Sharur reassured them, saying, “I have seen this before. It is the way of the gods in this part of the world. See— even though Tuwanas lies by a stream, the folk here have dug but few canals to bring water from the stream to the fields. They know they will get rain to keep their crops alive.”
“Rain in summertime.” Agum shook his head, which made some of the summertime rain fly out from his beard, as if from a wet dog’s coat, and more drip off the end of his nose. “No stranger than anything else around these parts, I suppose.” He pointed ahead to Tuwanas. “If this isn’t the funniest-looking place I’ve ever seen, I don’t know what is.”
There Sharur was inclined to agree with^him. By the standards of Kudurru, it was neither a village nor a proper city. The best word for it, Sharur supposed, was “fortress.” He would not have wanted to take the place, not when its wall was built of great gray blocks of stone so huge, he wondered if they had been set in place by gods, not men.
Sighing, Harharu said, “The Alashkurrut are lucky to have so much fine stone with which to build. Mud brick would be nothing but mud in this climate.”
“I see,” Agum said. “Even the peasants live in stone houses here. Does the straw they put on the roofs really keep out the rain?”
“Better than you’d think,” Sharur told him. “The peasants and the potters and the leatherworkers and the smiths and such live outside the walls, as you see. They take shelter inside when the other Alashkurrut raid Tuwanas.”
“The smiths,” Harharu murmured.
“Yes,” Sharur said. No matter what Enimhursag and the demon Illuyankas had told him, he had hope for the smiths. In Alashkurru no less than in Kudurru, they were men of the new, full of the power control over metal gave them, a power so raw it was not yet divine.
“Who lives inside the walls of Tuwanas, then?” Agum asked.
“The Alashkurri gods, of course,” Sharur answered, and the caravan guard nodded. “A few merchants have their houses in there, too. But most of the space the gods don’t use goes to Huzziyas the wanax and his soldiers.”
“Wanax.” Agum shaped the foreign word, then laughed. “It has a funny sound.”
“It has a funny meaning, too,” Sharur said. “There is no word in our speech that means just the same thing. It’s halfway between ‘ensi’—because the Alashkurri gods do speak through the wanakes—and ‘bandit chief.’ A wanax will use his soldiers to rob his neighbors—”
“—And his own peasants,” Harharu put in.
“Yes, and his own peasants,” Sharur agreed. “He’ll use his soldiers, as I say, to make himself rich. Sometimes I think a wanax would sooner steal one keshlu’s weight of gold than put the same amount of trouble into getting two by honest work.”
Agum clutched his spear more tightly. “I see why you have guards along, master merchant’s son.”
“Huzziyas has more soldiers than you could fight,” Sharur said. “So does every other wanax. Sometimes, though, when the wanakes aren’t robbing one another, a band of soldiers will get bored and start robbing on their own. That is why I have guards in the Alashkurru Mountains.”
As they talked, they squelched up the narrow track between thatch-roofed stone huts toward the one gate in Tuwanas’ frowning wall. Most of the men were out in the fields—rain made weeding easy—but women and children stood in doorways and stared at the newcomers, as did artisans who labored inside their homes.
In looks, they were most of them not far removed from the folk of Kudurru. Men here, though, did not curl their beards, but let them grow long and unkempt. Men and women put on more clothes than they would have done in Kudurru, men wearing knee-length tunics of wool or leather and the women draping themselves in lengths of cloth that reminded Sharur of nothing so much as oversized blankets.
And, now and again, more than clothes and hairstyles reminded the caravan crew they were in a foreign land. Sharur heard one of the donkey handlers wonder aloud if a striking woman with coppery hair was truly a woman or a demon. “Don’t say that in a language she can understand,” the caravanmaster remarked, “or you’re liable to find out.”
The guards at the gateway leading into the fortress of Tuwanas stood under the overhang to stay out of the rain. But for their wild, shaggy beards, they would have fit in well enough among Kimash the lugal’s guardsmen. Sharur recognized a couple who spoke the language of Kudurru. One of those guards recognized him at about the same time. “It is Sharur son of Ereshguna, from the city between the rivers called Gibil,” he said.
“It is,” Sharur agreed. “It is Nenassas son of Nerikkas, of Tuwanas. I greet you, Nenassas son of Nerikkas.” Nenassas hadn’t greeted him, merely acknowledged his existence. He did not take that as a good sign.
Nenassas still did not greet him, but asked, “What do you bring to Tuwanas, Sharur son of Ereshguna?”
“I bring swords and knives and spearheads of finest bronze,” Sharur said, pointedly adding, “such have always delighted the heart of Huzziyas son of Wamnas, the mighty wanax of Tuwanas. I bring also wine of dates, to delight the heart of Huzziyas in a different way; strong medicines”— he gestured toward Rukagina—“and many other fine things.”
Nenassas and the other guards put their heads together and talked in low voices in their own language. Sharur caught only a couple of phrases, enough to understand they were trying to figure out what to do with him, and with the caravan. Their attitude alone would have told him that much. He kept his face an impassive mask. Behind it, he worried. They should have been delighted to greet a caravan from Kudurru.
He got the idea they would have been delighted to greet most caravans from Kudurru. A caravan from Gibil, however ...
At last, Nenassas said, “What you tell me is true, Sharur son of Ereshguna. Your wares have delighted the heart of mighty Huzziyas. Still, that was in the days before our gods spoke to us of the city between the rivers called Gibil.”
“I do not seek to trade my swords and knives and spearheads with the gods of Tuwanas,” Sharur replied. “I seek to trade them with the mighty wanax of Tuwanas, and with his clever merchants.”
“See!” one of the other Alashkurri guards exclaimed in his own language. “This is what the gods warned us against. He cares nothing for them.”
“That is not so,” Sharur said in the same tongue. “I respect the gods of Tuwanas, the gods of Alashkurru. But, Udas son of Ussas, they are not my gods. My god is Engibil, and after him the other gods of Kudurru.”
Udas seemed disconcerted at being understood. The guards put their heads together again. Sharur heard one phrase that pleased him very much: “Those swords do delight the heart of the wanax.” More argument followed. A couple of times, the guards hefted the spears they were carrying, as if about to use them on one another. Finally, Nenassas said, “You and your caravan may pass into Tuwanas, Sharur son of Ereshguna. This matter is too great for us to decide. Let it be in the hands of the mighty wanax and the gods.”
“For this I thank you, Nenassas son of Nerikkas, though it grieves me to enter this place without your greeting,” Sharur replied. But he got no greeting from Nenassas, only a brusque wave ahead. Scowling, Sharur led his men and donkeys into Tuwanas.
“See what I have here.” Sharur set out a row of swords on top of a wooden table. In the torchlight, the polished bronze gleamed almost as red as blood. “These are all of fine, hard metal, made strong with the tin we of Gibil bring in at great risk and great expense. They will cut notches in the blade of a copper sword until it is better used as a saw than as a weapon. Alashkurru is a land of warriors, a land of heroes. No one will want to be without such fine swords. Is it not so, Sitawandas son of Anawandas, my friend, my colleague?”