Twilight in Babylon (26 page)

I may have to start a whole new trend.

Ningal stood. “Ulu and I must converse, but I’ll send you something to eat. And a bath; would you like a bath?”

He didn’t have Connery’s brogue, but he had everything else, including the pointed eyebrows and broad chest. “Yes, please,” Chloe said. She felt a little tired already.

They left the room, and Chloe fell asleep.

*      *     *

Ezzi walked down the stairs. The table was clear, the scent of fresh bread filled the air.

“What’s wrong?” his mother asked from the courtyard.

She was clean and coifed, her makeup lightly done and her dress fresh. The house even looked better, smelled better.

“What is bothering you? You are in and out, you never mention the copper tub anymore. Something has you worried. Don’t insult me with lies.”

He halted. His body went hot when he realized the opportunity facing him. He could have everything, if he would just be bold enough. The gods had blessed his bad behavior—what more blessings could they give?

Or perhaps he should seize any blessing he wanted. Ezzi sighed and stared at his feet, his shoulders suddenly slumping. He swallowed and ran a shaky hand across his brow. He blinked, until he felt moisture in his eyes. Then he looked up. “You don’t want to be insulted with lies? Very well, I will tell you.” He took a deep breath. “The
en
has declared I will be buried as Puabi.”

“Buried?” Ulu said. “What babbling is this?”

“Because of discovering the star,” he said. “I am committed to die.”

“With Puabi?”

“In her place.”

“You’re a man, the
ensi
is a woman.”

“I will be substituted, no one will know.”

Ulu’s eyes narrowed. “Nonsense,” she said. “The
ensi
is supposed to step down, no one has mentioned anything about dying. The gods are heartless, but they are not cruel.”

Ezzi shrugged and sat down at the table. “Of course, you know, don’t you.” He started to pick at a piece of bread. Ulu watched him, silent.

“What do you know?” she asked at long last.

“Asa just revealed that the
ensi
must die. But,” he forced a halfhearted chuckle, “we both know that won’t happen. I go in her place. I’m nobody, with nothing really to live for.”

“Don’t say that, Ezzi, you have a fine future ahead of you,” Ulu said. “I just cannot believe this is serious.”

He looked into his mother’s eyes. “It’s serious.” He looked away.

“This is why you haven’t asked about the copper tub?”

“Why ask? It makes no matter to me anymore. I’ll be dead.” Ezzi got up, straightened his kilt, and walked to the door. When he reached it, she spoke.

“You won’t be killed,” she said. “I won’t allow it.”

“Words mean nothing, female.” He smiled as he faced the painted wood. “You are just trying to assuage your guilt,” he said. “You don’t really care.”

She rushed at him, hugged him around the waist, spoke against his back. “Ezzi, my son. Don’t you know how I love you? I will go to Sin and beg for your life. Don’t say—”

Ezzi turned to face her. He was repelled by the press of her breasts against his chest, the fragrance of her in his nostrils. “You won’t have to worry about me anymore,” he said. “You’ll be able to have customers here, you won’t even have to be quiet.” He tore away from her. “I was always just in the way.”

“What? Never! I fought for your life, to give you—”

“I doesn’t matter, I’m going to die.”

“Stop saying that. You are not going to die. No one has that authority—”

“The stargazer, Puabi, the
en.
” He blinked the tears in his eyes, so they fell down his cheeks. “You probably think I deserve it.”

“Don’t babble. You won’t die.”

“You can’t change their minds.”

“No, but I can go in your place. I’m female. I’m old. I’m of your family.”

Ezzi buried his face in his mother’s neck. “You would do such for me?”

Her voice was choked, but she finally believed him. “I would do anything for you, son.”

He’d won.

*      *     *

Cheftu’s door flew open and Puabi stood there, proud of her nudity, red in the face. “I have a substitute!”

He put his head in his hands. He’d known that young stargazer wasn’t to be trusted. Puabi marched up to him and pulled his hands away, holding them in hers. “A woman is willing to die as Puabi. Then the
lugal
can assure my win as
ensi
in the next election, under another name of course.”

