The ruffian who had thought of challenging Sharur and Habbazu as they went toward the temple did not come out when they retreated from it. Perhaps he had gone; perhaps he recognized them and concluded they were still a bad bargain. Either way, Sharur was as glad not to encounter him.
Once back safe in his father’s house, Sharur allowed himself the luxury of a long sigh of relief. Instead of waking the slaves—waking them and making them aware he had come in during the middle of the night—he fetched beer and cups with his own hands.
Only after he and Habbazu had drunk did he ask, “What went wrong in the temple of Engibil, master thief?”
Habbazu looked disgusted. “Exactly the sort of thing I feared; exactly the sort of thing a thief can do nothing to prevent. There I was, moving toward the storeroom wherein the Alashkurri cup is secreted. There I was, eluding all the guards, eluding all the snares.” He paused, then added, “Were the god paying close attention to his house, it would have been harder. It was not easy, even as things were.” He sighed.
“What went wrong, that a thief could do nothing to prevent?” Sharur asked again.
“A doddering old fool, with a white beard down to here”—Habbazu poked his own navel with a forefinger— “came tottering out of his cubicle, as I had feared one might, most likely because his bladder could not hold the beer he had drunk with his supper and he needed to ease himself.”
Sharur thought of Ilakabkabu, whom the description fit as a swordhilt fit a man’s hand. He said, “Many of the older priests are very pious men. Having one of them.see you would be the next thing to having the god see you.”
“So I found out.” Lamplight exaggerated the lines and shadows of Habbazu’s face, making it into a mask of woe. “This old, white-bearded fool, then, saw me, and his eyes went so wide, I thought they would bug out of his head. Would that they had bugged out of his head! Would that he had been stricken blind years ago! However doddering he is, he still has a fine screech, like that of an owl in a thorn- bush. Other priests started tumbling out of their cubicles, and they all started chasing me.”
“How could you escape them?” Sharur asked. “It is not your house. It is the house of Engibil. Yet you eluded the priests of the god in his house. Truly you must be a master thief.”
“Truly I am a master thief,” Habbazu agreed with just a hint of smugness. “Truly I am a master thief of Zuabu, sent forth to steal by Enzuabu himself. I have ways and means most thieves have not.”
Again, he did not describe what those ways and means were. Sharur’s trade had secrets of its own, too. He said, “I am glad these ways and means let you get free.”
“Master merchant’s son, believe me when I tell you that you are not half so glad as I am,” Habbazu answered. “I did not know if these ways and means would suffice, not until I left the temple itself and found you faithfully awaiting me.
“Would another attempt soon be worthwhile?” Sharur asked. “Or will the priests and guards in and around Engibil’s temple be too wary to do what you must do?”
“They will be wary,” Habbazu said. “They will surely be wary. But, if we are to do this thing, we had better do it soon. Before long, by what I saw, the army of Gibil will have beaten the army of Imhursag. Before long, by what I saw, Engibil will no longer need to watch out for Enimhursag. Then he will watch out for his temple, and theft will grow more difficult.”
“You said you could steal the cup even with the god at home in his temple,” Sharur reminded him.
“Yes, I said that. I still think it is true. I still think I could steal the cup with the god at home in his temple,” Habbazu said. “But, as I said just now, theft will grow more difficult with the god at home in his temple. And”—he hesitated, as if regretting the admission he was about to make—“I may have been wrong.”
“Ah,” Sharur said, and no more than ah. At least the thief could admit he might have been wrong. Many, perhaps even most, of the men Sharur knew would go ahead with a plan once made for no better reason than that they had made it. After a pause for thought, Sharur continued, “Then you are right. If we are to do this thing, we had better do it soon.”
“It will not be easy, with the priests alerted,” Habbazu said. “It will not be simple, with the guards on the lookout for a thief.”
“That is so.” Sharur sat in dejection, staring at the pot of beer. Then, little by little, he brightened. “It would not be easy, with the priests alerted,” he said. “It would not be simple, with the guards on the lookout for a thief. If they are all looking in a different direction, matters may be otherwise.”
