Into The Depth of Heaven

By David Holehouse

A teenage servant boy falls in with an astronomer scribe attached to the Court of Phraates the Fourth, King of the mighty Parthian Empire. The Chaldean scribe and his two best friends, an astrologer sage and a Hebrew scholar, puzzle over some unprecedented and possibly alarming signs in the heavens, including an unusual celestial object that is taking weeks to traverse the sky. There are ancient prophesies of a new king and a new order.
This account takes the reader into the rich colour and life of a society highly advanced in international trade, astronomy, mathematics and agriculture. It speaks of a time when empires were rising and falling, when life was dangerous and cheap, when the victors in war won incredible wealth, status and power. In all matters primordial gods and demons were busy behind the scenes, wreaking vengeance or bestowing gifts on a whim. Truth or fiction? Check out the references at the back of the book and decide for yourself!

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Aug 1, 2022
• ISBN: 9781777775711

Book preview

Cover: Into the Depth of Heaven by David Holehouse. A desert with a vivid sky and crescent moon. The ghostly face of a teenage boy in a turban superimposed on the image.

Contents

Letter to the Future

Chapter One: The Flood

Chapter Two: Captivity

Chapter Three: Salvation

Chapter Four: New Life

Chapter Five: The Scribe

Chapter Six: Wise Counsel

Chapter Seven: Royal Commission

Chapter Eight: Secret No More

Chapter Nine: Exodus

Chapter Ten: The Road to Damascus

Chapter Eleven: Valley of the Shadow

Chapter Twelve: Living Water

Chapter Thirteen: The Lion’s Den

Chapter Fourteen: The Last Mile

Chapter Fifteen: The Heart of God

Chapter Sixteen: The Whirlwind

Further Reading

Acknowledgments

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Landmarks

Table of Contents

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Start of Content

Further Reading

Acknowledgments

INTO THE DEPTH OF HEAVEN

David Holehouse

Copyright © 2022 David Holehouse

Al rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form without the written permission of the author or the author’s estate.

Into The Depth of Heaven.

First published 2022, by

MediaMatch West Communications Inc.

Sherwood Park, Alberta, Canada

[e-mail]

Editorial support and typesetting – Vivalogue Publishing,

New Westminster, British Columbia, Canada.

Cover artwork – Nicole Riel, Victoria, British Columbia, Canada.

Cover imaging and typography – StudioX Design, Airdrie, Alberta, Canadsa.

ISBN:

978-1-7777757-1-1 E-book

978-1-7777757-4-2 Paperback

978-1-7777757-2-8 Hardcover

978-1-7777757-0-4 Digital format

978-1-7777757-3-5 Audio

To the light in each one of us.

Letter to the Future

we were never meant to be the stars of this story, not by a long shot. It would be gratifying, however, if future generations knew just a little bit more about us as real people, as honest and savvy as any of you reading this. Well, that might be a stretch for certain members of our party, granted, but best not to hasten to judgment.

Let me start at the beginning. Put your finger on a map of Beth Nahrayn (what today we call Iraq—Ed), on the Tigris River, at a spot close to where the Diyala River enters. Should you visit this place, it may be that little remains except a few curious ruins and a multitude of silent mounds heaving with the bones of fallen empires. Kneel and dig your hands into the dust. Let it sift through your fingers and fall in a slow arc, and listen very carefully. Can you hear voices, music, the splash of oars, the tinkle of coins changing hands? That, my friend, is some of us calling to you over the tumult of the years.

Listen closely!

Rimsin Al-Duri

Chapter One

The Flood

Great gods!

In contrast to his meaty baritone, the cantankerous gentleman’s frame appeared bony and frail. A flimsy shawl and baggy pants flapped in the breeze like ragged curtains in an open window. A trim pointed beard, mostly white, jutted out in defiance of the wind. I thought he’d never get himself into my boat without catastrophe. Hold her steady, dammit!

He spoke Aramaic, the language of the educated upper-crust, and looked haughtily at my confused face. I had learned some basic Aramaic on the job, so to speak, but my day-to-day language was an Elamite patois flavoured by the expressions of a myriad travellers and exiles in our region. I got the old man’s message, but I wasn’t sure I liked his manner.

The man tiptoed carefully down the worn brick stairs of Seleucia’s public wharf, holding a stack of books under one arm while his free hand dabbed at the slimy dock walls just enough to steady his balance. I put on my patient face and forced my oar against the river’s current in an effort to hold the little quppu steady for him. We were still tied to the iron ring in the wall, but the pounding turbulence of the raging water bucked my little boat ferociously. The man extended one foot down towards the passenger seat, then collapsed into the boat in a flurry of arms, books, scarves and whiskers. I thought he was going to put his foot through the goatskin of the hull and send us both to the bottom.

Thankfully we were enjoying a rare dry day, or everything would have ended up in a puddle on the bottom of my boat.

I despair, he roared again. His voice was surprisingly strong and rich, with an annoying tone of culture and authority. One of those that’s hard to ignore. Or even like.

