“You have sworn your oath. I expect you to obey it when you return to the land of the Imhursagut,” he said to Nasibugashi and Duabzu. “Return to the land of the Imhursagut you shall. I set you free. I release you. No one shall make any claim on you. No one shall molest you. Go now, and return not to Gibil unless you should come as peaceful traders.”
The two Imhursagut left the establishment of Ushurikti the slave dealer, Nasibugashi walking straight and tall, Duabzu almost slinking after him. Duabzu was afraid. Duabzu, Sharur thought, had good reason to be afraid.
Ushurikti said, “Master merchant’s son, now I see why you have done as you have done. You have given Enimhursag poison hidden inside a date candied in honey; in freeing two men for him, you may have freed his city from him. I bow before your cleverness.” He suited action to word. “This, of course, does not mean I abandon my claim for compensation over what I might have expected to earn from the sale of these two men.”
“Of course,” Sharur said. “I expected nothing different.”
“You had better not have expected anything different.” Despite an unprepossessing, pudgy build, Ushurikti drew himself up to his full height. “Am I not also a Gibli, even as are you? Am I not also a merchant, even as are you?”
“You are a Gibli, even as I am. You are a merchant, even as I am.” Sharur clapped the slave dealer on the shoulder. “And together, you and I have this day struck no small blow for all Giblut.”
“May it be so,” Ushurikti said, “as long as I get my profit, too.”
A commotion in the street outside the house of Ereshguna made Sharur glance up from the tablet on which he was inscribing measures of barley received in exchange for some of the tin that had been stored in the pot where he’d hidden the Alashkurri cup. “Come on, you lug!” a man with a deep voice shouted. “Don’t think you can give me and my pal the slip, because we cursed well won’t let you! Now move, before something worse happens to you.”
A moment later, Mushezib, the guard captain on Sharur’s caravan to the Alashkurm Mountains, strode into the house of Ereshguna. With him came Harharu, the donkeymaster on that caravan. And jammed between them, like salt fish and lentils and sesame seeds between two rounds of flatbread, perforce came Habbazu the master thief.
Mushezib had hold of his right arm. Harharu had hold of his left arm. If he tried to escape, they would tear him in two, as a man at a feast might tear a leg of roasted duck in two.
“Here’s that lousy Zuabi wretch, master merchant’s son,” Mushezib boomed. “Harharu and I were drinking a quiet cup of beer together when the fellow came swaggering by, bold as you please. Harharu gets the credit for spotting him, because I didn’t. But I’m the one who jumped on the son of a thousand fathers, so I guess we ought to split the reward you promised.”
“I had almost given up looking for the thief, master merchant’s son,” Harharu said, “and then he strolled past my nose when I thought he must surely have gone back to Zuabu. I am glad I was able to help put him in your hands.”
Habbazu said not a word. He looked at Sharur with large, reproachful eyes. Sharur, for once in his life, had trouble finding words himself. He had offered the reward for Habbazu’s capture. He had offered the reward, and then he had forgotten about it. The men to whom he had offered it, though, they had remembered.
He saw only one way to disarm their suspicions, and that was to play along with them. “Well done,” he said. “Well done for being so faithful, well done for being so vigilant. I said I would reward you. Reward you I shall. I promised gold. Gold I shall give you, gold in equal measure.”
He found two rings, thin bands of gold. Setting them on the scales, he discovered one was heavier than the other. He weighed the heavier one, then took it off the scales, set the lighter one on the pan in its place, and added tiny scraps of gold until they and the ring balanced the weights in the other pan. The heavier ring he gave to Harharu. The lighter ring and the gold scraps he gave to Mushezib.
“You are generous, master merchant’s son,” Harharu said, bowing.
“Truly you are generous,” Mushezib agreed. “But can we leave this wretch of a Zuabi with you now that we have gained our reward? He is liable to rape away all your stock in trade.”
“What good would it do him, when he has seen he cannot escape the vigilance of the Giblut?” Sharur said. “You may leave him here with me. I will tend to him as is most fitting.”
“Ha!” Mushezib said. “In that case, he’ll be sorry he was ever born.”
