Had capture ever been his fate, Sharur was certain he would have made a far more obstreperous prisoner than the abject Imhursaggi. But the Imhursaggi had been a slave before he was captured: a slave to his god. He was not getting a master for the first time, merely getting a new master. “Wait here,” Sharur told him. “I will return soon.”
He found Kimash the lugal surrounded by his guardsmen. The lugal raised in salute the cup he was holding. “Come, son of Ereshguna!” he called in expansive tones, waving for Sharur to approach. “Drink beer with me.”
Someone pressed a cup of beer into Sharur’s hand. He drank gladly; after a day of fighting in the hot sun, he was as dry as land to which no canal could bring water. “Mighty lugal,” he said when the cup was empty, “have I your leave to go back to Gibil come morning, to take a prisoner, a captive of my sword, to the house of Ushurikti the slave dealer for safekeeping?”
“This will be the second Imhursaggi you have brought to Ushurikti, not so?” Kimash said. Sharur nodded, wondering if the lugal was angry at him for having captured Nasibugashi in the process of starting a war with Imhursag. But Kimash went on, “Aye, take this one back, too. Sooner or later, all the Imhursagut will be Gibli slaves, and deserve to be.” As soon as his cup of beer was empty, he began another. He was not drunk yet, but soon would be.
Bowing his head, Sharur returned to his kinsfolk, his prisoner, and Habbazu. “Tomorrow we shall go down to Gibil,” he told the captive, “you and I and my comrade here.” He did not mention Habbazu’s name; what the Imhursaggi did not know, he could not tell. .
“It is good,” the captive said. “Because you are generous, I still live. I still eat bread. I still drink beer. What can a man owe another man that is larger than his life? I know of no such thing. There is no such thing.”
As a slave, he was liable to eat stale bread, and not much of it. As a slave, he was liable to drink sour beer, and muddy water dipped up from a canal as well. None of that seemed to bother him in the least. He had been a man of wealth in Imhursag, else he should not have held a bronze sword when he faced Sharur. Now, unless he was ransomed, he would be a man with nothing. Perhaps he failed to understand how far he had fallen. Sharur did not enlighten him; the more ignorant he was, the more tractable he would remain.
“If you and your comrade and your captive are not awake at earliest dawn, I shall rouse you,” Ereshguna said as Sharur stretched out a mat on which to sleep. Like Sharur, his father did not mention Habbazu’s name. A man could not be too careful. Word of the name might get back to Kimash. Or, for that matter, Engibil might be listening. Stretching, Sharur worried over that—but not for long.
When Sharur’s father shook him awake, he did not want to rise. He rubbed his eyes and yawned as he made himself get to his feet. “Is the captive still with us?” he asked, looking around in the gray dimness of early twilight.
“Sleeping like a child,” Ereshguna answered. “I have seen this in other Imhursagut, and in men from other cities where gods rule. They do not fret so much as we; their gods fret for them, as they do everything else for them. There are times when I almost envy them. Almost.”
Sharur saw Habbazu sipping a cup of beer. The Zuabi thief looked very alert, and very much as if he did all his own fretting. He nodded to Sharur.
Ereshguna said, “Yesterday evening, after you lay down and as I was about to do the same, men came here from the pavilion of Kimash the lugal. They asked if we had ever laid hands on the thief we sought.” He still named no names. Habbazu smirked. Ereshguna went on, “I told them no, and they went away. But it will be well when you and your comrade leave this camp, lest someone wonder if Habbazu the Zuabi thief and Burrapi the Zuabi mercenary are one and the same.”
“Yes.” Sharur stirred the sleeping Imhursaggi captive with his foot. The man looked confused for a moment, then recognized Sharur and recalled his circumstances. He scrambled to his feet and clasped his captor’s hand. Sharur gave him bread and beer for breakfast, then led him south, back toward Gibil.
Peasants by the side of the road, old men and striplings and women, called questions to the travelers as they tramped along. The peasants cheered to learn the Gibli army had beaten the Imhursagut in their first clash. The Imhursaggi captive was astonished. “Why has your god not told all the folk of Gibil of this victory?” he asked.
“Engibil doesn’t do things like that,” Sharur said. Whether Engibil could do things like that any more, he did not know. The god had not exerted himself so for generations. If he took back power in Gibil from the lugal, though, he would have to do such things. His laziness, which Sharur had seen, helped keep the people of Gibil free.
“How very strange,” the Imhursaggi said. Habbazu caught Sharur’s eye, but did not say anything.
“We like it this way,” Sharur said, answering what his captive had said and what Habbazu had not.
“How very strange,” the captive repeated. Habbazu started to laugh. Sharur gave him a dirty look. This time, though, he was the one who did not say anything.
When they got into Gibil, Ushurikti, who had not gone to war, bowed himself almost double before Sharur. “Ah, master merchant’s son,” the slave dealer said with a smirk, “are you going to bring me all of Imhursag to sell, one prisoner at a time?” He took a damp clay tablet out of a pot with a tight lid that kept its content from drying out and incised it with a stylus. Sharur, reading upside down, saw the dealer write his name as the owner of the slave. Then Ushurikti asked, “And what is the name of this Imhursaggi?”
“I never bothered to ask him.” Sharur turned to the captive. “What is your name, fellow?”
“I am called Duabzu, my master,” the Imhursaggi replied.
“Du-ab-zu.” Ushurikti wrote the syllables one by one. “Well, Duabzu, have you anyone in Imhursag who might ransom you? If your own people will pay a better price for you than I could get from a Gibli, you may go free.”
“It could be so.” Duabzu visibly brightened. “Perhaps, before long, I will again hear the voice of my god in my mind. Life would be sweet, were that to come to pass.”
“He is not a poor man,” Sharur said. “He swung a sword of bronze against me, till I struck it from his hand. No poor man would have swung a sword of bronze against me.”
“This is so. No poor man could have afforded to own a sword of bronze to swing against you,” Ushurikti said. “But whether this Duabzu has kin who would even want to pay ransom for him, that is a different question. When a man is captured, sometimes his kin prefer to reckon him as one dead, that they may make free with his inheritance.” The slave dealer had surely seen more of the unsavory side of life than had most men.
Duabzu looked horrified. “My kin would never be so wicked as that. If they can afford your price, they will pay your price. Enimhursag would turn his back on them forever if they were so wicked as to refuse.” He looked Sharur in the face. “In Imhursag, the god keeps men from being so wicked as that. I see the same is not true in Gibil.”
“In Imhursag, the god keeps men from being men,” Sharur answered. “Men are not all good, but neither are they all bad. Nor,” he added pointedly, “are gods all good, no matter what they impose on men.” Duabzu sniffed.
Ushurikti said, “You need not argue with this man, master merchant’s son. You need not argue with this slave, master merchant’s son.”
“I know that,” Sharur said. “I leave him in your hands. He invaded our land. He will pay the price. Someone, Gibli or Imhursaggi, will pay the price for him. You and I shall profit from that price.”