Twilight in Babylon (23 page)

She made a production of looking over her shoulder. “I don’t see anyone else.”

“You’re here as a duty to the gods.”

Her manner changed completely. “What do you mean? I get paid—”

“You will be paid. No doubt of that. The highest fee, be assured. What I need you to do is go into that chamber and keep a watch over the young woman there. If she wakes, call for me.”

“A woman is here?”

“She is dear to me.”

“A concubine?”

“Not at all. An adopted daughter, if you will.”

“She’s sick?”

“Not sick… wounded.”

“Why don’t you see to her?”

“I am neither her husband, nor her father, not even her beloved,” Ningal said. “It is not seemly for me to be in her chambers.”

“A man who wants to be seemly, how unusual,” the woman muttered as she stood. She adjusted her dress to less alluring lines, then pointed to Chloe’s room. “Up there?”

*      *     *

Guli stepped up on the block, the seller’s block. The breeze off the southern river was cooler this dawn than the previous day’s and the previous week’s. A good omen. The wind rustled the trees that lined the wharf, and the trill of birdsong filled the air. Buyers milled around and inspected the merchandise.

“Your attention please!” the auctioneer called. “Greetings of Sin and Inana to you this fine dawn. We have some quite spectacular humans for sale today. Remember the laws—slavery lasts for three years. Should your slave marry a freedman, their human offspring will be born free. All transactions must be filed in duplicate at the Office of Records, and feeding and clothing the slave is the responsibility of the slave owner.” He looked over the crowd; very few foreigners, and these laws were well-known to any of the black-haired race.

“Very well. We begin today with Guli. Due to circumstances beyond his control, he is selling himself into slavery to pay a debt to the infamous Lord Viza. Let’s help a fellow client out and trade a fine ass, or maybe some gold jewelry, so that in three years, he can rejoin the commonwealth as a barber.”

“Hairdresser,” Guli corrected.

“Forgive me,” the auctioneer said. “He’s a hairdresser,” he announced. “I’m sure he would also be an excellent
mashuf
rower, a bodyguard or a gardener.”

Guli groaned.

The bidding began.

I hate the out of doors,
he thought.
Mud and shit and mosquitoes and always-wet feet. Nails that are never truly clean and men who stink like animals. I wish I had just killed Lord Viza when I had a chance. Execution is preferable.

“Sold!” the auctioneer cried. “For the price of two gold necklaces, a white donkey, and a wheelbarrow of timber.” He clapped Guli on the back. “You should be very pleased. You won’t owe Viza a thing when you get out.”

That, at least, was encouraging. They met with the buyer, a pleasant-faced, bald-headed woman and her Khamite overseer, and made the exchange, Guli paid the auctioneer one gold necklace and agreed to meet with the woman later in the day. First he had to take care of the documentation, the forms and process necessary to clear his debt.

“Come to this house,” she said, and told him the address. It was a newer estate, close to the Uruk gate. “Ask for Duda.”

Guli walked back through town. Sweat prickled in his armpits and around his waist. He held the cylinder seal he’d worked so hard for, tight in his hand. Maybe he could imprint the design on his palm, so even when it was black with mud it would remind him he would be free. He would dress hair again.

This was just a three-year detour in his plans.

He stepped into the shadow of the scribe’s office. Guli was going to do this truthfully; he would eradicate his debt and be ready to start anew.

After he waited in line, he was offered a seat on the ground and a small cup of cool, sweet tea. He explained the situation to the scribe, who assured Guli that he would see Lord Viza received the payment and the documents would be filed. “I just got out of slavery a few years ago,” he confided. “It took two weeks for the temple to find my seal. You are leaving yours there, truth?”

Guli nodded.

“The administration is overrun with documentation. So, who bought you?”

Guli sipped his tea. The cup was glazed clay, a pleasing yellow color decorated around the rim with a delicate pattern of marsh birds. “I don’t know, it’s Number Fifteen, Moonlit Palm Way.”

The scribe looked up, shocked. He held out the damp clay tablet. “Why are you paying for me to conduct this to Lord Viza? Just take it to him. He’s your owner now.”

Guli crushed the cup in his hand.

