He also would not have minded seeing Habbazu. If he had embroiled Gibil and Imhursag in war, if he had managed this lavish distraction for the priesthood of Engibil— if he had done all that, only to have Habbazu flee with the cup to Zuabu and to Enzuabu, he would be embarrassed. He would deserve to be laughed at.
Burshagga sighed. “In the time of my sons, this will not matter. In the time of my grandsons, this will be a thing of the past. The old fools will be gone then, vanished from the priesthood. My sons and my grandsons will listen to my ghost haranguing them about the way things were when I walked the earth as a living man—they will listen, and they will laugh. And I, a ghost, shall laugh with them.”
“You say that now,” Sharur said. “You see that now. Will you say that when you are a ghost? Will you see that when you are a ghost? Or will you be angry when they laugh?”
“I am a man like other men,” the living Burshagga said, and laughed. “It is likely, then, that I shall be a ghost like other ghosts. It is likely that, like other ghosts, I will be angry at the vagaries of the living, and angry when they fail to hearken to me in every particular.”
Sharur laughed, too. “You are not altogether a man like other men, Burshagga. You are more honest than most. You see more clearly than most. You see farther than most.”
“I see a master merchant’s son who is flattering me,” Burshagga said. “But I also try to see what is. and what will be, not what I wish were so.”
“Here,” Sharur said, and waved to one of the beersellers. Buying a cup, Sharur handed it to Burshagga. “You see a master merchant’s son who is buying for you a cup of beer.”
“I see a master merchant’s son who shows a proper and pious respect for the priesthood.” A twinkle in his eye, Burshagga drank the cup dry. “Ahh! It is good.”
“Which is good?” Sharur asked. “The beer, or that a master merchant’s son shows a proper and pious respect for the priesthood?”
“Both those things are good,” Burshagga answered. He nodded to the beerseller. “Here, son of Ereshguna, I will buy you a cup of this beer, that you may learn for yourself whether it is good.” And he did.
Sharur drank. As Burshagga had said, the beer was good. He and the priest exchanged bows and compliments. Burshagga went off to see if he could figure out under which cup the fellow with the nimble fingers had concealed the chickpea. Smiling, Sharur saw that the fellow with the cups and the chickpea had concealed one thing from Burshagga: that the game was unlikely to be as straightforward as it seemed.
With a shrug, Sharur bought another cup of beer for himself. If Burshagga did not know the fellow with the chickpea could make it appear wherever it would give him the greatest profit, Sharur did not intend to enlighten him. Every craft had its own secrets. The priest would learn these secrets from experience, and would pay for the privilege of learning.
Ilakabkabu came out of the temple once more, and began fervently preaching against the frivolous entertainment. He drew a considerable crowd. People clapped and cheered as he flayed them for their light-mindedness. Thus inspired, he preached more ferociously than ever. He did not notice he, too, had become part of the entertainment.
Burshagga gave up trying to find the furtive flying chickpea after several moderately expensive lessons. He came over and watched Ilakabkabu instead. He said not a word, but his mere presence inspired the pious old priest to new and rancorous heights of rhetoric.
“He talks like a man on fire,” someone beside Sharur remarked. Sharur turned, and there stood Habbazu.
After staring, Sharur asked in a quiet voice, “Have you got it?”
The master thief looked offended that Sharur should doubt him. “Yes,” he answered. “Of course I have it.”
10
Sharur and Habbazu drifted out of the open area in front of Engibil’s temple. They neither hurried nor dawdled; they might have been—indeed, they were—a couple of men who had had enough of entertainment and now needed to return to the workaday world in which they usually passed their time.
“Now that we have this thing, what shall we do with it?” Habbazu asked, taking care not to name the cup. “Shall we take it with us when we return to the fight? Shall we secret it away at the house of your father?”
“If we take it with us, it may perhaps be easier for the god to spot,” Sharur answered. “The small gods of Kudurru told me there was little in it of power to be spotted, but I do not know precisely how much they knew, nor do I know how much power Engibil can put forth to seek the thing should he so will.”
Habbazu nodded. “Wiser to hide it, then. Shall we go on to the house of your father?”
“I have a better notion yet,” Sharur said. “Let us take it to the house of one of the smiths along the Street of Smiths. The power of metal, the power of smithery, make it harder for the god to peer into such places.”
“That is so.” Habbazu nodded again. “I have heard Enzuabu complain of it. What with you Giblut being as you are to begin with, it is probably even more true here than in Zuabu.”
“Engibil complains of it, too,” Sharur said. “If the gods had it to do over, I do not think they would let men learn to work metal. If they had it to do again, I do not think they would let men learn to write, either. But men have learned to do these things, and even the gods cannot have it to do over.”
“This is also so,” Habbazu said. “Have you the house of some particular smith in mind, a man whom you can trust with something as important as this? I would not—I do not—care to risk it with someone who would return it to the god or who would gossip so that its presence were noised abroad.”
“Nor would I,” Sharur replied. “I have in mind taking it to the house of Dimgalabzu, whom you have met.”
“But Dimgalabzu is in the north, in the army of Gibil opposing the Imhursagut,” Habbazu objected.
“So he is,” Sharur said. “But he is also the father of Ningal, my intended bride. She of all people may be trusted not to return the cup to the god.”
“I am glad to hear this is so,” Habbazu said. “But she is a woman. Are you certain you can trust her not to gossip?”
“More certain than I am that I can trust you not to gossip,” Sharur said, smiling to show he meant no offense. “You, master thief, I have known but a short time. Ningal I have known since we were both children getting filthy in the dust of the Street of Smiths.”
“Very well. A point.” Habbazu pursed his lips before continuing. “But can you likewise trust her kinsfolk? Can you likewise trust the slaves in her household?”
Sharur’s grunt was not a happy sound. “That I do not know. I do know that anyone who trusts a slave too far is asking to be disappointed.” Habbazu nodded once more. Sharur said nothing of Gulal, Ningal’s mother. From what he knew of Gulal, she disapproved of everything. That meant she would likely disapprove of his leaving the cup in the house of Dimgalabzu.
His silence gave Habbazu the answer the master thief needed. “If we do not leave the cup in the house of Dimgalabzu because people we can not trust are there, what shall we do with it?”
“Better then that we take it with us after all, I think,” Sharur replied, forgetting what he had said not long before. “Being in among a great crowd of men may perhaps make it harder for the god to notice it, or so we can hope.” If the god came after it and Sharur was close by, he could also try to break it. Again, he kept that thought to himself.
Habbazu laughed at him. “Since you say first the one thing and then the other, I judge that you are as unsure of the wisest course as I am.”