by Daniel Caet
Maybe it was my new body taking the reins, but the fact is that my eyes opened, just a little. The light penetrated my head producing a heartrending pain again. For a few seconds I was blind while my eyes adjusted to clarity. When I finally focused I could only see the ceiling of the room I was in. I was lying on some cot. The room was small and not too high, just enough for a man to walk without bowing his head. The roof was made of wooden beams that crossed the room joining mud walls. My hands closed on the cloth that covered me and I saw that it was the skin of some animal, possibly a goat or a sheep; the smell was very strong and slightly sour. Underneath, my new body was completely naked. The light was fragile and seemed to have movement. I tried to turn my head to see where it came from and my neck cracked as if it were going to break. The pain caused the movement to stop immediately and I waited a few seconds before trying again, this time more slowly. The light came from a fire that burned in the far corner of the room in a small hole in the wall that served as a chimney. Near the fire was a shelf that seemed to be built on the same wall of the room and was full of clay bowls, small jars and dried herbs that gave off a very pleasant smell that permeated the room by diluting the smell of the skin of the animal that covered me. The rest of the room was empty, except for the cot I was on and some animal skins left on the floor to make it less cold.
I noticed that the muscles in my legs were beginning to respond and I tried to sit up. A new intense pain attacked me, this time on the side. The area where I had received the twinge of pain was covered with bandages of a yellowish color, like my legs from the thigh to the ankle. I tried to move my leg to get off the cot and a new whip made me moan in pain. The curtain that covered the entrance to the room suddenly opened in response to the sound and a girl of about ten or twelve appeared behind it. For a second, she stood staring at me with her huge blue eyes, then running away letting the curtain close again. A second later a woman entered the room and ran to my cot.
“No, no, no, not yet!” she said as she forced me to lie down again. “You must not stand yet, you have just awakened, you must wait. The medicines will have their effect, but you need to rest, your bones have to weld again.”
Her hands were warm, but her face was an ice floe. The way she looked at me was, at least, indifferent. It would have been impossible for me to deduce from her gaze what was happening at that moment in her head. My body did not have the strength to contradict her and I lay down on the cot again. While covering me again with the skin I could see that her eyes were very similar to those of the girl, blue and big, so I assumed she was her mother. With her hand she checked the temperature on my forehead.
“You do not have a fever,” she said seriously. “That's good, maybe the gods do not like you with them.”
Her words caused a new twinge of intense pain but this time, it was not physical. I wanted to ask a thousand things, find out where I was and, above all, find out what happened to me after the fall. Something had changed, I could tell, I knew I was not the same and it was not just about being trapped in a human body, there was something else, but my head was stunned, and I could not tell what it was.
“Liliath, bring some water for our guest,” she ordered the girl.
“Yes, mother,” she answered, confirming my assumption about their kinship.
The girl left the room running and returned in a few seconds with a clay bowl decorated with drawings of what looked like waves. The mother took the bowl to my lips forcing me to drink and the chilly water helped to clear my senses.
“Thanks,” I said using the same language.
“You are welcome. My name is Suriath and you are in the house of Armesh, my husband,” she said as if she could read my mind as she got up to approach the chair at the back of the room.
“How did I get here?”
“Now is not the time for that, my husband will be back soon and will answer all your questions and, I hope, you'll answer his” she said giving me her back. I watched her prepare something in one of the bowls using one of the jars I had seen on the shelf. She turned and came to the cot. She brought the bowl back to my lips, urging me to drink. Her hands were firm and rough, the hands of a woman accustomed to working probably in the country as well as in the house. My eyes could not help but notice that she was wearing very faint drawings that ran through her hands and arms. I could not see anything else. Whatever was in the bowl had a powerful sedative effect and almost immediately my eyes began to close again.
The light woke me up again but, this time, in a warm and soft way. The heat of the first rays of the sun illuminating my face was pleasant and made me open my eyes slowly. The light came through a window that I had not been able to see the night before because it was located at the head of the cot. The pain had passed, or at least most of it. My body felt stronger and I dared to try to stand.
“Welcome,” said a voice from the gloom.
The unexpectedness of the greeting startled me, and my eyes sought in the darkness the origin of that voice. It came from the corner of the room where the lack of clarity turned that part of the room into full night.
“Excuse me, I did not mean to scare you,” he said as he approached the light. The voice belonged to a man of about forty years, tall and with muscled complexion. He had a prominent beard that reached to the middle of his chest and had been cut straight on the lower end. His black hair was beginning to clear at the temples and his dark eyes made him look very deep. The man smiled at me and his smile seemed kind and sincere. I could not help feeling affinity for that human being from the first moment I met him.
