by Brian Godawa
Barley was the most common grain in the kingdom, making barley beer the most common drink. Dark or clear, fresh or well aged, Sumerians drank volumes of beer.
Lugalanu drank plenty of it this evening, barely touching his food. He sat all alone at this grand table spread. He watched Emzara and some maidservants clean up the food.
The leftovers would be eaten by the servants, with the exception of the meats that could be smoked and stored for later use. Good food was one of the surest ways to maintain grateful servants. With well-fed bellies, servants would more easily tolerate the fits of rage and abuse that occasionally came over Lugalanu. It is said that a man becomes what he worships, and this was no less true for Lugalanu. He sought to emulate the noblesse oblige of Anu, but often mirrored the emotional outbursts of Inanna.
Tonight, he was depressed.
The object of his depression worked before him, cleaning the table and pouring him more beer. He stared at Emzara’s gorgeous form, her regal posture. He contemplated her moral purity. It was all he could do to keep from throwing himself on her. The image of his gratification flashed through his mind. He would wipe the table of its plates and utensils, throw her up on top of it and take her by force. He was priest-king and it was his divine right. But he knew it would not be his victory. Thank Anu for the beer. It helped to calm him.
He watched her breasts through her tunic as she poured his beer. Servants wore simple white tunics, but his personal staff had an added element of decorative embroidery to set them apart. His eyes moved down to her stomach.
She felt the intensity of his gaze and spilled the beer on the table.
“I am sorry, my lord,” she said.
“You are beginning to show,” he said. It was not true. She was only a few weeks pregnant, and only the most observant would have been able to tell the thickness that was beginning to increase around her middle. He was trying to raise the topic of his offer again.
“I will wear loose clothes,” she replied. She completed her pouring and shyly moved to finish the clean up.
He grabbed her arm. He felt her recoil and released his grip apologetically. With a touch of heartsickness in his voice, he asked, “Do I treat you well?”
“Yes, my lord,” she said. He had treated her well for the short time she had been with him. He had appointed her as an aide to the Chief Maidservant in charge of Lugalanu’s personal staff, Alittum, an experienced, agreeable and ambitious woman, who constantly sought to ingratiate herself to Lugalanu.
Emzara administered the other servants, and domestic chores such as cooking, cleaning, and finances. Though she had been given a new Sumerian name, as were all captured slaves, Lugalanu called her Emzara when they were alone. He sought a connection with that inner part of her that was not owned by the gods. Her Sumerian name was Nindannum, which meant “lady of strength.” This name, given her by Lugalanu, also expressed his great admiration for her. Such name references to “ladies” were usually used only of goddesses.
Most slaves were branded with the name of the god on the back of their hands, but Lugalanu allowed Emzara the less popular form of wearing a bronze bracelet with the symbol. He sought to accommodate her personal devotion to Elohim by exempting her from any duties directly related to the worship of the gods or their divination and sorcerous activities.
Her special treatment did not go unnoticed by Alittum, nor the fact that Emzara was learning Alittum’s own responsibilities. Therefore, Alittum made life miserable for Emzara, criticizing her every move. Unfortunately for Alittum, it had the undesired effect of making Emzara try so hard that she was already a model servant.
But Alittum was not here now. She had departed with the other table servants.
“If you were to remove your unborn, you could be my wife. You would birth kings and queens from your womb.” He cloaked the desperate plea as an alluring offer.
She had the upper hand and she knew it. “Would you force me, my lord?”
Lugalanu glanced at the other servants cleaning the room They studiously attended their responsibilities, pretending not to hear anything said by their master. He waved his hand at them. They instantly scurried out the door.
Lugalanu and his favorite were alone. He could let down his composure. “I do not understand you, Emzara. In this world, the vanquished embrace their fate. Yet you do not.” It was true, he thought. The strong ruled the weak, and the weak accepted their station in life as their fate from the gods. After all, they were created as slaves for the gods.
“I cannot,” she responded. She believed in the rule of righteousness as opposed to the rule of power. Righteousness came from faith in Elohim, who created all humankind in his image. She knew this faith ran fully counter to the Sumerian belief that only the king was created in the image of the gods. She would die for her beliefs because life was of no value without them.
“That is what I like about you,” he said, almost regretfully. It would only make the victory real to have all her personal strength and conviction willingly yield to him. All the more so since he did not tell her that he had engaged a sorcerer to cast a spell of enchantment upon her to fall in love with him. He participated in a sexual potency ritual, building a reed altar and praying to the bright Morning Star, sacred to Inanna, goddess of love. He made an offering and prepared figurines that he dutifully burned, and created a potion that he slipped into her drink.
But none of it had worked. The incantations, spells, and charms of the manipulative magic, none of it seemed to have an effect on her.
He would continue to be patient.
He spoke with ostensible sadness, “Your son will be a servant of the goddess in her temple.” He made it sound as if it was out of his hands and he could do nothing to change it. That was a lie.
She looked to him with hope. “But he will be alive,” she said, looking for affirmation of his promise.