“The master merchant’s son has not explained his purposes to us,” Harharu pointed out.
“He doesn’t need to explain them to me. I can figure them out for myself,” Mushezib said. After giving Habbazu the sort of look he would have given to offal he needed to wipe from the soles of his sandals, he strode out of the house of Ereshguna. By his manner, he might have been a great captain who had just led the Gibli army to victory against Imhursag, not a guard captain who had just laid hands on a single thief.
Having dealt with donkeys for so many years, Harharu was less confident he could immediately understand everything that went on around him. He let go of Habbazu and said, “I hope our capturing the thief after so long a time still suits your purposes, master merchant’s son.”
“Did it not, would I have given you gold?” Sharur returned. “Did it not, would I have set a ring of precious metal on your finger?”
“I am not so quick to judge purposes as my comrade,” Harharu said. “Whatever yours may be, I pray they prosper.” He bowed to Sharur and followed Mushezib out onto the Street of Smiths.
Habbazu turned his dark gaze on Sharur. Sharur coughed and looked away and drummed his fingers on his thigh and did everything else he could to convey without words how embarrassed he was. Habbazu, now, Habbazu had words: “In a way, learning how greatly I am desired is heartening, but only in a way. Were you a beautiful woman seeking me so, I should have come closer to finding it worthwhile. Even then, though, having my arms all but pulled from their sockets would be no small sacrifice.”
“I set the men seeking you long before you stole the thing from the place wherein it was kept,” Sharur said, speaking obliquely from long habit. “When they did not find you, the thought in my mind was that they would not and could not find you, and so I did not call them off. This was an error on my part. I see as much now, and I am sorry for it.”
“I have heard few apologies in my life,” Habbazu said, “and I have heard fewer apologies still that sound as if those who make them speak from the heart, not from the tongue alone. Now I press new syllables into the clay tablet of my memory.”
“Master thief, you are gracious. Habbazu, you are generous,” Sharur said. “I shall spread the word throughout the city that you are to be hunted no more. I shall spread the word to caravan guards and donkey handlers that you are to be left alone.”
“I might wish you had done this sooner. I do wish you had done this sooner,” Habbazu said. “Still, that you do it at all speaks well of you.” He paused. “I hope your noising my name abroad in the city does not bring me to the notice of the lugal. I hope your speaking of me to caravan guards and- donkey handlers does not bring me to the notice of the temple and the god.”
“You need not fear the lugal,” Sharur said. “Now that the deed is done, he is glad it is done. As for the temple and the god...” He told of letting Kimash know that Engibil had stored a great part of his power as the gods of the Alashkurrut had stored a great part of theirs.
“Is this so?” Habbazu murmured. “Is it so. indeed? I did not hear the gods of the Alashkurrut speak thus in any dream I dreamt. And yet... and yet it makes sense that it should be so, eh? If some gods do thus, should not all gods do likewise?”
“So it would seem,” Sharur replied. “So I believe. But of proof I have none.”
“If the gods of the Alashkurrut do thus and Engibil does likewise, would it not follow that Enimhursag also does likewise?” Habbazu said. Seeing Sharu
r’s predatory smile, the master thief grinned back, a grin that made him look very much like a pretematurally clever monkey. Slowly, that grin faded, to be replaced by a thoughtful expression. “And would it not follow that Enzuabu also does likewise?”
Sharur stepped forward and set a hand on Habbazu’s shoulder. “I congratulate you, my friend. Now you have become more surely a Gibli for the rest of your life than ever you were before. If you enter into Zuabu with this thought in your mind, if Enzuabu sees this thought in your mind as you enter into Zuabu, what will become of you?” He had sent Nasibugashi and Duabzu toward Imhursag with this thought in their minds and without a qualm in his own. Them he had used as weapons against Enimhursag, as he had used a sword in the recent fighting against the god of the Imhursagut. Habbazu was not merely a weapon. Habbazu had become an ally and, in an odd way, a friend.
“What will become of me?” the Zuabi repeated. “Less than you think, master merchant’s son. Do you not know, do you not remember, that the god of Zuabu is also the god of thieves? Do you not think that the god of thieves is able to protect his own from those who would steal it?”
