Between the Rivers

12

There on the counter, beside the scale that weighed out gold and silver, copper and tin, stood the snake-decorated clay cup from the Alashkurru Mountains. Sharur had gone downstairs to check on it and take it from the pot of tin after he woke from his dream, fearful lest Habbazu should have stolen it either for reasons of his own or because of urgings from the gods too strong for him to withstand.

But the Zuabi thief had not disturbed the cup in the night. Now, in the clear light of morning, he stared at it along with Sharur and Ereshguna and Tupsharru. Sharur’s eyes went for a moment from the cup to the scales close by. The cup was more precious than anything he or his father or his brother set on the balance pans of the scale, but its value was not measured in keshlut.

“Now we come down to it,” Ereshguna said in a heavy voice.

“I am afraid. I am not ashamed to admit I am afraid,” Habbazu said. Beside him, Tupsharru sipped on a cup of beer and nodded.

“I am also afraid,” Sharur said. “But I have grown tired of being afraid.” Afraid of the gods, was what he meant, but he was also afraid to say that aloud. His father and brother and the Zuabi thief understood him: of that he was sure. He went on, “I would like to set men free. To how many is that chance given?”

Ereshguna said, “Strange to think that, if we set men free by doing this, they are men far from Gibil, men far from the land between the rivers.”

“Yes, it is strange,” Sharur agreed. Something Tarsiyas had said during the dream the night before still rolled back and forth in his mind. Did Engibil have an object wherein he stored his power, as the gods of the Alashkurrut had stored theirs in this cup? Did other gods have such objects? Did, for instance, Enimhursag have such an object hidden in his city?

“Are we truly resolved to do this thing?” Ereshguna asked.

Habbazu was silent. Tupsharru was silent. Sharur said, “Father, I think we are. Freeing men anywhere will in the end help free men everywhere.” Habbazu did not contradict him. Tupsharru did not contradict him. And, in the end, Ereshguna, whose contradiction he would have taken most seriously of all, did not contradict him, either.

“Who will do it?” Habbazu asked. His voice was surprisingly small and surprisingly shaky. He had come further out from under the shadow of his city god, probably, than any other Zuabi. He was further put from under the shadow of his city god, probably, than many Giblut were out from under the shadow of Engibil. But he was not so far out from under the shadow of his city god as were Sharur, Ereshguna, and Tupsharru.

“I will do it,” Sharur said, and his voice was surprisingly small and surprisingly shaky, too. He did his best to strengthen it: “Most of the troubles we have known of late have sprung from my travels. Let us hope that, once the deed is done, the troubles will also be done.”

“We are men. We shall always have troubles,” Ereshguna said. Habbazu nodded. After a moment, so did Sharur and Tupsharru. Ereshguna went on, “Let us hope that, once the deed is done, these troubles will also be done.”

“Aye,” Sharur said. “Let us indeed hope that.”

He looked around. His eye fell on a bronze vase decorated with reliefs of lions and crocodiles, and with a proud line of writing around the rim: dimgalabzu made me. Though they could not have read the inscription, the men of the mountains of Alashkurru would have cherished such a vase—had their gods let them trade with the Giblut. Now they would cherish the vase for a different reason, one they would never know. Sharur picked up the vase by the neck and hefted it in his hands. It was of a good size. It was of a good weight.

“It is made from bronze,” Tupsharru said, nodding at his choice. “That is right. That is fitting.”

“It is made from bronze, and it has syllables cut into the bronze,” Ereshguna said, also nodding. “That is very right. That is very fitting.”

“Such was my thought,” Sharur said, and he nodded in turn. “Metal and the written word: these are the powers of men. They did not come to us from the gods. We found them for ourselves.”

Still holding the vase by the neck, he walked over to the counter and stood in front of the cup in which the great gods of the Alashkurrut had hidden so much of their power. Suddenly, he stared at the cup—was that a cry of appeal he had heard? He rubbed at his left ear with his left hand, but the cry had not sounded in his ears, and he knew as much.

But he was not the only one to have heard it. “They know what you are about to do,” Habbazu whispered. “They know. Even here, they know.”

“They know,” Ereshguna agreed. “They know, and they fear.”

That steadied Sharur. With a grunt of effort, he brought the upended vase down on the cup. The cup broke into a thousand sharp-edged shards of clay. They flew all around the room. One of them bit into Sharur’s hand, as if the great gods of the Alashkurrut were taking what vengeance they could.

It was but a small vengeance, though—a tiny vengeance. When the vase smashed down on the cup, Sharur heard another cry, or the beginning of another cry, but after only an instant it guttered down to a low wailing and was gone, as a torch will gutter out after burning all its fuel.

“What a wailing and crying and gnashing of teeth!” Sharur’s grandfather’s ghost exclaimed. “What a howl of anguish! What a shriek of despair! My ears still ring with it, or they would if I still had ears.”

“That cry was heard in your realm, too, ghost of my father?” Ereshguna asked.

“Heard?” the ghost said. “I should say it was heard. It echoes yet, and makes me tremble and shake. How could you have been bold enough, how could you have been mad enough, to do as you did?”

Now that Sharur had done it, he wondered the same thing himself. Nervously, he asked, “Will others in your realm know who did this? Will the gods be able to tell who did this?”

“I saw you do it,” his grandfather’s ghost replied. “I heard the gods of the Alashkurrut cry out when you did it. Everyone in my realm from the mountains of Alashkurru to the swamps of Laravanglal, I daresay, heard the gods of the Alashkurrut cry out when you did this, so great was that cry. So great was that cry, I think, that no one who did not see you do it will be able to know whence precisely it came.”

“For this news I thank you, ghost of my grandfather,” Sharur said sincerely.

“For this news you are welcome, my grandson,” the ghost told him. “But I say this plainly: it is news you have by luck, not by design. Did you think on what this cry would be like in the world beyond the world of the living?” The ghost answered its own question before Sharur or his father or his brother could speak: “No, you did not. Manifestly, you did not.”

Since he was correct, neither Sharur nor Ereshguna nor Tupsharru argued with him. In musing tones, Sharur said, “I wonder what is happening in the mountains of Alashkurru now. If Tarsiyas, say, was speaking in his temple, was he suddenly struck dumb? If Fasillar was aiding a woman in childbirth, will the woman have to finish giving birth alone?”

“Those are good questions,” Ereshguna agreed. “I also wonder what will become of the people of the mountains of Alashkurru now that their great gods have lost this power. If such befell the Imhursagut, many of them would go mad, no longer having the god to take charge of their lives.”

“Some there may do that,” Sharur said. “I do not think many will. Huzziyas the wanax, for instance, is a man much like Habbazu here, a man who has come a long way out from under the shadow of his gods and who would have come further had he but had the chance. Now he has the chance. The land of the Alashkurrut may know some chaos for a time, but the Alashkurrut are not like the Imhursagut.”

“I wonder what Enimhursag thinks of men and the things men say after you tricked him,” Tupsharru said. “He will surely be less trusting of those from beyond his city. I wonder if he will also be less trusting of those from within his city.”

