Twilight in Babylon (11 page)

He shook Kidu’s leg.

“Sleep,” one woman said. “He’s useless.”

Another woman demonstrated his uselessness. “Opium,” she slurred out. “We took it, too, since he did.”

Of course, if the high priest of fertility were unable to perform, why should his followers be frustrated. Shama sighed in disgust. With the flat of his blade, he swatted Kidu’s thigh.

Kidu attacked him. Shama had no defense. In a second he was in darkness, his throat constricted. Growling, shouting, pleading tones—Shama couldn’t hear clearly. But Shama felt Kidu’s hands around his throat.

To live so long and end up killed by a barbarian. Shama’s head was hot; perhaps his brains were going to explode from his ears.

“Let him go,” he finally heard someone say to Kidu. “You’re going to kill Shama, then the
ensi
will kill you.”

Kidu dropped him, and Shama fell to the floor, landing on some soft woman. Everything went black. When he awoke, the three women were fanning him, perfuming his wrists, and praying. Fervently.

Kidu stared at him balefully. Shama had met oxen with far more wit. The drugs had melted his brains like beeswax. This wild man had embraced the worst civilization had to offer—and Shama was almost sorry for him. As long as he pleased Puabi, though, he was free to do and be anything he desired. If he didn’t, then like so many of his predecessors, he would be removed.

“It’s the
ensi’s
chamber keeper,” one of the women told Kidu, massaging her words into Shama’s skin. “Puabi must be requesting you.”

“Puabi?” Kidu repeated. “Puabi wants me? Now? Now?”

Shama nodded, and Kidu stood up on the bed, repeating his sentence.
Puabi wants me? Now? Now?
He dragged Shama up. The old man winced as he felt his bones rub together.

“Be careful,” one of the women said. The other two proceeded to wish the mountain man a long, fond farewell.

Shama watched Kidu with the women and as his head cleared he realized the barbarian was aroused again. At least Puabi wouldn’t be disappointed. As for Shama, he was going to order a long, hot bath in a copper tub. With mint beer.

*      *     *

Kalam sat back from his beer tube. In his right hand he held the parcel of Chloe’s gift, her votive. Before him was a clay tablet, with the symbols written as she suggested although it was easier to make them sideways from the changed angle. Writing them had been more comfortable, and Kalam was amazed at how quickly he’d been able to write when he didn’t have to hold his arm up, away from the clay.

A female human, an ignorant Khamite, couldn’t have thought of this. Where did she get it? Who else had she told? He tried to not think of how honored he would be if he made the suggestion to his former Tablet Father.

Kalam rubbed the clay smooth as Ningal took a seat, kissed his greeting to the ale-wife, and ordered wine instead of beer, much to her dismay. After a swat on the bottom and promise of double payment, the two men were left in relative privacy.

“How is Chloe today?” Ningal asked. He’d been visiting today, exchanging New Year’s blessings with friends and cousins.

“Complaining of headaches.”

“How did your first lesson go?”

Kalam’s gaze met his employer’s. “You were correct; she was nonplussed when I explained how the signs worked. She was astounded when she learned how many different ways they could be read and interpreted.”

“Sometimes with female humans, it is best to give them what they think they want. Or, in this case, a sample of it.”

Kalam sipped some beer. “I have never heard you doubt a female before, Justice.”

He shrugged. “A lawmaker learns about people. You’ll see someday.”

Kalam’s gaze froze over Ningal’s shoulder. “You won’t believe who just walked in,” he said. “An old acquaintance of yours. Don’t turn.”

Guli halted when he saw Kalam; Kalam watched his gaze fix on and recognize the justice who had put him in the canals. Guli braced his wide shoulders, waved to the ale-wife, and came over to their table. “Greetings of the New Year to you, Justice, and you, Kalam.”

“Guli!” the justice said. “I assume you are staying out of trouble, since I haven’t seen you in court.”

Kalam looked at the man’s waist; still no seal. Some people never did anything with the chances they were given.

“I have my own shop,” he said.

Kalam exchanged a dubious look with Ningal.

“I am a hairdresser.”

“Greetings, Guli,” a red-haired, voluptuous beauty said, her long fingers trailing across his shoulders. “Greetings, gentlemen.” Her gaze was frankly admiring of Kalam and the justice. Ningal ignored her, not to the point of rudeness, but because he had no use for women other than priestesses… and Chloe. Kalam smiled at the woman, but his thoughts were arrested. Chloe? Was the justice keeping the Khamite woman as a concubine?

