“To be careful, Nabu-zir. You are an ant in the way of a wagon wheel.”
* * * *
It took Nabu-zir a good hour to get rid of Lu-inanna. After he left, Nindada came to him, looking troubled. “I don't trust that man,” she said.
“Nor do I.”
She faced him hesitantly, her eyes not quite meeting his. He could see that she had something to tell him, but didn't know how to go about it.
“What is it, Nindada?” he said.
“I'm sorry, lord, I didn't want to say anything while he was here. He'll know by evening, though. Everybody will.”
“Know what?”
“They were talking about it in the tavern. Gossip and rumors always begin there. The beer lady, Huda, encourages it. It's good for business.”
He said patiently, “Tell me, Nindada. Don't be afraid.”
“Forgive me, lord. The Akkadian lady is dead. Murdered, they said. And that a tablet with your seal on it was found with the body.”
“What do you know about an Akkadian lady?” he said sharply.
She was almost in tears. “I wasn't prying, lord. But I can put two bricks together. I know that toad, Lu-inanna, took you to see the king two days ago. He boasted about it. And I know that the next day you were working on a tablet with your Akkadian dictionary. I don't know what the tablet said, but I saw you hide it in a sack of grain and put a false seal on the envelope. And I know that the man who tried to kill you was looking for it. It must be very valuable. Lord, I am afraid.”
He pondered a moment. “And did this Akkadian lady have a name?”
“Huda knew all about her. Her name was Ninlilhatsina. The wife of a diplomat. Her husband was called back to Kish six months ago. Huda said she was loose with her favors.”
“You and this Huda must be very thick.”
“We were weavers together in the temple factory. She's still a slave. But her master let her have her own business. She's very good at it. She makes a lot of money for him.”
“I see.”
“I know what you're thinking. Yes, she tried to worm information out of me. Did I know what a tablet sealed with your imprint might have been doing there? What was in it? But I didn't tell her anything. You must believe me.”
“Don't trouble yourself, Nindada,” he reassured her. “I know that your tongue doesn't run away like a donkey without a bridle.”
She gave him a wan smile. “Thank you, lord. But other tongues do.”
* * * *
They came for Nabu-zir the next morning, two helmeted patrolmen with short spears. He knew both of them from the court. “You must come with us, Nabu-zir,” one of them said apologetically.
“Do you have a warrant then, Nergal-kan?” Nabu-zir said.
The man handed over a small oval tablet and Nabu-zir scanned it quickly, noting the cylinder seal impressions of the three judges who had signed it. It was a hasty job, with sloppy reedsmanship and many misspellings, the typical work of a court hack.
His lips tightened. Only one of the three signing judges was a Shulgi appointee—a stalwart in the army of zealous young reformers brought in to uphold the king's code of laws protecting widows, orphans, and the poor.
He handed the tablet back and said mildly, “It seems to be in order. Shall we go?” He didn't look back, but he could feel Nindada watching from the doorway.
The Citizens’ Assembly was as crowded and noisy as usual. The floor was swarming with people who had brought lawsuits and those who were defending against them, together with all their witnesses and supporters. But the greater part of the crowd was composed of idlers, people with nothing better to do, who had wandered in to be entertained by the proceedings. That was a risky thing because at any moment they might be called upon to serve as jurors, if a full council of the citizenry was needed.
There were nine judges in attendance today. They were enthroned on a long, raised platform at the rear of the assembly, trying to work despite the noise around them. They were just finishing up a case. One of them looked up and saw Nabu-zir entering with the two patrolmen, and beckoned them to approach.
The judge Nabu-zir knew to be a Shulgi appointee greeted him first, before any of the other judges could speak. He was a young man named Jashu-el, a rising star who had been the military commander in Lagash until Shulgi had recalled him.
“Thank you for coming, Nabu-zir. We are used to seeing you here to testify for someone else, not to testify for yourself. It seems we have a small matter to clear up. It shouldn't take long.”
“Not so fast, Jashu-el,” said another judge, a camel of a man named Ishi-adad, who Nabu-zir knew to be a familiar of the shesh-gal and a taker of bribes. “There are many questions to be asked.”
