Turtledove, Harry - Novel 12

by Between the Rivers (v2. 1)

  He and the herders he led vanished into the night, a few at a time, until they were all gone. Mushezib said, “Well, we won’t need to worry so much about the cursed thieves this time through, anyhow. They’re as bad as the Zuabut, sometimes.”

  That was the best face anyone could put on it. Sharur wrapped up the weapons and nostrums an& wine and” cloth the herders had not wanted. “I shall return to Gibil in failure,” he said. “Better I should not return at all.”

  “Your father will not say this, master merchant’s son,” Harharu answered. “Your mother will not say this. Your kinsfolk will not say this. They would sooner greet you in the flesh than hear your ghost whine in their ears. In the flesh, you may yet redeem yourself, and so, no doubt, you shall.” .

  Harharu might not have had any doubts. Sharur was full of them. The donkeymaster had meant the words kindly, though, and so Sharur inclined his head to him and said nothing more than, “Well, we shall go on.” He nodded. That sounded right. Seeing him push the brief moment of self-pity behind himself, Harharu nodded, too.

  The morning sun shone off the Yarmuk River, turning its muddy water to molten silver. As he had done on the westbound journey, Sharur brought his caravan to the Yarmuk at the little-used ford north of the city of Aggasher rather than to the usual crossing point by the city. He did not know what Eniaggasher, the goddess ruling the city, might do to him and his men, and he was not anxious to learn.

  When he drew near the river, a frog leapt in from the nearby mudflat. Ripples ruffled the silver surface, then subsided. All was calm once more. Sharur brought a bracelet to the water’s edge and said, “For thee, Eniyarmuk, to adorn thyself and make thyself more beautiful.” He tossed the sacrifice into the river.

  Ripples spread from the bracelet, as they had when the frog leaped into the river. Unlike those ripples, these did not subside. They grew larger instead. More appeared, more and more and more, till the surface of the Yarmuk might have been the sea in a storm. But it was not the sea, and no storm roiled/it.

  Something flew out of the river to land at the feet of Sharur, who had jumped back away from the water’s edge when the unnatural tumult started. Now, as it eased, he stooped and picked up the bracelet he had offered to the river goddess.

  “Eniyarmuk has rejected the sacrifice!” he exclaimed, blank astonishment in his voice. “What do we do now?”

  “One thing we don’t do, I reckon,” Agum the caravan guard said: “I don’t reckon we try and cross the river right now.”

  Harharu said, “I don’t know how we are to return to Gibil without crossing the Yarmuk River.” He stared at the stream. “I have never heard of Eniyarmuk rejecting a crossing-offering, never in all my days.”

  “Can we cross anyway?” Mushezib asked.

  “I wouldn’t care to try it,” Sharur said. He thought of the storm the goddess had raised in the river, and of what such a storm—or a greater storm—would do to the men and donkeys of the caravan. “If the goddess is angry, we would be no more than toys in her hands.”

  Mushezib, a true man of Gibil, growled, “The goddess is a stupid bitch.” But even he realized he had gone too far, for a moment later he hastily added, “But we can’t fight her, that’s certain sure. No man cap take a goddess by force.” '

  “There you speak truth,” Sharur agreed. He stood on the riverbank and pondered.

  “Even a woman taken by force isn’t all that much fun,” Mushezib went on, more to himself than to anyone else. “They scream and they kick and they wail and they try and bite—more trouble than they’re worth, if you ask me.” He came out of his reverie when Sharur darted back toward one of the donkeys. “What are you doing, master merchant’s son?”

  “Taking a woman by force is more trouble than it’s worth, as you say,” Sharur replied. “Sometimes, though, if you go with her to a tavern and buy her wine, she will smile and be happy, and you have no need to take her by force.” He carried a sloshing jar down to the bank of the Yarmuk.

  Using the point of his knife, he chipped pitch away from the stopper until he could pry it up. The rich sweetness of fermented dates filled his nostrils. He walked upstream from the ford, perhaps half a bowshot, then bowed low and, with great ceremony, poured the wine into the water. That done, he tossed a stick into the river and followed it back until it had drifted past the place where the caravan waited to cross.

