“Yes, father to my father,” Sharur answered, wishing the garrulous spirit would shut up. His grandfather’s ghost often started chattering at the most inconvenient times.
Besides, the ghost wasn’t so smart as it thought it was. The ensis who had ruled Gibil before Igigi had had no need for fancy displays of power, not with Engibil speaking directly through them. The lugals, on the other hand, were faced with the problem of getting people to obey them even though they spoke for no one but themselves. No wonder they made themselves as awesome as they could.
Sharur bowed low as Kimash’s retinue came past the caravan. He was not altogether surprised when the procession stopped. Kimash favored smiths and merchants and scribes. They brought new powers into Gibil, powers that might be manipulated against Engibil’s long-entrenched strength.
Kimash’s guards stood aside to let the lugal advance. He was a man in his early forties, not far from Ereshguna’s age, still vigorous even though gray was beginning to frost his hair and beard. He wore gold earrings, and bound his hair in a bun at the back of his neck with gold wire rather than a simple ribbon. The hilt of his dagger was wrapped in gold wire, too, and gold buckles sparkled on his belt and sandals.
“You may look on me,” he told Sharur, who obediently straightened. The merchant reached out and set his hand on Kimash’s thigh for a moment in token of submission. The lugal covered it with his own hand, then released it. He said, “May Engibil and the other gods, the great gods, favor your journey to the mountains, Sharur son of Ereshguna.”
“I thank the lugal, the lord of Gibil,” Sharur replied.
“May you be fortunate in bringing back ingots of shining copper; may your donkeys’ panniers be laden with heavy sacks of ore,” Kimash said.
“May it be so indeed,” Sharur said.
Abruptly, Kimash abandoned the formal diction he used when speaking as lugal—the diction handed down for rulers since the days when the lords of Gibil were ensis through whom Engibil spoke—and addressed Sharur as one man to another: “I want that copper. We cannot have too much of it. Imhursag is stirring against us once more, and some of the towns with gods on top of them may send men and weapons to help in the next war.”
“If I can get it for you, lord, I will,” Sharur said. “I wouldn’t be heading off to the Alashkurrut if I didn’t think they would trade it to me.”
“I know. I understand,” the lugal answered. Eor all his power, for all his vigor, he was a worried man. “Bring back curiosities, too, things never seen in the land of Kudurru. Let me lay them on the altar in Engibil’s temple to amuse the god and give him enjoyment.”
“Lord, I will do as you say,” Sharur promised. “The god of the city deserves the rich presents you lavish upon him.”
He and Kimash looked at each other in mutual understanding. Neither of them smiled, in case the god was keeping an eye on Kimash. But they both knew how venal Engibil was. Igigi had been the first to discover that, if he heaped enough offerings on Engibil’s altar, the god would let him act as he thought best, not merely as Engibil’s mouthpiece. Kimash followed the same principle as had his grandfather. The god remained vastly stronger than the lugal, but Engibil was distracted and Kimash was not.
“I shall have Engibil’s priests pray that you enjoy a safe and successful journey,” Kimash said. Sharur bowed. Some of the priests, no doubt, resented the lugal for ruling, but, with the god content to suffer it, what could they do? And some, the younger men, served Engibil, aye, but served Kimash, too. The lugal said, “My prayers will go with theirs.”
Sharur bowed again. “I thank the lugal, the lord of Gibil.”
“One thing more,” Kimash said with sudden abruptness. “Whatever word of Enimhursag’s doings you hear in the wider world, bring it back to me and to Engibil. That god hates this city, for we beat Imhursag and we prosper though men rule us.”
“I shall do as you say, lord,” Sharur promised once more.
Kimash nodded, turned, and went back to his place among the palace guards, who fell in around him. His retinue started down the Street of Smiths once again, the trumpeters blowing great blasts of sound from their ram’s horns, the herald announcing Kimash’s presence to everyone nearby as if the lugal were equal to Engibil when the god (or, these past couple of generations, a statue of him) paraded through the city on his great feast day.
Harharu and Mushezib, the assistant donkey handlers and the guards, all looked at Sharur with new respect. Harharu had surely known Kimash favored Ereshguna’s clan. Mushezib probably had known it, too. The others also might well have known it. But knowing it and being reminded of it were not one and the same. Everyone in Gibil knew the lugal’s power. When he walked with ghards and trumpeters and herald, he reminded people of it.
“Do you see, father to my father?” Sharur 'murmured.
He’d really been talking to himself, but his grandfather’s ghost heard. “Oh, I see,” it answered. “That doesn’t mean I like it.” The ghost left. He could feel it go. He smiled to himself. His grandfather hadn’t liked much as an old man, and liked even less now that he was dead.
Sharur didn’t suppose he could blame his grandfather’s ghost. When the last person who remembered him alive died, the ghost would no longer be able to stay on earth, but would go down to the underworld and dwell in shadows forever. No wonder he reckoned any and all change for the worse.
One day, Sharur thought, that fate would be his, too. But he was young. Strength flowed through him. He hadn’t yet married Ningal, and had no children, let alone grandchildren. Life stretched ahead, looking long and good. He did not intend to become a ghost for many, many years.
“Let’s go!” he said. Harharu, as he had been on the point of doing when Kimash came over to Sharur, pulled on the lead donkey’s line. The donkey stared at him with large, astonished liquid eyes: the idea of actually going anywhere had long since vanished from its mind. Harharu pulled again. The donkey’s long ears twitched. It brayed indignantly.
“Give it a good kick,” Mushezib suggested.
“Patience.” Harharu’s voice was mild. He tugged on the lead line again. The donkey started forward. That took up the slack on the line connecting it to the next beast, which brayed out its own protest before reluctantly following. The hideous clamor ran down the line. Here and there, a donkey balked. The handlers encouraged the animals to go, sometimes gently, sometimes by methods akin to Mushezib’s. At last, the whole caravan was moving.
Dimgalabzu the smith, Ningal’s father, came out of his house as Sharur led the caravan past it: a tough-looking, wide-shouldered man whose bare belly bulged above the belt upholding his kilt. He was carrying a big wicker basket full of rubbish, which he flung into the street. “Going off to get more copper for us, are you, Ereshguna’s son?” he called.
“Just so, father to my intended bride,” Sharur answered. “And, when I return, we shall talk about payment of the price for your daughter.”
“You think so, do you?” Dimgalabzu said, not as a true threat but because he enjoyed making his prospective son-in-law squirm. “Well, we shall see, we shall see.” He waved to Sharur, winked, and went back inside.
Mushezib chuckled. “I hope for your sake, lad, the girl takes after her mother.”
“In looks, you mean? She does,” Sharur answered. Ningal also had a good deal of her father’s bluff, sometimes disconcerting sense of humor. Sharur said nothing about that. His fiancee’s intimate personal characteristics were not the concern of a caravan guard.
He had turned off the Street of Smiths and was well on his way to the western gate when he led the caravan past a family who were knocking down their house. That happened every so often in Gibil. The sun-dried mud brick of which almost everything in the city save Engibil’s temple and the lugal’s palace was built was hardly the strongest stuff. Sometimes a wall would collapse under the growing weight of the roof as one season’s mud chinking went on top of another’s. Sometimes a wall would collapse at what seemed nothing more than the whim of a god or demon. Sometimes a whole house would fall down. When that happened, people often died.