VII
A half dozen fish dangling from the line he held
in his hand, Areshen walked from the banks of the canal back into Shar
Dulur late in the afternoon, walked then through several courtyards and
entrance chambers, finally into the palace kitchens and past a half dozen
grinning cooks who turned toward the chief cook's table in order to watch
the spectacle. Luculsag glanced up from the purchase order tablets spread
across her table, a shuddering expression of annoyance creasing the aged
lines of her face as Areshen dangled his fish over the table.
"Don't you dare," Luculsag barked. "Give those
stinking things to Selthu," and Luculsag waved insistent hands in the air,
shooing Areshen and his fish toward a young man on the other side of the
kitchens.
"Sweet Luculsag," Areshen called over his shoulder
as he handed the fish to an assistant cook, "can I have some beer?"
"Someone get the king a cup of beer," Luculsag
bellowed. "And hurry up about it or he'll be here all evening pestering
me."
Areshen broke into a soft chuckle, turning to a
young female cook who handed him the cup. As usual, Tecuru could not do
so without a seductive little smile from a seductive and intimate
distance. Wearing nothing but a waist cloth pushed blatantly onto her
hips, the girl's stance was obvious, teasing display.
"I finish work in an hour, king," Tecuru crooned,
genuine pleading in her eyes as she pushed the waist cloth a revealing
distance further down.
"Eshela," Areshen tried, Eshela the young soldier
to whom Tecuru had been betrothed, "would not be pleased," though Areshen
had no idea whether or not that was true. These young people were very
different today, and the city of Isin was certainly different than Ur.
"You are a god, sir. It is permitted," Tecuru
answered, then with an expression of disappointment turned toward Luculsag
barking from her table.
"Tecuru, stop pestering the king."
Areshen watched the girl mope back to her work,
shot a quick glance of appreciation toward Luculsag at her table, then
wandered through the kitchen's rear portal with his beer. Another series
of long, narrow chambers, a flight of stairs, and Areshen stood sipping
his beer on a balcony overlooking the courtyard around which his own and
several dozen other sleeping chambers were arranged. Half a hundred
people idled at brick benches spread across the courtyard below. Some
were palace officials discussing civil matters Areshen preferred to leave
in Meneturu's hands whenever possible. Young soldiers sat in the shadows
of date palms with their girls, a few of these daughters of senior
military officers and palace officials, most of the others palace servants
of one sort or another owned by Shar Dulur and working for several dozen
Luculsags sitting at their own tables scattered throughout palace and
fortress.
Again Areshen allowed Luculsag's perpetually
frosted features to float through his mind, contemplating an evening a few
months ago when the old chief cook had appeared at the door of his
chambers with a deeply troubled expression.
"Manlutib has asked me to become his wife,"
Luculsag had stated.
"That is wonderful," Areshen had replied, though
wondering for the hesitancy he had heard in Luculsag's voice. She and
Manlutib, a senior household steward who had purchased his freedom a few
years ago, had been united for almost forty years in the consort marriage
allowed household stewards.
"When Manlutib comes to you, sir, asking that you
release me," Luculsag continued, "you must tell him that you cannot do
so."
"Luculsag - " Areshen had stammered, stunned by
her request.
"Please, king," the old woman ten years older than
his mother had pled, "I am your daughter, and your lawful and ritual wife,
the greatest gift I have ever received from the gods. I love Manlutib,
but I cannot leave you, sir. Please do not let me go, sir."
"Luculsag," Areshen had sighed, "we'll consider it
all later," Areshen supposing that the whole thing had something to do
with this god business Meneturu had told him about.
"As you wish, sir," Luculsag had answered,
standing a quick moment later in stance women across the palace fifty
years younger than she assumed whenever Areshen passed. "As long as I am
here, sir - after all, it is permitted."
Areshen gazed another long minute across the
courtyard below, taking a long pull from his beer attempting to settle
himself. In this and Shar Dulur's other courtyards, indeed in courtyards
across the city of Isin in which another forty thousand people sat,
ultimately in courtyards across the great majority of Sumer and Akkad's
other cities, an uncounted multitude were just as certain as Luculsag that
they were the king of Isin's ritual and consort wives according to the
dictates of a Holy Order Areshen was just as certain was so much nonsense.
