by Brad Geagley
The young man lustily thrust and jabbed into the empty air, shouting and grunting. In his mind, he was slicing to pieces the man who had humiliated him by seizing his spear and breaking it in two. He could still hear the roars of laughter when his fellow guards learned how easily Semerket had disarmed him. Worse, they had told him that he must pay for a new spear out of his own wages—a whole month’s worth!
Seething with shame, he vowed to never again be caught so unprepared. He would perfect his swordplay, so that the next time he met with the surly, black-eyed Egyptian, he would be ready. With every thrust he made into the empty air, with every slashing cut, he imagined Semerket skewered and bleeding before him. Soon the sweat ran from the young man in rivulets, soaking his tunic.
His hatred was hotter than the overhead sun bleaching the street to bone. Consumed by his need for revenge, the lad was completely unaware of the stranger who watched him from a nearby alleyway. As the youth whirled and feinted at his imaginary foe, his watcher moved from the shadows to stand at the lintel of Menef’s gate. The clerk in the sentry house saw him, however, and frantically attempted to signal the young guard, to warn him of the stranger’s approach.
“What—?” the young man said, puzzled by the clerk’s grimaces. He leaned on his sword, and wiped the sweat from his forehead.
“Behind you!”
A tone in the clerk’s voice made the young man spin around in panic, panting for breath. The man whom he had fought so furiously in his imagination now stood directly before him—and, worse, he carried a long, wicked spear in his hands. To his shame, the young man felt his bowels turning to water.
“Have you…” the young guard began, but his voice failed. “Have you come to kill me?”
“What?” Semerket said, surprised. “Of course not.”
“W-why have you come here, then?” The lad’s voice was still very faint. “With that?” He pointed to the spear.
“I mean to give it to you.” The lad flinched when Semerket held out the spear for him to take. “I shouldn’t have broken yours yesterday. I apologize.”
Clearly dumbfounded, the young man reluctantly reached forward to take the spear into his hands. The instant he felt its weight and heft, he knew it to be of superb workmanship, better than any the legation had issued him.
“All the same,” Semerket continued, “you shouldn’t have struck my friend like you did. He’s too old for such treatment. You could have killed him.”
For some reason, perhaps because of the man’s calm voice, the lad felt suddenly ashamed of himself. “They told me to make sure he didn’t bother the ambassador,” he muttered.
“Well, you’ll find there are different ways of obeying orders. It’s like hunting a hippo or a hare, isn’t it?”
The lad looked at him, confused. “What?”
“Kem-weset is just an old hare. A little prod to his backside with the tip of your spear, and he’d have scooted away quick enough. But you went at him as if he were a hippo. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
“I suppose so,” mumbled the lad. He lifted the spear, testing its weight and balance. “But—to bring me this spear…Why did you do it?”
“I was a guard once myself, and young. I remember how they’d make us pay if anything happened to our weapons.”
“You were a guard?”
Semerket nodded. “On a caravan, yes.”
The young man’s mix of feelings played upon his face, one trumping the next in rapid succession. His hatred for Semerket had entirely dissipated, replaced finally by interest. “Well,” the lad was nevertheless awkward, “thanks.”
Semerket looked over to the clerk still staring wide-eyed in the sentry house. “You’d better tell your friend that I’m not here to kill you. In fact, I’m actually here to ask some questions.”
The young guard’s eyes filmed with suspicion. “Is that the reason you gave me the spear?”
“The spear is yours, in any case.”
“Menef’s not here. He stayed at the palace last night.”
“I’d rather speak to you, if you don’t mind—and your friend in the shack over there.”
The young guard was silent for a moment, as if inwardly debating his answer. “Then it depends…”
“On what?”
“What it is you want to ask.”
“YES…YES,” said the clerk in the sentry house, whose name was Nes-Amun. “She was as beautiful as you say—for a serving maid, I suppose. But that didn’t mean she was very accommodating. Besides, she was a bit older than I like my women.”
Semerket resisted the impulse to knock the clerk from his stool. He did not care for the hoarseness that crept into Nes-Amun’s voice when, after much prodding, he at last remembered Naia. But the pimply-faced youth had worked at the legation for over two years and remembered many of the indentured servants who had come from Egypt with Menef. So Semerket was forced to endure his unpleasant words and character. “Yes, she was here—and the boy, too—and I can tell you this even though I’m charged with remembering only those who still work here.”
“Can you remember what happened to them?”
Nes-Amun shook his head. “We get so many servants. They arrive with every caravan, hordes of them. Half of Egypt must be here by now—particularly after the conspiracy against old Ramses last year.”
“Are they all sent to Menef?”
Nes-Amun nodded indifferently. “It’s his right to dispense with them as he sees fit.”
“Where does he send them?”
“Oh, some go to his friends, of course, if the servants are intelligent or good-looking. Most of the time he sends them on to Eshnunna.”
“Who?”
Nes-Amun again emitted a high mirthless cackle. “It’s not a ‘who,’ it’s a ‘where.’ Eshnunna is the town where Babylon’s slave market is, everybody knows that, about six leagues to the northeast of here.”
