Nine White Horses (21 page)

The king of Aratta received her at the door of his high
stone house. He was a younger man than Lugalbanda had expected, tall and broad
and strong, with the look of a fighting man and the scars to go with it. He
watched Inanna’s coming with an expression almost of shock, as if he had never
seen a goddess before.

It was a remarkable expression. After a while Lugalbanda set
a name to it. It was hunger: not the hunger of the starving man who sees
welcome sustenance, but of the rich man who thought that he had seized all the
wealth that was to be had, but now he sees a treasure that is not his—and he
must have it, whatever the cost.

As quickly as it had appeared, it receded into his eyes. He
smiled the practiced smile of kings and greeted the goddess and her following
in a fair rendering of the dialect of Uruk. She replied with dignity.

Lugalbanda did not listen to the words. He watched the
faces. The god was not here: there was only one divinity in this place, and she
had drawn every eye to her. No god would have borne such a distraction.

At length the king bowed and turned and led the goddess into
his house. Lugalbanda followed at a wary distance. The caravan dissipated
within the king’s house; only Lugalbanda’s own men followed the goddess to the
depths of it, and there guarded her.

Embassies, even urgent ones, were leisurely proceedings. It
would be days before anyone came to the point. Today they feasted and exchanged
compliments. No word was spoken of the caravan of gifts and grain, or of the
message that had come with it.

Nor did they speak of the god—not the king, and not the high
ones seated near him, and certainly not Inanna. But in the farther reaches of
the hall, among the young men, the talk was of little else. They were all wild
to master the new weapon, which they called a chariot. “It is wonderful,” they
said. “Remarkable. Divine. To ride in it, it’s like riding the wind.”

“I should like to see this thing,” Lugalbanda said. “Is it
winged? Do the winds carry it?”

“Oh, no,” they said. “You should see, yes. Come after all
this feasting is over. We’ll take you to see the chariots.”

Lugalbanda made no secret of his pleasure in the invitation.
They had no wariness in them, and no fear of betraying their city. They seemed
as innocent as children. They were full of stories of the god: how he had come
from a far country; how he had offended a goddess there and been broken for it,
and still walked lame; how that curse had pursued him even to Aratta, and taken
his consort and his daughter, and left him alone in a world of mortal
strangers.

Lugalbanda must remember that these were strangers to him
just as they were to the god, that even close allies could turn to enemies.
Trust no one, the elders of Uruk’s council had admonished him, and offer
service to none but the goddess herself.

He was the elders’ servant before all else. He exerted
himself to be pleasant company and drank maybe a little more than was wise, but
it was difficult to refuse his hosts’ persuasion—and the beer was surprisingly
good for an outland brew.

They were all much warmer than the sun warranted when the
feast meandered to its end. Lugalbanda had a new band of dearest friends, each
one dearer than the last, and all determined to show him their wonderful new
god.

o0o

The god was in his temple, forging bronze. The roar of the
forge and the ring of the hammer resounded in the courtyard, silencing even the
most boisterous of the young men. Wide-eyed and mute with awe, they crept
through the gate into the inner shrine.

In Uruk it would have been a place of beauty and mystery,
glimmering with lapis and gold, and made holy with the image of the god. Here
were walls of stone unadorned but for the tools of the smith’s trade. The stone
was dark with old smoke, but the tools were bright, with the look of frequent
use. On the far wall, where would have hung a tapestry woven in honor of the
god, was a wonder of work in gold and bronze and silver, brooches and ornaments
and oddities that might be trappings for chariot teams.

Later Lugalbanda would marvel at the artistry of the work,
but his eye was caught by the figure that bent over the forge. There were others
in the hall, laboring as he labored, but they were mortal. This truly was a
god.

He had come, they said, from the land of the sunrise. Its
light was in him, shining out of him. His skin was the color of milk, his hair
new copper shot with gold. His eyes when he lifted them were the color of reeds
in the first light of morning, clear green shot through with shadow.

