VI
The massive walls of Shar Dulur fortress, the
fortress for some time now acknowledged by most of Sumer and Akkad to be
Shar Dulur palace, were visible in the near distance ahead, cold, bleak,
forbidding walls surrounding six interior courtyards quite as lacking in
any sort of ornamental adornment as were the fortress' exterior walls.
With a final sigh of resignation, Areshen reigned the chariot on,
promising himself that he would return to the banks of the canal later
this afternoon with fishing line in hand if no one in Shar Dulur had
anything of consequence to report. Several minutes later, Areshen guided
the chariot to a stop in a gate room which provided access to the first of
Shar Dulur's courtyards, the First Soldier in charge of the day watch
emerging from a small chamber in one of the gate room's walls.
"Name, rank, and unit," the First soldier
challenged, nothing in his features indicating that he recognized the
driver now stepping from the chariot. Probably newly assigned to Shar
Dulur, Areshen suspected, handing the First Soldier a small tablet on
which a pictographic design confirming his identity had been impressed.
"Areshen, king's garrison, king," Areshen stated,
and noticed nothing more than a slight disruption in the First Soldier's
composure. His superiors had most likely warned his to expect this. A
military or civil governor from any other city across Sumer and Akkad
might have approached Shar Dulur with a mile long entourage of wine
stewards and concubines in train. The king of Isin, however, was just as
likely to stumble into the gate room sloshing a cup of beer in one hand,
holding a line of fish in the other. Areshen had several times
contemplating accepting Ibisien's advice and sitting for the portrait
carvers, contemplated it seriously whenever he was detained along the
roads for any length of time by some ardent young officer who did not
recognize him. Another tavern shrine, however, had always demanded his
attention on the way to the portrait carver's shops. Fish needed to be
caught on a great many more occasions.
"You may pass," the gate room's First Soldier
stated as he handed the tablet back to Areshen, then turned as Areshen
pointed to the young soldier still snoring on the chariot's floor.
"Do something about him," Areshen groaned, then
pushed his way from the gate room into the first courtyard, three levels
of chambers towering above him on all sides. Almost a hundred paces
across with uniformed soldiers guarding portals leading further into the
depths of Shar Dulur, the courtyard was filled with the usual assortment
of expensively dressed officials and dignitaries, many from cities across
Sumer and Akkad, most waiting to be received by any number of a multitude
of similarly dressed clerks and officials staffing the civil departments
of Isin's government housed at Shar Dulur. Areshen edged his way through
the shadows along one of the courtyard’s walls, carefully avoiding those
few who might recognize and thus detain him with all manner of tedious
supplication he was in no mood for at the moment. He then walked toward a
well guarded entrance chamber which led into the military sections of Shar
Dulur. Another large courtyard, long, narrow passages and several flights
of stairs, and Areshen finally stumbled into a small chamber furnished
with table and chairs, a god in his wall niche whose head still lay in one
of the chamber's corners gathering dust, the usual stack of dispatches
waiting for him on the table. With another long sigh of resignation,
Areshen collapsed onto the chair, then reached for a handful of the
tablets.
Tell Areshen, King of Isin, King of Sumer and
Akkad, King of the Four Quarters:
Shalisu, overseer of the Inilumna Canal says, the
retaining wall along the Inilumna Canal which is always collapsing has
again collapsed. I have inspected it and believe that it can be repaired
without difficulties. The scoundrel Eduburi sent me four loads of bricks
instead of seven loads of bricks, even after I said, send me seven loads
of bricks, do not send me four loads of bricks. So I asked Eduburi, the
scoundrel, why have you sent me four loads of bricks instead of seven
loads of bricks? I said send me seven loads of bricks. I did not say
send me four loads of brick. Is it because you think you can cheat me
that you sent me four loads of bricks instead of seven loads of bricks
even after I said, send me seven loads of bricks, do not send me four
loads of bricks. Where are the other three loads of bricks, Eduburi, you
scoundrel? After all, I said send me seven -
Tell Areshen, Exalted King of Isin,
Bershorum, military governor of the garrison at
Orilim and commander of the Pedulumi reserve says,
the Peldine still have not sent the hundred
auxiliaries they promised to send. That was three days ago. So I drove
to the edge of the woods and I shouted, where are the hundred auxiliaries
that you promised to send and did not? The Peldine shouted back, we will
send them tomorrow. That was on the fourteenth, only three days after the
eleventh when I shouted, where are the hundred auxiliaries which you
promised to send but did not, and they shouted back, will we send them
tomorrow. On the fifteen, the very next day after the fourteenth, I again
drove to the edge of the woods and shouted, the auxiliaries have still not
come. Where are they? And they shouted back, we will send them tomorrow
-
Tell Areshen of Isin,
Meshduri, commander of the garrison on Ur's walls
who has never erased words from writing tablets says, I am sending you a
letter the private scribe Bothlith was hired to write. Bothlith, an agent
of the High Priest Shubari's who was caught erasing words from a tablet by
my own agents, the unprincipled scoundrel, says that he was hired by a
destitute child living in an alley. She must have spent everything she
had to hire Bothlith. I could not have afforded him myself. You do not
want to know how I came to be in possession of this letter. Unless you
object, however, and I do not think that you will, I will use Bothlith,
the girl's letter, and the girl, all now in my possession and safe
keeping, to annoy the High Priest farting Shubari in way I can.
