CITY OF THE GODS: FORGOTTEN (17 page)

Aavi couldn’t help herself. “Oh, no!
 
That’s terrible, those poor - ”
 
But before she could finish her sentence, Namtar yanked on her collar chain so hard that she fell to the filth encrusted ground at his feet.

“I did not give you permission to speak, slave!” Namtar snarled at her. “You have no more rights than they do, ‘Princess’.
 
I could just as easily throw you in one of these cells as take you upstairs and put you in your private cage. The only reason I don’t is that you are worth more to me unsullied. If I put you in there, you would be beaten and raped before you could even scream about it. Then you would only be worth half as much!”

“Why are you so angry?” she cried.
 
She didn’t understand where his rage suddenly came from, but she had felt it building in him since they talked to the first two gods. She had seen his glow getting darker from that point on.
 
She had tried to obey his commands, but had apparently failed.

This time Namtar pulled her up by her collar, choking her till she stood up. He had to hold her arm firmly to keep her from falling again as she coughed. He put his sharp beak right up against her cheek. “That’s the second time you spoke without permission. Now I’m going to show you what happens to slaves who disobey.”

Namtar turned to one of the slavers in the stable. “Get a female, one about her age.”
 
He nudged his beak at Aavi as he lifted her arm up.

“Yes, High Sulgi.” The heavy-set, bearded slaver pulled a skinny young woman with dark, matted hair out of the pen. She looked terrified as she stood with head bowed, a ragged dress hanging by a few tattered ties to her shoulders.
 
Her arms and legs had dirt and smudges on them.
 
Now Aavi understood what the High Sulgi had meant when he said she had a dust repellent spell on her. She never got dirty like they did.

Namtar squeezed Aavi’s arm hard. “If it weren’t for the fact that I don’t want to leave marks, you would get five lashes of the whip for making me look like a fool in front of my clients. So instead, this slave is going to suffer for you and you are going to be right here to see it. Then you’ll know what will happen to you the next time you disobey.” Namtar looked at the slaver again. “Tie the slave to the whipping post. Five lashes on my command.”

The slaver immediately took the dark haired woman over to a tall, brown-stained wooden cross that was on one side of the stables. He turned her around and tied her hands to either side of the cross using thick leather straps that were nailed into the wood.

 
        
“Remove her garment. I want our Princess to really see this.” He looked at Aavi intently with his round black eyes. “And I’m warning you, if you close your eyes or turn away, this slave will get an extra lash for any you don’t watch,” he said with a deadly serious voice. “Now, Begin!”

The slaver ripped the clothing off the back of the poor woman and threw the rags to the ground. She was now as naked as Aavi, and it reminded her of own clothes and what had happened to them. Another man handed the bearded slaver a coiled leather whip off the wall and he moved to stand a few feet behind the dark haired woman. He held the whip in one hand as he moved his arm as far back as it would go and then swung it forward very quickly. The whip slapped hard across the woman’s back and she screamed in pain, a red mark suddenly appearing on her back, just below her jagged dark hair.

“No!” Aavi screamed as she tried to move toward the poor woman to try to stop this madness.
 
The collar was snapped back and Aavi again heard the horrible sound of the whip cutting through the air. It seared the woman a second time, putting an “X” across her back. She screamed again and convulsed in agony. That should be my pain! And suddenly, she could feel the anguish coursing through the helpless woman as if it were her own.
  

Aavi and the woman were as one. Both shared the pain of the whip.

Aavi was in shock; she had never seen, not to mention felt, such raw brutality. She was aware that High Sulgi was watching her, so as the tears ran down her cheeks all Aavi could do was cry and force herself to watch someone suffering because of her.

The slave girl was slumped over, having fainted from the pain. Tiny trickles of blood flowed from the five red marks the whip had left on her back and buttocks. After receiving a nod from Namtar, the slaver untied the poor girl, dragged her back to the pen and pushed her in. He threw her ripped dress in after her as well.
 
It was over.

But Aavi couldn’t move. She just kept staring at the cross where the woman had been. She was crying and shuddering uncontrollably.

Namtar’s anger began to clear like a summer storm. As quickly as it had raged in him, it faded away.
 
He collected himself as he stood triumphantly over his Princess. “I think you have learned what it is really like to be a slave.
 
I’ll carry you back to your cage and you can think about what you have seen.
 
Now perhaps you understand your place.”

He bent over and picked Aavi up. She was like a rag doll in his arms. Namtar walked out of the slave pens into the open courtyard then flew up to the balcony. He put Aavi back into the cage, where she curled up on the floor and cried herself to sleep.

Several hours later, as the sun was setting, Aavi was awakened by someone gently touching her arm. Her eyes still stung from all the crying she had done, but she opened them to see a dark-haired, olive skinned woman crouching by the cage and reaching through the bars.

Aavi slowly sat up. The woman reminded her of the poor slave that had been whipped earlier in the day, but this wasn’t her. She was not as thin, and this woman had longer hair that was groomed and pulled back into a ponytail, held in place by a silver clasp. Still, she looked as if she was somehow part of the same clan or group.
 
Dressed in a dark green cotton belted skirt with slits up the sides, a loose sleeved top, she wore no shoes.
 
The first thing Aavi checked was to see if she had a belly navel, which she did.
 
Next to her was a hand-woven basket filled with a variety of fruits.

After they exchanged glances, the woman spoke. “The High Sulgi ordered me to bring you food and drink, if you wish some.” She pointed at the basket, which Aavi noticed also had a thin glass bottle of some liquid in it.