“A point,” Sharur said, nodding. “I wonder if he will be less trusting of those from within his city whom we captured in the late war. I wonder if he will think they have been corrupted, living among us Giblut. I wonder if, thinking them corrupted, he will let their kin pay ransom for them.”

“If he will not let their kin pay ransom for them, then Ushurikti will sell them as slaves, as will other dealers in the city, and we Giblut shall have new backs and new hands to do our labor,” Tupsharru said. He smiled and added, “And we shall have profit from the Imhursagut Sharur captured.”

Habbazu smiled, too, in a different way. “Here you boast of setting the Alashkurrut free, but you also boast of profit from selling the Imhursagut as slaves.”

“They are not slaves of the gods,” Sharur said. “They are the slaves of men, in the same way that a lugal rules in Gibil rather than a god or even an ensi.”

“That a lugal rules in Gibil rather than a god or even an ensi may be an improvement—or, then again, it may not,” Habbazu said. “But will any man who is sold into slavery tell you it is an improvement over his earlier lot?”

“If he is starving and sells himself to a master who will feed him, yes,” Sharur said. “If he is not a man but a child whose father sells him to a master who will feed him where the father can not, yes again.”

“Hmm,” Habbazu said, and then “Hmm” again. “You argue well—and why should you not? You are a Gibli, after all.”

“You steal well—and why should you not? You are a Zuabi, after all,” Sharur returned. He and Habbazu both laughed. He went on, “I will tell you another man who will say slavery is an improvement on the lot he might have had: Duabzu the Imhursaggi, whom I captured with the sword when I might have slain him with it.”

“Well,” Habbazu said this time, and then “Well” again. “Perhaps you are right. Perhaps I spoke too soon.”

“Perhaps you did,” Sharur said. “Perhaps you did.”

Ushurikti bowed low when Sharur came into his establishment. The slave dealer’s face was red, and he wheezed a little as he straightened. Like Dimgalabzu, he was prosperous enough to be plump: an upstanding pillar in the community that was Gibil. “How may I serve you, son of Ereshguna?” he asked. “Will you drink beer with me? Will you eat bread and onions with me?” .

“I will gladly drink beer with you. I will gladly eat bread and onions with you,” Sharur replied. Ushurikti clapped his hands. One of his own personal slaves—not one of the men and women in whom he traded—fetched food and drink. After Sharur had refreshed himself, he asked if he might see Nasibugashi and Duabzu.

Ushurikti’s mobile features twisted into a sorrowful frown. “Truly my heart grieves, my master, that I cannot give you everything you desire on the instant. I have lent them, among others, out to Kimash the mighty lugal, and they are hard at work repairing canals that have begun to fall into decay. They eat of the lugal’s bread. They drink of the lugal’s beer. As they cannot eat of my bread or drink of my beer while they labor for the mighty lugal, I do not add their maintenance on these days to their ransom.”

“You are an honest man,” Sharur said, and Ushurikti bowed again. Sharur went on, “With mention of ransom, though, you come to the question I would ask you concerning Nasibugashi and Duabzu and other Imhursaggi captives who did not fall to me: is Enimhursag permitting their kin and their friends to ransom them?”

“Ah.” Ushurikti bowed yet again. “This is a most astute question indeed, master merchant’s son, though of course I should have expected nothing less from one so clever as yourself.” He smiled an ingratiating smile. He was also a merchant, and knew the value of flattery.

So did Sharur, who hid a smile at seeing the techniques he used himself now aimed at him. He noted that, despite the flattery, the slave dealer had not answered his question. He tried again: “What does Enimhursag say about ransoming prisoners? Will he permit it, or not?”

“All I can tell in that regard is this: the god of Imhursag will permit it—or not,” Ushurikti replied, now looking somewhat less happy because he was compelled to admit his own lack of omniscience.

“How do you mean?” Sharur asked. “You have succeeded in confusing me, I will tell you so much.”

“I am also to be numbered among the confused,” Ushurikti said. “I would not deny it. I could not deny it. As is the custom between Gibil and Imhursag after our wars, I have written to the kin of those Imhursagut whom we captured, seeking ransom for their loved ones. As is also the custom between Gibil and Imhursag, I have written to the temple of Enimhursag in Imhursag, asking leave to seek ransom for those Imhursagut whom we captured. For long and long, this has been but a formality, with agreement always promptly forthcoming, else I should have written to the god at his temple before writing to the captives’ kin.”

“But not this time?” Sharur said.

“But not this time,” the slave dealer agreed.

“But Enimhursag has not refused to let the Imhursagut ransom their kin,” Sharur persisted. “Had he done so, you would have told me plainly.” I hope you would have told me plainly.

“Enimhursag has not refused, but neither has Enimhursag assented,” Ushurikti said. “Enimhursag has not responded at all. In most such times, the god will say aye while my courier waits at his temple; sometimes he will even say aye through a chance met man while my courier is still on the road toward the city of Imhursag. But my courier delivered the customary letter, and the god told him he would respond in his own time. That time has not yet come round.”

“How strange,” Sharur said, and the slave dealer nodded emphatic agreement. “I wonder why.”

“So do I,” Ushurikti replied. “It is a puzzlement. It is most unlike Enimhursag, of all the gods there be, to break custom. He has ever been one to stand for doing things as they were always done.”

“That he has; it is one of the reasons he hates Gibil and the Giblut so,” Sharur said. He scratched his head. “I wonder if he fears letting the Imhursagut whom we captured return to his city, lest they tell their kin we live better and more pleasantly than they. For, having been to Imhursag, I speak the truth when I say we do live better and more pleasantly than the Imhursagut. No one who has seen Gibil and Imhursag both could doubt it.”

“Not even a slave?” Ushurikti asked.

“Not even a slave,” Sharur declared.

Ushurikti also scratched his head. He plucked at his beard, a caricature of a man thinking hard. At last he said, “It could be so, master merchant’s son. It could well be so, in fact. It makes more sense than any notion J have had for myself. And, while I have never seen Imhursag, I have had enough dealings with Imhursagut and with Enimhursag himself to know that I would never want to live in a city with those men and ruled by that god.”

“Nor would I,” Sharur said.

“But I will tell you something else,” Ushurikti said, “and that is that, even here in Gibil, living is not always so easy as we wish it would be. Why, not long after you and that Zuabi mercenary brought that Duabzu fellow in to me, the priests of Engibil came through here like locusts—locusts, I tell you—in search of something they said had been stolen from the god’s temple. I think they only wanted the chance to snoop, and I shall not change my opinion. As if I, a reputable trader, would for a moment harbor stolen property, human or otherwise, here in my establishment.”

“I heard the priests of Engibil and also the servants of Kimash the mighty lugal were searching through the city for some such thing,” Sharur said. “I do not know much about this, for I had already gone back to the camp in the north and to the fighting we did there.”

“Of course.” The slave dealer’s head bobbed up and down. “But I mind me, master merchant’s son, that the priests were asking a good many questions about this Zuabi. All Zuabut being thieves, my guess is that they wanted to blame the crime—if crime there was—on him so they would not have to do anything more in the way of proper looking themselves.”

