Kimash clapped his hands. Inadapa hurried back into the throne room. “Fetch us beer and roasted grasshoppers,” the lugal said. Inadapa bowed and hurried away, returning shortly with the food and drink. After crunching his way through a skewer of locusts, Kimash asked, “Have you seen either Habbazu the Zuabi thief or Burrapi the Zuabi mercenary since your return to Gibil?”
“Mighty lugal, I have not,” Sharur answered truthfully. A thoughtful look on his face, the lugal started on a second skewer. Presently, he said, “You convinced Engibil that you know nothing of the theft from his temple.”
“He asked me questions,” Sharur said. “Because of his power, I had to answer them with the truth.”
“There is truth, and then again there is truth,” Kimash replied, sounding very much like Sharur’s father. “And, gods being as they are, Engibil no doubt relied too much on his power and too little on the common sense that men, having no such power, must develop and cultivate. The ‘truth’ a god will accept does not always stand up under a man’s inspection.”
“Here, though, all is well so long as the god accepts it,” Sharur said.
“Perhaps, and then again perhaps not.” The lugal chose to use his previous phrasing once more. “Engibil is satisfied, aye, but I still wonder whether you and the other men of the house of Ereshguna and the two Zuabut, the thief and the mercenary, obeyed me as completely as I have the right to expect.” He stared down at Sharur from his high seat.
Sharur felt like a mouse on whom a hawk’s gaze falls from the sky. But he bore up under the lugal’s inspection. Kimash was but a man. Enimhursag had searched for Sharur from on high. After that, facing Kimash’s doubts, if not easy, was by no means impossible.
“From what I have seen, thieves, generally speaking, obey only themselves,” Sharur said. “And if Engibil is busy looking for a thief along the western border of Gibil’s lands, he will not be busy within the city of Gibil. He will not be busy trying to take the rule in Gibil out of the hands of the mighty lugal and into his own hands once more.”
“This is so,” Kimash said. “Aye, this is so.” Sharur pulled a locust off a skewer and popped it into his mouth. While he was eating, his expression could not give him away. He could not deceive Kimash by feeding him truths that were useless or misleading, as he had done with Engibil. But he could distract the lugal and get him to think of other things than those perhaps dangerous to the house of Ereshguna.
After eating another grasshopper and sipping at his beer, Sharur said, “The mighty lugal’s refreshments are of the finest.”
“For those whom it pleases me to honor, nothing is too fine, no reward too great,” Kimash said. “This brings me to another matter: indeed, to the other matter on account of which I had you summoned here. You will recall that, in exchange for your not pursuing the presence of the Alashkurri cup in the temple of Engibil, I promised you a marriage tie to any woman in the city of Gibil, this to include even my own daughters.”
“Yes, mighty lugal, I do recall that,” Sharur said with a sinking feeling.
“I am glad you recall it,” Kimash said. “The cup has stirred its own uproar, thanks to the Zuabi thief, but I do not think it is an uproar to threaten my position on the throne. And so, I am pleased to tell you that the promise of a marriage to any woman in the city of Gibil, this to include even my own daughters, still holds.”
“Ah,” Sharur said, and then “Ah” again. He wondered how, or if, he was to get out of this one without offering the lugal deadly insult. After some thought, he decided the truth offered his best hope. “You will recall, mighty lugal, that my oath to Engibil prevented me from making final marriage arrangements for Ningal the daughter of Dimgalabzu the smith.”
“Yes, of course,” Kimash said. “That is, why, out of the kindness and generosity of my heart, I offered you a marriage tie to any other woman in the city of Gibil, this to include even my own daughters.” He bore down heavily on the last phrase; he plainly sought an alliance between his own house and the house of Ereshguna.
“The mighty lugal is kind.” Sharur bowed, “The mighty lugal is generous.” He bowed once more. Mighty lugal is conveniently forgetful, he thought. Part of the reason for Kimash’s offer, as the lugal had himself admitted, was to bribe Sharur out of pursuing his own course of action and into pursuing that which Kimash desired.
“Take advantage of my kindness, then,” the lugal urged. “Take advantage of my generosity.”
Sharur sighed. He could not deflect the moment any longer. With yet another bow, he said, “Mighty lugal, were matters otherwise, otherwise even in the slightest degree, nothing would delight my heart more than doing exactly as you say. But with—”
“Wait.” On the instant, Kimash went from affable to thunderous. “Do you mean you refuse my offer? Do you mean you spurn my offer?”
“Mighty lugal, I mean nothing of the sort,” Sharur replied, though that was indeed what he meant. “As I told you before, the god prevented me from making final marriage arrangements for Ningal the daughter of Dimgalabzu the smith.”
“Even so,” Kimash said. “Those arrangements being prevented, what could possibly keep you from accepting the offer I made to you?”
“Were those arrangements still prevented, nothing could keep me from accepting the offer you made to me,” Sharur replied, feeling sweat break out on his forehead. “But mighty Engibil, in his own generosity, returned to me from his hands and from his heart the oath I had made in his name, and will suffer me to pay bride-price for Ningal to Dimgalabzu from the store of wealth of the house of Ereshguna, not from the profit I unfortunately failed to make on my last trading journey to the Alashkurru Mountains.”
Kimash’s eyes went wide and round and staring. “The god ... returned to you from his hands and from his heart the oath you had made in his name?” He sounded astonished, as Enimhursag had before him on hearing the same news. “I can hardly believe it.”
“Believe or do not believe as best suits you, mighty lugal,” Sharur said. “But, whether you believe or do not believe, I speak the truth. Because I speak the truth, I cannot take advantage of your kindness. I cannot take advantage of your generosity.”
“Engibil returned your oath.” Kimash shook his head. He had the aspect of a man who had just come through an earthquake: shaken but doing his best to preserve his equilibrium, no matter what might happen next. “You realize I can enquire of the god whether you lie.”
“Of course, mighty lugal,” Sharur said. “Enquire all you like. Engibil will tell you I speak the truth.”
“Engibil returned your oath from his hands?” Kimash still did not sound as if he believed it. Perhaps he thought that repeating it over and over would help persuade him it was true. “Engibil returned your oath from his heart? Engibil keeps oaths. He holds oaths. He returns them not.”
“This time, mighty lugal, he did return my oath.” Sharur knew why the god had returned his oath, too, or thought he did. Just as Kimash had done, so Engibil had sought to distract him from pursuing the matter of the Alashkurri cup in his temple storeroom. As far as he was concerned, Ningal made for a far more attractive distraction than any Kimash had set before him. In terms carefully oblique, he said as much: “As I have long desired to wed Ningal the daughter of Dimgalabzu, I shall do so now that the great god, the mighty god, has in his generosity given me leave to pay her the bride-price as circumstances have compelled me to pay it.”
“A match with the house of Dimgalabzu will surely prove advantageous to the house of Ereghguna,” the lugal said. “But will it prove as advantageous as a match with the house of Kimash?”