Forgive me, I responded carefully, aware that my accent might make it hard for him to understand my words. The current has been crazy with the floods, I observed. We’ll be OK now.

I flipped the rope so the knot came undone and let the quppu swing around until we faced away from the high wharves and flood defences that towered above the west bank. I nudged us out into the current and we began to float rapidly downstream. I took a hurried moment to help the old man gather up his books and other paraphernalia.

Forgive my rudeness, he said at last. He had switched to my way of speaking, which raised my estimation of his character considerably. These, and he tapped the heavy, bound books with a long, bewhiskered finger, are absolutely priceless. Can’t have them getting wet! Worth a fortune!

I only had time to give him a puzzled smile before returning to my task and digging in with the oar. We had to get moving across the current if we were going to hit our downstream destination at Ctesiphon. The two towns more or less faced each other across the river, but were separated by a troublesome current this time of year. And there’d be trouble, no doubt, if I had to walk the boat back upstream along the floodwalls to get the old man to his destination.

The noises and smells of Seleucia dimmed behind us and I felt myself relaxing. Every time I departed from the frantic, false-fronted gold-painted posturing of that place I breathed easier. People talked funny, they dressed funny and rarely looked you in the eye when they made a promise. I much preferred the mayhem of its newer sister city, the imperial capital.

There had always been a bit of a tension between Seleucia and Ctesiphon. Seleucia was the west bank, all things fashionable and still very Hellenistic. When Seleucia was built by Macedonia’s General Seleucus, he partially populated it by ordering the residents of Babylon to abandon their city and march north to his new project. Now the ruins of Babylon were all but empty save for the owls and jackals of the desert and the remnants of a priesthood in a crumbling temple. Seleucia-on-the-Tigris (the man created several towns bearing his name) had become one of the major cities of the General’s now-defunct empire.

His empire evaporated when our Parthian army took over the country 140 years ago and thought to set up the imperial capital and winter residence for the King. Our leaders were loath to enter Seleucia as a conquering horde, not wanting to inflame the entrenched Hellenistic culture with our feared Scythian mercenaries, so picked a spot on the east bank, almost opposite Seleucia, close to an older settlement called Opis. The new town was named Tisfun, or Ctesiphon as the Hellenists liked to mangle it, and its fortunes skyrocketed after some Roman invaders were crushed at Carrhae and the spoils of war were invested in the new capital. It was now a bustling walled city in its own right, home of the satrapy of Babylonia and the King’s imperial palace, taking pride of place as a royal, judicial, economic and military powerhouse over its twin sister on the west bank.

---

Ctesiphon’s welcoming chorus of donkeys, horses and goats, the bustle of rivermen fussing over their huge wallowing boats, was magic to me. It smelled of adventure, mystery, far-off and exotic places, silks and spices and aromatic woods that smelled like nothing on earth. And it really did smell! It was just the time of year. Half the country was under water because of the Addaru floods, and every imaginable bit of dead tissue, animal and vegetable, was floating down the Tigris right now.

I was captain of nothing more than a tiny walnut shell of a quppu, but I felt pride and a sense of belonging in a big, important community as we neared the clatter of wharfmen and porters, soldiers and shysters on the Ctesiphon side. It was just 300 yards of black, roiling water pouring out of Anatolia to the west and the Zagros Mountains in the north, but it separated Seleucia and Ctesiphon like a curtain. Amazing how one river could separate two worlds so completely.

I worked until my shoulders were ready to quit against a current that seemed to gather force by the minute. We were in the last month of the year, wet and chilly Addaru, almost two months after the winter solstice, and we—the whole country top to bottom—had endured three months of near-constant winter rain. If it wasn’t for the high floodwalls separating our towns from the river, we’d be under water the same as the fields and plantations outside the city boundaries. Occasionally the ice jams upstream would rupture, sending vast torrents of water down the river. There were 10-foot-high floodwalls to protect our two communities, though of course there were years when the water rose plenty more than 10 feet.

We were just downstream from where the turbulent Diyala (aptly nicknamed the Shouting River) entered the Tigris (meaning Fast River), and this fact added even more floodwater from higher elevations. To add to the torrent, the King’s Canal bringing water from a parallel river southwest of us, the Euphrates, emptied into the lower-elevation Tigris right here. The canal was built centuries ago to connect old Babylon with the trade routes east and west, and to support farmland irrigation. And now it was in full flood too.

Come on lad, you can do it! my passenger urged with a lizard-like grin and a fearsome show of teeth. Almost there! It seemed to me that his anger had been replaced by a desire to get home without drowning.

I took a deep breath and kept up my pace, bringing the circular craft twirling and swirling towards one of the riverside staircases at Ctesiphon. The towering lofts and warehouses and stables and stores seemed to lean over the parapet, welcoming me with a promise of warmth, food and rest. My friend Ali Baban, who was about my age but skinnier, knelt to grab the painter and pull us safely alongside steps that rose from the ripe-smelling river. Strange to think that in a few months, we’d have more trouble navigating dried-out mudflats than water and you’d be able to catch the plentiful carp with your hands.

