by Brad Geagley
“It was the king, then, who asked me. Who can say? It was many weeks ago, and hard to recall.” A crafty look crept across the ambassador’s face upon those words. “But surely, now that your wife has been recovered, aren’t we really arguing over nothing?”
Damn Aneku and her lies! Still wishing to protect the former Ishtaritu, however, Semerket held his tongue.
Sensing Semerket’s indecision, Menef became all unctuousness. “I feel we’ve started badly here, my lord, first outside the embassy—where you really should have made yourself known to me—and now tonight at the palace. If you will permit me, I’ll make it up to you. Would you please be my guest tonight at an entertainment?”
“I’m hardly inclined—”
“But it’s a most extraordinary entertainment, the singer Nidaba. Perhaps you’ve heard of her?”
“Nidaba?” Semerket pricked up his ears.
“Yes, my lord, an extraordinary woman, a most accomplished singer. They say hers is the greatest voice in the world. Will you come? Will you allow me to demonstrate my hospitality to my most honored guest?”
Semerket hesitated. He had wanted to explore this singer’s house since Senmut and Wia had mentioned it to him earlier. “Yes,” he said abruptly. “I’ll come.”
“And, of course, you must share my chair.” Menef smiled toothily.
Semerket instantly remembered the ostentatious equipage in which the ambassador traveled, with its forty liveried bearers. He shuddered.
“If I must,” he said.
NIDABA’S HOUSE WAS NEAR the old quarter, at the ancient center of Babylon. Her concierge, a Syrian clad in the florid garments of his race, flung open the gates and hurried over to the grotesque carry chair and its forty bearers. He and Menef fell into each other’s arms. When they had unclasped, the Syrian’s gaze shifted almost imperceptibly to Semerket. “My. Isn’t the map of the Nile all over your face.”
Menef made the introductions.
“ ‘Special envoy from the Pharaoh’?” murmured the man, reaching out to finger Semerket’s falcon badge. “Wait until she feasts her eyes on this.” He scanned the courtyard for available seats. “Well, we’d better hide you far away, hadn’t we? Otherwise this little trinket will surely be in her treasure box before morning.”
The concierge, generously tipped by Menef, led them to a grouping of couches at the edge of the courtyard. The Asp melted discreetly away, to watch over them from the shadows. Just as Semerket and Menef became comfortable, a thin, cringing fellow wrapped in an enormous robe crept furtively to their divan.
“Pardon me, good lords,” he said, opening his robe slightly. Stuffed into its interior pockets were a variety of clay tablets and rolled papyri. “Would the gentlemen be interested in a letter of transit to Nineveh, perhaps, signed by the vizier himself?”
“Do I look like a fugitive to you?” asked Menef irritably.
“Joppa, then? Ilium?”
“Go away, you rogue.”
“Perhaps you have one to sell? I pay good gold for them.” He jingled his leather purse significantly.
The sudden appearance of the Asp cut short the man’s wheedling. One glance at the Asp’s bared yellow teeth was all it took to send the man fleeing across the courtyard. Semerket noticed that many such peddlers filled the rooms. He remembered old Wia’s saying to him that at Nidaba’s house one could buy the kinds of things not sold in the regular marketplace.
Semerket turned abruptly to Menef. “I wonder how Nidaba can flourish like this. Is she perhaps a member of this gagu I’ve heard so much about?”
Menef turned an incredulous eye on him. “Let’s just say she’s not the sort of woman the gagu would admit and leave it at that.”
But Semerket could never leave anything “at that” and opened his mouth to demand the reason. Just then, however, a voice pealed richly from the upstairs gallery. “Hello, my darlings!”
Nidaba stood behind the balustrade, her arms flung wide in greeting. The men abandoned their gambling games in the back rooms to come running into the courtyard. Those who sat in divans rose to their feet, cheering loudly, intoning her name as though she were a goddess.
Nidaba descended the stairway one step at a time, spying her favorites among the crowd, calling out warmly to them. “How are you, sweetheart? Oh, marvelous!…There you are, my spirit, safe home at last! I was fantastically worried!” Her speaking voice was indeed lovely, Semerket admitted, a low, simmering tenor. As Nidaba paused on the final step, one of her waiting women gave her the leash fastened to a pet cheetah. Nidaba was now ready to circulate.
Semerket sat back down on the divan, allowing a serving maid to refill his bowl of beer. He amused himself by looking about the villa, staring into the distant rooms. He watched as documents were produced and examined, as gold and silver exchanged hands, as kisses were traded to seal pacts.
Semerket turned to gaze again into the courtyard, only to realize that he now stared directly into the face of the cheetah. With a strangled cry, Semerket leapt back against the cushions. The big cat took a few uncertain steps backward, straining to hide behind the skirts of her mistress.
Collecting himself, Semerket raised his head to stare into the eyes of Nidaba.
“Don’t be afraid of Inanna,” she said in her low, sultry voice. “She’s really quite docile.”
“I…I was taken by surprise,” Semerket stammered, rising to his feet.