Areshen reached for the tablet which had been
placed next to Meshduri's, wondering what the larcenous commander of Ur's
walls was up to now.
Tell Shubari, High Priest of Nanna and Ningal at
Ur,
Kitulu, his slave girl says, for eight months now
I have carried the baby, but it has happened as I told you it might. The
baby is now dead. You did not send me a present. And you have not
visited me. Please come and visit me so that I may see my master's face
again. My dress is badly torn as well. You said that I would have a new
dress but I still haven't gotten it and they won't let me into the temple
to see you. Please come and let me look at my master again.
Areshen lowered the tablet to the table with a
long sigh of annoyance. The least fat Shubari High Priest of Ur could
have done was put the girl to work in one of the temple factories. Leave
it to Shubari just to toss her onto the streets when he was tired of her.
In this case, however, the girl had been fortunate. Meshduri, his agents
always on the prowl for means to annoy Shubari and the temple, would keep
both the girl and the letter she had dictated in safe keeping for quite
some time. The pittance the girl's maintenance would have cost Shubari
was now going to multiply astronomically, a fact Shubari would realize
when he discovered that she had fallen into Meshduri's hands, someone who
knew that abandonment was an actionable offense and one with a great deal
of social stigma attached, Meshduri someone who wouldn't hesitate to
confront even Ur's High Priest over the matter. Meshduri would be able to
feed the garrison manning Ur's walls for the next six months by the time
he finished shaking Shubari up and down by his fat ankles.
Areshen plowed through another stack of
correspondence sitting on the table, certainly not the total of that which
was received at Shar Dulur, but a representative assortment of those
dispatches which his chief scribes found interesting or amusing. A great
deal of the correspondence consisted of complaints by merchants against
other merchants requesting intervention by the palace's Chamber of Civil
Affairs, merchants declaring their fellows to be scoundrels, fault laying
anywhere but at their own doorstep. Military dispatches, particularly
those from governors currently assigned cities in the north and the west,
stated that spies and agents had detected a slight increase in activity
among various tribes of Amuru, though no patterns of large scale,
coordinated movement had been identified by analysts at Shar Dulur. One
of the Asshur kings from the distant north had written stating that it
would not be necessary for Areshen to post another half dozen Six Hundreds
beneath the walls of his palace. The barbarians from the mountains, the
Asshur king continued, "are now under control, barbarians who forced me to
assume the title King of the Four Quarters, a title which I assure you,
true King of the Four Quarters, I assumed by the advise of my advisors
which are all scoundrels and it's all their fault, not mine, only to
frighten the barbarians away. I shall of course, Areshen, true King of
the Four Quarters and my very good friend to whom and I am loyal and those
who say that I am not are all scoundrels and liars and it's all their
fault, divest myself of the title of King of the Four Quarters at my
earliest opportunity, should you or the commanders of the Six Hundreds now
guarding my palace walls request that I do so. If not, then I shall
continue to call myself King of the Four Quarters, in case the barbarians
decide to return, and then I will divest myself of the title King of the
Four Quarters at my earliest opportunity, even though my advisors, who are
all scoundrels and liars and it's all their fault, insisted that I call
myself King of the Four Quarters - "
Areshen broke into a soft chuckle as he pushed
himself to his feet. So that was why old Meneturu had sent those half
dozen Six Hundreds north into Asshur. Areshen made his way through a maze
of interconnecting chambers on the fortress' third level, then toward the
chamber occupied by Meneturu, a garrison and field commander since the
time of Shulgi, though in recent years quite at home behind table in
palace.
