There stood Ilakabkabu, his long beard fluttering in the breeze as he harangued several younger priests. “No good will come of this!” he thundered. “We do not serve the god for the sake of frivolity. We do not serve Engibil for the sake of merriment. We serve Engibil for the sake of holiness. We serve the god because he is our great and mighty master.”
Burshagga looked disgusted. “I will go and settle that interfering old fool.”
“I did not mean to cause such difficulties,” Sharur said. That was also true—he wanted all the priests distracted, and none of them preaching against distraction. He strolled along toward Ilakabkabu in Burshagga’s wake.
“Here, what are you doing?” Burshagga called to Ilakabkabu. “What foolish words fall from your lips now, old man?”
“I speak no foolishness,” the old priest answered. “I say that we should prove our devotion to Engibil with prayers and sacrifices, not with jugglers and fluteplayers and squirming wenches.” He gestured disparagingly toward the woman dancing in the thin shift.
“And I say Engibil does not begrqdge his priests their pleasures,” Burshagga said. “I am devoted to Engibil. No one can deny I am devoted to Engibil.”
“I deny it,” Ilakabkabu said. “You are devoted first to yourself, then to Kimash the lugal... lugal!” He laced the title with scorn. “And last of all, when you deign to recollect, to the god.”
“Liar!” Burshagga shouted. “Son of a whore! You think that because you have been a priest since before men learned to till the soil, Engibil speaks to you alone. You think that, because you have been a priest so long your private parts have withered, priests are not men like other men. Our god is not a god who hates pleasure. Does Engibil himself not couple with courtesans when the urge strikes him?”
“What the god does is his affair,” Ilakabkabu said stolidly. “He is the god; he may do as he pleases. But for you to do as you please... you are only a man, and a priest besides. Do not add your shame to the disgrace the temple suffered of having a thief penetrate it as deeply as Engibil penetrates one of those courtesans you talked about.”
Priests and folk of the city gathered round Burshagga and Ilakabkabu. Wrangling priests were entertainment, too. Sharur listened with intent interest on his face. He listened . with no trace of amusement or delight on his face. Ilakabkabu, no matter what he thought, was at the moment helping to do the work of distracting the temple for him.
Burshagga rolled his eyes. “I do not think you ever saw that thief. I think you were imagining him, as I know you are imagining that you alone can see into the mind of Engibil.”
“And I think that, because you young men were too slow and too stupid to catch the thief, you pretend he was never there,” Ilakabkabu retorted. “You put me in mind of a wild cat when a mouse escapes it. The cat sits down and licks its anus, pretending it did not truly want the mouse.”
“You are the one who knows everything there is to know about the licking of an anus!” Burshagga screeched. He grabbed a double handful of Ilakabkabu’s long white beard and yanked, hard.
The old priest screeched, too. He brought up a bony knee between Burshagga’s legs. Burshagga howled, but did not let go of Ilakabkabu’s beard. In an instant, the two priests were rolling on the ground, gouging and kicking and hitting at each other.
Most of the Giblut laughed and clapped and cheered them on. Some of their fellow priests, however, eventually pulled them apart. They kept right on calling each other names.
Most of the priests seemed to side with Burshagga, as did Sharur—but he knew that Ilakabkabu had been telling more of the truth here.
Where was Habbazu? Sharur could look around now, as if to see who was coming to find out if the brawl would start anew. He did not see the master thief. He had not seen the master thief since the day’s festivities began.
Where was Habbazu? Was he still waiting his chance? Was he skulking through the nearly deserted corridors of the temple toward the storeroom of which he knew? Was he sneaking out of the temple chamber with the nondescript Alashkurri cup in his hands?
Or had he already sneaked out of the temple with the Alashkurri cup in his hands? Was he even now leaving Gibil? Was he on his way back to Zuabu, on his way back to Enzuabu? How strongly did Enzuabu summon him? Where did he put his god? Where did he put his city? Where did he put himself?
Sharur knew what Habbazu had said. He also knew, better than most, that the truest test of what a man was lay in what he did, not in what he said. Sharur sighed. If Habbazu had deceived him... If Habbazu had deceived him, he would know before the sun set.
Burshagga and Ilakabkabu still shouted insults at each other. The insults Ilakabkabu shouted did nothing to keep more priests from coming out of the temple to enjoy the musicians and performers. As word of the unusual festivity spread through the city, those who sold food and beer also came into the open area in front of Engibil’s temple. Sharur bought a dozen roasted grasshoppers itnpa|ed on a wooden skewer and crunched them between his teeth, one after another, as he watched a dog walk on its hind legs atop a ball carved from palm wood.
At its master’s command, the dog climbed a stairway, jumped through a hoop, and did other clever tricks. Sharur applauded with the rest of the people gathered round it. It gave a canine bow, nose to the ground, forelegs outstretched in front of it. Then it ran over and stood, wagging its tail, beside the pot in which its owner was collecting his reward.
With a laugh, Sharur tossed a bit of copper into that pot. The dog bowed to him then. Its owner said, “Engibil’s blessings upon you, my master, for your generosity.” He bowed, too.
Sharur politely returned both the dog’s bow and the man’s, which made the people around him smile. Considering what Habbazu was doing or had done or would be doing, Sharur doubted that the dog trainer’s prayer for Engibil to bless him would be answered. He did not speak his doubts aloud. He did his best not even to think of them.
A priest came running out of the temple, shouting in alarm. Sharur’s heart leaped into his throat. Outwardly, he stayed calm. Nor did he show his relief when he heard what the priest was shouting: news that another priest of Burshagga’s opinion and one of Ilakabkabu’s were belaboring each other inside the sacred precinct.
“This is disgraceful!” Burshagga cried, rubbing at a scratch over one eye. “We embarrass ourselves before the people of the city.”
“As you said to Ilakabkabu, you priests are men like other men,” Sharur told him. “Other men will sometimes quarrel among themselves. The people of the city know that you priests will sometimes quarrel among yourselves.”
Burshagga bowed low to him. “I thank you for your understanding, master merchant’s son. I thank you for your patience. Would that all Giblut were as understanding and patient as you are. We should be a better people, were that so. As things are, most will use this as an excuse to laugh at the priesthood.”
“Priests are men like other men,” Sharur repeated. “Other men will be laughed at from time to time. So also will priests be laughed at from time to time.”
Now Burshagga did not bow. He did not look pleased. He looked sour as milk three days old. “When people laugh at us, it diminishes the power of the god we serve. When people laugh at us, it diminishes the power of the lugal who appointed us.”
He spoke of the god first now, and only afterwards of the lugal. But Sharur knew serving Kimash held a higher place in Burshagga’s mind than did serving Engibil. Sharur would not have minded seeing Engibil’s power diminished. On the contrary.