He gave her none. Of course, he could simply kill the child, rip it from her womb. He really should do so, because if this was the child of the Chosen Seed, then it was certainly possible that it would carry on the lineage that might bear the revelation should Noah fail.
The thought of these options titillated him. He felt powerful. He, the human ruler of a city, a mere servant of the gods, might have in his hands the power to destroy those gods. Even though to do so could bring about his own destruction, it was still a power over those gods. It was an aphrodisiac.
On the other hand, if this really was the bloodline of the coming King, then he also had the power over Elohim to end that bloodline and thwart the plans of the Creator himself. He smiled to himself. He would do nothing, and this would ensure his position, for the drug-like high could only be maintained by the power over choices, and that power was dissipated as soon as those choices were exercised.
The patter of approaching feet outside the door interrupted Lugalanu’s musing. A panting servant slid around the corner, and bobbed up and down in a fit of genuflection.
“What is it?” Lugalanu barked, on the verge of one of his Inanna-like fits.
“My lords Anu and Inanna require your immediate presence in the throne room.”
Lugalanu sobered instantly and sprang into action. He was out the door as quickly as his feet could carry him. He might hold the power to destroy the gods, but that event would not be today.
Emzara knew this kind of request came rarely, so she decided to risk the danger by secretly following him. She knew that a passive response to her situation would never give her control over her destiny. She had to take chances. She had to take control.
She grabbed a royal canister in order to get by the guards. She stayed just out of sight behind Lugalanu as he traversed the hallways back into the palace area. When he reached the royal outer court gates, Emzara slipped around to a servant’s entrance in the inner court. After all, she was a servant. She had had to memorize the ins and outs of the servant’s access through the entire Eanu and Eanna districts.
She stayed in the shadow
s behind the outer pillars and slipped her way up toward the altar of the sanctuary. She could get no closer to the thrones than twenty cubits, but the acoustics in the throne room were so perfect she could hear every word.
They were already in counsel with Lugalanu when she settled in the shadows.
“He escaped?” asked Lugalanu.
“He killed the entire guard of the slave mines!” yelled Inanna. “Damn this Noah ben Lamech and his audacity!”
Emzara suppressed a gasp.
The chimera bull and lion creatures glanced over in Emzara’s direction. They had acute hearing.
The conversation stopped. Anu and Inanna followed the gaze of their throne guardians. One of them moved to investigate. But before it got down the steps, Emzara had slipped behind a pillar just in time.
A servant passed her hiding place, drawing their attention to him. He carried chalices of blood for the gods. He placed the libations on the altar and left.
The gods and their priest-king returned to their discussion.
“Are you sure he is the prophesied Chosen Seed?” Anu asked Lugalanu.
Inanna burst out, “He denied it! You heard it yourself.”
Lugalanu said, “He appears to have the protection of Elohim over him.”
The incident had taken place a week before, but they only now discovered the escape when their weekly shipment of copper did not arrive. A contingent of soldiers had been sent to investigate. Evidently all the slaves had remained and continued their labors awaiting new leadership. It pleased Anu that it was true after all: men’s souls, not merely their bodies, could be owned.
“We can afford no risks,” said Anu. “Send the Gibborim. They will find this Noah and they will kill him.”
“Yes, my lord and god,” said Lugalanu.
He shivered inside himself. The Gibborim were an elite corps of Nephilim, a unit of five highly trained assassins. They could hunt anything and kill it, and they were unstoppable. It was said that one corps of Gibborim had conquered an entire city in the northern hinterlands, killing everyone and eating the flesh of the victims for weeks.
The lion-man continued to stare in Emzara’s direction. He had not taken his eyes off the location since she had gasped. With a snarl, he bounded off the dais and covered the distance through the shrubbery to the pillars in a couple strides.
When he got there, Emzara was already gone.
The evening fell. Lugalanu rode his four-wheeled chariot through the streets of the city drawn by muscle-bound war horses. everyone in the streets moved out of the way, hiding in the shadows and locking their doors, but not because of Lugalanu’s mighty chariot stallions. It was the five assassin Gibborim that followed him. They were taller than most Nephilim, about ten cubits tall. They were tattooed head to foot, wore exotic armor, and carried their unusual weapons and supplies on their backs. They walked with eyes intensely focused on their objective.
Emzara followed their movement toward the gates of the city behind the procession, in the shadows. She slid behind a water trough as the procession stopped at the gates.
One of the Nephilim sensed something and turned, looking straight at the water trough. Emzara had slid off to the side in the dark of an alley. The Naphil turned back to its mission commander, Lugalanu.
“My Gibborim,” said Lugalanu, “on you lies the hope of this kingdom.” They listened to him with cold, unblinking reptilian eyes. They were instruments of death and destruction. The king made the seriousness of his charge clear, “If you do not destroy this Chosen Seed, he will destroy you and your seed. Bring me his head.”
With barely an acknowledgment of his words, the Gibborim walked out of the gates.
Emzara had found her way to the wall, where she could see the giant fiends through a fissure in the rock. They broke into a run out under the moonlight. The earth rumbled beneath their feet. They were so powerful, they did not need beasts of burden. They were faster without them.
