Turtledove, Harry - Novel 12

by Between the Rivers (v2. 1)

  “I see a master merchant’s son who shows a proper and pious respect for the priesthood.” A twinkle in his eye, Burshagga drank the cup dry. “Ahh! It is good.”

  “Which is good?” Sharur asked. “The beer, or that a master merchant’s son shows a proper and pious respect for the priesthood?”

  “Both those things are good,” Burshagga answered. He nodded to the beerseller. “Here, son of Ereshguna, I will buy you a cup of this beer, that you may learn for yourself whether it is good.” And he did.

  Sharur drank. As Burshagga had said, the beer was good. He and the priest exchanged bows and compliments. Burshagga went off to see if he could figure out under which cup the fellow with the nimble fingers had concealed the chickpea. Smiling, Sharur saw that the fellow with the cups and the chickpea had concealed one thing from Burshagga: that the game was unlikely to be as straightforward as it seemed.

  With a shrug, Sharur bought another cup of beer for himself. If Burshagga did not know the fellow with the chickpea could make it appear wherever it would give him the greatest profit, Sharur did not intend to enlighten him. Every craft had its own secrets. The priest would learn these secrets from experience, and would pay for the privilege of learning. .

  Ilakabkabu came out of the temple once more, and began fervently preaching against the frivolous entertainment. He drew a considerable crowd. People clapped and cheered as he flayed them for their light-mindedness. Thus inspired, he preached more ferociously than ever. He did not notice he, too, had become part of the entertainment.

  Burshagga gave up trying to find the furtive flying chickpea after several moderately expensive lessons. He came over and watched Ilakabkabu instead. He said not a word, but his mere presence inspired the pious old priest to new and rancorous heights of rhetoric.

  “He talks like a man on fire,” someone beside Sharur remarked. Sharur turned, and there stood Habbazu.

  After staring, Sharur asked in a quiet voice, “Have you got it?”

  The master thief looked offended that Sharur should doubt him. “Yes,” he answered. “Of course I have it.”

  10

  Sharur and Habbazu drifted out of the open area in front of Engibil’s temple. They neither hurried nor dawdled; they might have been—indeed, they were—a couple of men who had had enough of entertainment and now needed to return to the workaday world in which they usually passed their time.

  “Now that we have this thing, what shall we do with it?” Habbazu asked, taking care not to name the cup. “Shall we take it with us when we return to the fight? Shall we secret it away at the house of your father?”

  “If we take it with us, it may perhaps be easier for the god to spot,” Sharur answered. “The small gods of Kudurru told me there was little in it of power to be spotted, but I do not know precisely how much they knew, nor do I know how much power Engibil can put forth to seek the thing should he so will.”

  Habbazu nodded. “Wiser to hide it, then. Shall we go on to the house of your father?”

  “I have a better notion yet,” Sharur said. “Let us take it to the house of one of the smiths along the Street of Smiths. The power of metal, the power of smithery, make it harder for the god to peer into such places.”

  “That is so.” Habbazu nodded again. “I have heard Enzuabu complain of it. What with you Giblut being as you are to begin with, it is probably even more true here than in Zuabu.”

  “Engibil complains of it, too,” Sharur said. “If the gods had it to do over, I do not think they would let men learn to work metal. If they had it to do again, I do not think they would let men learn to write, either. But men have learned to do these things, and even the gods cannot have it to do over.”

  “This is also so,” Habbazu said. “Have you the house of some particular smith in mind, a man whom you can trust with something as important as this? I would not—I do not—care to risk it with someone who would return it to the god or who would gossip so that its presence were noised abroad.”

  “Nor would I,” Sharur replied. “I have in mind taking it to the house of Dimgalabzu, whom you have met.”

  “But Dimgalabzu is in the north, in the army of Gibil opposing the Imhursagut,” Habbazu objected.

  “So he is,” Sharur said. “But he is also the father of Ningal, my intended bride. She of all people may be trusted not to return the cup to the god.”

  “I am glad to hear this is so,” Habbazu said. “But she is a woman. Are you certain you can trust her not to gossip?”

  “More certain than I am that I can trust you not to gossip,” Sharur said, smiling to show he meant no offense. “You, master thief, I have known but a short time. Ningal I have known since we were both children getting filthy in the dust of the Street of Smiths.”