  When it was past the ford, he waved men and donkeys forward, saying, “Eniyarmuk has now drunk ajar of wine. If she is not too sozzled to take notice of a few mortal men, she never will be.” He slipped out of his own kilt and sandals and led the first donkey into the river.

  He knew what the goddess could do if she was not too sozzled to take notice of a few mortal men. His fear grew with every step, for he believed she would do it if she was not too sozzled to take notice of him. Those thoughts did not fill his mind alone, either. Harharu and Mushezib called out to their men with quiet urgency, seeking ever greater speed. The donkey handlers and guards would have pressed ahead without those admonitions; with them, they pressed harder. Even the donkeys acted less balky than usual.

  Sharur came up onto the dry land—well, the muddy land—of the eastern bank of the Yarmuk. A great sigh of relief gusted from his lungs. He hauled on the lead line to bring the first donkey out of the water. The others, and the rest of the caravan crew, followed in rapid succession.

  “Come on,” Sharur told them. “We’re not done yet. Let’s get away from the river, as far as we can, before we get into our clothes and set everything to rights.”

  “Good thinking, master merchant’s son,” Mushezib said. “Don’t want to be close by when the river goddess sobers up, no I don’t. You get a woman drunk and have your way with her, she’s liable to be angry in the morning, yes she is.”

  “Just so,” Sharur agreed. Naked still, he pushed the pace, begrudging the time he would need to pause and belt on his kilt. The sun quickly dried the Yarmuk’s water on his body. The drier; the better, he thought: less lingering contact between himself and Eniyarmuk’s domain.

  He chanced to be looking back over his shoulder when the river goddess realized he had muddled her wits and deceived her. The surface of the Yarmuk suddenly boiled and frothed. Water leapt into the air, then splashed down. In unmistakable fury, the river began to pursue the caravan. Men and donkeys cried out in alarm together and hurried eastward as fast as they could go.

  So long as the questing tentacle of river remained in the bed the Yarmuk occupied during full flood, it came on after them more swiftly than their best pace. Beyond the riverbed, though, the fierce flow faltered: outside her domain, Eniyarmuk’s power was much diminished. At last, sullenly, the waters drew back toward their proper channel.

  Panting, sweating, Sharur held up a hand. ‘ ‘We have escaped the anger of the river goddess,” he said. “Let us give thanks and rejoice, hymning Engibil’s praises.”

  The hymn rang out, loud and triumphant. Only when it was through, only after he had covered his nakedness, did Sharur think to wonder about the propriety of praising one god for having escaped (no, for having beaten, the defiant part of his mind thought, though he dared not say that aloud) another.

  “Master merchant’s son, your cleverness let us get by no small problem there,” Harharu said. “Had we not got past Eniyarmuk, we might have had to go down to the regular ford, and then we would have had to go under the eye of Eniaggasher. That likely would have been worse. Your father will be proud of you.”

  “No doubt,” Sharur said. “He will be proud of me for going up into the mountains of Alashkurru and coming back down with the same goods I took up. He will be proud of me for coming back without copper, without copper ore. He will be proud of me for coming back down without rich things, strange things, unusual things, to lay on the altar of Engibil.” Ningal will be proud of me for coming back without her bride-price.

  Quietly, the donkeymaster said, “He will be proud of you for doing as well as you could, for doing
as well as you did, in harsh circumstances not of your making.”

  “Were those circumstances not partly of my making?” Sharur asked. “Did I not go up into the mountains of Alashkurru before? Did I not speak with the Alashkurrut? Did I not show them what we men of Gibli are, by my words, by my deeds? Did I not help make some of them want to be like us Giblut? Did I not help frighten their gods because some of them wanted to be like us Giblut?”

  Harharu bowed his head. “If you are determined to be angry at yourself, master merchant’s son, I cannot stop you. If you are determined to cast scorn upon yourself, I cannot prevent it.” He strode off to check on the donkeys, which, while stubborn, knew not bitterness nor worry ahead of time.

  Sharur strode on, alone no matter how close the rest of the caravan might be. What would his father say, what would his father do, when he came home from the mountains without having been able to trade the goods the Alashkurrut were known to crave? Caravans had come back to Gibil with less profit than they might have (though never one headed by a man of his clan). Caravans, sometimes, had failed to come back to Gibil at all, having met with robbers in the mountains or the desert. But never, so far as Sharur knew, had a caravan returned without doing business.

