Turtledove, Harry - Novel 12

by Between the Rivers (v2. 1)

  Reading his thoughts as if they were syllables incised on clay, Kimash said, “You need not fear, son of Ereshguna. I still am what I.was.” He smiled at his circumlocution, then went on, “Barely, perhaps, but I am. No, a man who looks like me sits on my high seat in the palace. A man who looks like me wears my raiment. He drinks my fine date wine. He eats my delicate food. If he so chooses, he couples with my women—all but a few whose names I have not told him, and of whom I am particularly fond. If the god looks in the palace, he will see the lugal in the palace, doing the things the lugal does. I? I am Izmaili, a person of no particular account.”

  Sharur bowed, acknowledging Kimash’s daring. “But,” he could not help asking, “what if the god should summon the lugal to his temple while Izmaili, a person of no particular account, walks through the streets of Gibil?”

  “Then we have a difficulty,” Kimash said. “But I do not think that will happen, not today. The god and the lugal have already had a long talk today. Call your father, if you would.” He smiled. “Izmaili, a person of no particular account, was told the two of you would have speech with him.”

  “It shall be as you say, my master,” Sharur replied, as he might have to any customer who came into the shop. He raised his voice: “Father! The ... a man is here to see you.” When Ereshguna came out, he recognized at once who the “man” was. As Sharur had done, he .began to prostrate himself. As Kimash had done with Sharur, he bade Ereshguna stop and gave the name by which he would be known and the reason he was wearing both it and his shabby clothes.

  Ereshguna nodded slow approval. “This is a bold plan, Izmaili.” He hesitated not at all over Kimash’s alias. “This is a clever plan, person of no particular account.”

  “For which praise I thank you—although why you should value the thanks of a person of no particular account is beyond me.” Kimash’s eyes twinkled as he went on, “Also beyond me is why the two of you would want to have speech with a person of no particular account.”

  “Be that as it may, we do,” Ereshguna said. Together, he and Sharur explained how Habbazu had come to Gibil to steal the Alashkurri cup from Engibil’s temple, and how the Zuabi thief had fled when Engibil summoned Sharur to his temple.

  Kimash listened intently. When Sharur and Ereshguna had finished, he said, “For one who sits on the high seat in the palace, admitting he was wrong would come hard. For Izmaili, who is a man of no particular account, it is much easier. Son of Ereshguna, in the matter of this cup and its likely importance, you had the right of it.”

  Sharur bowed, saying, “You are gracious, Izmaili. We have men from my caravan, men who will know this Zuabi by his face, searching for him here in Gibil. Still, we do not know whether they will find him before he can enter the temple and seek to steal this cup.”

  “You did well to put men on his trail,” Kimash said. “You did well to have men search for him. But, if he should enter the temple and steal the cup, is it not likely now that he would take it away to Enzuabu rather than setting it in your hands? He will be fearing that you have come under Engibil’s power, even as you feared I had come under the god’s sway.”

  “That is likely, yes,” Sharur said, and Ereshguna nodded. “Then we shall have to warn Engibil’s priests,” Kimash said. “Better that our god should have this thing than that a rival god in Kudurru should have it.”

  Reluctantly, Ereshguna nodded again. Sharur said, “What still perplexes me, Izmaili, is why the god should have denied any knowledge of the cup when we asked him about it.”

  “This also perplexes me,” the lugal admitted. “I have no answer I can give you. The god lied for reasons of his own. What those reasons are, I cannot guess. I am, after all, only a man. I am, after all, only a person of no particular account.” He seemed to enjoy having escaped for a little while the stifling ceremony with which the lugals of Gibil had come to imitate the homage given the city god. After a moment, though, he turned serious once more: “If your searchers catch this thief, have him brought before me.”

  A person of no particular importance would never have given an order in that crisp tone, a tone used by a man certain of obedience. “We shall do as you say, Izmaili... just as if you were the lugal,” Sharur replied.

