"Can I help you?" Gita asked.
"Is Shahla with you?" Laum asked. He was a tall man, well-built though not in a burly sort of way, and handsome like his daughter. He had always treated his daughter as though she were a possession. It was why Gita and Shahla had always gotten along despite the differences in their social situations.
Gita gave him a wistful smile.
"This is the last house Shahla would deign with her presence," Gita said. She did not add, 'even when she was still sane.'
"Who is at the door?" a slurred voice mumbled from where he had passed out face-down on the table.
"It's just Laum, Papa," Gita called, mindful not to speak too loudly or it would incite a beating. "Come to look for Shahla."
"Has he brought any drink with him," her father grumbled. "Tell him to come in and share a drink with a poor old man."
Gita gave Shahla's father an apologetic grimace.
"I have no drink with me now, friend," Laum spoke with the practiced ease of a tradesman used to using alcohol to lubricate a deal. "But if you would be so kind as to allow me to borrow your daughter, I shall send her back to you with vat of my finest mead."
"It will cost you two vats to have your way with her," her father's voice grew sharp and clear.
Gita turned pink with mortification. This, too, was one of the reasons she and Shahla had always gotten along. Laum, of course, did not skip a beat. Wealth had given him a veneer of respectability, but unlike Shahla's mother, who had been born into a family with position, Laum had worked his way up in the village hierarchy through his wit and ruthlessness.
"I just need her to help me find my wayward daughter," Laum said. "But to compensate you for the loss of her company on this fine rest day, I shall send her back not only with a vat of mead, but also a loaf of bread and block of cheese."
The bread and cheese, she knew, was for her. Everyone knew the only sustenance her father consumed was something which had been fermented, near-fermented, or the dregs from somebody else's attempts at fermentation.
"Go, then," her father's speech became slurred once more. "And be mindful she brings it back and does not sell it."
Gita darted back to skitter up the slender pole and retrieve the tattered brown cape Shahla had given to her after it had become too decrepit for the fashionable tradesman's daughter to be seen wearing in public. She hesitated, then grabbed her bow and spear. No matter when she found her friend, she would not come back here today until after her father passed out again. Let Laum deliver his promised bounty himself.
She shut the door behind her, mindful not to slam it and awaken her father who had already passed back out. Laum looked genuinely worried. The dawn had only recently risen and only the rats moved now through the rutted alley which served this little-used section of the village. She gestured for Laum to follow her before her father woke up and started making more embarrassing demands.
"Did she fight with her mother again?" Gita asked him.
"I don't know," Laum said. "When I checked in on her, her bed was empty."
"What time did you last see her?" Gita asked, worried. Why hadn't Laum begun the search sooner? "If slavers got her, they could be long gone by now."
"I don't know," Laum wore an expression of guilt. "Her mother and I fought yesterday. I did not come back until just before dawn. I checked in on Shahla first, before returning to my room. When I asked my wife about it, she said she had turned her out into the desert."
Gita bit her tongue rather than say something so outspoken as 'and whose house did you spend the night at?' It was none of her business. Shahla was not the only one in her household who was promiscuous.
"Mikhail does not reside in the village tonight to fly patrol," Gita said. "I shall awaken Pareesa and ask her to begin a search."
Laum grabbed her arm. "Please, Gita, don't. This is not the first time Shahla has spent the night out with one of the warriors. It's just … lately … the only one who asks to see her is the bastard who claims he fathered her child. Shahla has caused enough disgrace to my family without it being known she has begun to sleep around again."
"Did you check Dadbeh's house already?" Gita asked.
"I did," Laum said. His expression was fearful. "Dadbeh's father said she was not there. He is a big man."
Gita knew him. A lifetime of planting fields and rebuilding other people's levies had given Dadbeh's father a muscular physique that might rival Mikhail's, but he was also a gentle man, as solid as the earth he tilled. Laum must have given grievous insult to provoke the man into threatening him, most likely over the fact Laum still refused to let Dadbeh see her. What? Did Laum harbor delusions any other man would marry Shahla after the spectacle she had caused? Dadbeh loved her dearly. Perhaps that love could heal her friend's broken mind?