*      *     *

Ezzi was sitting at the table when his mother came home. Her makeup was worn away, and in the dawnlight she looked tired. He stifled a pang of sympathy for her; he had his own worries. Last night had seen more starfall. He’d watched every minute of it, waiting for death to come to them all. It hadn’t. In fact, only good things had happened to Ezzi recently. If he were honest, he would admit they shouldn’t be—if the gods blessed good behavior.

Maybe they blessed bad actions, instead? “The butcher sent a bill,” he said to Ulu. “We are behind in our payments?”

“I forgot,” she said.

“Not just the butcher, Mother. Everyone. Have you paid even one tradesman?”

She sighed and wiped her forehead. “I’ve been up all night—”

“You’re always up all night.”

She walked over to him, and he averted his face. “You smell like a goat!”

“Keep your cloak on,” she snapped. “I’ve been up all night and all day, with a goat for company. I can’t tell you, but I’m trying to help a man reverse a curse.”

“I haven’t heard that term for it before.”

Her eyes snapped at him, and she pulled off her wig. Her hair beneath was straw. She scratched her head, and he thought he saw black spots fly around. No doubt, from the goat.

“Are you making currency?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“Well… where is it?”

“What does it matter to you? I will pay the tradesmen. Why are you acting like a
lugal
? If you starve, it’s because you refuse to eat, not because we lack food!”

The slave girl came in with beer and bread for them both.

Ezzi had lost his appetite.

“Why are you up?” Ulu asked, sitting down. “My legs are exhausted. I’m not used to being on my feet so much.”

“That is truth, truer than you’ve ever told.”

She glared at her son.

“What does a goat have to do with a curse?” he asked, tearing a corner of the bread. He’d give the gods the remainder. Just in case.

She ripped her half in pieces, then sucked down half her jar of beer through a drinking tube with a loud slurp. “The goat is a replacement, but it hasn’t worked because the cursed girl hasn’t woken up.”

“Why does she have to be awake?”

“The goat is supposed to become her. They share a bed—”

“By Sin!”

“Not in that fashion, but until the goat can be identified as the cursed one instead of the girl. They eat from the same dishes, wear the same clothes, do everything together.”

“For how long?”

“Until the goat smells like the girl and the girl smells like the goat.”

Ezzi sipped a little of his beer.

“But she hasn’t woken up. We feed her beer through the drinking tube, sit her up, change her clothes, but she is lifeless. Like the statues of the gods on New Year’s.”

“Those gods are not lifeless!” Ezzi said, horrified and scared. “They are very much alive. They can curse you or me in a minute!”

“Calm yourself,” she said, then sucked down some more beer. “They
appear
to be lifeless. Does saying it that way make your devout humanity any happier?”

He nodded. Once.

“After the transference takes place, then we’ll kill the goat and bury it under Chloe’s name.”

“Chloe is the girl?”

His mother jumped forward, clutching his hands. “Don’t ever say that name. I’m paid well to keep the secret. You’re my son, you won’t endanger us, truth?”

She was scared, worried. She pleaded with him through her eyes.

Ezzi liked this, feeling her fear. Having the power to change it. Or not. “Of course not,” he said, extricating himself with a smile. “I’ll never mention it again.”

“You swear on the gods?”

“I swear. But Mother, Ulu, where did this magic come from?”

She bit her lip, as though deciding what to tell him. “She has a powerful protector who used to be an
asipu.
”

A medicine man, diviner and exorcist, in one person. No wonder his mother was scared. A man like that could see into the future, ascertain the gods’ desires, and get anything he wanted in life. He’d have deep pockets, as well. “He picked you? For what?”

“My hands, the control I have over how much pressure I apply.”

Ezzi snorted a laugh. “Does he know what you usually grapple?”

“He’s a gentleman.”

Ezzi shrugged. “He pays you, to stay with this girl and goat, truth?”

“He pays well. I just lost track of the time. I’ll pay the tradesmen.”

“You squeeze this girl?”

“Massage her. She has a sore on her head, and the
asipu
is wary of it getting worse. He checks her eyes, and he hits her on the knee, to see if it swings out. He’s odd, but very devoted to her.”

“Then why doesn’t he save himself the funds and take care of her?”

“He’s very proper, refuses to touch her or be alone with her. That’s why he hired me.” She drank some more beer. “How are you?”

