The Philistine Warrior (19 page)

Ibbi must have been moved by her sincerity and determination, but he didn’t comment directly on her offer to the Goddess; not at first. “Your Highness,” he finally answered, “it was a mistake to stay here in
Egypt
during your pregnancy. Better to have returned to
Philistia
—or better still, to
Assyria
or
Babylon
, though I know that would’ve been a difficult journey, involving diplomacy as well as the physical effort itself. You see, these Egyptian doctors are men of little, if any, faith in the gods—and their skill, albeit great, is almost pointless without the powers of the Divine. The doctors of my country, where medicine is grounded in worship, would have been far better for you.”

“Is there a Mesopotamian doctor in
Thebes
?”

“I am one, Your Highness. I am skilled in Chaldean medicine, and my hands are sanctified by the Goddess Ishtar.” They conversed for a long time in that way. Then Delai allowed the priest to part her dress and touch her stomach with his thin, small hands; she allowed him, in fact, to examine her much more intimately than her Egyptian doctors had dared to suggest. Ibbi then knelt in front of an image of Ishtar and prayed while Delai reclined on a low table, her robe open so that she could feel the cool air of the darkened
Temple
on her skin.

Turning at last, Ibbi approached her with a strange, almost frightening look in his eyes. He held a goblet up to her lips. “Drink this,” he commanded—so unlike the subservient manner in which he’d previously addressed her. She obeyed, and in a few minutes her head began to swim. “What I shall show you now,” the priest said, “is sacred, and must be told to no one without my permission.” (And to this day, I know only a vague outline of what she was soon to see and learn.)

Without waiting for Delai’s pledge of secrecy, the priest continued. “Hundreds of years ago, there dwelt in my land a people who spoke a different language from that of
Babylon
. Few people know that tongue today; only some of the priests and fewer of the scribes. These people lived in the ancient cities erected by the gods

when they made this world: Eridu,
Nippur
, and
Ur
; and the people were known as Sumerians. They came from a land of gods far out in the southern sea, and they had the most intimate knowledge of the deities ever allowed to men. And so they could worship and sacrifice as the gods had decreed at the Beginning of All Things….”

“Yes, I understand…” Delai averred.

“Now listen and hear, O Princess, for it is your life and that of your child that are at stake. In the holiest of our cities, there were once vast temples dedicated to the Goddess Inanna, the Mistress of the Ways of Women, and Goddess above all. She was The Woman, and Queen of Heaven. People worshiped Her in the ancient way, and She cared for them and their fields of grain. But then the Akkadians, long our neighbors, rose up in a time so long ago that there was not even the city now known as
Babylon
. Sargon the Conqueror was their king, and they slowly gained control of our cities and our temples in
Sumer
. Ever since, for many long centuries, the worship of Inanna has been corrupted, and is now almost forgotten. The Babylonians now worship Ishtar; their scholars know that She was once called Inanna—but only a handful of Chaldean priests still keep to the true rites of Her worship…and we keep those secrets alive in the temples of Ishtar. We are a holy race of priests, unknown even to most of the clergy who serve Her whom they call Ishtar. But someday, Inanna will come down from Heaven and smite our enemies; She will nourish us and make us great, and we shall teach the people Her true rites once more! Until then, we select a few trustworthy people for conversion to those rites…and I have chosen you—and, if She wills it, your unborn child….”

The priest then took Delai by her hand and led her through a door into a dark passageway. Finally, they reached a chamber deep inside the
Temple
. Delai was still feeling the effects of that drug, and the room was dimly lit, so she couldn’t make out just what was in the place. But Priest Ibbi lit some wall torches, and then Delai could see a huge statue, crowned with golden leaves and stars, at the far end of the chamber.

“Now, Princess, you must pray to the True Goddess,” he told her. Almost without knowing it, Delai went down upon her knees before this stern-faced image of Inanna.

I have myself seen this Goddess in another temple—which is another story—so I can say that She is an awesome sight indeed. In my experience, She was dressed in a gown of blood-red feathers, and

Her gigantic eyes stared down at me from any place, any distance, in Her room—black pupils surrounded by enormous white ovals. The Goddess held stalks of wheat and a goblet in Her hands, and before Her throne there were offerings of meat and drink; smaller statues of worshipers, with round, staring eyes and folded hands, looked up at Her in perpetual adoration and awe.

This was, more or less, what Delai must have witnessed in that temple in
Thebes
, along with music, an incantation being sung in the strange and foreign tongue of
Sumer
; the words burned themselves into her memory, even though she couldn’t understand their meaning—except that their devotional purpose was clear. She felt the cold stone of Inanna’s altar on her naked abdomen.

“Goddess…Goddess…save my baby,” she cried. “Let me die in his place!”

Ibbi came beside her again: “Now drink the Wine of Life,” he ordered, and Delai looked up: she saw a chalice on the altar, a vessel which hadn’t been there before—and which the priest could not have placed there…and yet there was no one else in the room…except for the Great Woman, the Divine Inanna…. Trembling, Delai set her lips to the cup, lifting it with both hands and draining it. Then, as she raised her eyes to the face of Holy Inanna, the mighty Goddess grew larger and came closer to her. Delai let the cup go clattering across the floor; she gasped and fell back, pain welling up in her again.

“It’s begun,” she whispered, with the sure knowledge of one who has, like the Goddess, known childbirth since Eternity….