  Kimash’s eyes widened. Then he caught the joke, and threw back his head and laughed. “It is good,” he said at last. “It is very good. Obey me as you would obey the lugal and all will be well. Now I will go back to the palace. I will see how much fine wine I have left. I will see how much dainty food I have left. I will see how many babies born next spring I will know to be a cuckoo’s eggs, and not sprung from my seed at all.” With a shrug of resignation, he left the house of Ereshguna and strode down the Street of Smiths.

  “He is a bold man,” Ereshguna said when the lugal was gone. “He is a clever man. He is a resourceful man. He is the right man to lead Gibil and to keep Engibil quiescent while we—” He broke off.

  While we mortals gather strength, was no doubt what he had been on the point of saying. Saying such things while Engibil was less quiescent than he might have been was unwise. In any case, he knew Sharur could supply the words he did not speak aloud.

  Sharur did supply those words without difficulty. “He is everything you have said he is,” he agreed. “But, Father, is he a man before whom we want to bring Habbazu the thief if we lay hands on him once more?”

  “You were the one who said we would do as Izmaili said, just as if he were the lugal,” Ereshguna reminded him.

  “Yes, I said that.” Sharur shrugged. “What of it? If the god does not scruple to lie to me, should I scruple to lie to the lugal?”

  Ereshguna whistled softly between his teeth. “Kimash may punish you for lying to him. Who will punish Engibil for lying to you?”

  I will, Sharur thought, but those were words he would not say aloud. Instead, he answered, “If the lugal is warning the priests of Engibil’s temple about Habbazu, would not giving the thief over to him be the same as condemning the thief to death?”

  “That is likely to be so, yes.” Ereshguna grew alert. “I see what you are saying, son. We want the Alashkurri cup stolen. Kimash, on the other hand, may well reckon that giving the thief over to Engibil for punishment, or punishing Habbazu himself, will gain him more credit with the god.”

  “It will gain him credit with the god of Gibil, yes,” Sharur said, “but it will not help him or help us in our dealing with the other city gods of Kudurru, nor with the gods of the Alashkurrut.”

  “I wonder how much Kimash frets over that,” Ereshguna said. “He is the lugal, the man who rules Gibil. Anything that helps him rule Gibil, he wili likely do. Anything that gains him credit with Engibil helps him rule Gibil, so he will likely do it. He will think of the rest of us Giblut only after he thinks of ruling Gibil—so I believe.”

  “And I.” Sharur’s mouth thinned to a bitter line. “In that, the lugal is much like the god, is he not?”

  Ereshguna looked startled. “I had not thought of it so. Now that I do, though, I see that there is some truth in what you say.”

  “We sometimes have the need to do this or that without the god’s knowing it,” Sharur said, and his father nodded. “If Kimash is much like Engibil, should we not sometimes have the need to do this or that without the lugal’s knowing it?”

  “Yes, that would follow from the first,” Ereshguna answered. Before Sharur could say anything, his father held up a hand to show he had not finished. “You must also think on this, though, son: often, if we have the need to do this or that without the god’s knowing it, the lugal will help us shield it from his eyes. If we seek to hide from the god and the lugal both and we are discovered, who will shield us then?”

  “No one,” Sharur answered, so bleakly that he startled Ereshguna again. “We Giblut have for long and long aimed to live as free as we could. If we are free, we are also free to fail.” He grimaced. “Except we had better not.”

  Mushezib did not find Habbazu. The caravan guards
who had served under Mushezib did not find Habbazu. The donkey handlers did not find Habbazu. Five days after Engibil had summoned Sharur to his temple and Habbazu had fled, the Zuabi thief returned to the house of Ereshguna.

  One moment, Habbazu was not there. The next, he was. So, at any rate, it appeared to Sharur, who was searching for a particular clay tablet among the many in the baskets near the scales. When he looked up, Habbazu stood not three feet away, watching the search with sardonic amusement. “You!” Sharur exclaimed. ,

  “I,” Habbazu agreed. He bowed to Sharur. “And you. Believe me, having seen you ordered to the house of your god, I am more surprised to see you safe among men than you could be to see me.”

  “How did you come here without being seen?” Sharur asked.