“A point,” Sharur admitted. “Surely a point. And yet, how great a point? Is he able to protect his own from those who would steal provided that they are many and diligent and seek their goal for generations if need be?”
Habbazu’s mobile eyebrows sprang upwards. “I do not know. I wonder if Enzuabu would know. Being a god, he would also be sure he could defeat any one man, and he would be right in being sure. But can he defeat, can he deceive, all men over all time? Would such a thought even cross his mind? I do not know.”
“Being a god, he is sure to be arrogant,” Sharur said. “Having held so much power for so long, gods think they shall easily hold all power forever. Certain potsherds that have been swept away should teach them otherwise.”
“Hmm,” Habbazu said. “Perhaps I would do best to stay in Gibil after all—provided, of course, that you can keep these Gibli ruffians from assaulting me in the street while I pursue my lawful occasions.”
“You are a Zuabi master thief,” Sharur exclaimed. “How can you possibly pursue lawful occasions?”
Spoken in a different tone of voice, that would have been an insult. As it was, the two men grinned at each other. Habbazu said, “Whatever occasions I pursue, I shall now go and pursue them. Have I your gracious leave to do that— if, as I say, I am not to be manhandled the instant I show my face outside your door?”
“You have my gracious leave, certainly,” Sharur said. “Whether you prove to have Mushezib’s gracious leave, or Harharu’s, is liable to be a different question.”
“They took me by surprise, as you did earlier.” Habbazu looked annoyed at himself. “Now I know their faces. Now I know their voices. Now I know their movements, even if I spy them moving in a crowd. They shall not lay hands on me again, I assure you.”
“I have no doubt that you know your own affairs best,” Sharur said.
Habbazu nodded, walked out the door, and might as well have disappeared. It was indeed almost as if a demon had wrapped a cloak of invisibility around him. Sharur went to the doorway. He looked up the Street of Smiths. He did not see Habbazu. He looked down the Street of Smiths. He did not see Habbazu. If he did not see Habbazu, he did not think Mushezib and Harharu were likely to see Habbazu, either. He went back into the house of Ereshguna and incised fresh syllables on clay with his stylus, meticulously recording the weight of the gold he had given to the caravan guard and the donkeymaster. Whatever else happened, accounts had to balance.
“Accounts have to balance,” Dimgalabzu the smith said at the threshold to the house of Ereshguna. Behind him stood
Gulal, his wife, in a pleated shift of white linen, with a gold necklace round her neck, gold hoops in her ears, gold bracelets on her wrists, and gold rings on her fingers. Behind her stood Ningal, similarly dressed, similarly arrayed, with a scarf of filmy stuff draped over her head so that it hung down from either side and held in place by golden hairpins.
“Accounts have to balance,” Ereshguna agreed. Behind him stood Betsilim, his wife, in finery not identical to that of Gulal but conveying a like impression of prosperity. Behind her stood Tupsharru and Nanadirat, also richly dressed, excited grins on their faces. Behind his own brother and sister stood Sharur, a nervous grin on his face. Had he not stood there, had Ningal not come to the house of Ereshguna, all the gathering, all the finery, would have been pointless.
“And accounts do balance,” Dimgalabzu boomed. “The house of Ereshguna has duly paid to the house of Dimgalabzu the bride-price upon which the two houses agreed when we likewise agreed to the betrothal of the son of Ereshguna and the daughter of Dimgalabzu. In token of the due fulfillment of the said agreement, I offer to you, Ereshguna, your choice of these identical, fully executed contracts.” He held out a pair of clay tablets to Sharur’s father.
Ereshguna carefully examined the two tablets to make sure they were in fact identical. Dimgalabzu waited while the master merchant did so. He knew Ereshguna trusted him, but, in marriage as in any other business dealing, trust was no substitute for care and consideration.
“It is good,” Ereshguna declared after he had read both tablets through. As custom required when all was in order, he reached out with his left hand to set one tablet in Dimgalabzu’s right. That left each of the two men holding his copy of the marriage agreement in his right hand. Ereshguna held his up above his head. As Dimgalabzu did the same, Sharur’s father said, “May the omen likewise be good.”
