Empire Rising (34 page)

After that, no one failed to refer to her properly.

And now Rasui, caught up in the heat of the argument and trying to help his friend cheat the trader from Dilgarth, had not only forgotten her title but said something derogatory about her under his breath. If Eskkar were here, the man would already be packing his things, assuming he still had his head on his shoulders.

Trella sighed, and wished for a brief moment that indeed Eskkar were here. Her husband might hate these endless and interminable meetings, but he did have a way of settling certain disputes. Once he simply ordered a tavernkeeper out of Akkad. When the man protested, Eskkar stood and put his hand on his sword, before asking if the man wished to go for a swim in the Tigris without his head. Not very diplomatic, but, when used occasionally and with care, very effective.

Trella rose and leaned forward on the table. Resting her hands on the rough surface, she gazed directly into Rasui’s eyes. “Tell your friend two silver coins to Chuvash
now
. And the council doesn’t want to hear any more about this matter, so tell Asurak to keep his complaints to himself.

If he can’t trade honestly, he can leave Akkad. I’m sure there’s room on Nicar’s boat for one more.”

Rasui clenched his jaw, but one glance at the two Hawk Clan soldiers guarding the door reminded him that Trella had no problem with using force.

No one spoke, and all eyes turned to Rasui. “Then it’s settled,” Nicar said, speaking before the silence went on too long and Rasui felt tempted to speak up. “And if there’s nothing else to discuss this morning, I would like to get back to my business.”

“And I,” Corio agreed. “There’s so much building going on, I hate to be away from my apprentices any longer than necessary.”

Rasui dropped his hands on the table and nodded agreement. “As you say, Lady Trella.”

Trella ignored the hint of condescension in Rasui’s tone. Straightening up, she sweetened her voice. “Then until tomorrow, nobles.”

Rasui left first, no doubt to give his friend Asurak the bad news and Empire Rising

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put the matter behind him. Corio nodded at Trella, but made for the door nearly as fast as Rasui. Trella and Nicar left together, her two guards forming up around her as soon as they went outside and into the lane.

“Rasui lets his tongue run away with him,” Nicar commented as they walked side by side. “Asurak probably offered five coins to Rasui to help him shave the price.”

“If we don’t treat these traders fairly, then the goods will flow elsewhere,” Trella said, repeating the policy she and the council had established weeks ago.

“Yes, but a little cheating is expected,” Nicar said. “That’s what we merchants do sometimes, to get the best price.”

Even Trella laughed at that. “I don’t recall you ever doing anything so obvious, Nicar. You always appreciate the need to keep good relationships with your suppliers.”

“Perhaps I’m just more subtle in my dealings. At least, I hope I am.”

They’d reached the fork in the lane, and Nicar bade her good-bye as he walked off toward his home. Annok-sur, who’d followed behind them since they left the council house, moved alongside Trella.

With only two more lanes to cross, Trella took her time, stopping whenever she saw any of the dozens of women she knew, and answering the same questions again and again about the coming child. Trella’s excellent memory enabled her to keep a name with each face, and her ability to recall nearly every detail of every conversation convinced her followers that they occupied a special place in her thoughts.

In a few moments, the women and guards reached Eskkar’s lane, and a few paces later, they turned into his courtyard.

“Do you need to rest, Trella?”

“No, I just want to sit outside for a while,” Trella answered. “Dealing with Rasui always leaves a bad taste in my mouth.”

They walked to the back of the house, and sat together on the bench between the two young trees. Only a single guard kept station there, to make sure no one slipped in over the wall, and to keep an eye on Trella’s bedroom window on the upper story. The soldier, at a smile from Trella, obligingly moved away, across the courtyard. He could still see the women, but not hear them, if they kept their voices low.

“That Asurak,” Annok-sur began. “He should be driven out of Akkad.

He tries to cheat everyone he deals with. Sooner or later, someone is going to put a knife between his ribs.”