“Indeed, master merchant’s son, you speak the truth there,” Habbazu said, nodding. “Any thief or mountebank soon learns as much. Distract a man, and you will have no trouble stealing from him. Distract him, and he is easy to fool.”
“Merchants learn as much, too,” Sharur said. “Who turned Engibil’s eyes from the temple to the border with Imhursag?” He waited for Habbazu to nod again, then went on, “We can turn the priests’ eyes from the temple, too.”
“Tomorrow?” Habbazu asked eagerly.
“That would be too soon, I think,” Sharur answered. “But the day after ...”
The square in front of Engibil’s temple was not nearly so fine and broad as the market square of Gibil. It was, though, large enough to hold a surprising number of entertainers of all sorts. Musicians played flutes and pipes and drums and horns, each ensemble’s tune clashing with those of its neighbors.
In front of one fluteplayer, a shapely woman wearing a linen shift so thin, she might as well have been naked, danced and swayed to the rhythm of his music. In front of another fluteplayer, a trained snake similarly danced and swayed. Sharur’s eyes kept sliding back and forth from the woman to the snake as he tried to decide which of them moved more sinuously. For the life of him, he could not make up his mind.
“Come one!” he called, a merchant out to make his sale. “Come all! Gibil wars against Imhursag, aye, but Gibil forgets not those who fight not. Here is an entertainment to lighten the hearts of those who wait within the city walls, to help them forget their worries.”
Boys paid with broken bits of copper shouted the same message—or as much of it as they could remember— through the streets of Gibil. Men who had not gone to fight the Imhursagut and women who could not go to fight the Imhursagut crowded into the open space in front of Engibil’s temple to leave their cares behind for a time.
Jugglers kept cups and dishes and knives and little statues spinning through the air. An enterprising and nimblefingered fellow used three cups and a chickpea to extract property from the spectators who tried to guess where it was hidden. He won so regularly, Sharur thought he had to be cheating. But Sharur could not see how he was doing it, and did not care to pay for instruction.
From the entranceway into Engibil’s temple, the guards stared out eagerly at the performers before them. Priests also watched from the top of the wall around the temple, and from the high stairways within. From the corner of his eye, Sharur watched them watching. He made sure he watched them watching only from the comer of his eye.
He knew Habbazu was somewhere nearby. He did not know where. He did not try to watch for the Zuabi thief at all. Habbazu knew his own business best. Sharur was trying to give him the best chance he could to conduct that business without the risk of being disturbed.
Presently, priests began coming out of the temple and into the square. Some of them clapped their hands to the music. Some watched the snake sway. Some watched the pretty girl sway. Some proceeded to prove they were no better than any other man at guessing under which cup the chickpea lay.
After a while, the priest named Burshagga strode up to Sharur. The two men bowed to each other. Burshagga said, “Do I understand rightly that we have you to thank for this entertainment spread out before us?”
Sharur did his best to look self-effacing. “I thought those left in the city could use a bit of joy while our army repels the Imhursag
ut. I fought in the first battle, and came back to Gibil to put a captive into the hands of Ushurikti the slave dealer. Soon I shall return to the fighting. In the meanwhile, why should we not be as merry as we can?”
“I see no reason why we should not be as merry as we can,” Burshagga replied. “As I said, we have you to thank for this entertainment spread out before us. No less than men of other trades, priests enjoy merriment.”
“This was my thought. This was why I decided to set the entertainment here,” said Sharur, who did indeed want the priests merry—and distracted. But then he pointed in the direction of the entranceway. “Not all your colleagues, I would say, hold the same view.”
There stood Ilakabkabu, his long beard fluttering in the breeze as he harangued several younger priests. “No good will come of this!” he thundered. “We do not serve the god for the sake of frivolity. We do not serve Engibil for the sake of merriment. We serve Engibil for the sake of holiness. We serve the god because he is our great and mighty master.”
Burshagga looked disgusted. “I will go and settle that interfering old fool.”
