Turtledove, Harry - Novel 12

by Between the Rivers (v2. 1)

  “That is so,” Sharur admitted. “Very well, then. I will tell you what my notion was.” Before continuing, he covered the eyes of the amulet to Engibil he wore on his belt. His father did the same with the amulet he wore. Whatever their notions were, neither of them wanted the god to know. As neither of them was sure about precisely how much good their precautions did, Sharur went on warily: “My notion, Father, is that the god chose to release me from my oath concerning the bride-price for Ningal to make me so joyous, I would forget about every other concern I had.”

  “Thus far we walk the same trail, like two donkeys yoked together,” Ereshguna said. “But tell me one thing more. Do you think the god wanted you to forget every other concern you hold, or some concern in particular?”

  “Father, your thoughts are as orderly as the accounts set down on our clay tablets,” Sharur said, and Ereshguna smiled again. “I think Engibil wanted me to forget some concern in particular. I think the god wanted to distract me from helping Habbazu the Zuabi steal from his temple the cup, the plain cup, the ordinary cup, from the mountains of Alashkurru.”

  “Indeed, you are truly my son,” Ereshguna said. “The same canal waters your.thoughts and mine. That is the reason I also believe Engibil had for loosening his hold on the oath you gave him. I do not believe the god wanted Habbazu to go forward. I do not believe the god wanted us to help Habbazu go forward.”

  Sharur scratched his head. “Do you think, then, that Engibil discovered the cup from the mountains was an object of power because he learned the Zuabi thief sought to steal it?”

  “I do not.” Ereshguna sounded thoroughly grim. “I think the god knew from the beginning the cup from the mountains was an object of power.”

  Now his thoughts had got ahead of those of his son. Sharur raced to catch up. When he did, he stared at his father. “You are saying the god knew this thing and told us he did not.” From there, it was but a short step to the full and appalling meaning of Ereshguna’s words: “You are saying the god told us a lie.”

  “Yes,” Ereshguna answered in a voice soft and dark and heavy as lead. “That is what I am saying.”

  His fingers were pressed over the eyes of his amulet, so hard that his fingernails turned pale. Rooking down at his own hands, Sharur saw their nails were yellowish white, too. “But why?” he whispered. “Why would the god tell us a lie? Why would he not speak the truth to men of his own city?”

  “I do not know that,” Ereshguna said. “Ever since you returned from the temple with your news, I have pondered it. I have found no answer that satisfies me.”

  Though Sharur sat inside with his father, he glanced toward the temple. He could see it in his mind’s eye as clearly as if all the walls between had fallen down, as clearly as if it were bright noon rather than black of night. He hoped Kimash had found some distraction for Engibil at this moment. Slowly, cautiously, he said, “Perhaps the god intends to let lack of trade stifle the city. Perhaps he intends all of Gibil to grow poor, so that all of Gibil will be glad to have him back as its ruler.”

  “Perhaps so,” Ereshguna said. “This thought, or one not far different from it, also crossed my mind. It comes nearer to accounting for why the god is doing as he is doing than any other I have found. But I do not think it accounts in fullness for the god’s acts.”

  “How not?” Sharur said.

  “I will explain how not. I will set it forth for you,” his father answered. “What troubles me is that, if Gibil grows poor, Gibil also grows weak. If Gibil grows weak, what will our enemies do? What will Imhursag do? What will Enimhursag do? Will the god of Imhursag not believe Gibil’s weakness and Engibil’s weakness to be one and the same?”

  “Ah,” Sharur said. “I see what you are saying. Yes, I think that is likely. Imhursag smarts from defeats at the hands of Gibil. Enimhursag smarts from defeats at the hands of Engibil. If Gibil grows weak, Engibil will also seem to have grown weak. The god of Imhursag and the Imhursagut will want their revenge.”

  “Even so.” Ereshguna nodded. “This is why I do not understand why Engibil would seek to weaken his city, even to regain his rule here.”

  “Ah,” Sharur said again. “Now I follow. Now your thought is clear to me. What could be so important to the god that he would sooner have his city humiliated than yield it?” .

  “That is half the riddle, but only half, and, I think, the smaller half,” Ereshguna said. “What could be so important to Engibil that he would sooner have himself humiliated than yield it?”