Areshen stood at the chamber's door in easy
amusement for a quick moment, watching as Meneturu, gray streaking his
hair though still fit and rugged in appearance, divided his attention
between the dispatch he held in one hand and the pretty young palace
servant he fondled with the other. Meneturu, finally noticing Areshen in
the doorway, turned back to the girl sitting beside him on the chamber's
couch.
"Up with you," Meneturu barked. "How many times
have I told you not to bother me when I'm working. Put your clothes back
on, and then go fetch the king a cup of beer."
With a pouting frown toward Meneturu and a
seductive smile toward Areshen as she brushed her hips past his, the girl
walked from the chamber.
"Old man," Areshen chuckled as he snapped a chair
from the table about, "you should act your age."
"What use would I be to you, king," Meneturu
answered with equal amusement, "if I did?"
Areshen laughed with easy mirth as he lowered
himself onto the chair. Meneturu was quite correct. Now master of the
king's Assembly at Isin and Shar Dulur, and senior officer responsible for
seeing that the fat little beer god seated on the throne behaved himself
when Areshen was not in residence, Meneturu oversaw the day to day
activities of Shar Dulur, both its civil and military departments.
Meneturu was still, however, exceptionally capable of donning soldier's
attire and leading armies, far more capable of doing so than most of the
military governors across Sumer and Akkad now pledging allegiance to Isin
and Shar Dulur, these passing most of their time sitting in their palace's
perfume baths. "You sent those Six Hundreds up to Asshur?" Areshen began.
"To remind Susilima of his humble origins."
Areshen broke into a soft chuckle. King Susilima
of Asshur, "King of the Four Quarters," was another who had been born on a
small temple farm beneath Ur's walls. Susilima had been posted to the
frontiers of Asshur as military governor by Ibisien's grandfather, and
then forgotten. Susilima was now more Asshurian than the Asshurians.
"He always did have a big head," Areshen
continued, “very little in it, but a big one nonetheless. Anyway, is he
really worse than all the others? Half the civil and military governors
you and I campaigned with, Meneturu, now sit in their palace baths
dreaming up another grandiose title for themselves."
"Susilima's no wore than the others," Meneturu
agreed. "He did build the entire dispatch system in Asshur by himself,
almost single handed. He's become a bit muddled in his advancing years,
however, lost an entire Six Hundred in the mountains trying to direct a
battle himself. I just want to remind the good king that he owes his
crown to us, that we can demand it back any time we want to, and will do
so if he doesn't stay put in his palace baths and leave the fighting to
us," and Meneturu screwed the weathered, battle hardened lines of his face
into an expression of annoyance and scorn. "Speaking of delicate little
bath lilies, what does Ibisien have to say these days?"
"Gipul of Elam sent Ibi another daughter. Gipul
desperately wants to burn Ur down. In his last letter to me, he said
'please.' Perhaps Ibi, considering the circumstances, will adjust to the
needs of the occasion and provide Ur with an Elamite son in order to
placate Gipul."
"I hope no one is holding their breath," Meneturu
scoffed, his features brightening when the serving girl walked back into
the chamber with two cups of beer.
"Tiluth, my adorable beauty," Meneturu began, "we
are going to send you to Ur, to the palace of Ibisien. If any woman can
make a man of that pretty little swamp reed, it is you."
Areshen chuckled as he watched Meneturu, thought
by most of his contemporaries a stomping old Akkadian bull who didn't know
enough to slow down, pass another long moment fondling the girl, an
expression of giggling delight in her features as she twisted away long
enough to lower the cups onto the table, her dress back onto the floor.
With another measure of delight in her features she then found herself
wrenched back onto Meneturu's lap.
"Gipul," Meneturu continued, matters of state
still his immediate concern, "is certainly another who feels the weight of
the crown on his head. You'll end fighting Elam, Areshen, if you keep
playing at military governor of Ur."
"Perhaps," Areshen sighed. "Who's up to what
now?"
"Teremdesh has four or five Six Hundreds chasing
crazy old chief Berclef and a couple dozen of his cousins back across the
river from Sippar. Not much profit in it. Utinari wants to fight a war
or two a bit further north which he says need to be fought, those
marginally profitable if they're conducted carefully. I told him I'd talk
it over with you when you got back."
"I think we need to take a look at something a bit
closer to home, Meneturu. I have some nagging concerns about Nippur."