“I did not mean to cause such difficulties,” Sharur said. That was also true—he wanted all the priests distracted, and none of them preaching against distraction. He strolled along toward Ilakabkabu in Burshagga’s wake.
“Here, what are you doing?” Burshagga called to Ilakabkabu. “What foolish words fall from your lips now, old man?”
“I speak no foolishness,” the old priest answered. “I say that we should prove our devotion to Engibil with prayers and sacrifices, not with jugglers and fluteplayers and squirming wenches.” He gestured disparagingly toward the woman dancing in the thin shift.
“And I say Engibil does not begrqdge his priests their pleasures,” Burshagga said. “I am devoted to Engibil. No one can deny I am devoted to Engibil.”
“I deny it,” Ilakabkabu said. “You are devoted first to yourself, then to Kimash the lugal... lugal!” He laced the title with scorn. “And last of all, when you deign to recollect, to the god.”
“Liar!” Burshagga shouted. “Son of a whore! You think that because you have been a priest since before men learned to till the soil, Engibil speaks to you alone. You think that, because you have been a priest so long your private parts have withered, priests are not men like other men. Our god is not a god who hates pleasure. Does Engibil himself not couple with courtesans when the urge strikes him?”
“What the god does is his affair,” Ilakabkabu said stolidly. “He is the god; he may do as he pleases. But for you to do as you please... you are only a man, and a priest besides. Do not add your shame to the disgrace the temple suffered of having a thief penetrate it as deeply as Engibil penetrates one of those courtesans you talked about.”
Priests and folk of the city gathered round Burshagga and Ilakabkabu. Wrangling priests were entertainment, too. Sharur listened with intent interest on his face. He listened . with no trace of amusement or delight on his face. Ilakabkabu, no matter what he thought, was at the moment helping to do the work of distracting the temple for him.
Burshagga rolled his eyes. “I do not think you ever saw that thief. I think you were imagining him, as I know you are imagining that you alone can see into the mind of Engibil.”
“And I think that, because you young men were too slow and too stupid to catch the thief, you pretend he was never there,” Ilakabkabu retorted. “You put me in mind of a wild cat when a mouse escapes it. The cat sits down and licks its anus, pretending it did not truly want the mouse.”
“You are the one who knows everything there is to know about the licking of an anus!” Burshagga screeched. He grabbed a double handful of Ilakabkabu’s long white beard and yanked, hard.
The old priest screeched, too. He brought up a bony knee between Burshagga’s legs. Burshagga howled, but did not let go of Ilakabkabu’s beard. In an instant, the two priests were rolling on the ground, gouging and kicking and hitting at each other.
Most of the Giblut laughed and clapped and cheered them on. Some of their fellow priests, however, eventually pulled them apart. They kept right on calling each other names.
Most of the priests seemed to side with Burshagga, as did Sharur—but he knew that Ilakabkabu had been telling more of the truth here.
Where was Habbazu? Sharur could look around now, as if to see who was coming to find out if the brawl would start anew. He did not see the master thief. He had not seen the master thief since the day’s festivities began.
Where was Habbazu? Was he still waiting his chance? Was he skulking through the nearly deserted corridors of the temple toward the storeroom of which he knew? Was he sneaking out of the temple chamber with the nondescript Alashkurri cup in his hands?
Or had he already sneaked out of the temple with the Alashkurri cup in his hands? Was he even now leaving Gibil? Was he on his way back to Zuabu, on his way back to Enzuabu? How strongly did Enzuabu summon him? Where did he put his god? Where did he put his city? Where did he put himself?
Sharur knew what Habbazu had said. He also knew, better than most, that the truest test of what a man was lay in what he did, not in what he said. Sharur sighed. If Habbazu had deceived him... If Habbazu had deceived him, he would know before the sun set.