  And what would Kimash the lugal say? Kimash had relied on him to bring rich things, strange things, unusual things back to Gibil to lay on the altar of Engibil. The lugal had said as much, when the caravan was just departing his father’s house. Sharur had failed Kimash, too, and in failing Kimash had failed the men of Gibil. For if Engibil grew discontented with Kimash’s rule of the city—if Engibil grew discontented with the way Kimash praised and rewarded him—the god might yet rise up and, instead of resting comfortably and lazily in his temple, as he had been wont to do for three generations of men, might walk through Gibil as Enzuabu walked through Zuabu. He might seize men’s spirits, as Enimhursag seized the spirits of the Imhursagut. And the little freedom the men of Gibil had known would die.

  Grim though that prospect was, it was not the prospect uppermost in Sharur’s mind. What would Ningal say, when he came home from the mountains without the bride-price to pay to Dimgalabzu her father? Sharur had sw'om a great oath to Engibil to earn that bride-price with the profit from. this caravan. Now he came home without profit, a forsworn man. Would Dimgalabzu give her to another? Sharur kicked at the dirt. The smith would be within his rights.

  '‘But he can’t!” Sharur exclaimed.

  “Who can’t, master merchant’s son?” Harharu asked. “And what can’t he do?”

  “Never mind.” Sharur’s ears went hot at having let others see into his thoughts. The trouble was, Dimgalabzu could. And, if he decided to, Sharur would not be able to do anything about it. Muttering curses that surely would not bite on the gods of the Alashkurrut, he trudged east toward Gibil.

  When the caravan entered the territory ruled by Zuabu, Sharur felt he might as well be home. After so long among so many stranger peoples, the Zuabut^seemed as familiar to him as his next-door neighbors along the Street of Smiths. His comrades must have felt the same, for almost to a man they were grinning and laughing among themselves as they automatically took the precautions they needed to keep the Zuabut from stealing them blind.

  “Keep your eyes open, boys,” Mushezib called to the caravan guards under him. “We all know the stories about the caravans that came into the land of Zuabu with a profit and went out with a loss, even though they hadn’t done any trading while they were there. That isn’t going to happen to us... What are you making horrible faces about, Agum? Donkey stepping on your—? Oh.”

  Mushezib shut up, several sentences too late. Sharur, also intent on making sure the Zuabut could have no fun with their light fingers, pretended he had not heard the guard captain. This caravan could hardly see its profit disappear in Zuabu, for it had no profit. Making a loss worse somehow seemed much less important, even if the value vanishing from the caravan was the same in either case.

  As had been true when he was setting out for the Alashkurru Mountains, Sharur could have taken the caravan into the city of Zuabu to spend a night. As he had then, he camped away from the city. Then, he had begrudged what he would have to pay for food and lodging. He still did, but he had more pressing reasons for avoiding the city now. He did not want to, he did not dare to, enter into Enzuabu’s center on earth, not after the city god had sent such a menacing stare his way on his westbound journey, and most especially not after everything that had happened since.

  As had been true then, so now someone shook him out of sound sleep. As had been true then, it was Agum now. What he said, though, was something any caravan guard might have said on any journey through Zuabu: “Master merchant’s son, we’ve caught a thief.”

  Sharur yawned till he thought his head would split in two. ‘ ‘Why tell me about it? Give the fellow a beating and send him on his way. He’ll try to steal from the next caravan that comes through, but he won’t try stealing from us again.”

  “Master merchant’s son, we were going to do as you say, the very thing, but then the wretch had the nerve to claim Enzuabu ordered him to steal from us, and that the god would punish him if he failed.” Agum made a small, unhappy sound. “What with all that’s gone on this trip, we thought you had better see him.”

  With a sigh, Sharur got to his feet. He did not bother pulling on his kilt, but followed Agum naked to the fire beside which three more guards were holding down the thief. Yet another guard fed dry reeds and small dead bushes into the fire to build it up and throw more light on the Zuabi.