“It could well be so,” Sharur replied. Ushurikti was indeed a man of no small weight in the city—if he believed something that cast scorn upon Engibil and his priests, he would help make others in Gibil do likewise, which would in turn help reduce the influence of the god and his priesthood.

“I should say it could,” Ushurikti said now. “Why, at that entertainment you put on outside the god’s house on earth—for which, honor to you and to your generosity—did you hear that white-bearded fool of a priest ranting and raving against everything that makes life worth living? If he had his way, life would not be worth living.”

“No doubt you are right,” Sharur said. “Old Ilakabkabu is more sour than a pickled onion.” And yet, the old priest had been far closer to correct about Habbazu’s attempted thievery of two nights before the entertainment—and about much else besides—than had Burshagga, who was a man of the new. But being right had done him no good, a twist of fate Sharur savored.

“Ha!” Ushurikti said. “Well put, master merchant’s son. Well put. I shall send a messenger hotfoot to the house of Ereshguna when the lugal restores to me Nasibugashi and Duabzu, in whom you have an interest, or when I hear from Imhursag—or rather from Enimhursag—on the matter of ransoms.”

“You are gracious.” Sharur bowed. “I know I may rely on you. You are a conscientious man.”

Ushurikti beamed. “Praise from a man who is praiseworthy is praise indeed. Insofar as I can make it so, everything shall be as you desire.”

“For your kindness and your care, I am in your debt,” Sharur said. After exchanging more polite formulas with the slave dealer, he went on his way. He had not learned what he had come to learn, but he had learned that what he had come to learn was there to be learned. That, too, was knowledge worth having, and he took it back with him to the house of Ereshguna.

A druggist came into the house of Ereshguna and asked Sharur, “Have you any of that powdered black mineral from the mountains? You know the one I mean: the one I mix with perfumed mutton fat and sell to the women, that they may darken their eyebrows and eyelashes with it, and perhaps paint beauty marks on their cheeks or on their chin.”

“My master, I believe I do, but it has been some little while since anyone asked me for it, so I shall have to rummage about to find it.” Sharur duly rummaged on shelves and through storage jars, and at last came up with a small pot ornamented with the face of a woman with entrancing eyes. “Here you are: first grade, finely ground. How much do you require?”

Before the druggist answered, he took a tiny pinch of the powder, brought it up to his face to examine it closely, and rubbed it between forefinger and thumb to see just how finely it was ground. At last, grudgingly, he nodded. “It is as you say it is. Weigh me out four keshlut.”

“It shall be as you say,” Sharur replied. As he piled the cosmetic powder on one pan of the scales to balance the four little bronze weights on the other, he went on, “The price is two thirds of the weight in silver.”

The druggist screamed at him. He had expected nothing else, and screamed back. They settled on a price of one half the powder’s weight. Sharur would have settled for even a little less than that, which was nothing the druggist needed to know. The man took broken bits of silver from the pouch on his belt and set them on the scales until he had two keshlut there.

“It is good,” he said. “I have had three women ask me for this paste in the last two days, and I have been embarrassed to go without.” Contented, he took the powder, which he had stored in his own little jar, and departed.

Another man pushed past him into the house of Ereshguna, a stalwart fellow of about the age of Sharur’s father. Sharur did not recognize him till he took off his straw hat and fanned himself with it. “Ah,” Sharur said, bowing as he might have to any new customer. “You have not honored us with your presence for some little while, Izmaili.”

“And yet you remember the name I give myself. No wonder you are a master merchant’s son, soon, no doubt, to be a master merchant yourself.” Izmaili—-as Kimash the lugal preferred to call himself when he went out into Gibil without the trappings that made him as nearly divine as a man could be—smiled and nodded.

“You are kind and gracious,” Sharur said. “How may I serve you? Would you like some cosmetic powder, as the druggist before you did?”

“I thank you for the thought, but no; I have come to the house of Ereshguna for a rather different reason.” Kimash’s voice was dry.

“I am your servant, as I am the servant of any man who comes to the house of Ereshguna to buy or to sell,” Sharur replied.

“I fear I have come neither to buy nor to sell,” Kimash said. “While another sits where I often do”—an allusion to the impostor who occupied the lugal’s high seat while he in turn impersonated an ordinary man—“I have come to pass the time of day, to gossip.”

“Shall I bring you beer, then, Izmaili?” Sharur asked. “Shall I bring you salt fish? Shall I bring you onions? Would you care to drink while you pass the time of day? Would you care to eat while you gossip?”

“I would be grateful for beer and for salt fish and for onions,” Kimash said, though in the palace he was no doubt used to the daintier viands the man who took his place on the seat might now enjoy. Sharur fetched the beer and food with his own hands, not wanting to summon a slave who was liable to recognize the lugal and do some gossiping of his own, gossiping that could get back to Engibil’s ears.

Kimash drank beer and ate salt fish and onions with every sign of enjoyment, as if he were a shopkeeper or an artisan or a peasant rather than likely the single most powerful man in the land between the rivers. Sharur ate and drank with him, and presently, when the beer in his cup had nearly reached the bottom, he spoke to Izmaili who was Kimash as if he were a shopkeeper or an artisan or a peasant who had come into the house of Ereshguna: “So. What have you heard? What do you want to know?”

Kimash smiled again. He bit into an onion and breathed odorous fumes into Sharur’s face. “What have I heard? I have heard that something once missing is now gone for good. What do I want to know? I want to know whether what I have heard is true.”

“Ah,” Sharur said, and then said nothing more for some little while. At last, doing his best to remain casual, he went on, “And where might you have heard such a thing as that?”

“I heard it from someone who labors in the house from which the thing disappeared,” Kimash answered elliptically. Burshagga told him, having learned from the god, Sharur thought: Burshagga or some other man of the new among the priesthood. If breaking the Alashkurri cup had alarmed Sharur’s grandfather’s ghost, what must it have done to Engibil? What must it have done to gods throughout the land of Kudurru? The ghost had said no one, ghost or demon or god, would be able to tell whence the cry of anguish from the Alashkurri gods had come, for which Sharur was heartily glad.

He answered, “The man who labors in that house did tell you the truth, as a matter of fact.” How would Kimash respond to that? The lugal had sought Habbazu in the same way as had Engibil; he had sought the master thief as if he were a servant of the god.

But Kimash slowly clapped his hands together—once, twice, three times. “It is good,” he said. “It is very good. The gods who suffered this are not our gods. The gods who suffered this dwell far away. But with men in one place freer, men everywhere breathe more easily. My greatgrandfather was an ensi, through whom Engibil spoke. Great-grandfather was a priest, to whom Engibil gave orders as Enimhursag gives the Imhursagut orders today.”

He did not directly name himself, or what he was, or how he did what he did. Sharur spoke with similar care: “Today the lugal speaks in his own voice, but must ever be wary, lest the god seek to seize once more the power he has let slip between his fingers. But how will things be in the days of the lugal’s great-grandson? And how will things be in the days of his great-grandson?”

