Harharu coughed. “Master merchant’s son, what you do now is brave. What you do now is bold. What you do now—is it not also foolish? You have said the god of this place told you that you would get nothing in Alashkurru. The god of this place told you that we would get nothing in Alashkurru. Would you openly fight the god?”
“Donkeymaster, I would not,” Sharur said. “I am not a fooclass="underline" if all the gods of this place oppose us, we have no hope of profit here.” And I have scant hope of making Ningal my wife. But that was not Harharu’s concern. Aloud, Sharur continued, “The hand of every town in Alashkurru, though, is raised against every other. If it were not so, they would not build as they do here. Where the men are in discord, will the gods agree?”
“Ah,” Harharu said, and bowed. “Now I see what is in your mind. You think that, while we gain nothing in Tuwanas, while Huzziyas will not treat with us, while Tarsiyas speaks harshly against us, some other town, some other wanax, some other god may prove more hospitable?”
“That is what is in my mind, yes,” Sharur agreed.
“Truly you are your father’s son,” Harharu said, and now Sharur bowed to him.
As they made their slow way up to the top of the hills separating the valley Tuwanas dominated from the next one deeper into the mountain country, they met a party of eight or ten Alashkurrut coming the other way. The men of Alashkurru were armed and armored like Huzziyas’s guards. They led a few donkeys themselves, all the animals far more heavily burdened than those of Sharur’s caravan.
At Mushezib’s sharp orders, the caravan guards rushed forward to show the Alashkurrut they were ready to fight at need. Because they were ready to fight, they did not have to fight. The... bandits, Sharur supposed, did nothing but nod and tramp on past them.
Seen from the hills, the fortified town of Zalpuwas looked even more formidable than Tuwanas had. As the caravan approached the fortress, peasants came running from the fields to stare and point and jabber. They found the men of Kudurru, who wore clothes different from theirs and curled their beards, as funny as a troupe of mountebanks with trained dogs and monkeys.
Looking to sow goodwill, Sharur passed out bracelets and bangles. He also opened a small jar of date wine and let that pass from hand to hand among the peasants. Everyone who got it took a small swig before passing it on to whoever stood next to him till it was empty. Sharur had been sure it would happen so. In Gibil, someone would have been greedy and gulped down half the jar. He was sure of that, too.
In Gibil, men thought more of themselves and less of the gods than they did here. Sharur chose not to dwell on that point.
The woman who did finally empty the jar returned it to him, saying with a smile, “We have never seen a caravan-master so generous before.” Her stance and the sparkle in her eye suggested that, did he choose to be a little more generous, she might give him something in return.
“We trade with all,” Sharur declared loudly, and many of the peasants exclaimed to hear him speak in their language. “We trade great for great; we also trade small for small.” None of the gods of Alashkurru had forbidden their people from trading food and donkey fodder for his trinkets, for which he was duly grateful.
Surrounded by an excited crowd of peasants, the caravan passed through the stone huts ringing the stout walls of Zalpuwas and up to the gateway into the fortress. One of the guards said, “Is it Sharur son of Ereshguna, out of Gibil in the land between the rivers?” His voice broke in surprise, . as if he were a youth rather than a solid warrior with the first threads of gray in his beard.
“Yes, it is I, Malatyas son of Lukkas,” Sharur replied. “I pray that your mighty wanax, Ramsayas son of Radas, flourishes like the wheat in your fields. I pray that he flourishes like the apple trees in your orchards. I have many fine things to trade with him, or with the merchants who are his servants: swords and spearheads and knives and medicines and—”
He broke off. Malatyas was paying no attention to his polished sales pitch. The gate guard burst out, “Are you not come from Tuwanas, Sharur son of Ereshguna?”
“Yes,” Sharur admitted.
“And when you were there,” Malatyas persisted, “the gods did not warn you to come no farther into the mountains of Alashkurru?”
“They did not,” he said truthfully. Tarsiyas had warned him of many things, but not of that Perhaps the god and his fellows had assumed Sharur would be so downhearted, he would not continue. They were not his gods. They did not know him well. In reasonable tones, he went on, “Had the gods forbidden it, how could I be here now?”
“It is a puzzlement.” To prove how great a puzzlement it was, Malatyas scratched his bushy head. “We were certain that—”
“Since I am here, since I have goods the mighty wanax Ramsayas will surely covet, may I enter great Zalpuwas?” Sharur broke in.
As had the guards back at Tuwanas, Malatyas and his comrades plainly wanted to forbid the caravan from going into their town. As had those guards, these found themselves unable. “The mighty wanax will attend to you according to his wishes,” Malatyas said, which sounded more like warning than welcome. But he stood aside and let Sharur and his companions pass into Zalpuwas.
Being deeper in among the mountains than Tuwanas, Zalpuwas received visitors less often, and was not so well prepared to accommodate them. The couple of inns were small and dingy and dark, with sour straw in the stables. Their sole virtue, in Sharur’s eyes, was that their proprietors made no fuss about accepting beads and bangles and broken bits of silver to house the caravan.
“The Alashkurri gods may be against us,” Mushezib said, sipping beer made bitter with the flowering head of some plant that grew in the valley, “but the innkeepers aren’t so fussy.”
“Are you surprised?” Sharur answered. “When have you ever heard of a god who would bother taking notice of an innkeeper?” Mushezib’s laugh sprayed beer over the top of the table where, the two men of Kudurru sat.
But Sharur’s joke soon turned as bitter as the local beer to him, for none of the copper merchants of Zalpuwas took notice of him or of his caravan. When he went to greet men with whom he had traded on previous journeys, their doors were closed against him as if they had never heard his name. He sent word to Ramsayas son of Radas, requesting an audience. No word came back from the wanax.
Finally, in growing desperation, Sharur sent Ramsayas not word but a sword, one of the finest swords he had brought from Gibil. Where nothing else had, that did prompt the wanax to send a servant to seek out Sharur. Sharur bowed to the servant as he might have to the master, saying, “Tell the mighty wanax I am honored that he deigns to notice me.”
“Ramsayas son of Radas, mighty wanax of Zalpuwas, notices everything and everyone that passes inside these walls,” the servant answered.
“Of this I am truly glad,” Sharur said. ‘‘Does he likewise notice everything that passes outside the walls of his fortress?” '
“No, he does not claim that,” the servant said. ‘‘He is not a god, to have so wide a purview, only a servant of the gods.”
“I thought as much,” Sharur replied. “He should know that I sent him the sword in token of what he does not see: other wanakes in other valleys arming themselves and their retainers with such weapons. If he would not be left behind his neighbors, he might think on the wisdom of gaining more such blades.”
The servant’s mouth fell open. “I cannot believe other wanakes would—” He checked himself. “But who knows into what depravity men of other valleys might sink?’ ’ After coughing a couple of times, he went on, “I shall take what you say to Ramsayas son of Radas. Let his judgment, not mine, rule here.”