“I am Armesh, the master of this house. I hope you find yourself better” he said without stopping smiling. “My wife told me that you need to rest but I wanted to know how you were, you have had us very worried.”
“I...” I stammered. “Yes, I feel better, thank you. But...” I did not know how to continue. My mind was still confused and the anxiety to know what my true situation was generated a pressure on my chest, not letting me think about anything else. “Excuse me,” I continued. “I do not mean to be rude but, could you tell me where I am and how I got here? My mind…”
“Oh, it's understandable!” he replied affably. “You've been asleep for a long time. You are in the city of Uruk, well, in its outskirts I should say. One of my servants found you in the desert while bringing our sheep back from the grazing fields. We brought you here right away and my wife has been taking care of you since then. You were in very bad condition.” He looked at me waiting for an answer but when he did not receive it, he continued. “I was hoping you could tell me something about what happened to you. It is not the first time we have thieves and murderers in the area. If this were the case, I should inform the city council so that they send a scout, the safety of the community is essential, as you can imagine.”
He said all this while still looking at me, clearly waiting for me to respond.
“I thank you very much for your help, Armesh and I'm sorry I brought such a complication to your home, but I'm afraid there's not much I can tell you,” I lied. “My mind is blank, and I cannot remember anything of what happened.”
He stared at me without saying anything and, somehow, I knew he knew I was lying, but he did not insist. I remember that I felt uncomfortable. The kindness that the man showed towards me seemed disinterested, sincere, but I could not risk it. Even if I had tried to explain who I was and where I came from, it was unlikely that a human could understand it without being carried away by his fears. Humans have always tended to dramatise everything. Over the years I had seen how the appearances of some of my brothers had had too drastic effects. Some had been taken for gods and treated as such and others, repudiated as demons. In all those cases, too flashy answers. If I wanted to clarify my situation it was essential that I tried not to attract attention, at least until I was myself again.
The man approached me smiling and sat on the cot.
“Your lack of memory is normal. I do not think we should worry a
bout that now,” he said. “I think the most important thing is that we find you some clothes, so we can see if your members can hold you. But first, it's better that we get permission from your healer or we both get into serious trouble,” he added, laughing.
“Thanks again. My name is Helel.” I said, using one of the names my father had given me.
“Welcome to my house, Helel.” he replied smiling.
Armesh got up and called his wife who appeared in the room a few seconds later. This time she came in with an older woman who I assumed must be one of her maids or maybe her mother. The woman's face had not changed since the night before, she still maintained the same serious composure that matched the coldness of her blue eyes. Without saying a word, she uncovered me without caring about my nudity and removed one by one the bandages I was covered in. When she had finished checking my wounds she told the older woman to pick up the bandages and bring some of her husband’s clothes.
“He can get up,” she said to Armesh, "but no sudden movements or any of the newly-welded bones can be broken again, and if so, I will not be the one to weld them again, you will have to carry him to the priests in your arms.”
It was clear that Suriath was not the kind of woman who could be contradicted, and her husband was not going to be the first to try.
“Promised, my little goddess, promised,” replied Armesh, laughing.
It took me some time to understand it, but the relationship between those two people who, in the eyes of some might be disrespectful and inappropriate on the part of a woman to her husband, was actually a form of absolute love and understanding of each other. I did not know yet, but Armesh and Suriath were not a normal couple, in them that force called love had taken root like an old olive tree and was able to withstand the hardest times without questioning the land in which it was, simply surviving them tied to her. Seeing that couple made me remember why my father loved you so much. Your way of responding to love is innocent, immediate and without folds. When love comes to you, you do not know what else to do other than give yourself to it unconditionally and let yourself be carried away by that feeling, regardless of what destination it is taking you. Unfortunately, the same can be said of the effect that hate has on you. And that was a lesson I would also learn.
The maid returned with a brown sleeveless tunic with an embroidery of flowers at the bottom. The tunic had a very wide belt of the same fabric that allowed it to be tied to the waist so that it was much easier to walk with it. Sandals and a ribbon to pick up my hair made me, except for the beard, quite like a spoiled version of Armesh.
The man guided me through several rooms to an interior courtyard formed by the union of the different buildings that seemed to make up his house. The patio was wide and had a fountain in the central part surrounded by a small wall that formed a small pond. The place was littered with large plants that helped create a very cool environment despite the fact that the morning sun was at its highest. Armesh led me to the edge of the pond and we sat on the wall that surrounded it.
Suddenly the screams were heard throughout the courtyard making us turn our heads to another of the buildings that led to it.
“Father, father, look what I have!” The screams came from a dark-haired girl about eight years old who came running to throw herself into Armesh's arms. “Look, look! It's a bird and I've hunted it by myself. I'm already as good as you are,” she said between laughs, raising her voice as loud as she could.