“No one can know, should we choose to use a substitute,” Cheftu said. “Not even the
lugal.
”

“It’s impossible. The
lugal
will know. I see him every afternoon. It’s my duty.”

Cheftu had forgotten her relationship with the man. “What woman?” he asked. “What woman is willing to die as you? Have you met her?”

“I’ll summon her,” Puabi said, as she looked at her fingernails. “I am the
ensi.
You’d do best to remember that.”

“She agreed to it?” He couldn’t keep the surprise from his voice.

“Of course. It’s a great honor to her.”

He didn’t know what to say.

“Now that we have her, the ceremony can take place anytime. I don’t care.”

“You know it means the death of all your attendants, your maids, your scribes,” he said.

“Yes.”

“Even Shama.”

“Yes.”

“Does this woman know her name won’t be mentioned? She’ll die unknown.”

Puabi looked at him. “Of course, but she will have attendants, friends. The stargazer gave me their names. She won’t die alone. You think me cruel, but I’m not. I’m just searching for the best situation for the commonwealth. Which is my survival.”

“More will die?” Cheftu asked, horrified.

“Have you seen the fields? Many women must die, preferably of childbearing age. The ones you got pregnant will, of course, be spared, but how else are the rest of the people supposed to survive?”

“How many?” he asked. “Which women?”

“Oh, they have to be beautiful. Young. Maybe… a hundred, I think?”

Cheftu felt his throat growing tight. “Who?”

“There’s a whole list; I don’t know specifically, just some females.”

“You told them they’re going to die?”

“They’ll be collected, and informed. It’s not inhumane. They’ll have wonderful drugs, they won’t even be scared.”

“Why was this woman picked?”

“Ulu, the woman, well, we were born on the same day.”

“How do you know? Have you met her?”

“No, no, the stargazer,” she said. “The young one. He came to me because he’d had a dream, and I was the only one who could answer it. I am the goddess Inana, consort of the Moon god Sin,” she said as a reminder.

“I’ve met Ezzi,” he said. “How does he know Ulu?”

“I don’t know, but he must have told her immediately after your meeting, because he told me last night.”

Cheftu was dubious about this woman volunteer and Ezzi’s relationship with her.

“So that is settled,” Puabi said. “Now, come tell me how happy you are that I’ll still be
ensi,
because you know that means you’ll still be
en
Kidu,” she said as she kissed his chest. “Unless you stay out of my bed and displease me further.” She poked his chest with a long fingernail. “Be wary, Kidu, you are becoming a nuisance to me.”

“Then get rid of me,” he said, exhausted and reeling from her callousness. A hundred women would be put to death, and no one was trying to prevent it? It was some form of population control?

She opened her mouth to speak, but a knock at the door saved him. A scribe opened it, and the
lugal
chose this moment to walk into the room. “Greetings of the dawn to you
en,
and
ensi.
The list is complete.”

*      *     *

Shama broke the seal to the deepest passageway and tottered in. The tablets were there—written in the priestly code that required an equality of minds, a divine balance. Lesser male humans, and females, had shunted them in here as nonsense written by their forefathers.

One by one, Shama loaded them into his wheelbarrow.

The
en
might be interested. And Shama had a feeling that this new side of Kidu might be able to attain the balance needed to read, and comprehend them.

*      *     *

Her third night since waking up with short hair and without a concussion, Chloe swore she heard Cheftu calling her name. Either that, or she was hallucinating that the trees were. No other sounds in the house. Probably Ningal was in the courtyard drinking his evening wine. Ulu hadn’t been around since Chloe had met her.

She couldn’t very well stride through the courtyard and say she had a date with the
en.
She heaved herself up the ladder, a shaky contraption meant for kittens and kids, and poked her head out through the rush roof. The night was, of course, cloudless and blanketed with stars that looked big enough to wear as stones. A palm tree shaded the space and was conveniently planted on the street.

Chloe took the last few steps and crawled onto the roof. The regular night noises of cats, dogs, goats, and sheep filled the air, laughter from a tavern nearby, and the carried sounds of activity in the port. She wet her lips and breathed his name.

“Cheftu.”

She didn’t see movement in the shadows, or hear any response. Hiking her skirt up and tucking it beneath her belt, she jumped at the palm’s trunk.