“That gorgeous creature is one of my clients,” Guli said. “You are well, Justice?”

“The gods are good, Guli.”

“Glad to hear it, Justice. Well, gentlemen, if you will excuse me. A quick beer before I pick up my seal at the inscribers today.”

They bid him a good New Year and he walked off. Kalam couldn’t look at his employer. Would he congress with a Khamite woman?

“It’s a good omen to see a man taking opportunities,” the justice said. “His own shop and a girlfriend, besides. She lives on my street, I believe.”

Kalam looked at the justice in shock. “I thought you only, uh, congressed, with priestesses.”

The justice’s gaze was amused over his clay goblet of wine. “I know where the female lives because I’ve seen the deed to the house.” He held Kalam’s glance. “Is something bothering you, young man?”

“Do you think Chloe is pretty?”

“No.”

Kalam sighed almost audibly.

“No, not pretty. I think she is the most attractive woman I’ve ever known. She’s radiant, quiet, complicated, and by moonlight… not even Inana, in all her glory, can compare.”

Kalam was shattered. In his effort to be nonchalant, he accidentally stuffed the drinking tube up his nostril. He jerked back from the reed, cut his lip and nose in the process, and upset the jar so it nearly toppled over.

After the ale-wife straightened the jar, gave Kalam a salve for his nose and lip, and a flax cloth to pat the little bit of blood, then cut him a new reed and buffed the edge to a less than lethal blade, Kalam met the justice’s bemused stare.

For all his life, Kalam had known Ningal; no man was more admired for his eloquence, his fairness, and his humanity. He’d turned down the responsibility of
lugal,
had even declined to be
en,
in favor of practicing justice without bias. His children were well established in nearby Lagash, his son served as the
lugal
there. His grandchildren were wealthy shipwrights in Eridu, on the shore of the southern sea. Great-grandchildren of his were scattered through apprenticeships and Tablet Houses across the land of the Black-Haired Ones. Ningal was above reproach in every way.

His concubine was a marsh dweller who kept sheep?

“I need to go to my office,” Ningal said. “I have tablets to oversee.”

“Shall I come, sir?” Officially, it was Kalam’s last day off, before work began in the new year.

“Enjoy today,” Ningal said. “I’ll see you at dawn tomorrow.”

“Thank you,” Kalam said, rising as the older man got to his feet and paid the ale-wife.”

“One thing,” Ningal said, laying a heavy hand on Kalam’s shoulder. “Chloe may be taken aback by your first lesson. It won’t stop her from pushing to attend school. She’ll master all you teach her and be that much further ahead whenever she does get her way.” He clapped the aide on the shoulder, a friendly gesture. “Just bear that in mind when you have to tell your old tablet master, or Asa the stargazer, or the
lugal,
or whoever put you up to tutoring her so she’d be scared, that it didn’t work. She’ll make fools of them all.”

Kalam’s face was hot. “I, I see sir.”

“You don’t see dung, but you’re young. You can’t.” Ningal almost laughed, then turned away and left the tavern. Kalam sat back slowly and stared at the drinking tube. Chloe’s votive, the one he’d bought her this afternoon, sat on the edge of the table. Chloe, the Khamite concubine of his master. Chloe, who wanted to learn in the Tablet House and upset all of the balance in Ur. Chloe, the shepherdess. Chloe, the wealthy woman. Chloe, the female human. Chloe, who revolutionized how to write, without knowing it. Chloe, who plagued him.

Kalam kneed the table.

The votive crashed to the floor.

*      *     *

“I can scarcely walk,” Ulu announced, plopped down in her chair, legs akimbo. Ezzi didn’t even look at her. “Where is all the food?” she asked.

“I, I was hungry,” he said. In truth, he was less than hungry. He had walked up and down the Crooked Way leaving beer and bread and morsels of meat for each of the hundred gods and goddesses who had votive alcoves set in the walls along the street.

Ulu’s expression was sly. “Making your own heat during New Year’s, boy? Tell me, I’ll find out her name, and we can work something so you get it at a discount.”

His ears burned. “Not a… a female human,” he said. “I have spent many hours with the stars.”

“By Sin,” she groaned. “There is nothing to eat after I spent a week getting us gold because you had to watch the sky? When has the sky changed? Even when Ziusudra sailed the sea, it remained the same.” She dropped one leg to the ground.