"From the Upper Sea to the borders of India," old
Meneturu had smirked just a month ago, "pretty little things peek through
their door at night dreaming that you have heard of their beauty. They
are building two more chambers downstairs in order to process the
supplication tablets which arrive every day. Shall I fetch you a barrel
or two?"
"Do they really believe that I'm their husband?"
Areshen asked in wonder.
"Go ask a few of them," Meneturu had shrugged and
smirked. "You will be very busy for a very long time. Since you are now
a god, however, you should have a surplus of creative energy to sustain
you along the way."
Areshen again sipped his beer, gazed across the
courtyard, and admitted to himself the most basic and profound of his
beliefs. As hard as he might have tried, at least in his youth, he simply
did not believe in the gods of Sumer and Akkad. And still, Luculsag and
that multitude of others residing in cities Areshen had never even seen
rejected offers of marriage from others in order to remain the king of
Isin's consort wife.
"They hope for just one visit," Isin's High Priest
had explained, urging Areshen to consummate at least a few of his lawful
and ritual marriages whenever he traveled. "Perhaps a dozen a so a night
in the city in which you happen to be reposing."
Areshen had avoided both the High Priest and the
High Priest's interpretation of his duty for some time, shuddering for
thoughts of the last time he had wandered into the city of Isin, then
through a portal into a Sacred Area not dissimilar to Ur's in appearance,
the same massive walls, the same staged tower with its Divine Chamber
stuck on top. The High Priest of Isin, again attempting to explain
Areshen's recently recognized divinity, had led Areshen down a long
passage beneath the temple and then into two vast subterranean chambers in
which another hundred of Areshen's sons and daughters and consort wives
labored. Areshen had shuddered just as violently when the High Priest had
explained all this.
"It is your tomb, divine king. When it is
completed, it will be the most magnificent ever built in Sumer. There
will be room for five hundred to accompany you on your journey to the gods
when it is time. I have announced today that I will begin hearing pleas
from those who wish to do so. I, of course, will lead the procession into
your tomb when the happy day arrives," and the High Priest had gazed that
which Areshen could only call anticipation toward him. "You've had that
cold for quite some time now, haven't you, king?"
Areshen had returned to Shar Dulur and drunk half
a dozen large cups of beer in quick succession trying to drown the High
Priest's announcement from his mind, words which sounded as though they
might have come from the mouths of the ancients marching into old King
Epenatu's tomb in Ur. Areshen felt gentle affection for those who with
such sincerity in their eyes professed to be members of his household,
doubting, however, that anyone today would want of their own volition to
just walk behind his body into his tomb. Areshen had then spent the
evening standing at the door to his sleeping chamber as one servant after
another appeared pleading to be allowed to do so.
"What do you want me to do with these?" a smirking
Meneturu had asked, pointing to another warehouse full of supplication
tablets.
The tablets and the annoying procession at his
chamber's door had continued in steady streams for another month until
Areshen had finally ordered that work on his tomb be stopped and the doors
bricked shut.
"Why?" a devastated High Priest had asked.
"Ali - Enn - "
"Enlil?"
"Yes, Enlil said so. Last night. Showed up while
I was shaving. Just popped through the walls and there the old girl was."
"But king, Enlil is - "
"Whatever. It was dark."
Areshen again lifted his cup on the balcony
overlooking the courtyard, no longer doubting that those who stole glances
upward believed, at least, that they loved him. Do you not realize,
Areshen asked the crowd below, that your divine king is a drunk, a pig
farmer in his youth who since then has spent his life doing everything he
could to dethrone the gods? Areshen chuckled for the thought, realizing
again that he had failed rather spectacularly in his efforts to do so.
Old Meneturu and a few other members of Isin's Assembly had thought it
patent nonsense when certain devout members of the Assembly had petitioned
the temple in Isin for recognition of Areshen's divinity. Meneturu, in
particular, was quite aware that his younger colleague's character was
anything but godlike. Meneturu, however, had carefully guarded the
amusement he had felt over the whole thing, was quite aware that a divine
king in Isin would gain Shar Dulur every sort of political advantage.
