Twilight in Babylon (38 page)

He braced himself on his elbows and looked down—really down—at her. “I noticed that, too, though it took me a while. At first I thought all the ceilings were low.”

She ran her hands over his body, heavily muscled and perfectly proportioned. And much, much larger. “We used to be the same height,” she said.

“I grew.”

“No kidding.”

He kissed the top of her head, just to prove his point. Another thought dawned on Chloe. “Are you uh…?”

“Touch me,” he said, the humor gone from his voice.

Heat rushed through Chloe and she pulled his mouth down to hers, while her hands explored the breadth of his shoulders, the V of his back, ran over abs that felt as hard and rippled as a six-pack, and down. “By Sin,” she said.

Cheftu groaned, then held her face as he kissed her deeper. With one move, he plunged inside her and Chloe climaxed, there and then. He chuckled. “Not so fast,
chérie,
” he said, then sat back, held her face in his hands, and worked her into a frothing frenzy. He kissed her throat and squeezed her breasts. For Chloe it never ended, each summit only leading to a higher high. His body was slippery, impossible to hold on to, and his every breath made her gasp more.

“Now,” he said, pulling her hips closer as she felt him pulsate inside her.

They fell back on the bed, their breathing the only sound in the world.

“Wow,” Chloe said after a minute. “Wow.”

Cheftu rolled off her, still deep inside. His arm lay across her chest, heavy, and marked with tan lines from bracelets and bands. “I will second that,” he said.

“I don’t want to fall asleep,” she said, blinking away sleep. “We’ve been apart so long, how—”

Cheftu leaned over her, his face close enough to smell the cinnamon of his breath. The ends of his braids were rough and tickled her bare breasts. “How did you get here?”

“Nimrod got me, like he said.”

“He is a good man. How did you come to be in my rooms, though?”

“Anyone who has cleavage can get into the great
en
Kidu’s chambers,” she said.

“I told them not to admit any women,” he said.

“Think about it: Shama,” she said and leaned forward to kiss his arm. “I returned the cup to him. Are you sorry to see me?”

“No, no, have you lost your reason? I may not let you up for hours. Days. Months. You may have escaped one kind of death to meet another.”

“Starving to death?”

“Are you hungry?”

“Ravenous, but I don’t want you to go anywhere.”

“There is no need,” he said, then reached down for the blanket and covered her to her chin. “Scribe!” he bellowed.

“Are you crazy? What if he discovers me? Who all knows about the substitution?”

A priest stepped to the door. “Bring me food,” Cheftu said. “Enough for six.”

“Meat, sir? Beer? Bread? Salad?”

“Everything. And wine.”

“Of course, sir,” he said, and scampered out.

“Who knows who is still alive?” Cheftu asked, putting his arm around her shoulders. “You, me, Nimrod, Rudi, Asa, Ezzi, and, of course, Puabi. And Shama.”

“Who knows that I escaped?”

“You, me, and Nimrod. Ningal.”

“And Shama.”

Cheftu nodded.

“So we just hide here, enjoying room service with a smile?” Chloe said.

“Should enjoy it while it lasts,” Cheftu said, moving on top of her, rotating his hips gently. “It’s going to last a long time,
chérie.
”

“Is… this… you… or… Kidu?” she asked in gulps as the pleasure built.

“Do you care?” he said.

“N-n-no,” she said. “I—” Conversation became pointless, useless, extraneous, as Cheftu played her body as though he were blind and she were a lyre. He loomed over her, sheltering her, tasting of salt, moving like a piston, adjusting to her every reaction. It seemed they were in a dance, connected at the root and shifting their bodies around that connection. Chloe knew nothing except the blood that sang through her, the reality of slick hard muscle and speechless need.

Again they collapsed in a heap, and this time Cheftu lay beside her quietly. A breeze from an oven door flowed through the room.

Cheftu’s stomach made its presence known.

“Where’s that waiter?” Chloe muttered, spread like a starfish across the bed. “Man, it’s hot here.”

“He left the food outside,” Cheftu said. “It was hours ago.”

“Am I going to be able to walk?” she wondered out loud.

“If so, I mustn’t be doing my job right,” he said, swinging his feet to the floor. “Excuse me.”

