Day of the False King (14 page)

Semerket had no choice but to ogle every
woman’s face as he passed, seeking Naia’s. There were literally
hundreds to choose from, each clad in the bizarre garb of her homeland.
The charioteer had spoken true when he said that the women came from at
least sixty nations from all around the world.

There were dark-skinned girls from the lands
of the Ganges, who cultivated wispy mustaches on their upper lips;
Africans with their crisp hair cut at an angle, their full breasts
covered in heavy chains of bronze; yellow-skinned beauties from Cathay,
with hair blacker than any Egyptian’s. On and on he went, past
yellow-and red-haired women with skins whiter than the sands of Libya;
but Semerket saw no Egyptian woman.

He was close to the entrance of the temple
now, and the only places left to explore outside were those parts of
the gardens where the hot-eyed male Ishtaritu waited. Judging from what
he saw, their ranks were as varied as the women’s. Some were muscular,
easily at home on any dockside, aggressively male, while others were
indistinguishable from their sister Ishtaritu, dressed in women’s
robes, with faces painted as expertly as any courtesan’s — only more so.

Semerket, who had not lain with a woman
since Naia had divorced him, began to feel queasy. His pulse pounded in
his limbs and his forehead became tight — a distant warning signal that
his headaches would soon begin again.

It was not his simple unthinking prudery
that disturbed him; it was that he had caught the unmistakable whiff of
sex in the air and felt suddenly capable of rape. The women who had so
brazenly displayed themselves to him in the gardens had aroused his
long-dormant lust. Another few minutes at the temple and he would be
lost. He stood at its doorway, breathing deeply, gathering up his
courage to go inside.

At last, he stepped into the temple’s dim
and smoky interior. Hesitating in the entry hall, he thought that the
eunuch priests might stop him, for no Ishtaritu accompanied him. But
the eunuchs were indifferent to what he did or where he went. They
conversed rapidly with one another in their alcoves, sibilants hissing
like angry adders, and did not even condescend to look at him. His
breath caught painfully in his chest, for the place was thick with
incense. Semerket brought his mantle over his face and took another few
steps into the dark.

The temple was a warren of reed partitions,
erected so that hundreds of doorless cells existed in long rows. Within
them, couples flagrantly copulated in every position that Semerket had
ever imagined, and some he had not. Several single men, alone like him,
strolled the hallways. They stopped occasionally to stare at or even
cheer the more athletic or beautiful or imaginative pairs performing
within the cubicles. Some even shamelessly stroked themselves as they
watched, entranced by the carnal spectacle before them.

Semerket tasted bile in his throat. What if
he found Naia in such a cubicle? How could he leave without killing the
men who dared touched her — or even those who looked on? His breath
came in shallow gulps, and his throat burned from inhaling the
low-hanging incense.

He turned away in desperation — why did the
eunuchs insist on burning so much of it? The answer occurred to him
quickly: if there were no incense, then the scents of sex and bodily
exudations would overwhelm everything within the temple. He looked down
at the tiles on the floor, and was suddenly grateful that he wore his
hard, hempen sandals; if he were barefoot, he would slide…

In desperation, he approached one of the
priests. Seeing Semerket gasping before him like a hooked fish, he
signaled a servant hurriedly. “Some wine over here, quickly!”

“No!” rasped Semerket. “No wine!”

But the eunuch was pouring a goblet full of
mulled red, which the priests kept on hand for such occasions. Many men
actually died from their exertions within the temple — one of Ishtar’s
more mordant jokes. The eunuchs privately believed that the goddess
actually detested men — no doubt the reason why she required her
priests to submit themselves to the knife.

“Water,” insisted Semerket, “water is fine.”

The eunuch looked at him doubtfully, but
dipped a ladle into a nearby font. Semerket drank gratefully.

“Thank you.” Semerket leaned against the
wall, closing his eyes for a moment, and realized that his tunic had
become sodden with sweat. The eunuch turned to leave, but Semerket
called out, “Please. I need your help.”

The eunuch began to wring his hands,
grimacing. Eunuchs had a horror of physical distress, and Semerket did
not look at all well. “It seems to me, sir, if you don’t mind my saying
so, that you’ve enjoyed altogether too much sport here tonight; you
really need to go home.”

“I want to find someone in the temple — one
of the Ishtaritu. It’s important.”