"Nippur? Again?" Meneturu asked, his expression
now attentive as he turned from the giggling girl toward Areshen. Wars
with the wandering tribes of Amuru to the north and west were a constant
nuisance, but had remained a relatively minor nuisance for the past eight
years now, were tolerated if the field commander involved had reasonable
expectations of a profit from the sale of spoils or slaves. Nippur,
however, the Holy City of Sumer and Akkad, lay only two days quick march
to the north. Although unlikely, it was not beyond the realm of
possibility that contentions over Nippur could touch off a major civil
conflagration between the large cities of Sumer and Akkad, the financial
consequences devastating to all involved.
"The High Priest of Nippur," Areshen continued,
"is rumored to be nothing more than Shubari of Ur's talking mule, is he
not, Meneturu?"
"Most say he's the product of Shubari's
indiscretions in the back chambers of Ur's temple palace."
"Quite likely. That would explain why a High
Priest of Nippur would be willing to bow to someone like Shubari. We're
still seeing trouble in the canal yards around Nippur, too."
"We are. A half dozen little revolts at the
moment, more anticipated.”
"The temple in Nippur is still driving nails
through the Amuru diggers' hands. Ibisien ordered it stopped in Ur.
Shubari farted a few times, but complied."
"Then wrote the product of his indiscretion in
Nippur."
“Exactly," Areshen agreed. "Shubari probably said
something like, 'little product of my indiscretion, if you do not want
anyone to know the circumstances of your origin, do whatever you can to
annoy Shar Dulur and Isin. See how much Areshen will put up with.'"
"Why not just make the High Priest of Nippur
disappear? Shubari as well, for that matter. Shubari and the High Priest
of Nippur have certainly made enough people disappear over the years."
"Shubari has spent a great deal of his time in his
temple back chambers with his serving girls. There are plenty of
illegitimate Shubari's running around. By the way, Meshduri has one of
these girls in Ur, another Shubari just tossed onto the streets figuring
she'd be lost in the crowd. Anyway, if we make the High Priest of Nippur
disappear, Shubari would just have some other subservient product of his
indiscretions installed in Nippur. Temples all across Sumer and Akkad are
full of them. No, Meneturu, it's time we placed Nippur under the
jurisdiction of a real military governor, not one which is yet another
product of Shubari's conceived in a temple palace's back chamber," and
Areshen waited attentively for Meneturu's reaction.
"There'll be no turning back this time, Areshen,"
Meneturu stated after a long moment's contemplative silence. "No more
facades, even in the south. The next time you return to Ur, it will have
to be as king of Isin rather than Ur's military governor."
"I know," Areshen sighed. "If it were up to me,
I'd leave the whole thing to Ibisien and Ur. Despite Ibisien's -
eccentricities, I believe he's a reasonable and rational man. He
genuinely loathes Shubari. They say, when in Assembly he pronounced an
end to the nails, he stood the very image of his grandfather, the portrait
carvers summoned to make sketches, though I suppose they will receive
specific instructions to ignore the cup in one hand, the pet in the
other."
"No doubt," Meneturu chuckled. "But I'll not hold
my breathe waiting for Ibisien to crawl out of that wine cup long enough
to do anything of consequence."
"Nor will I," Areshen sighed, continuing in grave
solemnity. "If nothing is done, little High Priest product of Shubari's
indiscretion will just drive the construction camps into revolt once
again. If that happens, we're liable to have a couple hundred crazy old
chief Berclef's leading their tribes over the western walls in order to
help their kinsmen, eight years ago all over again."
"Tebro's military governor of Nippur," Meneturu
mused, his brow wrinkled in speculative thought.
"Another puppet of Shubari's, yes. Even Tebro,
however, has enough sense to realize that he can only loose in this
situation. I received a letter from him while I was in Ur, a letter
carried by private messenger rather than sent through the military
dispatch. Tebro stated that his garrisons have found ever larger numbers
of runaway Amuru on the roads north and west of Nippur, many of them with
scars in their hands, anxious to show those scars to their chiefs back
home. Meneturu, we either take Nippur away from Shubari now, or we fight
all of Amuru all over again."
Meneturu sat another long moment in silence,
caressing the serving girl's hand with idle motions of his own, then with
an easy grin turned back to Areshen.
"You would proceed against Nippur, Areshen, even
were the Amuru not pressing from the west."
Areshen sighed in nodding agreement.
"You would as well, old man. Nail's through
helpless servants' hands? This was never Sumer, Meneturu. Not, at least,
in my time."
