Ereshguna said not a word while Sharur detailed his misfortune. Once his son had finished, the trader let out a long sigh. He set a hand on Sharur’s thigh. “You did, I think, everything you could have done.”
“I did not do enough,” Sharur said. “It eats at me like a canker.”
“You did more than I would ever have thought to do,” Tupsharru said.
“Against the gods, a man fights openly in vain,” Ereshguna said. He took out his amulet to Engibil and covered its eyes. As Sharur and Tupsharru did the same, their father went on, “Only in secret and by stealth can a man hope to gain even a part of his way in the gods’ despite. Now, it seems, the gods beyond Gibil have awakened to the knowledge of how much we have gained over the years, how much we have gained over the generations. They wish to force us back into full subjection once more.”
“The caravan from Imhursag traded among the Alashkurrut,” Sharur said gloomily. “It came away with copper. It came away with copper ore. It came away with the other good things of the mountains. If the Imhursagut can trade and we cannot, Imhursag and Enimhursag shall be exalted among the cities and gods of Kudurru, and Gibil shall slide into slavery.”
“You speak of Gibil,” Tupsharru said. “You do not speak of Engibil.”
And Sharur realized he had not spoken of Engibil. His city counted for more in his heart than his city god. Everything of which the gods of other cities, the gods of other lands, had accused him was true. He did not feel shamed. He did not feel sorry. To the extent he could, he was glad to be his own man.
Ereshguna said, “The word you bring back to Gibil, my son, does not affect the house of Ereshguna alone. It affects the other merchants and the smiths. It affects the city as a whole. And it affects Kimash the lugal.”
“I know, Father.” Sharur hung his head. “I did not bring back rich offerings for Kimash to lay on the altar of Engibil. I was prevented.”
“Tomorrow,” Ereshguna said, “tomorrow we shall go to the palace of Kimash the lugal and make known to him what passed on your journey.” Ever so reluctantly, Sharur nodded. What choice had he?
At supper that evening, Betsilim and Nanadirat listened to Sharur tell his story all over again. His mother and sister exclaimed indignantly over the injustice he had suffered at the hands of the Alashkurri gods, and even more at the injustice he had suffered from gods dwelling closer to home.
“Eniyarmuk had no business rejecting your sacrifice for the crossing, none whatsoever,” Betsilim declared.
“I didn’t think so, either,” Sharur answered. He turned to the kitchen slave. “Bring me more roast mutton, and garlic cloves to rub on it.” She bowed and hurried away. The family had laid on a feast to celebrate his return, although, as far as he could see, only the fact that he had returned at all was worth celebrating.
His mother was not finished. “Had I been standing on the bank of the Yarmuk, I should have given the river goddess a piece of my mind,” she said.
Sharur believed her. “No wonder the foreign gods fear us Giblut,” he said, which made his father laugh.
Betsilim gave Ereshguna a sharp look, then resumed: “And Enzuabu! Enzuabu has no quarrel with Engibil. The Zuabut have no quarrel with the folk of Gibil. The Zuabut are thieves, surely, but how wicked for the god to set a thief on my son’s caravan.”
“Would it have been all right for the god to set a thief on the caravan of someone else’s son?” Ereshguna asked. His wife ignored him.
Nanadirat said, “Worst of all, though, is that the Imhursagut and Enimhursag got the chance to gloat because the Alashkurri gods were so foolish.” She clapped her hands together. “Slave, more date wine for me.”
“I obey,” the Imhursaggi war captive said softly. She held the strainer above the cup of Sharur’s sister and poured the wine through it.
Sharur also held out his cup to be refilled. The kitchen slave rinsed the strainer, then gave him what he wanted. He nodded to her. She did her best to pretend she did not see him.
After the feast was over, Sharur’s parents and brother and sister went up onto the roof to sleep. “I will join you in a while,” Sharur said. He walked back toward the kitchen. By the light of a couple of dim, flickering torches, the slave from Imhursag was scrubbing bowls and plates and cups clean with a rag and a jar of water. Sharur set his hands on her shoulders. “Let us go back to the blanket on which you sleep.”
With a small sigh, she set down the rag and dried her hands on her tunic. “I obey,” she said, as she had when Nanadirat asked her for more wine. But, as she and Sharur walked down the narrow hall to her hot, tiny, cramped cubicle, she said, “You have not required this of me for a long time.” .
“And now I do require it,” Sharur said. The kitchen slave sighed again and walked on.
Inside the cubicle, it was black as pitch, blacker than midnight. Linen rustled as the slave pulled her tunic off over her head. Sharur shed his kilt. He reached out. His hand closed on the firm round softness of the woman’s breast. He squeezed.
“Do you know why I do this?” he asked as they lay down together. In the darkness, he found her hand and guided it to his erection.
“Because you own me,” the slave answered. “Because you have been long away and you have no wife and you want a woman.”
He shook his head. “You know I came home without profit,” he said, and felt her nod. “In the mountains, far away, I met a caravan of Imhursagut. They mocked me. They said I was going home with tiny tail between my legs. I told them that, when I got home, I would thrust my tail between the legs of my Imhursaggi slave woman. And so”—he entered her—“I do.”
“Oh,” she said, and nodded again in the darkness. “You do this in fulfillment of a vow.”
“Yes,” he answered, drawing back and thrusting, drawing back and thrusting, forcing his way deeper each time even though she was dry.
“A vow should be fulfilled,” she said seriously. “It is a duty to your god.” She still thought like an Imhursaggi.
And then something strange happened. The other handful of times he had taken her, she’d simply lain there and let him do as he liked until he spent himself and left. Now, suddenly, unexpectedly, her legs rose from the blanket and clenched his flanks. Her arms wrapped around his back. Her mouth sought his. The way into her, which had been difficult, grew gloriously smooth, gloriously moist.
She made several small noises deep in her throat, and then, at the moment when pleasure almost blinded him, a mewling cry like a wild cat’s. He slid out of her and sat back on his knees. “You never did anything like that before,” he said, his voice almost accusing.
“Other times you have had me, it was only for your own pleasure,” she said. “This time, you made good your word to your god—and to mine.” Softly, under her breath, she murmured, “Oh, Enimhursag, how I long for thee.”
Sharur was a young man. One round took the edge off his lust, but did not fully sate it. When he heard the slave woman shift and start to rise, he set his hand on her chest, in the valley between her breasts. “No. Not yet. I will have you again.”
She lay back; a slave’s duty was to obey. He mounted her once more. Save that she breathed, she might have been dead beneath him. So it had been every time until this evening. So it was again. Eventually, his seed spurted from him.
As he groped for his kilt, he said, “I was no different the second time from the first. Yet you took pleasure—I know you took pleasure—the first, and none at all the second. How is this? Why is this?”
“I told you,” she answered. “I took pleasure in helping fulfill your vow: I am one who respects the gods, and I rejoice, when you Giblut do likewise. The second time, it was only you. The gods were far away.”