“He sells their contracts to the slave traders?” Semerket felt the blood draining from his face.
“And a nice profit he makes, too.” Nes-Amun was like so many of the clerks that Semerket had known back in Egypt, who took the first opportunity to snipe enviously at their masters behind their backs. “He gets at least thirty to forty deben of silver for each one. You’d better believe he’ll go home to Egypt a richer man than when he came, the lucky sod.”
If Naia and Rami had indeed been given over to the slave traders, they might have been sold anywhere in Babylonia—even beyond its borders. How was he to find them? The city in its immensity was bad enough; was he now required to search an entire nation, as well? Then he remembered Elibar’s words to him, saying that Rami had been attacked somewhere in the northwest outskirts of Babylon, between the two rivers. His heart calmed a bit.
“Rami was at a plantation,” he said, “somewhere to the northwest, outside Babylon’s walls. Have you any idea if Menef knows anyone in that area?”
“Menef knows many people.”
“Do you believe, then, that they were most likely sent to the slave market?”
Nes-Amun shrugged, scratching at the pustules on his face. “How should I know? You really must ask Menef these things.”
“I will.”
Nes-Amun unsuccessfully stifled a sardonic laugh. “If he’ll receive you,” he said. “Which I doubt very much; he doesn’t see just anybody. I should know, shouldn’t I, since I have the say of who comes and goes through these gates.” He preened importantly.
Semerket did not tell Nes-Amun that he was Pharaoh’s special envoy to King Kutir and therefore outranked the ambassador. Let these youths continue to think of him as an ordinary Egyptian citizen, attempting to find his unfortunate wife. He rose from his stool, feeling tired; Nes-Amun’s answers had suddenly widened the scope of his investigation radically.
Semerket nodded to the young guard, who sat in the corner of the shed, carefully sharpening the blade of his new spear. “Enjoy the spear,” he said to the lad in farewell. “But first learn
the difference between a hippo and a hare, eh?”
The young guard smiled, and nodded.
BACK AT THE HOSTEL, Semerket approached one of his priestly hosts and asked if the inn could provide him with quick transport to Eshnunna. The moment his words were out of his mouth, the priest’s eyes grew bright.
“Does the Egyptian lord wish a slave girl to warm his bed tonight?” he asked with a leer.
“Thank you, no.”
“Well, then, perhaps a boy. What’s a piece of mutton, then, without the bone, eh?”
Semerket held up his hand, interrupting the fellow. “I’ve no wish for a boy, either. Only a carry chair with running bearers. A chariot would be better, if you have one. I’ll pay for its rental, of course.”
It happened that the inn possessed its own chariot with a driver and that it would be the god Marduk’s pleasure to bestow the equipage on him for the day.
“You vouch for its quickness?”
“Oh, yes, my lord. The horses are very fleet, and the chariot is practically weightless—constructed from river reeds!”
Semerket waited outside in the broiling sun for the chariot to appear. The grooms brought the vehicle around from the stables, its two cream-colored horses stepping high. The driver, though bowing his head to Semerket, never let go of the reins, and it was all he could do to keep the horses steady while Semerket climbed aboard.
With Semerket standing beside him, the driver eased the chariot into the Processional Way. As usual, the avenue overflowed with pedestrians, sedan chairs, and delivery wagons, making the going very slow indeed. Some long moments later, they came to the Damkina Gate, named for the goddess-mother of Bel-Marduk, located at the northeastern juncture of the city walls. Semerket informed the Elamite guards of his desire to go to the slave yards in Eshnunna. They checked his name from an official list of persons watched by the king, all the while making lubricious conjectures as to why he wanted to go there. In the end, the Elamites allowed them to pass, and the chariot and the team were at last on the road heading northeast. The flat river plain stretched before them, wavy with plumes of heat, and the sky was a colorless hue. Because it was full noon, there was little traffic to impede them, save for a few Elamite squadrons patrolling the river valley. Most people had sensibly gone indoors to avoid the worst of the sun’s heat.
“Hold on, lord,” muttered the driver.
Semerket clung to the chariot’s reed frame and braced his sandaled feet on its woven floor. The driver spoke in a low voice to his steeds, though Semerket could not catch what he said. The horses touched their noses together, as if enjoying a conspiracy, and whinnied. Then Semerket felt the wheels leave the ground…
Semerket heard himself cry out in shrill terror, hardly knowing if his feet still touched the chariot. The horses cut directly across the plain, heedless of stones and boulders, so that at any moment Semerket thought the wheels might fly to pieces. No matter how hard he thumped on the driver’s back with his fists—during those few times he dared to let loose a hand from the chariot frame—the man refused to acknowledge his shouts and blows. All Semerket could do, finally, was to hang on and pray to all the Egyptian gods to preserve his life.
Within a single measure of the water clock they saw the low walls of Eshnunna rising from the plain, and in another few minutes they were through its gates. When he was at last able to leap to the ground, cursing foully, Semerket reeled like a drunken sailor, unable to find his balance. As he collected himself, the driver calmly led the frothing horses to a nearby stable, telling Semerket that when he wished to return to Babylon, he could find him there.
