V
Areshen passed another week in Ur watching a few
more Sixties of chariot hurl javelins toward each other, sighing in
despondency as he lowered his head onto his hands atop the city walls.
Perhaps, he groaned, Ibisien might prove a bit more competent finding his
target, and the king of Elam's daughter would bear a son. At least that
would give Ur's younger generation of soldiers a bit more time to prepare.
Areshen descended from the city walls, fought
donkey caravans along the streets, then stood idly on the brick peers
which surrounded the city's river harbor a short distance from the Sacred
Area's walls. Several dozen very attractive young women, probably
Akkadian servants, swam naked a short distance away. A half dozen boys
not much younger completely ignored them. Ur, Areshen sighed. Perhaps it
deserved Elam's king Gipul. Gipul's sons and daughters, according to
Areshen's spies, numbered in the hundreds, and that a conservative
estimate, the location of a half dozen of Gipul's harems scattered across
the hills of Elam still not certain.
Areshen turned in disgust from the women molested
by absolutely no one to ponder the boat in which Setith would journey
upriver to Bathul, this quite as magnificent as the royal barge tied up a
short distance away. Setith and her entourage would pass at least part of
the journey beneath billowing white canopies which had been erected near
the boat's grand castle, the captain and his crew now scurrying fore and
aft making last moment preparations, none daring to be found wanting by
their mistress.
Areshen turned from one of a dozen such luxurious
vessels his wife owned, pondered Setith herself now standing a short
distance away, the same authoritative scowl in her features as she issued
final instruction to several dozen of her senior household stewards who
oversaw her various business ventures scattered across the southern part
of Sumer.
"Well, I'm leaving," Setith had said early this
morning when she had walked into Areshen's sleeping chambers with nothing
more than a pair of maid servants in train, a single man servant waving
the fan. "You will come and see me off, won't you, beloved?"
"I will miss you, beloved," Areshen had replied
when he had pushed himself to his feet, noticing something very strange in
Setith's eyes, something which almost looked like emotion. For one very
wild and sensual moment it almost appeared as though Setith, a woman of
unrivaled beauty, wanted something she had not had time for in a very long
time now. Just as she turned to her maid servants with instructions to
commence the complicated process of unfastening several dozen catches
holding her gowns in place, however, a steward bearing a stack of
tabulation tablets decided it was the perfect moment to demand Setith's
attention.
Setith passed another long minute on the peer
issuing final instructions to the posturing, bowing officials who composed
her Assembly, her features stern and regal when she finally dismissed them
to their individual domains. Setith then turned toward Areshen, her
expression dissolving into gentle warmth as she approached.
"Well, I'm off, I suppose," Setith began. Was it
really emotion in her eyes, Areshen asked himself? He saw for another
wondering moment just the glimpse of the sweet young girl he had married
twenty years ago, perhaps even the glimpse of a lover like no other he
could ever have imagined, a lover in whose arms he had felt that same
piercing rapture the last time he and she had - when? How long, indeed,
had it been?
"I shall miss you, beloved," Areshen stated again.
"Will you, beloved?" Setith asked, sincerity
obvious in her voice.
"Setith, are you all right?"
"This pronouncement by the king in Assembly
against the High Priest Shubari was most distressing to me - "
"Setith - nails - "
"Beloved, I feel as relieved as you that the nails
are gone. It is the manner in which they came and went which distresses
me. How could the gods have allowed even a travesty such as Shubari to
have promulgated such a thing in the first place if the promulgation was
destined to be overturned by the king in Assembly? No one possessed of
the least measure of reason is unaware of Shubari's antics atop the
temple. Even so, no one expected a High Priest capable of promulgating
anything but the true intentions of the gods. I know I am sometimes not a
gentle mistress, husband, but it has never been my intention to act
cruelly. I wish only to abide by the principles of Holy Order. It is
most distressing, Holy Order bandied about by the likes of Shubari and
Ibisien, Shubari's more intelligent pronouncements proceeding from his
posterior, Ibisien - well, you know all about Ibisien."
Areshen again noticed the sincerity in Setith's
eyes. Her concerns were genuine; at least they very obviously seemed so
to her.
"I think you know what I think about it all,
beloved. Holy Order resides in one's own conscience, not atop a pile of
bricks which, since Shubari became High Priest, smells bad."