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“He’s no worse than a dozen others,” Trella said. “Except he has a friend on the council. Rasui encourages sharp dealing. I sometimes wish we had never accepted him into the nobles.”

“Rasui had the gold to pay his way onto the council,” Annok-sur said,

“though how he got it, no one knows.”

Before the siege, Rasui had been a minor trader dealing in slaves. Like many others too fearful to stay and fight, he’d chosen to depart the city before the Alur Meriki arrived. A few months later, after Eskkar drove off the barbarians, Rasui returned, with plenty of gold in his pouch and a steady supply of slaves. The trader paid the penalty demanded by the council for abandoning the city, and paid again to join the council itself as a noble.

Trella never cared for slave traders, not after her own experiences with them, but the reborn city required all the skills and trades it could find. She’d put aside her own distaste for Rasui and his calling, though now she wished otherwise.

“In a few months, if he doesn’t change his ways, we’ll send him packing,” Trella said. “But not now. We still need every trader, merchant, and worker we can entice to come here.”

During the siege, many merchants and craftsmen had left the city, most of them going to the south, some even as far as Sumeria. And except for war goods such as timber and bronze, much of Akkad’s trade had fallen off as traders sought safer places to do business. And though many people had returned to or settled in Akkad, the number of craftsmen, herders, and farmers hadn’t recovered. The situation would change soon enough, but the next six months would be critical to insure the city’s continued growth. Afterward, Akkad would be stronger than before, and individual merchants and traders would be less important.

“In another week or two,” Annok-sur said, “Asurak will be back before the council, answering some other complaint and hiding behind Rasui’s tunic.”

“Probably,” Trella agreed. “But for now, I think the real problem goes deeper. These council meetings waste most of our time on petty disputes that do little to grow the city. When we first convened the council, important matters needed to be resolved. But now, Akkad has grown too big to govern in the same way as a small village. Even Eskkar knows that. We need a new way of ruling, a way that allows the city to grow while protecting its trade and its people.”

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“More changes,” Annok-sur said. “The nobles won’t like that. They’ve already given up much of their authority.”

A breeze filled the courtyard, rustling the trees and shaking some blossoms from the limbs. Both women paused for a moment, watching the tree limbs sway gracefully.

“There are nearly five thousand people in Akkad,” Trella went on. “In another few years, there may be twice as many. The number of disputes will more than double. There will be quarrels over housing, farmlands, herds, anything and everything. If there are two or three confrontations a day to be resolved now, there will be a dozen each day soon enough. No, we need to reshape Akkad’s ways now, before the sheer number of people overwhelms us.”

“No one likes change, Trella. People like things to be the way they’ve always been.”

“I know. Eskkar and I have spoken about this many times. He’s visited dozens of villages throughout the land, and seen every abuse of power possible, even here. He wants to rule Bisitun in such a way that the people there are thankful to be under Akkad’s control.”

“He’s become a different man in the last few months, because of you,”

Annok-sur said. “Now even my Bantor is starting to consider his choices with more care. He’s started worrying about the future, too.”

“New times call for new skills,” Trella said. She reached down and picked up a blossom swept against her feet. “But it pleases me to see Bantor learning new ways.” She thought for a moment, admiring the flower as she did so. “I think great change is coming for all of us, and if we do not lead the way, those changes will overwhelm us. With Bisitun to worry about, we must fi nd new ways to rule there, too, ways that don’t make the people there and here in Akkad hate our authority. Otherwise we’ll be no better than any bandit.”

“What would you change first, Trella?”

“As Eskkar says, there must be a better way to resolve disputes,” Trella answered. “It would be even better to avoid them in the first place.”

“There will always be disputes, Trella. The larger the village, the more frequent the arguments. One man’s word against another, shopkeepers and customers alike complaining about their dealings.”

“The problem, I think, is not what to change first. I think we need to change everything all at once.”

Annok-sur reached out and took Trella’s hand. “If anyone else said 192

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that, I’d laugh. But you . . . do you really think you can replace the customs so easily?”