“The goddess forbids you to see the same
Ishtaritu more than once, sir. Come back another night — tomorrow,
perhaps — and choose from the others.”

“This is different —”

The eunuch rolled his eyes, and sighed. “It
always is.”

“She’s my wife!”

Semerket said the words so loudly that
several men turned to gaze at him.

“Your wife —?” the eunuch croaked.

Hastily, Semerket told the eunuch-priest
that he had come to search for an Egyptian woman named Aneku. Her real
name was Naia, he said. She was his wife, and she had been mistakenly
sold to the temple. He had special papers from the pharaoh of Egypt, he
insisted, guaranteeing her freedom. Semerket began pulling pieces of
gold from his belt, not even bothering to count them, and shoved them
into the eunuch’s fat hands.

“Take them all, please! Just show me to Naia
— to Aneku — take me to her. I beg you!”

Though it was against every stricture, the
eunuch was a native Babylonian and knew the value of Egyptian gold. He
was no fool, either, and foresaw a scandal of international proportions
brewing. The fiction under which the temple existed was that all
Ishtaritu were there by choice, each impersonating the goddess in his
or her own way. How would it look if an Egyptian envoy’s wife were
found among the initiates, unfairly sold into prostitution?

“This way,” the eunuch muttered, pulling
Semerket by his now-sopping tunic over to the alcoves where his fellow
eunuchs waited. On the wall behind them were squares outlined in chalk,
and the eunuchs had affixed pegs to each square. From some of the pegs,
clay markers hung on strings, each bearing the name of an Ishtaritu.
This ingenious system allowed the eunuchs to know which cubicle was in
use, and which Ishtaritu utilized it.

Quickly the eunuch-priest examined the
markers, holding them in the light of a nearby torch. “Aneku, Aneku,
Aneku,” he muttered. Then he grunted, nodding. “Bin ninety-six.” He
seized Semerket by his sleeve and pulled him down a dark hall of reed
cubicles. Semerket kept his eyes forward, refusing to look inside any
of those he passed. Try as he would, however, he could not stop his
ears against the groans and coughs and choking noises that assaulted
him from all sides. His legs began to swim beneath him, as if his feet
no longer touched the earth.

The eunuch stopped at the far end of the
temple and peeked inside one of the reed enclosures. He held his hand
up to prevent Semerket from advancing further. Even from a distance,
Semerket heard the sounds of emphatic lovemaking that emanated from the
cubicle. He grimaced, holding his hands over his ears.

Semerket waited in the dark for how long a
time he did not know. At last, he saw a man emerge from the room,
adjusting his garments. He was a tall, pale creature, with light eyes
and long, dark hair. Semerket’s glare burned into him as he passed.
Momentarily discomfited, the man regarded Semerket with apprehension.
He made a holy sign in the air to avert the evil eye and hurried away.
As he sped down the corridor, he cast quick glances over his shoulder
to see if Semerket followed him.

The eunuch beckoned Semerket to come
forward. Semerket went into the cubicle with his head lowered, so that
he saw only her long, shapely legs. He had forgotten the olive sheen of
her complexion, and tried not to notice that she was wiping herself
down with a cloth. Even these intimate gestures were imbued with her
distinctive grace. He raised his eyes carefully and spied the beaded
leather thong she wore around her loins; he glimpsed her small breasts
with their hard brown nipples.

Still, he could not look at her face, and
his shoulders began to shake. “Naia…Naia…my love,” he moaned in
Egyptian, “what have they made you do?”

Naia’s voice in return sounded higher, more
childish, than the one he remembered. “Who in hell are you?” she asked.

Semerket staggered forward, and felt the
floor rising up to meet him…

WHEN HE AWOKE, he was lying on
his back in the House of Ishtar, with his head in Aneku’s lap. She was
mopping his face with a moist rag, and before he opened his eyes he
heard her high, thin voice rising loudly in the room, lashing out in
Babylonian at the eunuchs who had gathered at the cubicle’s entrance.

“Can’t you let me alone with my husband?”
she said in aggrieved tones. “Even you fat oafs must appreciate the
shock he’s just had.”

When the eunuchs had scuttled from the room,
Semerket muttered in Egyptian, “I’m not your husband.”

“You and I know that,” said Aneku, “but
those fools don’t.”

“Why pretend?”