“Y-yes, I guess I would like something to drink.” Aavi realized she was quite thirsty. Perhaps all the water she lost from crying needed to be replaced.
 

The woman pulled the cork out of the bottle and passed it through the bars. Aavi took the dark green bottle, sniffed it and took a sip. Unlike the bitter drink from earlier, which had made her feel foggy, this one had no color or taste, but it was very refreshing and cool.

“Thank you.
 
Is this water?” Aavi asked, drinking some more. She was pretty sure it was, as she had drunk water at Buddha’s Retreat the other night.
 

“It is. Would you like fruit?” the woman asked, as she offered a red, shiny, round fruit through the bars.
 
Aavi put down the blue bottle and took it as the woman moved from a crouching position to sit on the floor, folding her legs under herself and gently leaning against the bars of the cage.
 

Aavi looked at the red fruit for a moment, not completely sure how to eat it. She had been given some fruit at Buddha’s Retreat and one of the young ones there had shown her how to peel it, but this seemed to have a different skin. Aavi passed it back to the woman. “I’m sorry; I don’t know how to eat this. Can you show me?”

The woman looked very surprised and responded with a short embarrassed giggle, which she tried to repress by putting her free hand over her mouth. She quickly recovered “This is an apple. You just bite it like this.” She used her teeth to crunch into it then handed the apple back to Aavi. Aavi looked at the bite mark and felt embarrassed and foolish.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t know it was that easy.” Imitating the other woman, Aavi took a bite of the apple. It was sweet, crunchy and very tasty. She decided she liked these apple fruits.

The woman chuckled as she watched Aavi eat. She placed her hand over her chest. “My name is Es-huh. I have been slave here since I was child.”
        

Aavi swallowed a bite of apple as she slowly repeated the woman’s name. “Es-huh.
 
I am Aavi, though your High Sulgi calls me Princess.”
 

The woman looked seriously at Aavi. “Then I must call you Princess, and he is not my High Sulgi, he is High Sulgi of all of us. We are his.” Es-huh pointed to herself, Aavi and then gestured to indicate everything around them. Aavi noticed that Es-huh used her hands quite a bit more than most people she had seen, to emphasize a point, or communicate ideas only hinted at in normal speech. It was pleasing to watch her as she talked. Aavi wondered if it was just her habit or if all of Es-huh’s people did this.

Aavi finished another bite of the apple. She wasn’t sure if it was the food or the presence of someone who meant her no harm, but she was feeling better. Aavi moved and sat cross-legged nearer to Es-huh. “Do you like being a slave, or would you rather be free?”
 
She was earnestly curious for an answer, after seeing the helpless girl whipped in the pens and accepting that she herself was now a slave. Aavi was having trouble imagining what it would be like to be a slave for one’s whole life.

“I have always been in service to Lamasthu and the High Sulgi. I do not think I would live for a day without them. They provide food, shelter and reason for living. What higher calling could I have than to serve them? I only hope that you will be so lucky, Princess. That you will go to a good house where you will be happy to serve as I do.” When Es-huh said all this, she again used her hands to gesture to the food, the room, and the world beyond these walls.
 

Deeply moved by Es-huh’s answers, Aavi could only say, “I hope I end up at a good place too, Es-huh.
 
I’m glad you are happy here.” There was no doubt that she was happy with her life as a slave. Aavi could see it in her heart.
 
Still, slavery seemed wrong on some basic level. Even with Aavi’s missing memories and identity, she somehow maintained a sense of right and wrong that was separate from these missing aspects.

They sat together for another hour talking and sharing the basket of fruit. Aavi told her life story, but as she only remembered yesterday and today, there wasn’t much to tell. She was far more interested in hearing Es-huh tell the story of her life as a slave to Lamasthu and the High Sulgi. Aavi learned that Lamasthu seemed to hold a higher standing than the High Sulgi. Apparently there were different rankings for gods. Some were actually the servants of more powerful gods in a complex hierarchy that Es-huh wasn’t able to really explain to Aavi. Es-huh knew that the High Sulgi was subservient to Lamasthu, and that there were gods more powerful than Lamasthu and gods who were less powerful than the High Sulgi. From Es-huh’s life story, Aavi could see that being a slave was hard work, but that Es-huh found small joys in even the most mundane of tasks. That, and a sense of family and her devotion to the gods, had given Es-huh the ability to see past all the cruelties and hardships of being a slave.
 

Eventually, Es-huh had to attend to other duties and left. Aavi lay back down in her cage with a full belly. Things seemed a little better now that she had made a friend. As she fell asleep, Aavi didn’t notice the bat-shaped creature perched outside on the balcony, watching her longingly with luminous green eyes.

It was morning, the beginning of Aavi’s third day in the City of the Gods, at least as far as she knew.
 
She woke up, still in her cage, as Namtar came into the room to get some things from his desk. In a way she was actually happy to find herself in the same predicament. It gave her a sense of continuity and a firm footing in reality, something she had lost the previous two nights. She propped herself up on one arm and looked to see what was going on. Namtar paused to take note of her.

“Ah, the Princess awakens,” Namtar said sarcastically, holding a scroll he had just taken out of the massive desk drawer. “Did you eat anything last night?” he asked, opening and then reading a scroll.
 
Namtar knew that sometimes when slaves were upset, they would refuse to eat, a childish act that he usually repaid with a beating, followed by forced feeding.