Sir—kind sir! babbled Ali to the gentleman. I have a question that I hope you can answer for me!

It was comical to see such a scrawny upstart accost this cultured old man. Ali looked like an urchin. While my beard and moustache were coming in nicely, his face just looked as if it needed a good scrub. Ali! I shouted. Leave the gentleman alone.

But my passenger was smiling and willing to go along with the game. A riddle! Go ahead!

Well, it’s like this, Ali told him. You must listen carefully. Two fathers and two sons went fishing one day. They were there the whole day and only caught three fish. But one of them said, that’s enough for all of us, we will each have one. How could this be possible?

The old man furrowed his brow and scratched the bristles protruding from an ear, making a big show of puzzling over the thorny question.

I give up, he said at last.

Ali was delighted. It’s simple! he cried. There was the father, his son and his son’s son. So all three had a fish!

My passenger tipped back his head and roared with laughter. Old as the hills, that one, he said, causing Ali’s smile to fade.

Ali made to help my passenger out of the boat. However, the man refused to hand over his precious books. Instead, he struggled to get his free hand into his money purse, which was deep in a pocket on the wrong side of his body. He weaved and waved, leaning perilously this way and that, until finally I said No problem! Let’s go up top and we can settle accounts up there. It’ll be safer!

I caught Ali’s eye to ensure he’d hang on to my tub for me and followed the man up the misshapen stairs. They were baked brick, which rendered them vulnerable to erosion from the water and the constant foot traffic. The city fathers had of course applied liberal layers of bitumen to stem the rot, a treatment that challenged the unwary with a rather slippery surface. It was true that real stone was worth a fortune, given transportation costs between here and the foothills, but you’d think something like a public dock would merit more care. It didn’t help that the old man had daubed his ankle boots with bitumen in an attempt to protect the leather.

We made it to the top, and my passenger actually let me hold his books while he dug out the wallet. I pretended to check the titles of the books.

You’d like that one, the man said, pointing to one of the tomes. It’s new . . . kind of an adventure story—right up your alley I’d think.

I struggled with the wording. I hadn’t been privileged with an education in reading and writing, not back in my hometown of Susa and certainly not since arriving in Ctesiphon.

The Aeneid! the man announced with a theatrical flourish, as if answering one of life’s great questions. Brand new, just in from Athens—though why it takes 10 years for a book to get here, when the legions seemingly can arrive in minutes, is a mystery to all! Bless the military, what! He looked around in a conspiratorial fashion, as if worried some top-heavy cataphract from the army barracks might overhear him and toss him in the drink.

But these other books—these are the treasures! Not 20 years old—200 years old! They should be transcribed onto proper tablets, before the vellum disintegrates. Anyway . . . thanks again young fella! See you another time!

He paid me a couple of bronze obols. Give some of that to your friend—maybe he can purchase some new riddles.

He paused and pointed a finger at a coin in my hand. Take a good look at the King’s face on those coins, he said. "There’s a story behind it. Our King Phraates once had to run for the hills because he managed to upset some important people. Another fellow, Tiridates the Second, snuck in and had some of his own coins minted right here. They must have had an express line. Anyway, it didn’t work out and our King returned.

Funny thing though—Tiridates was in such a hurry to establish himself while Phraates was away getting help from the Scythian nomads, he didn’t want the mint to produce a whole new die for his coins. So, he had the mint scuff off Phraates’ royal eagle from the die, in an attempt to make the coins look like some new and authorized issue. If you check the coins people give you, you will still see the bumps of the former eagle on his coins.

The man talked as if his head was full of historical knowledge. And then he turned and raised a hand in the air by way of farewell, picking his way through the dung and detritus of the wharf. I added the coins to the other fares in the pouch I’d formed in the loincloth beneath my loose wool robe. The hidden cloth was pulled through between my legs with the tail tucked into the top to form a secure waistband. I didn’t wear a real purse . . . that would be like carrying a flag saying: I’m young and defenceless. Please beat me up and rob me!

It started to rain again, grey clouds pressing down from the northern mountains. It was a slow, heavy rain, reflective of the slow, heavy depression that came over my new hometown whenever travellers and traders were forced to put their plans on hold. The Seleucia–Ctesiphon sprawl was close to a junction of the various trade roads between China, the far western city-states such as Macedonia and Egypt, Sheba and India to the south. Good travelling weather was a prerequisite of prosperity for us. With all the region’s rivers in full flood, with roads washed out, with animals and labourers and traders waterlogged and miserable, this was the time of year when folks mostly stayed in their homes and hostels and eked out whatever resources they’d saved until the good times rolled once again.

In summer this felt like the hottest place on earth, but in winter it was unremittingly wet and cold. Ctesiphon could see torrential rainfall in the four months around the winter solstice. On top of that, the Tigris could rise dramatically without warning in early spring. Rushing creeks and streams along the upper reaches of its 1,000-mile length drained huge volumes of meltwater and stormwater from the mountains of Anatolia and the Zagros foothills. Believe me, you forget these things at your peril when you’re a river rat.

I met up with Ali and handed him his share of the money. Then