Areshen waited patiently for Setith's expression
of horror over his latest blasphemy to dissipate.
"I do believe the people of Isin are correct,
beloved," Setith finally continued. "You certainly must be a god
yourself. Were you not, you would have been struck down by lightening
long ago."
Areshen released a quick chuckle, then felt a
moment's weary concern as he met Setith's eyes again, the very evident
note of adoration in his wife's features not affected in the least.
Setith was quite aware that her husband was the undisputed master of the
armies of Sumer and Akkad, was hailed as divine king in Isin and most
other cities in the north, was, ultimately, the ruler of the civilized
world. To Setith and the rest of the old nobility of Ur, however,
Areshen, even if Sumerian by birth, was just another Akkadian Sargon. He
would rule, would effect superficial changes, and would eventually be
absorbed by the clearly superior Sumerian culture of Ur and the south.
Areshen glanced again toward Setith's eyes, not at all certain that he
felt comfortable as an object of her adoration.
"I shall be a good High Priestess in Bathul,
beloved," Setith promised.
"I believe you will be, beloved," Areshen answered
in all honesty as he walked Setith to the steps leading to her boat. As
strict and as unyielding a mistress as Setith could be, her servants
genuinely loved her, a fact Areshen again discovered that same evening
when Etwabi walked into his sitting room twisting this way and that in
order to show Areshen the new dress Setith had purchased for her.
"I did not need a new one," Etwabi stated. "My
old dress was in perfectly good condition. But the mistress said that I
must have a new one anyway. Look at the cloth, Areshen," and Etwabi bent
to lift the hem line at her ankles. “It is exquisite. It comes from the
temple looms."
Again Areshen could not help but notice the glint
in Etwabi's eyes, eyes so perceptive and intelligent, as she spoke of her
feelings for Setith. Etwabi, in her late twenties herself, little more
than ten years younger than Setith, still considered herself to be
Setith's child, the child of a noble parent exhibiting boundless wisdom
and love for her children.
"It is a beautiful dress indeed," Areshen answered
with a gentle smile as he watched Etwabi twirl. Again, however, he saw
this beautiful young woman hung naked from a pole in the middle of the
courtyard, the ropes biding her wrists bloody from the nail driven through
her hands. Areshen had walked up and down endless expanses of field after
the battle of the Amuru wall, fields on which sixty thousand Amuru lay
dead, thousands more of Sumer's soldiers, and Areshen had felt the pathos
any other soldier might have felt at the conclusion of the battle. He had
never before felt horror, however, until that day he had ordered that a
helpless young woman be cut down from a pole in the middle of the
courtyard.
But Etwabi had already explained why she still
loved Setith. What good would it do to ask her again? Areshen doubted he
would understand any more of it now. And he would never understand why
servants in every one of Ur's market places still spoke of Shubari and the
temple in tones of submissive respect. Even in the holy city of Nippur,
its High Priest still showing no signs of complying with the king of Ur's
pronouncement banning the use of nails in the corporal punishment of
servants, these same servants continued to bow to High Priest and temple.
The Amuru slaves working on the temple farms and digging the temple canals
around Nippur, however, would not do so much longer. Tempers short to
begin with would only grow shorter with the approach of summer, now only a
month away. Shubari and his ilk would again drive the farms and canal
yards into revolt, would then expect the army to clean the whole mess up.
"Military governor," Etwabi began when she finally
settled herself onto the floor cushions beside Areshen, "you are frowning
again. It so spoils your beauty."
Areshen lay his lips to Etwabi's in gentle touch
for a quick moment, watched the same entranced smile break across her
features.
"I talked with your brother last week, Etwabi. He
says he would not be unduly distressed were you to remain here in Ur when
he leaves for the north."
"He'd scold me for wearing this dress, though. I
believe he would rather see me walk the streets naked like an Amuru slave
girl."
Areshen sighed, again supposing he would never
understand Teru's concerns, a young man who lived in Ur and took
extraordinary pains to remain detached and aloof from its culture.
"Everyone buys the temple's cloth, Etwabi,"
Areshen just shrugged. The manufacture of such was Ur's principle export,
the cloth sold as far away as Lebanon on the Upper Sea. In the past,
merchants had traveled ever further west over trade routes stabilized by
Sargon and the like centuries ago. Areshen himself thought the temple
cloth trade no more than an age old fact of Ur's economic life.