Gita kept her thoughts to herself. Laum would see his daughter dead rather than allow her to marry into the lowest ranked family in the village after hers.
"I will check her usual haunts," Gita said. "If she is not there, I will rouse Pareesa."
Laum grabbed her by the arm, his fingernails digging into the soft flesh of her bicep.
"If you do," Laum's expression grew hard, "I shall not give you that vat of mead your father expects you to carry home. Where will you go, child of no family, if your own father will not let you back inside his house? To beg residence at your esteemed cousin's house, granddaughter of Lugalbanda?"
Gita resisted the urge to bury her spear into the man's gut. Ever since the night of the battle, she had found herself suppressing an urge to deal with her problems using the skills Jamin had taught her instead of hiding and remaining invisible as she had done her entire life.
'I'm invisible…' she chanted her silent prayer which had kept her safe ever since the day the Amorites had murdered her mother. She slipped away from the horrid man and went searching for her friend.
* * * * *
She found Shahla wandering the desert a half-day's walk from the village. Her clothing and hair were disheveled as though she had, indeed, been out on a tryst, but she had bathed, brushed the matts out of her hair and washed her clothing. Shahla danced alongside the nearly-dry streambed, no longer carrying the sad specter of the rag baby doll, and as she walked she sang as though she was blissfully happy.
"Shahla!" Gita trotted up to her. "Where have you been? Your father is worried sick about you."
'Or at least as worried as the man is capable of,' Gita did not speak aloud. Laum had cared enough to pay someone to look for his missing daughter, which was a lot more than her father would have done.
Shahla whirled in a happy circle, her intricately embroidered cape flaring upwards as though she was a whirling dervish. For a moment, Gita thought perhaps she was looking at the old Shahla and something had happened to give her back her faculties.
That hope was immediately shattered…
"My husband came and carried me up into the sky," Shahla's eyes glittered with happiness. "Just as I told you he would."
"Mikhail is Ninsianna's husband," Gita said gently, not willing to feed her friend's delusion.
"Not him," Shahla's nose wrinkled up with scorn. "My husband is far more beautiful, with wings so white they are fluffier than the clouds. And he is wealthy, too!"
This was a new twist on Shahla's self-delusion, but there had been so many incarnations of her friend's obsession that Gita simply went along with it. It was more important to coax her back into the village where slavers or hyenas could not get her.
"Dadbeh searches for you as well," Gita said. "When we get back, let's go before the Chief and see if we can't get him to override your father's objections? Dadbeh loves you."
"I am a married woman now," Shahla haughtily tossed her head the same way the old Shahla might have done. "My husband is príomh-aire, the brightest and most beautiful of all the angels. He said he will come back for me in three days, after I have done one small task to prove my fealty, and then he will carry me into the heavens to rule his empire at his side."
"Príomh-aire?" Gita repeated the unfamiliar word. "Shahla, the only winged one is Mikhail, and he is not your husband. He's just a nice man who tried to protect you after Jamin hurt you."
"Jamin?" Shahla's delusion wavered. "Jamin is bad. Although he said he was sorry." She bunched the fold of her cloak to her breast the way she had often carried the rag babydoll which was now missing. Shahla glanced back and forth, as though telling a secret. "Jamin said my husband will give me a new winged baby to love."
Tears welled in Gita's black eyes. Her poor friend! All these years it had been Shahla dragging her out of a bad situation. It was time to return the favor.
"Come," Gita put her arm around Shahla's shoulders. "Let's have no more talk of men, winged or otherwise. It is rest day today. Let us go to the river to bathe and wash our hair, and then I will brush it for you. Would you like that?"
"Oh, yes!" Shahla began her happy skip once more. "I want to be beautiful when he comes for me."