There was a great sadness in them, a darkness of grief,
overlaid with pain. He lived, said that flat stare, because he had no choice.
Life was a curse, and death was not granted him. The light was gone from the
world.

“His consort,” said one of Lugalbanda’s new friends: “the
greater gods took her to themselves—oh, a while ago.”

“Five winters past,” one of the others said. “A fever took
her, and the daughter she had borne him. It was the fire of the gods, the
priests said, taking back their own. There was nothing left of them but ash.”

“They burned away to nothing?” Lugalbanda asked, barely
above a whisper, although the others did not trouble to lower their voices.

“Not their bodies,” his new friend said with a touch of
impatience. “Their hearts and souls, their lives: all were gone in a day and a
night. They were the breath of life to him, but they weren’t permitted to
linger here below. The gods wanted them back.”

“But they didn’t want him?” said Lugalbanda.

“My work is not done,” the god said. His voice was soft and
deep. He shaped the words strangely, but they were clear enough to understand.

Lugalbanda swallowed hard. He had thought, somehow, that the
god was like his greater kin: oblivious to human nattering unless it was shaped
in the form of prayer. But he wore flesh and walked visible in the world; of
course he could hear what people said in his presence.

The god’s expression was terrible in its mildness. “You
would be from Uruk,” he said. “Have you come to steal my chariots?”

Lugalbanda’s shoulders hunched. But he had a little pride,
and a little courage, too. “We are not thieves,” he said. Then he added, for
what little good it might do: “Great lord.”

The green eyes flickered. Was that amusement? “You are
whatever your city needs you to be,” the god said.

“My city needs me to show you respect, great lord,”
Lugalbanda said.

The god shrugged. His interest had waned. He turned back to
his forge.

He was making a sword, a long leaf-shape of bronze.
Lugalbanda did not know what—whether god or ill spirit—made him say, “Don’t
temper it with your own heart’s blood, great lord. That would cause grief to
more cities than this one.”

“I care nothing for yours,” the god said. But he said no
word of Aratta. Lugalbanda chose to find that encouraging.

o0o

Inanna’s head had been aching since morning. It was worse
now, between noon and sunset of this endless day. The sky beyond Aratta’s walls
was low, the air raw and cold. It would snow by evening, the elders had opined,
somewhere amid their council.

She was wrapped in every felt and fleece she had, and seated
in the place of honor beside the fire, but she did not think that she would
ever be warm again. She clenched her teeth to keep them from chattering, though
it only made her headache worse.

She had presented her embassy to the king and his council,
offering her caravan of grain and wine and lesser treasures in return for wood
and stone and bronze. The king’s eyes had gleamed as her men laid gifts before
him: fine weavings of wool and linen; ornaments of gold, copper, lapis, amber;
a pair of young onagers, perfectly matched; and with them a pair of maidens
from the south, so like to one another that only they themselves could tell for
certain which was which.

The king was a man of strong appetites, as she had observed
at the feast of welcome. He accepted the gifts with unconcealed pleasure, but
when they were all given, he seemed faintly disappointed. That vague sourness
persisted through the council. His elders haggled like women at market. They
wanted as much as Uruk would give, in return for as little as they could
manage. That was the way of commerce, even between kings.

She waited a considerable time before broaching the subject
of chariots. Still, it seemed she had not waited long enough.

“No!” the king said firmly. Until then he had let his
councilors speak for him, but in this he would speak for himself. “Those we do
not sell or give away. The gods have given them to us, with one of their own to
teach us their making.”

“Indeed,” Inanna said, “and the greater gods have let it be
known to us that their gift resides in Aratta. Shall we not fill your granaries
and adorn your women, and share this gift in return?”

Some of the council were wavering. One even said, “It will
be a long winter. Our trade with the south was not as profitable as it might
have been, nor are our storehouses as full as they should be. Surely—”

‘We do not give our chariots away,” the king said.

