A triumphant crash. The court disperses into background murmur, leaving AVIVA alone, turning a heavy gold cuff on her wrist, half-hypnotized. From the shadows of the pillars, an old man in the fine linen of a royal official steps forward — DANIEL, seventies, carrying an ancient, quiet gravity that the whole gaudy court cannot touch. DANIEL. (softly, under the room's noise) Careful, child. AVIVA. (startled, spinning) You — (she hears it) — you're one of us. The way you say "child." That's the cadence of the elders by the water. Nobody here talks like that. DANIEL. I was taken in the first wave. Fifty years ago, near enough. I was younger than you are now when they marched me through the Ishtar Gate with a rope on my neck and a king's scholarship waiting on the other side. (a dry, worn smile) They wanted clever Hebrew boys to decorate the court. I was clever. So here I am. Fifty years in the shadow of that throne. AVIVA. (looking at his fine robes, an edge of accusation) And you forgot the river. DANIEL. (unoffended, almost amused) Is that what these look like to you? (he touches his own sleeve) I serve in Babylon, Aviva. I have never once let Babylon serve in me. There is an ocean between those two things, and it is the only ocean that has kept my soul alive in this place. (he steps closer, eyes steady and kind) They will dress you. They already have. They'll feed you, and flatter you, and applaud you until your ears ring and you forget the sound of anything else. (beat) Let them. It costs you nothing to wear their gold. But do not let them buy the one thing you brought in through that gate. (he lays a hand flat on his own chest) The song under the song. Do you understand me? AVIVA. (overwhelmed, defensive) I'm beginning to think no elder out of Jerusalem is capable of giving a straight answer. DANIEL. (the worn smile again) Because if I hand you the answer, it stays mine. You have to find it yourself, or it won't hold when the weight comes. (he bows his head slightly) And the weight is coming, child. Sooner than this court dreams. (he melts back into the crowd) From the opposite wing NABU enters — young, flustered, juggling an armful of cuneiform music tablets. One slips; he scrambles, catches it, looks up to find AVIVA watching him. NABU. Ah! You're — the new one. The singer, from the delta settlements. (he fumbles a scroll open, reads with an embarrassed grimace) I'm Nabu. The master of the house has assigned me to, ah — (reading) — "refine, retrain, and polish the raw Hebrew instrument." (he winces) His words. Not mine. You'd be... the instrument. I assume. AVIVA. (flat, arms crossing) Charming. Truly. They grow them charming here. NABU. (earnest, missing the sarcasm, then catching it) That came out — I didn't — (he gives up, gestures helplessly at the tablets) I just write the music for the feasts. I'm not very good at the people part. A beat. Despite herself, the corner of AVIVA's mouth moves. Lights begin to narrow and warm.