He noted that Nidaba was far from the voluptuous odalisque she appeared from afar, being in fact rather reedy. She was very tall for a woman, and her robes of rare silk picked out her angular form. Semerket noticed that she had painted her face to create a countenance that might not even have existed in real life, a masterpiece of subtle shadings of ocher and cochineal, highlighted by powdered fish scales.
“Such black eyes,” Nidaba crooned, staring at him. “I’ve never seen blacker. Do they match your heart?”
It was the kind of question deserving the kind of witty riposte he had always been incapable of producing quickly. “I—I don’t know,” Semerket stammered out.
As her concierge had done, she reached out to fondle the falcon badge that hung from his neck. Nidaba’s eyes became full of acquisitive greed. “You’ve no idea what I would do to possess that,” she said, her voice full of sordid insinuation. “You’ll give it to me as a gift, no? To seal our friendship?”
“No.”
Nidaba laughed regretfully. She let the badge go, and it fell heavily to his chest. To his intense relief, she began to turn away. She paused, however, and spoke to him from over a bare shoulder. “You are still welcome in my house, Semerket, though you have been very cruel to me. But I have heard others speak well of you, and I am of a forgiving nature.”
Raised voices suddenly intruded from the gardens, preventing Semerket from asking who had spoken well of him. The concierge broke through the horde of men surrounding Nidaba to whisper urgently into her ear. The word “Elamites!” was murmured and Nidaba threw a warning glance around the courtyard.
The Dark Heads in the back rooms and courtyard instantly faded away, some even slipping over the walls into the streets behind the villa. Such behavior confirmed what Semerket had suspected, that Nidaba’s house was a hub of Dark Head resistance.
A group of drunken Elamite officers suddenly burst into the courtyard, laughing loudly. Nidaba strode leisurely toward them, smiling seductively, the cheetah’s leash in hand. Semerket noticed with satisfaction how a couple of the Elamite officers hung back as the cat approached.
“Captain Khutran!” Nidaba trilled to their leader, dressed in glittering armor of overlapping metal discs. “This is a surprise.”
“Not an unpleasant one, I hope!” he brayed. Khutran clung to the shoulders of his companions, so drunk he could barely stand.
“You seem very pleased with yourselves tonight,” Nidaba purred to the officers. “Have you something to celebrate, then?”
One of the captains spoke up, “Khutran here has be
en promoted—and by the king himself, no less! He’s now colonel of the garrison forces!”
Semerket grunted to himself, satisfied. Already Kutir had replaced Shepak. He wondered if his friend had been told the reason for his reassignment, and hoped that Shepak realized that it brought with it the promise of survival.
“So we thought,” Khutran shouted, “screw any Isin attack! Screw the Babylonians! Let’s go over to Nidaba’s and hear some love songs tonight, for we’re all in a lusty mood!” He reached to pull Nidaba toward him, but she sidestepped his drunken lunge. A warning rattle issued from deep inside the cheetah’s throat.
“I’ve another song in mind,” answered Nidaba, “to mark the occasion of my lord Khutran’s promotion.”
The concierge appeared to escort the Elamites to their seats. With their armor rattling loudly, the soldiers finally sat. A hush fell over the crowd, and servants went about the villa extinguishing the lamps, giving many who hid in the back rooms another chance to escape. Only the dais at the center of the courtyard remained lit by lanterns, shining down on a hassock upholstered in rich purple.
A palpable excitement charged the crowd when a serving woman brought Nidaba a lyre. As the crowd quieted, Nidaba tuned the strings of her instrument, taking her seat. Then Nidaba plucked a fierce, loud note, and her voice rang out in the night air—a thing of such vitality and power that Semerket was hard-pressed to believe it came from a human.
Mistress of Holy Ur am I—
This is my House!
Where good food is not eaten anymore
Where good drink is not drunk anymore…
Semerket heard Menef gasp. “What audacity—she sings ‘The Lament’!”
Semerket had no idea what the ambassador meant, but as he listened it became clear how daring Nidaba’s choice of song was, particularly because she sang her defiance of Elam’s rule directly to Elamite officers.
My house,
Where good chairs are not sat in
My house,
Where good beds are not lain in
My house,
In which I, its mistress, dwell no more…
Nidaba’s voice throbbed with grief.
Let me go into my house, let me go in,
Let me lie down!
Its sleep was sweet,
Its beds were soft,
Its walls were strong,
Let me go into my house!
Beside him, in other chairs and divans, Semerket heard the muffled sobs of the listeners, and glanced in the direction of the Elamites to gauge their reaction. They, too, began to screw up their faces and dab at their eyes. Soon they were bawling as loudly as the other guests. The impact of Nidaba’s incredible voice was such that even Semerket felt his eyes begin to overfill.
After the recitation of many stanzas Nidaba finished, her voice rising in even more full-throated misery, scarring the night with its melancholy:
Alas my city! Alas my house!
Bitter are the wails of Ur
She has been ravaged
Her people scattered.
Nidaba stilled the strings with her hand, and her voice died away with them. She dropped her head as if she had no more strength to lift it. Then she rose quietly and left the dais, to disappear into a back room.