“Sadith, come back here!” The girl I had seen the night before came screaming after the little one. “Sorry father, I've told her a thousand times not to run or shout and not interrupt you when you're with your business, but she does not listen to me,” said the embarrassed girl.
Armesh laughed aloud with a laugh as sincere as I had never heard before.
“My friend,” he said. “As you may have deduced, these pair of earthquakes are my daughters, the joy of my house. Liliath, the light of this home, and little Sadith, the destroyer,” she added, tickling the little girl who burst out laughing.
“Welcome traveler to this house, may the peace you bring with you be forever among us,” Liliath said immediately, using what was clearly a formal expression. I realised that her eyes were staring at mine. Her hair was a deep red that made her look even stronger and, despite her youth, it was easy to realise that her beauty was unquestionable.
“Oh, my Liliath!” said Armesh. “Educated by her mother to be a perfect wife. Well done my daughter, now, take your sister and let us chat for a while.”
“But father, I have a bird, I've hunted it myself,” the little girl protested as her father put her on the ground.
“Very good, Sadith,” Armesh said fondly. “Give it to Jiramesh to put in a cage and then you'll tell me how you hunted it with all the details, okay?”
The girl did not seem very happy about not being able to show us her hunting piece but finally she settled down and ran back to the house with her sister behind her.
“You'll have to forgive them,” Armesh said with a smile. “Children bring happiness to a house but, for all the gods, they are making me old.”
“They are lovely girls,” I said politely. “Do you have more children?”
“No, they are the only light that the gods have wanted to give me and my wife. I guess they thought it would be fun to give me the task of looking for not one but two husbands” he said laughing.
Sitting there, Armesh explained to me a little more about where I was and how they had found me. Uruk was one of the largest cities in the kingdom they called Sumer. The city was governed by someone called Gilgamesh who exercised his power in a restrictive but apparently efficient way. Gilgamesh’s government had taken the city to its greatest splendour thanks to the fact that he had made sure to keep the trade routes safe and free of thieves and bandits. As a result, the city had increased its wealth in recent decades and the walls surrounding it were a recent addition resulting from that wealth, or from the fear of losing it, I should say. The city also had a council formed by the senior members of the main families. Armesh had inherited from his father his place in the council and after his death, the husband of his eldest daughter would inherit it as well. As a member of the council, Armesh had to make sure that the policies defined by Gilgamesh were met, so when his servant told him that he had found a body on the way back to the city, he felt the need to check for himself. It could be a robbery. When they reached the place in the desert that the servant indicated, my body was found, with all the bones broken, wounds that had clearly been infringed with a sword, without clothes and without any type of mount. Initially they thought me dead, but one of their men noticed that I was breathing, and he decided to take me to his house. Armesh explained to me that, in these situations, it was his duty to take me directly to the priests of the Inanna temple in the city, but since he did not know if I would live or not, he decided that it would be better if his wife, Suriath, looked at me.
The description of events according to Armesh matched what I could remember of my fall. The blow to the ground had probably broken the bones of my human body and the cuts were undoubtedly due to the angelic swords of the prison guards. But also, his story clarified some of my assumptions about my new situation. If my bones had broken when hitting the ground that meant that my body was human before the crash, but the change could not have happened before my fall or the impact from such altitude would have come to completely disintegrate a human body.
Armesh continued explaining that Suriath had spent two full nights trying to fix my broken body and, after that, I had been unconscious for many days without any of them knowing if I would be able to overcome my injuries. The questions came up in my head like lightning. If my body was covered in angelic sword wounds, how could they have been cured with human medicine? No human recovers from a wound from our swords, the mystical knowledge to heal such wounds is beyond your reach. And, if all my bones were broken, how could a human body have been cured in just a few days? I wanted to
keep asking but I was afraid of generating suspicion in Armesh.
“I have no words to thank for everything you and your family have done for me, Armesh,” I said humbly. “Especially your wife. She must be an excellent healer to have been able to make me recover in such a brief time.”
“Oh, she is!” he said proudly. “Suriath is not from Sumer, but from Akkad. Since she was a child she was trained as a healer and midwife in the temple of her goddess, Ishtar, in the capital city of Akkad. His father and mine had business relationships and they arranged our marriage. I still cannot believe the luck I had the day my father closed that agreement. I could not think of a better and more faithful wife.”
It was clear to me that Suriath was more than she pretended or what her husband was willing to admit. I needed to talk to that woman alone but if I did not want to raise any more suspicions, I should wait for the right moment.
The sun was starting to bother and Armesh guided me inside again to eat. This time we entered a very large room with a low solid wood table in the center. The adobe wall on one side of the room had been covered with a carved stone slab that represented winged beings receiving offerings. My eyes could not separate from that image and Armesh noticed it.