When she woke up again, he was setting a tray on the end of the bed. They’d ripped the sheets from the four corners and tossed pillows to every part of the room. “I ache in places I didn’t know I had to ache,” she said, sitting up and reaching for a cup.

Cheftu peeled the seal away and opened the jar of wine. Its sweetness perfumed the air. He leaned over and kissed her. “Do you complain,
chérie?
”

“Mmm… as you said before, are you mad? I was just going to kill you if you’ve known that stuff all along.”

He sipped his wine and raised an eyebrow. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”

“Actually, I don’t care where or when you learned it, just don’t forget it.”

“I won’t.” The flippancy faded from his eyes, and they reached for each other again, winding like vines together, holding tight. Chloe listened to his heart beat against hers. Perfection.

“It was far worse than standing before a firing squad to have to move your lifeless body,” Cheftu whispered. “No food or water, left in the dark.”

She shivered. “It was pretty hideous, but the reaction to the drug kept me busy for a while.”

“You are so brave, so courageous, my love.”

“Not by choice,” she said. “And I never, ever want to be in the dark again.”

His embrace tightened. “We will sleep with a fire burning every night for the rest of our lives.”

She chuckled. “Darkness here is misnamed. There’s ambient light. There, it was just nothing. No reflections, not a clue visually. It was like being wrapped in black felt. Muzzy-headed pitch.”

“I couldn’t have done it.”

She remembered the countless visions of worms and rot, maggots and decay, and shivered again. “I wouldn’t have thought I could. It doesn’t seem like I did. It’s so unreal.”

“It was real for me,” he said. “Leaving you there, hoping you didn’t get so sick from the drug that you couldn’t function, or that you wouldn’t trip and fall, bleed to death on your way out. Then we found some robbers—”

“You caught them?”

“Nimrod did. Did they hurt you?”

“They were so scared by the time they were leaving that had I raised my head, they probably would have thought I was a ghost or demon. At the time, well, I was petrified. How did they survive?”

“Nimrod thinks they were in the chest, drugged to sleep silently. Then they woke up, moved the things, crawled down, raided the tomb, and slipped out.”

“How did they know about it?”

Cheftu sighed. “I don’t know.”

“Did you ask them?”

“They didn’t say.” His tone was curt, and Chloe let it go. She closed her eyes and reveled in the weight of his body—some of it, anyway—on hers. “Are you hungry?” he asked.

“Yes, but I don’t want to let you go.”

They fell asleep, and only woke when the drums sounded outside. Cheftu sat up, instantly alert.

“What does it mean?” Chloe asked.

Cheftu was up, half-dressed. “I don’t know. I must find out. Eat, I’ll be back.”

He was out the door again, and she was half-sitting up. The tray sat on the corner and she reached for a plate. Sliced mystery meat, bread, onions, and pea paste. She fell on her dinner with a passion.

*      *     *

Nimrod looked at the map, then at Gilgamesh. “Well then, how are the fields around Fara?”

Gilgamesh shook his head. “They’ve been there since Before; in truth Ziusudra was there. The barley grew to half-size this season. The dirt is frosted with salt.”

Nimrod’s finger crossed the channel that connected the Euphrates to the Tigris. He was still looking in the Plain of Shinar. “Nippur? Are they open to settlers?”

“Brother, I’ve told you. Every commonwealth is facing the same problem, from Kish to Eridu. The water dries the fields. The fields aren’t producing.”

“If there were fewer people, you think that would solve the problem?”

“Less work for the land. Then we could rotate crops and let fields lie fallow? It would help.”

Nimrod stared out at the slash of shadow on the wall. “Is the frost another curse from Before?”

“The dying fields? I don’t know. Not a stated one, not according to Ziusudra.”

Nimrod looked at the map again. “What about farther north, farther from the sea?”

“We have cousins in Agade, almost to the headwaters.”

“What of this land in between?”

“It’s desert.”

“So was this, before irrigation.”

“This was marsh, first,” Gilgamesh corrected him. “It always had water. Easier to drain water already there, than to coax water into a new place.”

Nimrod sighed. “Maybe we should take just artisans and trade for food, avoid the problem completely.”

“No fields?”

“No commercial growing. People, individual humans, could have their homesteads if they wanted, but nothing like Ur.”

“What happens to your people when the droughts hit? They will, they always do every few years.”

Nimrod was silent. “What always happens. People die. People survive.” He snorted. “It’s in the hands of the gods.”