“Even so,” Kimash said softly. His eyes glowed. “Even so. How will things be in the days of his great-grandson? Who then will be wary of whom?”

“That is surely an... interesting question,” Sharur said. He imagined Engibil reduced to the status of a demon of the desert, or perhaps to that of a small god like Kessis or Mitas, able to change a man’s luck for good or ill but not much more—certainly unable to aspire to the rule of a city. He imagined lugals ruling in other cities in the land between the rivers. He imagined even stubborn gods feeling men . from their own cities chopping at their heels as Sharur had chopped at Enimhursag’s heel during the second battle against the Imhursagut.

Kimash said, “The road will not be easy. The road will not run straight. The gods will see in which direction it runs. They will try to turn us back along it. They are strong. They are dangerous. They may yet win. If Engibil truly did choose to rise up in wrath now, who knows whether we Giblut could hope to withstand his anger and his might?”

“So the lugal feared earlier this year,” Sharur said, continuing to speak of Kimash as if he were someone else. “But, from what I have heard, the god had not the will to rise up in wrath, even if he had the strength.”

“What you have heard and what I have heard are one and the same,” Kimash said. “Distracting the god has always been the lugal’s greatest need. I do hope, though, that distracting the god shall not always be the lugal’s greatest need.”

“Might... ah, Izmaili, I think it may not be so,” Sharur replied, and told the lugal wdiat Tarsiyas had indiscreetly revealed about the thing in which Engibil had secreted away so much of his power.

“Well, well,” Kimash said. “How interesting.” For a moment, Sharur was disappointed at getting no stronger response. Then Kimash leaned toward him and demanded, “Do you know what sort of thing this is? Do you know where it may be found?”

“I know neither of these things,” Sharur answered. “I do not think I was meant to know such a thing even existed. The Alashkurri god spoke of it in a temper to a goddess. But I heard. In my dream, I heard. And what I heard in my dream. I remember.”

“Well, well,” the lugal said again. “This is no small matter you have set before me. I am glad I am only an ordinary man, and do not have to concern myself with such.” His smile declared how far apart lay the words that came from his mouth and the thoughts that formed behind his eyes.

Sharur had thoughts of his own, too. He turned one loose: “I wonder how a man who is not an ordinary man, a man who does have to concern himself with such, would go about finding this thing, whatever it may be?”

“Right now, I do not know. Right now, I can not guess,” Kimash said. “But such a man will surely concern himself with such a thing before any great stretch of time has passed.”

“This I believe,” Sharur said. “Even searching for such a thing without great hope of success, a man might make a better bargain with a god than otherwise.”

“Truly you are a master merchant’s son,” Kimash said. “Truly you shall soon become a master merchant yourself.”

“That is a generous thing for a person of no consequence such as yourself, Izmaili, to say,” Sharur replied with a bow. Kimash, recognizing that he had in fact been addressed in his proper rank, graciously inclined his head.

Sharur started to say something more, but then paused, weighing whether he should. Kimash noticed, but misunderstood his reasons. In a cautious voice, the lugal asked, “Has the god seized your wits, son of Ereshguna? If it be so, can you find some way to let me know it is so?”

“It is not so,” Sharur declared. “I am sorry if I alarmed you, but it is not so. On the contrary. I have another thought you may perhaps find worth hearing.”

“I listen.” Kimash inclined his head once more.

“Hear my words, then,” Sharur said, exactly as if he were speaking to Izmaili the man of no particular consequence rather than to Kimash the lugal of Gibil. “The great gods of the Alashkurrut had this thing, into which they poured a great part of their power for what they thought to be safekeeping. The great gods of the Alashkurrut likewise let slip that Engibil has such a thing, into which he has poured a great part of his power. Could it be that all gods have such a thing, into which they have poured a great part of their power for what they think to be safekeeping?”

Kimash stood some time still and silent. Then he stepped forward and kissed Sharur on both cheeks. “It could be. It could be indeed.” His smile might have appeared on the face of a lion spying a fat gazelle that did not spy it in turn. Slowly, he went on, “I wonder if Enimhursag has such a thing, into which he has poured a great part of his power for what he thinks to be safekeeping.”

That same smile stole across Sharur’s face. “If Enimhursag has such a thing, I wonder who would be more eager to find it and destroy it: we Giblut, or the Imhursagut the god has oppressed for so long?”

“If the Imhursagut were more like us Giblut, my wager would be on them,” Kimash replied. “As things are...” He shrugged. “Perhaps they could do with suitable instruction.”

“Provided, of course, that an Imhursaggi will listen,” Sharur said. “Provided that an Imhursaggi will profit from instruction. Such a thing is possible, I suppose, but by no means sure.”

“Indeed not,” Kimash said. “In their resolute stupidity, the Imhursagut very much resemble their god, just as the Zuabut resemble Enzuabu in their inveterate thievery.” He paused and looked thoughtful once more. “I wonder why we Giblut do not resemble Engibil, who is as lazy and lackadaisical as Enzuabu is thievish and Enimhursag stubborn and stupid.”

“Folk whose god is lazy and lackadaisical needs must do for themselves what that lazy, lackadaisical god will not do for them,” Sharur replied. “We are as we are because Engibil is as he is. And, because Engibil is as he is, we now draw near the point where we can live without him.” He lowered his voice to a whisper for that last sentence—the Giblut might have been drawing near such a point, but they had not yet reached it.

“My great-grandson,” Kimash murmured. “His great-grandson.” He raised an eyebrow at Sharur. “Remember, son of Ereshguna, my great-grandson could be your grandson.”

“That could be, yes, but for him to do as you do”—to sit on the throne of Gibil, Sharur meant, but would not say—“your male line would have to fail, which I pray it may never do. And, now that Engibil has assented to the match my family made for me, I am, as I have told you, content and more than content with it.”

“I had gathered that your match was among other things a love match. Now I see it must be so indeed,” Kimash said. “Only a love match would make a man turn away from power when it is offered to him like a pot in the market square.” He seemed to remember himself and the role he had assumed. “Fortunately, I, Izmaili, a person of no particular account, do not need to concern myself with such things.” He bowed and departed.

Sharur stared after him. He had expected the lugal to be more annoyed at the destruction of the Alashkurri cup, but Kimash had accepted that without a qualm once it was accomplished. He had also accepted Sharur’s avoidance of a marriage alliance more readily than Sharur had thought he would.

Maybe the thought of truly bringing Engibil to heel once and for all pleased the lugal more than any lesser disappointment bothered him. Had Sharur dwelt in the palace rather than in the house of Ereshguna, he knew how much that thought would have pleased him. As a matter of fact, it pleased him quite a lot even though he did dwell in the house of Ereshguna. And the thought of truly bringing Enimhursag to heel once and for all pleased him even more.

Ushurikti frowned. “Are you sure you wish to do this, master merchant’s son? You consigned these slaves to me for sale. I shall have to charge the house of Ereshguna not only for their maintenance while in my hands but also for a part of the price I could have expected to realize from such sale.”