Nabu-zir's heart sank. The inquiry might go on for an hour or more, and at the end of it there was the ever-present danger that it might become a full-blown trial that would have to be settled by the full assembly. That would be a disaster. The assembly would have to reach almost full unanimity, with every fool and beer shop windbag holding forth.
“We do not tolerate murder in Ur, even of our foreign residents, Nabu-zir,” the hostile judge began without preamble. “A highborn lady named Ninlilhatsina was found stabbed to death in the Akkadian district yesterday morning, and we are looking into it.”
“I do not know this lady,” Nabu-zir said steadily.
“And yet a tablet with your seal on it was found next to the body.”
“May I see the tablet?” Nabu-zir said.
Ishi-adad handed the tablet to one of the patrolmen, who gave it to Nabu-zir.
“That is my seal, yes. The tablet seems to be a love poem. I write many such tablets for the lovesick young swains who come to see me. I charge them a fourth of a mina. Grand ladies do not come to the courtyard of Nana-sin where I ply my trade.”
“That settles it, Ishi-adad,” young Jashu-el said quickly. “We must look for a disappointed lover.”
“Not so fast, Jashu-el” Ishi-adad said. He turned back to Nabu-zir. “And who was this man you wrote the tablet for?”
“Just a man, like any other, dizzy with love. He dictated the poem to me. They always compare themselves to Dumuzi and their lover to Inanna—the love that defeats the underworld.”
“And where were you yesterday morning?”
“Plying my trade, as usual.”
“Do you have a witness?”
Jashu-el broke in: “This has gone far enough. Nabu-zir is here to testify about the attempt on his own life.”
Ishi-adad gave him a heavy-lidded stare. “That's another matter.” He turned the stare on Nabu-zir. “What did you have against the king's scribe?”
Nabu-zir gave him stare for stare. “It's the other way around, Ishi-adad. The man broke into my house to rob and kill me. The patrol was satisfied as to that. They put it down to professional jealousy.”
There was murmuring from the other judges. Nabu-zir tried to estimate how many were with Jashu-el and how many with Ishi-adad, but couldn't tell which way it was going.
Ishi-adad's voice rose. “Killing the king's scribe is a serious matter! It's become a public scandal! Did you go on the next morning to rob and kill the Akkadian lady you wrote the tablet for? You knew she was rich, didn't you?”
The spat on the judges’ platform was starting to attract the attention of some of the idlers on the fringes of the drifting crowd. Some of them were edging closer to hear more. Many of them recognized Nabu-zir, and had heard the delicious gossip that was circulating in Ur.
Jashu-el tried again to intervene, but only made matters worse. “Nabu-zir must be allowed time to round up witnesses!” he shouted against the rising noise.
Then the noise rose still more, and heads were turning toward the assembly entrance. Nabu-zir looked back across his shoulder and saw Nindada and the tavern lady, Huda, coming through. Nobody would recognize Nindada, but Huda was a fixture in Ur. She was a large, formidable woman. She had a firm grip on the arm of a frightened-looki
ng little man, and was prodding him toward the judges’ platform. The buzzing crowd parted to let them through.
“Who is this?” Ishi-adad said, his face flushed with anger.
“This is my serving woman, Nindada,” Nabu-zir said equably. “She will be a witness for the fact that I was working as usual at the time of the murder. And it appears that she has brought another witness with her.”
Nindada's face was full of apology that Nabu-zir knew she didn't feel. “I'm sorry, lord,” she said. “I know it isn't my place. But it's said in the neighborhood that the lady who was murdered was found with a tablet written by you that someone had given her. And Huda thinks this man may know something about it.”
The large woman pushed the scruffy little man forward, gripping his arm tightly enough to make him wince. She didn't need to introduce herself. Voices could be heard from the crowd calling, “Huda, look, it's Huda!” and “Huda, you tell them!”
“This little weasel is Kidin-sin,” Huda said. “He's one of my patrons, and he has something to say, don't you, Kidin?”