When at last he could walk again, Semerket took a quick survey of the small town. It was essentially a village of low-slung barracks, used to house the ever-changing multitudes of newly arrived slaves. The Elamite invasion had swelled the inventory to bursting, and armed guards oversaw the vast yards where the slaves congregated. Semerket was surprised to see the complacent expressions on most of their faces; he had prepared himself for their miserable wails and cries of grief, but the slaves seemed content with their lot, not at all resentful of the guards. Nearby, he saw the raised stages on which the slave brokers exhibited their merchandise to prospective buyers. Painted signs posted on palm trunks advertised upcoming auctions. “Strong, healthy males from Subartu!” proclaimed one. “Fine girls of quality from Lullu, guaranteed none above fifteen!” said another.
Apparently, the brokers held their auctions on only two days of the week, and this was not one of them. The narrow streets were therefore empty save for the occasional businessman, and Semerket was able to traverse the town quickly to where the brokers made their homes.
The brokers, it happened, were a tight community of sharp professionals, each knowing his rivals’ business intimately. Semerket had only to ask one of them to discover the identity of that broker who held the monopoly on Egyptian slaves. The man’s name was Lugal, and he was in the midst of his midafternoon’s rest when Semerket appeared at his door. Despite the interruption, he was glad to rise from his cushions, eager to do a little business. Like most Babylonians of a certain age, he was broad-shouldered and broad-bellied. He was not bearded, however, and, in fact, he had shaved the entirety of his body. The slaves who came there from barbaric countries were often crawling with lice, he explained. It was better to remain bald and hairless, since in the course of his business day he had to closely examine all the new arrivals. Semerket resisted an almost instant impulse to scratch himself.
Lugal called loudly for some beer. A servant brought a large bowl, with two flexible reeds, and he and Semerket sat companionably together in the room’s center. The slave merchant’s welcoming smile became a trifle fixed, however, when Semerket told him he had no wish to purchase a pretty girl—or a boy, thank you—but merely wanted to ask some questions regarding some of the merchant’s old inventory.
“Of course, I’ll be glad to pay you for your time,” added Semerket, “for you’re a man of business, and I would not expect something for nothing.”
“Well, then,” said Lugal expansively, patting his fat stomach as if it were a friendly dog, “you’re a gentleman who commands my attention. How can I help you?”
Semerket explained how he sought his wife and friend, relating to Lugal how Naia had been married to one of those who conspired against Ramses III, while Rami was implicated in the looting of royal tombs. Lugal listened wide-eyed, as he would to a storyteller declaiming on the street corner, even applauding at the conclusion of Semerket’s narrative.
“Stranger,” he said, “put away your gold. Your tale is payment enough. Nothing in life is better than a good story, and a true one at that.”
“Then you’ll help me find them?”
“If I can, of course,” said Lugal. “But our records are not always as accurate as we’d like. Sometimes the slaves come to us with the new names given them by their owners, and that’s what we enter into our accounts. But take heart,” he added, seeing Semerket’s suddenly crestfallen expression, “if your Naia is as beautiful as you’ve described, I’m sure I’ll remember her—if she came through here, that is.”
“Is Menef in the habit of renaming his slaves?”
“Luckily he can’t be bothered—another thing to be hopeful about. Come!”
Lugal led Semerket to a low building across the courtyard. Baskets full of clay tablets lined its myriad shelves. Lugal explained that he inventoried his sales by date, for taxation purposes, and that a detailed description existed for each slave that he sold.
Semerket gave him the approximate times that Naia might have left Menef’s estate, and Lugal led him to those shelves where they might find the appropriate clay records. Together they went through each tablet, searching for a name or at least an indication of nationality among the hundreds of slaves that Lugal had bought and sold during that time.
As Semerket began to read, he saw that the trader entered each slave’s name onto the clay, along with their age and natio
nality or tribe. If the sale were being made on behalf of another, with Lugal acting only as agent for the seller, that too was noted.
Semerket exclaimed at the detail of the documents.
“I have to do it, friend,” Lugal said. “Slaves have the rights of law on their side, you know, and if they’re clever they can easily win back their freedom. Some people actually indenture themselves to us, if they can’t find work or have to flee their creditors. There’s no shame in being a slave in Babylonia. Most of the time it’s just a temporary condition—a bit of hard luck to endure.”
Semerket was merely glad the reports were so detailed, for it made sifting through them a quick chore. Semerket discovered that, by far, the majority of Egyptians sent to Babylon were male—which made sense, when he thought about it, since males were more likely to become embroiled in the kinds of crimes that resulted in banishment. The few records of female Egyptian slaves he found did not correspond to Naia’s age or general description—which both upset and relieved him. Quite a number of records were of Egyptian lads who might have been Rami, though none bore his name. Lugal was able to tell him, however, that none of the Egyptians he had sold had been sent to any plantation northwest of Babylon.