He should offer to get her food, or send for food. The slaves were doing laundry by the river. “The sky changes every twenty-eight days,” he said.

“Good,” she snapped. “So does my woman’s blood.”

Ezzi stood there and stared at her. She turned her face to his, and he saw that one eye was bruised shut.

“Don’t worry,” she said to him. “I enjoyed it.”

He wrapped his cloak tighter. “I’ll be back in a few minutes,” he said.

“Be careful, that’s not starlight in the alleyway. It’s called daylight, and people who work for a living—”

He shut the courtyard door, then remembered he didn’t have anything to barter with. He stepped inside. “There is no—”

She got up and limped to the clothes she’d just stepped out of on her way to the table. She extracted three, four, five bags of jewelry and barley. Ezzi stared in wonder; she made this by having sex?

“Don’t look so astounded. I may not know about the stars, but I can tell you how to make a man—”

Ezzi grabbed a bag and ran for the door, closing it on her laughter. So much currency! He looked into it again, just in case he hadn’t seen clearly. Had she always been paid this much? All these years, she’d been hoarding this away from him? He could order a copper tub; he could order five copper tubs!

He tied the bag and tucked it inside his cloak. Who did the banking for his mother, that was what he wanted to know. Sleep, gods, and goddesses were forgotten. Even hunger, his and Ulu’s.

How did one go about learning about bankers?

*      *     *

“Why do you want to learn?” Nimrod asked, tossing a rock at the water. Kami, a fat-tailed, black-spotted sheep, ran after it.

“I’ve never seen a sheep that plays fetch,” Chloe said, watching the sheep look in the swiftly running stream for the rock. And of course, being sheep, the others followed. Mimi, the goat, was too busy nibbling along the edge of the fields. Chloe absently swatted the goat and led it toward the stream, the sheep. “It’s a compulsion,” she said, as they crossed the narrow black furrows that would sprout lentils, onions, and cucumbers in a few days. “A possession.”

He chuckled. “Don’t use that word with anyone but me, or you’ll be in the exorcist’s chair faster than you can say, ‘but I only have credit.’ ”

She chuckled, and they spent a few minutes getting the sheep and goat, then all the sheep, across the stream and onto the northeastern grazing grounds. “What’s that?” she said, looking across the plain. A standing stone marred the horizon line.

“A boundary marker for the city of Lagash.”

“Is it nicer than Ur?”

Nimrod shrugged. “If you like cities, Ur is a good example. If you like a quieter, simpler place and people, Lagash is fine. They don’t have a wall, so it doesn’t feel as… tight, as Ur can.” He scratched his beard. “Even then, neither of them is as impressive or useful as a city could be.”

“Is it safe?” Chloe said, turning her attention to the sheep. “I mean, with no wall.”

“No one to fear, at least right now.”

“Are we really the only people, besides the Harrapan or Dilmuni?”

“In this whole world?” he asked, looking around him.

She looked, too. Green fields, black dirt, and muddy water filled her vision. To the northwest, the direction her village had been, was only water and palm trees. No other survivors had shown up at the gates of Ur. Nimrod said the
lugal
had surmised other survivors went to Nippur or Kish, farther north. Nimrod guessed they took what remained of their flocks and headed farther west. Away from the water, toward the land of Kham. “Why do you ask?” he said.

The sheep were contentedly feeding; even the goat was quiet. Chloe sat down on the soft earth and stretched out her legs. She was in her felted skirt and bare feet, like a sheepherder should be. Nimrod wore a loincloth, but his body hair was so profuse he looked like he wore a black pelt. The sun was warm, pleasant, and a breeze moved across the fields and the water, making it cool and perfumed with the sweetness of growing things.

“Well, you think I’m crazy already, so it doesn’t hurt to tell you, I guess,” Chloe said, opening the basket she’d brought. With careful motions she untied the parcel within and handed one of the round items to Nimrod.

“What is it?”

“It’s good. Try it.”

He ate one, gobbled two, then three. Nimrod crossed his arms behind his head and squinted into the sun. “You can tell me anything now. You can’t shock me.”

“How’s that?”

“I just learned you can cook.”

She swatted him with the flax cloth. “It surprised me, too.”

“You didn’t know?”

“That, my friend, is the problem,” she said, staring at his upturned face. “I’m two people inside.”