She squeezed his arm hard enough to make him yelp. He was staggering drunk, though it was still morning, and probably the grip on his arm was helping to keep him upright.
“Please, Huda,” he said. Nabu-zir could see that, drunk as the little man was, he was frightened of something other than Huda.
“Kidin-sin likes to talk, especially when he has a crowd around him and they're buying him beer. Go ahead, Kidin. Don't be shy.”
“They'll kill me,” he said. “They told me to keep my mouth shut.”
Jashu-el saw an opportunity to turn things around, and he took it. “He who knows about a murder and says nothing is guilty of murder himself,” he said sternly. “That is Ur-nammu's law. Speak, or be delivered to the executioner.”
Nabu-zir knew that what Jashu-el had said was not strictly true, and so did Ishi-adad, who opened his mouth to object, but then decided not to contradict his young opponent when he saw how the temper of the crowd was turning.
Huda weighed in with a stentorian voice calculated to carry to the far reaches of the hall. “This misbegotten son of a monkey sweeps courtyards in the Akkadian quarter when he's sober enough. He'd sell himself as a slave for the price of a pitcher of beer, except that no one would want him as part of their household because he smells so bad. Go on, little dung heap, answer the judge.”
The little man cringed. “I recognized him right away because he drinks at Huda's when he has the money. They call him Az the Bear, because he's a dangerous man to cross. He robs the caravans when they're out of sight of the city walls, and it's whispered that he killed that caravan master who tried to sue the temple director, the shesh-gal, last year. In the back alleys they say that he does the nu-banda's dirty work for him, the deeds that must be done in the dark.”
He stopped, and Nabu-zir could see that he was trembling.
“Go on,” Huda said.
The little man dropped his voice to a whisper, but it could be heard because the hall had fallen silent.
“The Bear usually works alone, but this time he was with the nu-banda himself. They went right by me without noticing me. Nobody ever does. The nu-banda seemed very excited, like a man possessed by wind demons. They broke the door seal and pushed their way inside. They stayed only a short while, and when they came out, the Az had blood on his hand and arm. Then they noticed me, and I feared for my life. The Az had his hand on the hilt of a knife he had tucked in the waist of his skirt. But they were in a frenzy to get away and I suppose they decided that a nobody like me wasn't worth killing, and they left after warning me to hold my tongue.”
“Calumny!” Ishi-adad shouted. There was spittle at the corner of his mouth. He fixed the little man with a sour gaze and said, “Know that the penalty for accusing someone of murder is death, unless the accusation can be proved! And to accuse the nu-banda himself of murder is an offense so heinous that the whole weight of the temple will fall on your head!”
“Do not threaten witnesses, Ishi-adad,” Jashu-el said. “Nobody has accused the nu-banda of murder. Yet.”
The silence in the hall had been replaced by a buzzing that grew louder. The judges were whispering among themselves, too, and after a bit, Jashu-el put his head together with them. But Ishi-adad held himself aloof, calculating eyes flicking over the crowd.
The judges had reached some sort of conclusion, though a few of them didn't look happy about it. The senior of them, a stodgy, self-important man who behind his back was called by the nickname Gu-gaz, “the stalk that bends with the wind,” cleared his throat and said, “We will order the patrol to find and arrest this Az the Bear.” He did not mention the nu-banda.
A noisy eruption on the assembly floor followed. In the resulting chaos, with excited people babbling at one another and the usual gossips running off to spread the news, a squad of spearmen was somehow assembled for an immediate foray into the city's back alleys.
Nabu-zir seemed to have been forgotten. He nodded at Nindada, and together they made their way unnoticed through the seething crowd.
“What will happen to Huda?” she said when they were outside.
“She'll land on her feet,” he said. “She's not actually a witness to anything, and they won't want to pursue it with her, but I wouldn't give a stale fig for the little sweeper's chances.”
* * * *
“The Bear is dead,” Lu-inanna said. “Killed while resisting arrest, according to the nu-banda. Dead men tell no tales, and the case is closed.”
He was sipping beer from the pitcher that Nindada had brought from Huda's tavern. She had somehow managed to stay out of Lu-inanna's reach while setting it next to him.