“Truth, surely. How many were you thinking to take?”

Nimrod sat back. “A hundred to start, then add another few hundred in the next season.”

“You always wanted to be a
lugal,
didn’t you?”

It was a baited question: Gilgamesh, the oldest son of Shem, had been
lugal
in Ur. His rule had been so oppressive that the council had begged Puabi to intercede. She had gone to the mountains with Nimrod to find Gilgamesh a companion to take his mind and energy off whipping the residents of Ur into his idea of efficiency. Nimrod had considered capturing a wildcat, but Puabi had seen Kidu and desired him. After Nimrod had trapped Kidu, and Puabi had used sex to tame the man, they had brought him as a gift to Gilgamesh.

The ploy hadn’t worked. So the council had pleaded with Shem to become
lugal
once more. Gilgamesh had left in a rage and gone to rule another commonwealth. Nimrod had seen the conflicts between his father and brother, and decided in his heart what was fair and just. Nimrod must walk carefully around Gilgamesh, however; he needed him at the moment.

“Not here,” Nimrod said. “Someplace to start new. I’d build the staged temple first, to establish the infrastructure that would support a council and community. Provide clothes and grain, order and law.”

“Are you ready for the responsibility? Your life is no longer yours, if you become
lugal.
”

Nimrod ignored his older brother. “It’s probably wild up there yet,” he said, pointing to a blank space on the map, just below where the rivers flowed parallel. “The people need a good hunter to keep them safe. Not to mention a defense against raiders.”

Gilgamesh looked at the spot Nimrod pointed to. “The people will need a defense against Pazuzu and his demons there. You’ve pointed to Bab-ili, the gate of the gods.”

Nimrod withdrew his finger. “Those tales are nonsense.”

“They are from Before; indeed, those are the spirits who haunt the place.”

“Have you been there?” Nimrod asked.

Gilgamesh shook his head. “I am brave, but not foolhardy. Monsters inhabit the remains. It is one of the gates to the underworld.”

“It’s by water,” Nimrod said. “Both rivers.”

“It’s full of ruins from—”

“The fields are probably good.”

“You are going to risk your people there?”

Nimrod shook his head. “There is no reason to, I was merely curious.”

Gilgamesh sighed with relief. “Were you thinking on leaving soon?”

Nimrod stood. “Yes, now.”

“Now?”

“We’d need to get there in time to dry some bricks for housing, plant fields with the winter crops.”

“Who is we? Whom are you taking?”

“My family, a few of my men, not many people. But we need to leave immediately.”

Gilgamesh nodded. “Before Ur gets back to normal, just make your absence part of the loss of… the sacrifices the gods required.”

“We need to be there by the cool season.”

“What do you want from me?”

“Grain.”

Gilgamesh hesitated. “I am not the one who makes that decision.”

“In a time of war or persecution, you can make all kinds of decisions. Make that one for me. Give me the grain to start with.”

“It will come with a cost,” Gilgamesh said at last.

“I expected as much. What?”

“Taxes, brother. I’m going to ask for a percentage of your taxes to see Ur through.”

Nimrod glared at his brother. “What percentage?”

“Twenty, not much.”

“Five.”

“Eighteen.”

“Seven.”

“Sixteen.”

Nimrod groaned. “Ten, my last offer.”

“You forget, brother, you are asking from me. Not the other way around.”

“You forget also, brother, that ultimately I will be taking hundreds of mouths you would have to feed, away.”

“Fourteen.”

“Ten.”

“Fourteen.”

“Ten, I tell you! They will have to pay five to the temple, five to me… my people are taxed by 20 percent already!”

“I wouldn’t tell them that as you are rallying them,” Gilgamesh said, standing up. “Best to wait until they are there, engrossed in your building project, or finished with it, before you tell them about the 20 percent.”

“I’m taking my soldiers,” Nimrod said. “You won’t have a guard any longer. Eleven.”

“I’ll find some sailors,” Gilgamesh said. “Mercenaries are truer because you know exactly what their loyalty costs.” He reached out and clapped Nimrod’s shoulder. “We don’t know each other at all, do we? Twelve it is. For the sake of our father.”

“When do I get the grain?”

Gilgamesh sighed. “I’ll have it delivered to your house, by dawn tomorrow.”