"Nor in my considerably more lengthy time,"
Meneturu agreed. "Shubari and all his little products running around will
say that it's a social and temple issue, you know; Areshen wants to frolic
with the servants as equals. The old temple families, particularly in
Sumer and the south, call Shar Dulur the palace of holy disorder,"
Meneturu chuckled. "The king of Isin's household comes and goes as it
pleases. They are certain that you will make a dish maid the next High
Priestess of Isin."
Areshen broke into soft laughter.
"I offered it to your niece Etwabi before I left
Ur. She declined."
"Then it will go to our beautiful Tilsik," and
Meneturu lifted the girl's hand to his lips.
"The gods will certainly strike both of you down
one of these days," the girl answered, a genuine note of complaint and
concern in her voice.
"Perhaps," Meneturu chuckled, turning again toward
Areshen. "Setith is on her way to Bathul?"
"Where she has promised to spend the next four
months," the subtle hint of a grin now crossing Areshen's features.
"Setith will do well in Bathul," Meneturu
chuckled. "Her piety, unlike that of some we have been discussing, is
genuine. And Bathul is beyond Shubari's influence. I think Setith's
gentler nature will emerge in the north."
"Perhaps," Areshen agreed. "Shathsurinu and
Teru," Meneturu's brother and nephew, "are well."
"Did young Teru attempt to sweep the demons from
your house or anything like that?"
"No," Areshen laughed, quite aware that Meneturu
knew as little about his own family's god as he knew about the gods of
Sumer.
"Teru's a good boy," Meneturu continued, "a little
fanatical at times. But who knows? Maybe our family's god really has
spoken to him," though the expression of skepticism remained evident in
Meneturu's features.
"He still hasn't decided when he's leaving Ur?"
"From what I understand, it's an old family oracle
or some such, passed from father to first born son for generations now,
states that the family of the first born son must leave Ur for the north.
And for generations now, no one has yet obeyed. I do believe Teru will be
the one to do so, however. Every time I visit, he's performing the old
liturgies, burnt offerings, a prayer for this, a prayer for that. Gets on
your nerves sometimes, though he's not as bad as old Binsut was."
Areshen broke into a long moment's laughter. Old
Binsut, a High Priest of Enlil attached to a Six Hundred Meneturu had
commanded, had gotten on Meneturu's nerves one time too often. The High
Priest and his portable god had gone down the road strapped to the rump of
a donkey, the men in Meneturu's command lining the road bent double in
laughter.
"I was afraid young Teru would disown me entirely
after that act of disrespect for things divine," Meneturu continued. "It
seemed only to amuse him, however. You said Meshduri is up to something
in Ur?"
"One of Shubari's castoffs has fallen into his
hands. Meshduri will use her to extort a ton or two of grain from the
temple. I think I'll let Meshduri harass Shubari for or month or two,
then pull him up here to Isin. Meshduri is quite adept at eluding the
temple's henchmen, but his luck can't hold forever. After Meshduri gets
through shaking Shubari up and down this time, Shubari will be scouring
every street in Ur for assassins."
"Meshduri will be all right," Meneturu answered.
"He has a good head on his shoulders, well attached."
"Quite," Areshen chuckled. "Well, old man, start
sounding out a few garrisons. I see no alternative but to march on Nippur
again."
"Everyone in the north is loyal to us. Some of
them are absolutely useless beyond the confines of their perfume baths,
but they are loyal. Uruk and Lagash, perhaps one or two other military
governors in the south will decide it is in their best interest to support
Isin when the First Soldiers commanding their garrisons have a little chat
with them. I'll have a little chat with the First Soldiers, take care of
a few other details as well."
Areshen nodded his appreciation, quite aware that
he could leave the complicated logistics in Meneturu's hands. Sacking a
city the size of Nippur was always a headache, spoils to be divided among
the participating commands, property to be reassigned after the city's
defeated inhabitants had been slaughtered.
"The Assembly meets this afternoon," and Meneturu
nodded toward an entrance chamber in the courtyard below which led into
Shar Dulur's Great Hall, this one of the few chambers at Shar Dulur which
rivaled the palace of Ibisien at Ur for ostentatious magnificence.
"Have Ishi conduct Assembly, will you," Areshen
sighed. "I'm going fishing."
Meneturu nodded, chuckling for Areshen's
pronunciation of Eschieri, the fat little beer good which Meneturu would
place onto the throne of Isin in Shar Dulur's Great Hall.
Continued