Meneturu had even dispatched a half dozen Six Hundreds of horse and short
sword to the holy city of Nippur in order to assist Sumer's chief god
Enlil with his deliberations on the matter of Areshen's divinity. Enlil
sitting in his Divine Chamber atop Nippur's temple had apparently had an
excellent view of the chariots ranging in martial ferocity across farmland
beneath the city's walls. Enlil, Nippur's High Priest product of
Shubari's indiscretions had announced, is pleased to confirm Areshen of
Isin's divinization. Shubari, according to Meshduri and other of
Areshen's spies in Ur who reported to old Meneturu at Shar Dulur, had
nearly blown the Sacred Area's walls apart with his farted shouts of
protest when he had discovered that Nippur's High Priest product of his
indiscretion had betrayed him.
Areshen swallowed the last of the beer from his
cup, then leaned forward toward the balcony's rail. It had been several
years now, however, since he had actually had to say anything. Several
dozen young women pushed themselves to their feet in heated argument, all
but one returning to their benches with sour expressions of defeat when a
senior household steward pointed to the winner. Chuckling in gentle
amusement as he watched her hurry toward the kitchens, Areshen then
stumbled from the balcony into his sleeping chamber, a plain, unadorned
room with floor cushions next to one wall.
Lowering himself to the cushions, Areshen then
spent a long minute gazing toward the ceiling and wondering if he was
really sane. How, he asked himself, can the master of Shar Dulur feel so
little happiness from life? People would certainly think him insane if
they knew how he felt at the moment. He was master of the civilized
world. Kings and rulers from Egypt and India bowed to emissaries from
Shar Dulur. Daughters from the warlords of China had spent years
traveling from the furthest reaches of the east in order to become members
of his household, hoping for a once in a lifetime visit from Isin's divine
king. And the household here at Shar Dulur was certainly happy, Areshen
supposed, nothing here of the perpetually dour expression on the faces of
everyone in Ur.
Shrugging, settling into a resigned humor, he
wondered if he might have felt differently about it all had he been born
to the palace. Probably not. Ibisien in Ur had lived in a palace when
Areshen had fed pigs in the small temple village of Sannu. Ibisien had
never seemed to find a great deal of joy in life, had climbed into a cup
of wine twenty years ago, even before Sumer and Akkad had abandoned him
and Ur for Isin.
Ati stepped through the door into the chamber a
moment later carrying a large cup in her hand. Ati was close to Areshen's
own age, not as delicately beautiful as Etwabi, certainly not the stunning
beauty which Setith was twenty years after Areshen had married her. Ati,
however, was as pretty as most in Shar Dulur, gifted with that same light
of piercing intelligence in her eyes. The household steward who had made
the choice had been quite aware of Areshen's preference. The younger
girls who had pushed themselves to their feet in the courtyard had never
really had a chance.
Ati stood at the door with her hand on the handle,
a knowing smile in her features, her stance just the subtle edge of
writhing, enticing display. Areshen nodded, gentle amusement in his own
eyes as she pulled the door closed, lowered herself into his arms.
"You're getting fat, old lady," Areshen began as
he reached for the beer. Ati, wearing a small waist cloth, was anything
but fat.
"So are you, old man," Ati countered in easy
humor.
"And is that another wrinkle I see?" Areshen
continued, gazing toward the edges of Ati's eyes.
"Gray hairs, more gray hairs," Ati answered, and
Areshen finally broke into easy laughter as he poured half the beer into
his own cup, handing the other back to Ati, Ati not the type who concerned
herself over matters of delicate, social etiquette.
Areshen gazed toward a close friend for another
long moment. If anyone was now the love of his heart, it was Ati. She
really is very beautiful, Areshen decided, another who looked ten years
younger than her actual age. But it was the emotional intimacy Areshen
shared with Ati which he most treasured. Even Ati, on several occasions,
had declined offers of marriage, one or two from palace officials of
considerable influence and wealth. Areshen sometimes pled with others to
stop being foolish and accept the proposals they had received. He had
never done so with Ati.
"Who has proposed to you today, Ati?" Areshen
asked as she took a long sip from her cup.
"You still do not believe that I can be happy
belonging to you."
"Ati, any brick from which Shar Dulur is
constructed is more pious than you."