“Unless it be a very large part, I shall not object,” Sharur replied. “Unless it be an extortionate part, I shall not complain.”

“We can settle that in due course,” the slave dealer said. “First, though, tell me, if you would, why you have suddenly decided to set these two Imhursagut free instead of profiting from them.”

“I have a message I wish to send back to Imhursag, and they are the fitting ones to bear it,” Sharur said.

“You must be the judge of that, of course,” Ushurikti replied, “but you must also recall that they are at present laboring in the south for the mighty lugal, and are not here at my establishment.”

“I do indeed recall that,” Sharur said, “but they are laboring in the south for the mighty lugal because they are slaves, or are presumed to be slaves. If you send a runner to the south with word they are in fact to be freed, will the runner not be likely to return to Gibil with them trailing after him as sheep trail after a wether?”

“Likely he will, master merchant’s son.” Ushurikti looked calculating. “As you are doing this of your own will, it is just that you send a runner to the south and you pay him to bring Duabzu and Nasibugashi back to Gibil.”

“Let it be done as you say,” Sharur answered resignedly. Ushurikti instructed the runner where in the south the two Imhursaggi captives were laboring for the lugal. Sharur gave him a clay tablet to show to whatever foreman Kimash had set over them, authorizing their release. He rolled his stone cylinder seal over the bottom of the damp tablet, confirming it had come from him. The runner trotted off, his sandals kicking up puffs of dust as he went.

He returned three days later, with the two Imhursagut trailing after him just as Sharur had foretold. When Ushurikti sent word they had arrived, Sharur hurried over to the slave dealer’s establishment. There he found the men he had captured, both of them anxious to learn what he would do with them.

“Can it be true?” Duabzu asked. “Can you really intend to set us free?” Now that he had tasted the life of a slave, he was no longer so eager to endure it as he had been when Sharur spared his life on the battlefield.

“Have we then been ransomed?” Nasibugashi added. For an Imhursaggi, he seemed, as he had always seemed, uncommonly alert and aware of the consequences of actions in the world around him.

“You are to be freed,” Sharur replied, and both Imhursagut cried out. Sharur went on, “You are not to be ransomed. I set you free without being paid even so much as a barleycorn.” They cried out again, this time in astonishment. Sharur held up a hand. “I have one condition, and one only, I set on your freedom: you must both deliver and spread widely through Imhursag a message I shall give you.”

Duabzu got down upon his belly and touched his forehead to Sharur’s foot. “In the great and mighty and terrible name of Enimhursag, I swear I shall obey you as a son obeys his father.” Nasibugashi swore the same oath, though he did not humble himself before Sharur in the same way.

“It is good,” Sharur said. “Here, then, is the message: somewhere in the land of Imhursag is some small, hidden thing into which Enimhursag has poured a great part of his power for safekeeping. I do not know what it is. I do not know where it is. I do know that, should it be broken, a great part of Enimhursag’s power will be broken with it. Deliver and spread widely through Imhursag this message I have given you, as you have sworn to do.”

Duabzu looked appalled. “But this is a message that might prove dangerous to the great god. This is a message that might bring harm to the mighty god.” By way of reply, Sharur smiled at him. That only made him look more appalled. He had sworn an oath by the god he loved, the god who ruled him absolutely, but to fulfill it he would, as he said, have to endanger the god.

Nasibugashi said, “I see now what I have seen again and again since being deceived into entering Gibil in the first place: this city has a larger store of clever men, men who are ready for anything and to turn anything to their advantage, than does Imhursag. Imhursag would be a better place if we had more men of this sort.”

“Imhursag would be a place more like Gibil if we had more men of this sort.” Duabzu’s shudder plainly gave his opinion of that.

To Nasibugashi, Sharur said, “I do not know whether you will take this for good or ill, but you strike me as being more nearly a man of this sort than most Imhursagut I have seen.”

“I do not know whether to take this for good or ill, either,” Nasibugashi replied.

“Enimhursag will surely know whether to take this for good or ill.” By Duabzu’s tone, he had no doubt how the god of Imhursag would take it. Sharur suspected Duabzu was right, too. If Enimhursag saw what Duabzu and Nasibugashi carried in their minds, his wisest course might be to strike them both dead the instant they crossed into land he ruled.

But, while that might keep Enimhursag safe for the time being, it would also make Imhursag fall further behind Gibil not only in the art of war but also in the art, if art it was, of producing men such as those to whom Nasibugashi had alluded. If Imhursag fell further behind Gibil, sooner or later the Giblut would be in a position to overrun their rivals and find for themselves the thing into which Enimhursag had poured a great part of his power for safekeeping. And when they did ...

Sharur would not have wanted to be the god of Imhursag, nor to be faced with the choices the god of Imhursag was facing. When he remembered the choices with which the god of Imhursag and the other gods had faced him, though, he was far from altogether sorry to confront them with worries for a change.

“You have sworn your oath. I expect you to obey it when you return to the land of the Imhursagut,” he said to Nasibugashi and Duabzu. “Return to the land of the Imhursagut you shall. I set you free. I release you. No one shall make any claim on you. No one shall molest you. Go now, and return not to Gibil unless you should come as peaceful traders.”

The two Imhursagut left the establishment of Ushurikti the slave dealer, Nasibugashi walking straight and tall, Duabzu almost slinking after him. Duabzu was afraid. Duabzu, Sharur thought, had good reason to be afraid.

Ushurikti said, “Master merchant’s son, now I see why you have done as you have done. You have given Enimhursag poison hidden inside a date candied in honey; in freeing two men for him, you may have freed his city from him. I bow before your cleverness.” He suited action to word. “This, of course, does not mean I abandon my claim for compensation over what I might have expected to earn from the sale of these two men.”

“Of course,” Sharur said. “I expected nothing different.”

“You had better not have expected anything different.” Despite an unprepossessing, pudgy build, Ushurikti drew himself up to his full height. “Am I not also a Gibli, even as are you? Am I not also a merchant, even as are you?”

“You are a Gibli, even as I am. You are a merchant, even as I am.” Sharur clapped the slave dealer on the shoulder. “And together, you and I have this day struck no small blow for all Giblut.”

“May it be so,” Ushurikti said, “as long as I get my profit, too.”

A commotion in the street outside the house of Ereshguna made Sharur glance up from the tablet on which he was inscribing measures of barley received in exchange for some of the tin that had been stored in the pot where he’d hidden the Alashkurri cup. “Come on, you lug!” a man with a deep voice shouted. “Don’t think you can give me and my pal the slip, because we cursed well won’t let you! Now move, before something worse happens to you.”

A moment later, Mushezib, the guard captain on Sharur’s caravan to the Alashkurm Mountains, strode into the house of Ereshguna. With him came Harharu, the donkeymaster on that caravan. And jammed between them, like salt fish and lentils and sesame seeds between two rounds of flatbread, perforce came Habbazu the master thief.

Mushezib had hold of his right arm. Harharu had hold of his left arm. If he tried to escape, they would tear him in two, as a man at a feast might tear a leg of roasted duck in two.