  “I have my ways,” Habbazu answered airily. “I am, after all, a thief sent forth by Enzuabu himself.” He said no more than that. Maybe it meant the god of Zuabu had lent him powers or enchantments to help hint esqape notice. Maybe it meant he wanted Sharur to think the god of Zuabu had lent him such powers and enchantments. •

  At another time, Sharur might have spent considerable worry over the question of whether and to what extent Habbazu was bluffing. Now he had more important things on his mind. “The Alashkurri cup,” he said. “Have you got it, or does it still sit in Engibil’s temple?”

  Habbazu lost some of his jaunty manner. “The Alashkurri cup still sits in Engibil’s temple.” He sent Sharur an accusing look. ‘‘The god of this city is not so drowsy a god as I was led to believe in Zuabu. The god of Gibil is not so sleepy a god as I was led to believe in my city.”

  ‘‘As I told you, not everything about Gibil is as you may have been led to believe,” Sharur said.

  ‘‘The god is alert,” Habbazu said. ‘‘The priests of the god are alert. This makes it harder for me to enter the temple, harder for me to reach the chamber within which the cup rests, harder for me to escape after I steal it.” “With the god and the priests alert, can you enter the temple?” Sharur asked. “Can you reach the chamber in which the cup rests? Can you steal the cup?’ ’

  “I can do all these things.” Habbazu drew himself up with the sort of pride in his ability at his chosen trade that Sharur or Ereshguna might have shown over matters mercantile. “As I said, though, it will be harder for me. I will pick my time with care.”

  “Indeed,” Sharur said, raising one eyebrow, “if you do not, you are liable to be captured, as the caravan guards captured you outside Zuabu.”

  Habbazu looked miffed.. “That should not have happened. That should never have happened. The caravan guards were lucky to set eyes on me, luckier still to lay hold of me.” “As may be,” Ereshguna said, coming downstairs. How long had he been listening? Long enough—he went on, “Who is to say Engibil will not be lucky enough to set eyes on you? Who is to say Engibil’s priests will not be lucky enough to lay hold of you? They are alert, as the caravan guards were alert. Have you not noticed how often luck comes to those who are alert?”

  “Oh, indeed, my master: I have noticed this many times,” the thief said. “And I do not deny my task would be easier if the god’s eye were turned elsewhere. I do not deny my task would be easier if the god’s priests were to look in some different direction.”

  “Distracting the priests may not be too hard,” Ereshguna said. “They are, after all, but men. Distracting the god ...” His voice trailed away.

  “A question,” Sharur said. “Habbazu, if you steal this Alashkurri cup, will you still deliver it into the hands of the house of Ereshguna and not into the hands of Enzuabu who sent you forth?”

  “When Engibil summoned you to his temple, I repented of my promise,” the thief admitted. “Now that I learn he did not summon you to punish you for consorting with me, I see that, though he may be alert, he does not rule every aspect of every life in Gibil, as Enimhursag does in Imhursag. And so, though shaken as by an earthquake, the promise stands.”

  “It is good,” Sharur said. As he and his father and Habbazu spoke of the difficulty of distracting, so Engibil no doubt wondered how successful his effort to distract the annoying mortals would prove. He had succeeded in making Sharur happy by releasing the promise he held.

  “As your father said, distracting the priests of the god may not be too hard,” Habbazu said. “How, though, how do you propose to distract the god himself?”

  “That will not be easy,” Ereshguna said. “You may indeed have to prove how gifted a thief you are.”

  “To distract a god from watching over men and the concerns of men,” Sharur said slowly, “it may be best to involve him with gods and the concerns of gods.”

  “This Alashkurri cup has involved Engibil with gods and the concerns of gods,” Ereshguna said. “Without it, he would have been a drowsy god. Without it, he would have been a sleepy god. Without it, we could have gone on living our lives as we desired.”

  “There are other gods than the great gods of the Alashkurrut, other gods over whose doings Engibil has concerned himself for long and long,” Sharur said. “If he were again to concern himself over their doings ...”

  “Enzuabu and Engibil do not squabble over the border between their lands,” Habbazu said. “Zuabu and Gibil have gone on for many years without strife between them.”