Ati broke into soft, quiet laughter.
"You only make my point for me, Areshen. I do not
love the horned crown of divinity on your head which you never wear
anyway, nor do I love king or master of my household. I love someone who
loves me. I am happy being your consort wife. I sometimes feel like your
only consort wife in Isin. When we all belonged to Netumuru before you
came to Isin, it was very different. Netumuru would sell any of us on a
whim, consort wives and servants without distinction. You have never
forced any of us to go, Areshen, when we did not want to go. And Areshen,
I would like to meet your Etwabi."
"Perhaps I will ask Setith for her soon," Areshen
answered, noticing something like pleasant anticipation in Ati's eyes. It
had been she who had explained to him the differences between Ur's and
Isin's social customs, though Areshen supposed that a former pig farmer
would never entirely understand the nuances of meaning, a thousand shades
of interpretation only those such as Ati who had lived their entire lives
in palace could grasp. Etwabi, as far as Areshen understood the whole
matter, would also be his de facto consort wife if she came to Shar Dulur,
a union to some degree closer than concubinage in Ur. Areshen was still
not certain, however, why Ati was so anxious to meet Etwabi. Every female
member of Areshen's household both in Shar Dulur and in Isin, and in a
hundred other cities across Sumer and Akkad who was not consort wife to
another was by definition Areshen's consort wife since the Assembly had
recognized his divinity. And Ati was quite aware that Areshen loved
Etwabi in a very real way.
"I suppose I would not feel so alone," Ati
explained, "if there were another at Shar Dulur who received a summons to
your chambers, Areshen. People here look at me as a curiosity because I
am the only wife you ever summon. And you love Etwabi - "
"In a way," Areshen agreed. "Not more - "
"In a way more than you love me," Ati countered in
a gentle voice.
"And in a way not," Areshen answered, a note of
argumentative vehemence in his voice as he gazed toward a woman his own
age for another very long moment. Conversations with Ati, a mature,
incredibly intelligent friend, were all that provided him with some sense
of emotional balance when he resided at Shar Dulur. In a very real way,
Areshen was certain that he loved Ati as deeply as he loved Setith, Setith
for so many years now enamored only with the concerns of her temple and
business ventures.
"Anyway, Ati," Areshen continued, "I believe
Etwabi will leave Ur when her family does. And I will let her go. She
believes in her family's gods. You, on the other hand - "
"I am the model of pious virtue," Ati protested in
mischievous laughter. "I could have been a temple prostitute. I
certainly have the physical qualifications."
Areshen broke into a amused chuckle for the
feigned expression of righteous indignation in Ati's features, the dance
she performed all of the exotic, writhing display which he'd seen in
front of a tavern shrine in Ur's Shensulith Square, a young tavern
mistress trying to attract customers. Again, however, as Ati settled back
into his arms, it was that for Areshen which it always was, an immersing
emotional warmth settling into the honest depths of his heart.
"I will never let you go, Ati," Areshen whispered,
the same vehemence now in his voice for radiant, unfeigned delight in
Ati's eyes, Ati frantically burying herself into his arms. Ati, Areshen
realized again as he met her lips with his own in as genuine and frantic a
passion, was the only woman in the world with whom he felt no emotional
constraint whatsoever. Setith had wandered off into her own world long
ago. Etwabi would do so when she finally found whatever she was searching
for. Ati, however, was just Ati, unconcerned about a great deal of
anything - and her kiss every bit the emotional passion his own was, her
embrace pleading warmth without caution or reserve.
"Perhaps you are a god," Ati sighed, ease and
amusement in her features when she raised her eyes.
"I still love you," Areshen chuckled.
"And I still love you."
Again Areshen fell intimately into Ati's eyes,
wondering what life might have been like had it just been the two of them
on a small temple farm somewhere. Ati had nowhere else to go, nowhere
else she really wanted to be at the moment. She didn't have temple farms
or business ventures to worry about, nor any personal philosophy
remarkably different than his own. Ati would just delight in spending the
rest of the evening in his arms.
"Areshen," she continued in idle, contemplative
quiet, "you are father to everyone in Isin, husband to everyone without
consorts of their own, yet you spend time only with me."
"Are you displeased?"
"No, of course not, Areshen. But - I am not
young."