“Here’s that lousy Zuabi wretch, master merchant’s son,” Mushezib boomed. “Harharu and I were drinking a quiet cup of beer together when the fellow came swaggering by, bold as you please. Harharu gets the credit for spotting him, because I didn’t. But I’m the one who jumped on the son of a thousand fathers, so I guess we ought to split the reward you promised.”

“I had almost given up looking for the thief, master merchant’s son,” Harharu said, “and then he strolled past my nose when I thought he must surely have gone back to Zuabu. I am glad I was able to help put him in your hands.”

Habbazu said not a word. He looked at Sharur with large, reproachful eyes. Sharur, for once in his life, had trouble finding words himself. He had offered the reward for Habbazu’s capture. He had offered the reward, and then he had forgotten about it. The men to whom he had offered it, though, they had remembered.

He saw only one way to disarm their suspicions, and that was to play along with them. “Well done,” he said. “Well done for being so faithful, well done for being so vigilant. I said I would reward you. Reward you I shall. I promised gold. Gold I shall give you, gold in equal measure.”

He found two rings, thin bands of gold. Setting them on the scales, he discovered one was heavier than the other. He weighed the heavier one, then took it off the scales, set the lighter one on the pan in its place, and added tiny scraps of gold until they and the ring balanced the weights in the other pan. The heavier ring he gave to Harharu. The lighter ring and the gold scraps he gave to Mushezib.

“You are generous, master merchant’s son,” Harharu said, bowing.

“Truly you are generous,” Mushezib agreed. “But can we leave this wretch of a Zuabi with you now that we have gained our reward? He is liable to rape away all your stock in trade.”

“What good would it do him, when he has seen he cannot escape the vigilance of the Giblut?” Sharur said. “You may leave him here with me. I will tend to him as is most fitting.”

“Ha!” Mushezib said. “In that case, he’ll be sorry he was ever born.”

“The master merchant’s son has not explained his purposes to us,” Harharu pointed out.

“He doesn’t need to explain them to me. I can figure them out for myself,” Mushezib said. After giving Habbazu the sort of look he would have given to offal he needed to wipe from the soles of his sandals, he strode out of the house of Ereshguna. By his manner, he might have been a great captain who had just led the Gibli army to victory against Imhursag, not a guard captain who had just laid hands on a single thief.

Having dealt with donkeys for so many years, Harharu was less confident he could immediately understand everything that went on around him. He let go of Habbazu and said, “I hope our capturing the thief after so long a time still suits your purposes, master merchant’s son.”

“Did it not, would I have given you gold?” Sharur returned. “Did it not, would I have set a ring of precious metal on your finger?”

“I am not so quick to judge purposes as my comrade,” Harharu said. “Whatever yours may be, I pray they prosper.” He bowed to Sharur and followed Mushezib out onto the Street of Smiths.

Habbazu turned his dark gaze on Sharur. Sharur coughed and looked away and drummed his fingers on his thigh and did everything else he could to convey without words how embarrassed he was. Habbazu, now, Habbazu had words: “In a way, learning how greatly I am desired is heartening, but only in a way. Were you a beautiful woman seeking me so, I should have come closer to finding it worthwhile. Even then, though, having my arms all but pulled from their sockets would be no small sacrifice.”

“I set the men seeking you long before you stole the thing from the place wherein it was kept,” Sharur said, speaking obliquely from long habit. “When they did not find you, the thought in my mind was that they would not and could not find you, and so I did not call them off. This was an error on my part. I see as much now, and I am sorry for it.”

“I have heard few apologies in my life,” Habbazu said, “and I have heard fewer apologies still that sound as if those who make them speak from the heart, not from the tongue alone. Now I press new syllables into the clay tablet of my memory.”

“Master thief, you are gracious. Habbazu, you are generous,” Sharur said. “I shall spread the word throughout the city that you are to be hunted no more. I shall spread the word to caravan guards and donkey handlers that you are to be left alone.”

“I might wish you had done this sooner. I do wish you had done this sooner,” Habbazu said. “Still, that you do it at all speaks well of you.” He paused. “I hope your noising my name abroad in the city does not bring me to the notice of the lugal. I hope your speaking of me to caravan guards and- donkey handlers does not bring me to the notice of the temple and the god.”

“You need not fear the lugal,” Sharur said. “Now that the deed is done, he is glad it is done. As for the temple and the god...” He told of letting Kimash know that Engibil had stored a great part of his power as the gods of the Alashkurrut had stored a great part of theirs.

“Is this so?” Habbazu murmured. “Is it so. indeed? I did not hear the gods of the Alashkurrut speak thus in any dream I dreamt. And yet... and yet it makes sense that it should be so, eh? If some gods do thus, should not all gods do likewise?”

“So it would seem,” Sharur replied. “So I believe. But of proof I have none.”

“If the gods of the Alashkurrut do thus and Engibil does likewise, would it not follow that Enimhursag also does likewise?” Habbazu said. Seeing Sharur’s predatory smile, the master thief grinned back, a grin that made him look very much like a pretematurally clever monkey. Slowly, that grin faded, to be replaced by a thoughtful expression. “And would it not follow that Enzuabu also does likewise?”

Sharur stepped forward and set a hand on Habbazu’s shoulder. “I congratulate you, my friend. Now you have become more surely a Gibli for the rest of your life than ever you were before. If you enter into Zuabu with this thought in your mind, if Enzuabu sees this thought in your mind as you enter into Zuabu, what will become of you?” He had sent Nasibugashi and Duabzu toward Imhursag with this thought in their minds and without a qualm in his own. Them he had used as weapons against Enimhursag, as he had used a sword in the recent fighting against the god of the Imhursagut. Habbazu was not merely a weapon. Habbazu had become an ally and, in an odd way, a friend.

“What will become of me?” the Zuabi repeated. “Less than you think, master merchant’s son. Do you not know, do you not remember, that the god of Zuabu is also the god of thieves? Do you not think that the god of thieves is able to protect his own from those who would steal it?”

“A point,” Sharur admitted. “Surely a point. And yet, how great a point? Is he able to protect his own from those who would steal provided that they are many and diligent and seek their goal for generations if need be?”

Habbazu’s mobile eyebrows sprang upwards. “I do not know. I wonder if Enzuabu would know. Being a god, he would also be sure he could defeat any one man, and he would be right in being sure. But can he defeat, can he deceive, all men over all time? Would such a thought even cross his mind? I do not know.”

“Being a god, he is sure to be arrogant,” Sharur said. “Having held so much power for so long, gods think they shall easily hold all power forever. Certain potsherds that have been swept away should teach them otherwise.”

“Hmm,” Habbazu said. “Perhaps I would do best to stay in Gibil after all—provided, of course, that you can keep these Gibli ruffians from assaulting me in the street while I pursue my lawful occasions.”

“You are a Zuabi master thief,” Sharur exclaimed. “How can you possibly pursue lawful occasions?”

Spoken in a different tone of voice, that would have been an insult. As it was, the two men grinned at each other. Habbazu said, “Whatever occasions I pursue, I shall now go and pursue them. Have I your gracious leave to do that— if, as I say, I am not to be manhandled the instant I show my face outside your door?”