Burshagga and Ilakabkabu still shouted insults at each other. The insults Ilakabkabu shouted did nothing to keep more priests from coming out of the temple to enjoy the musicians and performers. As word of the unusual festivity spread through the city, those who sold food and beer also came into the open area in front of Engibil’s temple. Sharur bought a dozen roasted grasshoppers itnpa|ed on a wooden skewer and crunched them between his teeth, one after another, as he watched a dog walk on its hind legs atop a ball carved from palm wood.
At its master’s command, the dog climbed a stairway, jumped through a hoop, and did other clever tricks. Sharur applauded with the rest of the people gathered round it. It gave a canine bow, nose to the ground, forelegs outstretched in front of it. Then it ran over and stood, wagging its tail, beside the pot in which its owner was collecting his rew^ard.
With a laugh, Sharur tossed a bit of copper into that pot. The dog bowed to him then. Its owner said, “Engibil’s blessings upon you, my master, for your generosity.” He bowed, too.
Sharur politely returned both the dog’s bow and the man’s, which made the people around him smile. Considering what Habbazu was doing or had done or would be doing, Sharur doubted that the dog trainer’s prayer for Engibil to bless him would be answered. He did not speak his doubts aloud. He did his best not even to think of them.
A priest came running out of the temple, shouting in alarm. Sharur’s heart leaped into his throat. Outwardly, he stayed calm. Nor did he show his relief when he heard what the priest was shouting: news that another priest of Burshagga’s opinion and one of Ilakabkabu’s were belaboring each other inside the sacred precinct.
“This is disgraceful!” Burshagga cried, rubbing at a scratch over one eye. “We embarrass ourselves before the people of the city.”
“As you said to Ilakabkabu, you priests are men like other men,” Sharur told him. “Other men will sometimes quarrel among themselves. The people of the city knowr that you priests will sometimes quarrel among yourselves.”
Burshagga bowed low to him. “I thank you for your understanding, master merchant’s son. I thank you for your patience. Would that all Giblut were as understanding and patient as you are. We should be a better people, were that so. As things are, most will use this as an excuse to laugh at the priesthood.”
“Priests are men like other men,” Sharur repeated. “Other men will be laughed at from time to time. So also will priests be laughed at from time to time.”
Now Burshagga did not bow. He did not look pleased. He looked sour as milk three days old. “When people laugh at us, it diminishes the power of the god we serve. When people laugh at us, it diminishes the power of the lugal who appointed us.”
He spoke of the god
first now, and only afterwards of the lugal. But Sharur knew serving Kimash held a higher place in Burshagga’s mind than did serving Engibil. Sharur would not have minded seeing Engibil’s power diminished. On the contrary.
He also would not have minded seeing Habbazu. If he had embroiled Gibil and Imhursag in war, if he had managed this lavish distraction for the priesthood of Engibil— if he had done all that, only to have Habbazu flee with the cup to Zuabu and to Enzuabu, he would be embarrassed. He would deserve to be laughed at.
Burshagga sighed. “In the time of my sons, this will not matter. In the time of my grandsons, this will be a thing of the past. The old fools will be gone then, vanished from the priesthood. My sons and my grandsons will listen to my ghost haranguing them about the way things were when I walked the earth as a living man—they will listen, and they will laugh. And I, a ghost, shall laugh with them.”
“You say that now,” Sharur said. “You see that now. Will you say that when you are a ghost? Will you see that when you are a ghost? Or will you be angry when they laugh?”
“I am a man like other men,” the living Burshagga said, and laughed. “It is likely, then, that I shall be a ghost like other ghosts. It is likely that, like other ghosts, I will be angry at the vagaries of the living, and angry when they fail to hearken to me in every particular.”
Sharur laughed, too. “You are not altogether a man like other men, Burshagga. You are more honest than most. You see more clearly than most. You see farther than most.”
“I see a master merchant’s son who is flattering me,” Burshagga said. “But I also try to see what is. and what will be, not what I wish were so.”
“Here,” Sharur said, and waved to one of the beersellers. Buying a cup, Sharur handed it to Burshagga. “You see a master merchant’s son who is buying for you a cup of beer.”
Turtledove, Harry - Novel 12 Page 32