Priest Ibbi helped her to her feet. “Goddess Inanna has accepted yourself as intended sacrifice,” he proclaimed, speaking directly into the girl’s ear. “Your son shall be born alive. If Inanna wills it, you shall die as sacrifice. But if She wills otherwise, and you live, you must forever more worship Her as She has decreed—even though you may pretend to call Her Ishtar or Astarte. Now, take this—and go!” He pressed a tiny wooden image of Inanna into her hands and then led her through the passageway, into the outer

Temple
, the people’s
Temple
…and then into the ante-room where the Prince, her husband, awaited her return.

Ekosh leapt to his feet upon hearing her convulsive sobs and muttered prayers—prayers which were, to him, as they were to Delai, incomprehensible, even though they came from her mouth.

“She is in the pain of holy labor,” Ibbi told the Prince. “But there is time to get her home. If she says strange things, don’t be alarmed, for it will be the spirit of the Goddess within her. Your son will be born alive; this much the Divine Woman has promised. Whether Princess Delai will live…only the gods know.”

Prince Ekosh looked at him with suspicion, and even with a hint of anger in his eyes.

“I believe,” the priest went on, “that she, too, will live.” Then he gave Ekosh a vial of liquid. “Give this to her to drink when the moment seems most desperate. Do not trust in the Egyptian doctors, but put your faith in the midwife…and don’t allow your wife to lose the charm she holds, for it is sacred to…to…
Ishtar
!” He drew back and seemed caught up by some kind of force. “Noble Prince! The Goddess has decreed that the son of this woman’s womb shall someday rule in the land of the Philistines!” With that, the priest turned quickly and re-entered the public
Temple
of
Ishtar
; he was now gone from view.

In gentle haste, therefore, the Prince’s slaves carried Delai back to their mansion in her sedan chair—while Ekosh kept pace along side. Word was sent ahead, and Rachel, the doctors, and the midwife were all waiting, prepared. Delai was almost unconscious when they placed her on a couch in her bedroom. Her labor was long and painful, and after much waiting, Prince Ekosh overheard one of the doctors talking quietly to another: “She cannot live, and the baby will die, too,” he said. Rachel, tears in her eyes, had also heard those words.

But Delai could not hear them; she was lost in her own world. “Inanna…Inanna…Mother…let him live…,” she murmured, and then pronounced some prayers which no one in the room had ever heard

before. Prince Ekosh recalled the priest’s warning, and then he remembered the vial still clenched in his hand, his knuckles showing white. Ignoring the Egyptians, he poured the fluid into Delai’s mouth, and then stepped back as though returning from a dream. Delai was awake enough to take the drink, and to cry out again when

a new spasm came upon her. Rachel darted to her side; spying the image of Inanna (which she took to be that of Ishtar), she removed it from Delai’s clenched fist and placed it between her teeth. Delai bit down hard; the wood was soft, and forever after bore the imprint of her agony. Unable to do more, Rachel now absent-mindedly began to arrange a set of magical Canaanite amulets which showed the stages of birth.

The midwife approached: “Only I can help her now,” the woman told them. And shortly after that, Delai gave birth to a living male-child, large and heavy and healthy. Delai remained awake just long enough to be certain that the baby was all right; then she sank down into the darkness of sleep…while her doctors pondered helplessly the bleeding which threatened her life. They gave her potions, but the liquid flowed out of her mouth, unconscious as she was.

Prince Ekosh—and Rachel, too—kept a vigil, and later thanked the Goddess, not her doctors, for the miracle which then occurred—an end to her bleeding. Slowly, the Princess came back to life, though still in slumber. Rachel cried in relief and joy as she took the wooden image from Delai’s limp grasp and handed it to the Prince to kiss. Ekosh lifted his eyes from his wife and son; his gaze narrowed to the tooth-marked icon, and he placed it on the pillow next to Delai’s pale cheek and streaming, sweaty hair; then they all sat down to wait.

Much later, when Delai awoke, she found herself propped up on her pillows, and Rachel was holding the tiny Princeling to his mother’s breast. Looking less like royalty than one could imagine, Delai now took the suckling baby in her arms. “I was in a dream all the time,” she told them. “I was attended by the Queen of Heaven and Her priest…I offered my life on an altar of stone—stone so cold you couldn’t believe it. But the Goddess gave me back my life, in return for my promise to worship Her in the ancient way. I’ll keep

that promise…I’ll learn the rites….” She saw the childbed charm and picked it up, beholding it and her son with equal reverence. Prince Ekosh stood by her side and took her hand.

“But, Princess,” Rachel put in, “you already know the rites of Astarte—aren’t they almost the same as those of Ishtar?”

“The priest, Ibbi, knows a secret cult of our Goddess, Rachel. Rites which even I, a priestess of Astarte, do not know. But you mustn’t tell anyone of this; and I can’t tell you any more myself, unless Ibbi approves….” She paused and then changed the subject: “It’s good to be alive, she concluded, and her husband pressed her hand to his cheek.

“We thought you had died!” he told her, and she smiled up at him.

Rachel let all of the happiness in her come out at once: “Princess, I want you and the Prince to be the first to know—something which I pray will help to cheer you in your convalescence….” Delai turned to her. Rachel explained: “Menena and I—we’re to be married next week!”