No one moved for a few moments. Servants again relit the lamps, and wine was brought. The guests stood gazing embarrassedly at one another, overcome by emotion. Then, gradually, they broke apart into groups. He could hear Menef’s gurgling voice: “Can you believe it? ‘The Lament!’ Do you think they suspected?”
Semerket took the opportunity to slip away from the courtyard and into the gardens. Sounds of the night floated to him; crickets chirped, an owl hooted in a tall palm, while a vole ducked for cover in the ivy at his feet. Then a different sound altogether came to him from the rear of the villa. A far gate opened, and with it came the low murmur of feminine voices. One of them was Nidaba’s; after tonight’s performance, he was sure of it.
Picking his way through the dark, careful not to stumble on the vines crossing his path, he followed the voices to a rear courtyard. As he came nearer, he smelled the ammoniac reek of pack animals. A small donkey train had just arrived, stripped of their bells. Their hooves, he noticed, were wrapped in thick woolen cloths, preventing them from being heard on the streets.
Women were removing the donkey’s packs under Nidaba’s direction—members of the gagu, he thought. In a hushed voice, Nidaba told them to take their loads into the kitchen cellar. One of them, smaller than the others, staggered under a pack’s weight, and cried out softly when it dropped to the ground. Instantly, shiny chunks of black bitumen spilled out, clanging heavily across the tiles of the courtyard. The woman apologized in desperate whispers, looking nervously at Nidaba and then at a tall elderly woman who emerged from the shadows. Semerket had not seen her lurking there, and her instant appearance was almost shocking, as if she had conjured herself into being. Her dark robes were embroidered in mystic symbols, and atop her head was a tall crown of intricate workmanship that exaggerated her already impressive height.
Nidaba bent down to gather up the spilled bitumen herself, hoisting the sack almost effortlessly to her shoulders and disappearing down the cellar stairs. Emerging once more into the feeble torchlight, she led the older woman to the well, speaking with her in low tones. Semerket strained to hear. They spoke so quickly that he could comprehend only a fraction of what they said. But a single word caught his ear—his own name.
Their voices rose to a climax of fierce whispers, and then subsided. He leaned forward, hoping to hear more, but the women of the gagu took that moment to depart. In a moment, Semerket emerged from his hiding place. If she was startled to see him, Nidaba did not show it.
“You wouldn’t have been spying on me, would you?” she said.
He made no answer at first. His deliberate hush seemed at last to penetrate her indifferent facade and, for a moment, Nidaba’s face betrayed frenzied panic.
“Will you tell the Elamites?” she asked breathlessly.
“Tell them what? That you receive supplies of bitumen from the gagu? I’m sure they have more pressing concerns.”
Nidaba’s face visibly relaxed, but tensed again at his next words.
“I need to speak with the Heir of Isin,” he said bluntly.
She stopped. “What makes you think I know him?”
He looked at her with irony. “Do you really think I can’t guess what’s going on here? That this place—and you—are part of the resistance?”
She shook her head, dropping her eyes. “You’re mistaken. I cannot help you.”
“I’m not mistaken. Why can’t you help me? Did that woman forbid it just now?”
Her eyes flashed in the dark. “So you were spying on me.”
“I heard her say my name, and not in a friendly way.”
Nidaba made a vague gesture. “You should leave my house, Semerket. I’m sorry.”
He was silent. The set of her jaw told him he would get nothing more from her. He inclined his head to her, and kissed his fingertips. “Thank you for your hospitality this evening,” he said. “For all my life, I will be able to boast that I heard the great Nidaba sing in person.”
Semerket found Menef in the courtyard, and informed him that he was leaving. The ambassador made a great show of regret, but, strangely, did not offer his chair, nor did he suggest that one of his men accompany Semerket back to the hostel for his protection. His bodyguard, the Asp, was nowhere to be seen. Semerket was forced to set out into the dark streets alone, and hoped that he could remember the way back to his hostel.
Using the flames atop Etemenanki’s ramparts as his touchstone, he went west to the river where he expected to meet the Processional Way. From there it was a straight route back to his hostel. But again, Babylon’s twisting streets and the near total darkness served to confuse him utterly. Despite the suddenly chill air, he began to perspire. Soon he had to admit the truth to himself: he was l
ost. Semerket forced his thumping heart to calm itself. What was the worst thing that could happen? He would have to wait in some town square until first light, and then find his way back, that was all.
Ahead of him, barely visible in the starlight, he spied a well. His thirst suddenly powerful, he groped for its bucket and tossed it down into the water. The bucket’s splash was loud in the deserted square, and Semerket winced when he heard it. He pulled it up by its rope and cupped his hands to drink. As he bent over the bucket, he felt his falcon badge lightly strike its edge.
He raised his head at a distant footfall, so slight he might have imagined it. Semerket turned in the direction from which the sound came. His heart was beating so fiercely he could hear nothing but its own frantic pulse. He probed the dark with his eyes, trying to see something, anything.