"I really don't understand all of Teru's concerns
either," Etwabi shrugged herself. "He says that I am now more Sumer than
the people of Sumer."
"So it has been said of Akkadians for a hundred
years now. But half of Ur now speaks Akkadian. The other half glory in
their Akkadian names, little king Ibi a prime example. What is Sumer and
what is Akkad anyway?"
Again Etwabi just shrugged, raising a hand to
Areshen's cheek, caressing in gentle, idle touch.
"You are going back to Isin?"
"For a time. Perhaps, Etwabi, I will make you
High Priestess of Isin."
"Areshen, stop," Etwabi chuckled, nervously for
the blasphemy.
"They have made me a god in Isin. I suppose that
must entitle me to a say in the choice of the city's High Priestess."
"What is Isin like, Areshen? Are you happy
there?"
"The city is Ur, perhaps a bit smaller, but not so
different, temple sticking up in the air over everything else, priests
everywhere with whips in their hands, Amuru slaves doing most of the
work. I reside in Shar Dulur fortress along the banks of the canal about
a mile north of the city."
"Shar Dulur is your palace?" Etwabi asked, easy
amusement in her smile.
"The king of Isin's palace," Areshen sighed. He
hadn't with any real effort bothered to deny it for some years now,
allowed a brief image of Shar Dulur's massive, forbidding walls
surrounding a half dozen stark courtyards to run through his mind. Dark
and functional, the well guarded interior of Shar Dulur left visiting
officials from cities across Sumer and Akkad shuddering with an impression
of deep, silent gloom. No harp or pipe players sat in the courtyards of
Shar Dulur as they did in most other palaces and even a few fortresses
across Sumer and Akkad. No lavishly attired and adorned prostitutes
wandered from chamber to chamber in Shar Dulur seeking out wealthy
officials soaking in baths of perfume. Well armed infantry proficient
with their weapons haunted Shar Dulur's interior, scowling First Soldiers
interested only in the condition of their troops' equipment.
"Will you take me with you to Shar Dulur sometime,
Areshen?" Etwabi asked.
"I doubt you would like it there, Etwabi. Most
who are summoned to Shar Dulur are quite anxious to leave again as soon as
possible.”
Areshen leaned idly into the chariot's rail as the
young driver guided it around another lumbering ox cart, then reigned the
spirited team of Erubian horse into a quick trot. There then passed
another long hour across narrow, dusty roads leading along the banks of
the river, another half dozen ox carts, a thoroughly boring afternoon.
Proceeding north, now a short distance from the city of Uruk, Areshen
glanced with passing interest toward the tiny fishing village of Eredinu,
a settlement very different from the temple farms and villages inhabited
by Sumerians and Akkadians. The people of Eredinu, not really Sumerian or
Akkadian, built their homes from bundled stacks of swamp reeds, the
ornate, curving roof of their little Assembly Hall visible for some
distance in every direction. A village built from river plants, Areshen
thought, certainly construction for more perishable than a temple village
built from brick, and yet there still seemed something very ancient in the
look of this little village laying in the uncultivated hinterland between
Sumer's cities. Areshen glanced another minute toward the village's
inhabitants who in turn studied the passing chariot with a small measure
of curious interest. Even the people of Eredinu looked ancient. For as
long as anyone could remember, these people, and others resembling them,
had lived in the isolated pockets of wilderness between Sumer's cities and
villages, ignoring and ignored by civilization all around them.
"You will live far more comfortably," the High
Priests in nearby cities had informed the chiefs of a few of these
villages, "if you work on our farms and dig our canals and sacrifice to
our gods."
"Thank you, but no thank you," the chiefs always
answered. "Please continue to ignore us."
And so they were ignored. Unlike the Amuru in the
western deserts or other large bands of invaders which occasionally
wandered down from the eastern mountains, the inhabitants of the swamp
villages were few in number, displaying no apparent envy whatsoever toward
the wealth of Sumer all around them. Sumer was more than happy to ignore
them.