“You have my gracious leave, certainly,” Sharur said. “Whether you prove to have Mushezib’s gracious leave, or Harharu’s, is liable to be a different question.”

“They took me by surprise, as you did earlier.” Habbazu looked annoyed at himself. “Now I know their faces. Now I know their voices. Now I know their movements, even if I spy them moving in a crowd. They shall not lay hands on me again, I assure you.”

“I have no doubt that you know your own affairs best,” Sharur said.

Habbazu nodded, walked out the door, and might as well have disappeared. It was indeed almost as if a demon had wrapped a cloak of invisibility around him. Sharur went to the doorway. He looked up the Street of Smiths. He did not see Habbazu. He looked down the Street of Smiths. He did not see Habbazu. If he did not see Habbazu, he did not think Mushezib and Harharu were likely to see Habbazu, either. He went back into the house of Ereshguna and incised fresh syllables on clay with his stylus, meticulously recording the weight of the gold he had given to the caravan guard and the donkeymaster. Whatever else happened, accounts had to balance.

“Accounts have to balance,” Dimgalabzu the smith said at the threshold to the house of Ereshguna. Behind him stood Gulal, his wife, in a pleated shift of white linen, with a gold necklace round her neck, gold hoops in her ears, gold bracelets on her wrists, and gold rings on her fingers. Behind her stood Ningal, similarly dressed, similarly arrayed, with a scarf of filmy stuff draped over her head so that it hung down from either side and held in place by golden hairpins.

“Accounts have to balance,” Ereshguna agreed. Behind him stood Betsilim, his wife, in finery not identical to that of Gulal but conveying a like impression of prosperity. Behind her stood Tupsharru and Nanadirat, also richly dressed, excited grins on their faces. Behind his own brother and sister stood Sharur, a nervous grin on his face. Had he not stood there, had Ningal not come to the house of Ereshguna, all the gathering, all the finery, would have been pointless.

“And accounts do balance,” Dimgalabzu boomed. “The house of Ereshguna has duly paid to the house of Dimgalabzu the bride-price upon which the two houses agreed when we likewise agreed to the betrothal of the son of Ereshguna and the daughter of Dimgalabzu. In token of the due fulfillment of the said agreement, I offer to you, Ereshguna, your choice of these identical, fully executed contracts.” He held out a pair of clay tablets to Sharur’s father.

Ereshguna carefully examined the two tablets to make sure they were in fact identical. Dimgalabzu waited while the master merchant did so. He knew Ereshguna trusted him, but, in marriage as in any other business dealing, trust was no substitute for care and consideration.

“It is good,” Ereshguna declared after he had read both tablets through. As custom required when all was in order, he reached out with his left hand to set one tablet in Dimgalabzu’s right. That left each of the two men holding his copy of the marriage agreement in his right hand. Ereshguna held his up above his head. As Dimgalabzu did the same, Sharur’s father said, “May the omen likewise be good.”

“So may it be,” Dimgalabzu said.

“So may it be,” echoed Dimgalabzu’s wife and daughter.

“So may it be,” echoed Ereshguna’s wife and sons and daughter.

Sharur said, “Father, I know I am in your debt. Rest assured, I shall repay this debt as soon as may be.” Those were not words usually found in the marriage ritual, but they seemed to fit here. He had also learned from experience: he did not swear in Engibil’s name that he would repay the debt within any particular time, nor with goods gained in any particular fashion. He did add, “I hope trading up in the Alashkurru Mountains next travel season will be better than it was in the travel season just past.”

“It could hardly be worse,” Tupsharru exclaimed.

“I likewise hope it will be better,” Ereshguna said smoothly. “I hope the Alashkurrut will be as eager to trade with us as they have been in the past, and that they will now have every opportunity to do so.”

That was as harmless and as careful a way of saying that the great gods of the Alashkurrut would henceforth lack the power to prevent such trade as any Sharur could have imagined. Dimgalabzu looked shrewd. “This would have somewhat to do with the cup that was briefly in my house, would it not?”

“What cup could you mean?” Ereshguna sounded as innocent and as ignorant as if he were hearing for the first time that the world held such things as cups.

“What cup do you mean?” Gulal’s question, on the other hand, was as pointed as a serpent’s fang. Sharur realized Ningal had never told her mother about the Alashkurri cup. He realized Dimgalabzu had never told his wife about the Alashkurri cup. He realized Dimgalabzu would probably have several more sharp questions to answer after the wedding feast was over.

But that would be after the wedding feast was over. Betsilim took charge now with effortless ease: “Let us feast. Let us be merry. Let us celebrate at last the joining of our two houses, the joining so long expected and now at last come to pass.”

Gulal still looked unhappy. Gulal, in fact, looked sour as beer of the third quality, sour as date wine that had gone over into vinegar. But she would do nothing more than look sour now, not unless she wanted to make herself hateful before her husband and also hateful before the family into which her daughter was marrying. She knew better than that. She bided her time. Sharur was glad he was not Dimgalabzu. Dimgalabzu did not look so glad that he was Dimgalabzu.

Betsilim clapped her hands. Slaves began carrying in from the kitchen the feast they had prepared. One bore a large copper platter of roasted mutton, including such dainties as heart and liver and sweetbreads, eyes and tongue and brain. Dimgalabzu admired the platter as much as he did the meat piled high upon it. It was a product of his smithy, its use. a subtle compliment to him from the house of Ereshguna.

The Imhursaggi slave woman came out next, with loaves of bread set one beside another on a wickerwork tray. And such loaves they were!—not the usual flat, chewy bread made from barley flour, but soft and fluffy and baked from costly wheat, bread that would not have disgraced the lugal’s table. “That does look very fine,” Dimgalabzu said, patting his big belly in anticipation. “Very fine indeed. Ah, I see honey and sesame oil for dipping. Truly the house of Ereshguna stints not.”

Betsilim let out an indignant sniff at that. “The very idea!” she said. “If the house of Ereshguna stinted at the wedding of its eldest child, what would folk along the Street of Smiths say of us? They would say we were niggards. They would say we were misers. They would say we cared only for holding what was ours, and not for giving of what was ours when the time came to pass. They would say these things, and they would say them truly. We do not wish this, no indeed.”

“My husband meant no offense,” Gulal said, glaring at both Dimgalabzu and Betsilim. “My husband meant only praise.” She glared at Dimgalabzu once more. Sharur got the idea she enjoyed glaring at Dimgalabzu whenever she found the chance. For his own sake, he was glad Ningal had a more easy going disposition.

But Dimgalabzu would not take Ningal home with him once the wedding feast and ceremony were done. Ningal would stay in the house of Ereshguna. Sharur glanced over toward his intended bride. She was glancing over toward him at the same time. When their eyes met, they both looked down to the rammed-earth floor in embarrassment.

Betsilim, for her part, went from clouds to sun in the space of a couple of heartbeats. “I understood you, father of my son’s intended,” she said, smiling brightly. “Let me assure you, I took no offense.”

