead of him, their stepped levels rising into the crisp blue autumn sky.

With the wider road, and streets crossing from both sides, the crowd seemed thinner and less crammed. Nidintu eased himself further to the right and out of the crowd of travelers until he found a side street with a small tavern.

The beer wasn’t as tart as the brews he was accustomed to in Babylon, but it had more body and flavor, and he was sure he could get used to the taste.

Careful, he warned himself.

That had been the problem in Asshur when he’d been sucked into a plan, and again in Babylon when he’d deliberately helped execute that plan and hurt his cousin. Then he’d made it worse by trying to silence Jacob, the Judean. The one man he’d been proud to call a friend.

He shook his head. He’d relived his stupidity every step of the journey from Babylon, and when he looked down the tankard was empty. He nodded at the tavern keeper’s questioning look, and in promised himself in Marduk’s name he’d drink this one more slowly.

I’m carrying a message to one of the Judeans who lives in Erech, he said to the man as a full tankard was placed before him. Is there a part of the city where I’ll find them?

In Babylon, the exiled Judeans had clustered together and tried to rebuild communities that matched the towns and cities they’d been deported from. He suspected they’d do the same here in Erech.

Don’t know any of them myself, the man said in a tone that made it clear he didn’t want to. I understand they’re down in a corner of the city south of the temples, and furthest from the river. You’re not one of them, are you?

Nidintu shook his head and touched the tip of the beard he kept shaed like the blade of a shovel, while the Judeans kept their beards trimmed to a point.

Do I look like one? He said it with a smile to avoid offense. As I said, I’m delivering a message for a friend. Can you tell me the best way to get there?

---

There were crowds of pilgrims around the Eanna temples, and the directions Nidintu had been given took him east and then south.

It wasn’t just the beards, Nidintu thought as he entered the streets the tavern keeper had directed him toward. There was a different feel to this part of Erech. The smells from the cooking fires were different, with less onion and more garlic, and the familiarity of it made his stomach growl and