In despair, Emzara uttered a prayer to Elohim. If these monsters of hell were after her beloved Noah, he did not stand a chance. He was doomed. Only Elohim could rescue him now. She turned to find her way back to the palace.
To her shock, Lugalanu stood in her path looking straight at her. Her face went flush.
He stared at her. “You are curious of my intrigues?” he asked.
“My lord, it was my opportunity to slip away from the palace for the night air.” She had carefully prepared the excuse. “I prefer to be near you than alone in the streets.”
Lugalanu stared at her silently. She thought he did not believe her. Her ruse had been exposed.
“Emzara,” he said with a scolding tone. She readied herself for punishment. “You are not a caged animal; you need only ask and I will extend your leash.” He stared at her, oblivious to the incongruity of his statement.
She was thrown for a second. Her ruse had worked. He did not suspect a thing. She forced a sweet little smile of innocence.
He stepped up close to her, brushing her hair aside with a tender hand. “You see, Emzara, am I not a reasonable man?”
Chapter 10
Noah and his band of warriors traveled seventy leagues north by northeast into the Great Desert, paralleling the valley plains and avoiding the cities. They found sequestered sand canyons and settled in for battle training with Uriel and their new sickle sword weapons. A labyrinthine network of channels cut through the canyon’s sandy floor. Towering walls of sandstone surrounded them, walls almost forty cubits high swept by wind and water. Ancient waters, leaving ribbon-like waves of sedimentation, shaping grooves in the rock, had created the channels. The rocks were smooth to the touch. During the day, the light created a beautiful sight of orange, yellow, and red glowing layers.
Noah picked this location for the specific reason that they could lose anyone who might be after them. Both seasoned nomads and unseasoned travelers had died here, lost in the vast natural maze. But Noah had traversed these canyons in the past and knew them well. He knew them too well. His razor sharp memory both blessed and cursed him. Whatever he saw once with full concentration, he could remember with a detailed accuracy matched only by storytellers and scribes. If he were not the Patriarch he would probably have been an oral bard. The curse of his memory was that he could not forget the details of the pain he had experienced in his life: the expression of his best friend dying in his arms in battle, the gestures of his first wife that haunted him instead of fading away with time. And his superb memory did not help his impatience with others.
The men stood in a circle, gripping their iron sickle swords for fight. Noah, Methuselah, Jubal, Jabal, and Tubal-cain surrounded Uriel holding his double-handed swords in the center. Uriel barked, “Begin!” and one by one, starting with Noah, the men attacked Uriel, using the battle moves they had practiced for the last few weeks. Uriel had given them basic routines of sword-fighting moves to memorize and repeat endlessly. They contained repetitious exercises that drove the men to near exhaustion and boredom. That was the intent. They had to develop second nature impulses for a fight.
The technique was based on the Way of the Karabu, the ancient secret order of giant killers from Sahand. Methuselah had learned these skills as a younger man. He was rusty, being out of practice. But Noah was somewhat familiar with it, for Methuselah had taught him over the years. The other three men, however, were entirely new to this technique.
Several weeks of exercises were no substitute for the kind of seasoned training needed to become a master swordsman. But fortunately, these men were already accomplished fighters in their own right, which gave Uriel some unanticipated surprises. Jubal, a musician, may have had arms more slender than the others, but he proved to work his sword with fluidity and dance that outplayed the strength of the others. Uriel sometimes said that Jubal was a natural born Karabu.
Noah’s sharp memory and strong will resulted in excessive devotion to mastering the forms. This resulted in a proficiency that impressed even Uriel. Tubal-cain’s
sheer muscle power made up for his lack of finesse, and Jabal’s expertise with a staff gave him added skills that would no doubt benefit the group in a skirmish.
As Uriel brandished his weapon against each attack, he calmly tutored the men with corrections and observations of their moves. “Good thrust,” here, “bad slash,” there, “breathe deeply, feet spread.” “Sweep more, Jubal,” “Stay low, Noah,” “Think of the sword as water. Wash over the enemy.” The men grunted with exhaustion as Uriel deflected their every blow with a casual agility that frustrated them, making them feel they had not learned a thing.
“Cease!” yelled Uriel. He could see they were done for the day. Methuselah collapsed to the ground trying to gasp for air. Jubal and Jabal leaned on each other for support. “Well, that was invigorating,” said Uriel.
“Invigorating?” countered Noah. “You have not even broken a sweat.”
Uriel smiled. “I have had eons of practice. You have had only years, and they, mere weeks.”
“If this is any sign of how difficult it will be to fight the gods and their supernatural minions,” said Methuselah, still catching his breath, “perhaps we had better reevaluate our stratagem.”
“Let us talk after a meal,” said Noah.
Methuselah cooked a stew of roots and herbs on the campfire. They sat and listened quietly as Jubal breathed out a soft tune on his reed pipe. Unlike the harp, Jubal’s personal favorite instrument, the reed pipe was more conducive for travel because of its small size and durability. Jubal valued this little bone-carved instrument as much as his sword. Without the beauty of music in his life, he would die a soul bereft of happiness.