  “That is so,” Sharur agreed. “But if Engibil were to look to the north and not to the west, what would he see? Engibil and Enimhursag hate each other; Engibil and Enimhursag have long hated each other. In every generation, Gibil and Imhursag go to war against each other—often twice in a generation.”

  “In the past three generations, in the time while the lugals have ruled Gibil, we have beaten the Imhursagut in almost all these wars, too,” Ereshguna said. “In the latest one, we beat the Imhursagut so badly, Enimhursag had to humble himself to beg for peace.” He spoke with no small pride.

  Habbazu said, “Strange how, though the power of your god in your city is less than it was, the power of your city among its neighbors has grown greater.”

  “Men matter, too,” Sharur said: that, if anything, was the motto under which the Giblut had lived since Igigi became the first lugal. Sharur went on, “If Enimhursag were to believe Engibil’s power badly weakened, though; if the god of the Imhursagut were to believe the Giblut divided by factional squabbles ... would he not seek to regain what we have taken from Imhursag over the years? Would he not think he could but stretch forth his hand and what he had lost would be his once more?”

  “But what would make him believe such a thing?” Ereshguna asked. “It is not so. If anything, as we have seen, Engibil is more active now than he has been for some time.” “Suppose a Gibli were to flee to the land of Imhursag,” Sharur said. “Suppose a Gibli were to speak these words into Enimhursag’s ear. Suppose a Gibli were to beg Enimhursag to arm the Imhursagut and come down into the land of Gibil and restore order, order that has been lost as water is lost when the bank of a canal breaks.”

  “What Gibli would be mad enough to do such a thing?” Ereshguna said.

  “I would,” Sharur answered.

  Habbazu stared at him. “You would set your city at war with Imhursag. You would set your god at war with Enimhursag?”

  “I would,” Sharur said. “If Engibil’s eyes travel north to the border with the land Imhursag rules, how closely will the god watch his temple? How much notice will he take of a certain skulking thief?”

  “Ahhh.” Habbazu let out a long breath of praise.

  “But, my son, you would not go to speak to another merchant,” Ereshguna said. “You would go to speak to a god. You would go to speak to a god who rules a city in his own right. You would go to speak to a god who can look deep into your heart and learn whether you speak truth. You would go to a god who can punish you terribly when he learns you are speaking lies.”

  “I would go to speak to a god who rules a city in his own right,” Sharur said. “I would go to speak to a god whose own people fawn on him. I would go to spea
k to a god who will very much want to hear the words I speak into his ear. I would go to speak to a god who will very much want to believe the words I speak into his ear. Gods, like men, believe that which they want to believe. If he believes what comes from my mouth, he will not look deep into my heart and learn whether I speak truth.”

  Habbazu bowed. “Master merchant’s son, no one will deny you are a man of courage. No one will claim you are a man without bravery.”

  “A man should be brave,” Ereshguna said. “A man should not be foolhardy. A man should be wise enough to know the difference between the one and the other.” By the way he looked at Sharur, he did not think his son passed that test. “If you are wrong in this, if Enimhursag goes through your mind like a man going through his belt pouch, all is lost. If you are wrong in this, you'are lost.”

  “How better to distract Engibil than to embroil him with Enimhursag?” Sharur returned. “And Enimhursag is a foolish god. He is a stupid god. We have seen it in the way the Imhursagut fought the men of our city. We have seen it in the way our caravans constantly outdo those from Imhursag. We have seen it in the way I went into Imhursag and came out safe again. What I have done once, I can do twice.”

  “Enimhursag is a foolish god: true,” Ereshguna said. “He is a stupid god: true. But he is a god, and he has the strength of a god. Remember this. You went into Imhursag and came out safe again: true. Enimhursag nearly slew you, though you disguised yourself as a Zuabi merchant. Remember this, too.”

  “What’s this? A Gibli pretending to be a man of my city?” Habbazu exclaimed. “I am insulted. Zuabu is insulted.” His eyes sparkled.

  Ereshguna ignored him, continuing, “If you go to Enimhursag this time, you will go as a Gibli. If you go to the god of Imhursag this time, you will go as a man of the city he hates. Why should he not slay you out of hand?”