"I know. You are an old woman."
"And you are an old man," Ati chuckled. Areshen
watched the easy delight in Ati's eyes for another long moment, the subtle
hint of thoughtful solemnity once more settling into her features.
"Are you really lonely, Ati?" Areshen asked,
taking her hands into gentle embrace.
"When you are away, I am. Everyone looks at me
very strangely. No one is intimate with me. How could they be, though,
when I sleep with a god - "
"Ati - " Areshen groaned.
"They believe it, Areshen."
"Many men pass their evenings with only one woman,
Ati."
"The man who calls for me rules the world,
Areshen."
He supposed again that he would just never
understand her concerns.
“Even if I did bring Etwabi here to Shar Dulur,
Ati, it still might not be different for you. Etwabi is certain that she
is in love with me, but I am not so certain that she knows her own
feelings yet. I see no permanence in that which exists between Etwabi and
me. I cannot imagine living at Shar Dulur without you, Ati."
"Areshen - " Ati whispered, emotional warmth
again breaking across her features, unfeigned delight in her eyes.
"Ati," Areshen continued, urging solemnity now in
his voice, "you could become my wife in Isin, my queen - " and it was yet
again that which he'd known it would, the expression of shock flashing
across Ati's features for the blasphemy no different than it had been the
last time.
"Oh Areshen, no. It would not be right - "
"Setith has always said that she would not mind,
Ati. She nags me incessantly whenever I'm in Ur, thinks it ridiculous
that Ibisien has a hundred wives and concubines while I have only one."
"Areshen, I am a serving girl - "
"Ati, you are a woman. You are an incredibly
beautiful woman, every bit as noble in appearance and demeanor as the
daughter of any High Priest."
"But I am not the daughter of a High Priest,
Areshen. I spend my life naked, with cleaning rags - "
"Ati, not only are you as beautiful as any High
Priest's daughter decked in gowns of lace and gold, but you are so
incredibly, marvelously intelligent. Ati, you are brilliant, far more
brilliant than any High Priest's or governor's daughter. For that matter,
most High Priests and governors, held to you, are imbeciles - "
"Areshen - " Ati just pled, trembling as she
rested in his arms, trembling in very real fright.
Sighing, giving up as he wrapped her once more
into gentle embrace, Areshen did so quite aware that it was one thing for
him to flaunt Holy Order and social custom, another matter entirely for a
woman such as Ati who spent her life on hands and knees scrubbing Shar
Dulur's floors, Ati for most of her life a servant provided clothing by
her overseers only on rare occasions, a servant passed from one owner to
another whenever Shar Dulur was. Indeed, no High Priest's daughter or
military governor's elder wife displayed half the stunning intelligence
and poise which radiated from Ati's features. Even so, the thought of
anything beyond that which birth and Holy Order had assigned her seemed to
frighten Ati as badly as it might have frightened the superstitious old
ladies of Sannu he remembered from his youth, old ladies who spent their
days searching the corners of their houses for demons, sweeping them
furiously toward the door.
"Ati," Areshen tried, again laying caressing,
urging hands to hers, "you know that I started life myself on a temple
farm just outside Ur feeding pigs. No other military governor for the
past hundred years can boast of origins lower than my own."
"Perhaps," Ati chuckled, a measure of composure
returning to her features. "But just because you can defy Holy Order and
get away with it does not mean that I will be able to do so."
"Old woman, I've watched you hang scrub rags on
top of god's heads all over Shar Dulur. You are no more pious - "
"All right," Ati chuckled, "perhaps not. But I
must live in the world as it is, Areshen. People look at me strangely
now. Were I to become your lawful and ritual wife, it would only be
worse. Me, wearing the robes of a wife - " Ati shuddered. "Wives and
daughters of governors would call me an aberration, someone who does not
know her own place."
Areshen sighed in frustration, buried his eyes
again to Ati's for the pleading crush of her hands to his.
"Areshen, I'm the consort wife who loves you, the
one you say you love. Isn't that enough?"
"I suppose," Areshen sighed. "For now. The High
Priest in Isin tells me that it is within my right to take any woman in
Sumer and Akkad as my wife, including the High Priest's should I so
desire."