“I’m working at Asa stargazer’s side.” He’d wanted the words to impress her, but since she was keeping company with an
asipu
and his whore, she just muttered that was nice and finished her beer. Ezzi tried to persuade her to let him carry currency to the tradesmen, but she said she didn’t have the balance yet, she’d have to get it tonight.

She refused to tell Ezzi the name of her source.

Ulu never let him touch her earnings; she never shared any of it with him. He had to petition her for every little thing. It wasn’t right; she was a whore. He was educated, intelligent, gifted. The gods would smile on him, if only he could bribe them better.

If only he had something with which to bribe them.

*      *     *

Cheftu had just sat on his bed. The sun was peeking over the tenemos wall of the temple. Chloe was here. She had money and position. Security. In truth, she had more freedom than he did. He hadn’t been able to go to her the previous night, as he had said he would; he knew she’d be angry, but understand eventually. He glanced up at the four acolytes who stood between him and the door. Then he looked at the three females who dozed on the couches. Two guards watched his inner and outer doors. Who knew how many of them reported to Puabi.

He’d kissed his beloved yesterday. Touched her. Remembered her scent. Then he’d spent the day moving through the streets, with women throwing themselves at him, but all he’d seen was her.

So beautiful. Intelligent. He wouldn’t have dared to hope Chloe was in that guise of flesh. Yet she’d recognized him, and when he heard her speak—Cheftu groaned. He ached for his wife. Chloe.

He buried his head in his hands and rubbed his temples. How would he get to her? When he did, then what? Walk in and claim her as his bride? The
en
was forbidden marriage; it was a conflict of the commonwealth’s interests. Not that Chloe would stomach a continuation of this current career choice.

Marriage aside for the moment, he just wanted Chloe in his bed for a year or two. However, even congressing, at this point, would be unwise. Would the situation be any different if a different
ensi
reigned? How could Cheftu retire from being
en
? It was an appointed position—and dismissal meant death.

So he had to die to get out of this position? Nimrod said he would help Cheftu; the tides of popularity were shifting. For the friendship Nimrod bore Kidu he would aid and abet Cheftu’s escape.

Chloe and Cheftu could both escape. Together.

She was here; he could make sense of the rest of it later. Now, he just needed some sleep.
Thank You
le bon Dieu
for answering my prayers.

*      *     *

Ezzi stood in the doorway, summoned by Asa. The old man couldn’t see the sky, but his eyes were sharp on Ezzi. “Get your things and go,” Asa told him. “You are no longer a stargazer in this administration.”

Ezzi couldn’t speak. He was too shocked. He rubbed his ear with a finger.

“Your hearing is fine, boy. Get out.”

“Wh-wh-why my lord?”

“Should the
en
choose to investigate, he will learn one of my assistants appeared at the Office of Records on the same day no records about me could be found. My humanity is clothed in honor. You have befouled it and my reputation. Get out.”

The stargazer’s pompous tone made Ezzi burn. The man was as false as Ulu’s hair; he pretended perfection yet chided Ezzi for helping him maintain that illusion? As though something or someone else was ordering his actions, Ezzi stepped into the room.

“What are you doing? I told you to leave!”

Fury vanquished Ezzi’s smile and his subservient attitude. “Don’t speak to me of honor, sir. Your ability to see the stars is gone and has been for years. You lie about every prediction, and you steal information from every source that comes your way.”

“This is an outrage!” the older man said, but his perfect voice lacked conviction.

Ezzi’s mouth continued to move, words he’d thought but never dared voice. “If it is, then a simple examination of the night sky, with witnesses, will clear the confusion completely. The justice Ningal lives on my street. I’m sure he would make time to see the honorable Asa stargazer in his court tomorrow.” Ezzi’s hands trembled as he waited to see what Asa would say. He didn’t dare speak.

Asa stared at the artfully mosaicked wall for a long while. “What is it you want?” he asked finally.

Ezzi closed the door carefully. “I want to be a stargazer.”

“What else?”

“I have the tablets. The ones from the Office of Records.”

“By Sin—”

“They’re not with me, though…” Ezzi paused. He was astounded at the assurance in his voice, the strength. Asa was negotiating with him!