And that was all he would say, although the council
stretched until evening. When it ended, he had not budged, and his elders had
shifted equally immovably to his side.

Inanna was glad to leave the hall behind. She had thought
only of food and a bed, but as she went to find both, she overheard two of the
king’s women whispering together in a corner. It seemed they had undertaken to
console the god of chariots—a frequent venture, from the sound of it, but no
more successful tonight than it had ever been.

“This time he was less angry,” one of them said. “He’s
weakening, I can tell. One night he’ll give way—and I’ll be there.”

“Not before me,” her sister said.

They hissed a little as cats will, but amicably enough. They
did not see Inanna’s passing: she made sure that they were blind to her.

o0o

It was not difficult to find the god. Inanna had thought
he might be still in his forge, where people said he always was, but he was in
the priest’s house behind it, attended by servants who were both loyal and
discreet. But they could not stop a goddess.

When she came into the room in which he was sitting, he had
been eating a little: there was cheese by him, and a loaf of bread, barely
touched. He had an apple in his hand and was examining it, turning it with long
clever fingers.

“One eats that,” she said without thinking.

Lugalbanda had told her of those eyes, how they were as
green as reeds by the river in summer. Even forewarned, she was astonished,
taken aback by the light of them and by the grief that haunted them.

But she was a goddess and his equal. She met him stare for
stare. He blinked ever so slightly. She was careful not to let him see her
smile.

“I will make an apple of gold,” he said.

“Make it of bronze,” she said, “and adorn a chariot with it.”

“So you did come to steal my chariots.” He did not sound dismayed
by the prospect.

“I came to buy them,” she said. “We’re honorable merchants
in our part of the world.”

“Honor is a rare commodity,” he said.

“Not in Uruk,” said Inanna.

“Then yours must be a city of wonders,” he said.

‘We do think so,” said Inanna.

He almost smiled—almost. She watched the wave of grief rise
up and drown him, the memory so vivid and so bitter that it filled her own
heart with sorrow. She could see the two who had died, how beautiful they had
been, how deeply he had loved them—how grievous was their loss.

“Come with us to Uruk,” she said. She had not plotted to say
such a thing; the words escaped her of their own accord.

He did not laugh in her face. Neither did he reject her out
of hand. He frowned, but not in refusal. “Are you so desperate for chariots?”

“We are desperate for something,” she said. “A new weapon,
new power to destroy our enemies. But I didn’t ask for that. You would be welcome
in Uruk for yourself, and not only for what you can give us.”

“Why?”

This was a god of uncomfortable questions. She chose to
answer honestly. “There are no memories in Uruk.”

She had overstepped herself: his eyes hooded, and his face
went cold.

“The memories are within me,” he said. “I thank you for your
kindness.”

It was a dismissal. She bridled a little, but she judged it
wise to yield. She had much to think of, and little of that had to do with the
need of Uruk or the greed of Aratta. She took with her a vision of eyes as
green as reeds, and a long fair face, and sorrow that her heart yearned to
console.

o0o

After the first storm of winter, the gods of heaven
relented and brought back for a while the mellow gold of the season that, in
this country, they called autumn. The king of Aratta seemed to soften with the
sky. He accepted the riches of the caravan in return for an acceptable quantity
of worked and unworked metal, quarried stone, and mountain gold. He would not
sell his chariots or their maker, but he granted the king of Uruk a gift: a
single chariot with its team and its charioteer.

Lugalbanda had grown uneasy as their stay in Aratta
lengthened. There was nothing overt to object to; the people of the city were
unfailingly courteous, and some of the young men had become quite friendly. But
he was growing weary of the cold, the strangeness, even the way in which the
trees closed out the sky. His new friends took him hunting in the forests, and
taught him the ways of a country that he could never have imagined in his
distant and treeless homeland.

He could have borne that, at least until spring, but he did
not like the way the king watched Inanna. It never came to anything; it was
only a constant, starveling stare. Yet it did not lessen at all as the days
went on.