  Sharur inclined his head. His father had drawn a distinction that needed drawing. Sharur hadvseen how Engibil could be indifferent to whether or not the folk of Gibil prospered. The god even wondered whether such marvels as metalworking and writing, which helped the folk of Gibil prosper, were worthwhile, because they infringed on his prerogatives.

  But one of the god’s prerogatives was his standing among his fellow gods. If Gibil grew weak, Imhursag would defeat it. If Imhursag defeated Gibil, Enimhursag’s power would grow and Engibil’s would recede. The two neighboring gods truly did hate each other, like two families living in the same street whose children threw rocks at one another.

  As Ereshguna had, Sharur asked, “What could make Engibil willing to take a step back—perhaps to take several steps back—before Enimhursag, with whom he has quarreled since time out of mind?’’

  “Whatever it is, it has to do with the cup into which the great gods of the Alashkurrut poured their power,” Ereshguna said. “Of that we may be certain.”

  “Yes,” Sharur said. Dimly, he remembered the cup that had figured in his fever dreams. Part of him wished he could recall more of those dreams. The rest of him wished he could forget them altogether, as madness he was better off without.

  Ereshguna went on, “But we may be as certain of another thing: that we do not know why Engibil has such concern for this cup, which holds none of his own power, and that it may be—no, that it is—very important for us to learn the reason for his concern.”

  “Every word you say is true,” Sharur replied. In a whisper, he added, “This is more than can be said of Engibil in this matter.”

  “So it is.” His father also whispered. “Well, I shall try to say one more true thing, and then I shall drink the last of my beer here and go up on the roof to sleep. Here is the last true thing I shall try to say: I think we need to let Kimash the lugal know a Zuabi thief is prowling his city.”

  “My father, in this, too, you are right.” Sharur drank the last of the beer from his own cup. He doused all the torches but one, which he and Ereshguna used to light their way upstairs.

  When Sharur walked with Ereshguna to the lugal’s palace the next day, he felt more nearly himself than he had since the fever demon breathed its foul breath into his mouth. He looked up and down the Street of Smiths as he walked along, hoping he might spot Habbazu. But the Zuabi thief did not show himself. Sharur wondered if he had already crept into Engibil’s temple to steal the cup, and if he had escaped with it.

  As they drew near the palace, Ereshguna raised an eyebrow. “Things are quiet here today,” he remarked. “Things are quieter here today than I have seen them for a long time.”

  “Yes.” Sharur nodded. “Where are the donkeys carrying bricks? Where are the slaves carrying mortar? Where are the workmen building the palace higher and broader?” Only a couple of guards stood in front of the entryway, leaning against their spears.

  Sharur and Ereshguna came up to the guards. One of the men said, “How may we serve you, master merchant? How may we serve you, master merchant’s son?”

  “We would have speech with Kimash the mighty lugal,” Ereshguna answered. “We have learned of a matter about which he must hear.”

  The guards looked at each other. One of them set his spear against the wall and went into the palace. When he returned, Inadapa followed him.

  Bowing to the steward, Sharur said, “Good day. As my father told the guard, we would have speech with Kimash the mighty
lugal.”

  Inadapa bowed in return. “Master merchant’s son, I regret that this can not be.” He shifted his feet and bowed to Ereshguna. “Master merchant, I regret that your request can not be granted.”

  “But the matter on which we would speak with the mighty lugal is both urgent and important,” Ereshguna said, frowning. “

  “Master merchant, I regret that your request can not be granted,” Inadapa repeated.

  Ereshguna folded his arms across his chest. “Why can my request not be granted?” he rumbled. “If I may not see Kimash the lugal, I whose house has always supported the lugals of Gibil, who then may? If he is sporting among his wives or concubines, let him sport among them at another time: what I have to tell him will not wait. Should he judge me wrong, having heard me out, let his wrath fall on my head.”

  “He is not sporting among his wives,” Inadapa said. “He is not sporting among his concubines.”

  “Well, where is he, then?” Sharur asked. “Why can he not see us?”