A short while later the chariot was rolling
through civilization once again, small brick farm villages, irrigation
ditches leading from the river and from small branch canals into
cultivated fields spreading from horizon to horizon, carefully tended date
orchards here and there along the way. Areshen could easily have pressed
on for Shar Dulur throughout the night, obtaining provisions and fresh
horses at small, military dispatch stations located at intervals along the
road. He decided instead, however, to placate the beer gods in a small
tavern shrine across the road from one of the dispatch stations.
The station’s first soldier, several years retired
from service as a regular in Uruk's garrison though still reasonably fit
in appearance, stood at Areshen's side near the tavern door and pointed
toward several small farm villages a short distance across the open, level
fields.
"That there's Kulden on the right, military
governor," the First Soldier continued, sloshing his cup in the air,
"Urdunaru on the left."
"And you're from Urdunaru, First Soldier?" Areshen
asked, a definite measure of enthusiasm in his voice now that he had three
times offered propitiation to the tavern's beer god.
"Yes, sir, but I hires most of my temporary help
out of Kulden," and the First Soldier sloshed his cup toward the dispatch
station across the road, a small mud brick building, brick stables and
mule pens to the rear. "There's not much work here what calls for a big
load of brain thinking, military governor, but it's still hard to find
anyone in Urdunaru these days what wants to do any honest work, especially
the young ones. Crazy old Bathesag, she's High Priestess of the mud house
in Urdunaru, says Urdunaru's gonna be the next holy city after Nippur
cause her god says so, and everybody's gonna be rich anyway, so why work?"
"Your dispatch station appears to be in reasonably
good order, First Soldier, despite your problems."
"Thank you, military governor. I keeps it that
way because I knows how to work around the latest pronouncing coming outa
crazy old Bathesag's mouth."
Areshen propitiated the beer god several more
times over the course of the evening, proffered his apologies to a very
attractive serving girl nodding a seductive invitation toward the shrine's
rear chamber, and then slept the beer god's generosity off on a small cot
in the rear of the dispatch station. Over the course of the following day
Areshen reverenced a few more beer gods along the road, finally guiding
the chariot himself along narrow paths which led beneath the city of
Isin's walls. The young driver who had attempted to match Areshen cup for
cup at the last few taverns lay sprawled and snoring on the chariot's
floor.
Glancing his usual annoyance toward the staged
tower of Isin's temple laying near the center of the city, Areshen finally
guided the team at a walking pace along a narrow dirt path which led along
the banks of the Indumu Canal north of Isin's walls, a quiet, tranquil
scene, slowly flowing water off to his left, a broad expanse of carefully
tended orchard off to his right. Areshen had walked from Shar Dulur
fortress many times over the past few years in order to stroll this
restful stretch of road by himself, glancing with passing interest
whenever he did so toward the occasional soldier standing along the banks
of the canal working a fishing line, then toward shaded glades nestled
among the orchards in which a young couple escaping the confines of Isin
for the day might be sitting in each other's arms.
A year or so ago the manager of the orchard had
appeared in Isin's temple precinct complaining about the constant trespass
of temple property by young residents of the city as well as by soldiers
from Shar Dulur Fortress. Isin's High Priest had ordered the trespassing
stopped. Areshen had then rescinded the High Priest's order when a young
advocate retained by Shar Dulur's Chamber of Judicial Affairs had informed
him that suit brought against the temple had every chance of success.
"Why?" Areshen had asked of the young man standing
in front of his table in Shar Dulur fortress with an expression of
confident anticipation, a recent graduate from the scribal schools hoping
for a profitable military contract.
"Because your divinity has been recognized by the
temple, king," the young advocate had answered, explaining that such
recognition would bolster Shar Dulur's case against the High Priest and
the temple in several minor, yet possibly advantageous ways.
"Suits brought against the temple," the young
advocate had continued, "are rarely successful. The rules of procedure
and evidence before a temple tribunal allow the gods certain advantages in
order to insure that we do not suffer their wrath should judgment be
rendered against them. Now that you are a god yourself, exalted one, I
will be able to argue your case unhampered by any number of presumptions
normally favoring the temple gods against whom suit is brought."
"Oh?" Areshen had mumbled, glancing again toward
the confidence in the young advocate's features, deciding that the young
man, at least, knew what he was talking about. "Very well," Areshen had
then stated, "get it done."
Continued