Now Sharur glanced toward Ereshguna. The two men, one younger, one older, exchanged small smiles. What Betsilim had meant was, Let me assure you, I shall waste no chance to put you in your place.

Gulal saw that, too. Her formidable black brows came down and together in a frown. But, with Betsilim outwardly so affable, Ningal’s mother could do nothing but frown. Sharur’s mother had won this round of the game.

The slaves of the house of Ereshguna kept bringing in more food: roasted locusts and ducks, boiled ducks’ eggs, stewed beans and peas and lentils and cucumbers, fresh garlic and onions and lettuces of several varieties. They brought in jars of beer of the first quality, and jars of date wine as well. The feasters ate until they were very full. They drank until they approached drunkenness.

Dimgalabzu patted his capacious belly once more. He looked from Ningal to Sharur. “Having eaten so much, will you be able to do your bride justice on the first night?” he asked with a leer and a chuckle.

Tupsharru laughed at that, and poked Sharur in the ribs with his elbow. Sharur said, “Father of my intended, you may rely on it.” Dimgalabzu was not a young man; perhaps he would have trouble doing a woman justice after such a feast. If so, Sharur felt sorry for him. He had no doubt of his own capacity—and his chance to prove it would not be long delayed.

Ningal modestly cast her eyes down to the ground once more. Having known her since childhood, Sharur also knew she had a mind of her own and, under the right circumstances or anything even close to the right circumstances, was not in the least bit shy about saying exactly what she thought and behaving exactly as she found best. These were not the right circumstances, nor anything even close to the right circumstances. Sharur’s own manners here were far more formal than they would have been at any other time, too.

Dimgalabzu drank cup after cup of beer. He drank cup after cup of date wine. Smiling, he said to Sharur, “In the morning, I will wish my head would fall off, so I would not have to feel it thumping like a drum. But that will be in the morning. This is now. Now I feel very good indeed.”

He felt good enough to pay very close attention to the way the Imhursaggi slave woman walked when she went back to the kitchen to bring the feasters more bread. He paid close enough attention to make Gulal speak sharply to him, though she did so in a low, polite tone of voice. Even after that, he kept watching the slave woman. After a bit, Tupsharru went over to him and murmured something into his ear.

“Ah? Is it so?” Dimgalabzu said, looking as if he had bitten into a plum and found an unexpected rotten spot. “What a pity, what a pity.”

Nanadirat patted Sharur on the knee. “What did Tupsharru tell him? Why does he look so disappointed?” Sharur looked at his younger sister. Looking at her, he realized she was not so young as that. One day before too long, someone’s father would be dickering with Ereshguna over bride-price for her. To Sharur, who automatically thought of her as an annoying brat, that realization came as no small shock. Because of it, he answered her seriously rather than with an evasion or a joke: “You know what men and women do when they are alone together.”

“Of course I do.” Nanadirat tossed her head. “We wouldn’t be having this wedding feast if men and women didn’t do that when they were alone together.”

“That’s right, we wouldn’t,” Sharur agreed. “What I think Tupsharru was telling Dimgalabzu is that the Imhursaggi slave woman takes no pleasure in lying with a man, and gives a man who lies with her as little pleasure as she can.”

“Oh.” Nanadirat thought about that. Sharur waited for her to ask how Tupsharru would know, or, for that matter, how Sharur could make such a good guess about what Tupsharru had said to Dimgalabzu. She did neither. She simply nodded. She might be his younger sister, but she was a woman, and she knew what women knew.

After the fine wheat bread was all eaten, the Imhursaggi slave woman came out yet again, this time with a bowl of apple slices candied in honey. With great ceremony, Betsilim passed a slice to each of the feasters. “May the union between our two houses prove as sweet as this candied fruit,” she said.

“So may it be,” everyone echoed. Gulal added, “Engibil grant that it be so. The gods grant that it be so.”

No one corrected her. No one disagreed with her, not out loud. Sharur hoped the gods would bless the marriage, too. If, however, the gods remained silent on the matter, he intended to go on with his life as best he could anyhow.

Everyone looked around, as if searching for something, anything, else that wanted doing before the marriage ceremony should be completed. No one said anything. Sharur presumed that meant no one found anything. Ereshguna glanced over to him and nodded, ever so slightly.

Sharur got to his feet. Ningal got to her feet. They stood side by side before their families. Sharur did his best to keep his voice steady and firm, as if he were describing the virtues of a bronze axhead to an Alashkurri wanax. Despite his doing his best, his words came out in a soft, nervous squeak: “I, Sharur the son of Ereshguna, stand here with Ningal the daughter of Dimgalabzu in the presence of witnesses who will see and remember that we so stand.”

“You do. The two of you do.” Ereshguna and Betsilim, Dimgalabzu and Gulal, Tupsharru and Nanadirat all spoke together.

Sharur took the lengths of veiling that hung at either side of Ningal’s head and brought them together in front of her face. “She is my wife,” he said, and then made himself say it again, for no one, very likely including Ningal, could have heard him the first time.

“She is your wife,” the members of the two families agreed, as formally as before.

From behind the veil, Ningal said, “He is my husband.” That was not part of the marriage ritual, and no one echoed it. Nevertheless, Sharur was glad to have her affirmation.

Ereshguna rose then, a wide smile on his face. “And now, my son, my daughter-in-law, come with me, that you may consummate the wedding you have celebrated.” Not only did Sharur and Ningal follow him, so did their families and even the slaves of the house of Ereshguna, all calling advice so ribald, Sharur’s ears burned.

The slaves had cleared jars and pots and baskets from what was normally a storeroom. They had set stools in all the comers of the room, a lamp burning brightly on each one. In the center of the floor lay a sleeping mat. On the sleeping mat lay a square of fine linen, to serve as proof of the ending of Ningal’s days as a maiden. Everyone pointed to the square of cloth and shouted more bawdy advice.

Sharur closed the door. That only meant everyone outside shouted louder than ever. He saw someone had thoughtfully put a bar and brackets for it on the inside of the door. Ignoring the racket in the hallway, he set the bar in the brackets. Behind the filmy veil, Ningal nodded.

He turned to her and parted the veil he had closed. “You are my wife,” he said. “You are my woman.”

Her answering smile was nervous and eager at the same time. “There is something we must do before that is truly so,” she murmured.

“And so we shall,” he said. He freed the veiling from her hair and let it fall to the ground. That done, he pulled her shift up over her head. The lamps shed plenty of light to let him admire her for a moment before he stepped out of his own kilt.

He stepped forward and took her in his arms. Her body molded itself to his. His mouth came down on hers. His right hand closed on her left breast, his left on her right buttock. The kiss went on and on. Ningal sighed, deep in her throat.

Sharur’s grandfather’s ghost shouted in his ear: “By the gods, boy, do you call that a kiss? And squeeze her there, don’t just pat her. Anyone would think you were a virgin yourself, the way you’re going at it. What you have to do is—”

He couldn’t even chase the ghost out beyond the barred door. He had to try to pretend it was not there and make the best of things. And he did.