The marsh girl took over. Chloe wrapped her arms around the trunk and straddled it, her legs bent like a locust. She edged her way down, then dropped to the ground.

The Crooked Way was a wide street, and the houses that lined it were hidden behind high, blank walls. As in the Middle East of the twentieth century, these people didn’t believe in advertising the wealth or comfort of their homes. Most of them had extinguished the torches outside their doors. It was late.

Down the street, a door closed, and Chloe stepped into the darkness of the palm’s shadow. She saw his shadow first, dancing along, larger than life against the wall, then the man himself.

The
en.

Cheftu.

He walked down the street, moving with caution and grace. It was so hard to believe.

He was blond. The high priest of the people. The fertility priest!

He stared at Ningal’s house, then stepped toward the tree.

“Cheftu?” she choked out. Was she dreaming or was this real?

He halted and stared straight at her, though she knew he couldn’t see her. The light fell on his face. It was Cheftu. Her black-haired, dark-skinned, Egyptian husband had been transformed into an Aryan fantasy wearing the body of a halfback. “Is it you, really?” she asked.

The door to the courtyard opened and Chloe froze. Cheftu turned around and faced Ningal.

“Sir,” the justice said. “I thought I heard voices.” He peered into the night. “Do you have a scribe with you?”

“l… just sent him ahead,” Cheftu said.

“It’s always best to have your work waiting for you,” Ningal concurred. “I am enjoying the breeze with a glass of date wine. I would be most honored if you would join me. My houseguest has gone off to bed, already.”

He’s talking about me,
Chloe thought.
And he’s lonely. Why didn’t I see that before
?

“Uh, thank you, sir,” Cheftu—Cheftu? As a blonde? As a beefed-up, brawny blonde? “I am just returning to the temple.”

Ningal stepped out and closed the door behind him. “You shouldn’t walk alone.”

“Really, sir,” Cheftu hedged. “I hate to take you away from your wine and peace.”

Ningal smiled as he patted Cheftu on the shoulder. “A nice stroll will make the taste of the wine much sweeter.” Ningal stopped, and his manner became very formal. “Unless I intrude on your thoughts.”

Cheftu gave up. “I welcome the company,” he said, and the two men walked on.

This was beginning to take on the elements of a farce—without the humor. Chloe waited until the men were around the corner, then she slipped inside the door, ran across the courtyard, and up to her apartments. She was wet with sweat, and trembling. Weak from her days in bed.

Weak from being in lust with her husband; weak from frustration at not being able to get close to him.

Weak-headed, she thought as she lay down, ready to dream of him again.

*      *     *

The
en
didn’t even look at Ezzi when he caught up with them in the corridor. “How long?” he asked Asa. Kidu’s face looked like a mask, and his voice was chilling it was so emotionless. “Don’t give me guesses, tell me how many days until this exhibition.”

“The stars say—”

The
en
spun on him, taller and wider, looking down into Asa’s face. “You read the stars. You tell me the interpretation. I prepare the temple. How many days?”

“Seven days,” Asa said. “Give or take a few double hours.”

The
en
looked at both of them. “Thank you. You’re no longer needed.”

Asa and Ezzi halted in shock. The
en
stopped at his door, as the attendant shot to attention. “The
lugal
and the
ensi
are… congressing, sir.”

The
en
gave the man a look as cold as snow on the Zagros Mountains, and walked into his chambers. He slammed the door shut behind him, and everyone in the corridor jumped.

Ezzi didn’t know what to say. The
en
had no manners, no doubt. And he had seven days to orchestrate the sacrifice. Ezzi just hoped his mother would take the initiative soon, before Puabi sent for Ulu and his duplicity was revealed.

Not that it mattered; he was only working for the good of the commonwealth.

Doing what the gods desired.

*      *     *

Cheftu was sleeping, finally. He’d talked with Ningal until early morning, learning of Chloe, though Ningal had never named her. It was an interesting position, to watch a man fall in love with one’s wife. Cheftu couldn’t blame the man, but from time to time he still had the desire to bloody Ningal’s nose.

Kidu’s notion? No, Cheftu admitted, that was his own impulse.