Gita had enough sense to keep her friend away from where wagging tongues could create mischief from the latest incarnation of Shahla's delusional rantings. There was no sense in shaming her more than she had already done to herself, nor did she wish her friend to rile up the village gossips to disparage Mikhail on the eve before they were due to travel north to the annual meeting of Ubaid chiefs. Most of all, she did not wish to see Shahla hurt Dadbeh's feelings with this delusional talk of a winged husband and drive even him away from her.
A white-winged man? Of all the delusions for a crazy woman to have…
Chapter 97
November – 3,390 BC
Earth: Village of Assur
Ninsianna
All around them, dogs barked, kids laughed, and even the older villagers gathered in a party-like atmosphere to see off the men who would accompany Chief Kiyan to the annual meeting of Ubaid chiefs. Ebad's father, the head of the pottery guild, Rakhshan's eldest son, representing the flint-knappers, Luam the linen-merchant, and various other heads of trading families tagged along. And of course, Papa, their shaman, for the Ubaid were a goddess-fearing people who were cognizant of the fact the mere whisper of disfavor from She-who-is could turn the weather itself against them, resulting in floods, pestilence, drought, and sandstorms.
Ninsianna was surprised at her irrational urge to cry. She looked up to her husband, fine figure that he cut wearing one of his newer uniforms and the boots he'd just recovered that still had leather left in the soles, dark hair, fair skin, and of course his magnificent brown-and-black striped wings. Mikhail would be gone for less than a week, but for some reason she felt as though this would be the last time she ever saw him. She'd wanted to come, but Papa insisted Mikhail must be seen as their undisputed military leader, not a woman.
She reached up to push back a lock of wavy, sable hair that had fallen across his eyes. With his hair grown longer, he was beginning to resemble one of the Ubaid. His unearthly blue eyes, which could never be mistaken for those of the brown-eyed Ubaid, met hers, filled with warmth. Goddess! He was so beautiful. Her lip trembled.
“Why can't you just fly home tonight?”
She knew it was a purely selfish request, but after two glorious nights back at his ship, he had erased any doubt that it was her, and only her, he would ever lay down with, it had been with much reluctance that she'd allowed him to carry her back this morning to see him off.
“I don’t think so,” Mikhail lip twitched with regret. “Your father said the chiefs like to swap war stories until the wee hours of the morning. This is the best time to gain cooperation on my idea to expand the mutual aid we already enjoy with Gasur and Eshnunna.”
The sound a sledge dragging along an alley pounded flat by generations of feet distracted her from her worries. Beneath it, Dadbeh had affixed two experimental circular wooden discs called 'wheels.' Hopefully these ones would stay together for the duration of the journey instead of falling apart as most were wont to do upon getting any further than the smooth streets of the village. Mikhail had brought colorful spider webs he called 'wires' from his ship and showed Dadbeh how to wrap them around the contraptions to increase their longevity.
Her husband's motivations for lending precious tek-nol-o-gee was not purely altruistic. On that cart was laden a dozen dog-sized urns of the widow-sister's most potent brew. Beer! The one which had been brewed using barley grown by Mikhail in the widow-sister's fields. That, alone, would bring him much good will amongst the Ubaid chiefs!
“Well we certainly don’t want you flying home after drinking,” Ninsianna laughed. She gave Mikhail her most sexy 'come hither' look and then whispered the seductive word. "Beer!"
“Ugh,” Mikhail's feathers shuddered with revulsion. “Please don’t ever mention that word again.”
“What word. Beer?” Ninsianna batted her eyelashes as though she were the sweetest, most innocent female alive. She burst out laughing. “If you wish to gain support for this pet project of yours, not only must you ply the chiefs with alcohol, but you must also learn to drink along with them.”
“Don’t remind me!”
All around them the throng of men and well-wishers pulsated like a living organism and began to move towards the north gate of the village, carrying them with them. Pareesa's B-team grunted with exertion as the little slave driver barked orders to put their backs into it and push the cart full of beer. No sooner had Mikhail's little prodigy grown into her command than the Chief had decided to split them apart and send two B-team members each to one of the allied villages for six weeks so that they could prove, without a doubt, that no matter how questionable the skill of the warrior, Mikhail's methods worked.