"If you love me," Ati answered, "you will make the
High Priest's wife your wife rather than me."
Again Areshen held Ati in silent, intimate warmth,
sipping beer and glancing toward the walls in searching thought.
If he was king of Isin, then Ati should be Isin's
queen. The Assembly had offered the queen's floral crown to Setith.
Setith, however, had not as yet even bothered to visit Isin, a city which
had been a social and cultural backwater before Areshen, during the war of
the Amuru Wall, had made it the center of Sumer and Akkad's military
command.
Even today, certain High Priests and hereditary
governors in the south with close ties to Ur were still not yet prepared
to acknowledge the situation as it was, though very few offered more than
a ceremonial allegiance to Ur and Ibisien. Most, for that matter, had
ignored Ibisien for ten years now, governors in city after city
proclaiming themselves independent from Ur. For the past eight years,
however, an increasing number of cities had recognized the obvious, and
the obvious pointed to Shar Dulur and Isin. And it was no matter of great
concern to Areshen and palace officials such as Meneturu that a few of the
governors of the more distant cities now called themselves High Lord and
Grand Exalted This and That, just as long as the Grand Exalted This and
That in question had enough sense to bow, at least in private, to
emissaries from Shar Dulur carrying their marching orders.
Areshen lowered his beer and reached for Ati's
hands once more, not really certain if his musing had much to do with his
feelings for the extraordinarily intelligent woman of such quiet,
confident poise with whom he found a measure of tranquillity, at least for
brief and fleeting moments. Most of the noble born women of Sumer who sat
thrones beside Grand Exalted This and Thats displayed about as much
intelligence as their husbands, husbands almost as intelligent as the
average brick and few of whom were allowed more than a ceremonial role
directing the military garrisons located near their cities. Areshen would
rather see Ati herself standing in a commander's chariot giving orders to
First Soldiers than allow military governors in most Sumerian cities to do
so. Most First Soldiers, Areshen was certain, would agree. And still,
when Ati climbed from his arms in the morning, she would do nothing more
than take rags into her hands and scrub Shar Dulur's floors, would feel
foolish wearing anything more than a few inches of cloth about her waist,
all because Holy Order decreed this to be her role in life. It was little
wonder, Areshen decided, that someone such as himself could become the
master of civilization when civilization was guided by something as
ridiculous as Holy Order.
Areshen raised his eyes to Ati's when he felt new
and urging strength in her embrace. Ati leaned forward, her kiss sweet,
the warmth of her lips to his own finally become caressing intimacy
speaking the depths of her heart, speaking as quickly the first edge of
urging passion.
"Have I driven all the deep, dark thoughts from
your mind?" Ati chuckled, gentle mischief now in her eyes, the same in
teasing caresses of her hand to his.
"We march on Nippur soon," Areshen answered. "I
am going to place you in one of the command chariots. You will conquer as
you have conquered me."
"You are being foolish," Ati laughed. "You have,
as usual, had too much beer."
"Be that as it may, you would be perfectly at home
in a chariot. You respect Holy Order no more than I do. And besides,
there's precedent, the Gutiu queens, for instance," who a century ago had
descended from the eastern mountains standing naked and ferocious in their
chariots, a great many of Sumer's soldiers captivated, according to the
poets, by a magnificent and captivating sight.
"Perhaps I do respect Holy Order no more than
you," Ati continued. "Perhaps," she chuckled, "I'd enjoy standing in a
chariot screaming with a Gutiu queen's maniacal fury. But Holy Order
forbids it, and other people do respect Holy Order. What would there be
without it be chaos?"
"What indeed," Areshen sighed, deciding it was
enough, at least for the moment, to have Ati in his arms. If Sumer and
Holy Order did not recognize who Ati really was, that was their loss.
"Ati," Areshen whispered as he grasped her hands
again, both the embrace and his voice betraying the depths of the emotion
he felt, "I think you must always be most beloved to me when all else is
done. There's really only you."
"Areshen - " Ati whispered as well, pleading
strength now in her arms as she curled herself finally into intimate and
passionate embrace. "It is enough for me to be your beloved, Areshen,"
Ati cried, urging him finally into the only gentle and uncomplicated love
he had known for a very long time now.
Continued