  Inadapa took a deep breath. “Master merchant’s son, master merchant, he can not see you because he is closeted with Engibil. The god summoned him to the temple at first light this morning, and he has not yet returned.”

  “Oh,” Sharur said, the word a sharp exhalation, as if he had been punched in the stomach.

  “May he come back to the palace soon,” Ereshguna said. “May he come back to the palace safe. May he come back to the palace as lugal.”

  “So may it be,” Inadapa said fervently. If Engibil chose to arise from two generations and more of drowsiness, the first the folk of Gibil would know of it was when he began looking out of their eyes and thinking their thoughts for them, as Enimhursag did in the city to the north.

  “When Kimash returns, faithful steward, please do tell him we would have speech with him at his convenience,” Sharur said. That assumed Kimash would return to the palace as lugal, not as . .. as Engibil’s toy, Sharur thought. He had to assume as much. Anything else would be disaster.

  Inadapa bowed. “It shall be just as you say.” He hesitated. “I hope it shall be just as you say.” More than that he would not say, any more than Sharur would.

  Sharur looked in the direction of Engibil’s temple, though the great bulk of the palace hid it. Suddenly, in his mind’s eye, the lugal’s residence seemed transparent as clear water. If Engibil arose in his full might, how long would so great a building be given over to a mere man?

  Ereshguna said, “When the mighty lugal returns from the temple, please send a messenger to let us know. We do have a matter of some importance to take up with him as soon as may be, provided ...” He shrugged.

  “It shall be just as you say,” Inadapa repeated. He shook himself like a dog coming out of a canal. His big, soft belly wobbled. “May we soon come to live in more placid times.”

  “So may it be,” Sharur and Ereshguna said together. Sharur did not think his father believed more placid times would come soon. He knew he did not think more placid times would come soon.

  He and his father left the lugal’s palace and started up the Street of Smiths toward their home. Now both of them kept stealing glances toward Engibil’s temple. If the god took over the city once more, Sharur wondered whether he would leave those who had led Gibil’s search for more freedom for mortal men enough of that freedom to flee to some other town.

  Then he wondered how much difference it would make. Nowhere else in Kudurru had the new taken hold as it had in Gibil. Still, even under the thumbs of their city gods, men remained to some degree men. Here and there across the land between the rivers, no doubt, were ensis who longed to make themselves into lugals. If they had at their disposal merchants and smiths and scribes from Gibil, perhaps they might succeed.

  Perhaps, too, they would fall short, as Huzziyas the wanax had fallen short in the mountains of Alashkurru. But some sparks might still smolder, to be kindled again one day a generation from now, or two, or ten.

  Ereshguna’s thoughts must have bfeen piuch like Sharur’s. When they came to a man dipping cups of beer out of a large jar, Sharur’s father said, “Let us stop-and drink. Who knows how long we have left to taste beer with our own tongues? Who knows how long we have left before Engibil tastes beer with our tongues, sees the city with our eyes, thinks with our minds?”

  That not only made Sharur want to drink beer, it made him want to drink himself blind. He bought a second cup from the beer seller, and was drinking from it when a large, burly man strutted up to the fellow and loudly demanded some of his wares. Having got the cup, the burly man turned to Sharur and Ereshguna, saying, “Can’t work all the time, eh, master merchant, master merchant’s son?”

  “No, Mushezib, we cannot work all the time,” Ereshguna answered with a smile that seemed altogether natural and unforced. A merchant, after all, was trained not to show on his face everything he thought. Sharur admired his father’s skill at concealment.

  “Not much work for guards these days,” Mushezib remarked. “Things are pretty quiet.”

  “If we have good fortune, caravans will resume before too long,” Sharur answered. Caravans, might also resume before too long if the men of Gibil did not have good fortune, but those would be caravans where Engibil looked out through the eyes of merchants, guards, and donkey handlers. The Imhursagut sent forth such caravans. Sharur chose not to dwell on them.

  Mushezib’s eyes brightened. “Is it so, master merchant’s son?”

  “It is so,” Sharur said firmly, though he remained unsure whether it would be so. Then his eyes sparkled, too. He pointed to Mushezib. “And you are a man who can help make it so.”