Nabu-zir took a swallow from his own pitcher. “I would have thought that the patrol would have gotten to him first,” he said.
“The busybodies wasted no time getting to the nu-banda,” Lu-inanna said. “He asserted his authority in cases affecting the security of Ur. But he didn't explain what a civil murder had to do with the safety of the state.”
“Nor will he,” Nabu-zir said. “The high priest won't want to open that door, even if it might give him some advantage in the temple's war with Shulgi.”
Lu-inanna nodded. “This is not for anyone else's ears, Nabu-zir, but we're going to have a new nu-banda. The high priest is going to appoint our friend to a post in Nippur, where he'll be safely out of sight. He'll take his posse of thugs with him. The gods help the people of Nippur!”
“And the little sweeper?”
“The nu-banda says he can't be found.”
“He's already been found, no doubt. By the crocodiles.”
Lu-innana looked at him slyly. “Now that I've told you the temple's secrets, you can confess, Nabu-zir. What exactly was in the tablet you wrote for the king?”
“As you guessed, Lu-inanna, it was a poem. And that's all I'm going to say.”
“Come now, my friend. What's the harm?”
“Enough harm's been done already. I'd guess that the Az killed the lady in a blind rage when she wouldn't talk. We know that her body was badly beaten when it was found. The nu-banda must have been beside himself when the tablet he'd been told was so important turned out to be a simple poem. He thought it was supposed to be some affair of state. The lady's husband, after all, was a diplomat from a former enemy of Ur. But the nu-banda, though he's supposed to be a priest like all of you officials who are growing fat at the ziggurat, is a man of no culture. He saw only that the lines were arranged in the form of a poem. When he lost control of the situation and the lady was dead, he left the tablet behind, thinking it was of no importance.”
“And your seal was on it.”
“Stop prying, Lu-inanna. You are stepping on the toes of a king. You should be grateful that I kept your name out of it. You owe me a favor.”
“And so does the high priest, when all's said and done. And he knows it. I'm being rewarded for keeping my mouth shut by getting a favored place in the New Ye
ar procession. What reward do you claim?”
“I'll be content with fair payment for the next job I do for the ziggurat,” Nabu-zir said dryly. “Perhaps you could forgo your commission.”
It was the day of no moon at the New Year, and the courtyard of the moon god was crowded with what seemed to be half the population of Ur. The other half was crammed wherever they would fit inside the walled ziggurat precincts.
Nabu-zir and Nindada had found a spot that gave them a good view of the winding ramps that led to the shrine at the top of the ziggurat. The priestly procession was about to start, and there was excited chatter all around them.
A portly man with beer on his breath squeezed past them to get closer to the spectacle. “Excuse me, brother,” he said. “Do you think Dumuzi has been reborn yet?”
“Undoubtedly,” Nabu-zir said solemnly. “Nana-sin has delivered him from the underworld by now, and the entu, the avatar of Innana, awaits him on her couch with perfumed loins.”
“Look, here come the priests!” a woman shouted, her voice cracking with emotion.
A parade of naked men, bearing the sacred offerings, had turned the corner and were climbing in single file up the first ramp. Nabu-zir strained his eyes and located Lu-inanna among them. The deputy administrator was laboring under the weight of what seemed to be a tray of honey cakes.
“There's your admirer,” he said, nudging Nindada.
She giggled, an uncharacteristic lapse for her, then caught herself. “He looks silly without his clothes. Those chubby hips, the sagging belly.”
“He's been helping himself to too many of the god's honey cakes,” Nabu-zir said.
The priests were at the second tier by now. They could be heard chanting a hymn to Innana. The portly man turned around and said, “The sacred marriage is going well, don't you think?”
“Yes, indeed,” Nabu-zir said.
“Soon the earth will reawaken, the crops will grow, and Ur will have another prosperous year.”
“More than a year, let us hope,” Nabu-zir said, remaining determinedly secular. “With luck, the divine Shulgi's reign has many more years to go, and he and his sons will continue to fend off the barbarian darkness.”
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