  “Very well. A point.” Habbazu pursed his lips before continuing. “But can you likewise trust her kinsfolk? Can you likewise trust the slaves in her household?”

  Sharur’s grunt was not a happy sound. “That I do not know. I do know that anyone who trusts a slave too far is asking to be disappointed.” Habbazu nodded once more. Sharur said nothing of Gulal, Ningal’s mother. From what he knew of Gulal, she disapproved of everything. That meant she would likely disapprove of his leaving the cup in the house of Dimgalabzu.

  His silence gave Habbazu the answer the master thief needed. “If we do not leave the cup in the house of Dimgalabzu because people we can not trust are there, what shall we do with it?”

  “Better then that we take it with us after all, I think,” Sharur replied, forgetting what he had said not long before. “Being in among a great crowd of men may perhaps make it harder for the god to notice it, or so we can hope.” If the god came after it and Sharur was close by, he could also try to break it. Again, he kept that thought to himself.

  Habbazu laughed at him. “Since you say first the one thing and then the other, I judge that you are as unsure of the wisest course as I am.”

  Sharur laughed, too, ruefully. “Perhaps I was wrong earlier. Then again, perhaps I am wrong now.” He wished he had thought of keeping the cup close by him earlier.

  They walked past the house of Ereshguna. The house of Dimgalabzu lay a few doors farther up the Street of Smiths from Engibil’s temple. When Sharur turned to go into the doorway, Habbazu walked on straight for half a step before spinning on his heel to follow. “I am sorry,” Sharur said. “I forgot you did not know which house it was.”

  “No harm done,” Habbazu answered. “Now I know which house it is. I shall not forget.” Coming from a master thief as it did, that was a promise Sharur would have been almost as glad to do without.

  With Dimgalabzu gone to war, the smithy was quiet: no hammering, no scraping, no hiss of melted bronze burning off beeswax as it poured into a mold, no great crackling roar from the fires. Because the fires did not blaze as they did when Dimgalabzu was at home and working, that lower chamber was also cooler than Sharur ever remembered finding it. It was not cool—it was far from cool—but he did not at once begin to roast in it as if he were a chunk of mutton on a spit.

  “Where is everyone?” Habbazu asked in a low voice that suited the dim quiet of the chamber.

  “I do not know,” Sharur said. “A slave or two should be down here, if no one else. But slaves are lazy creatures. Perhaps they are lying on their mats instead.”

  “Perhaps theyvhave sneaked away to the entertainment you arranged in front of Engibil’s temple,” Habbazu said.

  “Perhaps they have.” Sharur had not thought of that. He smiled; if the entertainment had distracted not only the priests but also Dimgalabzu’s slaves, so much the better. He also kept a close eye on Habbazu, not wanting the master thief to practice his craft in this house.

  A woman’s voice came from upstairs: “Is someone down there?”

  Now Habbazu eyed Sharur. Habbazu could not know whose voice that was. It could have been Ningal’s. It could have been her mother’s. It could have been a slave woman’s. Sharur would know.


  Sharur did know. Relief filled him. Now he had at least a chance to do what he had hoped to do. “It is Sharur the son of Ereshguna, and a friend,” he called. Habbazu’s eyes lit up. He mouthed Ningal’s name. Sharur nodded.

  But would his intended come downstairs by herself? Would Gulal, her mother, accompany her, as was customary? Would a slave woman accompany her if her mother did not?

  She came down the stairs alone. Sharur’s heart leaped. Habbazu spoke in an admiring whisper. “You are a fortunate man.”

  “I thank you,” Sharur whispered back. He raised his voice: “Ningal, I present to you my comrade, Burrapi, a mercenary of Zuabu.”

  Habbazu bowed low. Politely, Ningal inclined her head. “Why do you and your comrade visit the house of Dimgalabzu?” she asked. By her tone, she meant, I’m glad to see you, but what is he doing here? .

  “I brought in to Ushurikti the slave dealer an Imhursaggi prisoner I captured,” Sharur replied. “Burrapi here accompanied me to help guard the man. Now we are going back to fight again. Before we go, we have something we need to leave with you.”