  “I?” the guard captain asked. “How is this so? How can this be so. I take no part in the affairs of the great. I take no part in the quarrels of the gods.”

  “That is not so,” Sharur said. “Do you recall the thief whom Enzuabu sent to rob our caravan when we returned from the Alashkurru Mountains?”

  “Oh, aye, I recall him,” Mushezib answered. “I would recall his ugly face even as I lay dying. With my last breath, I would curse him. You should have left his body in the bushes, a feast for dogs and javens. You should have left his body in a canal, a meal for fish and snails.”

  Some of that, in among the bombast, was what Sharur hoped to hear. “If you recall his face, you will know him if you see him again?' ’

  “Master merchant’s son, I will.” Mushezib spoke with great certainty. “Nor am I the only one among the guards and donkey handlers who would.”

  Sharur smiled. So did Ereshguna, who must have seen where his son’s thoughts were going. Smiling still, Sharur went on, “This is good new's, Mushezib, for I must tell you that this thief, wdiose name is Habbazu, has come to Gibil to steal from Engibil’s temple. I have seen him. I have had speech wdth him. But I could not bring him before the mighty lugal for justice, for he escaped me.” That he had not intended to bring Habbazu before Kimash for justice w as nothing the guard needed to knowT.

  Mushezib’s blunt, battered features grew dark with anger. “He is here? In this city? He has come to rob our god for Enzuabu? Master merchant’s son, I will hunt him down. I will put word of him in the ears of our comrades who also saw him outside Zuabu. When we lay hands on him, the scavengers shall feed.”

  “No,” Sharur said, and Mushezib’s shaggy eyebrows rose in surprise. “No,” Sharur repeated. “Bring him to the house of Ereshguna, that we may question him as he should be questioned.”

  “Gold awaits you if you bring him to my house,” Ereshguna added.

  “Question him as he should be questioned, eh?” Grim anticipation filled Mushezib’s chuckle. “Question him with hot things and sharp things and hard things and heavy things, do you mean?”

  “It could be so,” Sharur answered, not altogether untruthfully. He still did not know how far Habbazu could be trusted.

  Mushezib bowed to him. “Master merchant’s son—” He also bowed to Ereshguna. “Master merchant, my comrades and I sha
ll drop on this thief like a collapsing wall. We shall fall upon him like the roof beams of a house that crumbles.”

  “It is good,” Sharur said, and Ereshguna nodded. Mushezib bowed to each of them once more and strutted off, a procession of one. By his manner, he expected to return momentarily to the house of Ereshguna with one large fist clamped around Habbazu’s skinny neck. Sharur hoped he or another caravan guard or a donkey handler would soon return to the house of Ereshguna with Habbazu in his grasp.

  “Do not raise your hopes too high,” Ereshguna warned him. “Do not expect too much. These men saw Habbazu for a small part of one night some while ago. They may not recognize him even if he should walk past them on the street. And he is a clever thief, a master thief. He may not show himself at all, and he will surely be adept at escaping danger.”

  “Every word you say is true, Father,” Sharur replied. “And yet—I will hope.”

  “How not?” Ereshguna clapped him on the back. “You are a man. I, too, will hope—but not too much.”

  Sharur was adding numbers on his fingers that afternoon when a man of about his father’s age came through the doorway. “One moment, my master, if you please,” Sharur said, as to any stranger. “Let me finish my calculation.” He looked down to his hands once more.

  “Take the time you need,” the stranger answered, and Sharur forgot the calculation he had been making. The man’s voice declared what a hasty glance had not—he was no stranger. There stood Kimash the lugal, not in a lugal’s finery but in the rather dirty kilt and worn sandals a potter or a leatherworker might have worn.

  “Your pardon, mighty lugal,” Sharur gasped, and began to prostrate himself before the man who had ruled Gibil for most of his life.

  “No. Wait,” Kimash said. “Speak neither my name nor my title while I am here. Call me ... Izmaili.” He plucked the name from the air like a conjuror plucking a date from a woman’s ear.

  “I obey.” Sharur wondered if he was not to call Kimash lugal because Kimash was lugal no more. Had Engibil stripped the man of his title and his power? Would a dirty tunic and worn sandals be Kimash’s fate forevermore?