“So may it be,” Dimgalabzu said.
“So may it be,” echoed Dimgalabzu’s wife and daughter.
“So may it be,” echoed Ereshguna’s wife and sons and daughter.
Sharur said, “Father, I know I am in your debt. Rest assured, I shall repay this debt as soon as may be.” Those were not words usually found in the marriage ritual, but they seemed to fit here. He had also learned from experience: he did not swear in Engibil’s name that he would repay the debt within any particular time, nor with goods gained in any particular fashion. He did add, “I hope trading up in the Alashkurru Mountains next travel season will be better than it was in the travel season just past.”
“It could hardly be worse,’’ Tupsharru exclaimed.
“I likewise hope it will be better,” Ereshguna said smoothly. “I hope the Alashkurrut will be as eager to trade with us as they have been in the past, and that they will now have every opportunity to do so.”
That was as harmless and as careful a way of saying that the great gods of the Alashkurrut would henceforth lack the power to prevent such trade as any Sharur could have imagined. Dimgalabzu looked shrewd. “This would have somewhat to do with the cup that was briefly in my house, would it not?”
“What cup could you mean?” Ereshguna sounded as innocent and as ignorant as if he were hearing for the first time that the world held such things as cups.
“What cup do you mean?” Gulal’s question, on the other hand, was as pointed as a serpent’s fang. Sharur realized Ningal had never told her mother about the Alashkurri cup. He realized Dimgalabzu had never told his wife about the Alashkurri cup. He realized Dimgalabzu would probably have several more sharp questions to answer after the wedding feast was over.
But that would be after the wedding feast was over. Betsilim took charge now with effortless ease: “Let us feast. Let us be merry. Let us celebrate at last the joining of our two houses, the joining so long expected and now at last come to pass.”
Gulal still looked unhappy. Gulal, in fact, looked sour as beer of the third quality, sour as date wine that had gone over into vinegar. But she would do nothing more than look sour now, not unless she wanted to make herself hateful before her husband and also hateful before the family into which her daughter was marrying. She knew better than that. She bided her time. Sharur was glad he was not Dimgalabzu. Dimgalabzu did not look so glad that he was Dimgalabzu.
Betsilim clapped her hand
s. Slaves began carrying in from the kitchen the feast they had prepared. One bore a large copper platter of roasted mutton, including such dainties as heart and liver and sweetbreads, eyes and tongue and brain. Dimgalabzu admired the platter as much as he did the meat piled high upon it. It was a product of his smithy, its use. a subtle compliment to him from the house of Ereshguna.
The Imhursaggi slave woman came out next, with loaves of bread set one beside another on a wickerwork tray. And such loaves they were!—not the usual flat, chewy bread made from barley flour, but soft and fluffy and baked from costly wheat, bread that would not have disgraced the lugal’s table. “That does look very fine,” Dimgalabzu said, patting his big belly in anticipation. “Very fine indeed. Ah, I see honey and sesame oil for dipping. Truly the house of Ereshguna stints not.”
Betsilim let out an indignant sniff at that. “The very idea!” she said. “If the house of Ereshguna stinted at the wedding of its eldest child, what would folk along the Street of Smiths say of us? They would say we were niggards. They would say we were misers. They would say we cared only for holding what was ours, and not for giving of what was ours when the time came to pass. They would say these things, and they would say them truly. We do not wish this, no indeed.”
“My husband meant no offense,” Gulal said, glaring at both Dimgalabzu and Betsilim. “My husband meant only praise.” She glared at Dimgalabzu once more. Sharur got the idea she enjoyed glaring at Dimgalabzu whenever she found the chance. For his own sake, he was glad Ningal had a more easy going disposition.
But Dimgalabzu would not take Ningal home with him once the wedding feast and ceremony were done. Ningal would stay in the house of Ereshguna. Sharur glanced over toward his intended bride. She was glancing over toward him at the same time. When their eyes met, they both looked down to the rammed-earth floor in embarrassment.
Betsilim, for her part, went from clouds to sun in the space of a couple of heartbeats. “I understood you, father of my son’s intended,” she said, smiling brightly. “Let me assure you, I took no offense.”
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