Mikhail's face grew serious.
“I don’t like leaving you alone," he said. "Not even for a day.”
The north gate loomed above them. Just outside, carpenters worked furiously with stone axes driving wedges into the two hardwood logs that were the first of many the Chief had purchased from far upriver, a hardy wood called acacia. Ninsianna glanced up at the warriors who guarded the gate. Not only had Chief Kiyan ordered the guard be quadrupled, with constant patrols on the outer fringes of territory controlled by their village, but the already the wood was being used to fortify their gate and make it impervious to future attack. Assur had lost many warriors during the last battle, but it had also learned from those losses.
"I think it's much more likely the meeting will be attacked," Ninsianna said. "Not the village. And honestly, I doubt our enemies have any more men to throw against our walls. I suspect we buried more men than exist in all of the combined Halifian tribes combined."
It was an exaggeration. But not by much.
"I cannot fault your logic," Mikhail said. "If -I- was launching an attack, there is where I would strike. You could wipe the leadership of all the Ubaid tribes in one convenient target.
Which is why Chief Kiyan wanted her here. Because she and Papa could get word to one another if either location was attacked.
“I’ll be fine,” Ninsianna reassured him. “Since that night, I have gotten no more visions of danger from She-who-is. I promise.”
She straightened out the collar on the strange, fitted garment he called a 'shirt.' Perhaps she should have taken the time to weave him an Ubiad shawl after all? So he would appear less, well, foreign. That was how she would fill the aching hours until he returned to her again, by weaving him a proper Ubaid shawl. Yes. With Papa also gone, there would be nobody to teach her lessons. She would sit with Mama and do busy work to occupy her hands.
The party-like parade poured out the gate to the waves of women and the cheers of children.
"Are you coming Mikhail?" Pareesa laughed. "Or will you renege on your promise to walk with us there instead of abandoning us to fly?"
It didn't bother Ninsianna that Pareesa automatically moved into position at Mikhail's right side, as though she was what he jokingly called her 'wing man,' but her peculiar cousin Gita stepped forward to stand at his left, a stran
ge, scrawny, elf-like creature with pale skin and luminous black eyes. Her peculiar cousin had always made her uneasy, even when they'd both been little girls and Mama had tried to get her to take pity and play with her. Ninsianna stared into those black eyes and shivered. Goddess how she hated the dark!
Gita looked down.
Mikhail's face lit up with, not quite a smile, for true smiles with him were still exceeding rare, but that pleased, rather amused expression he always wore whenever Pareesa was around, one that, oddly, Ninsianna had never found threatening. It was with no small amount of satisfaction that she noticed Mikhail turned the back of his wings to her cousin and didn't even notice her. Thank the goddess Chief Kiyan had ordered their village to be rid of the peculiar girl by ordering she be one of the females reassigned to one of the other villages.
"I'll be right with you," Mikhail told Pareesa. "I promise. I even fetched my other boots. The ones that weren't full of holes."
Pareesa laughed and stepped back, her new peculiar sidekick following behind her like a shadow on one side. Ebad raced to catch up with her. Pareesa ordered him to pick up far too many of her things and carry them for her, which Ebad, of course, did. Ninsianna chortled back a laugh.
"What will she do without Ebad to boss around for the next six weeks?"
"She will manage," Mikhail said. He pulled her into his arms. “If you need anything, do that mental image thing you do with your father? I’ll come home right away.”
“I’ll be fine!” she laughed at his worry. “Go! Go negotiate your treaty. The sooner you leave, the sooner you can return to my arms.”
She was surprised when he grabbed her and pulled her against him for a long, passionate kiss, wrapping his wings around her to shield them from the world. He’d been acting more normally since their romantic interlude at the ship, but this didn’t feel like that. It felt … as though he couldn’t bear to be parted from her. He kissed her until she was out of breath and her knees grew weak.
“What was that for,” she asked, dizzy with sensation, when he finally allowed her to come up for air.
Sword of the Gods: Prince of Tyre (Sword of the Gods Saga) Page 96