“Ah.” Ushurikti bowed yet again. “This is a most astute question indeed, master merchant’s son, though of course I should have expected nothing less from one so clever as yourself.” He smiled an ingratiating smile. He was also a merchant, and knew the value of flattery.
So did Sharur, who hid a smile at seeing the techniques he used himself now aimed at him. He noted that, despite the flattery, the slave dealer had not answered his question. He tried again: “What does Enimhursag say about ransoming prisoners? Will he permit it, or not?”
“All I can tell in that regard is this: the god of Imhursag will permit it—or not,” Ushurikti replied, now looking somewhat less happy because he was compelled to admit his own lack of omniscience.
“How do you mean?” Sharur asked. “You have succeeded in confusing me, I will tell you so much.”
“I am also to be numbered among the confused,” Ushurikti said. “I would not deny it. I could not deny it. As is the custom between Gibil and Imhursag after our wars, I have written to the kin of those Imhursagut whom we captured, seeking ransom for their loved ones. As is also the custom between Gibil and Imhursag, I have written to the temple of Enimhursag in Imhursag, asking leave to seek ransom for those Imhursagut whom we captured. For long and long, this has been but a formality, with agreement always promptly forthcoming, else I should have written to the god at his temple before writing to the captives’ kin.”
“But not this time?” Sharur said.
“But not this time,” the slave dealer agreed.
“But Enimhursag has not refused to let the Imhursagut ransom their kin,” Sharur persisted. “Had he done so, you would have told me plainly.” I hope you would have told me plainly.
“Enimhursag has not refused, but neither has Enimhursag assented,” Ushurikti said. “Enimhursag has not responded at all. In most such times, the god will say aye while my courier waits at his temple; sometimes he will even say aye through a chance met man while my courier is still on the road toward the city of Imhursag. But my courier delivered the customary letter, and the god told him he would respond in his own time. That time has not yet come round.”
“How strange,” Sharur said, and the slave dealer nodded emphatic agreement. “I wonder why.”
“So do I,” Ushurikti replied. “It is a puzzlement. It is most unlike Enimhursag, of all the gods there be, to break custom. He has ever been one to stand for doing things as they were always done.”
“That he has; it is one of the reasons he hates Gibil and the Giblut so,” Sharur said. He scratched his head. “I wonder if he fears letting the Imhursagut whom we captured return to his city, lest they tell their kin we live better and more pleasantly than they. For, having been to Imhursag, I speak the truth when I say we do live better and more pleasantly than the Imhursagut. No one who has seen Gibil and Imhursag both could doubt it.”
“Not even a slave?” Ushurikti asked.
“Not even a slave,” Sharur declared.
Ushurikti also scratched his head. He plucked at his beard, a caricature of a man thinking hard. At last he said, “It could be so, master merchant’s son. It could well be so, in fact. It makes more sense than any notion J have had for myself. And, while I have never seen Imhursag, I have had enough dealings with Imhursagut and with Enimhursag himself to know that I would never want to live in a city with those men and ruled by that god.”
“Nor would I,” Sharur said.
“But I will tell you something else,” Ushurikti said, “and that is that, even here in Gibil, living is not always so easy as we wish it would be. Why, not long after you and that Zuabi mercenary brought that Duabzu fellow in to me, the priests of Engibil came through here like locusts—locusts, I tell you—in search of something they said had been stolen from the god’s temple. I think they only wanted the chance to snoop, and I shall not change my opinion. As if I, a reputable trader, would for a moment harbor stolen property, human or otherwise, here in my establishment.”
“I heard the priests of Engibil and also the servants of Kimash the mighty lugal were searching through the city for some such thing,” Sharur said. “I do not know much about this, for I had already gone back to the camp in the north and to the fighting we did there.”
“Of course.” The slave dealer’s head bobbed up and down. “But I mind me, master merchant’s son, that the priests were asking a good many questions about this Zuabi. All Zuabut being thieves, my guess is that they wanted to blame the crime—if crime there was—on him so they would not have to do anything more in the way of proper looking themselves.”
“It could well be so,” Sharur replied. Ushurikti was indeed a man of no small weight in the city—if he believed something that cast scorn upon Engibil and his priests, he would help make others in Gibil do likewise, which would in turn help reduce the influence of the god and his priesthood.
“I should say it could,” Ushurikti said now. “Why, at that entertainment you put on outside the god’s house on earth—for which, honor to you and to your generosity—did you hear that white-bearded fool of a priest ranting and raving against everything that makes life worth living? If he had his way, life would not be worth living.”
“No doubt you are right,” Sharur said. “Old Ilakabkabu is more sour than a pickled onion.” And yet, the old priest had been far closer to correct about Habbazu’s attempted thievery of two nights before the entertainment—and about much else besides—than had Burshagga, who was a man of the new. But being right had done him no good, a twist of fate Sharur savored.
“Ha!” Ushurikti said. “Well put, master merchant’s son. Well put. I shall send a messenger hotfoot to the house of Ereshguna when the lugal restores to me Nasibugashi and Duabzu, in whom you have an interest, or when I hear from Imhursag—or rather from Enimhursag—on the matter of ransoms.”
“You are gracious.” Sharur bowed. “I know I may rely on you. You are a conscientious man.”
Ushurikti beamed. “Praise from a man who is praiseworthy is praise indeed. Insofar as I can make it so, everything shall be as you desire.”
“For your kindness and your care, I am in your debt,” Sharur said. After exchanging more polite formulas with the slave dealer, he went on his way. He had not learned what he had come to learn, but he had learned that what he had come to learn was there to be learned. That, too, was knowledge worth having, and he took it back with him to the house of Ereshguna.
A druggist came into the house of Ereshguna and asked Sharur, “Have you any of that powdered black mineral from the mountains? You know the one I mean: the one I mix with perfumed mutton fat and sell to the women, that they may darken their eyebrows and eyelashes with it, and perhaps paint beauty marks on their cheeks or on their chin.”
“My master, I believe I do, but it has been some little while since anyone asked me for it, so I shall have to rummage about to find it.” Sharur duly rummaged on shelves and through storage jars, and at last came up with a small pot ornamented with the face of a woman with entrancing eyes. “Here you are: first grade, finely ground. How much do you require?”
Before the druggist answered, he took a tiny pinch of the powder, brought it up to his face to examine it closely, and rubbed it between forefinger and thumb to see just how finely it was ground. At last, grudgingly, he nodded. “It is as you say it is. Weigh me out four keshlut.”
“It shall be as you say,” Sharur replied. As he piled the cosmetic powder on one pan of the scales to balance the four little bronze weights on the other, he went on, “The price is two thirds of the weight in silver.”
The druggist screamed at him. He had expected nothing else, and screamed back. They settled on a price of one half the powder’s weight. Sharur would have settled for even a little less than that, which was nothing the druggist needed to know. The man took broken bits of silver from the pouch on his belt and set them on the scales until he had two keshlut there.