  “What thing is this?” Ningal asked.

  Sharur nodded to Habbazu. Habbazu opened the pouch he wore on his belt—a larger pouch than most men might wear, but nowhere near large enough to draw any special notice—and drew from it the Alashkurri cup he had stolen from the temple of Engibil.

  This being the first time Sharur had set eyes on it, he stared with no small interest. But, as Habbazu had said, as the small gods Mitas and Kessis had implied, it was nothing out of the ordinary. He had drunk beer from cups like it many times in the mountains of Alashkurru. It was of yellowish Alashkurri clay, ornamented with twisting black-glazed snakes. The potter who had shaped it and fired it had been a capable enough man, but he was no master.

  Ningal’s dark eyebrows rose as Habbazu handed her the cup. “What am I to do with this?” she asked.

  “Keep it safe,” Habbazu answered. “Let no harm befall it.”

  “Keep it secret,” Sharur added. “Let not Gulal your mother know you have it. Let not Dimgalabzu your father, when he comes home from the war, know you have it. Let not the slaves of this household know you have it. If the servants of Kimash the lugal come through the Street of Smiths searching, let them not know you have it. If the priests of Engibil come through the Street of Smiths searching, let them not know you have it, either.”

  The eyebrows of his intended rose higher still, until for a moment they seemed almost to brush her hairline. “I had not thought anyone would speak thus of gold and lapis lazuli, let alone a common cup—except, I gather from your words, it is no common cup. What makes it other than a common cup, if one of outlandish style?”

  Habbazu shot Sharur a warning glance. For his part, Sharur needed no warning. He said, “Better you had not asked this question. What you do not know, you cannot tell another.”

  “If you cannot keep it thus, give it to us once more, that we may take it elsewhere,” Habbazu said. “For it must be safe. It must be secret.”

  Ningal did not return the cup. “It shall be safe here. You have no business doubting that.” She looked indignant. “It shall be secret here. You may be certain of that.”

  Habbazu glanced once more at Sharur, saying without words, You know her better than me, can we be certain of that? “If Ningal says a thing is so, you may rely on it,” Sharur said. He turned toward his intended and nodded. “It is good. Now we must go back to the fighting.”

  “May Engibil keep both of you safe,” Ningal said. “May the god of this city hold harm away from both of you.”

  “May it be so,” Sharur and Habbazu said together. Irony glinted in the master thief’s eyes. Sharur nodded, ever so slightly, to show he understood. If Engibil detected what they had done, he would neither keep them safe nor hold harm away from them. He would be far more likely to put them in danger and bring harm down upon them.

  Gulal’s voice came from upstairs: “Who is it, Ningal?”

  “A customer of Father’s and his friend, Mother,” Ningal answered. Strictly speaking, that was true, though what Sharur purposed buying from Dimgalabzu was Ningal herself. The words also gave Sharur and Habbazu the chance to slip out of Dimgalabzu’s house unnoticed by anyone but Ningal. She nodded to them both as they left.

  While they were making their way up the Street of Smiths toward the northern gate of Gibil, Habbazu said, “That is indeed a fine woman you have as your intended. Not only is she good to look on, she has sharp wits as well. Over the years, you will come to value the second more than the first.”

  Sharur made what he thought was a polite, noncommittal noise.

  It must have been neither so polite nor so noncommittal as he had thought, for Habbazu burst into raucous laughter. “You think her wits will not matter so very much. You think on how she will look the night of her wedding, when you couple with her for the first time. You think of the pleasure your prong will know. Now, I have nothing against the pleasures of the prong—believe me when I tell you this is true. But believe me also when I tell you the pleasure you take in a woman’s good looks fades far faster than the pleasure you take in her good sense. I have more years than you; I know whereof I speak.”

  Sharur considered the marriage between his father and his mother. Betsilim had been a beautiful young woman, nor had the years robbed her too badly. But Ereshguna relied on her now in ways he surely had not when she was younger. That was not because he had lost capacity, but because he had come to respect hers. Thoughtfully, Sharur said, “You may be right.”

  “Ha!” Habbazu said in surprise, and clapped him on the back. “I did not look for you to admit even so much.” Side by side, they walked on toward the gate.