“No, not easily,” Trella said, “but the sooner we start, the easier it will be. Suppose we wanted to stop merchants from sharp dealing. If all the prices for everything were written down, everyone would know them, and it wouldn’t be so easy to cheat.”

“Most people can’t read the symbols. There aren’t enough symbols anyway.”

“And that, I think, is another thing we must resolve. We must get the clerks together, and have them invent new symbols, ones needed to run a city. There would have to be many more symbols, and they would have to be written down, so that the scribes and clerks don’t forget them.”

“You’d need many more clerks, as well.”

“Yes, more clerks, more symbols, more ways to record agreements, and a person in authority to settle disputes based on these new written records. So we’d have to start there, with a new school for scribes, and a new House to administer the customs.” She shook her head, revising her thoughts. “No, they wouldn’t be customs any longer. Once they were written down, they would become laws, something that couldn’t change on a merchant’s or noble’s whim.”

“Can the people even learn the symbols?” Annok-sur countered. “If they couldn’t, they’d still be trusting some scribe or merchant to explain them.”

“People would only need to know a few basic symbols. If you’re a farmer, then you need to know about crops, bushels, hectares, and farm animals. A craftsman in the city would need to know different symbols, the ones that dealt with his craft. Only the scribes would need to know all the symbols. Whenever someone needed a contract, or to record an agreement or transaction, they would visit one of our new scribes. I think it would work, Annok-sur.”

“There would have to be rules established to maintain order,” Annok-sur said, warming to the idea. “Perhaps another House might be established, one to govern the growth of Akkad.”

“Yes, next to the building where they’ll teach and train the scribes, and store the records.”

“That will be a large house, then,” Annok-sur said, only half-jokingly.

Important contracts were written in clay, most on pottery shards about the size of a woman’s hand. Once dried, they could be duplicated, stored, Empire Rising

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and even transported. The clerks traveling with Eskkar had sent back by boat several baskets containing records, all carefully wrapped to prevent breakage. Storing large quantities of such records would require many large rooms filled with hundreds of shelves to contain the shards.

Trella leaned back, letting her shoulders rest against the wall of the house. She felt the child moving about, and rested her hand on her stomach, trying to comfort the babe within. “Still, it will give the younger sons of the prosperous merchants and craftsmen something to do, a respected calling for those who cannot inherit. Perhaps parents could list their in-heritors in advance, and so avoid all those family disputes.”

The eldest son generally, but not always, inherited the family business, a practice that often led to quarrels among brothers. When death took the head of the household, brother often fought against brother, with the loser driven out of the family.

“You will change everything, Trella. The nobles will complain about you again.”

“Perhaps. But the people, I think, would approve. As would most of the smaller shopkeepers and craftsmen. They’ll see the advantage of laws that not only protect them, but provide for stable prices in the future. It’s only those grown powerful enough to take advantage of others that will object.”

“The people rely on you, Trella. They know you and Eskkar dispense justice, not whim. They’ll trust you to keep track of their shops and farms, even their contracts, but not anyone else.”

“That’s why we must show the people we can control people like Asurak and Rasui.”

“Still, you’d better wait until Eskkar returns. Do you think he will approve?”

“If it reduces the number of council meetings my husband has to attend, he’ll approve. We spoke about many of these issues right up to the day he left for Bisitun. He wanted new ways of dealing with the people there.”

“When will you tell the council?”

“I’m sure it will take several weeks to consider every aspect. You and I will start tomorrow. We’ll go over everything we need, and how we think the new Houses will function. We have to be ready to answer every objection from the likes of Rasui. Even Nicar and Corio may not agree with all these ideas. We’ll have to find ways to show them the advantages. Nobles 194

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Rebba, Decca, and Rasturin, with their big farm holdings, might be more amenable. Nevertheless, we’ll need to have every answer prepared in advance, every problem considered, and a solution, a good solution, ready to present.” Trella finished with a smile. “For Eskkar to present, that is.”