  He was a small, skinny man, supple as a ferret and with a face to match. “He looks as if he’d steal from us whether Enzuabu ordered him to do it or not,” Sharur remarked to Agum.

  “So he does,” Agum agreed. The guards holding the man shook him till the teeth rattled in his head. Agum put a growl in his voice: “You cursed river leech, you tell the master merchant’s son the lies you’ve been grizzling out to the rest of us.”

  “Yes, lord,” the Zuabi said, as if Agum were his ensi. “I am a thief. I am the best of thieves. Would Enzuabu have chosen me were I less? Would Enzuabu pull a plow with a hen, or make a pot out of beer? I was suited to my god’s purpose, and his voice sounded in my mind, summoning me to his temple, that he might give me orders there. I obey my god in all things. I went to the temple, and he gave me orders there.”

  “And what were the orders he gave you?” Sharur asked.

  “Lord, he told me a caravan of Giblut was encamped outside Zuabu, in such-and-such a place at such-and-such a distance. He told me to rob this caravan of Giblut. He told me you Giblut oppose the gods, and that robbing you Giblut is only right and proper because of this. He told me your caravan had in it rich goods of your city, and that robbing it would profit him and me alike.”

  Sharur scowled. The thief had been caught before he could rob the caravan. How could he know what goods it had, unless Enzuabu told him? Unless Enzuabu told him, would he not think it had goods from the. mountains of Alashkumi? His words were too much like those Sharur had heard from gods and demons for comfort.

  “You have not robbed us,” Sharur said. “What will Enzuabu do with you, now that you have failed?”

  “Lord”—the thief shuddered in the grasp of his captors— “he will smite me with boils, and with carbuncles he will smite my wife and my concubine and my children.”

  In a judicious voice, Sharur said, “Would it not be fitting, then, to send you away from this place, to send you back to Zuabu, to let your own god punish you as you deserve? In some cities, the gods punish thieves who succeed. Only in Zuabu does the god punish-thieves who fail.”

  Agum and the other guards laughed. The thief wailed. “Have mercy on a man who sought only to obey the command of his god!” he cried.

  “You would have tried to rob us anyhow,” Agum said roughly. “You deserve your boils, and may your concubine get a carbuncle on her twat.”

  The guards laughed again. But Sharur held up
a hand, and the laughter stopped. If Enzuabu had sent out the thief, Enzuabu deserved the punishment. And, deliciously, Sharur saw how he might give it, “Let him up,” he said.

  Startled, the guards obeyed. Even more startled, the thief rose. Sharur rummaged in a pack until he found a necklace of painted clay beads, as near worthless as made no difference. He laid it on the ground and turned his back.

  “Here,” he said. “Steal this. Lay it on Enzuabu’s altar. You will have obeyed your god. He cannot smite you with boils, nor your wife and your concubine and your children with carbuncles.”

  When he turned around again, the necklace was gone. So was the thief. From out of the night came a soft call: “My blessings upon you, lord, whatever—” Whatever Enzuabu might say? The thief was wise to stop speaking when he did. But he would not stop thinking. In the silence, Sharur nodded slowly, once,

  4

  “It is Sharur, the son of Ereshguna!” the Gibli gate guard exclaimed. He bowed to Sharur, who led the caravan as it returned to his home city. “Did you fare well in the Alashkurru Mountains, master merchant’s son?”

  One of Sharur’s bushy eyebrows rose. His mouth twisted into a wry smile. “I am back from the Alashkurru Mountains. I am back in Gibil. Is that not faring well, all by itself?”

  The gate guard laughed. “Right you are, master merchant’s son. Not enough copper, not enough silver, not enough gold to make me want to visit those funny foreign places, not whep I live in the finest city in Kudurru, which means the finest city in the world.” He stood aside. “Not that you want to hear me chattering, either, no indeed.” His voice rose to a shout: “Enter into Gibil, city of the great god Engibil, Sharur son of Ereshguna, you and all your comrades!”

  Sharur would sooner have entered Gibil quietly, with no one knowing he was there until he came to his family’s house in the Street of Smiths. He had not got any of. what he wished on this disastrous journey, and knew ahead of time he would not get to enjoy a quiet entrance, either.