  Men came south from the fighting as Sharur and Habbazu walked north toward it. Some led dour prisoners who would become slaves, as Sharur had done a few days before. Some were hurt themselves, too badly to let them keep fighting but not so badly as to keep them off their legs.

  “No, no big fights the last couple of days,” one of the latter said. His right arm was bound tightly against his chest. When Sharur asked him how he had been injured, he looked sheepish. “How, friend? I tripped over a spearshaft in camp and came down on this wrist, which broke. But when I get into Gibil”—he winked—“I shall tell them what a hero I was.”

  “It is good,” Sharur said, laughing. With a wave of his good arm, the man with the broken wrist trudged on toward the city.

  Habbazu said, “It is good indeed. If we return to the army before it fights another great fight, no one can possibly blame us for having been gone a few days.”

  “You speak the truth,” Sharur said. Lowering his voice, he continued, “Nor has there been any great hue and cry coming up the road from behind us. I take this to mean either that your theft has gone undiscovered or that, it having been discovered, the priests know not in which direction to search.”

  “Either of those would suit me well enough,” Habbazu replied. “Better that the theft go undiscovered, of course, but not tracing it to me would do—will do.”

  They reached the Gibli encampment the next morning. “Good you have returned, my son,” Ereshguna said. “Good you remain in the city no longer. The Imhursagut regain their insolence; Enimhursag regains his arrogance. They will, I think, soon come forth in battle once more.”

  “When they do, we shall defeat them,” Sharur said confidently. He gestured; at his urging, Ereshguna and Tupsharru put their heads close to his. He went on in a whisper, and an oblique whisper at that, “Good also we went down to the city. We accomplished all that we hoped to accomplish. Duabzu the Imhursaggi captive is in Ushurikti’s hands. He will bring a good price or a good ransom. And ...” His voice trailed away. Some things he preferred not to say, even obliquely.

  Tupsharru looked puzzled for a moment. Ereshguna did not. He asked, “And is it with you?” For obliquity, that was hard to match. Sharur shook his head. Tupsharru suddenly grunted, realizing what his father
and brother had to be talking about. Ereshguna asked, “Where have you put it, then?”

  Sharur hesitated. Every merchant’s instinct in him screamed that that had to remain as secret as it could. He glanced over at Habbazu. The master thief’s face bore no expression whatever. Sharur understood what that meant: Habbazu did not want the secret spread more widely, either.

  Gently, Ereshguna said, “The Imhursagut, as I told you, will soon come forth in battle once more. May the gods decree otherwise, but, if you should fall, my son, and if Burrapi the Zuabi mercenary should also fall, who then would know where it is?”

  “Ah,” Sharur said. He glanced over at Habbazu again. Almost imperceptibly, Habbazu nodded. Despite that nod, Sharur revealed as little as he could: “Ningal the daughter of Dimgalabzu would know.”

  “Would she indeed?” Ereshguna murmured. “Would she indeed? But not Gulal, her mother? Not the slaves-of the household?”

  “No, not Gulal, her mother,” Sharur said. “Not the slaves of the household, either.”

  Tupsharru grunted again. “Burrapi the Zuabi mercenary!” he exclaimed. ‘‘Servants of Kimash the lugal were here the other day, asking about Burrapi the Zuabi mercenary. Since he was not with us, since we could not produce him, they were easily satisfied, and soon returned to the lugal’s pavilion.”

  “Kimash and his men are no doubt curious to learn whether Burrapi the Zuabi mercenary and Habbazu the Zuabi master thief are by chance the same man,” Ereshguna said.

  “What an absurd idea,” Habbazu said indignantly. Sharur, Ereshguna, and Tupsharru all laughed.

  Tupsharru said, “If it please the Zuabi mercenary, he might now return to his native city, whither we would send him no small reward.”

  Habbazu shook his head. “So long as I may do so, I would sooner stay. What we have done does not affect you only. It affects my god, it affects my city, it affects me.”

  “What you say does not dishonor you, nor your city, nor your god,” Ereshguna said. Habbazu bowed. Sharur noted what neither his father nor the thief seemed to see: that Habbazu had named Enzuabu first, then Zuabu, with himself last, while Ereshguna, a Gibli to the core, reversed the thief’s order.