“Because you’re my way out of this shit
hole.”

Semerket sat up wearily, his head throbbing.
“Why should I get you out? I don’t even know you.”

“Because they told me you’re looking for
Naia. Well, it happens that she and I lived together at Menef’s estate,
before he sent me to the slave yards — may Set and all his devils blind
and castrate him — and, if you’re still interested, I happen to know
where she is.”

His black eyes grew clear. “Where?!” he
asked eagerly. “Tell me!”

She shook her head. “Not so fast, my boy.
First you’re going to get me out of here.”

As Semerket had learned, everything in
Babylon had a price, and a sizeable donation of gold into the proper
hands effected Aneku’s release. The eunuchs gave him the woman’s deed
of indenturement, noting on the clay that Semerket was now her legal
owner. They draped the near-naked girl in a blanket, and then both she
and Semerket were spirited from the temple by means of an underground
passage, to emerge into a neighborhood directly off the Processional
Way. Within mere minutes, they were back in Semerket’s rooms in
Bel-Marduk’s hostel.

Aneku exclaimed in delight over the spigots
that gushed water into the large basin within the tiled privy.
Immodestly, she cast off her blanket and stepped into the steaming
water. Her shrill moans of ecstasy filled the rooms, so that Semerket’s
aching head throbbed even more fiercely. He plaintively begged her to
quiet herself.

As she diffidently scrubbed herself with
mounds of the perfumed lard and ash that the hostel priests provided,
he sat watching her from a nearby stool.

“Tell me, now, as you promised,” he said.
“Where is Naia?”

She merely looked at him. “So you really are
the
Semerket?” she said by way of answer. “After all Naia told
me of you, I feel we know one another.”

“She spoke of me?”

Aneku scooped some soap from its bowl. “What
a wonderful scent,” she remarked, holding her frothy hands to her face
and inhaling. “I’d forgotten what a real bath was like. The Babylonians
are pigs, you know, despite all their fine plumbing.”

“Did you really know her? You weren’t just
saying that so I’d rescue you?”

Aneku splashed irritatedly, and her little
pointed chin grew petulant. “I said I knew her, didn’t I? I’m not a
liar, you know. We were sent here together on the same ship, with that
swine Menef. Then we worked as maids at his estate for a while. But he
sent us away, finally.”

“Where is she, Aneku?”

She sat quietly in the water, still not
looking at him.

“Answer me,” he said softly. “Please.”

She swallowed. “I’m sorry. It’s just that
Naia was my first woman friend. She was fair, you know? Just about the
only woman who didn’t say mean things about me behind my back…”

“Aneku —”

The girl looked at him then, and tears
welled up in her slanted green eyes to mingle with the bathwater. “Oh,
Semerket. Menef knew a prince and princess from Elam. They were the
sister and brother-in-law of the new king, or something like that — I
forget. Anyway, they needed servants when they arrived in Babylon.
Menef sent her to their plantation outside of town, along with that boy
who came with us —”

“Rami?”

Aneku nodded. “By then Menef was renting me
out to anyone who had the right amount of silver. You can’t believe
what I was expected to do. When I refused to service his friends
anymore, he sent me on to the slave yards with instructions to sell me
as a trained whore. At first I cursed Naia and Rami for being the lucky
ones.”

Semerket found he was able only to nod
dumbly.

“But it turns out that I was the fortunate
one for once — can you believe it?”

“Why? What happened?”

She swallowed, and brought water to her
face, bathing it before she answered. “Only a few days after she and
Rami were sent to the plantation — it was during the last part of the
war with Elam, you know? — the place was sacked by raiders.” She fell
silent, staring at Semerket as if she expected him to cuff her.

“Go on,” he said.

“Oh, Semerket,” she said softly. “They were
all slaughtered. Every one of them. The plantation was burned to the
ground. She’s dead, Semerket — Naia’s dead.”

THE RIVER FEVER came upon him
again that night. He lay on his bed and clutched the heavy skins around
him, his body shaking with an onslaught of sudden fierce chills. Aneku
crossed swiftly to the bed and crawled between its blankets, pressing
close so that she might infuse her warmth into him. He would have
shaken off her embrace, but she held him fast against her, shushing his
protests as though he were a child. In truth, he was so starved for the
closeness of another living body that he could not have moved away from
her even if he had wanted.